Remember the magic ORBs after defeating a Boom Boom? They're back! Mario 3 action in a whole new level!
Obtain patch at ROMhacking.net. Patch according to your SMB3 ROM version.
12 brand new levels with 18 ORBs. Absence of a TAS of this great game does not feel right. I cheesed many challenges intended by the creator Orange Expo and introduced myself new challenges. 1-3 being the level with the route most similar as intended. Atlas encode to show the level layout and what I have skipped.
Objective
Pet the Dog
New mechanics
Wall kick
A trick since New Super Mario Bros. Called wall kick to differenciate from wall jump - the glitch. To wall slide, be in air, have 0 or downwards Yvel, be near the lower part of the wall and face the wall. Wall sliding sets Mario to have 24 Yvel and can be used to fall down faster (0->24) or slower (69->24). It initiates a 5 frame window allowing wall kick. To wall kick, Mario must not be stuck in a wall and press A. It sets Mario to have 31 speed in a direction depending on which side on the block he is (not which side he is facing or sliding off), and -46 (upwards) base Yvel. Being close enough to wall slide but not bonking (1 pixel window) allows the bonus upward boost when you jump normally at high running Xvel to be added to the base Yvel (adding -2, -4, -8 for 3 Xspd levels). Used to scale walls quicker.
Twirl / Slow Fall / Regrab
Hold U and press A. Weird imo. Max Yvel is set to 32 for a while. Used to cross large gaps. But while this is active, shells cannot be grabbed. It also reverses facing direction which sometimes I have to counteract.
ON/OFF Blocks
Appears in Super Mario World and Super Mario Maker 2. Switches state when a coin block is hit. Sometimes blocks the optimal route and therefore go off-route to hit/avoid. E.g. the first one in 1-9 is avoided.
Shell Throws
Hold U when releasing B to throw shell upwards. Much like SMW. Hold D when releasing B to drop shell (with 12 Xspd). When Mario is moving at >=48 speed, the shell is kicked with a low low Xspd of 48, intended to allow Mario to catch up and shell jump. Regular SMB3 "Shell Ninja" is still used a lot in this run though. Additionally, being able to grab shells without kicking them when falling from above is extremely useful and stays in line with New Super Mario games.
Checkpoint
Extremely useful because we are going to die, a lot.
This is definitely improvable. Just it takes a lot of time to do so, and save like 1 frame from better wall kicks. 1-6 is known that the 1st time can use the ducking wall jump used in the 2nd time. Not sure if 1-7 is the best place to take damage. In 1-9, maybe somehow there is a way to get the red shell to be in a spot where I don't have to slow down and avoid the wall kick. In 1-Castle, Bowser fight could be better but out of my knowledge. It might be stalling Bowser in the air for longer. Also I think I can skip getting the fire flower mid-level. At last, some lag might be able to be reduced. The improvement is up on you!
Petting the dog is non-trivial so it counts into TAS time. Encode does not reflect the last part correctly. After petting the dog, press A to advance to the credits. Should it also be included in TAS time?
feos: This hack is absolutely jaw dropping! And the movie is also insanely cool! And the atlas encode! Wow what a thing, thanks for making it. Accepting.
Joined: 4/7/2015
Posts: 330
Location: Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
That's a lot of orbs to ponder.
Definitely yes, the new mechanics are very interesting, and I love seeing hacks being TASed, specially when they're already relevant in the speedrunning community of the game.
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math.
My things:
YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
Easy yes vote. Did not realize the 100% category could go this fast. When I found the time was under 10 minutes with the branch being 100%, I thought it was incomplete, considering that the record for this category is 17:34. That run sounded pretty fast (I say sounded because I'm blind). This run blows my mind.
DJ Incendration
Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
In an incredibly bitcrunched voice: "Yes vote!"
The various intentional deaths to keep gathering orbs in a level were both incredibly clever as a strategy and pretty funny.
Yes vote. Quality ROM hack, entertaining to see challenging "mini" levels. Pets the dog.
It was like watching a custom Super Mario Maker (edit) level. The offering of these challenge ROM hacks (the combination of custom level layouts and usage of powerups and enemies to overcome challenges within the original game engine) might be less than enough for some viewers, but it also has custom visuals and an acceptable ending, looking like a better game than your average NES bootlegs.
What I mean I would vote Yes for a lot of these custom ROM hacks as long as they are able to demonstrate something unique compared to the already existing TASes of the same game (NES SMB3 in this case).
To be sure, I've just googled NES SMB3 Super Orb Bros and it seems the SMB3 legends call this one of the greatest ROM hack to exist.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Personally, I'm not into kaizo hacks. If a hack doesn't look like I will even remotely have fun trying to play it, I typically won't enjoy watching it either.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
To be sure, I've just googled NES SMB3 Super Orb Bros and it seems the SMB3 legends call this one of the greatest ROM hack to exist.
I'd like to see sources backing up the statement.
In particular, I'm wondering who these "SMB3 legends" are.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2224
Location: Georgia, USA
FractalFusion, one of the main people involved with SMB3 hacks is MitchFlowerPower. He is the WR holder on this game's RTA speedrun, and I think only two or three people have times under 20 minutes on this game. This is a really ambitious SMB3 hack with a lot more custom modifications than most of them have, as SMB3 hacking is generally harder to do than SMW hacking.
I really like this run, but the vertical wall climbing and tons of clips also takes away from the elegance of the intended solutions to puzzles. It's still a good run, and the TAS solutions have their own creativity too. I'm really surprised by how you handled Boom Boom, since that fight is usually so scripted in the intended approach. I'm voting Yes.
Also, a nod of acknowledgement to speedrunner GrandPooBear for being the "Orb" voice.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
To be sure, I've just googled NES SMB3 Super Orb Bros and it seems the SMB3 legends call this one of the greatest ROM hack to exist.
I'd like to see sources backing up the statement.
In particular, I'm wondering who these "SMB3 legends" are.
I've literally googled what I wrote and presed Video:
https://www.google.com/search?q=nes+smb3+super+mario+orb
and I've meant particularly Grand POOBear and Mitchflowerpower. Not to belittle anyone else relevant to SMB3 like TASers, but I've just made a quick google search and found these two on first page.
Here's their own videos for this ROM hack:
Link to videoLink to video
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Incredible stuff! The hack, the movie, the atlas encode (how did you make it btw?)
Petting the dog is non-trivial so it counts into TAS time. Encode does not reflect the last part correctly. After petting the dog, press A to advance to the credits. Should it also be included in TAS time?
Yes please.
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.
I made the atlas encode using lua to read RAM and ROM and output .bmp files. And ffmpeg to string them together.
Can you share it?
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.
Joined: 2/26/2020
Posts: 43
Location: Super Bell Hill
here https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637896725554010464
there is still a lot to be added before i use it on other smb3 games.
btw someone told me that they are working on an improvement of orb bros, maybe in 2-3 months.
