Emulator/Sync Settings:

• Emulator Used: Dolphin 5.0 Lua + TAStudio (Syncs on Dolphin 5.0)
• Dual Core and Idle Skipping Off
• DSP HLE Emulation
• Use PAL60 Mode
• Use 1 GameCube Controller, 0 Wii Remotes
• ISO MD5 Checksum: c2255d53e08d6e1e6d25114be9f1bec1

Game Objectives:

• Completes the main story as fast as possible
• Uses hardest difficulty
• Takes damage to save time
  • Takes damage to save time
    • ...Like, WOW, that’s a lot of damage
• Uses death to save time
• Heavy glitch abuse
• Heavily manipulates luck
  • Heavily manipulates luck
    • Breaks my $12 scientific calculator when trying to calculate the full odds
• One player in a multiplayer game
• Genre: Fighting
• Genre: Platform

Game Overview:

Region Choice:

Difficulty/Category Choice:

Game Mechanics:

Basics

Other Techniques

• Dash Dancing: By turning in the opposite direction in the first six frames of a character’s dash, the character dashes again. While its usage in combat is severely limited in comparison to Melee (Which has a larger time window), it can be quickly used to generate dust and advance the RNG (Explained below).

• Fox Trotting: The act of repeatedly entering a character’s initial dash animation (Instead of transitioning into a run) by rhythmically tapping on the control stick. Several characters have Fox Trots that are faster than their run speeds.

• Turn-around Jump: The act of jumping in the middle of a character’s turn-around animation; this is used to better position needed aerial attacks.

• Shield Drop: By holding one’s shield and slightly lowering the control stick, one can drop through a platform. It’s one frame faster than the traditional method (Holding down for two frames while in an idle or turnaround position), and also retains momentum from a dash.

• Directional Influence (DI): The ability to influence the trajectory one follows when launched by an attack. It is affected with precision down to individual control stick values (With the exception of the control stick’s deadzones) when bouncing off of walls or ceilings, and precise to cardinal and diagonal directions otherwise.

• Smash DI (SDI): The ability to influence one’s position before being launched by an attack, possible during the attack’s “hitstun” period (When the attacker and attackee appear frozen). Unlike DI, SDI is only precise to the cardinal and diagonal directions. One can input a diagonal after a cardinal (I.E Left, then Left+Up), but not the reverse (I.E Left+Up, then Left).
  • Shield SDI: Similar to SDI, but when shielding an attack. Can only move left or right.

• DACUS: Short for “Dash Attack Cancelled Up Smash”, performed when a character cancels a dash attack with an Up Smash. Can provide significant boosts in speed, depending on the character.

RNG:

The Item Drop system:

Item Odds

Stickers

Damage Boosting & Bounce Boosting

Loading

Miscellaneous Tricks

• Pause Glitch: Pausing on the frame one enters an Ambush causes the camera to continue following one around instead of centering on the main fight area. The camera’s own blastzones also still exist, which means moving far away enough from an enemy causes it to despawn. This is used in many areas to completely skip past a fight. As the fight area’s blastzones also still exist, however, I can’t move too far on my own without dying - this is why you often see me perched motionless in an arbitrary location with the glitch active - I’m right at the edge of a blastzone.

• Ambush End Damage Boost: When an ambush ends, the camera goes back to following you instead of centering around an area. If one takes damage before the transition occurs, the camera doesn’t freeze in place.

• Wall/Corner Clipping: Under very rare circumstances, it’s possible to clip through certain walls or ceilings as if they didn’t exist, through abusing several moving pieces of collision, one’s own collision points, or simply hitting a wall-ceiling corner at the right speed. This is used a few times to go to unintended areas.

• Map Menu Skips: When the map shows up after a stage clear and new characters join your party, there’s a one frame window that lets you choose the next level before the map menu pops up, saving 2-3 frames. This was also done in the old TAS, but never documented here.

