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Super Mario 64, the classic platformer from 1996, stars that Italian red plumber dude, named Mario. So he gets an invitation to have a one night stand eat a cake that Princess Peach has baked for him. So, like any fat Italian man would, he jumps in a green tube and heads to the castle - and so the journey begins. Once Mario arrives, he realizes that there is no cake and there will be no cake. The princess wants him to lose some weight, and she has hired Bowser to be a fitness trainer for Mario. The plan is to motivate him with cake and make him to run around the castle for "power stars", but Mario, just as any fat Italian would, skips all of that, loses no weight and demands cake.
Game Objectives
- Emulator used: Mupen64 0.5 Re-Recording v8
- Aims for fastest time
- Uses game-breaking glitches
This TAS began when Kyman found a 1 frame improvement in the spiral stairs room. After that was found, Nahoc managed to save 2 frames on the final Bowser battle. We then started to work on the run and Kyman found a completely new BLJless route for Bowser in the Fire Sea, which ended up saving 7 frames (and also removed 2 BLJs from the run). While redoing the spiral/endless stairs section, Kyman found a way to get 20~ more speed while still being able to C^ off of the wall. sonicpacker applied this and in the end saved another 3 frames. Instead of simply hex editing parts of our old run, we redid them for entertainment purposes. After submitting, snark found a 1 frame improvement in the DDD skip, and Nothing/Mickey found 3 frames of improvement in BitFS. Kyman had an idea for the DDD skip which saved 1 frame. Jesus found a new strategy for the beginning of BitFS which ended up another frame. Then Kyman redid the pillar wallkicks which saved the final frame.
Tricks Used in this Run
- 0-Input BLJ
- When you have no input on the analog in between the "A" button presses for a BLJ, your speed will not decrease, thus exponentially increasing the speed at the end result of the BLJs.
- Pause BLJ
- Normally, you can only press the "A" button fifteen times per second because the game runs at thirty frames per second. If you had thirty continuous "A" frames, you'd just be holding "A" down, not tapping it. However, if you pause while pressing the "A" button, you are given an opportunity on the next frame to release the "A" button. You can follow that by repressing it when it's not paused (therefore letting you BLJ the equivalent of thirty times "per second"). This is useful when you need more speed to travel a long distance. It isn't as helpful as it seems as it takes three extra frames to do a Pause BLJ. In order to save time you need the extra speed to save at least 3 frames.
- Forward Jump Kick Trick
- While Mario is recovering after a forward movement (dive, long jump, etc.), you can hold the "A" button prior to landing, and on the frame you land, press the "B" button with the analog stick at ^54 or less (on the TAS Input Plugin), you will do a jump kick. The trick is that it maintains all of the same speed from before the landing. You can also apply this when moving backwards (such as after a BLJ), by holding "A" before you are in the running animation, and then pressing "B." This causes Mario to do a jump kick and retain the same speed. This is useful for crossing long gaps and covering large distances.
- Slide Kicking
- This has been found to be the best method of forward movement over a long distance, because unlike the jump kick, you can do it repeatedly without losing speed.
- Punch Trick
- Instead of running for one frame when accelerating from a stop, you press the "B" button with no analog input, which gives you a starting speed of 10 instead of roughly 8.
- Forward Speed Conversion
- After triggering text, Mario is in a frozen state with his speed stuck at what it was while activating the text. When the text is read, you have the ability to do many things. One trick we can do with this is to press "C^" (upper C button) and "Z" at the same frame and hold a specific direction to get forward speed (as opposed to backwards speed which we originally used to activate the text). This is useful because forward speed can be used for things like getting to high places, such as the endless stair case. If you don‘t use Z with C^, your options are limited, because you only move forwards or backwards in a state that will not let Mario jump.
- Instant Jump Kick Trick
- This trick allows you to jump kick on the very first frame that Mario has input. This also is enables you to choose an angle for Mario to travel. You do this by holding A for at least one frame before Mario can move, then push B and the direction you want to go on the first frame of input.
- Hyper-Speed Wall Kicking (HSWK)
- Mario's speed increases infinitely while airborne with the analog held forward. If he wallkicks on the first possible frame, he doesn't lose any speed.
Improvement Table
| Section | Frames Saved | Frames Saved Overall |
|---|
| Lakitu Skip | 0 | 0 |
| BLJ to BitDW | 0 | 0 |
| BitDW | 0 | 0 |
| B1 | 0 | 0 |
| BLJ to Basement | 0 | 0 |
| DDD Skip | 2 | 2 |
| BitFS | 12 | 14 |
| B2 | 0 | 14 |
| To 2nd Key Door | 0 | 14 |
| Spiral Stairs to BitS | 4 | 18 |
| BitS | 0 | 18 |
| B3 | 2 | 20 |
Special Thanks
We would like to thank snark, Mickey, Nothing and Jesus for their improvements and work to make this run ever more perfect than before. :)
Suggested Screenshot
Enjoy the run! Thanks! :)
Baxter: Mario 64 completed even faster, with (generally considered) better camera angles. Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
Baxter: Delayed, awaiting improved version.
Baxter: Submission file replaced with a faster version. Setting the submission back to 'accepted' again.
Aktan: Processing in place of Nahoc.
Afterwards my goal was to grab the pole and get forward speed. Sadly, I've never got that far because I always lost the speed when I grabbed the pole. Using the forwards speed I would have jumped up to the elevator and then did the wallkicks the same way you guys did it. This is just a theory, no idea if it really can work. I decided to share it, because I could never pull it off any way ;) btw, sry for the big picture.
