(Link to video)

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: lsnes rr2-β20
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Executes arbitrary code
  • Surely the animals will die this time?

Comments

This is an improvement over the previous any% TAS of Super Metroid, it beats the old run by 20359 frames, or about 5.5 minutes, and brining the ingame clock down to 00:02 and the item collection to 2%
total's comments:
So this run is made possible by some more recent discoveries regarding OoB travel and new ways to get OoB without needing the X-ray scope, and I'll try to give a brief history about what was found. One of the major glitches that makes this all possible was something discovered by Cpadolf a while ago. He noticed that during the last frame of unpausing, when the game changes game mode, it will not trigger door transitions. This made it possible for example to pause and time a shinespark to fly through door transitions where there was no solid blocks behind. Later on Sniq found out that by pausing over and over and moving one frame at the time with the morph ball it is possible to slowly pass through door transitions without triggering them and then falling OoB. This made a lot of interesting things possible, like being able to skip bombs completely in favour of power bombs using OoB movement and a lot of other interesting things. After some more research it was also found that it is possible to jump up through doors if you can get close enough to the door without triggering it, for example by standing on an enemy close to the door. So finally me and Sniq figured that if it's possible to go up through doors, of course it has to be possible to also go down through doors. This turned out to be true and by using some precise hitbox manipulation it's possible to just fall right through.
The last discovery enabled us to get OoB without any items at all, and we looked for ways to exploit this to end the game quickly with 0%. Sadly we could not find any way to end the game under these conditions, there was simply not enough blocks with the right properties to make anything happen. After this we found out that by saving and restarting the game, it would leave a lot more interesting data which is translated into different blocks when going OoB. I should mention that in many cases what shows up OoB is leftover data from previous rooms visited that did not get overwritten when loading the current room. so essentially by going from a larger room to a smaller room there will be data still left from the bigger room. The problem with this was of course that when loading a save from the ship, anything left over from the intro will be overwritten since the landing site is a very large room, so this was solved by going down and getting morph ball so we could save at the early Crateria save room.
Finally this led us to be able to explore the OoB so we could find a block that would crash the game in just the right way so we could convince the game to run code from the controller registers and from there end the game. One type of blocks were found after me and Sniq had been looking for a while that looked promising, it would jump to the SNES Open Bus and almost get all the way to the controller registers but crash just before.
So I did some more research and found out that one way of affecting the execution through open bus was simply to connect two multitaps, this changes two bits in $4016 and that changed the opcode ran just enough to offset the program counter and making the execution get to $4216 which is only two bytes away from the controller registers. Interestingly enough $4216 is the result of the last multiplication made using the multiplication registers. By tracing the code to check where this multiplication was last used, it was found that it is the result of a multiplication using Samus Y-position.
By taking this into account we found a block that would jump to open bus at just the right Y-position to have the execution go straight into $4218 and from there on it was business as usual :)
The last three frames of input ends up executing the following code:
LDA #4216		STA $0A5C		RTS
LDA #0026		STA $0998		RTS
DEC A			STA $7ED821		JMP $D315
Cpadolf's comments:
Could this finally be the limit of Super Metoid? Maybe, maybe not but either way sniq and total definitely deserve medals for this run. Even with everything that has happened with this game in the last months, this goes so far beyond anything I could have imagined. Skipping things like bombs, super missiles and powerbombs always semed to be an absolute imposibilty, and then, even with being able to get out of bounds without having any particular items to help you (using a pause glitch I found curious but ultimately worthless when I first ran across it in my 100% run), breaking the game into a ACE-state by simply touching a block OoB seems like pure magic.
While I provided the opening input up until the point were this run started to deviate from the old ones, and helped with the final last stage of polish for the end leading up to the ACE, this run definitely belongs entirely to total and sniq. It's too bad that this run basically skips over almost anything interesting at this point, but I guess Super Metroid already has more than enough runs to show of the rest of the game!
sniq's comments:
This is a perfect example of when you want to make something happen no matter what it takes. My research of new methods to enter OoB with pause abuse combined with total's coding knowledge and cpadolf's tas optimization experience led to this awesome new tas, which makes Super Metroid look like a completely different game than it ever was before!

