I used Bizhawk 2.0.0 and did not change any settings, except for allowing U+D/L+R.
Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros 3. is a GBA remake of the NES game Super Mario Bros. 3. It looks pretty much like the SNES version.
The TAS uses glitches and luck manipulation.
Here is an explanation of every world:
Every world:
You go very fast if you press left and right at the same time (not possible on a real GBA). You will not be faster if you press B.
The Hammer Brothers are manipulated to reach Mario as early as possible or to decrease their walk distance on the map each time, which saves some time. They can be manipulated by reaching the goal at a certain frame.
In the ship and tank levels I clipped into the wall at the end to get ahead of the Screen, in order to enter the pipe faster. This didn't work in the world 6 ship. I couldn't figure out how the get into the wall.
You can shoot 2 fire balls faster if you press B in the first frame and r in the second frame instead of pressing B in the first and third frame.
World 1:
The mushroom was grabbed at level 3, because that was the fastest way I could find.
The leave was grabbed at level 4, because that is an autoscroller.
The leave was needed for the fortress, to get up to the whistle, which is faster than fighting Boom Boom. Getting the whistle is allowed, using it is not allowed!
World 2:
In the fortress I used the P-Wing to get into the door in the spike section earlier. The tanooki was also needed for the following levels.
In level 3 to fly up to the P-Switch, in order to get into the pipe faster.
In the quicksand level I flew above the tornado so it doesn't slow me down.
In the pyramid level the tanooki was useful to get through the brick walls without having to use a shell.
I grabbed a fire flower in the ship level, because you can fight bosses faster with them.
World 3:
In the first fortress you normally have to go into the 6th door, but I used the 3rd door and after Mario was on the other side, I pressed up at the right frame to get into the door again, even though it doesn't have a floor. This wrong warped me to Boom-Boom.
In level 9 I tried to clip through the brick wall to get to the pipe, but that was a bit slower than using the last pipe.
World 4:
I tried to manipulate the Hammer Brothers like in the 100% TAS by Tompa and Lord Tom of the NES version, where two Hammer Brothers walked simultaneously into Mario, but that doesn't work in this version.
World 5:
In level 2 (a vertical level) I used a screen-wrapping wall jump, to get to the pipe faster.
if I enter the pipe in level 6 too early, I die for some reason, so I had to avoid that.
World 6:
Acceleration on ice is slower than in the air or on normal ground, so I jumped when I had to accelerate.
In the first fortress level I used a P-Wing to fly above the lava and spikes and I grabbed a star to kill Boom Boom much quicker. The Tanooki was also pretty useful for the second fortress, where I flew below the level, which is much quicker.
In level 5 I flew up and let the P-Speed run out at the right moment to get through the bricks faster.
I grabbed the fire flower in level 10, in order to fight Boom Boom quicker.
World 7:
In the first level I used wall jumps and shell jumps to go up. Using pipes is slower.
In level 5 I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster.
In the first fortress level I used the P-Wing to get up to the pipe, without getting the item for flying in the level.
Level 6 can be skipped by clipping through the wall. Not possible in level 1.
In level 7 I used a P-Wing so I don't have to grab the stars.
In level 9 I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster and I grabbed a fire flower here, to fight the bosses faster.
World 8:
In the first tank level the boss fight is faster, if the Boomerang Brother doesn't through his boomerang, because otherwise you would have to wait until it leaves the screen. I didn't have to manipulate that in this run.
At the world map it is faster to press A at the hand levels instead of letting the hands appear.
In the fortress level I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster.
In the second tank level, (not sure) you will get hit by the explosion from the bombs after getting ahead of the screen for some reason, so let them explode where they wouldn't damage Mario.
In the bowsers castle I clipped through the walls instead of playing the level normally, because that's faster.
feos: I like claiming for judgment games I've never seen.
feos: This run generated a lot of questions, but they all have been answered in its favor.
Just like with the SMB3 100% run, the real goal is "all levels". And indeed, both runs beat the same levels.
E-Reader levels are not required for this goal, because they are available as a separate game option, so by the rules, they can be played in a separate movie (which already exists).
The game is not a copy of SMB3, they have significant differences that allow for different TAS mechanics, therefore we don't have any problems with publishing both.
It was recorded on an interim build of Bizhawk, but syncs fine on the latest official release.
It was recorded on a European ROM, but for portable consoles whose framerate is not tied to TV framerate, it is allowed to publish European versions, if gameplay is equally smooth and also not slower than USA/JPN.
There is an emulator bug that causes this game to behave differently from how it should behave regarding SRAM. But this run does not rely on that emulator bug, it just happens to have encountered it. Since virtually all Bizhawk versions have this bug, it's not the author's fault. And even if the new Bizhawk release fixes it, the start of the movie will be different, causing different timings for the entire run, whitch may be impossible to resync without redoing the whole TAS from scratch. Since actual gameplay is still similar to the imaginary bugless version, the run itself is legit.
