The Challenge Mode that was featured on the SMB. Deluxe release for GBC presents the objective of collecting as many points for a stage, starting from scratch, with a few tweaks unique to the mode.
A few other things are also to be done, but achieving the highest score possible would be the one field of interest as far as a tool-assisted run is concerned.
It introduces a few scoring changes:
5 extra red coins (200 pts. each)
A Yoshi Egg (2000 pts.) in each of the 32 levels.
A 2000 pts. award for 1UPs,
A 10.000 point bonus for a PERFECT coin heaven result.
At the end of the 100, 200, 400.. string is 10.000 pts. instead of a 1UP.
In terms of scoring, the rest works like we're used to.
One interesting thing I should mention is a scoring glitch that is included, in an attempt to keep people from racking up points with the "Stairs trick".
After scoring 8000 pts., the enemy dies, should you attempt the stair trick after that.
However, if you stop the stair trick at 8000, and let the enemy recover, every suceedent kick of the shell (beetle or turtle) is worth 5000 pts. as opposed to 500!
It should be noted that David Wonn brought this glith/quirk to my attention, and also that he has over 4,000,000 pts. (The scores are on his site.)
Other than that, there should be some if not plenty experimentation to be done, so as to map out the most beneficial route. (Time also affects the score, as we all know, and 6 fireworks would be good.)
I'm not eqiupped with the recording knowledge/time to do this myself, but given how well people know Mario games around here, I thought this might be refreshing.
There is a difference in the expectancy scores for each level between the Japanese US/European versions. The U.S./European was actually released first, and some expectancy scores are lower in the Japanese version.
Pasted from The Mushroom Kingdom:
Challenge mode
In the Japanese version, for some reason the "scores to beat" for Worlds 1-1 through 4-4 were lowered, except for W2-3 and 3-4, whose scores stayed the same. Shaving off a few thousand points here and there leads to a lower requirement of 869,000 points needed to completely fill the "total score bar," as opposed to the 942,000 points required in the English version.
For example, here in World 1-1 the "score to beat" drops to 26,000. Remember that Japan's Super Mario Bros. 2 was deemed "too hard" for American players? Well, then, why do Japanese players have an easier Challenge mode in SMBDX? Interesting. Here is a chart of all the score changes:
World English Japanese
1-1 32000 26000
1-2 38000 30000
1-3 24000 19000
1-4 13000 12000
2-1 40000 28000
2-2 25000 23000
2-4 14000 13000
3-1 45000 40000
3-2 85000 70000
3-3 23000 21000
4-1 32000 26000
4-2 33000 29000
4-3 24000 21000
4-4 17000 14000
</TMK paste>
Achieving the total expectancy score earns you the Toad Award, one of 5 Medals in the game. Should you gain enough points, you will earn it once more with every multiple, but nothing else happens as a result.
I'm a bit surprised that the Challenge Mode hasn't been mentioned yet, so I thought I'd post this.
Andreas