Overview
This is the last game in the series to release on the Gamecube, and it has not looked back since. Unlike typical games in the series, the bulk of this game takes place in the Story Mode, spread out across 5 worlds (according to the manual). For simplicity sake though, it’s safe to merge the last 2.
The objective of the game is typically what confuses people the most, since a typical game in the series traverses level to level with only the goal to reach on each. With how this was structured for story mode, each world requires at least 60 joy points (can be seen under the character icon in the HUD), as well as a final mission per each world. Also, like challenge mode, baby is used due to overall improvements in the load times.
- Emulator used: Dolphin 5.0-7201
- Aims for the fastest completion of Story Mode
Routing
As stated before, each world requires at least 60 joy points to continue. To this day, there is no known way to get around this, so the route generally follows the concept of completing the fastest missions possible to get to the required amount. One key thing taken into consideration though, was the banana collection, which is both a strong and weak point of this. Also, big thanks to Meowmix_fan for helping with the route a ton.
There is only one instance where it was deemed worth going slightly out of the way to do a slower mission in order to make up time later. The tradeoff was that more bananas had to be collected, raising the total to 350 from 250 in the typical route used. This specifically is the only area where there are errors in this TAS; it reaches the amount, but loses a few frames overall due to which bananas are collected.
World completion requirement clarity, each world needs at least 60 joy points, each world also has a final mission after obtaining that amount; however in Zootopia, that mission is done early.
Table Labels
- Mission names; described by what the objective is, and the names of the monkeys provided in the manual.
- Description; describes what is done within the mission.
- Joy Points & Bananas; Numerical values representing the status in the current world after each mission
| Mission | Description | Joy Points | Bananas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jungle Island 1 | |||
| Top Hats (Dada & Toottoot) | 7 | 13 | |
| Beekeeper (Owow) | A slightly different route was taken to collect a bunch quickly | 14 | 18 |
| Message (Popo) | 21 | 26 | |
| Camera (Sisi) | It is possible to slightly move during the text, making camera missions even quicker | 26 | 31 |
| Lunch (Mermer & Perper) | Time was taken to collect 2 extra bunches | 31 | 67 |
| Camera (Sisi) | 36 | 70 | |
| Naysayer | First issue with banana routing, went slightly out of the range to collect a banana & chant | 38 | 81 |
| Birds (Cawcaw) | 45 | 87 | |
| Camera (Sisi) | 50 | 91 | |
| Gongs (Gargar) | This is the first cannon mission, for the most part it’s just aiming quickly | 55 | 100 |
| Makmak | Donation monkey (100 bananas), also the guy to make this route possible | 60 | 1 |
| AbeAbe & DeeDee | First Palace mission in Jungle Island | 68 | 10 |
| Zootopia 1 | |||
| Masks (Cre d’Pee) | The final text of the mission was skipped by bouncing off the flower | 5 | 13 |
| Children (Sumsum) | More bananas could have been collected during this mission | 10 | 17 |
| Roller Coaster (Whe d’Whe) | 15 | 23 | |
| Camera (Sisi) | It is possible to chant immediately when getting to the photo spot, and joy points update immediately | 20 | 23 |
| Moonhaven 1 | |||
| Camera (Sisi) | 5 | 40 | |
| Children (Ch’chi) | Unfortunately there is no way to skip the gear | 10 | 42 |
| Vents (Eee’nee) | 15 | 49 | |
| Three Buttons (Bo’bo) | The skip done here is much harder than it looks | 20 | 50 |
| Toolbox (Bo’bo) | Could not replicate the angle I got from the glider anywhere else | 25 | 81 |
| Bring up Fire (Eee’nee) | Using the fans, and bounce pads, this mission was made way faster | 30 | 90 |
| Fire Automaton (Flam’lam) | The fan makes the intended area of this mission useless | 38 | 93 |
| Balloons (Captain Si’mian) | Routing allowed this mission to be faster than a later one in Monkitropolis, also, another banana routing error here | 43 | 129 |