Stage-By-Stage Comments

The Beginning

The Midair Stadium

• Room 1: Thanks to the differing RNG from not creating a save file, Mario moves differently this time, and runs to the edge more quickly than the old one. Pauses were still done to manipulate RNG for the next room.

• Room 2: While the strategy for this room is the same as the first revision, slight differences in RNG at the start (Which led me to pluck a Bob-Omb a few frames later) eventually expanded to saving a number of frames by the end.

• Room 3: I save Peach here instead of Zelda, due to Peach’s superior mobility in damage boosting. Despite my expectations, the new TAS actually saves a small amount of time over the old TAS.

Skyworld

• Room 1: Fox Trotting with a Bunny-Hooded Pit reaches the door one frame faster than running.

• Room 2: I take damage in the first fight more effectively here than the last time, making the Pit-Stop™ at the Cymul to grab a Green Shell unnecessary.

• Room 3: As it turns out, building up damage and launching with a Bob-Omb Bounce Boost is faster than gliding over the entire level. I delay entering the door for a number of frames to manipulate RNG for the next room.

Sea of Clouds

• Room 1: Peach clears this room over five seconds faster than Sheik through cleverly timed Bob-Omb pulls and launches. I found that by dash dancing into an idle animation, one can use her Down-B and continue moving in the direction she now faces, which greatly improves her mobility when using the move.

• Room 2: In the old TAS, the game spends extra time loading Zelda back in over Sheik, all for me to switch back to Sheik the frame the rest of the level loads; the new TAS simply uses Peach for both, and doesn’t incur extra loading times. While the first TAS also used Bounce Boosting here, I use it more effectively by exploding myself alongside using the Feyesh present.

• Room 3: Thanks to Peach’s Float ability, she can use aerial attacks while also holding an item (In comparison to other characters, who are forced to throw most items they’re holding); this allows me to RNG Manipulate a Down-B Bob-Omb alongside a Poppant’s Super Mushroom and take out the Generator before Bounce Boosting over to the next fight. The second fight proceeds more or less the same.

The Jungle

• Room 1: Alongside manipulating Super Mushrooms, I also build up damage to partially skip the cannon autoscroller.

• Room 2: With the damage I built up in the first room, I can get through this one more quickly.

• Room 3: This is the first room of many where I manipulate RNG to get a number of stickers, thanks to having an actual sticker route to follow (Unlike the first attempt).

• Room 4: RNG differences lead to a very slightly different fight, but is otherwise identical to the old TAS.

The Plains

• Room 1: This follows the same pattern as the first TAS, but fits in extra Bounce Boosts where the old TAS didn’t.

• Room 2: I found by accident in a hacked Project M TAS roughly four years ago that one could trigger the level’s ending while still in the final fight, and wrote it off as something to do with the hacks used. As it turns out, one can achieve this legitimately: By reaching an X Coordinate of exactly 1,300, the ending trigger activates. This is precise down to a hundred-thousandth of an in-game unit (Where characters move several units per frame), so the autoscroller’s down-time was used to properly position myself before damage boosting to the end.

The Lake

• Room 1: I use an attack pattern with very slightly more damage per second (Full-Jump Up Air into Back Air instead of Short Hop Fast Fall Back Airs) and get better attack patterns from Rayquaza itself to finish a bit faster than the old version.

• Rooms 2-7: By pressing B right before Fox’s Side-B activates, he cancels the full charge; the last possible cancel frame allows him to carry a large amount of momentum instead of effectively nothing, which saves time for a number of rooms. Room 3 has the Koopa’s damage boost done more effectively, as teching right at the edge allows me to fall off and reach the door without needing to use Side-B. Room 4 sees another instance of Fox Trotting, as it’s faster than Fox’s run by one frame. Room 6 has a shortened Side-B to get over the first Towtow, and a damage boost from the Auroros to reach the end more quickly. Room 7 has another shortened Side-B.

