Submission #3023: Saturn's SNES Super Metroid "any%, GT Code" in 32:06.33

Recorded on Snes9x 1.43-improvement12 (but should work fine on future versions of the Snes9x 1.43 series as well)

Super Metroid is a classic platformer with many advanced techniques and a very fine, subpixel-based move engine. The story is about a bounty hunter called Samus who has the goal to explore a foreign planet called Zebes to find and destroy Mother Brain, the evil leader of the galaxy who is breeding a mighty species called Metroids to abuse them for her own benefits. During the journey you will find alot of items such as new ammo, energy tanks, special upgrades that speed you up or allow to pass certain areas you would normally not be able to, and making your character strong enough to be ready for the upcoming showdown against Mother Brain.

Despite being over 16 years old by now, it is considered as one of the best games ever made, and is still played by many people on a regular basis. Due to the many different move techniques, a high variety through the new upgrades, and alot of route possibilities, this game is a very common target for many types of speedruns and playthroughs.

This is a different kind of any% run for Super Metroid, recorded between December 2, 2010 and February 23, 2011, demonstrating how to considerably shorten the completion time by using the "GT Code", a trick discovered in late 2010 by JAM. It's executed by holding the A, B, X, and Y buttons during a door transition to the Golden Torizo room (regardless from which side), which immediately gives you all items except of Screw Attack, 700 Energy, 300 Reserve Energy, 100 Missiles, 20 Super Missiles, and 20 Power Bombs. This allows to introduce many not in regular runs available speed tricks and rare boss strategies with the help of Plasma/X-Ray combination I specially developed for this run, to pace through the rest of the game very quickly.

Already introduced in the PAL Any% run, the new strategy ultimately saves around a second over the commonly used entrance for runs that don't get the Maridia mainstreet Missile.

Since the Screw Attack cancels the invincibility time after a damage boost immediately, it's impossible to pass the 2nd platform without delay and taking additional 50 HP damage from it. The tech in this run solves the problem by providing a nearly same fast alternative with the help of the early Power Bomb placement / ghost through platforms combo, while also saving 35 HP by taking spike damage instead.

This was one of the more time-consuming parts of the run, as I focused to show the full potential of the "Stand Up Glitch". Compared to that introduction demo, which more or less set the standard for later TASes so far, the MB battle in this run is more than 6,5 seconds faster.

Enjoy!

DarkKobold: Claimed.

feos: Emdedded YouTube HD encode.

Saturn: No need to delete the original, specially for YouTube optimized video from the submission.

DarkKobold: Alright, time to judge this.

First off, as a result of this discussion, it is pretty clear that this is an intentional debug code, and not the result of a memory glitch. Thus, it will be judged as such. Nitsuja came up with a good list of games that use passwords/input codes and the reasons why here. Note that, similar to that thread, none of the codes used power-up the character as the sole action. The closest is Biker Mice From Mars. However, it could easily be argued that a full movie of BMFM would not be acceptable, due to the length of time required to reach that power-up, and thus the code was used out of necessity. (Also note that none of those listed are actually in the Concept Demo Section. The concept demo section contains only 3 types of movies - hacked ROMs, movies that start from Savestates, and movies that start from non-blank SRAM.)

Super Metroid, however, is not like the movies listed in Nitsuja's post. In fact, collecting the power-ups is considered an interesting enough goal on its own, that a 100% collection of said power-ups movie is published. Since there is no justifiable reason with which to use this code, it goes against the type of movie we aim for here.

The reason for rules such as "Play at hardest difficulty" and "Don't use cheat codes" is that we want the TASer's character to be at the highest disadvantage, as opposed to an "Arm to the Teeth Code" which essentially removes the "difficulty" in collecting items. Thus, I am rejecting this for using a cheat code.

A final note: The only reason for which many people have given that this be published is that it is entertaining. However, Super Metroid is almost unique in its gameplay, as it is extremely non-linear, to the point that there are nearly infinite variations in the routes available to complete the game. In fact, this is so prevalent, that the SM community has created names for various routes that add challenge. (See RBO, suitless, 14% Ice Beam Route, 14% Speed Booster Route, this "GT code route," and more that I'm sure I'm not even aware of.) My point being, is that a highly optimized version of nearly any route through Super Metroid being called a new 'category' would garner a large amount of people saying "this run is very entertaining." SM makes for entertaining TASes. That much can't be argued. That doesn't mean that every route through the game should be published here.

We have 3 published movies of Super Metroid here, that cover the scope of rational TASes. One TAS breaks the game down, through SRAM corruption. Another TAS finds the fastest route through the game, without fundamentally breaking the game. A final TAS demonstrates the entire game by collecting all items, and defeating all bosses. I think it would take a pretty good reason beyond "it is entertaining" to have a different category published, or else we will be inundated with Super Metroid categories.