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Post subject: Super Mario Land 2
Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 55
Its a nice game and has a lot of variety in worlds. so i decided to start a quick run. this is a 3 day attempt to complete the game and try to keep the interest. Note that the game has nice collosin detection and so allows you to do sidestomps on enemies. The 3 taboos were: * No middlestage bell * No powerups (causing me to avoid the frog on Tree zone 1) * No warps / Secret levels I really wish that someone with time and more skill would do a better run. but you can still enjoy it. the link: www.koti.mbnet.fi/maxkyh/ And theres only one file in there so you wont get lost :) The ROM version: (UE) (1.0) [!]
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I don't see why power-ups should be taboo. I think viewers would enjoy seeing Mario's different forms. I saw a few places where you could grab a power-up without losing time even, so it could work. You'd just have to plan whether you want Fire Mario or Bunny Mario, and you'd want to look at going clockwise around the map instead to see if power-ups would work out better that way. I also think you should hit the bell whenever it's hard to hit without losing time. And what do you know about warps and secret levels so far?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Ambassador, Experienced player (695)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Pretty nice job given the restraints you've set. I think the two runs to do for this game though are any% and 100%, and neither should avoid powerups or hidden levels. There are definitely a few places where the rabbit ears could help, and fireballs might speed up the bosses. This definitely needs to be checked out. Also, at least one of the hidden levels provides a shorter path to the final level of the area, so this should be taken advantage of. Is this what you meant by warps? I know the macro world area has one like this. Most of the secrets just reveal the secret area and don't let you advance toward the end of the area, so clearly not useful in an any% run. Of course a 100% run would show off all the areas and would require more powerups to reach the secrets.
Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 55
by warping i mean secret levels. and yeah. like i said this was just a test thingy. i might do a better/worser run in future. who knows ? :P
Joined: 6/15/2004
Posts: 104
Location: Zürich / Switzerland
Hi, I wonder how they could make such great graphics and sound in this game. I mean: Just compare it to SML1. Bigger sprites, better sound, nicer graphics. More levels... It looks more like a SNES game than a NES game. What is the trick they've used? Or is it more that the have not nearly invested enough time into SML1? What I noticed is the very low amount of visible sprites at a time. This may be related as fewer sprites certainly mean more speed reserve that can be used for better graphics. Comments? Philip
Joined: 6/6/2005
Posts: 384
Screwing around, I got a time of 4:28 after the Tree Zone boss. Frame count's at 16,062. Any updates from anyone else, or should I keep slugging away to see what time I get at the end? [Edit: With the Bunny Ears, I pulled in a 4:31. That just outright confounds me, since I took a shortcut this time. >>; In any case, I have Tree and Space Zones beaten with a time of 9:19. Space Zone, despite only being two levels, is possibly the slowest zone in the game. This is because area 1 has reduced gravity...which means that Mario moves a bit slower than normal. Especially when jumping. Area 2 is auto-scrolling and LONG. This also includes the time for the starting level, which you're forced do to before picking a zone, and the sleepy hippo level, which you have to go through to access Space Zone. Anyone cares to beat my times, by all means do. The only shortcut I know of so far is in the ant level of Tree Zone. There's a hidden heart block that more or less lets you bypass a good chunk of the level.]
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Didn't you play a bonus game to get the bunny ears? Maybe that's slower than you thought. And did you make sure to manipulate Tatanga so he drops down right away instead of firing shots for a while?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 6/6/2005
Posts: 384
http://kaitoukid.endoftheinternet.org Well, there's the finished v1. Two seconds faster than Oasiz's. But keep in mind that: 1) This is my first attempt at even trying something like this. 2) It was more to get a feel for things and so I could review what power would best suit each level- something I'm going to do either tonight or tomorrow afternoon. 3) There are some reeeeally embarassing mistakes that I didn't bother fixing since I DO plan to make a good v2. These include the Worst Witch Fight Ever and Awful Final Wario Hit. I've really got to do something about the inconsistant water jumping, too. No matter how long I hold (or DON'T hold) the jump button, Mario will often choose how high to fling his hefty butt out of the water on his own. Initial Stage: I'm not going to use a bonus stage to get the carrot. I'll pick it up elsewhere or just skip it altogether. Bonus stage took up too much time. Tree Zone: Definitely choosing the ant path over the bees, since you can take that shortcut and beat it in almost no time. Space Zone: ...is horrible. Seriously, it is and will always be the most boring thing ever to play AND watch. One level's reduced gravity means slow moving and awkward jumps and the second is an auto-scroller. Micro Zone: Try though I did, I just couldn't get to that platform to take me under the ledge, so I had to pause. Switched back to Fire Mario a stage or three too late. I'll use Bunny Mario for area 1 since hovering would be useful, then make the switch to Fire again. Pumpkin Zone: Not a lot to say. I hate the witch fight, but I didn't feel like adjusting since I WOULD be making a v2. Seems like me and Oasiz had the same idea of killing all four hockey mask enemies towards the end there, only I threw fireballs upwards to get 'em instead of head-bouncing on them. Mario Zone: Is a mess. How conceited IS Mario, anyway? Why does he need a giant, clockwork statue of himself? Turtle Zone: I. HATE. WATER. LEVELS. In ANY game. But especially here since forward movement is hideous and they REALLY try slowing you down. Especially in the area where you basically have to travel about via pipes ever few feet. Wario's Castle: I haven't watched the playback for the castle, irritated as I was with some of the hits. The final hit on Fire Wario was especially embarassing. I blame my lack of sleep today on that flub. So...yeah. The rerecord count was lower than I'd like it to be. V2 will have precision jumping, though, I promise. And I'll try really hard to make Space and Turtle Zones interesting... though they're both so hideous that it'll be tough. I'm gonna TRY reducing the time down to 28 minutes even. It'd be nice to get it under that, but I can't really see that happening realistically. If I'm missing some in-level warps, by all means inform me of them. I'll be taking Monday to review each level in detail, taking notes - mostly of where carrots and fire flowers are - and then starting v2 on Tuesday.
