First off: Credits to iateyourpie, 0xwas, Alanim, Emilybrooks, DatXFire, swinch, Chrescendo, Foralias, Kainenx, and many others for the work they have done over the years refining the Low Level routing, including RNG manip investigation. Thanks to Claude, Albrecht, Justin-credible, LackAttack, Millnium, xthechar, and everyone else who has worked on Any%, much of which has been lifted into some parts of this route.

This document is intended to be a step-by-step guideline on how to successfully execute a Low Level run.

Low Level beats the game with the minimum possible amount of EXP:

• Mario: Lv. 3
• Mallow: Lv. 3
• Geno: Lv. 6
• Bowser: Lv. 8
• Toadstool: Lv. 9

This is accomplished by either inducing the LUCKY! minigame (with the Lucky Jewel or Lucky Hammer), despawning enemies (with the Lamb's Lure or Yoshi Cookies), or forcing enemies to run away, on every forced encounter as soon as these methods become available to the player.

The LUCKY! minigame initiates at the end of a fight. You are given the chance to double your EXP or Coins (50/50 chance on fights where you win coins - it will always be EXP on fights with no coins). This is facilitated by a one-in-three guessing game where you choose an egg: a Yoshi doubles your winnings, a bird keeps your winnings as-is, and a fuzzy sets your winnings to zero.

Therefore, the intent with Low Level is to always get the EXP gamble option rather than the Coin gamble option, and to get the Fuzzy egg, in order to obtain 0 EXP from the fight.

This means that fights which grant no coins have a 1 in 3 chance of 0 EXP, and fights which grant coins have a 1 in 6 chance of 0 EXP. The only set of back-to-back fights, Boomer and Exor, have a combined 1/18 chance of 0 EXP. If the player does not get 0 EXP, they must reset to their last save and repeat the fight(s) until they get 0 EXP.

As such, this is a VERY long speedrun. (Or challenge playthrough, if you're not attempting this in one sitting)

Your party members' stats being so low means that in addition to your low damage output, you also do not have access to the staple spells of other categories like Geno Boost and Super Jump (and therefore no access to the Super Suit). This run therefore relies heavily on items that grant improved defenses, items that deal static damage, and powering up Mario's Jump attack.

Obtaining these items in quantities high enough to ensure success will also involve several RNG elements. Red Essences are primarily obtained by winning races on Yo'ster Isle, where your payout for winning is RNG-based. Rock Candies are mostly obtained by giving mushrooms to Mushroom Boy, which has a very low per-mushroom success rate (6%).

This route exists to help you execute the Low Level challenge as quickly as possible. It accounts for some rare circumstances, such as having too many freebies of items that you no longer need. Efforts have been made to tell you comprehensively which items you can sell at specific points in time, with descriptions of what your inventory should look like after any menu where you are expected to buy or sell non-equipment items.

Boss fights each state your success odds with the Lucky minigame. Boss fights also list the equips your active party members should have, in case you make any mistakes with equip menuing. This note set is written such that you can successfully complete a run on either the English or Japanese version. In this particular route, you are expected to be able to execute some specific tech that is outlined in Section II, so review that before beginning.

This category is an exercise in perseverance.

Good luck!