This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6364: DMTASpeedruns's FDS Super Mario Bros. 2 "warpless" in 21:23.54

Why do you bump into the platform when you reach bowser in the first level?

Jumping to shoot bowser means bumping the platform, i had to to kill bowser as fast.

Most levels dont have anything special other than a FPG

"FPG"? What does this stand for?

Well I really do not think your bowser fights are optimal. Just an example, HappyLee’s 4-4 bowser in this movie: https://youtu.be/891IjTzV6XM does not stop to shoot him with fire balls before touching the axe. I highly suspect your other bowser fights can be imrpoved immensely.

Most levels dont have anything special other than a FPG

"FPG"? What does this stand for?

Flag Pole Glitch.

Well, I have to say that there are a lot of good things done in this TAS. 1. Clipping is used 2. Flag pole skip 3. Some places choose the harder route. 4. Seems that the best forward progress is made in tight areas where slowness can't be avoided. However, EZGames69 brings up a good point. The Bowser fights are not optimal. Which brings me to a question...Is it really necessary to kill Bowser to complete the level for this version? Looking back at RTA runners, even Happy Lee's TAS...this is not the case. Because of that...the only vote that I can fairly give, is Meh.

Howdy - I can try to console verify this (as best I can with what I have on hand) but I'd agree that you should look to HappyLee for how he handles Bowser and you should do whatever it takes to get past him as fast as possible. The downside of an audience full of perfectionists is that you'll have to deal with us, well, asking you for perfection, but it will be oh so worth it.

Is it really necessary to kill Bowser to complete the level for this version? Looking back at RTA runners, even Happy Lee's TAS...this is not the case.

Killing bowser with fire flower before touching the axe removes the cutscene where the bridge goes away and bowser falls. It saves like 3 seconds.

im deffinately gonna work on a more optimized version of this, thank you all for pointing out what needed to be fixed!

im deffinately gonna work on a more optimized version of this, thank you all for pointing out what needed to be fixed!

on top of this im gonna try and make it more entertaining to watch

Killing bowser with fire flower before touching the axe removes the cutscene where the bridge goes away and bowser falls. It saves like 3 seconds.

Ok. Then finding a way to kill him while not slowing down is the only option. Xela, there are tough situations all the time for TASers...this is just one of those that you will have to work out. Having done Phantoon poorly in a previous SM TAS, I realized that I had to bite down hard to try to resolve the tough situation. It will be extremely rewarding when you are done.

Why didn't you include World 9 at all? Furthermore, there's also Worlds A to D, for which you have to beat the game 8 times in a row on the original release (the SNES version immediately segues from World 9 to World A on a warpless playthrough, as it does not require you to beat the game 8 times). Abstaining, as I personally feel the movie is incomplete.

World 9 and Worlds A-D can be featured in the FDS TAS if it starts from SRAM, but that is usually not allowed. What I will say is that this movie is unoptimized. It looks like it was recorded on top of HappyLee's SMB2J warps TAS because the movie file has HappyLee marked as the author ("author HappyLee" in the metadata). While the movie file says 72632 rerecords, 70167 of those rerecords come from HappyLee's warps TAS. In addition, it is clear that this TAS was not done with memory watch. I noticed some clear improvements besides the Bowser fights. The 1-3 mushroom grab, 1-4 fire flower grab, and maneuvering around the blocks leading to the Bowser fight can all be improved, and this is only considering World 1. The fast accelerations in castle levels are also suboptimal. I do think this game has potential, but someone needs to make a well-optimized TAS of it first. Here is a TAS of Worlds A-D done by chatterbox which looks pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t8CK3SivAc I would recommend sharing WIPs so other viewers can offer feedback. It can greatly increase the quality of the final submission.

What I will say is that this movie is unoptimized. It looks like it was recorded on top of HappyLee's SMB2J warps TAS because the movie file has HappyLee marked as the author ("author HappyLee" in the metadata). While the movie file says 72632 rerecords, 70167 of those rerecords come from HappyLee's warps TAS.

That explains why the rerecord count seemed too high for a suboptimal movie. I will probably give Xela the benifit of the doubt and assume they didn’t know how to add HappyLee as a “co-author”, but it’s hard to do that when it isn’t mentioned in the submission text at all that it used inputs from HappyLee.

You copied my inputs for 1-1. I'm not that surprised since I read "1-1: Ground clip for full FPG". But you shouldn't record your run over my movie and pretend you did 1-1 by yourself.

Since you’re here Happylee, can you tell us if the jumps over the pillars before the world 1 bowser can be done faster? It seems like there should be a better way to get around it. Edit: specifically at 2:17 in the encode.

