Dear friends, I'm more than proud and excited to present you with my latest work of art - an 101 frame (1.68 second) improvement over the published SMB2J TASv2 of mine. This run is finished in a month, which is pretty short to me as the time in needed to make a TAS is increasing, while my spare time is decreasing. Thanks to the week missing school caused by my foot accident that has saved my TAS projects. It is my passion of TAS that conquers the pain, and without other mishaps, SMB warpless TASv4 will be finished by the end of the year.
Surprising improvements
This run is more than just an 101 frame improvement, it's also an attempt to challenge the speed limit of this game. This version of the run (TASv3) did not copy any inputs from TASv2, so there would be plenty of improvements too small to be mentioned here. A comparison video is needed, I think.
- 1-1: Shell glitch, 84 frames saved. It was all started a year ago, when andrewg told me about his fresh idea of getting the mushroom and going through the ground in 1-1Bouncing on a shell and going through the ground. It wasn't easy, but with the help of memory watching, I somehow achieved it. Including the 21 frames saved from 1-2 due to the advantage of big Mario, it could save 63 frames tops. With the improvement founded by andrewg, everything went well until 8-4, because the fireball (Podoboo) block the way so hard, that I couldn't decide what to do. So I started to find new improvements from the beginning, and there I found one just right, which makes very good use of the red Koopa Troopa in front of the hole. Stamp on the Koopa Troopa, kick its shell, bounce into applicable height, and there we go. At first this new trick that I've found could just save 63 frames. It needed 2 frames to beat the 21 frame rule, but no matter how I tried, no matter how further I tested, there were no chances to gain that 2 frames. Coincidently, one day when I felt bored testing the right Cheep-cheep for my SMB warpless TASv4, I did a casual test for the shell in 1-1, and then I came up with the idea that I could cut the shell from its left side instead of stamping on its head. Problem solved.
- 1-2: Different route, 21 frames saved. We used to go through the wall until Mario's deep enough to catch up with the final lift, but I was puzzled that few one had tried the more normal route that requires a wall jump at the high pipe. Due to higher bouncing in SMB2J, to skip the narrow wall without going through it, you have to loose speed after stamping on the Goomba and hitting the wall. What seems strange to me is that loosing speed 2 times is still about 10 minutes faster than loosing speed just once in the wall, so I guess the lesson is, don't always follow the usual path. It beats the 21 frame rule far enough, and adds a lot of entertainment to this run.
- 8-4: Bad luck on the Podoboo, 5 frames lost; better job in the water stage, 1 frame saved. Still because of bad luck, 5 frames have to go to avoid the annoying fireball on the way. But I did a good job calculating the perfect position to dodge the last firebar, and saved 1 frame.
In total, 84 + 21 - 5 + 1 = 101 frames.
Tricks used for entertainment
Entertainment is also of importance in this run, so I not only did the following tricks, but also manipulated luck several times to change the conditions.
- 1x2-powered fireball for browser It was used in order to kill the browser faster in 4-4. It took only 4 fireballs to end up the battle (the one aiming at the wall is just to show Mario's anger, which doesn't count), actually, it can also be done with 3 fireballs. Please visit my personal page for more information about this trick.
- Stamping on 2 enemies at the same moment; killing 2 enemies using 1 fireball A nice way to improve the entertainment. There are lots of enemies in SMB2J, so I often did it in this run.
- Rolling shell clearing the way I found the beginning of 5-1 a good place for performing this trick, so I slowed the speed a little and used a beetle's shell to clear the way. Nice effect, by the way.
- Mario, the music playing musician I managed to play the music using the sound effects of Mario 2 times. One at the beginning of 8-2 and one in the 4th stage in 8-4. The one in 8-2 was copied from 4-1 of my SMB warpless TASv4, I was unable to do the first notes more accurate due to the delay of level start.
I tried really hard to improve the entertainment this time, and I hope you love this run. Thanks for andrewg for giving me the first idea of the improvement in 1-1, and Mars and GAP for supporting me all the time.
Suggested Screenshot
[dead link removed]
Nach: Judging.
feos: Added YouTube HD module.
Nach: Very nice run, I loved the shenanigans. The killing two enemies with one fireball, or in other surprising manners was very entertaining. Accepting as improvement to existing run.
sgrunt: Publication coming right up.