About the game
I think most of you know this game, as it is a very classic and famous Gameboy game. Princess Daisy who reigns over Sarasaland has been kidnapped by the alien Tatanga and Mario heads out to save her.
About the run
- Used emulator: 1.7.2 re-recording v21-interim
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Aims for maximum scoreAims for the highest possible score without wasting time - Takes damage to save time
- Genre: Platform
I didn't think I would have been able to improve on xenos' run at the time he submitted it. At the time I created my walkathon, however, I learned about a lot of new tricks and glitches and since I had a lot of potential time-savers and stuff in my mind I went and tried to improve his run... and succeeded.
The bonus screens after each world are a big turn-off. If you save a few frames in a level, the bonus screen at the end of the world would ruin your save. In order to succeed with the bonus screens, you have to invest idle frames into the first two levels of a world. For example, you can only pass the bonus screen of the first world if you invest 1 idle frame in 1-1 and 3 idle frames in 1-2. Despite was xenos said, namely that 4 idle frames in the first two levels need to be put in, I didn't succeed when I put the 4 idle frames in 1-2. The matter with the bonus screens and the frame rule that seems to be linked to it still isn't very examined and needs to be looked into.
Most points were saved just by comboing enemies which weren't comboed before. In contrary to what most people might believe, you are allowed to touch the ground inbetween enemies when comboing them as the only thing that matters is a set amount of time in which you need to reach the next enemy for a combo to work. 4 Frames were saved in 2-3 by skipping the dragon instead of fighting it which unfortunately meant a 5000 points loss. 1 Frame in 3-1 was saved by lag reduction. Many frames were saved in 3-3 by navigating through the passage faster.
Table
| Level | Frames saved | Points saved | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-1 | 0 | 0 | Pretty straight-forward level so nothing was changed here. |
| 1-2 | 0 | +1400 | Points were saved by comboing more enemies and by using a better strategy to acquire 100 more points near the end of the level. |
| 1-3 | 0 | 0 | Also pretty straight-forward. At the small tunnel you can hit the Nokobon (koopa) from below which costs ~1 frame but it ruined the luck with the bonus screen and I didn't succeed either when I used different combinations of idle frames in the previous levels. This was also the level were I changed from the v1.0 ROM to the v1.1 ROM due to the bonus screen (the best I got on v1.0 was 18 frames behind xenos). |
| 2-1 | 0 | +1000 | Points were saved by more enemy hopping here too. I found a faster way to pass through the part where you need to stop faster, which saves 1 frame but the bonus screen on 2-3 didn't want me to keep it! (it actually saved 2 frames but the level timer would be greater by one second so it nullifies the save). |
| 2-2 | 0 | +100 | 100 points were saved by hopping on a Chibibo (goomba) which was missed before. |
| 2-3 | +4 | -5150 | 5000 points were lost since I skip the dragon as it proved to be faster doing so. It is possible to kill the dragon and get the fireflower from the bonus screen without losing time. However, the screen is very delayed. I couldn't do anything about it despite trying to put idle frames in the previous levels and trying a lot of strategies. The next person who runs this game should look into the mechanics of the bonus screens and hopefully succeed acquiring these 5000 points back! ._. 150 points were lost since I don't shoot all the blocks at the end of the level since it would have wasted time. I actually saved 10 frames but the bonus screen converted it to 4... Bleh! |
| 3-1 | +1 | 0 | 1 lag frame was removed from the previous run here. |
| 3-2 | +1 | 0 | I found another 1-frame-saver by using a walljump at the passage where you need to stop but the bonus screen didn't agree here either so it wasn't used... I don't know how I saved one frame here still; my guess is it was saved by optimizing the way to get the mushroom. (I'm too lazy to check) |
| 3-3 | +18 | +10 | I saved a lot of time by navigating through the passage with the two platforms faster. I had one more in-game second left, so I gained 10 points. |
| 4-1 | +2 | +2000 | More enemy hopping here. Time was saved as I got less lag at the part where three Pionpis jump towards me. |
| 4-2 | +1 | +300 | More enemy hopping here too. Navigated through the passage with the pipes faster but the save was somehow lost...(?) Another frame was saved as I didn't release the B-button to shoot an enemy. |
| 4-3 | +5 | 0 | I added some funny sound glitches here. Also, this level and 2-3 almost drove me crazy since I stumbled into scoring glitches (when two enemies are hit simultaneously, you don't get the points you would have actually gained. And sometimes the invincibility star gives you a smaller amount of points and as I'm unsure about how this scoring glitch works, I just used trial-and-error). Thank god I succeeded hex-editing both levels! You don't need to get hit by the cloud boss here so I don't. I don't know how I saved 5 frames here. I compared the final frame counts of xenos' run and my run and substracted the difference from 27 frames I had saved so far and got 5 frames... |
| Total | 32 frames saved | 340 points lost |
Closing words
Thanks to xenos, mmbossman and others!
As usual, I hope you enjoy the run and I hope I didn't forget anything important.
FractalFusion: Accepting as an improvement to the published run.