14% xIce
 World Record Holder:
Zoast
WORLD RECORD RECORDING
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Category Details
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14% xIce is one of the thirteen in-bounds low% categories that are currently humanly possible. A total of 14 items are picked up during the entire run and focuses on using the Ice Beam and X-Ray Scope for level progression.
Prerequisites
To finish this run, you need to know how to:
- Mockball
- Infinite bomb jump
- Continuous walljump and/or horizontal bomb jump over the moat
- Mochtroid clip
- Climb enemies
- Lava dive without Gravity Suit or Hi-Jump Boots
- Zebetite skip with Ice Beam only
- X-Ray climb
Collected Items
- Morphing Ball
- Bombs
- Charge Beam (for bosses)
- Ice Beam (for Zebetite skip, Mochtroid clip, and enemy climbing)
- X-Ray Scope (to escape Draygon's entry chamber)
- Varia Suit (to survive MB2's rainbow beam)
- 2 Energy Tanks (Various - explained below) (to survive MB2's rainbow beam)
- 1 Reserve Tank (to do G-mode and to ensure Draygon carries Samus to the top of the room)
- 2 Missile Packs (Awakening and Moat) (to open red doors and defeat MB1)
- 2 Super Missile Packs (Early and Wrecked Ship (Left)) (to open green doors and defeat MB1)
- 1 Power Bomb Pack (Red Brinstar Elevator (Lower)) (to open orange doors)
History and Routing
14% xIce was historically performed using Out of Bounds navigation, but this route was considered to be obsolete since it was discovered that the same goal of "defeating all major bosses while using out of bounds" could be achieved with only 12% of items, thanks primarily to the discovery that X-Ray Scope alone could skip Zebetites, but also thanks to the ability to skip Bombs in a similar manner to 3%.
EternisedDragon confirmed through a playthrough that the X-Ray Scope is only necessary for climbing from the lower door of Draygon's entry chamber to the upper door. The previous usage of X-Ray Scope to wrong warp to an upper part of Maridia is not necessary as the player can instead climb frozen Scisers up the right side of the Maridian mountain, and then either a) perform single underwater walljumps on the flooring block, or b) perform an X-Ray force stand under the flooring while using a frozen Sciser to push Samus through the flooring, to access the door. Additionally, the wrong warp used for entering Lower Norfair is replaced by the lava dive, but as the player has neither Gravity Suit (meaning gravitation jump is not an option) nor Hi-Jump Boots (meaning the "GT Code" category method of simply walljumping up is not an option), they must use either the EternisedDragon method or the Sniq method for completing the dive.
Although recorded runs of this category have defeated Kraid first, it is likely, based on the historic progression of other categories, that fighting Phantoon first would be more efficient. PKDR would be the route of choice for humans as you will want three Energy Tanks before entering Lower Norfair due to lava dive, and additionally, Botwoon's Energy Tank cannot be reasonably skipped due to the lack of Gravity Suit, effectively making it mandatory and making the optimal Energy Tank choices Terminator, Kraid, and Botwoon.
Modern runs of the category only utilize one instance of X-Ray climbing, which is to escape Draygon's entry chamber by climbing from the lower door to the upper door, and it is generally agreed that this instance is not out of bounds, because Samus stays within the bounding box of the room, merely clipping through the in-bounds geometry.
Despite this category being likely faster on NTSC, some runners choose to use the PAL version of the game for this category. On this version the suitless navigation is easier due to Samus' additional jump height, and the Ridley fight is easier due to the higher pogos.
Tutorials
matrick2298 - Goes over route options as well as the harder and unique parts of the run. Does not cover general movement through rooms or things that should already be known.
