This is the first Yoshi's Island 100% TAS; it completes the entire game in less than 2 hours!
Nearly 8 years ago Spezzafer first attempted make this Tool Assisted Speedrun, but despite his efforts, his WIP was eventually discontinued at the start of level 4-3. However, his work was not in vain: his action-packed, exciting run showed what great potential the game had and inspired new TASers to give this run a try. In 2009, Baxter and NxCy picked up the project from scratch. After reaching level 3-3, walljumping was discovered, obsoleting most of the run. At the same time, a plethora of new tricks had been found for the earlier levels, ultimately tempting us to take the run back to 1-6 for a second version. Progress was fairly slow, but the pace picked up significantly when Carl Sagan joined the team while we were redoing level 2-2. After years of hard work, we finally managed to finish this project. We used well over a million rerecords for the making of this movie. This is not accurately reflected in the 868307 rerecords attached to the movie file as many rerecords are lost when doing tests, planning routes, and due to working on the TAS with multiple people in general, as only the fastest version is taken. The actual number of rerecords could be as high as twice the number that is shown. These rerecords were not only used for optimizing the TAS as much as possible, but also to make it as entertaining as possible. A hidden help box in 3-2 has the following message: "We, the mario team poured our hearts and souls into creating this game for your entertainment. It is full of secrets.” (
Link1,
Link2) We wanted to make a TAS that fully shows off all of the excitement, color, and complexity that Yoshi's Island has to offer, and hope everyone enjoys watching!
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43 rerecording v18
- 100% completion
- At the end of every level, the game gives you a score based on how many stars, red coins and flowers you collected in the level. There are 20 red coins and 5 flowers per level, hidden at fixed locations. These two items are merely collectibles and serve no real function other than being required for maximum score. Stars fuel Yoshi's health: the timer that counts down when Yoshi is hit is increased by 1 unit per star and is capped at 30. There are fixed locations in levels for bundles of stars, such as star clouds and middle rings, but stars can be gotten from various enemies and objects by firing red eggs at them. Red eggs are created whenever a regular green egg ricochets off of at least two surfaces. Each star and red coin is worth 1 point and a flower is worth 10 points, meaning a maximum of 100 points can be scored in a level. There are 6 worlds in the game, each with 8 levels. If all 8 levels in a world are completed with a score of 100, an extra level is unlocked in that world. The goal of 100% is to complete all 54 levels in the game with 100 points.
- Note: it is possible to collect more than 20 red coins and 5 flowers in a some levels by using 1-1 warps or duplication red coins. There is also a level, 3-E, with 21 red coins and a level, 5-7, with 6 flowers. The game will not give you more than 100 points per level, so in these instances where more can be collected, we collect the minimum required for a score of 100 points.
- Takes damage to save time
- Uses a game restart sequence
- After beating the 8th level of a world for the first time, a cutscene occurs where the game shows your scores for each level in that world, unlocks the extra level if you have 100% in every level (always the case in this run), and shows Yoshi destroying a castle on the island screen before progressing to the next world. We skip all of this by resetting the game after the score tally screen for the 8th level, which saves a decent amount of time; over 20 seconds per world transition. Another good reason to use resets is that the game’s randomness is also reset, which means that any changes made before a reset will not influence the randomness later on. In particular this allowed us to redo parts of 2-8 and the entirety of 4-8 without affecting the rest of the run.
- Forgoes warps
- There is a glitch in Yoshi’s Island where pressing left + right on the same frame at the level select screen causes the game to read your current number of coins when determining which level it should take you to. This trick is the basis of the ‘glitched any%’ category, where 68 coins are collected and the player then warps to 6-8. In theory this would allow for complex level routes, as it may be beneficial to warp to a stage later in the game if your current number of eggs is better suited for that level. However, this then forces the TASer to plan when and how many coins are collected throughout the game on top of stars and eggs. It may also be beneficial to use eggs to collect coins faster, which adds to the complexity. Moreover, it may not even be possible to abuse this trick, as beating later levels early can mess up the level select screen, disallowing you to return to previous worlds in some cases. To avoid any of this trouble we simply banned any use of left + right warping. Perhaps a more important reason (depending on your point of view) is that warping breaks the natural flow of the game and may detract from the run’s entertainment value.
- Forgoes time-saving glitches
- In the game there are various ways to move between screens, such as pipes or hidden warps (e.g. 3-7 in the trees). The levels in the game are essentially giant grids of squares, and each square may have 1 exit assigned to it. If you trigger a screen transition (such as by going down a pipe) inside a square you will go to the square’s designated exit. However some screen exit triggers overlap other grid squares which do not have an exit assigned to them. Therefore, if you activate a trigger in an unintentional way, e.g. by being too high from a pipeglitch or landing on a warp from above instead of below, it’s possible to trigger a screen transition while inside a square with no exit. When this happens the game decides to take you to 1-1 at the top left, (0,0) coordinates. You can then go ahead and beat 1-1 and it will count as beating the original level. This trick can be done in a handful of levels and is usually faster than beating the level normally. However, we decided to ban this trick, as playing 1-1 over and over again may quickly become repetitive. It’s also the case that some of the levels which are skipped are interesting levels with cool tricks and routes. We disallowed this with the intent of producing the most entertaining run possible (in our and the forum majority’s opinions when we asked), and this restriction is also consistent with modern RTAs.
- Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs
- The final restriction we made is on the 1/1 running trick, named after 1/1 swimming in SMW. This trick basically makes Yoshi run slightly faster than normal at the cost of alternating between pressing < and > every frame. The problem with this is that whenever you lick eggs you must release < and > on the dpad or you will lose speed. Only licks that occur for 1 frame are possible without any speed loss. This severely limits the entertainment possibilities, as modern Yoshi’s Island has become all about cool egg shots and juggling things. The constant wobbling may also be irksome for some. Rather than arbitrarily losing time on cool egg shots, we decided to simply ban this trick outright. Note that this also applies to other input sequences that can be repeated constantly to obtain a higher average speed than 767 subpixels per frame (1/1ing is just the prime example). As before, we disallowed this with entertainment in mind, and the frames lost from not using this trick are hardly visible anyway. This is the only time speed was sacrificed for entertainment.
