Submission #6128: itsPersonnal's GC SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom "In-Game Codes" in 02:06.08

Battle for Bikini Bottom has a surprisingly diverse range of tricks, clips, and momentum exploits. Any% with In-Game Codes shows off a short and sweet demonstration of the Tool-Assisted potential in this game.

The single requirement to complete Battle for Bikini Bottom —to unlock the final bosses— is having 75 Golden Spatulas, or more, to open the door inside the Chum Bucket. One of the in-game codes used, to receive 10 spatulas —entered as "X,Y,Y,X,X,Y,Y,X" in the menu while holding R and L— is activated 8 times throughout the run. The other codes used in conjunction, simply to speed up movement and add routing options, include unlocking the two main upgrades, Bubble Bowl (X,Y,X,Y,X,X,Y,Y) and Cruise Bubble (Y,X,Y,X,Y,Y,X,X); as well as the Cruise Control code (X,X,X,X,Y,Y,X,X,Y,X,Y,Y), which speeds up the Cruise Bubble animation. All codes were typed in the optimal order, as codes that start/end with differing inputs can be typed 1 frame after the previous, as opposed to 2 frames if they start and end on the same button. There is also a limit to how many codes can be entered in an 5 second window, 8, so the codes were added in separate bursts.

Instant Cruise Boost(ICB), Displacement Bubble Bowl (Boost) (DBB(B)), L Clip, Spongeball Displacement, "NNJ", Ledge Grab Clip, Bubble Ball Clip.

A Cruise Boost (CB) is a trick performed by using both Cruise Bubble and Bubble Bowl on the same frame, with momentum, while in a static position. CB's store your momentum and lock it in the direction of SpongeBob's facing angle. Instant Cruise Boosts (ICB) are performed by doing a CB on the frame before running into collision, while the exact distance away from that collision as your momentum while carry you over the following frame. On flat ground, optimal ICBs increase momentum by 5 units each time they're performed, and do stack, though they become more and more precise the more momentum you have. (Regular CBs do not stack). ICBs and CBs both overwrite scripted momentum on things like trampolines.

Bubble Bowl speed is determined by the distance covered on the initiating frame of the animation. Walking on flat ground, Bubble Bowls are 5 speed. On descending ground, they may sometimes reach 8-10. The biggest displacement in this run, using Spongeball Displacement, results in 146 speed. Generally when a displacement is this big, we add "Boost" to the end of the title of this trick.

Using Cruise Missile (pressing L) can allow SpongeBob to clip thin walls and tight spaces if he has enough speed. It can be used in combination with Displacement Bubble Bowl, sometimes called an "L bowl", to clip much thicker walls.

When using the Spongeball power up which is laying around some areas of the game, your last interaction with collision, if there was one, is stored as you finish the transformation animation. This often doesn't amount to anything, unless the collision was moving, then when you release the Spongeball, you will be displaced with the direction and momentum of the collision stored.

This trick does not have an official name, but is jokingly referred to as NNJ in the small BfBB TAS community. It's the trick used during the "Kah - Rah - Tae!" Robo SpongeBob battle, to jump into an invisible trigger which ends the fight instantly. By balancing on top of a Bubble Ball, and throwing another one, it's possible to be pushed up onto and follow the second ball, then use it's rational momentum to jump extremely high. This is by far the worst trick to TAS, as you have no influence over SpongeBob once the second Bubble Bowl animation is initiated. You must be precisely positioned, with the perfect amount of momentum, such that you do not fall off the rolling ball before throwing the second ball, and even then, you need the proper facing angle to be pushed onto that ball.

This is exactly what it sounds like. When grabbing a ledge in BfBB, other collision is ignored. Due to misalignments, some floors and ceilings can be clipped through from below by jumping at them and ledge grabbing specific areas.

Used in the "The Small Shall Rule... Or Not" brain interior, the Bubble Ball can be clipped through collision, as long as SpongeBob's right hand (where the ball appears when thrown) is pushed up against a wall in a very specific way.

This TAS starts by cheating in Bubble Bowl, Cruise Bubble, and Cruise Control, along with 50 Spatulas (in sets of 10). As mentioned, it's faster to enter all 11 codes used in this run in two separate bursts. Once the first set of codes are entered, an ICB is used to reach the door to leave.

