This is my favorite SMB hack ever. Mostly because I suck at it. It requires thinking!

Seems there's a "parallel world" mentioned on the Air homepage that you access following the completion of 4-3? Air Homepage in Japanese Air Homepage with English translation (sort of...) by Google In particular, the last part of the "SKY" link and the "AIR" link within the "BLOOM, DREAM, DESPAIR, SKY, AIR" menu, midway down the page. It looks as though there's a new boss at the end of (assumedly) parallel 1-3 as well as a different ending (with the GIF conveniently mosaic'd so nobody can see it.) Of course I could be totally wrong. That's what I was able to cobble together from the translated page, which resembles something of a Where's Waldo of the English language. Worth a mention at any rate.

Hmm. Hey, you're right. So, how do you reach it?

Good question. As far as I can tell, you access it by completing 4-3 and pushing B to "COME TO -AIR-" like it says to do in the ending displayed on the published movie. Judging from the screenshots on the webpage, it looks like the parallel world is similar to World 1 except for the end of 1-3 and the "real" ending. -edit- Or not. Or maybe. Check out this page, accessible from the "-Download-" links near the bottom of the Air homepage. And I thought the movie was bizarre.

...so, which version of VirutaNES would we need to playback the movies?

FCEU.

...so, which version of VirutaNES would we need to playback the movies?

You need VirtuaNES 0.40 to play those movies, according to the readme file that was included with them.

Ah. Missed that part. ...speaking of which... Am I the only one that can't play the "airpw.vmv" file, or did I just miss something along the way?

concerning gameplay, this must be one of the sickest games i've seen so far. if i interpret that oddly translated homepage right, only 14 people have completed this game by now. wouldn't suprise me, it seems to be suited for the hard among the hardcore gamers only ;)

this was... weird :S

Strange through... I hope to finish downloading torrent tomorow :P And yeah, that game was wierd, I was played it a bit (For 2 minutes) and know that it was totally weird..

I like how most of the Japanese-to-English sentences refer to the actions of some undefined "it".

That's because English is a subject-verb-driven language and Japanese is a topic-driven language. In Japanese, the subject is often omitted, so to make it valid English, a dummy subject needs to be added ("it"). For example, in Japanese you can say "gohan wa sakana", which translated literally is "as for meal, it is fish" (meal is topic, fish is subject). Verb is omitted. Or you can say "bikkurishita", which literally means: was surprised. The subject (who/what was surprised) is omitted. Often it's the one who says it. A machine translator would often translate it was "it was surprised".

Hm... this has got me thinking. Most of us know how "second quest" runs are treated on this site (unnecessary and boring). But technically, replaying worlds 1-1 to 1-3 isn't as much of a second quest as it is the game tricking you into thinking that you're taking a second quest. It's kinda comparable to The Sorrow boss fight in MGS3. Only this time, instead of the game tricking you into thinking that it's game over, AIR is tricking us to thinking that you're restarting the game from scratch, when you've got a new world 1-3 awaiting you, and the true ending of the game. (And as far as repeating stages goes, it wouldn't even take that long.) So if this is truly the case, Genisto hasn't truly beaten the game at all. AIR has achieved victoly over the TASer. ...now we can't have that, can we? >>;

why cant I get any movie to work the fceu emulator i dont understand what im doing wrong

why cant I get any movie to work the fceu emulator i dont understand what im doing wrong

It would be helpful if you told us exactly what wasn't working. Do you get an error message? Does the movie desync? Does your computer spontaneously combust? :) Also, what are you doing that should work but doesn't?

i dont understand what im doing wrong

Yeah, I don't understand that either.

Well, I saw this video a long time ago, and I was blown away, and recently I happened to find a file of it, and after about 2 days of playing it, I have beaten it. I didn't slow down the game at all, but I did use Nesten's turbo button feature. I wish I would've remembered that you can save where you are anywhere with emulators, because it definitely would not have taken me nearly as long. Now, whether there is some new ending after playing it once through, I have no idea, but here is a screenshot. I'm sure bragging is probably not appreciated, but I had to tell somebody. You understand, right?

Hey, I think a space character took a chunk of that pipe!

Hey, I think a space character took a chunk of that pipe!

It did, just like character 32 (blank space) takes chunks out of other tiles when going to warp zones. Also, there is another AIR. There's a download page with some JS, but if you disable JS, the password for the RAR is in plaintext... it's different, but I suck and can't tell how.

