Submission #5659: AcolPavel's NES Super Mario Bros. in 05:02.37

(Link to video)
Nintendo Entertainment System
(Submitted: Super Mario Bros)
baseline
FCEUX 2.3.3
18172
60.0988138974405
688
Unknown
Super_Mario_Bros.nes
Submitted by AcolPavel on 9/17/2017 3:23:43 PM
Submission Comments
Thank you for watching ;)
Game: Super Mario Bros
emulator: FCEUX 2.3.3
My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAFpQKhO3ORHp96soHHXNEg

Masterjun: Alright, you again.
By the looks of this submission, you clearly did not read my judgment message from your previous submission. Maybe you disagree that your previous movie was cancelled mere minutes after it was submitted? Or you think you don't need to read any of the rules because they don't contain important information anyways? Or maybe you just didn't realize that this movie makes the exact same mistake of not beating existing records. But enough of speculations, let us dive into this submission and list everything that's wrong with it.

Quality of the run

Most of the advanced users know where to look to quickly estimate the quality of a run or simply the level of optimization. By looking at the rerecord count of 688 in a movie of 18172 frames you can see that it gives a ratio of one rerecord per ~26 frames. This game does not have a lot of cutscenes, and especially this game has a complicated engine to optimize. The amount of rerecords for this kind of framecount is the first indicator showing this movie is slow and unoptimized. But this is not yet a definite point you can use to argue against a run. So the next thing we look at is the time.
18172 frames on the NTSC version means a time of 05:02.37, which is already slower than the currently published movie. However, this assumes this actually runs on the NTSC version of the game.

Region Settings

This movie is made with the PAL version of the game. However, the PAL flag in the movie file is off. This is a clear violation of our rules. The emulator acts as if this was a NTSC game and speeds up the game, which is not how it works on a real console. It should be common sense to run the emulator in PAL mode for a PAL game.
Fixing the PAL flag in the movie file lets us continue figuring out the actual time of this run. However, another mistake needs addressing as well.

Blank input at the end

This movie ends with 1175 frames of no button presses at all: blank input. Now keep in mind that Super Mario Bros. is a special case, in that input keeps being played until Mario touches the axe in 8-4 and it disappears. However, the blank input starts even after this already happened. Not only does this run have useless blank input at the end, it also has useless button presses before that.
Removing all that gives us a total framecount of 16681, which is a time of 04:37.56. This is ~38 seconds slower than this submission of Super Mario Bros. PAL.

This run in particular

Maybe you wonder where it all went wrong to lose 38 seconds in a pretty easy game. Let me give you some hints where the improvements hide.
LevelThis run
1-1You lose 3 frames by simply starting pressing buttons too late when the level starts
1-1 undergroundYou lose frames by not jumping down the ledge. This is the exact example we have on our Common Tricks wiki
1-1 back up againNeedless to say you did not execute the flagpole glitch, which at this point even RTA runners pull off in this level.
1-2You can fall through the ground in the PAL version of the game, which speeds up the way to the warp pipes by avoiding going around. Even your movement at the pipes is bad
4-1Now this was just plain boring. Entertainment was nowhere to be found even though this level had some potential. You also didn't flagpole glitch and even lost time by running against the block
4-2Getting ahead of the screen and entering the pipe will warp you to the location the vine would get you to, which saves time.
8-1Now what happened here? Bumping against several avoidable obstacles? This is exactly what is absolutely not allowed to happen in a TAS, it's what we have tools for. No flagpole glitch
8-2Again, slowing down at several avoidable obstacles is bad, as is the missing flagpole glitch
8-3I wonder if I mentioned the flagpole glitch already
8-4What's this? Walking a loop before entering the pipe to the water section? This is where this stopped being just a bad run and started becoming an embarrassment

Judgment

Armed with all the aforementioned information, how do we look at this? You break several rules, the run is bad, not entertaining and even slower than a casual play at some points. It's just a lazy play nobody wants to see.
JudgeObsoleteNew VariantRejectWarning
MeGood jokeUh noAbsolutelyThis as well
I decided to give you a big overview on what you did and did not do because you seem to not understand what kind of runs we want on this site. It's your second bad submission breaking several rules.
This is your warning. Do not submit obviously bad movies. If you continue to do so, you will get a submission ban.
Cancelling.
Last Edited by adelikat on 10/23/2023 5:55 PM
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