(Link to video)
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

Comments

This TAS originated when sonicpacker saved 2 frames on the Bowser in the Sky BLJ after being inspired by Mickey's amazingly optimized beginning. Following that, ToT found a trick for Bowser in the Dark World where Mario falls off the ledge after the diving section with high speed which saved 1 frame. ToT managed to improve the BLJ speed which allowed Snark to barely squeeze out a second frame by using the falling trick a second time on the same ledge. The first frame of improvement in Bowser in the Fire Sea came from Mickey and Snark using a slightly different method of getting to the pole. Mickey then asked sonicpacker to redo the wall kicking section because he's spent more time with it in the past. In the process of trying to tie the previous run, sonicpacker saved one more frame due to better speed/angle/position. After playing around with a new wall kicking strategy, (combined with a diving method after the pole glitch found by sonicpacker) Snark completely obliterated the old BitFS, beating it by a total of 29 frames. Shortly afterwards, Kyman found another improvement at the end of BitFS that uses a glitchy wall kick on the pipe. It saves 15 frames up to the pipe grab, but loses 1 on the butt-slide due to Mario's position. Overall, we saved 47 frames and are very happy with the resulting run.

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.
Glitchy Wall Kick (GWK)
If you combine certain Mario angles with certain wall angles, sometimes you can make Mario kick off of a wall in the opposite direction that he's supposed to.

Improvement Table

SectionFrames SavedFrames Saved Overall
Lakitu Skip00
BLJ to BitDW00
BitDW22
B102
BLJ to Basement02
DDD Skip02
BitFS4345
B2045
To 2nd Key Door045
Spiral Stairs to BitS045
BitS247
B3047

Special Thanks

Nahoc, for helping out with the submission text.
Both Aktan and Nahoc for helping out A LOT with the YouTube encode. <3

Suggested Screenshot

Enjoy the run!

Baxter: Updated the submission file at the author's request.
Baxter: Judging when the new improvement is done.
Baxter: Submission file replaced at the author's request.
Baxter: Accepting as an improvement to the published run.
natt: Processing...
natt: Releasing mutex. Sorry about that
Nahoc: Processing instead of natt.