There is a technique that's missing from this movie, locking the camera movement. But over the course of a month, no one was able to tell how much (or little) time can be saved if that trick is included. I asked a judge who has TASed this game before, and the answer was the same: it can't be known beforehand. So right now, we don't know where exactly this trick can be used, how much time it can save in every such spot, and what the overall timesave would be. But no one was talking about minutes cut per usage instance, so presumably, the overall save would not be that large. And clearly not large enough to call this submission sloppy.
Since I was watching this run side-by-side with the SMB3 100% one, I noticed that while some new skips were used, others weren't. So I went ahread and checked myself what I could. My primary concerns were not throwing fireballs at minibosses before you enter their rooms, and not flying over the wall in 7-4.
Turns out, the time that locking the miniboss room takes due to spawning the wall delays miniboss activation. So if you spit the fireball before entering that room, it will just get deflected. In order to hit him right when he activates, you'd need to leave the fireball that you've thrown way behind you, so it keeps flying while the room is being locked, and only hits the miniboss afterwards. But fireball speed is very close to Mario's, so I couldn't find places where such setup was possible.
And regarding flying over the wall, which skips the swimming section in the NES run, the second wall doesn't look passable. I tried flying above it, and my Y position got stuck at 9+, while the wall most likely starts at 0, so I simply couldn't fly over it.
There are some wall clips not present in this run compared to the NES one, but there's no proof that any of them is possible (as I said, this run has been in the queue for a month).
The part that looks very strange and completely unexplainable is that while the NES run has 98% (69/0/1) submission support and 8.8 entertainment rating, this run only got 33% (2/0/4) submission support, and will likely get terrible rating. I find this ridiculous, because the runs are almost identical. Playaround in autoscroller sections in the NES run is a bit more creative. It also has a few more wall-clips. But that's it! Oh well.
Thankfully, as this run simply plays all the levels, it's a full completion goal, therefore it's vaultable. One might argue, that for this game, warpless is such a goal instead. But first, [2835] NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "all levels" by Lord_Tom & Tompa in 1:04:36.90 even has the 100% completion tag, and second, it beats more levels, so even if we had to send a warpless run of SMA4 to Vault, it'd be obsoleted by this one. And vice versa, if a warpless run gets Vault rating, it will most likely be rejected.
Accepting to Vault. The branch label can stay the same for now, I don't think we need to wait while the NES run's label is being figured out. But after it is, they will both need to be labeled the same.
feos: And since it's been decided, updating the branch.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
I don't have any good reason for that. I started the TAS with that version for some reason and when I saw, that the US version is preferred, I tried to play the movie on that version, but that didn't work.
It feels wrong to me that a 100% run of this game would not include any of the 38 World-e levels, especially when considering that they were included in the Wii U Virtual Console port.
Will refrain from voting because of this issue.
It feels wrong to me that a 100% run of this game would not include any of the 38 World-e levels, especially when considering that they were included in the Wii U Virtual Console port.
Will refrain from voting because of this issue.
Given the fact that those e-levels are technically not in the same save file as the main game and that they have collectibles in each level, it might not be a bad idea to separate them into different runs.
You actually used an interim release, namely this one (according to the movie header). However, even with this one, I'd get first "Reading", then "Saved data is corrupted". What's normally supposed on happen on first run on the European release is a language select screen to appear after the GBP logo, then, after the language has been chosen, formatting the saved data (this is explicitly mentioned in the manual on page 8, by the way).
Now comes the screwed up part: I can't reproduce it in vanilla mGBA 0.6.1, as in I get the intended behaviour. This means it's an issue with the mGBA core in BizHawk (in fact, the wrong behaviour also happens in 1.13.1, 2.0, 2.2.2 and likely any version between 2.0 and 2.2.2).
EDIT: RetroArch's mGBA core is also affected.
EDIT 2: And I also get the intended behaviour (formatting saved data) on the VBA-Next core (alas).
Bottom line: The issue is present in RetroArch's mGBA core and BizHawk's mGBA core (which I believe is based on the RetroArch core), not in vanilla mGBA.
You actually used an interim release, namely this one (according to the movie header). However, even with this one, I'd get first "Reading", then "Saved data is corrupted". What's normally supposed on happen on first run on the European release is a language select screen to appear after the GBP logo, then, after the language has been chosen, formatting the saved data (this is explicitly mentioned in the manual on page 8, by the way).
Now comes the screwed up part: I can't reproduce it in vanilla mGBA 0.6.1, as in I get the intended behaviour. This means it's an issue with the mGBA core in BizHawk (in fact, the wrong behaviour also happens in 1.13.1, 2.0, 2.2.2 and likely any version between 2.0 and 2.2.2).
EDIT: RetroArch's mGBA core is also affected.
EDIT 2: And I also get the intended behaviour (formatting saved data) on the VBA-Next core (alas).
Bottom line: The issue is present in RetroArch's mGBA core and BizHawk's mGBA core (which I believe is based on the RetroArch core), not in vanilla mGBA.
