Submission #9286: keyword's NES Kirby's Adventure "no abilities" in 43:20.92

Nintendo Entertainment System
no abilities
(Submitted: No Abilities)
(Submitted: Hoshi no Kirby - Yume no Izumi no Monogatari (Japan).nes JP)
BizHawk 2.8.0
156312
60.0988138974405
155556
PowerOn
Hash doesn't match with the catalogued version (which is a verified good dump), but it syncs just fine on it.

Syncs on BizHawk 2.9.1 as well.
			
Submitted by keyword on 9/14/2024 7:46 AM
Submission Comments
Beats Kirby's Adventure without using copy abilities, except for the sword in the Meta Knight boss fight and the Star Rod. It's named "No Abilities" since that's the speedrun category name. I think normal Kirby's movement is cool enough to show off.

Comments

The main movement tech throughout the entire run is sliding. Pressing down + a (or b) will make Kirby slide, starting with a speed of 677 subpixels/frame. When Kirby is in the air, speed is not lost if you're holding the direction that you're moving towards. So, by sliding off a ledge, you can preserve all of that speed, then you can jump at the first possible frame to try to keep it. Every frame you're on the ground reduces your speed by 14, so it's best to try to use big jumps to clear much of the level.
Another important aspect about the run is RNG manipulation. Since the game is very laggy, it's best to avoid certain attacks from enemies, such as a Waddle Doo's beam attack or a Sparky attack. RNG is advanced by doing certain actions that produce tiny stars, such as landing from jumps or from bumping into walls, so a combination of these could give you favorable enemy patterns. RNG is manipulated extensively to get good (mini)boss patterns.

Other Tricks

  • Damage boosting is useful for clearing enemies without inhaling
  • When spitting, holding the direction you're moving towards preserves your speed
  • one-frame jumps are useful for turning in the air without skidding
  • sometimes resetting is faster than watching the unlock level cutscenes

Glitches

Most glitches used in the run are just clips.

Pause Clips

Probably the most "major" glitch used here. When pausing on the same frame that an enemy loads in, it is still "active", meaning it will still move around and attack. If Kirby gets damaged by the enemy, you can escape the pause menu. When the game is paused, the map's collision is changed to the top-left room, so escaping the bounds of the level is very easy. Most of the time you have to float while in the paused state since trying to jumping or inhaling will unpause.
Used in 3-1, 4-6, 5-2, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4.

Slope Clips

If you're at the middle of a slope, have around 160-170 speed, and press A on that frame, you clip through the slope.
Used in 3-2, 4-2, 4-4 (!), 6-4, 7-1.

Corner Clips

If you fly into corner in a peculiar way you can clip into walls. Currently, I've only discovered a setup for clipping into two-high walls, since this clip seems particularly precise. Hopefully one day someone finds setups for all sized walls.
Used in 7-1, 7-6.

Ladder Clips

Getting off ladders a certain way makes you clip into the corner. Might be the same thing as corner clips, honestly.
Used in 2-3, 5-2.

Stage by stage comments

Grape Garden

I got lucky finding a pattern where those 2 poppy bros lined up.

Yogurt Yard

The clip in 5-5 doesn't really fit into the categories above. It's just weird geometry, I guess.

Orange Ocean

Meta Knight fight could be faster by around 20 frames if I could take damage, since you can get more hits by sliding into him. (Maybe remove a damage boost from 6-1?)

Rainbow Resort

7-6 is my favorite level in the run, since it shows off a lot of tricks. I'm sure that inhale trick in the Float Islands section is useful somewhere else. Staying still for a bit after the Dedede fight since moving around immediately after defeat will delay fadeout for a second.

Fountain of Dreams

During the Orb fight, you can shoot every 20 frames (+ lag), but you can bypass it by taking damage. Taking damage also makes the game lag sometime by 2 frames, so the net timesave is 9 frames compared to TASEditor's run.

Other comments

0xwas made a no abilites TAS back in 2013, which I looked at a lot for comparison. I ended up using the JP version because of this, but now I'm sure all NTSC versions play almost exactly the same. (Not enough to sync up, though.)

DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.
DrD2k9: Goal choice, while not an eligible Standard Class goal, is still a goal that makes sense. This run was well received by the community and doesn't appear to have any significant sub-optimal play.
The couple times that abilities are used are forced situations where the player doesn't have the opportunity to not use them, so they don't count against the branch goal.
Accepting to Alternative Class with the "No Abilities" branch
fsvgm777: Processing.
Last Edited by fsvgm777 on 9/21/2024 8:59 PM
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