(Link to video)
This is a movie of Super Mario 64 DS, but the game is completed jumpless, and as fast as possible (with the most entertainment possible) Restricting the use of the B button changes the game a lot, and the strategies to collect the stars are never the same as the ones used when speedrunning the game.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: DesMuME 0.9.9; In Emulation Settings, Advanced Bus-Level Timing is disabled (firmware settings have been modified: the nickname is now Adeal)
  • jumpless/no B button: The main goal of this movie is to prove that the game is beatable without pressing the B button
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Uses death to save time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Heavy glitch abuse
  • Major skip glitches: As an example, this run skips the first two Bowser fights
  • Minor skip glitches: As an example, this run skips unlocking Luigi to get the star behind the mirror
  • Genre: Platform

Comments

Various people have worked on individual levels without pressing B, such as Really_Tall, Sharkey91, SkicoNow, Josh65536, and Adeal. Eventually we eliminated all of the B presses required for an Any% run. This run has never been done before, and is the result of the work of all these people. Many strategies have been developed during the making of this TAS, to be as entertaining as possible.
To beat the final stage, Bowser in the Sky, or BitS, without pressing B, we need to use Yoshi for his unique tongue ability. Reaching BitS as Yoshi is possible using a heaven portal (see below) with only 50 stars, but there is no known way to skip the 50 star door as Yoshi. Therefore we need to open the 50 star door, which can only be done as Mario. So the the basic route outline is: unlock Mario and collect 50 stars to open the 50 star door, then switch to Yoshi and go to BitS and beat the game.
Additionally, a certain version of the game is required, specifically for BitS. In the original North American release, U 1.0, the physics when bouncing on an enemy are slightly different compared to all other versions. They work more like the original SM64, in that the action before you touched the enemy is relevant: if you long jump onto an enemy, you will remain in the long jump animation while bouncing, and keep your speed. On later versions you are always set to a regular jumping state when you bounce on an enemy. This is important because the bounce after recovering from a slidekick goes higher on 1.0 than on any other version, which means you can reach the ledge after the first spinning platforms in BitS with a goomba bounce.
Beating the game as Yoshi also has an unusual caveat, since it was never intended. You die in the Rainbow Ride section of the credits and are kicked back to the castle grounds, so the credits sequence isn't completed. However, the game does not unlock anything when beaten, or even save, so not reaching The End shouldn't be grounds for rejection.
Measurements are made at 60 frames per second, but you can only lose single frames on the title screen, star select screen, and from lag. Gameplay runs at 30 frames per second.

Route

Bob-omb Battlefield: 1 star (this number is the current star total)

The fastest star here is "Behind Chain Chomp's Gate", other stars are currently inaccessible or are longer than a minute.

Whomp's Fortress: 6 stars

The stage we go to next is Whomp's fortress, where we start by doing "Chip off Whomp's Block" and "Shoot to the Wild Blue".
Doing the latter star now allows us to select it in the menu when we go back in the level. Selecting it is important, because it will make a bob-omb buddy spawn. This bob-omb opens the cannon next to it, which allows us to collect the star "To the Top of the Fortress" faster, as well as the star "Blast Away the Wall". Then we collect one last star.

Princess's Secret Slide: 8 stars

These stars are done next because of their location in the castle: you don't need Mario for them.

Talk to toad, unlock Mario, switch back to Yoshi

Here, we talk to toad because he makes all the rabbits in the castle appear, and we'll need them when we get upstairs, to perform a 'rabbit clip' (words beetween ' ' means there's a definition near the end of the description) Unlocking Mario is necessary for the rest of our run.

Jolly Roger Bay: 13 stars

The fastest level to reach is Jolly Roger Bay, We're going in it as Yoshi to perform 'water storage'. We couldn't perform this glitch before, because we need Mario to break the orange brick to reveal the shell.

Cool, Cool Mountain: 18 stars

Next we go to Cool Cool Mountain, because it's the last stage that we want Yoshi for. We can't do any of these stages later when we eventually switch back to Yoshi because we need to be upstairs, with 50 stars and with Mario in order to unlock the 50 star door: we'll already have all the stars needed by the next time we're Yoshi.

Switch to Mario

Bowser in the Dark World red coins + switch star, pause-exit: 20 stars

Normally, we would go in this stage to beat Bowser, and to obtain the key to unlock the basement. But in this movie we only collect the stars inside, simply because they're pretty fast. Then we pause-exit to immediately get to ? Switch.

? Switch red coins: 21 stars

We don't need to press the ? switch since the power flower and wings are never used in the run, but we still collect this quick star.

