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Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

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Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#3
post #2

The video explanation is almost as impressive as the speed run itself. The speed run is literally doing low level assembly code manipulation to pull off this time apparently. Worth a watch even for people who aren't into gaming.

The 0 exit speedrun for Super Mario World uses pretty much the exact same method (koopas and all) as well https://www.speedrun.com/smw/run/y65xp50z

SMB3 also has an interesting tool assisted speedrun (non-human doing the inputs) where fast inputs on the second controller cause an overflow on the input buffer allowing for the game to be beaten basically instantly from the start screen.

If you like this because of the interesting stuff done to abuse the game The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time has pretty much been a history of "and then a quicker way to corrupt the game was found".

It's not always about going fast either, challenge runs also get a lot of very interesting results from a lot of dedication. Super Mario 64's A Button Challenge (try to beat the game with as few A presses as possible) has tons of outrageously complex tricks with amazing explanation videos. One in particular caught people's attention to the point it became a meme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A though it's not actually the most technically impressive to come out of that endeavor.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#4
post #2

The video explanation is almost as impressive as the speed run itself. The speed run is literally doing low level assembly code manipulation to pull off this time apparently. Worth a watch even for people who aren't into gaming.

The 0 exit speedrun for Super Mario World uses pretty much the exact same method (koopas and all) as well https://www.speedrun.com/smw/run/y65xp50z SMB3 also has an interesting tool assisted speedrun (non-human doing the inputs) where fast inputs on the second controller cause an overflow on the input buffer allowing for the game to be beaten basically instantly from the start screen. If you like this because of the…

An A press is an A press. You can't say it's only a half.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#5
post #2

The video explanation is almost as impressive as the speed run itself. The speed run is literally doing low level assembly code manipulation to pull off this time apparently. Worth a watch even for people who aren't into gaming.

The 0 exit speedrun for Super Mario World uses pretty much the exact same method (koopas and all) as well https://www.speedrun.com/smw/run/y65xp50z SMB3 also has an interesting tool assisted speedrun (non-human doing the inputs) where fast inputs on the second controller cause an overflow on the input buffer allowing for the game to be beaten basically instantly from the start screen. If you like this because of the…

I'm really glad that video became a meme (probably because of the completely unnecessary argument about what a half-A press is) because it got me interested in how a lot of these old games work. The engineering that went into optimizing them is incredible and it's a shame that newer games typically don't bother as much.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 0 exit speedrun for Super Mario World uses pretty much the exact same method (koopas and all) as well https://www.speedrun.com/smw/run/y65xp50z SMB3 also has an interesting tool assisted speedrun (non-human doing the inputs) where fast inputs on the second controller cause an overflow on the input buffer allowing for the game to be beaten basically instantly from the start screen. If you like this because of the…

An A press is an A press. You can't say it's only a half.

Sure you can, when you define ahead of time that "press" means a full down/up cycle. When you say the down part of the cycle is a "press", you're being just as arbitrary.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#8
This was interesting. I used to whine about doing this kind of glitched run, but it's just a different category of speedrun. Amazing to have that level of precision, though of course he must have done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times to get it right.

If you like this kind of explanation be sure to watch the "0.5 A presses" Mario 64 speedrun video, which is equally interesting as far as getting into the hidden guts of the game: https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#9

Great video. The realization that "beating Super Mario Bros. 3" is much less well-defined than I thought is very interesting. Not just technically, but like there's some philosophical metaphor that I can't quite describe...

Yeah, that's why the community has specific categories for different runs. I appreciate glitched runs because of the acumen needed to accomplish them but it's 100% runs that truly impress me most as a gamer.

The speedrun world is almost like a scholarly domain, with all the usual bickering about terminology, whether this qualifies as that, and so on. I would be interested to read an ethnology of the community.

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