• Room 8: Instead of using a Super Mushroom, I manipulate several Bob-Ombs and Bounce Boost to the end after the fight finishes.

• Room 12: More stickers are farmed here in comparison to the last time, which still didn’t have a route planned at this point; it slightly loses time as a result of the extra pause buffers needed for RNG.

• Room 13: I manipulate a Bob-Omb from a Goomba and Bounce Boost to the cannon instead of using the Koopa.

• Room 14: Bowser was much less cooperative in using his Side-B this time in comparison to before, which made me lose a slight amount of time in this room as well.

The Ruined Zoo

• Room 1: Unlike the last TAS, I actually reach 999% here. It’s all for show, though.

• Room 2: I’m able to get on-top of Porky and start Down-Tilt spamming sooner than the old TAS, eventually resulting in a slightly faster time.

• Room 3: As I mentioned in the last version’s writeup, Bounce Boosting is incredibly useful here; I’m also able to make clever usage of a Soccer Ball and a Motion Sensor bomb to launch me right to the exit after the fight finishes.

• Room 4: After trying several different things, it turned out that the first revision actually did the fastest thing for once; other time improvements come from having higher damage for the Glunder’s Bounce Boost.

• Room 5: I manipulate a Bob-Omb from the Primid and use the spring’s wall hitbox as a Bounce Boost launch option to fly right to the end.

The Battlefield Fortress

• Room 1: Bounce Boosting was used repeatedly to fly through the castle alongside the Shield SDI used in the first TAS.

• Room 2: This room is slower than the old TAS thanks to the damage I have here preventing me from damage boosting like the old one did. I am able to close the gap by having the Roader ram into me at the start of the level, and the timesave is still positive overall for these two rooms.

• Room 3: RNG differences and fun with a Cracker Launcher eventually lead to time being saved in this fight.

• Room 4: Thanks to Bounce Boosting, I’m able to skip the autoscroller on Intense this time (Which I previously thought was impossible), saving a number of seconds. I found that repeatedly Dash Attacking as Meta Knight is faster than his forward roll and run speed, so that’s used in places that are too small for his Infinite Dimensional Cape movement technique.

• Room 5: By manipulating Bob-Ombs (Done in the first section by spamming Up Airs) and Bounce Boosting at the right moments, I’m able to outright skip several sections of minecart riding.

• Room 6: I reach the end slightly sooner than before by ending the Infinite Dimensional Cape right at the trigger.

• Room 7: The gliding in the Old TAS was just slightly unoptimal; I improve it here.

The Forest

• Room 1: I get through the first fight more quickly by turning sooner and building up damage, get through the rest of the room with the help of Bounce Boosting, and do the second fight more optimally to save even more time.

• Room 2: The damage I built up in the first room allows me to bounce boost to the fight slightly faster than regular movement; I then manipulate a Bob-Omb from the Puppit to reach the end sooner.

• Room 3: The increased damage leads to better damage boosts from the Feyesh, alongside a new boost from a Shellpod that forgoes the need to hit the switch and activate the platforms.

Research Facility 1

• Room 2: Dash Attacking into the elevator saves a few frames over just running into it.

• Rooms 3 & 4: I’m able to edge-cancel Pikachu’s Quick Attacks more effectively than the last time to save frames here and there.

• Room 5: This is the only instance where I actually go through a fight that I previously skipped, as it makes the return trip much faster. I go through it more quickly by using the Pause Glitch, and make the return trip faster by Bob-Omb Bounce Boosting.

• Room 7: The fight at the end of the autoscroller can be done more quickly by killing the first Glunder, getting a Trophy Stand, and throwing it so that the second Glunder dies the instant it spawns in. The return trip is faster thanks to my higher damage.

• Room 8: Bounce Boosting to Room 7’s door is slightly faster than the movement used before.