This MAY or MAY NOT be a cheat. that depends if using a Turbo button to jump is evil. If it isnt...then this is a grand ol' shortcut. Y'see if you turbo jump, objects above mario become easy for him to jump trhough. so when you start a new game, simply go all the way to the pipes. go inbetween the 2nd and 3rd pipes (NOT ENOUGH TO GET HIT BY THE PLANT), and hit it. if done right, you will hit the [?] block and get a mushroom. go forward, and up to the pipe. wait for the plant to go down, then go in. now you should be in an underwater area. moving forward, you should see 3 goombahs, which you couldnt kill since you're underwater. without fire, you're helpless. But you can take a hit and run past them. continue on, grab the axe, and then smile as you realize you're now in level 2-1! this is a great way to do a speedrun. Moreso, if the jump still isnt cheap, continue on untill you reach the plant at the end of this area. jump through the blocks and go down the pipe. now do that jump through the two invisible blocks above you. ironic how even Air has a hidden route. hope this helps you Air-maniacs.

Hi, just found this site, I haven't watched the movie yet as I would like to finish this game first. Now, -unless I got a different game, even if you had to die once to complete the game you do not have to collect coins, you can get more than enough lives in the first level.

I have read the site, and can explain some more about this hack. It is brilliant. Here's how it works. You must get to the end without using the following banned techniques. (they are explicitly banned) 1) coming back off the bottom of the screen after the death music plays. this is forbidden. the guy coudln't figure out how to stop it. Genistos vid does this, but this is simple play error, and it could have been done without this. 2) using rapid fire to jump thru bricks. because of the air jumps you can actaully penetrate solid ground with rapid fire on from below. this is not allowed. 3) this is not banned on the website, but the author does not realise it works. you can abuse the infinite jumps in air to get 1ups. Now when you get the "i'm waiting for you in -air-" message, you get to enter the second loop. In the second loop, a new area is accesible in the first screen, because a goomba is changed into a buzzy beetle! you can use the beetle to kill the spiny and enter the pipe past it, which brings you to on top of the ground. you then enter the pipe near the end, and get put into a water world leading to an axe. (if you try to get there in first lap, goombas will kill you!) get the axe, and yo uare given a password and userid. these are used to download PARALLEL AIR rom hack, which is part 2, and MUCH MUCH harder then part1. you must play air parallel to see the true ending! BTW, there's another way to not die at end.you can go below and use chimney technique to enter lower passage. but you must do so while LARGE and crouch jumping. this is very difficult to do without fallign off bottom and dieing. but it is possible. WIh this technique you do not need to worry about coins, and can therefore improve this TAS significantly by gettign the axe in 1-1 first loop! Yes, it can be done. Not supposed ot be possible, but here's how. go to where you find the pipes, at the third pipe there are two mushroom bricks. walk so you will barely clear the block before the first brick (partly inside the third pipe), and rapidly tap jump and forward alternatingly. you hit the block, and because you are steering right get sucked to the left, and then jump up thru the block you got sucked into. now get the shroom, go down the pipe at the end, and walk right. you will get hit, but be able to continue onto the axe. you ARE intended to have to collect the 100 coins.

This MAY or MAY NOT be a cheat. that depends if using a Turbo button to jump is evil. If it isnt...then this is a grand ol' shortcut. Y'see if you turbo jump, objects above mario become easy for him to jump trhough.

That is considered cheating by the author, and is BANNED tech for this hack.

so when you start a new game, simply go all the way to the pipes. go inbetween the 2nd and 3rd pipes (NOT ENOUGH TO GET HIT BY THE PLANT), and hit it. if done right, you will hit the [?] block and get a mushroom. go forward, and up to the pipe. wait for the plant to go down, then go in. now you should be in an underwater area. moving forward, you should see 3 goombahs, which you couldnt kill since you're underwater. without fire, you're helpless. But you can take a hit and run past them. continue on, grab the axe, and then smile as you realize you're now in level 2-1! this is a great way to do a speedrun. Moreso, if the jump still isnt cheap, continue on untill you reach the plant at the end of this area. jump through the blocks and go down the pipe. now do that jump through the two invisible blocks above you. ironic how even Air has a hidden route. hope this helps you Air-maniacs.

But as in my post above you can do it without a turbo,a nd without penetrating a brick directly from below.

oh. PS there's ANOTHER way to get the axe in 1-1 simply die and when you get returned to the top, use the water wall enter glitch to enter the brick at the end, float thru, and drop down to the axe. i can't do it though.

Except I'm a horrible turbo-fire abuser. :(