Thanks to

  • amaurea for a lot of help with researching, tracing and debugging the game to make this all happen.
  • The Super Metroid speedrunning and TAS communities for pushing this game further and further.

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: It is a bit of a shame that these runs are cut short so much, there is very little of the actual gameplay or creative routing left to appreciate. Nevertheless, accepting to Moons as an improvement to the current game end glitch publication of the game.
feos: Publication underwater.

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Cpadolf wrote:
If you don't grab the missiles the door in the old mother brain room will still be gray and there won't be any enemies.
Hunh, I didn't know that. I assumed that the trigger for Crateria "waking up" was picking up the morphball, since that's when the searchlight comes on and the gargoyle blocks start tracking you. But it makes a kind of sense from a game design perspective -- you wouldn't want to climb all the way to the surface only to discover that you needed to go back down and get missiles before being allowed to proceed. Would've been more elegant if the door in the Old Mother Brain room was red instead of grey/blue, but oh well. Anyway, thanks for the explanation! Might be worth putting that in the movie description somewhere.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Expert player (2578)
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Man, glitches are not enough anymore, you guys want total control. This of course will take some TASers out of the scene, which is a pity. But we cannot hinder the progress, I guess, so Yes, yes.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Player (147)
Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA
This run made me literally laugh out loud. Kejardon would be proud.
Nach wrote:
I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.
Post subject: Re: #4352: total, sniq, cpadolf's SNES Super Metroid "game end glitch" in 07:15.95
Joined: 12/6/2008
Posts: 1193
TASVideoAgent wrote:
This is an improvement over the previous any% TAS of Super Metroid, it beats the old run by 20359 frames, or about 5.5 minutes, and brining the ingame clock down to 00:02 and the item collection to 2%
So does this obsolete every category but 100%? It should, shouldn't it? If not, I guess the low% runs should lose their moon tiers, because the goals are pretty damn arbitrary now (and not even correctly defined in the title, since these runs aren't really low% anymore). I await my lynching for suggesting to apply something sensible to runs of a beloved game now. ;) Anywho, great run! It's always nice to see what can be done with ace.
Post subject: Re: #4352: total, sniq, cpadolf's SNES Super Metroid "game end glitch" in 07:15.95
Skilled player (1703)
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Slowking wrote:
So does this obsolete every category but 100%? It should, shouldn't it? If not, I guess the low% runs should lose their moon tiers, because the goals are pretty damn arbitrary now (and not even correctly defined in the title, since these runs aren't really low% anymore). I await my lynching for suggesting to apply something sensible to runs of a beloved game now. ;)
Apparently it could be 0%, but it would lead to a slower way to get OoB.
Joined: 12/6/2008
Posts: 1193
Then somebody should totally make that a run! But even now those two old low% runs really don't have a leg to stand on anymore.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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Posts: 11251
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hero of the day wrote:
It is however quite sad that each run holds less and less entertainment value as each submission comes in. I think it is important to remember that we keep the traditional runs as glitch free as possible. Super Metroid runs are most entertaining when we see as much as possible. I would hate to see any type of xray climbing or out of bounds travel in the amazing any% and 100% runs we have today. I look at how badly the MegaMan and games have been destroyed on this site and it really bothers me how people prefer those runs over their predecessors.
This is exactly the reason why I insisted on giving branch titles to "game-breaking glitch" runs, even though they are the fastest completion. Many people would think that such glitches kill the value of any% completion, since it takes away everything they enjoy (and has no limit in going that way). So the "real", "traditional" any% is still unlabeled, even if it's slower judging by the numbers. I believe this preserves the spirit of that category.
Slowking wrote:
So does this obsolete every category but 100%? It should, shouldn't it?
See the judgment note of #4295: Cpadolf's SNES Super Metroid "game end glitch" in 12:54.71.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I'm going to be completely honest here: I'm getting tired of the prevalence of runs that just glitch to the end of the game. In fact, I'm getting so tired of them that I may just start skipping them altogether at some point, if and when people keep making them. They just don't interest me anymore. They had their novelty value when they were new and fresh, but they got old really fast for me. I just don't like them and I don't find them entertaining, I'm sorry. I appreciate the technical aspect of them and the amount of research and work that goes to make them, but that's about it. I'm not voting "no" because I feel it's unfair to the author (because I still disagree with the voting question, but that's another issue altogether.) However, I'm "soft-voting" no in this comment.