Heaven's Portal (via Bowser in the Dark World's trapdoor) to Basement

Usually, we would need to get the key from Bowser in the Dark World to enter the basement. But in this game, loading zones are always active, so we can reach them from behind, and that's exactly what we do here, with the help of a Heaven's Portal that gets us out of bounds.

Shifting Sand Land: 24 stars

Here we had the choice between Shifting Sand Land and Lethal Lava Land, but since we need to go talk to toad in the Hazy Maze Cave room afterwards, we go to SSL first.
The order of the stars here is important, because we need good RNG to manipulate the fly guy to get the star "In the Talons of the Big Bird"

Lethal Lava Land: 29 stars

In this stage, there is a shell that only spawns after the 5th star, so we collect "Hot Foot-It in the Volcano" early to go faster in the other stars of this level.

Toad star: 30 stars

No stars are fast in Hazy Maze Cave, so we only visit this room to talk to toad and then immediately leave. Note that we have 30 stars which is just enough to unlock the 30 star door and access Dire Dire Docks.
We wanted to get the toad star as the 30th star, to do a 'textbox skip'. Unfortunately, we later learned this glitch will never work with toad stars.

Dire, Dire Docks: 32 stars

In this level, there is a really fast star, "The Manta's Ray Reward", that only spawns after the second star, "Chests in the Current", so we collect that first, then the manta star.
We skip Bowser in the Fire Sea because it requires collecting a slow star in Dire Dire Docks, and we don't need the 2nd key to get upstairs.

The Secret of Battle Fort: 33 stars

This star is done first, so we can start at a great spot to collect the boo red coins star.

Courtyard, red coins inside Boos: 34 stars

Big Boo's Haunt: 37 stars

The first star is really slow (the only single star that takes over a minute to get), but we can't get access to the next floor (and thus the other stars) without it.

Heaven's Portal (via Bowser in the Dark World's trapdoor) to second floor

Just like the last time, we access a loading zone without obtaining the key, thanks to the Heaven's Portal.

Wet-Dry World: 40 stars

This level is the closest to the door, so we go to it now.

Rabbit clip, Heaven's Portal

This clip is the reason why we talked to toad near the beginning of the route. With this clip, we get past the 50 star door (to get access to levels containing fast stars that are usually unreachable with fewer than 50 stars). A heaven's portal in this room lets us access Tick Tock Clock, Rainbow Ride, and even BitS, but remember we need to get into BitS as Yoshi, so the run isn't over yet.

Rainbow Ride: 42 stars

Here we had the choice between Rainbow Ride and Tick Tock Clock. The starting point was the same, but the stars inside the levels require a great amount of luck, so we tested every order of the stars, to find that fastest route.

Tick Tock Clock: 43 stars

To manipulate the RNG, we're doing "Stop Time for Red Coins" before "Get a Hand".

Star behind the mirror: 44 stars

In a normal playthrough, you would need Luigi to get through the mirror, but here we use the same Heaven's Portal for reaching RR and TTC to get behind the mirror and collect the star.

Snowman's Land: 47 stars

This level is on the way when we exit the mirror, so the fastest route is to do it now.

Tall, Tall Mountain: 49 stars

The only level left with quick stars is Tall Tall Mountain. The order of the stars here is important because "Scale the Mountain" requires manipulating the fly guy.

Toad star: 50 stars

A last quick star. We planned to do a 'textbox skip', but once again the conditions were not right.

Open 50 star door, return to lobby

Now that we have 50 stars, we open the 50 star door. Since the 2nd key door is still locked, we perform a downwarp to die and respawn outside of the castle.

Switch to Yoshi, Heaven Portal

We can now switch to Yoshi, and use a Heaven's Portal to reach the loading zone to upstairs. Now that we have 50 stars, we can go through the door with Yoshi, and execute a final Heaven Portal's to reach Bowser in the Sky!

Bowser in the Sky

This is the last level, and we needed to enter it as Yoshi because he's the only one that can beat this level.

Step by step explanation

Start and Introduction

Usually, when you first boot up the game, a little star appears, to tell you how to use the Touch screen, but as a help when developing the game, they added a series of input that, when pressed, soft-resets the game. We use these input to skip the "tutorial" and to select the adventure mode faster.
Then after the introduction cutscene, We use a mechanic that will be used often trough the entire movie: The 'Y-charge conservation'. We use it to conserve some speed through Bowser and Lakitu's text boxes

Bob-omb Battlefield

To collect the star "Chain Chomp's Gate", we need to pound his post three times. We can't jump to ground pound, so we found that we could slightly enter the wall hitbox at the top, and ground pound at the right time to hit the post. We have to get hit to stay on the post. We do this three times and then collect the star with Yoshi's tongue.