A well placed Bubble Bowl is thrown such that it bounces off collision enough to end up by the Poseidome gate, and be moving slow enough to catch up to, after preforming an ICB on Plankton. A Displacement Bubble Bowl Boost (DBBB) and L Clip are performed to bypass the gate. The Bubble Bowl, again, is aimed to bounce off objects such that it slows down and can be caught up to. An ICB is performed on the Jellyfish manipulated into position through prior movement. Now using Sponge Ball, the rational momentum of the Bubble Ball is stored, as well as it's position relative to SpongeBob, which together cause a massive displacement when Spongeball is deactivated, used to DBBB and L clip all the way to the Chum Bucket entrance. The remaining Cheats are entered before opening the door.

Nothing particularly interesting or complicated happens here. An ICB is performed and the cutscenes are overlapped by activating one and sliding into the next.

As explained earlier, an NNJ is used to reach the trigger (likely accidentally left in by developers) which instantly ends the fight.

Stacking two ICBs, SpongeBob has more than enough momentum to exploit the height of the first trampoline —which normally bounces you to the right— and land on unintended collision above the starting platform. From there, an L clip is used to get inside Robo SpongeBob's brain. The stage, and speedrun, are completed when all 3 fuses in the brain are destroyed and the final cutscene initiated. Using a serious of Ledge Grab Clips and a well placed Bubble Ball Clip, all fuses are destroyed from within.

Memory: Claiming for judging

Memory: The TAS looks fairly optimized.

The main controversy surrounding this submission was the usage of cheat codes. Multiple codes were used here, some unlocking abilities from later in the game, and others giving high quantities of the main collectible which allows for going to the final boss of the game immediately. A lot of people felt that the usage of the latter cheat code greatly cheapened the TAS. The votes reflected this with 21 No votes and only 6 Yes votes and 1 Meh vote. This means that without a doubt, this TAS cannot be accepted into Moons.

Our rules state that cheat codes are not allowed. This is not a strict rule, some codes may be acceptable under certain circumstances but otherwise we want to avoid it. With Vault, we are much stricter and code usage is limited to unlocking hard modes or additional level sets.

Some people may wonder why we have such rules. Why can't we be like speedrun.com and let game communities decide for themselves? The difference between speedrun.com and TASVideos is that speedrun.com is a platform on which communities can share content, and host their leaderboards, whereas TASVideos is a publisher of TASes.

What being a publisher means is that we offer different services from something like speedrun.com. The submissions we accept have been vetted by the judges and the community to ensure that the movie is of the utmost quality. Sometimes during the submission process, we manage to improve upon the original submission and will update it so that the movie is still able to go through acceptance. We then host the input files for these accepted TASes on our site and they become accessible for all time. We host videos of these TASes that our encoders try to ensure is of the highest quality and may correct graphical glitches caused by bad emulation or otherwise make things more appealing to the viewer.

Due to these services we offer, we restrict what we accept to that which is considered entertaining (Moons and Stars) and that which beats traditional records (Vault). Both types of movies need to follow our rules as well. Accepting codes to allow for faster completion in Vault would have a dramatic effect on the whole site. For games with level select codes you may simply choose to play the final level. For games with invincibility codes, enemies and obstacles would become less important to dodge. It would drastically lower the technical standards for entry onto our site. This is similar to our stance on easy modes. Adittionally, the Battle for Bikini leaderboard caters towards those interested in Battle for Bikini Bottom specifically. Our website caters to people interested in a much wider variety of TAS content. Allowing this run as a fastest completion of sorts would be incredibly strange since clear legitimacy is one of our defining features.

In conclusion this run is not Vaultable, and since the audience feedback was quite poor, cannot go to Moons either. There is very likely a place for this run, but TASVideos is not that place.

It has been stated that there has been a high amount of discoveries as of late, making it difficult to do a proper full game TAS. This is not a reason for us to accept a shortened TAS that breaks the rules instead. If a new discovery happens during the creation of a TAS and is not able to be implemented without great effort, we allow such movies to be accepted regardless.

Additionally the author stated that the game tends to have sync issues with movies longer than 15 minutes. I would like to direct to the Dolphin Issue tracker where one may report this issue to the Dolphin developers.

Some people have asked whether or not this run would be acceptable without the code that specifically increases the amount of spatulas you have. The point of the rule is to reduce that which simplifies gameplay. While the codes would provide more options earlier in the game, it would potentially reduce the complexity of routing around not having these sorts of abilities. Creativity is often the result of trying to overcome obstacles. One could arguably compare it to a New Game+ mode of sorts, but it's a tad more arbitrary than such since it uses cheat codes instead. Such a run might also cause some people to ask why allow these codes but not the one that results in receiving the collectibles. Since this would not be a built in game mode, it would be much more arbitrarily defined.

In any case, rejecting.