Kierio04 | CTGP Tracks Done Backwards - Aquadrom Stage Complete Solution (4/218) @Kierio04 | Uploaded 2 years ago | Updated 2 hours ago
In this video, I drive a full lap of the custom track Aquadrom Stage backwards using all 3 mushrooms available in time trials. Because this can also be done in 0 mushrooms, I also show the shroomless strategies afterwards. In order for a track to count as being completed backwards, you must start in lap 1 and travel through all of lap 0 backwards, finishing by reaching lap -1. We will be going through the tracks of the CTGP 1.03-1112 update alphabetically, and returning to any past tracks if breakthroughs are made that change the statistics of the progression of the challenge (more on this later in the description). Here, there are NO respawns that are mandatory to complete the track backwards, and there are NO sections requiring any mushrooms. This scenario is what I will be calling a "Complete Solution". It is the final product a track can reach after being improved by minimising respawns and minimising mushrooms.

Playlist of these videos: youtube.com/watch?v=xn5oUUeubCc&list=PLbnjjnFG8yVTXfNn9_cRdo2Mx3l_9mHrv

Backstory: This is a series I had originally planned to collaborate solely with Charlie on, however, since starting the project, Jellopuff helped out with the 2nd track, and Charlie stopped doing MKWii TASing, so a lot has changed. It may be that more people contribute to this, but I'd prefer the videos to be more central to my channel since it's way easier for people to understand the progression of the challenge if the progress updates are consistent with the previous ones (the titles and descriptions, the rules of the challenge, the explanations made, etc.). That being said, the only reason for the delay on uploading progress on these is down to my motivation to record them, and since you're reading this, it means I got the motivation to record this specific one. I have 9 more tracks already done that just need to be recorded and edited (Charlie and I started in April and have been putting it off a LOT).

What I do in the video is; drive normally backwards to the ramp at the highest point of the building, use knockback from a wall bounce to get myself up to the ramp's height. I then stop to align for a way to cross the gap back to the three coloured pipes. There are two ways to accomplish this. First, the easier and less restricted way, using a mushroom and TF physics, which can be done with every inside drifting bike. Second, the much harder and much more restricted way, using a miniturbo and side-trick abuse. What made this second one difficult to come up with and perform is that you not only can't get the right positioning on the edge of the high platform to get a trick and also be able to hop, but also you can't do TF physics because you have to release your miniturbo and as already explained you can't just hop afterwards without sacrificing the trick (which gains more height than the hop). The only way I was able to successfully perform this strat blueprint was by using a character and vehicle combination with a high miniturbo stat and a high trick height stat. This called for using the bullet bike, which has the highest miniturbo stat of any vehicle and also falls under the lightweight class, which has the highest trick height. After crossing the gaps, I spend a little bit of time celebrating by doing backwards hops on the downward slope, and doing trick spam and jammed tricks on the bowl-shaped area. The last blockade comes at the "reverse shortcut", which is actually the only way to cross backwards here. The reason for this being a blockade is that if you were to follow the "intended route", you would end up at the bottom of a hole, unable to get back up, and this avoids that. I show both the 2 shroom and 0 shroom methods of performing this reverse shortcut. The 0 shroom version was not trivial, and neither is the unshown 1 shroom version (as the boost timing makes it tricky to perform all steps required to get the height to go over the fence), but the 2 shroom version is very easy. At the end I show a bonus backwards clip on the bullet bike run, demonstrating that return back on the other side of the pool is possible shroomless also. Lastly, this track is special in that no blockade can be crossed with respawns, and it's either 0 respawns or impossible.

There are a few statistics and various versions of this challenge that I will keep track of that allow for a better understanding of what's going on. Below is a list of all of them:
1. Completing the track backwards with the minimum number of respawns, where you have access to a certain amount of mushrooms (a = Infinite, b = 3, c = 2, d = 1, e = 0)
2. Completing the track backwards with the minimum number of respawns, then minimising the number of mushrooms from there
3. Completing the track backwards with the minimum number of mushrooms, regardless of respawn count

Aquadrom stage has the following statistics to offer:
1a. 0 Respawns
1b. 0 Respawns
1c. 0 Respawns
1d. 0 Respawns
1e. 0 Respawns
2. 0 Mushrooms
3. 0 Mushrooms