Whomp's Fortress

For "Shoot to the Wild Blue", We take the warp to teleport all the way above the star, to grab it quickly.
For "Chip off Whomp's Block" however, we take the warp so we can carry the goomba , and reach the elevator on the same cycle. We use it to pound King Whomp once, but the other times were harder. Climbing King Whomp is hard because it's collision hitbox is really messy, and sometimes we just fall through. We climb on top of King Whomp to gain height, and pound him when he is about to stomp. Note that we also manipulated his movement to finish next to the star, so we can lick it instantly.
Then the beginning of the strat for "To the top of the Fortress" and "Blast away the wall" is the same. We carry a goomba over to the grey wall, and we bounce on it to reach the higher part of the level. Then we Y-Charge and we enter the cannon. For "To the top of the Fortress", we use this cannon to get directly on the Fortress. For the other star we use the cannon in the intended way, by shooting at the walls.
And for the last star, we 'Block clip' to reach the switch without the need of Mario. We also do Y-Charge Conservation to go faster after hitting the switch.

Princess's Secret Slide

To finish this slide faster, we need to slide on our belly in order to recover (a slidekick doesn't work), but Yoshi can't dive, so the only way to do that is to turn around while on the slide. At the end of the slide, to get the Star in the box, we have to get up the stairs diagonally to avoid bonking on the wall hitboxes.

Unlocking Mario

In the level, we slidekick on a goomba. This trick allows me to keep the velocity of the slidekick (faster than the maximum running speed) for longer. Then we do this trick again on the flower to reach the vine. Then we eat a goomba and we carry the egg through the loading zone to beat the boss faster. Then after getting the key, we do another Y-Charge conservation, through a total of 4 doors. This was really tight because the only way to change the angles are by running (or bonking, but it's too slow). In the end, we only had 1 frame of boost.

Jolly Roger Bay

At the beginning of 4 of these stars, We do the 'Water Storage' glitch, with the shell. Using this trick saves only a few frames, but is way cooler to watch.
For the Star "Through the jet stream", We're supposed to be Wario, to cross the invisible wall around the star, but Yoshi can lick the star through.

Cool Cool Mountain

For "Slip Slidin' Away", Using the shortcut is actually faster jumpless.
For "Big Penguin Race" we also collect the 100 coin star because there is a lot of coins in the slide. At the end, we also use a trick to slidekick recover on a slope that is normally impossible to recover on: When standing on the ledge of a floor, we will sometimes experience the properties of the floor below. Some weird things can happen, such as doing small jumps above a sand floor, downwarping, and in this case, recovering on unrecoverable slopes. This is because the death floor IS a recoverable floor, so we slidekick on the edge of the slide, and we roll out to reach the 100 coin star.

Bowser in the Dark World

At the start of the level, we need to press the switch in order to reach the coin near the beginning. and when we come back, we crouch under the flame hitbox , to avoid getting burned. We do another Y-Charge Conservation, this one was really hard because there was a lot of turns everywhere to reach every coin, but we managed to keep 1 frame of Y-Charge.
To get up to the stairs, we use the goombas by bouncing on them, then on the first stair we do a precise slidekick to reach the second stair. we use this technique twice.

? Switch

I'm just flying to collect the red coins. Note that at the end, we fly very closely to the ground, and use the ? Switch collisions to push me forward a little.

Heaven portal to the Basement.

This trick was the hardest trick we had to do. It took a total of two weeks because it is really precise and nobody has done it before.
the first step is to do a Heaven Portal with the Bowser in the Dark World trapdoor. What took the longest was to find a setup that worked, and doing it fast. Then we had to land between a floor and a wall, so we are Out of Bounds. This is called a seam. we land on this seam and we Y-Charge to get the maximum speed. We launch ourselves under the floor and barely make it. This skip is only possible as Mario because he has a slightly faster speed than the other.
Here is a version of this trick with textures hacked on, made by Adeal: https://youtu.be/s2WiyCSFQwM

Shifting Sand Land

For "Inside the ancient Pyramid", we stand on the four pillars to activate the top of the pyramid, then we enter it and we do a 'jumpless kick' to reach the border of the platform. We need to stand on this border or we won't get enough height to reach the next platform where the star is.
For "In the Talons of the Big Bird", we manipulate the fly guy to hit Klepto, and get the star.

Lethal Lava Land

For "8 coin puzzle with 15 pieces" , we are forced to take two lava hits to reach the red coins platform.
For "Hot foot it in the volcano", we take a lava hit as a boost to go higher faster. Then we climb the platforms all the way to the pole. We use the glitch 'High pole release', to grab the next ledge.
There is also a trick used in this level that allows to rollout on lava, if you're in some specific situations, and the causes are unknown. This works here by slidekicking/ diving, then touching the ground, then doing a rollout the first frame we touch lava.
Then for the next stars, we use the shell to get across the level easily and quickly.

