Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6449
Location: The land down under.
zk547 I cannot view what you did because It's not working with desmume 0.9.8 :(
On another topic I decided to have a go at the first level, this is my first time going through the game as a whole. (I've played this game on one of my friend's DS but I do not own the game)
I manage to make my Luigi finish on the same time as Greenalink's TAS with Luigi.
Rerecords: 359
Download (Input file) Version 0.9.8.
Encoded version or you can view here:
Link to video
Edit: looks at the any% tas this is improvable btw
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
Yeah, I did the same thing, except I made two versions of 1-1. The versions differ by where I get the mushroom. Currently it's faster to get the mushroom in the underground area.
It's possible to get an in-game time of 363 in 1-1 100%. In fact in my version 1 dsm, if I could save 9 more frames I could even get 364, but I don't know where I can find the improvements to make.
I wonder how much of an impact a Small-only run would be. It would be interesting for me to try, sort of... if such a run were to be done, what would the goals be?
Small-only, or Tiny-only? :) Of course a Tiny run would have to be Small-only until a blue mushroom becomes available.
Otherwise, most of the upgrades don't really improve mobility, do they? Shell Mario can bash open some blocks that can't otherwise be broken, and Big Mario on up can break blocks with a ground pound, but otherwise nobody has an advantage, as best I can recall.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I think the goals of a small-only run would be similar to the ones the small-only run for Super Mario World does: doing as much as possible without any powerups. I would think that a small-only for New Super Mario Bros. would collect as many starcoins as possible and only spend them to open new levels, since some starcoins are impossible to get. Of course, the run would also clear as many exits as possible.
Having done both small-only and tiny-only in realtime (any%) for fun, I'd say the two categories are pretty similar (tiny-only feels slower, though).
I'd also like to suggest minimum-coins as a category (sadly, there are some obviously unavoidable coins in 8-T1, but apart from that, you can even do it warpless without collecting coins in any other level). Playing like that makes NSMB DS feel like a kaizohack rather than a regular Mario game…
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdthW4UIV_M&feature=plcp
Here's a Small-only run for reference (No powerups actually, it also avoids Stars).
In my opinion, this run isn't very fun to watch after having watched the any%, there aren't a lot of differences besides more levels. What I think would be interesting is a Mini Mario run: you'd obtain a Mini Mushroom right at the beginning (it may require starting from a saved game) and keep that form until the end, which means no deaths and no additional powerups except Stars. It'd make levels a bit more interesting with those high, floaty jumps!
Antes de una TAS:
-Malo: ¡Voy a conquistar el mundo!
-Héroe: ¡Por poco tiempo!
to Ajavalo: I saw that run before and despite it being slightly interesting, it can also be improved in some spots. As far as Mini Mario run is concerned, starting from a saved game or SRAM is not required. I'm sure that getting a Mushroom house to appear at the start after finishing W1-1 then get the Mini Mushroom and use it next level.
to ais523: I wonder... how impactful would a category like "Minimum Coins" be?
to zk547: Sounds pretty interesting. Of course, planning will be needed for that. Also do you mean every Star Coin possible in all levels? Or would you mean just enough to get more paths for more levels?
In general, I am considering taking on this task.
I mean every Star Coin possible in all levels. There is one slight problem with a small-only run, though. If you're going for no powerups at all, it means that Worlds 4 and 7 are completely inaccessible because the mini-mushroom is required to unlock those worlds.
I've attempted a no-coins run, and I can tell you that 1-T is a complete ***** to beat, because it requires the Mini Mushroom and several ridiculously precise jumps in a row before the checkpoint. It's worse if you insist that your coin counter stays at 0 the whole run though, because then you can't use the checkpoint and you have to redo the whole Tower again if you pick up a coin. It makes getting a coin significantly worse than dying.
About the unavoidable coins in 8-T1, I know for a fact that many of the walk through walls glitches from SMB3 remain intact in this game, including the one involving big Mario duck-jumping into a corner to walk through it (seen several times in Bowser's Castle). Perhaps, with TAS precision, that could be done to skip the coins in 8-T1? I'm not sure if the mechanics work the same way though.
