Creating the forum thread with the Nintendo 3DS being implemented into Bizhawk, at least on source on GitHub.
I spent the first three days creating a Glitchless TAS for the first hour of the game:
Link to video
About 10-20 seconds can still be saved (mostly to getting better RNG). It is 3 minutes faster than my sum of best (57:02). The vast majority of the timesave is due to perfect mashing (just spam A, B, A, B, A, B, ...), and also clean movement. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for a first attempt.
The major timesaves for this TAS is in the first fight (I got 16 bats, the maximum, while I should have gotten 8 bats), getting good Toad RNG after the Pi'illo Island Welcome Quiz (if he was in a better spot, I could clip out of bounds and skip a cutscene, save a few seconds), and better attack patterns with Dreamy Mario. I don't think I lost more than 3 seconds on movement, but that's hard to tell.
My personal goal is to at least create an optimized TAS for the Any%, Glitchless and All Bosses categories.
Any% (TAS route) would be under 2, unsure if sub 1:50 is possible.
Any% (RTA route) should be under 2:45. (The distinction is which glitches are used)
Glitchless should be under 9 hours.
All Bosses should be under 9 hours too (this includes the X Bosses).
It's possible that new out of bounds clips could be found that are TAS-only, which could bring the run down to sub 1:30, in an ideal scenario. As long as you can clip out of bounds in the Pi'illo Castle Lobby, you save 24 minutes. TAS-only clips could be used to save smaller amounts of times elsewhere too. (OBSOLETE BUT LOL)
One last thing I want to mention: there is an issue with the Bizhawk emulator, and that's that you can not change the steps counter. This means Hiking Boots is useless for TAS because it only gives 30 POW rather than the full 150. (Hiking Boots is a 2 minute detour for All Bosses and 10 seconds in Glitchless)
Edit:
I wrote all of the above like, a week ago, but since then Pi'illo Castle Skip WAS actually found.
Link to video
This works because with a slower speed, you can clip out of bounds at the bottom of the screen, which doesn't work with normal speed. You can store slower speed by only moving when in mid-air after walking on stairs. I managed to do it in an RTA speedrun too using an easier strat that involves walking on the stairs while out of bounds, rather doing everything with slow speed.
RNG address is 0x039F4F40 on 3DS Bizhawk, 4-byte address. The problem is that I don't find any way to manipulate RNG in battles... Which makes Secret Box impossibly difficult to manipulate properly, unfortunately. So to make a TAS of this game you'd need some insane RNG outside of battle and get it all within battle. You can definitely skip Bros. Attacks, but it seems the best way to manipulate RNG is by using Bros. Attacks since you can advance RNG sometimes 12 times.
I'm working on a LOTAD that uses the RTA route but with Pi'illo Castle Skip.
Something that might have huge ramifications for this game's TAS scenes is a new way to clip out of bounds. I haven't tested it properly yet, so I don't know just how big this is.
About half a year ago, shortly after Pi'illo Castle Skip was found, I found this out of bounds clip: https://youtu.be/j5rFwVjSTwc (There's two Blimport songs playing at once because the game doesn't clear the Blimport song when you go into a new area before entering Pi'illo Castle)
I didn't think much of it, until Isaq found this cllip in the same room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXTq6SbHXrE
He later found that this clip seems to work with any wall that has an 89.9 degree angle corner.
These message links require you to be in the Mario & Luigi Speedrunning Discord server, I'm too lazy, but he found several other clips with this too:
https://discord.com/channels/211141835958124544/211142178641149962/1335542458158809089 (Under Pi'illo Castle)
https://discord.com/channels/211141835958124544/211142178641149962/1335696303312605275 (A way to get into Boss Brickle Maintenace room while the flowers are down)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xucVsL8s2L0 (This clip will be used in the TAS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsksIgZ-lm4 (Easier Pi'illo Castle Skip, slightly faster than old)
https://discord.com/channels/211141835958124544/211142178641149962/1335890147748614215 (Easier Pi'illo Castle Skip, fastest than all variations; not really a corner clip but this uses a misaligned wall just like the other 89.9 corners, just in a different way, so this might have some interesting ramifications too.)
https://discord.com/channels/211141835958124544/211142178641149962/1335965385538666570 (This saves ~2+ seconds and is very easy to do)
https://discord.com/channels/211141835958124544/211142178641149962/1337137977624629309 (Faster Reverse Early Dozing Sands, would save ~30+ seconds in RTA, but it's unconfirmed whether Luigi can clip or not)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWPeBlnb2cw (Alternate Neo Bowser Castle Skip)
I have the theory that maybe this type of clip can work with literally any corner that has less than a 90 degree angle corner, which if that's the case, that has huge ramifications for TAS. I have not tested anything with this yet. I also seemed to have lost my 54:5x Prologue Glitchless TAS which is really annoying.
This new type of clipping might make Super Early Mt. Pajamaja actually doable in TAS. While it's confirmed the route is possible, replicating the current clips is a huge pain in the ass and it's whats stopped any and all attempts at TASing this game.