Toad Star

After we collect the star, we Y-Charge, and keep one frame trough the second door.

Dire Dire Docks

The only things needed to say here, is that for the star "Chests in the Current", the hitbox of the chests are weird, meaning we can activate them without being directly in front of it.

The Secret of the Battlefort

At the start of the level, we Y-Charge, to keep our speed after collecting silver stars. To collect the third star, we abuse the hitbox of the orange blocks to punch it on the side stuck to the other block. To break the block for the 5th star, we use a glitch where we can go through a block while kicking it. Then we can break the other blocks faster.

Red coins inside Boos

Routing this was really complex because every movement changes the other boos position. We're using a lot of turnarounds to slow our speed, for example, to punch instead of diving, or to slidekick with less speed.

Big Boo's Haunt

Since there are a lot of doors, We use a lot of Y-Charge Conservation.
For "Secret of the Haunted Books", I climb the stairs with slidekicks. This trick is only possible as Mario, because of a small glitch: He is the only one who can wall jump, so when slidekicking in a wall, the game will put him in the wall slide state. But if we slidekick on the edge of a wall, the game will get confused and won't put Mario in the wall slide state, allowing him to slidekick here. It doesn't work with other character because the game stops the slidekick when hitting a wall, even the edge of it.

Heaven Portal to Second floor

We had to redo the Heaven portal used to go in the basement, but this time we already had a setup and we didn't need to land on any seam, so it was easier.

Wet Dry World

At the beginning of every star, we fall from the first platform and we use the wooden bar to give ourselves a little push.
For "Quick Race through Downtown!", we use another Block clip, then we punch this block to clip OoB, and swim above the down town to reach the star.
For "Top O' the Town", we manipulate the Heave-Hos so they throw us exactly on the wooden plank.

Heaven Portal on the third floor

On the third floor, beyond the 50 Star door, there is a spot where we can heaven portal. We slidekick in a corner, and with enough speed, we can make the game think we're above OoB, wich let us Heaven Portal. This will be used to reach Rainbow Ride, Tick Tock Clock twice, and to land behind the mirror.

Rainbow Ride

To reach Rainbow Ride, we first use the rabbit to rabbit clip past the 50 star door. Then we use a heaven portal to enter Rainbow Ride.
At the beginning, we slidekick and recover, to land on the edge of the floor. This is because, when landing, the game doesn't put you in the freefall state, so if we land on the edge of a floor, we can dive while not being on the platform. This small distance is enough to reach the platform with the pole. Then we manipulate the fly guy, and when we bounce on him, we get negative speed. When twirling after bouncing on a fly guy (or with a luigi backflip, tornado...) It's faster to go backwards. Going backwards allows us to have enough speed to reach the platform. Sadly, we have to wait for the swinging platform to come back before continuing this star.

Tick Tock Clock

To reach Tick Tock Clock, we have to use the Heaven Portal again.
For "Stop time for red coins", we use the fast setting to be able to climb the spinners. Climbing the spinners is not an easy task, because they are slippery, so we have to punch, breakdance, or even slidekick to avoid falling, and once we're at the top, we have to ground pound to get carried by the spinner.
For "Get a Hand", We had to wait a little before entering, to get lucky. In this game, the RNG manipulation can only be done through objects. This is why sometimes we change our camera angle: to load certain objects and having the best luck.

Heaven Portal to the mirror room

We use the same Heaven portal as the one used to get to Rainbow Ride or Tick Tock Clock, but this time we land behind the mirror, and collect the star.

Snowman's Land

For "Snowman's big head", we climb on the side of the snowman, with the help of a jumpless kick, then we climb higher, and we slidekick in a wall to get another Heaven Portal (This one was discovered while making the movie). We then fall all the way to the star.
For "Whirl from the freezing pond", we use a spindrift to climb the brown wall, to get directly to the star, skipping the long way around.

Tall Tall Mountain

For "Scale the Mountain" we manipulate a Fly guy to reach the higher part of the level, then we slidekick up the slope to make it to the star.
For "Blast to the Lonely Mushroom", we grab the crazy box to bounce all the way to he lonely mushroom.

Toad star, Switch to Yoshi

After taking the last star, we unlock the 50 star door. Since the door to the first floor is locked, we have to find another way around. So we head to the third floor, but this time instead of doing a Heaven Portal, we downwarp to kill ourselves, and end up in front of the castle. Then we go back in the castle, and Switch to Yoshi.

Heaven Portal to Bowser in the Sky

We need to do this heaven portal one last time, but now we are Yoshi, so the strategy used is completely different. We 'Frame walk' to the 50 star door, and we slidekick to get the Heaven portal on the third floor once again, and we land on the warp to Bowser in the Sky.