- Genre: Platform
Note that all of these restrictions were chosen while keeping the entertainment value of the run in mind. We consulted the forum to hear other people’s opinions about the different options, and took those into account. You might have preferred slightly different restrictions yourself, but we cannot satisfy everyone at the same time. In hindsight, we are very happy with the choices we made.
Tricks, Glitches and Techniques
Walljumps
If Yoshi moves faster than 3 pixels on a frame while extremely close to a wall, it is possible to move far enough into the wall for the game to put Yoshi as ‘standing on the ground’ for a frame. On this frame you can jump. Normal running speeds are too slow for this to occur (~760 subpixels per frame), but by pressing left for a frame you can get a speed boost for a frame, usually to around ~800 subpixels/frame.By carefully controlling Yoshi’s speed, you can make the frame with the high speed occur very close to the wall and get the trick. Walljumps are also only possible at ‘tile’ boundaries, i.e. every 16 pixels vertically. It is possible to chain many wall jumps by fluttering in between consecutive ones. You have to move far enough away from the wall to be able to accelerate back to a speed higher than your average running speed, and fluttering preserves height during this motion.
Shooting Through Walls
If an egg is fired on the walljump frame (traveling >3 pixels into the wall), it can pass through a one-block thick wall. This generally only works from the right side of the wall (as in 2-2, 4-E, and elsewhere), but for objects very near to the wall it still works from the left side (as in 3-7). An egg can however not completely go through the wall when shot from the left side of a wall.
Special Angles
When you start an eggshot, Yoshi’s aiming cursor cycles through a predetermined set of values. When starting at the bottom, it starts from the value 1024 and goes up by steps of 192 until it reaches the highest value of 11776. If you start aiming while pressing up, you will start at 11776 and the angle goes down by steps of 192. However, when going down, after reaching 1024,it keeps going down all the way to 0. After reaching 0, it goes up in steps of 192 again, but 1024 is not in the table of 192, so this time, the cycle will go through a completely different set of angles. These angles, which are accessed only by letting the angle run down from the highest angle to 0 are called the special angles. Thus the lowest possible egg angle, and other different angles, are only achievable using this method.
Arrow Teleport
If Yoshi jumps and eats a rotating arrow lift on the same frame, then Yoshi will warp on top of it when the arrow lift is spit out, as long as Yoshi is directly underneath it. Note that jumping and eating the lift on the same frame is only possible when the lift has certain angles, which is why a small wait is sometimes required before this glitch is pulled off. This glitch can be used to gain vertical distance quickly in areas with arrow lifts, such as 2-8, 4-4, and 5-8.
Pipeglitch
Normally, when you push down to enter a vertical pipe, Yoshi does an animation showing him climbing into the pipe, and after that animation is done the next screen loads. If you push down + jump on the same frame, Yoshi still goes down the pipe, but this animation is skipped, saving just under 30 frames. Note that this glitch also works for the non-pipe room transitions in level 4-E. This is also the glitch that causes Yoshi to warp back to level 1-1. Since we use the restriction of not warping back to 1-1 in this TAS, we avoid doing the pipeglitch at pipes where doing the glitch results in going back to 1-1.
Gatehack
There are many one-way gates in Yoshi’s Island that can be opened backwards through various means. A horizontal gate with a ceiling can be opened with an egg angled upwards if fired on the right frame. Additionally, any horizontal gate can be opened when certain enemies are spit into the gate. Finally, vertical gates can be opened by falling ‘dead’ eggs: after an egg ricochets a 4th time, it becomes untonguable and falls offscreen. It can however still push gates open like this, as is done in 2-1.
Shell Invulnerability
Yoshi is unable to be hit for a few frames after bouncing off of a koopa shell. This is exploited to get around the spike balls in 4-8.
Sprite Overload
The on-screen sprite limit is both a blessing and a curse in Yoshi’s Island. Because there are so many sprites that are easy to create such as stars, it is very easy to hit the sprite limit and cause new sprites to despawn. This is used in many places throughout the run to intentionally despawn enemies or objects that might slow Yoshi down, and also must be avoided in certain areas to prevent necessary items from despawning, i.e. 3-E. A red coin that despawned in level 1-5 was the reason why over half of the level had to be redone.
Perfect Flutter
By varying the number of frames jump is held and the delay before repressing jump, flutters can be significantly altered to be quicker or higher. There are many locations throughout the game that are just a few pixels out of each. Repeated fluttering is one method of many that can be used to gain enough height to access these areas.
Wall Spit
Normally, enemies spit at walls simply bounce off and Yoshi is unable to bounce off of them. However, if spit into the wall with the right speed/position, they catch the edge like a walljump and can be bounced on. This can be used to gain large amounts of vertical distance.
Slope Speed Change
When run on, slopes in general tend to slow Yoshi down. By just pressing left or right, Yoshi’s acceleration is always a multiple of 8 subpixels/frame^2. When holding one direction for a long time, Yoshi’s maximum speed is 760 on average, as it is cut off when going over 3 pixels per frame, which is 768 subpixels per frame. Slopes can however slow Yoshi down by numbers that do no have to be a multiple of 8, which means that Yoshi’s average speed when jumping off a slope can reach a value as high as 767 subpixels per frame. At this speed, you save about a frame every 100 frames compared to just moving at 760 subpixels/frame.
Offscreen Despawn
Most sprites despawn quickly when offscreen, and in the case of flowers, they don’t load off screen at all. This often makes camera positioning very important for collecting coins and flowers. Additionally, certain undesirable sprites can be left off screen intentionally to avoid having to deal with them, such as falling rocks or the trigger which causes a room to autoscroll like the third room of level 6-5 or level 1-E.
Looking up
When pressing up long enough, Yoshi will look upwards and the screen position scrolls upwards a bit. When Yoshi jumps during the scrolling of the screen, Yoshi will keep its position relative to the screen, meaning that a good portion above Yoshi is revealed. This for instance enables you to spawn and shoot the red coins in the 1-7 cloud room, and avoid having to use the beanstalk to access these coins.
Tonguing Through Walls
Yoshi’s tongue can naturally pass through many walls and objects. This can be used to acquire items, such as the key in 6-6, through the wall.
Tongue Turnaround
When Yoshi’s tongue hits a wall, it can cause him to come to an immediate stop. This is quite often the fastest way to turn around, as simply holding the opposite direction only gradually slows Yoshi down.