Joined: 1/13/2007
Posts: 334
No because the missiles are collected. :) Just kidding. but i would like to see a completion with 0 items.
Editor, Player (68)
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Warp wrote:
I'm going to be completely honest here: I'm getting tired of the prevalence of runs that just glitch to the end of the game. In fact, I'm getting so tired of them that I may just start skipping them altogether at some point, if and when people keep making them. They just don't interest me anymore. blah blah blah blah
cool story bro
true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried
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True wrote:
Warp wrote:
I'm going to be completely honest here: I'm getting tired of the prevalence of runs that just glitch to the end of the game. In fact, I'm getting so tired of them that I may just start skipping them altogether at some point, if and when people keep making them. They just don't interest me anymore. blah blah blah blah
cool story bro
What's that supposed to mean?
Active player (432)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3516
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Didn't we back in the days label the old Mario 64 runs which collected 16 stars as a 16star run or any% If the former, why not label this one as a 2% run? Or maybe even 2%-ACE.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Post subject: Re: #4352: total, sniq, cpadolf's SNES Super Metroid "game end glitch" in 07:15.95
Skilled player (1430)
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Slowking wrote:
TASVideoAgent wrote:
This is an improvement over the previous any% TAS of Super Metroid, it beats the old run by 20359 frames, or about 5.5 minutes, and brining the ingame clock down to 00:02 and the item collection to 2%
So does this obsolete every category but 100%? It should, shouldn't it?
This run doesn't actually change anything though. It doesn't beat anything that the first "glitched" run didn't already beat 6 years ago.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
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Well, that was fast! I didn't expect it to end so soon. Pretty entertaining throughout, and nice to see all that research and planning pay off! Yes vote.
Post subject: Re: #4352: total, sniq, cpadolf's SNES Super Metroid "game end glitch" in 07:15.95
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
jlun2 wrote:
Apparently it could be 0%, but it would lead to a slower way to get OoB.
I got the impression this hasn't definitively been proven. The current glitch requires use of a save room (other than Samus' ship), and getting to the save room requires morphball and missiles. If there were some way to access it without those items, and then escape the save room without those items, then as I understand it the rest of the glitch should be possible; however, I'm sure if the game runners thought this was feasible they would have given it an extensive investigation, and they didn't. Which leads me to suspect that they have no leads on a method to reach the save room without getting those two items.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Skilled player (1430)
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Location: Sweden
It should definitely be impossible with the save room that is used in this run. It's possible to get into the save room through OoB door transitions, but afterwards you are stuck without morphball and the wall behind that door is completely solid. Theoretically there might be some other save room in some other place that could be reachable without any items, and theoretically you could then get OoB someplace close and find a similar crash block. I'd say that it looks to be at least somewhat unlikely to happen but with everything else that has happened to the game I'll never say never.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
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Though I heartily recommend this be published, I can't say it's the most entertaining Super Metroid TAS.
Sir_VG
He/Him
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What just happened? My brain seems to have spattered on the ceiling.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
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Well this run started like any other runs on "Super Metroid" I've seen up to the part were somehow Samus becomes a ghost and start going through solid walls and the screens like F this I'm staying right here. Caught me off guard and made my laugh. Yes vote.
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Good job guys :) Yes for Tech-Demo
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2631] SNES Super Metroid "game end glitch" by total, Sniq, Cpadolf in 07:15.95
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Hey, I noticed that the previous movie's text is TODO. Kinda odd when the current one isn't. :P