Bowser in the Sky

First, we Y-Charge because we have a lot of ledges to climb quickly, and we go past the seesaw platform.
Now here is why you need Yoshi: We need to carry a goomba in our mouth all the way to the rotating platform. Getting the goomba to not fall through the platform was really hard. We spit the goomba out and we slidekick on it to reach the higher platform.
In the next part of the level, we climb the slope with some slidekick abuse, we ride the moving platform, and we Y-Charge Conservation all the way to the pole. Then we 'High pole Release' once again, to get just the right height to land on the platform. Otherwise we would have waited for the goombas to get in place. Then we bounce on a goomba to get past the pole, and we climb the rest of the level until the part with the wind. In this part, we manipulate the goomba so that we can eat it on the border, which allows us to bounce to the pipe.

The Bowser Fight

We start by manipulating Bowser so that he spits a small fire ball (while reproducing his movement to kill time), so that a cap spawns because we can't grab Bowser as Yoshi.
Then we grab him and we throw him in a mine. There's nothing much to say for the first and second throw, but for the last throw, we use the falling platform.
Then we Y-Charge one last time, and conserve it through the last textbox. Timer ends at the last input.

Glitches used in the movie

The Y-Charge and Y-Charge conservation

when holding Y, the character will charge a boost, the Y-Charge, that sets his speed to the maximum velocity, but this boost only lasts for 60 frames normally. However, the timer only counts down when walking, so diving, slidekicking, walking through doors, ledge grabbing, falling, collecting a silver star or entering a cannon doesn't make the timer count down. It allows us to start running at full speed instantly after actions that reset speed, instead of waiting for the acceleration. This is particularly useful in segments where a few speed-resetting actions, such as opening doors, are required.

Rabbit clip

Talking to someone in this game will try to place the player in front of the NPC. But if the NPC is next to a wall and Mario is between the NPC and the wall, then when we talk to the NPC, we will get placed behind the wall's collision. Since the rabbit moves around, we can grab it near walls on purpose, to get that clip.

Water Storage

The main cause of the water storage is when we leave water in an unintended way, one of which is described below. This glitch works when exiting the water with wind, shell, owl, and a few more.
  • Water Storage with a shell
First, you have to do a trick with a shell so that you can ride it again after spitting it out. To do this, the shell has to be touching the water the first frame after you spit it out, which causes it to remain stationary instead of travelling forwards in a straight line. If you're not falling, you'll ride the shell automatically. But when Yoshi starts riding the shell he is swimming, meaning that Water Storage happens, as Yoshi has left the water without going to the surface as intended. This has a variety of effects that are fairly interesting such as being able to start swimming again by creating an egg or getting hit, but also completely ignoring the water, an falling through.

Portals (Heaven portals, Hell portals, Downwarps)

A Heaven portal is a really complex glitch that occurs under very specific conditions:
  • The player must be in a buttslide, belly slide or slide kick state
  • His Vertical position must be above 0
  • He must be above OoB, so that the floor under him is at the lowest vertical value possible
  • He must have touched the ground at least once
Nothing will happen if one of the three first conditions is not respected
If he didn't touched the ground at least once, nothing will happen, but if the floor he touched is on the ledge of a floor next to OoB, then the player will downwarp and die.
For a Heaven portal to happen, it still need one final condition:
  • If he's in a buttslide or slidekick state, he'll need to be above ground itself above 0 verticaly for at least 60 frames
  • if he's in a belly slide state, he'll only need to be above ground itself above 0 verticaly for at least 1 frame
If the conditions are not respected, only a Hell portal happens.
A portal is when the player gets teleported at the highest vertical value. A hell Portal is when the player is stuck at this highest value, and a Heaven portal is when the player fill one of the conditions above, that means that the player will stop being teleported at the highest value and will start falling.
Here is a more accurate definition of portals, made by Josh65536: https://youtu.be/4IVgXx-ZDHc

Textbox Skip

Only some textboxes are concerned for this glitch: the star textboxes, those who appear when we reach a certain number of stars. We can skip in different ways, but we always need to press, A, B, X, Start or Select the first frame we regain control of the character. We can:
  • use a 100 coin star, works every time
  • die while collecting the star, works every time
  • warp while collecting the star, works every time (and sometimes with weird graphical glitches)
  • Using a castle star (toad stars, boo red coins star, Star behind the mirror), works under certain conditions that are unknown

Block Clip

The Block clip is a glitch that lets you go through walls, by glitching the camera in a wall.
the first step is to climb on a block near a wall, then we want to be close to the wall, and we press X to enter the first person view. The particularity of this view is that the camera is not affected by any collisions, so when we leave that view, the camera will glitch for some frames. If this number of frames is above three, then the camera will deactivate the block under you, and we will be able to go through.
This glitch works differently with a Black block, because the collisions are different. There is still a way to do it, but it requires a jump, so we don't use this trick in this movie.