The Lake Shore

• Rooms 1 & 2: I use Yoshi over Link because of his faster mobility. The different characters in comparison to the old TAS is a byproduct of saving Peach instead of Zelda; the first room saves some time, while the second room loses a bit of time, but the time saved from Peach in Sea of Clouds still makes this a timesave as a whole.

• Room 3: As Yoshi is chosen in this room regardless, the new TAS saves extra time over the old TAS by loading, as Yoshi in this one was already loaded in the Room 2 fight. I’m able to get through this room’s own fight without Yoshi dying this time, which means he also saves time in loading at the start of Room 5.

• Room 5: Bounce Boosts are used frequently throughout the room, and the last fight is done more optimally.

Path To The Ruins

• Room 1: I build up more damage and launch earlier than the first one, allowing me to reach the end more quickly.

• Room 2: By damage boosting at the exact moment the pillar moves down with the third fight’s end, I can clip through the ceiling (By snapping up to the pillar’s floor before it moves too far down) and briefly move out of bounds. This gives me enough time to airdodge without teching on the room’s other ceilings and walls, which now means they can only guide my momentum around instead of changing or outright stopping it. I have enough speed here (And the correct positioning of my collision points, which may or may not be because of the Super Mushroom) to outright clip through the corner of the ceiling and the blockade’s wall. This skips both the final fight and the autoscrolling section before it. I actually found this type of collision clipping in The Great Maze of the old TAS, but couldn’t find any good opportunities to use it. This was the first instance where I did.

• Room 4: I get Wario to follow me to the blastzone without needing to Up Throw him, which saves time.

The Cave

• Room 1: RNG differences lead to a different fight than the first time, but the room still ends up having time saved from an earlier Bounce Boost.

• Room 2: A different SDI pattern saves a few frames over the old TAS.

• Room 3: The strategy used is the same as the last time, but optimized better in several places (Including the Koopa damage boost and starting the Egg Roll at the Giant Goombas sooner)

The Ruins

• Room 1: The bounce boosting here is better than the first TAS, allowing me to reach the end sooner.

• Room 2: I manipulate several more stickers here in comparison to the old TAS, at the cost of finishing it 20 frames slower thanks to pause buffering for correct RNG. The time saved from getting all the necessary stickers more than makes up for this, however. I also build up damage to make the final boost after the autoscroller skip slightly faster.

• Room 5: I’m able to manipulate a Hothead much sooner in the level, skipping the need to manipulate one from the enemy after the autoscroller is done. I also use a Bounce Boost from the Bytan to move more quickly.

• Room 6: Different RNG allows Charizard to be dealt with more quickly than the last time.

The Wilds

• Room 1: Taking more damage allows me to perform the Mountain Clip much more smoothly than the last time.

• Room 2: The extra damage prevents me from landing quickly enough like before, however, which means I fly off to my death as the autoscroller begins. I have enough time to get Meta Knight back and re-build up damage again before the fight begins. I also perform better movement after the fight.

• Room 4: The extra stickers on Meta Knight allow me to finish Galleom off more quickly than the old TAS.

The Ruined Hall

• Room 1: The stickers I put on Charizard do the same thing here.

The Wilds 2

• Room 1: I also gave Pit a Bullfrog sticker to make his section slightly faster; Yoshi’s extra stickers allow him to damage boost with his own Bullfrog more effectively than the last time.

• Room 2: I start the bounce boost sooner than the last time, and also slightly optimize the ladder movement at the end of the autoscroller.

The Swamp

• Rooms 1 & 2: Fox also has his own Bullfrog, which makes these two rooms much faster.

• Room 5: RNG differences lead to Diddy following me more slowly, but I still save time overall thanks to not damaging him this time.

• Room 6: I use the Bob-Omb from the Bullfrog to outright skip the fight present, but the time saved from the fight is slightly lost from non-manipulable cannon cycles.

• Room 7: I perform a Bounce Boost and continuously SDI on the spikes to reach the end much sooner.

• Room 8: I manipulate a Bob-Omb earlier in the fight than the last time to finish the fight more quickly.

