Explained Video (includes detailed breakdowns of tricks used):
Technical details:
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.11.8 (Glide64mk2 / HLE)
- Heavy glitch abuse
Overview
Donkey Kong 64 chronicles the adventure of five simians to defeat the evil reptile King K. Rool. To get the final key to fight the King you must collect 100 Gold Bananas (think Super Mario 64 stars), thousands of loose bananas, two special coins hidden behind classic arcade games, 15 banana medallions, 4 battle crowns, dozens of banana coins, and more. The game has even made it into the Guinness Book of Records for “Most Collectable Items”.
We’re just going to skip all that.
There are two main goals in this run: spawn K. Rool, and beat K. Rool. The former requires the third and eighth key in this game - keys 1, 2, and 4-7 are supposed to be “required” to get key 8. The latter requires getting enough abilities for the Kongs that they can win the 10+ minute fight.
Central to this run is a trick called “Main Menu Mode” (MMM). Freeing all the Kongs and buying moves turns out to be a very time consuming process, but through MMM that can be skipped. Much of the middle of the run is devoted to setting up and executing MMM. This includes unlocking seemingly useless features on the main menu, notably a Rambi minigame and the ability to re-watch cutscenes.
The final time of this run is slower than the best real time runners. This is for three reasons.
- RTA timing is about 33 seconds shorter than TAS timing.
- The Wii U Virtual Console version has at least a minute worth of less lag.
- Unlike this TAS, real time runs start with main menu features already unlocked. As is standard, I avoid using dirty SRAM. This makes for a more entertaining run with less questionable validity. This choice costs on the order of 4.5 minutes.
Tricks and Techniques
If you are interested in learning more about the tricks and techniques used in this run, I would highly, highly recommend watching the "Explained" link above. It is incredibly comprehensive and informative, and the visuals explain things way better than I could in text.
Improvement Details
This run is about 50 seconds faster than the previous iteration. This is thanks to new techniques to optimize movement, a new trick (phasewalking) that makes passing through walls even easier and faster than before, and a new route (and corresponding tricks) that skips learning how to throw orange grenades.
Etc
Endless thanks to Bismuth for working with me to produce the explained version of this run. Had he not approached me about a video on this topic, I would not have made this new version. Thanks to TJ Blakely for discovering phasewalking and making this redo worth the effort. But dude, don't find a major glitch immediately after I submit this again. And thanks to theballaam96 for helping me get this route working with his original research on temporary flags.
I will always have to thank Isotarge and Cronikeys for their work on emulation for this game. Hats off to Exchord for discovering so many things about ISG including MMM, as well as telegrab and moonkick. And thanks to everyone else who has helped or advised who I didn’t name.
If you want more DK64 tool-assisted content, you can find a 101% low-optimized TAS by theballaam here.
You can also check out some cool A button challenge videos on my alternate channel here
Maru: Judging.
feos: Reset to New.
Memory: Judging.
Memory: He-he-here we go!
So I'm finally here, judging for you
If you know the link, you can watch it too
I put my hands together, cuz I want to clap
As I take you through this awesome TAS!
Huh!
So this TAS seems to be really high quality. There are no signs of any sloppiness.
As mentioned by the previous judgment note, typically in real time DK64 speedruns, dirty sram is used. Like the previous movie, this submission also avoids dirty sram. However, the lack of said SRAM barely seems to slow this TAS down at all. As such this should continue to be the standard for this particular branch.
This game is broken in so many ways that it will always manage to be entertaining, even if movement can be a tad slow. The audience also agreed, with overwhelming positive posts and votes.
Accepting to Moons as an improvement to [3411] N64 Donkey Kong 64 by RingRush in 27:37.60.
feos: Pub.