Facing Backwards Without Losing Time
The input <>>< can be used to face backwards without losing any time. This is used when an egg needs to be shot backwards, or when juggling eggs.
Red Coin Duplication
Flying shyguys carrying red coins can be used to duplicate red coins. This trick only works on the flyguys that stay on the screen, not the ones that fly in and leave. For it to work, you need to do the following: tongue the shyguy without picking up the red coin, spit out the shyguy so that it rolls offscreen, out of sight. Go to the side so that the place where the shyguy was flying in the first place is offscreen. When you turn back, a new shyguy, holding a red coin will have spawned, allowing you to pick up the same red coin again. Note that this trick does not work if you pick up the red coin beforehand or if you swallow or destroy the shyguy. Because the red coin on the ground will disappear after a short while, it is not possible to do this trick as often as you like on a single red coin carrying shyguy. Also note that it takes a bit of time to set up the duplication, and thus it is generally only used when a red coin or two would require going into an entirely separate room in the level. As mentioned before, obtaining more than 20 red coins does not score you any extra points when you finish the level. If you collect 20 or more red coins in a level you are simply awarded with 20 points.
Quick Ground Pound
Objects such as crates and posts can be ground pounded slightly faster by being as close to the object as possible when initiating the ground pound. The groundpound hits while Yoshi is still spinning around.
Offscreen Pot Break
The pot which contains a key in 1-4 can be broken immediately by an offscreen eggshot. This then causes the key to fly in the direction Yoshi is facing. Unfortunately, the same trick does not work on the 2-8 pot.
Baxter
Fondly named after its inventor, the Baxter is a method of flinging eggs over the goal ring to be picked up by the next Yoshi. This can also be pulled off when playing the game in real time, but it requires some skill. Because of this, the trick became a popular way of showing off skill during a speedrun, and it gained popularity. The speedrunner Trihex started calling the trick a “Baxter”, which is the name it is now commonly known by. It spawned a series of useful tricks mentioned below.
Key Baxter
Keys, like eggs, can be flung over a goal ring to the next Yoshi. This allows you to start the next level with a key and save the time to pick up the key in that level. In this TAS, this is only done in 2-3, as the requirements are quite specific: since you have to bring the key beyond the goal ring without collecting it (if you collected it, the key will vanish when hitting the goal ring), the key must be in the last room of the level. It is obviously also a requirement that a key is needed in the next level and that taking the key with you in this last room takes less time than actually collecting it in the next level. The latter was, for instance, not the case for taking a key from 4-7 in to 4-8.
Star Baxter
Stars can also be collected by the next Yoshi after beating a level. This makes certain stars accessible that would be otherwise impossible to obtain quickly such as the stars from the final flower in level 3-E.
Chicken Baxter
It is also possible to take Huffin Puffins (colloquially known as chickens) with you from one level to the next. If you aim a chicken, pushing Y will cancel your aiming. When this is done just before hitting the goal ring, it is possible that baby mario will take it to the next Yoshi like a regular egg. Normally, they fly away upon hitting the goal ring. Because these chickens are not meant to be taken to different levels, they are given random sprites in levels where they do not belong.
There are several autoscroll triggers that can be skipped. 1-E is normally a fairly long autoscroller. However, walljumping up the left wall and then bouncing across the flying bats lets Yoshi skip the trigger to begin the autoscroll, and complete the level at full speed. This same principle applies to the ending room of 6-5, but unfortunately was not possible for levels that begin with the autoscroll activated, as in 1-5, 5-6, and the first two rooms of 6-5.
Melon Bug Boost
Melon bugs have the interesting property of setting Yoshi’s speed to their own when Yoshi collides with one. If Yoshi spits out a melon bug, it will go faster than normal maximum movement speed. If he then collides with the bug, he will get this speed boost. If Yoshi quickly grabs the bug again he can then spit it out even faster. This can be repeated over and over to achieve incredibly high speeds, allowing Yoshi to pass through walls as in 4-5.
Enemy Height Boost
If Yoshi barely jumps over an enemy without colliding with it, it is possible to gain a few pixels of height because the game forces Yoshi up slightly. Using this height boost off a fallow spring in 4-3 allowed us to gain enough height for a walljump.
Moving platforms add to Yoshi’s speed up to a certain amount in the direction they are moving. This means that you can jump really high off of platforms moving vertically, and move really fast when jumping off of horizontal platforms. The maximum speed obtainable from a red platform is around 2,000 subpixels/frame (almost 3 times normal max speed).
Train Track Glitch
If the train lands directly on the starting tracks while holding left or right, it is possible to glitch off of the tracks. Since the tracks confine the train, it can be faster to do this, as in 2-8 and 5-8.
Ducking Fall
Yoshi’s hitbox becomes smaller when he ducks. Thus, if you duck while falling off of a ledge, it is possible to pass underneath a ceiling more quickly than would otherwise be possible.
Slow fall
Holding B slows Yoshi’s descent up to the maximum fall speed. This allows extra long jumps to be made if held after fluttering (or canceling a flutter).
Bottom of The Goal Ring
If Yoshi hits the bottom of the goal ring, the level ends a few frames sooner as it takes less time for the next Yoshi to grab baby mario and exit the screen.
Ground Pound Door Entry
Yoshi must be touching the ground in order to enter a door. When jumping up from below, ground pounding to touch the floor allows Yoshi to enter a door more quickly.
Carrying More than 6 Eggs
Normally Yoshi can only carry at most 6 eggs. If Yoshi is aiming an egg, it does not count to his total, and so he may pick up a new egg and have 6 in reserve as well as the one currently being aimed. If the shot is cancelled an egg is lost, however. Additionally, eggs/enemies may be juggled across a level and eaten/collected at a later point when we have more room to carry eggs.
Swag
The most important trick in Yoshi’s Island: juggling eggs and enemies and doing tons of crazy eggshots. This tantalizes Trihex into trying to incorporate ever-increasingly ridiculous swag in real time, thus ruining his speedruns.
Level Times
While there was no previously published movie in this category, we were able to compare our progress to some WIPs and test movies. These movies were very helpful for managing the number of eggs and stars throughout each level, to provide us with ideas, and to have something to compete with. These were the movies we compared with:
Note that you will need the (J) v1.2 ROM for Zvsp’s smv files.