Jumpless kick

When pressing the punch button, the game will first check if we're holding B. If yes, it will kick. Else, the game will then check if he's running. If he is, he'll dive. Else, the game will check if he's in the air, and if we're not in a freefalling state. If he is, he'll kick Else, he'll punch.
A jumpless kick is when we kick without pressing B. The problem is that if we fall from a ledge or recover from a slidekick,, we will be in the freefalling state, and we won't be able to kick. But if we're on the ledge of a floor, the game will think we're in the air while we're still in the walking state, allowing us to kick.

High Pole Release

When climbing a pole, the game moves you by a certain amount of units. But the game checks if we're at the top of the pole only at the end of the frame. That means that if we press R on the frame the top of the pole check is supposed to happen, we will release the pole higher than what we normally could. This small difference is huge because it saves time in Lethal Lava Land and Bowser in The Sky.

Frame Walking

In this game, if you go in a direction, then alternate every two frames between turning around and no-input, you will go in a straight line while conserving your speed. Using this also delays your Y Charge timer, and allows you to climb slopes.

Other comments

A big thank to the SM64DS speedrunning community ! but a bigger thank to Migu, who helped a lot to make the route, and suggested great ideas.
There is a lot of levels where the TAS isn't fully optimized, there might be frames to save everywhere. The TAS isn't fully oriented on speed, more on entertainment
As a screenshot, I suggest the Heaven Portal in Snowman's Land (my personal favorite) (at the frame 168635), the first bounce on the goomba in Bowser in the sky (frame 189262), when Yoshi fall through the water in Jolly Roger Bay (frame 53699), the Heaven Portal after Rainbow Ride (frame 158945), Mario scratching his head in Wet Dry World (frame 152150), when Yoshi falls with the spindrift in Cool Cool Mountain (frame 79411), and when Mario falls on the fly guy in Rainbow Ride (frame 156641).