Joined: 6/6/2005
Posts: 384
Keeping this post seperate from ^that one since this concerns my v2. Anyone happen to know if you can manipulate the order of items in the bonus game? Because I need to grab a fire flower after the first two Tree Zone levels. I decided to use the 2nd area's bonus game to grab one, but the item order went [heart][fire flower][carrot][heart][heart][fire flower]. Since you don't get control until the second item goes back. And with the stupid crane moving constantly, it takes a COUPLE seconds to grab the flower. But now, I'm annoyed. I pulled off this insane jump in area 4. Right at the beginning, there's a big gap with a moving platform and a [?] block. As small Mario you can jump across underneath. Usually you have to wait to land on the platform before vaulting over the [?] block... but you can apparently gain a little more air by letting go of the jump button at the right time. After a TON of attempts, I combined this with a spin jump (holding down when jumping as anyone other than small or Bunny Mario) and busted the [?] block... and there was a fire flower inside! >:O So basically... if I pick up a mushroom in the mushroom starting level, stay big until T-4, and pull that crazy crap off again, it'd save me the trouble of hitting up a bonus stage. This means that I could probably shave another two to four seconds off of what I've already lowered the time to. At present, I've got a 4:20 after beating the mother bird. That's 8 seconds better than my previous attempt. Rerecord count is in the 330s. I'm gonna record another version of this tomorrow to see which version is faster. Whichever is gets continued. Ach. At the very least, this is the last major power-up problem I can foresee having. I'm going to need Fire Mario to access the secret level in Micro Zone, which'll let me skip over two other levels and go directly to the boss. So that'll shave minutes off the time by itself. Providing everything goes my way, I just might have a 25-minute run on my hands.
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I say try for the crazy crap. Those bonus games are SLOW.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Ambassador, Experienced player (695)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Have you tried to figure out how long it would take to grab a mushroom and then a fireflower in a level? Probably less than a few seconds, if they are anywhere near where you'd be going anyway. Also, one of the Mario statue levels has powerups sitting out in the open, as do some other levels. As far as manipulating the bonus round, have you tried delaying when you finish the level? In Mario Land 1, the bonus setup seems to change almost every frame, so it was pretty easy to get an optimal setup.
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
And you're sure it's not faster to go counter-clockwise?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
pilif wrote:
I wonder how they could make such great graphics and sound in this game. I mean: Just compare it to SML1. Bigger sprites, better sound, nicer graphics. More levels... It looks more like a SNES game than a NES game. What is the trick they've used? Or is it more that the have not nearly invested enough time into SML1?