Research Facility 2

• Room 1: I shield-drop through the platform instead of getting on the ladder, saving some time.

• Room 2: Because of the Bob-Omb’s much higher power in comparison to the last time, I actually remain in hitlag from the explosion two frames longer than the old TAS, which makes rooms like this (And Room 7) take a single frame longer than before.

• Room 3: However, the higher power also allows me to outright kill the two opponents with Thunder instead of needing to stage spike them like the last time, which saves much more than two frames.

• Room 4: I build up much more damage here, allowing me to save some time.

• Room 5: The old TAS rides the moving platform to get to the designated Bounce Boost spot; In this one, I Bounce Boost to the Bounce Boost spot and manipulate another Bob-Omb to replace the one I first used.

• Room 6: Due to the ceiling-floor’s thin structure, damage boosting with the right velocity and hitting the wall-ceiling corner allows me to snap up to the floor above, saving several seconds. I tried to damage boost in the same manner through to the ending door, but couldn’t get it to work.

Path to The Ancient Ruins

• Room 1: Fox Trotting as Captain Falcon is faster than his run by a much larger amount than the other characters. I use the invincibility downtime from the Roader’s damage boost to manipulate a Bob-Omb from one of the Auroroses, allowing me to bounce boost to the end more quickly.

The Glacial Peak

• Room 1: The higher damage I take here prevents me from properly landing at the ending door, so I’m forced to grab the ledge and do a slow ledge get-up (Jumping or falling back off still keeps my vertical momentum). It’s still faster, though.

• Room 2: I manipulate one final Bullfrog sticker here.

• Room 4: I launch both Lucario and myself with my Bob-Omb here, bait Lucario into air dodging my up air, and finish him off with an Up-B. I start running one frame later than the earliest frame because the earliest frame resulted in me tripping.

The Canyon

• Room 1: The fight starts off slower than the old TAS due to RNG differences, but I eventually save time overall.

Battleship Halberd Interior

• Room 2: I use the Sword Primid’s attack to damage boost a bit alongside using Snake’s DACUS like before.

• Room 3: The more powerful Bob-Omb this time allows me to do the room skip more effectively.

• Room 4: I manipulate a Soccer Ball to better take care of enemies. It’s used efficiently to kill the Sword Primid instead of using a Trophy Stand like the last time, which lets me more quickly kill the Autolance.

• Room 6: As it turns out, it is indeed possible to skip the room like I theorized. By SDI-ing into the ceiling slightly (Which is possible to do, for some reason), I can get my final launch vector to be above the retracting barrier’s floor hitbox before it gets below the ceiling, which allows me to fly right through the seam to the ending door.

• Room 7: Similar to Peach’s float ability, Meta Knight’s glide attack also allows him to keep the item he’s holding. I use one on the two opponents before launching all three of us, finishing them off with the same strategy I used against Lucario.

Battleship Halberd Exterior

• Room 1: Despite my numerous attempts, my best RNG scenario in this room still required me to wait for over 500 RNG values before the third Bob-Omb spawned, so I make it advance more quickly by repeatedly edge-cancelling turnip pulls. Fortunately, the room still saves time.

• Room 2: After performing slightly unoptimal SDI from the Quark Mine, I pulled a Bob-Omb by complete accident, which allowed me to reach the end more quickly than before. I later found that if I did the correct SDI the first time, I would have been unable to get the Bob-Omb even with manipulation.

• Room 4: I get through the fight much more optimally than the first time, using a Stitch Face (And a recently modified bruteforcing script that checks Turnip Face IDs, which were unable to be found previously) and a Super Mushroom to blitz through to the end.

• Room 5: I found that pulling a Bob-Omb along the second platform was faster than waiting around on the first one, which saved enough time for me to properly manipulate the special Bob-Omb I got the first time around.

Battleship Halberd Bridge

• Room 1: I get a better attack pattern than the last time, which lets me finish off the boss more quickly.

