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.


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Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
nfq wrote:
This is quite a small improvement of the previous TAS; it's only 1.55 seconds faster, so I'm wondering how do you keep track of the time so that you don't lose time compared to the previous TAS? Do you have another mupen64 in the background, running the previous TAS, and constantly comparing how you're doing?
Yes, we compare with the previous TAS. It isn't constant though. Most people just make text files and write down frame numbers. We also know most of the WRs for individual stuff because unlike most of the people on this site, we stick to this game specifically and master it instead of doing many different games.
nfq wrote:
I'm also surprised by the patience you have in all the parts of the run where there are no known improvements to be made, so they have to be done almost exactly the same. Do you maybe use a bot or hex edit for those parts?
If I had been the sole author of the improvements, I personally would have hex edited the old input and just submitted it with the same authors (because I was one). However, the Japanese players wanted to make an all new run to distinguish it from the old one. So they took care of redoing stuff (mostly). It doesn't take as long as you'd think, especially once you have a file to compare to with MHS.
Former player
Joined: 12/1/2007
Posts: 425
Here's an encode. If you want to publish it, tell me and I'll add intro and subs. http://sm64.org/temp/0star_502.mkv
NF3
Joined: 4/2/2012
Posts: 4
I loved how you played with the camera angles.
Editor, Emulator Coder, Site Developer
Joined: 5/11/2011
Posts: 1108
Location: Murka
I won't be publishing this (couldn't verify sync), but anyone feel free to publish with these encodes: Encodes: Archive.org collection http://archive.org/details/SuperMario64usa0StarIn502.25BySnarkKymanSonicpacker include, normal, 10bit, and a "448p 10bit" I goofed slightly: the encodes have capital letters in the names, but this can be worked around or changed I believe. youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY4QyAlt-3k 720p, on the official channel
Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Editor, Experienced player (860)
Joined: 8/12/2008
Posts: 845
Location: Québec, Canada
I will publish it soon.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15628
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2016] N64 Super Mario 64 "0 stars" by snark, Kaylee, sonicpacker, MICKEY_Vis11189 & ToT in 05:02.25
Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
I have sort of thought about this before but never brought it up. Why is this not called the "0 Stars" run?
ALAKTORN
He/Him
Former player
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
sonicpacker wrote:
I have sort of thought about this before but never brought it up. Why is this not called the "0 Stars" run?
true, singular is incorrect
Experienced player (534)
Joined: 1/12/2007
Posts: 682
sonicpacker wrote:
I have sort of thought about this before but never brought it up. Why is this not called the "0 Stars" run?
My guess is that we just never changed it back to "stars" after "1 star" had been the norm for a while.
Former player
Joined: 12/1/2007
Posts: 425
Better question is why it's not called the any% run.
Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Johannes wrote:
Better question is why it's not called the any% run.
[11:08:56 AM] Jeremiah !! ソニックパッカー: it actually doesnt even make sense to write "0 stars" or "0 stars" for that category [11:09:00 AM] Jeremiah !! ソニックパッカー: its just an any% [11:13:19 AM] Nahoc (ナホック): yes, but me and adelikat dicussed it [11:13:21 AM] Nahoc (ナホック): and it's mainly to attract viewers [11:13:23 AM] Nahoc (ナホック): ;D
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
sonicpacker wrote:
Why is this not called the "0 Stars" run?
I don't know enough about English grammar to say for sure, but AFAIK using the singular is a valid form at least if using a dash. It's the same as in expression like "an 8-mile run" or "a 2-hour marathon". In the same way it would be "a 0-star run". However, I don't know how mandatory the dash is, according to English grammar. Perhaps "0-star" and "0 stars" would be correct, but not "0 star".
Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Active player (426)
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
ALAKTORN
He/Him
Former player
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
haha how hard can it be to add an s?
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4038
Warp wrote:
Perhaps "0-star" and "0 stars" would be correct, but not "0 star".
NES A Nightmare on Elm Street "4 Player" has the same problem. It would make more sense for this movie to be changed to "4 players" and for SM64 any% to be changed to "0 stars".
Joined: 3/4/2012
Posts: 74
I've always interpreted them as the type of run like: a "4 player" run or a "0 star" run which reads correctly. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4038
John11 wrote:
I've always interpreted them as the type of run like: a "4 player" run or a "0 star" run which reads correctly. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
Like Warp said, "0-star" would also be correct, but not "0 star".
Player (66)
Joined: 4/21/2011
Posts: 232
Adjectives aren't usually pluralized in American English, and "0 star" is being used as an adjective. http://david-crystal.blogspot.com/2010/05/on-plural-adjectives.html
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
nanogyth, "0-star" is the correct usage in this case. In the article you've linked it's used the same way: "a five-pound note", "a three-year-old child".
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Editor, Experienced player (860)
Joined: 8/12/2008
Posts: 845
Location: Québec, Canada
I'll fix all of this.
Post subject: It took me a bit
Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2656)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6449
Location: The land down under.
then I stumbled on this it's perfect image for this tas :D Still mind blown
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Editor
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris
It would be, "a Super Mario 64 TAS that collects Zero stars" or "a Zero star TAS of Super Mario 64"
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
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