Ok, should I just try to make it work with the preferred US version?
Ok, should I just try to make it work with the preferred US version?
I believe every version of Super Mario Advance 4 is affected, even the USA (confirmed) and JPN versions. (of note that the USA and JPN versions won't have a language select, obviously)
Ok, should I just try to make it work with the preferred US version?
I believe every version of Super Mario Advance 4 is affected, even the USA (confirmed) and JPN versions. (of note that the USA and JPN versions won't have a language select, obviously)
And what exactly should I do to make it work for everyone? (I'm new to all this emulator stuff)
And what exactly should I do to make it work for everyone? (I'm new to all this emulator stuff)
As I mentioned in my first post in the submission topic, BizHawk's VBA-Next core yields the intended behaviour (of formatting saved data). However, it's also less accurate than the mGBA core (and vanilla mGBA also yields the intended behaviour, as I also mentioned, the issue lies specifically within the RetroArch and (by extension?) BizHawk cores).
This sounds very similar to what happened to Silva Saga for the NES. New SRAM was initialized to 0x00 but the game expected 0xFF. It read 0x00 as an existing (and corrupted) file.
You might want to try making an SRAM file initialized to the opposite of whatever it currently is.
I’ll try myself tomorrow or Friday if it’s not resolved already.
I just tried forcing the movie into starting from a SaveRAM with 0xFF bytes. Indeed, this removed the error screen at the beginning, however... this is not the reason why the movie desyncs. As fsvgm777 pointed out, this movie has been made by using an interim version; in fact, it syncs fine on that interim version he pointed out.
I'll see if there is any official release that can replay the movie; if not, I'll see if it can be resynced with some quick input edits...
Edit: the movie syncs fine on 2.2.2. I'm making a temp encode. It's going to take about 3 hours plus 3 for uploading.
Edit 2: have the encode:
Link to video
I've looked just first 2 stages. Because I'm too busy during these days. But in fact, I'm very glad to see there is someone to make a GBA version of smb3.
But after looking your submission. I have some thought.
1. You choose a bad ROM version.
2. There is a NES 100% pub already. The difference between them is not very important. That means an NES version is enough on this site.
3. What's more, yours is slower than NES ver.
4. Less entertaining compared to NES's movie.
5. I noticed that you didn't running on the slope. I don't know if that would be faster.
So,,, maybe, I'm sorry to say that is not a good choice to make a movie of GBA version. But thank you for making a movie of GBA version, too.
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6452
Location: The land down under.
Soig wrote:
1. You choose a bad ROM version.
Nope. ROM chosen is infact a clean ROM.
More by the fact that in the input A is pressed 3 times at the very start (talking on the fact of CrackIntros).
Soig wrote:
2. There is a NES 100% pub already. The difference between them is not very important. That means an NES version is enough on this site.
Version Differences means it's eligible.
To correctly go against this TAS you should be stating it's missing the e-Reader levels so it invalidates the "100%".
Soig wrote:
3. What's more, yours is slower than NES ver.
Version Differences. BLAH BLAH.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
I've looked just first 2 stages. Because I'm too busy during these days. But in fact, I'm very glad to see there is someone to make a GBA version of smb3.
But after looking your submission. I have some thought.
1. You choose a bad ROM version.
2. There is a NES 100% pub already. The difference between them is not very important. That means an NES version is enough on this site.
3. What's more, yours is slower than NES ver.
4. Less entertaining compared to NES's movie.
5. I noticed that you didn't running on the slope. I don't know if that would be faster.
So,,, maybe, I'm sorry to say that is not a good choice to make a movie of GBA version. But thank you for making a movie of GBA version, too.
There are important differences between them, for example the L+R glitch, or that you can not clip through as many walls as in the NES version, because the camera doesn't follow mario. And I used so many tricks to make it as fast as possible, and it's still some minutes slower than the NES version. So it can't be faster than the NES version. And running on the slope doesn't make you faster. But I have to admit, that it is boring sometimes, especially in the first world.
Hi JeyKey_55, do you know the gba version has the Lock Screen trick. Press left and right alternately, and the scroll screen can't be changed. In SMA4, you can press ↔ → ↔ →.
I believe you will know where this trick can be widely used. I'm not sure this tas can be published or not, but if you want to improve it, next time use the US version, and test and find more trick first.
edit: sorry, it's ↔ ← ↔ ←.
Some users here seem to completely miss the fact that it originally didn't come with the e-Reader levels out of the box (in fact, these were never released in Europe to begin with and only saw a limited release in North America before the discontinuation of the e-Reader). For these levels, you'd need a specially crafted save file (which only holds up to 32 levels, I believe, which isn't even all of the e-Reader levels) or TAS the WiiU VC release of the game, which includes all of the e-Reader levels.
I think a TAS of the Wii U VC release would be ideal. That's probably the most value added release Nintendo has ever made on Virtual Console. Including all of the e-reader levels (which were previously very difficult to actually track down) and even updating the ROM to support all of them. This would make a great TAS.