1 2
5 6
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14772
Location: 127.0.0.1
Active player (489)
Joined: 1/12/2007
Posts: 682
Solid improvement, and the camera angles were nice. Voted yes.
YoungJ1997lol
He/Him
Player (53)
Joined: 7/4/2011
Posts: 550
Location: U.S.A.
the youtube vid is still processing, but i voted yes anyway (the fact that it is an improvement)
So yea, how's it going? Currently TASing: Nothing
Active player (419)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
the youtube vid is still processing, but i voted yes anyway (the fact that it is an improvement)
The current one in the submission text is lacking subtitles, so I'm working on a new encode. That video will stay unlisted for now until I can get the new one uploaded.
ALAKTORN
He/Him
Player (99)
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
omg omg process already
Player (98)
Joined: 3/20/2008
Posts: 466
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Voting yes for Frame Wars
DennisBalow
He/Him
Player (140)
Joined: 1/23/2010
Posts: 27
Location: Germany
Of course an "Yes" Vote. Pretty impressive work guys. I never thought, that the run can be improve by 6 frames.
Experienced player (576)
Joined: 2/23/2008
Posts: 266
Location: CA, USA
Inb4 someone finds like a 1 frame improvement. Great run guys, amazing that you saved this much time at this point. Yes of course.
Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
The question on everyone's mind now must be: Can more frames be squeezed out of this TAS? Every time it looks like it's never going to be possible to improve it, then this happens. Yes vote.
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2224
Location: Georgia, USA
I can't personally notice these improvements, but I'm impressed improvements were found nonetheless. A couple small gripes, though: * My movie stopped at the very last moment before the final "star" was grabbed, which starts the credits. Instead, my movie stops with a pause screen. * I think the camera was zoomed in on Mario too much, especially with Bowser In The Dark World. I don't think it's too bad, though. I'll vote Yes, but that last movie frame worries me a bit. Did the last frame of the movie get corrupted? (It wouldn't be the first time this happened in a SM64 submission.)
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
RachelB
She/Her
Player (127)
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 1579
Voted yes, but didn't watch it, since a 2 frame improvements per level may as well be exactly the same.
Active player (419)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
mklip2001 wrote:
* My movie stopped at the very last moment before the final "star" was grabbed, which starts the credits. Instead, my movie stops with a pause screen. ... I'll vote Yes, but that last movie frame worries me a bit. Did the last frame of the movie get corrupted?
That's just a Mupen pause bug. It decides to press all the buttons when a movie ends, thus the game pauses because start is included in the buttons it presses. There's no way to fix it.
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
Definitely a yes vote, more so because these camera angles TOTALLY ROCK! But mainly because it's made of awesome. I just wish you could BLJ up the pillars via some sort of camera angle manipulation so you didn't have to jump kick back and forth so much. If that was possible there would be maybe a second saved? Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Active player (419)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
I love how the temporary encode looks! It's so clear, it's like I'm watching it on the emulator! A SM64 improvement always earns my Yes vote. Fantastic job improving this.
Active player (333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I will vote solely on if this is console verifiable or not...time to break out the Droid64 again! (and find a copy of Mario64)
Active player (419)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
SoulCal wrote:
I will vote solely on if this is console verifiable or not...time to break out the Droid64 again! (and find a copy of Mario64)
Please wait for the improvements to be updated to the submission. Thanks! =)
Active player (333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
sonicpacker wrote:
Please wait for the improvements to be updated to the submission. Thanks! =)
I saw your FML post; how much of an improvement is that?
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 15
Man, it seems that Mario 64 runs are cursed to have improvements discovered after submission.
ALAKTORN
He/Him
Player (99)
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
sonicpacker wrote:
fuck my life ill go ahead and recapture i suppose
does that mean you’re not an author anymore? (I think you were the one who did BitFS WKs?) and how much faster is that, precisely?
Active player (419)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
SoulCal wrote:
sonicpacker wrote:
Please wait for the improvements to be updated to the submission. Thanks! =)
I saw your FML post; how much of an improvement is that?
I'm not actually sure because Snark timed it differently than normal, but I *think* 5 frames. I'll get the .m64 and make sure when Mickey gets on his computer.
Editor, Skilled player (1502)
Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1317
I give you a Yes Vote,
Favorite animal: STOCK Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1.1(rtTA,EGFP)Nagy Grm7Tg(SMN2)89Ahmb Smn1tm1Msd Tg(SMN2*delta7)4299Ahmb Tg(tetO-SMN2,-luc)#aAhmb/J YouTube Twitch
Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Expert player, Publisher (2254)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6324
Location: The land down under.
*no comment on frame saves* Yes Vote
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Active player (419)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
sonicpacker wrote:
SoulCal wrote:
sonicpacker wrote:
Please wait for the improvements to be updated to the submission. Thanks! =)
I saw your FML post; how much of an improvement is that?
I'm not actually sure because Snark timed it differently than normal, but I *think* 5 frames. I'll get the .m64 and make sure when Mickey gets on his computer.
Okay, I'm a complete idiot. Snark did time correctly and I was just thinking there was no way the improvement would be that much...but now I have the .m64 and it turns out he saved 2 more frames since his YouTube video. This means that his new BitFS saves 28 frames total over the currently published 0 Star run. This run will have a final time of 5'02"73...aka 32 frames, aka over 1 second, aka quite an improvement for a run of this caliber. Official YouTube encode should be up tomorrow! Edit: For some reason, it loses a VI in the transition from BitFS to the B2 fight. Here's the new .m64 with a time of 5'02"75.
ALAKTORN
He/Him
Player (99)
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
holy shit… that is awesome were all those due to the different strategy at the WKs? I’m guessing so
1 2
5 6