99th Street
Speedrun Tech
Quick Light
Quick Light is a WTFTPAW off of the entrance highway wall. It is the fastest way of getting to Light Side.
You must grind up the spiral dragon high enough to jump onto the highway wall; then, skate on top of it and jump through the wall to land in the Light Side cop fight.
If you fall off the highway wall and land in the plaza, it's faster at that point to just boost through the tunnel and enter Light Side normally.
Tips: Trick less in air to help align your skates up with the highway wall.
A hop may be performed after landing to adjust the angle of skating if the landing was less than perfect.
Dark Side Cop Skip
By interrupting cop dialogue with the Dragon's Tail cutscene, the cop dialogue never finishes which despawns any remaining cop triggers in the level.
This trick has two requirements: you must reload the level to start the cop dialogue; and you must have already completed one cop fight to trigger the Dragon's Tail cutscene. Reloading the level is easily done via switching characters at the save point. Since the Light Side cop fight is always faster than the Dark Side fight, we do Quick Light to beat the Light Side fight immediately, then use this glitch to skip the Dark Side fight as we begin to spray the plaza.
Beware that if you reload the level again after performing this trick, the cop dialogue will start again and the cop fights will respawn. Since you can only watch the Dragon's Tail cutscene once, you will be forced to do the Dark Side fight.
Quick Dark
There's also a WTFTPAW that allows access to Dark Side quickly that's used in newer routes. Routes that use this trick will skip the high wire soul above the Dark Side tunnel, meaning that this trick is more valuable in categories that have revisits.
Umbrella Jump
Discovered by BeoCrax, March 2020This is a slightly quicker way of getting up to the top of the Light Side tunnel on your way back to the plaza. You can jump from the rail of the bridge onto the umbrella, then jump up to the upper area.
Umbrella Backup
If you fail Umbrella Jump, this piece of movement is faster than going back across the bridge to try again.
Quick Dragon
This is a name for the quick little hop you do from Straight Dragon to Spiral Dragon. This is the fastest way of climbing Spiral Dragon.
Dragon Pit
Dragon Pit is Quick Dragon, but you get ~11-~17 cans by jumping off to the right as the dragon's body becomes horizontal and picking up the cans.
Spitfire
Discovered by Naestrinus, Jun 2020Spitfire is a faster way of getting to the top of the Benten Tower than Quick Dragon. It requires an extremely precise piece of movement and is therefore not run-viable.
Quick Flag
With good execution, you can manipulate which flags Rapid 99 go for, allowing you to end the battle as quickly as possible. If you follow these steps, the battle is 100% consistent:
1. Ignore the first flag and go straight to the Dark Side bridge for the 2nd flag.
Try not to damage the R99 to your right as there is a small chance it'll break their AI, which could kill this manip.
2. Stand exactly where the 2nd flag will spawn. Once R99 picks up the first flag, you should pick up the 2nd one immediately.
3. Boost + shuffle at least twice through the tunnels, and pick up the 3rd flag from the highway.
If you're falling behind at this point, you can spend a third boost to try and make up some time.
4. Ignore the 4th flag and head straight to the top of the tower for the last flag.
5. By the time you're back on the dragon, R99 should pick up the 4th flag and the last one should be waiting for you.
If R99 doesn't pick up the 4th flag, you were too slow and R99 is already on their way to the top of the tower for the 5th flag (regardless if the 5th flag has spawned or not). At this point, just fall down to the water to pick up the 4th flag and wait for the battle to end.
Audio cues can help determine where Rapid 99 is in order to execute the proper backup strat.
Escape Light Side Cop Fight
If you do Quick Light poorly, it's possible to activate the Light Side cop fight while falling in the wrong place and death warping. You will then respawn on the wrong side of the electric fence. The only way back into the fight is to perform Quick Light properly.
Like in other cop fights, the loads are disabled, allowing you to go out out of bounds easily.
Light Side Cop Fight Softlock
If you fall in the water outside the fight, you will respawn in a location that contacts the electric fence and knocks the character back into the water, creating an infinite loop with no death condition.
Light Hard
This is a trick for randomizer to access the high-altitude Light Side graffiti in chapter 2, when it's still fenced off. You must jump from the zig-zag rail in the middle of Light Side at a very precise angle to squeeze through the fence collisions. To exit, simply skate out normally through the gap.
Dark Hard
This is a trick for randomizer to access the graffiti at the end of the Dark Side roof maze in chapter 2, when it's still fenced off. You must boost jump to a small platform in the middle of the dark mazes, adjust your jump angle, and jump to the open gap on the second to last platform. From there, you can easily hop to the graffiti and exit through the destructible wall.
Special Challenge
Researched by ycarcomed, April 29 2019 The minimum requirement to unlock the special soul is to touch-grind three rails in clockwise order around the tower: 1. after 東, 2. after 西, 3. before 東, and land on the ground.
Blue Can of Love
A name for a specific blue can in Dark Side. Tricky to get since you usually can't see it.
Frameboost of Love
A name for a specific frameboost in Dark Side. Relatively free to go for.
Billboard Stall Launch
There are several of these rail-into-billboard setups in 99th Street. If you fall off the end of the rail and hold away from the wall (either left or right depending on what direction the setup is facing), you'll get a stall launch from the billboard. You can chain this into a frameboost since there's usually another rail after the billboard.
Spotlight Jump
It's possible to jump onto and off of the spotlights while still spraying them. Doing this for the first spotlight right after Quick Light is optimal by a second or two.
Secret of the Turtle
The fastest way to grab the soul on the umbrella in categories that require it (Souls%, 100%, 100% NPG) is called Secret of the Turtle. It is performed by jumping to the right side of the umbrella, grabbing the soul from the right, then jumping back to the wire by using the speed provided by the umbrella slope.
Rapid 99 Kill Strats (Curse of the Evil Mushroom)
Discovered by Acebats, October 2021This trick has been recently discovered and is still being optimized.
By boosting and stunning each Rapid 99 as they approache the light side bridges, they all can be knocked into the water. Because of their pathfinding, they will continue to fall into the water until dead. Requires 30 cans to execute 3 boosts, though you can start the fight with slightly fewer and pick up cans along the way. This route is roughly 15 seconds faster in isolation than doing the standard Quick Flag strats and about 10 seconds faster when considering routing changes.
Oddities
Highway Wall WTFTPAW
All highway walls in JSRF (in all levels) do not have collision on their ends, allowing you to jump into the walls and skate inside them. This could allow you to death warp or go OoB in certain areas. Although this isn't useful in 99th Street, it does still exist. It is theorized that a Quick Light setup could be found with this trick.