(Note: this is a hack for Super Mario Bros. 3, the IPS patch can be found [here] [EDIT: dead link removed]
No-one has any idea what happened, but somehow, the koopa king has captured the princess yet again. Mario soon catches wind of the news and decides to save her (again) and by doing needs to collect 8 keys and defeat a whole bunch of bosses. The game has randomised weather. Mario also has a plethora of new items, most of which are never actually used during the run.
Adelikat; you owe me a dollar.
This is a 6 minute something improvement over the published run by kyrsimis.
General Comments
The basic strategy was to get the magic suit as fast as possible. At the end of a level, there is a Boom Boom instead of a card, and the magic suit disposes of these bosses extremely quickly. This also meant I could complete the run relatively quickly because there was no card manipulation, and very little hammer bros. manipulation.
I got to chose between world 4, world 5, and world 7 for my starting world. This was because these have short hammer bros. levels, which means that it is not worth buying a music box for. Also, music boxes cost 300 coins each, which can only be gained in the levels, so I needed sufficient money to buy them, which you don't have at the beginning of the run.
World 7 doesn't have any powerups in sight, and world 4 isn't particularly good for powerups either. Which leaves world 5, which has some good powerup opportunities.
Apart from that, it was reasonably transparent which worlds to go to, but I believe I took the fastest route through the worlds.
More Specific Comments
World 5
- First things first, enjoy the sight of little Mario while you can, you see him for a few seconds here, a few seconds midway through the run, and a few seconds at the end. That's it.
- A shell kill is quite a bit faster than a fire kill, or a star kill.
- I TAS the mini-game to get the magic suit quicker, and for a bargain price of 100 coins.
- Some of the levels you have to collect all the coins to finish.
- When I fly, I switch between the leaf and the other powerup. This means I lose minimal speed when flying.
- I figured out a way to slide down slopes and still have P speed, this comes in handy a few times.
- Switching between powerups on the frame you get hit means you don't lose your powerup.
- The raccoon tail will allow you to keep P speed through walls.
- The end of world bosses do not die from the magic suit, only the fire suit.
World 1 (Pass 1)
- Generally, various items can be used to kill the bosses in world 1, such as a shell in 1-1 and an ice cube in 1-2
- for those who are familiar with the game, you may ask yourself why I take the top route in world 1, since the key is found along the bottom route. All will be revealed.
- I was unlucky enough no to get any 50's in the autoscroller (instead of 1UP's, there are 50's in Mario Adventure)
World 7
- The biggest improvement here is the route. I played through all the levels and this is the route I came up with to be the fastest
- I get the key straight up, before I do anything else
- Some of the levels you just have to wait out. One of them I use to get a few 50's
- I get all of the music boxes here in world 7. The reason for this is that there are no hammer bros., so they don't do any unnecessary movements.
- I'm pretty sure the fortress strat is optimal.
- A glitch occurs when your coin counter rolls over 1000 on a boss battle. This is why I didn't collect too many 50's on the one waiting level.
World 1 (Pass 2)
- This is just because I didn't get the key the first time around. Don't worry, it was planned. I reset after getting the key
World 3
- I do this world next because the music box is still active from world 1, so I can skip the first Hammer Bros.
- The leap of faith in the first level is pretty neat.
- 3-2 is the first time I do a shell jump. Neat huh?
- I think almost all the levels in world 3 have a different, improved route.
- One time it snowed on an already icy level. The visibility was so bad it made that level extremely hard to TAS.
- For reasons I don't really want to go into depth, killing the boss in the fortress with the shell is not faster.
- Swimming autoscrollers are by far the worst and most boring kind of autoscroller.
World 2
- I tried doing that pipe glitch like in the other run like in 2-3. It didn't work at all for some reason.
- I use a new strat to get the key. For some reason, a lot of the levels in this game have no ceiling.
- I do the 1000 coin glitch again in this world.
World 6
- Lots of gigantic stuff here, but the levels are relatively simplistic, so there isn't much to say about this world
- 6-5 and 6-F are the only levels with new strats
World 4
- In the first level, it's faster to go up the waterfall than take the shortcut.
- You cannot manipulate the cheep cheeps. I just got lucky.
- Collect many coins eh? I complete the level with only 2 coins, and skip straight to the boss
- An enjoyable autoscroller for once
- For some reason the 1000 coin glitch didn't work here
World 8
- On the overworld, I select the keys in a specific order which saves a few frames
- Each level in world 8 is the same theme as each of the seven worlds, plus the final castle.
- At the end of each level there is a bowser. By the last level I hated bowsers so badly.
- In world 8-7 I jump off an ice block that I threw. It is also possible to get hurt by your own block or shell.
- In the last level, the boss fight lasts for freaking ages.
Other Stuff
Thanks to everyone at Tasvideos. Especially people like Kyrsimis, for without him, I wouldn't have even considered this run. Also anyone who ever said a kind word about my run, people like sonikkustar, Flygon, Dacius, it all helped. Thank you.
Baxter: Huge improvement over the published run. Accepting!