I don't have an opinion on the TAS itself, nor its quality, but let me chime in real quick with regards to authorship attribution, because there is some visible discontent brewing between here and Discord, and it needs to be addressed. Our attribution policy for modified input is notably lax to avoid situations where every new author would be required to include all past and present collaborators, so the entire body of work on a given game published on our site can be considered a collaborative effort where the content is published already with intent of further reusal—especially since it becomes inevitable as TASes become progressively more optimized and thus converging to a single optimal set of inputs. The contribution of every author is recorded in the site's history to comply with the CC BY 2.0 site license, which also allows building on others' work without asking for permission—this is something every movie author and editor agree upon when submitting any content to the site. This moves the attribution of a heavily modified work strictly into the domain of community ethics. The author is encouraged to list every source of input that was directly copied into their work, and is discouraged from taking significant portions of input from other players without properly crediting them—within reasonable bounds, of course. But unless an overwhelming percentage of input is directly copied from elsewhere without any attribution, this is not something that the site can—nor should!—enforce one way or another, and it certainly shouldn't influence the judgment process or user rights. And this also isn't something to admonish beginners for, considering they cannot be expected to be fully acquainted with intricacies of our etiquette in their first few months. It's not possible to tell at a glance that what's been done here can be frowned upon, since the borrowed input constitutes only a tiny portion of the TAS's overall runtime. In my personal opinion, it would have been reasonable and of proper courtesy to mention in the submission message that inputs in 1-1 and 1-2 were taken from HappyLee [for any sensible reasons]. And that's really it. Carry on!

Since you’re here Happylee, can you tell us if the jumps over the pillars before the world 1 bowser can be done faster? It seems like there should be a better way to get around it.

Of course. This movie isn't optimized in many places. For optimized version, please see: [3456] SNES Super Mario All-Stars: The Lost Levels "warpless, Mario" by HappyLee in 34:36.61.

Since you’re here Happylee, can you tell us if the jumps over the pillars before the world 1 bowser can be done faster? It seems like there should be a better way to get around it.

Of course. This movie isn't optimized in many places. For optimized version, please see: [3456] SNES Super Mario All-Stars: The Lost Levels "warpless, Mario" by HappyLee in 34:36.61.

Ok so it just requires really specific movement and not some fancy clip into a wall or something. This makes me wonder if a FDS tas for SMB2 warpless would be acceptable, if the content lines up with the snes version.

Ok so it just requires really specific movement and not some fancy clip into a wall or something. This makes me wonder if a FDS tas for SMB2 warpless would be acceptable, if the content lines up with the snes version.

While it's true that some levels will be very similar, the FDS has enough differences to make a warpless TAS quite interesting. In my opinion, the most interesting parts of the SMB1 warpless TAS are the many ways that the author skips Mario walking to the castle. The flagpole/castle walk is skipped with bullet bills, koopa shells, and clipping into the ground in various ways. In the SNES version of Lost Levels, this glitch is still possible, but the game softlocks if Mario never reaches the castle. That means this glitch is not present in the TAS of this version. A TAS of the FDS version would take advantage of this glitch. It's seen in 1-1 of the movie that this thread is about. It can be used in more levels, and it can also be used in the underwater world 9 levels, in a way that isn't seen in the SMB1 Warpless TAS! There are also other tricks unique to the FDS version. Upside down pipes can be clipped into and then Mario can go "down" them. This results in some very interesting strategies, as it warps Mario to different parts of the stage. There are also certain wall clips that don't work on the SNES version, and various enemies behave differently. In my opinion, it is a shame that a TAS of the FDS version is often seen as unnecessary because of the SNES version, or seen as something that shouldn't be done, because of the requirements for reaching worlds A-D. The most interesting/entertaining tricks are impossible to use on the SNES version. I think the FDS version is very deserving of a proper TAS and spot on the site!

The only part I liked in the TAS is the pipe glitch at 8-1 but it also can be improved... Here's my attempt of the 8-1 pipe (which probably can also be improved):

Can't you use SRAM so you can do the A to D worlds?

FCEUX uses IPS patch to "simulate SRAM" in FCEUX, it would probably work but first, it's needed to first get the sram (IPS) with the progress of game completed 8 times or something better, duplicate the "sram" ips (copy-paste in the same directory with " - copy" in the name) and then make the TAS. In the submission text provide a download link of the "sram" ips. That's my idea, I don't know if is a good idea or what...

IPS patching SMB2J to allow access to Worlds A-D was explicitly allowed by the site back when romhacks required approval.