Here is the complete list of our level times compared to Spezzafer’s and Zvsp’s movie:
| Level | Our Time | Spezzafer’s /
Zvsp’s Time | Difference |
|---|
| 1-1 | 00:39.12 | 00:43.66 | 00:04.54 |
| 1-2 | 00:42.88 | 00:44.64 | 00:01.76 |
| 1-3 | 00:47.52 | 00:51.20 | 00:03.68 |
| 1-4 | 01:51.38 | 01:56.16 | 00:04.78 |
| 1-5 | 02:28.09 | 02:28.17 | 00:00.08 |
| 1-6 | 01:21.12 | 01:28.87 | 00:07.75 |
| 1-7 | 00:43.98 | 00:55.81 | 00:11.83 |
| 1-8 | 01:44.26 | 01:56.87 | 00:12.61 |
| 2-1 | 01:46.16 | 01:11.03 | 00:35.13 |
| 2-2 | 01:37.94 | 02:00.85 | 00:22.91 |
| 2-3 | 01:16.62 | 01:18.97 | 00:02.35 |
| 2-4 | 02:06.79 | 02:35.71 | 00:28.92 |
| 2-5 | 01:10.53 | 01:35.78 | 00:25.24 |
| 2-6 | 01:16.67 | 01:24.89 | 00:08.22 |
| 2-7 | 01:47.11 | 02:01.25 | 00:14.14 |
| 2-8 | 03:23.60 | 03:38.19 | 00:14.59 |
| 3-1 | 01:00.52 | 01:02.73 | 00:02.21 |
| 3-2 | 00:36.31 | 00:43.11 | 00:06.81 |
| 3-3 | 02:20.70 | 02:24.71 | 00:04.01 |
| 3-4 | 03:15.43 | 03:23.28 | 00:07.85 |
| 3-5 | 00:50.32 | 00:51.18 | 00:00.87 |
| 3-6 | 00:54.26 | 01:12.60 | 00:18.34 |
| 3-7 | 01:44.56 | 01:51.88 | 00:07.32 |
| 3-8 | 01:43.46 | 01:48.11 | 00:04.64 |
| 4-1 | 01:24.18 | 01:34.99 | 00:10.82 |
| 4-2 | 01:15.43 | 01:18.52 | 00:03.09 |
| 4-3 | 01:11.00 | | |
| 4-4 | 03:22.22 | | |
| 4-5 | 00:58.80 | | |
| 4-6 | 01:14.64 | | |
| 4-7 | 00:45.62 | | |
| 4-8 | 02:16.61 | | |
| 5-1 | 01:18.04 | | |
| 5-2 | 01:00.58 | | |
| 5-3 | 02:22.68 | | |
| 5-4 | 02:52.08 | | |
| 5-5 | 01:23.55 | 01:27.27 | 00:03.73 |
| 5-6 | 03:37.41 | 03:39.42 | 00:02.01 |
| 5-7 | 01:11.82 | 01:31.53 | 00:19.72 |
| 5-8 | 02:27.22 | 02:46.81 | 00:19.58 |
| 6-1 | 01:14.61 | 01:16.06 | 00:01.45 |
| 6-2 | 01:09.10 | 01:11.52 | 00:02.41 |
| 6-3 | 00:43.98 | 00:44.86 | 00:00.88 |
| 6-4 | 03:07.71 | 03:11.28 | 00:03.58 |
| 6-5 | 04:57.04 | 04:57.68 | 00:00.63 |
| 6-6 | 01:19.24 | 01:27.59 | 00:08.35 |
| 6-7 | 02:03.78 | 02:09.24 | 00:05.46 |
| 6-8 | 04:32.38 | 04:39.69 | 00:07.30 |
| 1-E | 00:27.35 | 00:36.19 | 00:08.84 |
| 2-E | 00:33.86 | 00:34.63 | 00:00.77 |
| 3-E | 00:16.91 | 00:24.43 | 00:07.52 |
| 4-E | 01:33.46 | 01:58.82 | 00:25.36 |
| 5-E | 01:44.94 | 01:49.02 | 00:04.08 |
| 6-E | 01:39.00 | 01:44.49 | 00:05.49 |
Notes
- The level times were measured from the first input frame of a level (when the “10 appears) to the frame where Yoshi does his throwing animation when hitting the goal ring. For levels with a boss, the time stops the first frame that the boss explosion can be heard. This is the same method of timing as used in the non-toolassisted individual level runs. Note that this method of timing does for instance not account for time saved compared to Spezzafer in between levels due to going through the goal ring at a lower position, or due to resetting the game in between worlds.
- The time difference for level 2-1 is negative because Spezzafer finished this level faster than we did. Spezzafer used a 1-1 warp in this level, and we do not use any 1-1 warps in our TAS. See the Game Objectives section of this submission text for more information about this restriction.
- In levels 5-5 to 5-8, Zvsp used 1/1ing to obtain a higher average speed than 767 which allowed him to save some frames here and there compared to us. We decided against using 1/1ing for reasons explained in the Game Objectives section of this submission text.
- There are no level time comparisons for the levels 4-3 to 5-4 because we had no input files for these levels to compare to.
Here we present the more notable moments in each level. We will often refer to particular tricks or glitches in this section. For a detailed explanation of these tricks, please see the “Tricks, glitches and techniques”-section of this submission text. A more in-depth, level by level analysis will be done in the form of an audio commentary, which will be found here later.
1-1: Make Eggs, Throw Eggs
A precise extended flutter followed by a perfect flutter can be done from the shy guy on the rock to reach the top area at the start of the level. We have to wait a little bit for him to walk to the top of the rock to get enough height. Creating red eggs and using them for stars is generally the fastest way to obtain 30 stars, as it allows us to skip clouds and middle rings. This will be seen throughout the run, but on 1-1 in particular we are able to skip the secret cloud at the cliff climbing section.
1-2: Watch Out Below!
A straightforward level. We skip the helicopter by using some flutters. This is the first level where we do the pipeglitch, which skips the animation of Yoshi going in to the pipe, saving nearly half a second.
1-3: The Cave of Chomp Rock
A technical level that demonstrates the use of eggs to pick up flowers and red coins at the very edge of the screen. A lot of things in this game are collected out of sight; be sure to listen out for the sound of red coins and flowers. In general if you see a random shot fly off into the void it’s to collect flowers/coins.