This game was the first to use 4 megabits. In fact, I don't think that size was broken until Pokemon. SML was only 64KB.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 6/6/2005
Posts: 384
Space and Micro Zones completed. Time's at 12:17 with about 650 rerecords. Tatanga... was an oddity. Fireballs ended up being the fastest way to kill him, but it was impossible to consistantly pull it off. After the first fireball hits, he has a flashing effect that makes him invulnerable for a short period of time. After that, you can launch a large enough volley of fireballs into him to kill him. However, sometimes he'll go into a second, even longer flashing period. No real reason. I tried numerous times to pull it off and could only do it about a fifth of the time. Micro Zone went smoothly, save for those dumb moving platforms in area 1. I could've gone faster if I had the bunny ears, but you need fire to access the secret exit. Micro Secret is auto-scrolling, sadly, or the time would be well under 12 minutes. But it was a short stage, so I'm okay with it. The final level went swimmingly and the giant rat bit it easily, too. He just falls right into the fireball attack. >>; Each Zone tends to take 4 to 4 1/2 minutes to finish. My time at the coin screen after Tatanga was 9 minutes even. Time after the rat being 12:17 means this was much faster. And, thankfully, that should be the last auto-scrolling nightmare I have to do. I may do Pumpkin Zone later, but it'll probably be tomorrow. Hands are sore. ><
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
This game is extremely buggy, whoever publishes a movie which doesn't make good and creative use of the glitches, I'm going to have to vote no to them. Demonstration of pipe at start of level glitch: http://nsrt.edgeemu.com/sml2-bug.zip Demonstration of scroll down glitch: Edit: For those watching the vid, here's the info on the ROM I used:
Game Boy/(Super GB)/GB Pocket/Color GB/(GB Advance)
Mario Land 2
Nintendo
U.S.A./Europe
524288 Bytes (4.0000 Mb)

Padded: No
Interleaved/Swapped: No
Backup unit/emulator header: No
ROM type: ROM, MBC1, RAM and Battery
Save RAM: Yes, 8 kBytes
Version: 1.0
Game Boy type: Standard (4 colors)
Start address: 0150
Checksum: Ok, 0xe2f9 (calculated) == 0xe2f9 (internal)
Complement checksum: Ok, 0xf3 (calculated) == 0xf3 (internal)
Checksum (CRC32): 0xf71f26d0
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
billybobfred
Other
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 76
I've started a run. The plan is to get all middle bells unless they're really out of the way, and to clear all levels. Of course, now I need to find out about the cool glitches so I can tell where to use them... http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=55251
I'm just a spectator. There was a time when I tried to participate, but I'm really lazy, so. she/her/hers
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Hmmm... It would be nice to have a run that plays all secret/optional levels without using the pipe glitch from V1.0. I don't know if hitting the middle bell is a terribly interesting goal, but you could do it. Just make sure it doesn't slow down the level you're in compared to not ringing it. I watched your run, and it's okay, but there are faster ways to do some things. Remember that if you jump against the lower-right corner of a block, it will push you a couple of pixels ahead. And there were places where you turned around and lost speed when I know you could have avoided doing that. Also, you could probably make better use of the tree sap in Tree Zone 2. You generally want to be in the sap for as short a time as possible, although it gets trickier for the high jumping and falling segments. Just try to "cut the corners" as smoothly as you can. I'm not sure where the best places to get the power-ups are... I'd have to play again to find out.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Editor, Experienced player, Reviewer (967)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden
>The plan is to get all middle bells unless they're really out of the way, ... That doesn't seem like a very clear goal. Either get all of them or don't specify anything about them in your goal.
Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587
Truncated wrote:
>The plan is to get all middle bells unless they're really out of the way, ... That doesn't seem like a very clear goal. Either get all of them or don't specify anything about them in your goal.
I agree with this.
billybobfred
Other
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 76
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Hmmm... It would be nice to have a run that plays all secret/optional levels without using the pipe glitch from V1.0.
The pipe glitch? I don't know really any glitches for this game.
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
I don't know if hitting the middle bell is a terribly interesting goal, but you could do it. Just make sure it doesn't slow down the level you're in compared to not ringing it.
That was the plan. I only hit the middle bells to be more interesting than running underneath them.
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
I watched your run, and it's okay, but there are faster ways to do some things. Remember that if you jump against the lower-right corner of a block, it will push you a couple of pixels ahead.
Really? I have to try that sometime.
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
And there were places where you turned around and lost speed when I know you could have avoided doing that.
All I can remember is that one pirahna plant in the introduction level, and I know that jumping clear over it will slow down jumping over that hill right afterwards. Of course, that doesn't mean I can't improve...
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Also, you could probably make better use of the tree sap in Tree Zone 2. You generally want to be in the sap for as short a time as possible, although it gets trickier for the high jumping and falling segments. Just try to "cut the corners" as smoothly as you can.
Yeah, that's not nearly as good as I would like it to be.
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
I'm not sure where the best places to get the power-ups are... I'd have to play again to find out.
Neither am I, but I think that my choice worked pretty well.
I'm just a spectator. There was a time when I tried to participate, but I'm really lazy, so. she/her/hers
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (240)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
billybobfred
Other
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 76
I tried to, but it doesn't work. It doesn't even play. EDIT: Wait, no, I'm thinking of a different sml2 movie.
I'm just a spectator. There was a time when I tried to participate, but I'm really lazy, so. she/her/hers
Joined: 11/19/2005
Posts: 25
i've seen a non tool assisted speed run of this game (from http://speeddemosarchive.com). it had a time of about 32 minutes. with the help of tools, i'm sure it can cut by about 4 or 5 minutes.
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (240)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
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