Subspace Bomb Factory 1

• Room 1: The more powerful Bob-Omb lets me clip through the corner and fly over the fight trigger more effectively.

• Room 2: RNG differences lead to a slightly slower fight, but I still save time in the room through a damage boost the instant the fight ends.

Subspace Bomb Factory 2

• Room 1: I end the fight more quickly than the last time by knocking the Metal Primid’s corpse into the nearly-dead Autolance.

• Room 2: I use the Buckot’s own attack to launch me instead of manipulating a Bob-Omb from it (Which would be slightly slower since my Up Air now barely doesn’t kill, thanks to a slightly less powerful Leg sticker), which makes me get caught by the second Buckot’s attack. I’m able to manipulate it to launch me properly, however, and save time in many other areas.

• Room 4: I intentionally die here to partially load ROB in (So he loads in more quickly in the next room) as ROB is the next character up.

• Room 7: Purely downwards SDI is faster than Falcon’s falling speed, so I damage boost from a Quark Mine to reach the autoscroller more quickly.

• Room 8: Thanks to the platform’s properties, I’m able to edge-cancel Falcon’s landing lag from his forward air, which lets me defeat the boss more quickly alongside better timed attacks.

Entrance to Subspace

• Room 1: The first fight is completed more quickly thanks to more optimized despawning; Meta Knight’s extra stickers let me defeat the Generators more quickly, and the gliding is also slightly faster.

Subspace 1

• Room 1: Dedede takes nine frames longer to load than Luigi, and loses a number of frames in this room in spite of my best efforts.

• Room 2: He saves that time amount and more in this room, however.

• Room 3: And I promptly save about three seconds in this room thanks to Dedede’s better vertical movement alongside the Jet Hammer Glitch.

• Room 4: I delay entering the previous room’s door by several frames to manipulate a Bob-Omb in this one, allowing me to reach the end more quickly.

• Room 5: A slight amount of time is saved here, most likely due to me not picking Falcon up this time.

• Room 6: Dedede loses about a second in this room thanks to the several small platforms preventing the Jet Hammer Glitch from being properly utilized; the time saved across all these rooms is more than enough to offset it.

Subspace 2

• Room 1: I make a very slight detour to save Peach, as she’s used for the entire Great Maze.

• Room 2: This time, I despawn the Armight with the Pause Glitch instead of despawning it with a Trophy Stand, which saves several seconds thanks to its long spawn animation.

• Room 3: Killing the Ticken is faster than making it fall to the bottom blastzone by a handful of frames.

The Great Maze

Time Table

Improvements & Final Thoughts

Random Fun Facts

• I take a grand total of 13,321 visible damage in a game that stops keeping track at 999%. The actual number is much higher thanks to The Great Maze.
• I pull a grand total of 47 Bob-Ombs from Peach’s Down-B throughout the run, which means that repeating this TAS by chance just from the Bob-Omb pulls alone (Ignoring the copious amounts of other item RNG manipulation and turnip pulls that made the inevitable Bob-Omb pull come more quickly) would have a naive likelihood of 1/240^47 = 1/7.41e111. Adding in the eleven Stitch Faces now makes the naive likelihood equal to (1/240^47)*(1/56^11) = 1/1.26e131
• The bruteforcing script I used went through a grand total of 110,676 items across the run, which makes the manual rerecord count equal to 165,427. The old TAS also had bruteforcing rerecords used heavily, but I didn’t keep track of them properly and couldn’t assign a number.

Screenshot Recommendations

• Any potential frames of Peach plucking a Bob-Omb from her Down-B
• ~141,553 (Where Meta Knight clips through the series of blockades)
• ~151,416 (Where Captain Falcon is throwing the Cracker Launcher at a horde of enemies as the firecrackers themselves explode)
• ~208,923 (Where Mario gets hit from another Bob-Omb Peach throws at him)