1-4: Burt the Bashful's Fort
In the first room of this level, we take a total of 7 eggs with us. Yoshi can only carry 6 eggs; a 7th egg is juggled so that we can pick it up later when an egg slot frees up. We shoot the pot off-screen to break it early. The key will fly in the direction Yoshi is facing, so we look to the left as it breaks.
1-5: Hop! Hop! Donut Lifts
The first autoscroller of the run. Due to a sprite overload, a red coin near the beginning despawned, which we only noticed later on in the level, meaning we had to redo most of the level. We saved a few frames by having a good x-position at the end of the level, but other than that there is not much to say as far as speed goes. We did spent a lot of time trying to make this level as entertaining as possible.
1-6: Shy Guys on Stilts
The first door in this level can be opened sooner by the use of a ground pound. It is faster to shoot the red coins after finishing the mole section, rather than picking them up as the mole. We collect a bunch of extra eggs in this level. These are all needed to speed up 1-7 and 1-8. We needed a lot of red eggs going into level 1-7 in order to skip the middle ring, which ultimately lead to the discovery of the so-called Baxter shot, where an egg is juggled past the goal ring and collected by the next Yoshi. In general, a lot of time was spent finding the fastest route across multiple levels taking into account the number of eggs available, their color, the number of stars, etc.
1-7: Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy
A lot happens in this level in a short period of time. We use a lot of red eggs to get 30 stars, skipping the middle ring. Collecting the melon also saves some eggs. In the sky room we shoot all the red coins from the ground. Looking up is required to scroll the camera up far enough so that the coins may be hit. Shooting eggs from specific positions at a precise angle allowed us to collect the 4 red coins by only using 2 eggs. Normally you are supposed to push a rock to unveil a beanstalk, which you then use to climb up to the clouds.
1-8: Salvo the Slime's Castle
Wall jumps allow us to navigate the water room very quickly. The strategy for Salvo uses one of the enemies that spawns, intended for you to refill your eggs with. Spitting this enemy directly into Salvo enabled us to continuously damage the boss, which results in a very fast kill.
2-1: Visit Koopa and Para-Koopa
A vertical gatehack completely skips the baby mario section. We ride Poochy briefly as he runs faster than Yoshi. This level features a wrong warp that puts you further ahead in the same level. We use a pipeglitch after the Poochy room to warp straight into the autoscroller. It is possible to do a continuous flutter underneath a falling block. Near the end we use this to preserve an extended flutter underneath a block to stay low enough to shoot the flower, and then used the extended flutter to climb up the block.
2-2: The Baseball Boys
By using a combination of wall jumps and extended flutters we managed to climb the first part of this level very fast. The second room features the first use of shooting through walls, which allowed us to skip the leftmost part of that room. With a sequence of very precise shots it is possible to shoot all the red coins in the mole area, completely skipping the mole.
2-3: What's Gusty Taste Like?
A mostly straightforward level, with a lot of interesting egg shots to keep things going at full speed. It is faster to avoid picking up the Baby Mario Star. The final room also features the sole key Baxter of the run. We collect this key by tonguing it through a wall.
2-4: The Bigger Boo's Fort
Having the key from 2-3 saves a huge amount of time, as it skips a large detour necessary to get the intended key. We also use a gatehack to skip the intended detour of a later room.
2-5: Watch Out for Lakitu
This is an action-packed level with many enemies lying around to play with. Ground pounding into the shell cancels the otherwise inescapable pounding animation, allowing us to break the crate above the pit rather than pushing it forward first. With a long chain of walljumps we completely skip having to use the train. The final room is a great example of how the TAS can run through a complicated section and collect everything without losing much time.
2-6: The Cave of the Mystery Maze
A big trick early on here involves throwing an egg down and slowly following it. The egg flies past where a gate normally exists, as we delay scrolling the camera to spawn the gate after the egg has gone by it. The egg then picks up the red coins behind the gate. This saves a very large amount of time, and this gate cannot be gatehacked, as there is no ceiling to do the typical egg shot at. Note that egg shots through a 1-tile thick wall only work from the right side to the left, which means that the red coins at the top left of the large cave room have to be collected using the intended method.
2-7: Lakitu's Wall
The first use of red coin duplication in the run appears early on here and it saves a lot of time. We pick up 2 extra red coins to skip the ones in the pole near the 2nd flower, and a huge pole later on. There are red coins inside the area the huge pole encloses, so we shoot these through the pole on the right side. We also despawn the cannons early on to be able to ground pound the poles they guard uninterrupted. In the final room we skip the car by climbing on top of the help box. We also spent a lot of time planning the egg route for this level, as many eggs are needed in 2-8.
2-8: The Potted Ghost's Castle
In the first room, we jump off moving platform on the first frame, which provides a boost in the y-speed, allowing us to jump over the middle ring. Arrow teleportation massively speeds up the large spike room in this castle. This level also features one of the run’s 2 train tricks. On the way back from the train room we warp at the lower pipe rather than entering the normal pipe. This is another case where a wrong warp puts you further ahead in the same level. We enter the vase room with the largest number of eggs possible to shoot the vase with, as this is much faster than just pushing it. More arrow teleportation near the end gives this level a quick finish. In the boss we walljump over and push him from the right side, which is significantly faster than the intended method. When pushing him to the left, Yoshi slowly moves through the pot and will eventually be ejected to the left. To avoid this we occasionally duck.
3-1: Welcome to Monkey World!
We manipulated a monkey to serve as a platform at the start of the vertical climb in the second room. Walljumping also speeds up the climb quite a bit. Taking damage at the end of the level is equally fast as ducking, so naturally, we went with taking damage.
3-2: Jungle Rhythm...
Walljumping and shooting through walls greatly help the vertical part of this level and turned this relatively short stage into a big time saver. Due to lack of things to shoot for stars in this level, we had to end this level with a star Baxter which, besides just looking nice, was also the best strategy for this level.
3-3: Nep-Enut's Domain
It is actually rather tricky to collect the submarine bubble when falling down the hole. Using a ducking fall and the right acceleration enabled us to collect it this way. It is faster to take damage during the submarine section than to wait for the rotating blade to pass. The eggshot through a narrow opening above the water was one of the hardest eggshots in the entire game to get while minimizing slowdown. It took many hours to get.
