No Levels Early

This category mainly involves getting 100 Golden Bananas and all keys.

Rules:

• No entering lobbies without gaining legitimate access (8 keys requirement)
• No B.Locker skips (100 golden bananas requirement)
• Must defeat K Rool
• No Banana Duping
• No cheats (via 20 Fairy Mystery Menu)

Resource Document (link)

• All of the current useful routes
• Useful Resources for New Runners

Helm Escape Route (Found in Resource Document)

• Fastest No Levels Early route by a small amount
• Uses Main Menu Mode the entire time
• Currently N64 Only because of Orange Clip out of Helm
• Orange clip to escape out of Hideout Helm (no orange clip = run dead)
• Assumes you are comfortable with all the tricks required in the hardest 40 Blueprints route
• Recommended to top-tier N64 runners

40 Blueprints Routes (Found in Resource Document)

• Relatively Safe, only slightly slower compared to the Helm Escape route
• Collects all 40 BPs to play Snide's bonus games, the only way to force the game back to Story Mode from Main Menu Mode
• No orange escape out of Hideout Helm
• Has 2 levels for both N64 and VC. The easier of the 2 cutting out some hard tricks in Caves that the harder route doesn't
• Recommended for most runners who want to advance from the beginner route

Beginner Route (Found in Resource Document)

• Cuts out all non-Beginner friendly tricks from the 40 Blueprints route
• Slower than 40 Blueprints or Helm Escape, but far safer
• Cuts out the most common softlocks

Funky Weapons Glitch Route (link)

• Legacy route that's roughly 4 minutes slower than the Helm Escape route
• Skips buying all of Lanky's moves as well as Simian Spring and Gorilla Gone
• By far the hardest No Levels Early route due to not buying said moves
• Not recommended for any runners

PAL Route (link)

• Based on the 40 Blueprints US Route, cutting out inaccessible Golden Bananas due to patches
• Not recommended for runners on a US Console (See regular 40 Blueprints Route)
• Recommended for runners on a PAL Console