| Message (Popo) | Got a clip from the fan, making this mission a lot faster | 48 | 129 |
| Zootopia 2 | |||
| Po d’Pow | This mission only checks for Scalarball, making the top technically useless | 25 | 129 |
| Bumper Cars (Ko d’Ko) | 29 | 134 | |
| Message (Popo) | Using naysayers for movement instead of joy points allows this to be even faster | 34 | 142 |
| Camera (Sisi) | The sole reason the mission is done at the end is to exit the area quicker | 38 | 148 |
| Naysayers | 43 | 160 | |
| Fat Cat | There are 2 tasks to complete, enable all lights, and turn all screws, merging both is faster | 63 | 202 |
| Moonhaven 2 | |||
| Switches (Bo’bo) | 54 | 212 | |
| Litter (Mo d’Mo) | 60 | 219 | |
| Levers (Ru’fus) | By entering and exiting the chant menu, movement is unlocked quicker | 70 | 221 |
| Monkitropolis/Kongri-la | |||
| Sound Machines (NikNIK) | 5 | 221 | |
| Camera (Sisi) | 8 | 222 | |
| Prisoners (NeeNAW) | Only thing of note is manipulating the location of the monsters | 13 | 223 |
| Race (NikNIK) | 18 | 223 | |
| Noise Factory (Bran‘ran) | 23 | 224 | |
| Queen FeeFEE | Technically not a mission, but seems to behave like one | 23 | 224 |
| Launch Robots (Bran’ran) | 27 | 225 | |
| Destroy Robots (Guard) | 31 | 241 | |
| Banana Trees (Digdig) | 35 | 242 | |
| Noise Horns (Jeck-jeck) | Going into the horns out of order at the ends allows the last text to be skipped | 39 | 242 |
| Mirrors (Jeck-jeck) | By going in and out of Scalarball, it allows the speed to get unrestricted for a moment | 43 | 243 |
| Crabs (Digdig) | 47 | 243 | |
| Message (Popo) | 50 | 244 | |
| Makmak | Donation Monkey (250), the reason for collecting all these bananas | 53 | 0 |
| Camera (Sisi) | 56 | 1 | |
| Patches (Jeck-jeck) | 60 | 2 | |
| Slipknot (King Kon-kon) | Again, technically not a mission, but subtly setup like one | 60 | 7 |
| Jungle Island 2 | |||
| Bells (Bongbong) | By hitting the walls, it is sometimes faster to lessen the upwards speed | 76 | 13 |
Puzzle Realm
This is where challenge mode stages exist, and they serve a slightly different purpose in the sense of routing in bananas where it may be more beneficial overall. Due to this, the levels themselves are more like a score attempt on a stage, rather than for the best time (however they both are fast). Only case where this approach is not taken, is on Slipknot.
Also of note; the physics between this mode, and story mode itself are different. Some of the more notable differences are below:
| Story Mode | Puzzle Realm |
|---|---|
| Chants | Edge collision |
| Manual camera | Frame boosting |
| Interactable objects | Swerving |
Even further, there is a difference between the physics strictly in challenge mode, and physics in story mode’s puzzle realm. It’s not quite as drastic as between story mode & challenge, but still notable. Here are a few key differences between these modes;
- Puzzle realm takes longer to load in, making the cycle different on some stages.
- Physics seem slightly faster in the Puzzle Realm than in Challenge Mode, so times should generally be faster if bananas aren’t taking some priority.
Misc.
There will probably be a revision of this someday, due to the 2 errors in banana routing. Loading times actually influenced the routing decision of getting 350 bananas overall due to Makmak in Moonhaven being behind a loading zone. Also alike challenge mode, there are no credits at the end, so this again stops input at the most reasonable time, before the final cutscene and the % completed screen.
- Special thanks to Meowmix_Fan, Fluteboy123, & Jcool114 for helping route this.
- Suggested screenshot: 53057
Memory: Judging
Memory: Optimization for the most part seems acceptable, the banana routing mistakes seem fairly small given the length of the TAS.
So there are some neat skips here and there, but it is almost entirely drowned out by the fact that the majority of the tasks the TAS performs are fairly monotonous and repetitive. The music being extremely forgettable does not help matters either. The votes were fairly mixed, but the only post in the thread was fairly negative. As such...
This TAS Balloon is being taken to the Vault.
feos: Pub.