3-4: Prince Froggy's Fort
There is an unavoidable middle ring in the final room of this level, meaning it is ideal to get as many stars as possible before touching it, to minimise the ring time. Having 29 stars instead of 30 is only a single frame slower; often less than or equal to the cost of manipulating a final star to be collectible anyway. The damage the boss takes per hit varies greatly, and with some careful control we managed to beat him in only 5 hits.
3-5: Jammin' Through the Trees
Not a lot to say here. This level is short but sweet.
3-6: The Cave of Harry Hedgehog
Shooting through walls skips the mole entirely, saving lots of time. The shot to collect all red coins is very precise, which is why this was the place where we discovered special angles. We didn’t end up using them here though. For 1 frame you can jump off a falling p-switch without activating it. In the secret room we use this to get enough height to shoot the flower.
3-7: Monkeys' Favorite Lake
We pick up the flower in the enclosure in the 2nd room with a wall shot. Eggs won’t go through walls when moving to the right, but they seem to go far enough to pick up the flower, which itself is sitting slightly inside the wall.
3-8: Naval Piranha's Castle
Simply by slowing down enough, it is possible to pass through the fish in the first room without being eaten. Shooting the big ghosts just off-screen hits them while they’re still growing. By doing this it’s possible to make them small enough to jump over in just 1 shot. Some walljumps avoid having to enter the water near the end. At the boss we use the famous quick kill easter egg.
4-1: GO! GO! MARIO!!
It is very well hidden, but if you pay close attention, you will notice that a red coin is duplicated in this level. This red coin is used to skip the Baby Mario section of this level. Also note how we use a bullet to get a big vertical as a small timesaver.
4-2: The Cave of the Lakitus
We use some very precise egg shots to avoid having to go up to the flower near the POW-block. Also note that a lakitu is spit off-screen in order to avoid a sprite overload which caused a red coin to despawn. We saved time in the falling room by using special angles and doing a ground pound when possible. Near the end, both arrows are hit roughly at the same time so that the egg’s path after hitting an arrow is only shown once.
4-3: Don't Look Back!
This level starts out by aiming an egg for quite some time, which is done to carry 7 eggs around. In the helicopter section, we use walljumps to gain enough height to spawn and shoot the red coins, skipping the helicopter. It is possible to shoot some of the red coins in this room from outside the room, through the wall, but unfortunately not all of them. With a lot of planning, we managed to get enough stars from shooting enemies to avoid having to use the middle ring.
4-4: Marching Milde's Fort
By using walljumps, we avoid having to watch the staircloud animations. This level required quite a bit of planning, since the four keys can be obtained in any order. The amount of eggs was a big factor in the order we choose as you cannot carry as many eggs when you are also carrying around the keys. In this level a large number of previously mentioned tricks are all used in quick succession, such as arrow teleports, walljumps, shots through walls and so on. The boss is shot across the room to minimize the number of ground pounds needed.
4-5: Chomp Rock Zone
An entire room is skipped by duplicating red coins. Then this level takes a very different turn from other Yoshi’s Island levels. A trick was discovered by ArneTheGreat to use melon bugs to achieve high speeds (see trick section for details). This was used to pass through walls and move through the end of the first room very quickly. Notice at the very end, the melon bug bounces back and knocks Yoshi into the wall, allowing for a walljump up to the final area. It is faster to use a chomp rock trick to reach the end of the second room, but unfortunately we cannot get enough stars while doing it, so it was not used in the end. To collect the final flower, an egg is first through to stun the pitcher, keeping him out of the way for a second egg to hit the flower.
4-6: Lake Shore Paradise
A wallshot at the start skips having to swim to get access to a coin. This level duplicates a lot of red coins to skip an entire cave room just before the final room. At the end, a star baxter is used to collect the final two stars.
4-7: Ride Like the Wind
Shells, unlike other things in the game, can be bounced on after ricocheted off of a wall. This, in conjunction with walljumps, are used to skip directly over the top of the level in the first room. We had a lot of difficulty managing all of the stars in this level, while still getting enough eggs. Eventually, we managed to skip the middle ring and while having enough eggs to collect everything else. An eggshot opens the horizontal gate from behind at the start of the last room, and the huffin puffin is transferred to the next Yoshi for use in 4-8.
4-8: Hookbill the Koopa's Castle
The spike balls are passed through using the invincibility frames granted by bouncing off of a koopa shell. The last one is respawned favorably so that Yoshi can barely squeak by under it. We skip several staircases in the 2nd room using offscreen eggshots that collect two red coins. Normally a middle ring blocks the crate containing the key, but we spawn a lot of stars to despawn the middle ring. The boss was the reason we brought the chicken from 4-7. Instead of having to fire multiple eggs at him to make him fall on his back, the chicken makes this happen immediately.
5-1: BLIZZARD!!!
This level features a bunch of red coin duplication to skip 2 side rooms. There’s a trick near the end of the first room where we keep the camera quite low as we climb up. This prevents a chomp rock from spawning too soon and blocking our path. An enemy wall spit is also used in the 2nd room to climb the area faster.
5-2: Ride the Ski Lifts
Interestingly, there is an egg hidden on top of a single piece of foam above the screen at the very start of the level. A ground pound makes the egg spout give many eggs at once, which was needed as there are very few enemies to eat in this level. Near the end, we turn around instantly by falling into the side of the penguin. Finally, a very precise flutter allows us to reach the final penguin sooner.
5-3: Danger - Icy Conditions Ahead
At the start of this level, we use a big flutter in combination with a walljump to go over the top of the screen, avoiding fluttering over the water. Due to the lack of things to shoot, we have to take the middle ring in this level. Using it turns the two enemies into the final two required stars. Then there is lots of skiing, which is optimized solely by jumping on the right frames.
