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.


Emulator Coder, Player (74)
Joined: 10/4/2005
Posts: 197
sonicpacker wrote:
Here's the currently final .m64. The time is 5'02"716667, meaning 5'02"72.
Console Verified, for now Link to video The oscilloscope is showing the button data from my bot. But since it didn't fit all on screen it is showing just the last ~half, which is the joystick data.
Active player (335)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
micro500 wrote:
sonicpacker wrote:
Here's the currently final .m64. The time is 5'02"716667, meaning 5'02"72.
Console Verified, for now Link to video The oscilloscope is showing the button data from my bot. But since it didn't fit all on screen it is showing just the last ~half, which is the joystick data.
Copycat :p Nah, good work. I'd like to see how you did it. Probably better than my implementation. EDIT: If you sync Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, or Mischief Makers, I will be dumbfounded. Those are the 3 games which refused to work for me.
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
Does the current submitted file include Kyman's GWK method?
Skazzy3
He/They
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 45
only 2 years and we have inproved this by 2 seconds
nfq
Player (94)
Joined: 5/10/2005
Posts: 1204
Only 5.5 seconds to improve and this will be as good as the Super Mario Bros TAS for NES.
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4038
nfq wrote:
Only 5.5 seconds to improve and this will be as good as the Super Mario Bros TAS for NES.
It's already as good as SMB "warps", but an improvement of 5.5 seconds would definitely make this run as fast as SMB "warps".
Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
jlun2 wrote:
Does the current submitted file include Kyman's GWK method?
No. Snark is trying to save 1 more frame.
Skazzy3
He/They
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 45
SoulCal wrote:
Does anybody know if these m64 files will sync with the "Player's Choice" version of the game? I found a copy on eBay for $10 but if it won't sync I won't buy it.
your kidding right?
Active player (335)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Luigi2011SM64 wrote:
SoulCal wrote:
Does anybody know if these m64 files will sync with the "Player's Choice" version of the game? I found a copy on eBay for $10 but if it won't sync I won't buy it.
your kidding right?
Why would I kid about this? (in case u r perplexed, I want to console verify this and not run it on emulator, but someone already beat me to the punch)
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Obvious Yes vote. A nice improvement on a nice run.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
SoulCal wrote:
Luigi2011SM64 wrote:
SoulCal wrote:
Does anybody know if these m64 files will sync with the "Player's Choice" version of the game? I found a copy on eBay for $10 but if it won't sync I won't buy it.
your kidding right?
Why would I kid about this? (in case u r perplexed, I want to console verify this and not run it on emulator, but someone already beat me to the punch)
He's a troll, SoulCal. Better off to ignore him.
Active player (335)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
sonicpacker wrote:
SoulCal wrote:
Luigi2011SM64 wrote:
SoulCal wrote:
Does anybody know if these m64 files will sync with the "Player's Choice" version of the game? I found a copy on eBay for $10 but if it won't sync I won't buy it.
your kidding right?
Why would I kid about this? (in case u r perplexed, I want to console verify this and not run it on emulator, but someone already beat me to the punch)
He's a troll, SoulCal. Better off to ignore him.
Well sonicpacker, would u know anything about which versions of SM64 will sync with that m64 file? (player's choice, which product numbers or versions?)
Experienced player (534)
Joined: 1/12/2007
Posts: 682
All North American versions of the game contain the same ROM, so the Player's Choice version will be fine.
Skazzy3
He/They
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 45
SoulCal wrote:
sonicpacker wrote:
SoulCal wrote:
Luigi2011SM64 wrote:
SoulCal wrote:
Does anybody know if these m64 files will sync with the "Player's Choice" version of the game? I found a copy on eBay for $10 but if it won't sync I won't buy it.
your kidding right?
Why would I kid about this? (in case u r perplexed, I want to console verify this and not run it on emulator, but someone already beat me to the punch)
He's a troll, SoulCal. Better off to ignore him.
Well sonicpacker, would u know anything about which versions of SM64 will sync with that m64 file? (player's choice, which product numbers or versions?)
like swordless link said it will work. but just because a box says something else doesn't mean it won't work
Active player (335)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Luigi2011SM64 wrote:
like swordless link said it will work. but just because a box says something else doesn't mean it won't work
Lol. I can't tell if you're trying to be a troll or not. I had no idea if the different versions of SM64 were different or not. If you look at other games on the site, they use specific version numbers; Ocarina of Time for example. In the case of OoT "because the box says something different, it won't work"
Skazzy3
He/They
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 45
*facepalm* i bet oot has diffrent roms because there are alot of over dumps and under dumps flying around. but lets get back on topic. did snark find the 1 frame improvment yet? btw why is the status for this judging underway? i thought we still have some improvments in the house
Editor, Experienced player (860)
Joined: 8/12/2008
Posts: 845
Location: Québec, Canada
Luigi2011SM64 wrote:
*facepalm* i bet oot has diffrent roms because there are alot of over dumps and under dumps flying around. but lets get back on topic. did snark find the 1 frame improvment yet? btw why is the status for this judging underway? i thought we still have some improvments in the house
Don't worry. The judge will wait for the improvements before judging this. snark is still trying to save a frame in BitFS.
Joined: 7/16/2006
Posts: 635
Luigi2011SM64 wrote:
*facepalm* i bet oot has diffrent roms because there are alot of over dumps and under dumps flying around.
There are 4 distinct versions of OoT (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and GCN). They all have obvious and easily checked differences.
Mitjitsu
He/Him
Banned User
Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997
^^^^^^ I believe the GCN version is the same as the 1.2 rom.
RachelB
She/Her
Player (132)
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 1579
Mitjitsu wrote:
^^^^^^ I believe the GCN version is the same as the 1.2 rom.
It's not the same, but it's similar. The button colors were changed, as was various text, to adjust the buttons and such for the different controller. I don't know if there are any actual gameplay differences, but regardless, it's a different rom.
Experienced player (658)
Joined: 5/16/2009
Posts: 235
Voted yes. Great TAS as always and it's great how you guys keep finding improvements.
Joined: 1/8/2011
Posts: 74
Location: Saturn Valley Medical Center
I'm still amazed this game was able to be improved further, absolute yes vote! The new camera angles also were very entertaining. Great job on another successful run guys!
Samus plays the SA-Xaphone
YoungJ1997lol
He/Him
Player (9)
Joined: 7/4/2011
Posts: 550
Location: U.S.A.
im working on an comparison video as i type
So yea, how's it going? Currently TASing: Nothing
Joined: 1/24/2012
Posts: 21
Location: France
I loled at the submission text x) Yes vote, keep up the good work!
Post subject: Re: #3476: snark, sonicpacker, Mickey/VIS, and ToT's N64 Super Mario 64 "0 star" in 05:02.72
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4038
TASVideoAgent wrote:
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.
I forgot to mention how hilarious this paragraph is. I know it first appeared way back in this submission, but I always enjoy reading it again whenever a new any% run is submitted.