Submission #5915: JeyKey_55's GBA Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 "all levels" in 1:12:22.79

Here is an explanation of every world:

Every world:

• You go very fast if you press left and right at the same time (not possible on a real GBA). You will not be faster if you press B.
• The Hammer Brothers are manipulated to reach Mario as early as possible or to decrease their walk distance on the map each time, which saves some time. They can be manipulated by reaching the goal at a certain frame.
• In the ship and tank levels I clipped into the wall at the end to get ahead of the Screen, in order to enter the pipe faster. This didn't work in the world 6 ship. I couldn't figure out how the get into the wall.
• You can shoot 2 fire balls faster if you press B in the first frame and r in the second frame instead of pressing B in the first and third frame.

World 1:

• The mushroom was grabbed at level 3, because that was the fastest way I could find.
• The leave was grabbed at level 4, because that is an autoscroller.
• The leave was needed for the fortress, to get up to the whistle, which is faster than fighting Boom Boom. Getting the whistle is allowed, using it is not allowed!

World 2:

• In the fortress I used the P-Wing to get into the door in the spike section earlier. The tanooki was also needed for the following levels.
• In level 3 to fly up to the P-Switch, in order to get into the pipe faster.
• In the quicksand level I flew above the tornado so it doesn't slow me down.
• In the pyramid level the tanooki was useful to get through the brick walls without having to use a shell.
• I grabbed a fire flower in the ship level, because you can fight bosses faster with them.

World 3:

• In the first fortress you normally have to go into the 6th door, but I used the 3rd door and after Mario was on the other side, I pressed up at the right frame to get into the door again, even though it doesn't have a floor. This wrong warped me to Boom-Boom.
• In level 9 I tried to clip through the brick wall to get to the pipe, but that was a bit slower than using the last pipe.

World 4:

• I tried to manipulate the Hammer Brothers like in the 100% TAS by Tompa and Lord Tom of the NES version, where two Hammer Brothers walked simultaneously into Mario, but that doesn't work in this version.

World 5:

• In level 2 (a vertical level) I used a screen-wrapping wall jump, to get to the pipe faster.
• if I enter the pipe in level 6 too early, I die for some reason, so I had to avoid that.

World 6:

• Acceleration on ice is slower than in the air or on normal ground, so I jumped when I had to accelerate.
• In the first fortress level I used a P-Wing to fly above the lava and spikes and I grabbed a star to kill Boom Boom much quicker. The Tanooki was also pretty useful for the second fortress, where I flew below the level, which is much quicker.
• In level 5 I flew up and let the P-Speed run out at the right moment to get through the bricks faster.
• I grabbed the fire flower in level 10, in order to fight Boom Boom quicker.

World 7:

• In the first level I used wall jumps and shell jumps to go up. Using pipes is slower.
• In level 5 I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster.
• In the first fortress level I used the P-Wing to get up to the pipe, without getting the item for flying in the level.
• Level 6 can be skipped by clipping through the wall. Not possible in level 1.
• In level 7 I used a P-Wing so I don't have to grab the stars.
• In level 9 I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster and I grabbed a fire flower here, to fight the bosses faster.

World 8:

• In the first tank level the boss fight is faster, if the Boomerang Brother doesn't through his boomerang, because otherwise you would have to wait until it leaves the screen. I didn't have to manipulate that in this run.
• At the world map it is faster to press A at the hand levels instead of letting the hands appear.
• In the fortress level I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster.
• In the second tank level, (not sure) you will get hit by the explosion from the bombs after getting ahead of the screen for some reason, so let them explode where they wouldn't damage Mario.
• In the bowsers castle I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster.

• Just like with the SMB3 100% run, the real goal is "all levels". And indeed, both runs beat the same levels.
• E-Reader levels are not required for this goal, because they are available as a separate game option, so by the rules, they can be played in a separate movie (which already exists).
• The game is not a copy of SMB3, they have significant differences that allow for different TAS mechanics, therefore we don't have any problems with publishing both.
• It was recorded on an interim build of Bizhawk, but syncs fine on the latest official release.
• It was recorded on a European ROM, but for portable consoles whose framerate is not tied to TV framerate, it is allowed to publish European versions, if gameplay is equally smooth and also not slower than USA/JPN.
• There is an emulator bug that causes this game to behave differently from how it should behave regarding SRAM. But this run does not rely on that emulator bug, it just happens to have encountered it. Since virtually all Bizhawk versions have this bug, it's not the author's fault. And even if the new Bizhawk release fixes it, the start of the movie will be different, causing different timings for the entire run, whitch may be impossible to resync without redoing the whole TAS from scratch. Since actual gameplay is still similar to the imaginary bugless version, the run itself is legit.
• There is a technique that's missing from this movie, locking the camera movement. But over the course of a month, no one was able to tell how much (or little) time can be saved if that trick is included. I asked a judge who has TASed this game before, and the answer was the same: it can't be known beforehand. So right now, we don't know where exactly this trick can be used, how much time it can save in every such spot, and what the overall timesave would be. But no one was talking about minutes cut per usage instance, so presumably, the overall save would not be that large. And clearly not large enough to call this submission sloppy.
• Since I was watching this run side-by-side with the SMB3 100% one, I noticed that while some new skips were used, others weren't. So I went ahread and checked myself what I could. My primary concerns were not throwing fireballs at minibosses before you enter their rooms, and not flying over the wall in 7-4.
  • Turns out, the time that locking the miniboss room takes due to spawning the wall delays miniboss activation. So if you spit the fireball before entering that room, it will just get deflected. In order to hit him right when he activates, you'd need to leave the fireball that you've thrown way behind you, so it keeps flying while the room is being locked, and only hits the miniboss afterwards. But fireball speed is very close to Mario's, so I couldn't find places where such setup was possible.
  • And regarding flying over the wall, which skips the swimming section in the NES run, the second wall doesn't look passable. I tried flying above it, and my Y position got stuck at 9+, while the wall most likely starts at 0, so I simply couldn't fly over it.
• There are some wall clips not present in this run compared to the NES one, but there's no proof that any of them is possible (as I said, this run has been in the queue for a month).
• The part that looks very strange and completely unexplainable is that while the NES run has 98% (69/0/1) submission support and 8.8 entertainment rating, this run only got 33% (2/0/4) submission support, and will likely get terrible rating. I find this ridiculous, because the runs are almost identical. Playaround in autoscroller sections in the NES run is a bit more creative. It also has a few more wall-clips. But that's it! Oh well.
• Thankfully, as this run simply plays all the levels, it's a full completion goal, therefore it's vaultable. One might argue, that for this game, warpless is such a goal instead. But first, [2835] NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "all levels" by Lord_Tom & Tompa in 1:04:36.90 even has the 100% completion tag, and second, it beats more levels, so even if we had to send a warpless run of SMA4 to Vault, it'd be obsoleted by this one. And vice versa, if a warpless run gets Vault rating, it will most likely be rejected.