Memory: Oh look, another unusual goal choice. Claiming for judging.
Memory: Optimization seems to be within reason, 0 obvious mistakes.
While it is prefered one not modify the firmware settings, it is not reject worthy for doing so, but it would be preferred if nickname etc remain untouched in the future.
The category was surprisingly entertaining. While it started out a tad slow, it became very gripping seeing how each star would be obtained without jumping. There were clever solutions ranging from saving enemies to bounce off of using Yoshi to abuse of collision to various glitches. It felt extremely unique to the categories where jumps are allowed. The water glitches in Jolly Roger Bay and the "Heaven Portals" were particularly amusing to me. The audience loved it too, with a bunch of positive comments and 28 Yes votes and only 1 No vote.
Unfortunately in this category, it is required to beat the final level as Yoshi and this causes a death to occur during the credits, causing them to not finish. However, this is still acceptable because the typical game end triggers were hit and everything was reached. The main reason we care about credits completion to begin with is for ACE and memory corruption runs where the credits might not have been properly triggered. In this case, the game end was properly triggered, however due to the specific character used to do so, the credits glitch out later but otherwise all flags were triggered normally.
Now I see two potential paths for obsoletion for this goal. The first is obviously a run that is faster. This run may elect to collect less stars and beat the game. The second is a run that aims to collect more Stars, yet still remains entertaining. It should not be an arbitrary number, either it should be the minimum normally required to beat the game without glitches (80) or the maximum possible without jumping, as long as it is still entertaining. This would be similar to how we handled Super Mario Bros. Walkathon.
In any case, accepting to Moons.
Spikestuff: How to sacrifice your Spikestuff. Accept a DS TAS.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6131: Adeal's DS Super Mario 64 DS "jumpless" in 55:05.13
Spikestuff
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2 Things not mentioned in the submission text. Firmeware Settings has been changed. Just the Nickname field: Adeal Advanced Bus-Level Timing has been disabled. Both indicated by the movie file, not the author. Edit: Author has since updated the submission text to mention those 2 bits.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
EZGames69
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Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2702
Location: Michigan
I think it's an interesting concept of how you can beat this game without pressing the B button to jump, but that doesn't mean it's can make for an entertaining movie. General movement is slow due to not being able to long jump, which is not something you want for a SM64 run, even if it's not the N64 version. I will note that there are some interesting ways you do get around having to jump, like using goombas near ledges, but other than that, there really isn't much I can say about this that I could find appealing. It just makes me want a 150 star run. No Vote.
[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
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Joined: 11/3/2013
Posts: 506
So, I found this entertaining enough, some of the workarounds were creative, and while it is notable slower-paced as a result of the restrictions, that wasn't make-or-break for me. Certainly it's good enough for Moons, which is just as well as this is clearly not a Vault-compatible goal. Not sure whether it's publishable, though. Super Mario Bros has a no-B-button movie, largely because this was thought to be impossible for the longest time, and it relies on TAS-only tricks. I'm not sure either of these things are true for this game, though I don't know too much of the background, so feel free to correct me.
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Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1976
Location: Making an escape
First, we need to talk about parallel universes.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Really_Tall
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Editor, Player (230)
Joined: 9/29/2014
Posts: 122
Location: Scotland
It's great to see this run come to fruition. I had extremely little involvement with it and was waiting along with everyone else, and I'm glad it met my expectations! I enjoyed the extremely creative route the most out of everything.
thatguy wrote:
Not sure whether it's publishable, though. Super Mario Bros has a no-B-button movie, largely because this was thought to be impossible for the longest time, and it relies on TAS-only tricks. I'm not sure either of these things are true for this game, though I don't know too much of the background, so feel free to correct me.
Beating the game in 0 B presses was not possible until mid 2016, because of Bowser in the Sky. First, 0.5 B presses was figured out by Josh65536: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuMhuIDyvEg Then I realised that with the different bounce mechanics in the U 1.0 version, using essentially the same strat meant no B presses for the whole game was possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vaKIx2GwNw Nobody has yet managed to complete the game in 0 B presses in real-time, the main obstacle of course being BitS. Getting 50 stars is feasible but humans would take a much slower route. I think there should be no issue with accepting this run to Moons if the entertainment value is judged to be sufficient, which I believe it is, apart from one detail: the credits sequence is not fully completed. Beating the game as Yoshi, which is necessary to complete this challenge, causes you to die near the end of the credits. I know glitched endings are generally looked down upon here at TASVideos, especially in game end glitch TASes where they can be avoided, but I hope it can be overlooked in this movie given there is absolutely no workaround. This is one of the most interesting challenge categories for SM64DS and it showcases a completely different approach to any other, so I'd love to see it published. (Note: I've been added as editor and I'm going to add some information about why the U 1.0 version is necessary, why the end of the credits isn't reached, etc, tomorrow the day after tomorrow.)
Migu
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Joined: 10/3/2015
Posts: 58
Location: Louisiana
Very entertaining run for sure. Although the restriction is a tad arbitrary and it's not perfectly optimized, I don't think either offense is severe enough to reject it.
Fortranm
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Posts: 1108
Watched it. Loved it. Yes vote for entertainment. Does this game offer anything for beating the final boss at all?
Really_Tall
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Location: Scotland
Fortranm wrote:
Does this game offer anything for beating the final boss at all?
Nope. The game doesn't even save!
MarbleousDave
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Joined: 9/12/2009
Posts: 1554
Thanks to Pannenkoek2012 for coming up with the idea in the first place. This is 3 days faster on the DS than on the N64. Heaven's Portal vs BLJ. Yes vote.
Really_Tall
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Location: Scotland
PikachuMan wrote:
Thanks to Pannenkoek2012 for coming up with the idea in the first place.
SM64's A Button Challenge began long before pannenkoek's involvement: http://www.curtisbright.com/sm64/abc/ He was a big inspiration to me though, along with most likely everyone else who has worked on the B Button Challenge.