5-4: Sluggy the Unshaven's Fort
We use a combination of walljumps and extended flutters to navigate this castle very quickly. Shooting the blue spikes saves time at the cost of some eggs, as otherwise we would have to flutter over them. One of the two big tricks in this level is skipping the middle floor entirely at the section with the staircases. Normally you are supposed to take a fairly long detour and pick up 2 red coins, but we get these by duplicating red coins in the long ghost room. After fluttering up to the top floor, we keep the screen low with perfect jumps to prevent an otherwise unavoidable middle ring from spawning. The second big trick in this level is a famous skip, which involves fluttering through the long ghost platform room instead of riding on the ghost. It is during this that we perform the red coin duplication by using a bat to climb up to the shy guys and breaking through the spike wall to scroll the screen enough for the duplication to work. Shooting the boss just off-screen allows us to damage him with a single shot, which makes the first hit faster. After every hit the boss is invincible for a certain period of time, so it doesn’t really matter how we do the next 3 hits.
5-5: Goonie Rides!
By jumping across the goonies in the 2nd room, we are able to skip using the helicopter. This part was tricky to navigate, and at one point we had to land on a falling goonie that we had shot to gain enough height. In the final room we use a series of wall jumps to climb up to the end faster. As we complete the final section of the part rather quickly, it takes a while for the red switch timer to run down, even after the goal ring.
5-6: Welcome to Cloud World
During the autoscroller, we managed to do a seven-egg juggle -- the largest number of eggs juggled in any of the current Yoshi’s Island TAS’s. In the last room, a spinning spiked platform is used to smack Yoshi really high off screen, but he takes no damage because it is off screen. Gusties are used at the end of the level to bounce off of and prevent the need to flutter. A chicken baxter is done at the end to take a chicken into 5-7.
Penguins can be spit into the wall and bounced off of repeatedly. This is the only level in the game with 6 flowers. Doing a first frame jump on vertical red platforms can give a huge vertical boost. The extra flower is hidden way off screen, and is obtained by firing an egg into the sky. Shooting this somewhat hidden flower allows us to skip a room. At the end of the level, a tricky eggshot that passes through a flower because it has not yet loaded is used to get the red coins in the back, then ricochet back into the now-loaded flower.
5-8: Raphael the Raven's Castle
This level has quite a few tricky eggshots, including a ricochet for the first flower, and a wallshot for the second flower and some red coins. It required extensive luck manipulation to get the two stars from the third flower, as well as a tricky eggshot that hits the far left side of the flower. Arrow teleportation is used in the block break room, and quite a lot in the next room as well. A glitch to move off of the train tracks is used in the train room, which allows you to complete the section in only one train cooldown instead of having to grab another train bubble. The boss’s movement patterns can be manipulated, so that he moves as soon as possible and in a favorable direction, which avoids him using his slow attacks.
6-1: Scary Skeleton Goonies!
Due to an unavoidable middle ring in the second room, we had to collect as close to 30 stars in the first room as possible to minimize slowdown. In the second room, the lower red coins can be collected with an eggshot that passes through the crate. At the very end, the flying green enemies, like koopa shells, can be bounced off of immediately after hitting a wall, unlike most enemies. This prevents the need to flutter.
6-2: The Cave of the Bandits
A very precise eggshot is used to collect the flower in the second room. Baby mario walljumps are a lot easier than normal walljumps because he moves faster, and were used to skip a portion of the final room.
6-3: Beware the Spinning Logs
The spinning logs can be used to gain a lot of height, but it is only worthwhile if the alternative would be fluttering, as they do slow Yoshi down briefly. It was very difficult to manipulate all of the stars and shyguys to move correctly at the end of the level, as even minor changes cause shyguys’ movement patterns to change.
6-4: Tap-Tap the Red Nose's Fort
It is faster to briefly backtrack and go over the top of the level than to wait for the sliding columns at the end of the first room. There is usually a second key needed to complete this level, but a single big flutter is used to bypass the locked pipe. Fluttering over the lava is faster than taking the log of shame. Finally, the boss is knocked into the lava really quickly due to some crazy egg ricochets (recommend watching with slowdown).
6-5: The Very Loooooong Cave
Make sure to unmute your sound if it’s muted, as some of the level plays along with the music. The autoscroller section is just messing around as it can’t be sped up. The very last room is usually an autoscroller, but this is skipped by doing a few jumps on the first frame possible, which keeps the screen from scrolling and loading the trigger for the autoscrolling.
6-6: The Deep, Underground Maze
The first key is grabbed through the wall by freezing Yoshi’s tongue at maximum extension, which allows it to freely pass through walls. The rooms are done out of order due to the use of a walljump at the end to skip having to spawn a slow platform from a cloud. An enemy spit can be used to open gates backwards when eggs won’t work.
6-7: KEEP MOVING!!!!
The rotating platforms can be spawned faster by scrolling the screen up to them as soon as possible. This is accomplished by the long sequence of jumps at the beginning, and looking up later on. In the second room, the slow green autoscrolling platform is skipped, first by blasting through the foam with some tricky eggshots, and then walljumping up the vertical climb. Baby mario is skipped because we need to collect a flower from a cloud using eggs, and baby mario can’t fire eggs. Then, numerous gatehacks are used to reach the exit as fast as possible.
6-8: King Bowser's Castle
Door 4 is the fastest door at the start. Since kamek’s magic can turn wall tiles into enemies, we use that to obtain 30 stars during the autoscroller. Bouncing on baby bowser’s head prevents him from jumping, letting him take damage from a ground pound quicker. For final bowser, we found that hitting him with two eggs at once is the fastest strategy. Pause + select can be used to exit out of any level that has already been completed. At the very end, the game saves right as bowser explodes. If you pause the game just before that and then cancel it, for a few frames after the explosion it is possible to press select to end the level, as it occurs after the level has been saved. This is much faster than resetting the game to get to the extra levels.
In order to minimize overworld movement time, the extra levels are done last rather than at the end of every world. When you beat a world, the game puts you straight into the next world, meaning it takes 2 transitions to go back and complete the level you just unlocked and then to return to where you were. As we are still in world 6 after finishing 6-8, doing 6-E first also saves one world transition. Apart from this, the actual order of the extra levels at the end only costs a few frames to change, and was very difficult to optimize. Because some levels require more eggs than others, whereas other levels produce eggs, we had to constantly redo the ending order as we discovered new places to use or obtain eggs.
6-E: Castles - Masterpiece Set
The long tunnel ghosts at the start normally have to be hit with an egg many times, but spitting the first shyguy into them hits them repeatedly. Slowing down briefly before the tunnel ghosts also causes them to spit an enemy out much quicker, which we used for extra eggs. In the third room, we shot a lot of blue spikes with eggs to avoid having to slow down to dodge them. A combination of walljumps and bouncing off of eggs thrown by baseball boys allowed us to skip a platform autoscroller.