I could have told you the same thing :) The hardest part is the area with many scattered coins between two crushers; I got it reasonably consistent using the Mini Mushroom and a walljump off the right wall (from below the one-way floor), though. I'm not completely convinced it's impossible without the Mini Mushroom (although it'd probably require TAS precision).
Fwiw, 6-1 is a level that I'm very interested in knowing whether it can be done coinless. I can't personally do it; the issue is the walljump sequence before the checkpoint. There's enough space there that it seems plausible that it's possible to work out a route, though. (It's possible to lure a Bullet Bill to the area and use it as a platform, but it doesn't give enough height to make the jump without a walljump.)
I never got to 6-1; I was trying to complete the game with warps first so that I could at least save the game any time instead of having to rely on Star Coin gates. But given that 8-T1 seems impossible or at the very least requires inhuman levels of precision... =(
"Good goal choice" might be described as "shows off a side or aspect(s) of the game that would not otherwise be seen", such as the SM64 BLJ-less run and the SMW small-only run. I think that a no-coins run could possibly fit this category. It's at least worth a shot.
^The recently rejected "No cannons" run would surely show something different, and other than that... I'd have to see a "No coins" TAS to judge it, but I don't think it'd make much difference from the any%.
Antes de una TAS:
-Malo: ¡Voy a conquistar el mundo!
-Héroe: ¡Por poco tiempo!
No coins is a pretty acrobatic category; it's rather slower than the regular category, and spends a lot of time in Mini Mushroom form (smallest hitbox + most manoeuvrability). It'd look quite different from the existing run as a result.
How would it compare to a tiny-only run? It seems to me that there's room for roughly 3 runs of the game: any%, 100%, and some kind of challenge run which is ideally as different as possible from the other two.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
It'd be quite similar to tiny-only, but have more variety; there are a few levels that can't be done coinless tiny-only, but can be done with the help of other power-ups (2-3 main exit, for instance, requires either a flower or shell to kill the big piranha plant, as Mini Mario can't jump over it without collecting a coin). (When I was doing coinless on the console, I did it with no cannons, and no alt exits except in world 7 which requires one, because it gave what I thought was the most interesting route; I guess a max% coinless might be still more interesting, though.)
NSMB has the advantage over games like SMW that you can't just fly over every level, so there's quite a lot of ground-based play on any%/100%. So small-only makes a less interesting challenge category than it does in some other games. No-coins isn't ideal (especially because of 8-T1), but it's the best one I know of so far; maybe someone will think up a better one.
Any NSMBDS TASers out there, I'm really interested in whether 6-1 is possible no-coins, btw; it's probably TAS-only if it is.
This probably sums up my feelings to non coin/ring runs.
They are slow any% runs with one or two sections in the entire game that require a strat that is more than 'go slow.' Those one or two levels make perfect 1 minute Youtube videos or concept demos. Not really worth the slow any% 10+ minute long filler to see couple of 'neat the first time you see them' gimicks.
And whilst I would like to be proved wrong, I would like to see the 100% run more.
In such case, "No cannons" seems the best choice to me. Otherwise, a Mini Mario-only run would also be nice to see IMO, his floaty jumps could be used for some awesome tricks!
Antes de una TAS:
-Malo: ¡Voy a conquistar el mundo!
-Héroe: ¡Por poco tiempo!
"No cannons" is a strict subset of 100%, and thus not IMO interesting (assuming of course we get a 100% run). The actual gameplay in the levels needs to be significantly modified for the third run.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
This is actually mostly incorrect; no-cannons has no incentive to pick up Star Coins (which exist in every level), 100% does. However, the difference may still not be enough.
Something that would look very different would be a shell-only run that actually uses the shell whenever possible. Sadly, if you have the shell, actually using it is slower than deliberately manipulating it not to trigger…