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Joined: 8/3/2014
Posts: 204
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What a surprise! Of course I found this very entertaining, well done, and I definitely support this run's publication on the site. But for some reason the category name "jumpless" seems less appropriate than "no B button". I would suggest to change that category name.
* http://tasvideos.org/ReadySteadyYeti.html - my user page on the TASVideos site * https://www.youtube.com/ReadySteadyYeti - my YouTube channel * My Discord username is "RSY#3799".
Spikestuff
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Migu wrote:
Although the restriction is a tad arbitrary and it's not perfectly optimized.
Curious on where the suboptimal gameplay is, than that of what the author has listed in the submission text.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Migu
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Location: Louisiana
There's nothing particularly suboptimal, there's just, I'd estimate, a couple frames that can be saved on several stars with more precise angles and/or slightly different moves.
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I like this tipe of goals, the movie was very entertaining for me even when I'm not 100% fan of Mario.
Migu wrote:
Although the restriction is a tad arbitrary and it's not perfectly optimized, I don't think either offense is severe enough to reject it.
I don't think this deserve a rejection only for that, as the first movie of this goal I prefer to give a chance for publication, after all, nothing stop you to obsololete this movie later.
You can see more TASes on my youtube channel
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Joined: 10/22/2018
Posts: 5
Ready Steady Yeti wrote:
for some reason the category name "jumpless" seems less appropriate than "no B button".
I call this category "jumpless"because people who didn't play the game might not understand the purpose of a "no B button" run (but you can see in the game objectives that I am actually talking about the B button Challenge) . It's kind of like the "walkathon" run of Super Mario Bros, not being called "no A button". Also, calling this "jumpless" will avoid stupid comments like "just use dual hand mode ! There ! No B press !".
What's the deal you might ask? I make SM64DS TASes. You watch them. And you won't get disappointed. (I hope)
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That was interesting. While the movement at times looked clunky, having actually played this game I can confirm moving with dpad is....not fun. The mechanics certainly seem quite different than the N64, given for instance you can go off poles without B, yet that's literally one of the obstacles stopping a N64 "jumpless" run without waiting 3 days. Some of the glitches such as water storage and the snowman heaven's portal was new to me. Is there any possible ideas on how the 50 star door would be skipped with Yoshi, or are there no leads so far?
Memory
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Wow this category is surprisingly entertaining. Yes vote. I think the category is entertaining and unique enough to be published and the optimization seems good enough, there can't be anything left that could prevent accept...
Really_Tall wrote:
the credits sequence is not fully completed. Beating the game as Yoshi, which is necessary to complete this challenge, causes you to die near the end of the credits.
...I should have known this looked too easy. EDIT: Question relating to that: What are the main obstacles preventing clearing the game as Mario?
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
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Joined: 10/22/2018
Posts: 5
Memory wrote:
What are the main obstacles preventing clearing the game as Mario?
The last stage. Bowser in the Sky can only be beaten as Yoshi because of his ability to swallow and spit out enemies. In the level, only the first spinning platform is problematic for beating the game as Mario. The rest of the level is doable. Sadly there's no way of getting past this section... The seesaw platform is too low and under a ceiling, the chuckya can't fall, the Whomp is on a determined path and there's no way to manipulate it, we can't manipulate goombas out of their home as Mario, and the intended path is even more problematic. As for ideas to get past the 50 star door as Yoshi, this is not even doable with jumps. The only thing that could clip us OoB are the toads, but they are too far away from the walls, and there's also a missing triangle under Wario's painting, but Yoshi can't do midair jumps (with no ennemies) to avoid falling to the castle grounds. Even if you COULD mid air jump... well, it's a jump.
What's the deal you might ask? I make SM64DS TASes. You watch them. And you won't get disappointed. (I hope)
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Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
Adeal wrote:
As for ideas to get past the 50 star door as Yoshi, this is not even doable with jumps. The only thing that could clip us OoB are the toads, but they are too far away from the walls, and there's also a missing triangle under Wario's painting, but Yoshi can't do midair jumps (with no ennemies) to avoid falling to the castle grounds. Even if you COULD mid air jump... well, it's a jump.
Are there any heaven's portals there that may be useable to get OoB as yoshi? If not, that's unfortunate. Any other ideas on the last stage with Mario that may seem plausible at least?
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jlun2 wrote:
Any other ideas on the last stage with Mario that may seem plausible at least?
Nope... I tried to manipulate a goomba above, but they are not DIRECTLY above... Same for the bob-ombs. The fire flowers can't move and their fire don't last enough and is not even useful. No heaven portals are available since there is a death floor... Chuckya can't grab us under the floor either and the fire spitter is too high to be useful
What's the deal you might ask? I make SM64DS TASes. You watch them. And you won't get disappointed. (I hope)
Joined: 5/8/2010
Posts: 177
Location: Entropy
This run is really nice and well though out. It's always nice to see games played in ways the devs didn't think you could play it! Yes vote on my part on a solid run even if it's given me a few anxiety attacks lol.
Joined: 12/30/2015
Posts: 1
Routing and optimization seem great. While it may not be as fast as a normal run, it was still quite entertaining and worth the watch. I watched through while following the step-by-step explanation, and it seems like a good guide as to what's going on. If it's worth fixing them, I noticed some minor issues in the step-by-step explanation:
  • ShiftyShifting Sand Land
  • Explanation of "Inside the Ancient Pyramid" should appear before "In the Talons of the Big Bird"
  • Explanation of "Quick Race through Downtown!" should appear before "Top O' the Town"
  • "Heaven Portal to Second Floor" section doesn't seem to explain the heaven portal to the second floor, but instead explains the heaven portal to "Bowser in the Sky" (which is missing its own mention in a section title)
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
this was surprisingly entertaining, easy yes vote also what would happen if you touch the last star as yoshi ? and also also : correct me if i'm wrong but there's no 150 category for this game, how's this possible ?
Player (213)
Joined: 3/15/2018
Posts: 225
Location: United States
"Heaven portal." Bit of a melodramatic name for an upwarp, don't you think? 😉 This was a cool run. Like I said on your YouTube video, it's nice that you can carry goombas around without it being some big cloning ordeal.