1-E: Poochy Ain't Stupid
This level is normally a long autoscroller, but the autoscroll trigger can be skipped by going over the first area. We look up at the start of this level in order to scroll the screen upward. This screen scroll carries over into all of the walljumps, allowing the bats to spawn further up. Bat positioning is highly random, with any movement or action altering their height, and had to be extensively manipulated to get the most desirable patterns.
2-E: Hit That Switch!!
While the intended route for this level involves riding around a lot of platforms, we are able to skip most of that by doing some fluttering after getting a big jump off of the first platform. Then, at the end of the level, we skip another set of platforms entirely. A walljump is used to go over the red blocks at the end in order to minimize fluttering.
3-E: More Monkey Madness
This is a notorious level for undesirable sprite overload, and as a result we had to scrape by with as few eggs as possible, as having extra would cause even more sprites to despawn. Even as it was, the 4th flower still despawned on us for quite a while, until we figured out the best way to remove sprites as quickly as possible in the middle section while still moving quickly. Star movement after spawning is random, so that had to be heavily manipulated to get everything we needed in this level. The final 3 stars are collected by the next Yoshi.
5-E: Kamek's Revenge
In the first screen, a key is clipped through a chomp rock by brushing the rock’s top left corner. Then, eggs are juggled up above the red switch because they would put Yoshi above 5 eggs +1 key if collected immediately. This allows us to shoot the star cloud and then use the egg aiming trick to acquire two extra eggs. At the end of the skiing section, a different helicopter cloud was collected at the start by doing a precise jump off of the final ski slope. This helicopter cloud was actually more convenient to get all the red coins as fast as possible. The baseball boys egg throws were used to collect several red coins without having to actually touch them with the helicopter. At the end of the helicopter section, we fly inside a penguin to quickly lose our upward y-speed, which lets us reach the end sooner.
4-E: The Impossible? Maze
We had been pondering what we could possibly do to shave off over a thousand frames in order to cut two hours, and 4-E seemed to have the most potential. We knew we could skip the red coins collected during the helicopter section with a wallshot, but we still needed to get to the top of the level. An inconvenient backwards water tunnel had been preventing us from making it to the top, until it was discovered that creative wall tonguing could minimize the amount the water pushed Yoshi backwards.
Ending
Unfortunately, due to the nature of the game, we are unable to end on the credits. The reward for getting 100% on an extra level in a world is a star at the top right of the title screen. Consequently, the mark of a full 100% completion of the game is having 6 stars there. We decided to end the run on this screen. Technically the last input necessary to truly have a 100% file is any button to exit the score tally screen on the final level, as the game doesn’t save you beating the level until the fadeout after the score tally. We thought ending on the title screen, displaying all 6 stars was a nicer way to finish than ending on the world 4 level select screen, and it costs very little extra time.
I always thought spezzafer's 100% WIP was one of the most entertaining bits of TASing I had seen, so I really wanted to see the complete game TASed. Unfortunately, Spezzafer had stopped working on the run permanently, and I knew that the best chance of ever seeing the completed TAS was giving it a go myself. I had some other projects I was working on at the time, and when I completed those, NxCy had just done an improved version of the glitched TAS for Yoshi's Island and had uploaded a movie on youtube that completed the first level on 100%. It was exciting to work with NxCy; he always had inventive ideas, creative solutions and produces very optimized work. Sometimes progress was fast, sometimes slow. Especially having to redo previously optimized work due to some new discovery didn't help the general pace. When we were redoing nearly the entire WIP due to the discovery of walljumps, Carl Sagan had just made an any% TAS of this game. He was very motivated to TAS this game, and he was a great addition to the team. Carl has a great eye for entertainment and is a very hard worker. The TAS moved along pretty smoothly from then on, with the occasional problems you are bound to walk into when working on a TAS of this size. At some points, it was hard to even imagine ever finishing this project, but it just had to be done. I'm really glad with the way the final product turned out but most of all, it was just a blast working on it with Carl and NxCy.
I'd like to thank Nxcy and Baxter for allowing me to join them on this project. It has been quite an adventure tackling this game together, and getting trolled by it together. I remember finally getting through a difficult section in 5-2, and Baxter and I were thinking, "well, the hard part is finally over." Little did we know, something as simple as getting a shyguy to spawn so we could get an egg would plague us for the next several hours. It became a running gag that, as soon as we got to a part where we felt like we'd finally get a break, the game would throw something else unexpected at us. Sometimes our reward for getting through a section faster, like after Baxter's amazing eggshots to get the first flower in 4-2 (which I had dismissed as impossible), resulted in the game not loading the following red coins because we went through the area too quickly. And then there were the times when Baxter and I would spend hours failing to do a difficult walljump or some other trick, and we'd send Nxcy the file and he'd say, "Got it!" 30 seconds later. Nxcy's endless creativity shows up time and time again in this run, and it was always awesome to see what he'd think of next. It has been a pleasure working together.
I also want to thank the entire #Yoshi community for all the love and support for the TAS. Trihex's HNNNGGs gave me the motivation to keep going every time ArneTheGreat discovered something new that required redoing a level ;) I'm happy to say the time has finally come... to F my hot TAS.
Go watch the movie! Read this later!
Special Thanks
Spezzafer, Nono and Zvsp
For their wips and movies.
andymac, ArneTheGreat, Zvsp, Romi, Trihex, Spezzafer and Mister
For their suggestions, tips and glitches.
Partyboy1a
For his lua script which allowed us to easily edit our TAS. We used this script a LOT.
Aktan
For encoding the run.
All people that supported us on the forum, #yoshi on irc and elsewhere
Noxxa: There is really not so much that needs to be said here. This is an incredible piece of art with a lot of effort put into maximizing both the optimization level of the run, as well as the entertainment value. The positively massive amount of rerecords, spent over three-and-a-half years of labor and patience, are a testament to this fact. This is to my mind (and that of many viewers) certainly one of the very best tool-assisted speedruns to appear on the site. Therefore, accepting for the Star tier - it does not deserve anything less than that.
feos: Replaced the encode with the one from the publication, since the former is now private.
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