After breaking Super Mario World for almost
3 hours, I decided to break the Super Mario Bros. 3 remake for over 2 hours. Brilliant, right?
Objectives 🎯
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.6.3
- Allow Left+Right / Up+Down
- Core BSNES
- Abuses programming errors
- Take hit and use death to show funny things
- Softlock the game intentionally
Well, this is a glitchfest of Super Mario Bros. 3 for SNES (the All-Stars version).
Genisto, many years ago, made a
playaround of that same SMB3 (which I think is incredible, by the way, and is one of my favorite TASes), however, at the time, SMB3's glitches were still kind of obscure.
After spending a few days at my grandmother's house (who is now resting in peace; RIP Dona Preta) last month, playing Super Mario Bros. 3, I felt a strong desire to do a glitchfest and show as many glitches and crazy things as possible within the game. Because of this, I became obsessed with Super Mario Bros. 3 glitches and scoured YouTube for them. The result was satisfying: I found dozens of videos online, some from way back, showing glitches and things, I'd never seen before. I thought to myself: other people need to see this!
After all that, as soon as I got home, I started the glitchfest and spent a little over 20 days working non-stop, sometimes until the early hours of the morning! This work, believe it or not, took less than a month, but involved many, many hours of study and dedication (and a bit of back pain too, by the way). What you're going to see is almost 2 and a half hours of strange things, completely senseless deaths, glitches you've never seen before, infinite lives and so on...
I put "glitchfest" as a branch in this TAS and not "playaround" because, just like in Super Mario World, the focus of the TAS is precisely to show as many glitches as possible and not just play around in the levels (this is the biggest difference between this TAS and Genisto's). Anyway, "playaround" would be nice too.
And yes, I know you're going to complain about the length. Almost 2 and a half hours of TAS? Boring! But yeah, this TAS is not focused on finishing the game in the shortest time possible, but rather, as I said, showing as many glitches as possible. Time here is just a detail :)
I didn't distinguish any level, with the exception of levels where there was nothing interesting to be shown, like 7-4 or 5-9 and some levels I entered just to show meaningless deaths and didn't complete the level itself, like in 5-6 or 6-7. I should also say that I didn't hold back on the number of senseless deaths Mario suffered in this run (almost all of them were for fun, but some were necessary). He died many times, poor thing, but he's doing well and managed to save the princess! Thank you for your concern.
Glitches 🧠
There are hundreds of glitches in this TAS and I'll explain some of them here. Some are explained on the SMB3 game
resources page.
- In this particular version of Super Mario All-Stars, pressing L+R together makes Mario move forward at a very high speed. This is already well-known and was also used extensively in Genisto's TAS.
- If you jump on a red note block (the one that leads to the sky) and in the frame that the transition happens a shell hits the block, it generates another block in the sky and you can return to the level. See at 3:51. Likewise, if you jump on that same red note block and hit your head on another block before being taken to the sky, two things can happen: Mario will be stuck in infinite transitions (I didn't do it because I would have to reset the game) or the sky will be empty, without the cloud. See at 4:26.
- Having a full P-meter and stepping on quicksand makes Mario walk in the air. With the P-wing, you can do this an infinite number of times. See at 15:50.
- Pipes are extremely broken, and it's possible to enter them from the right edge or with a wallcatch when they're down. This has catastrophic effects when they're pipes that don't lead to another room, like the ones on World 7. At 7-1 you will see how the pipes are broken and this glitch is already well known because of THIS hilarious TAS.
- In 3-9, when entering the end-cap pipe in the same frame as taking damage from a Bob-omb explosion, the screen scrolls down, but Mario remains at the top of the level. I discovered this by accident and don't know if it works in other levels. See here.
- Pressing START 1 frame before reaching the end-of-level item makes the level's music continue normally. See at 1:03:48.
- Turning into a statue a few frames before reaching the end of the level, picking up three identical items, causes a softlock and animation glitches. You'll need to restart the game if this happens. See at the end of 7-1.
- Jumping on a red note block and transforming into a statue before reaching the sky causes the animation to be canceled and the level's music to stop. I discovered this by accident as well. See at 1:32:51.
- You can force Bowser to the left edge of the screen with Tanooki, and he'll end up jumping off the screen, but he'll come back after a while. See the final battle with him.
I won't go into too much detail here; I think I've covered the most significant glitches. The rest are details I won't include here, otherwise it would be a five-page comment. If I missed any important glitches, I'll add them here later, and if you're curious about anything, don't hesitate to ask in the submission comments :)
There were a few minor route mistakes, and I picked up some unnecessary items that I thought I'd need, but it didn't go as planned. Unfortunately, I lost some time, but nothing too serious.
Special Thanks 🤍
- My sincere thanks to MrPyt1001 (I don't think he'll see this lol) for the many SMB3 glitches videos on YouTube. Many I'd never seen before, and thanks to his videos, they're in this TAS. And thanks also to several other YouTube channels, like poleovermania, which also has dozens of SMB3 glitches videos that few people know about.
- Thanks also to Genisto, for his magnificent playaround that inspired me to make this one.
- Thank you so much to everyone who will watch and have a great time!
If I forgot any information, I'll remember it later. Thanks :)
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: Ever since you won your awards for the TASing year of 2022, I’ve been following your work closely. You’ve done quite well with these run. It’s clear you have a real passion for this category. While this particular run might not have the same “wow” factor as your Super Mario World TAS, it’s still an impressive showcase of clever tricks and glitches I didn’t even know were possible. This will definitely make a great addition to the site. Congratulations!
Accepting to "Alternative" as category "glitchfest".
