Submission #7230: Gonquai, Silverbawxer, Blendra & Taru's GC Super Monkey Ball 2 "Story Mode, all levels" in 25:02.72

Hi. This is a tool assisted speedrun.

Differing from the previously published movies, this run is in the category "Story Mode All Levels". Rather than complete the Expert category of challenge mode, we opt to play through story mode since has tons of new levels never shown off in a publication before, and even the levels that repeat have slight variations to their respective challenge mode versions. Story Mode contains all levels from Beginner, Advanced, and Expert, excluding the 9 bonus stages found in the game. Instead, these are replaced by the first 9 stages of Beginner Extra. Additionally, all 10 stages of World 10 are not playable in challenge mode, so these stages are also all brand new for a published movie. Despite being different categories, we made sure to improve upon the previous movie wherever the runs were directly comparable.

In RTA runs, we distinguish "Story Mode: All Levels" from "Story Mode: any%" because the any% category allows a menu bug that skips stages without playing them. We went with All Levels so that we can show off every stage in the run.

Before each level begins, the camera zooms in while spinning around the stage until it arrives behind the monkey's starting position. This camera zoom can be sped up by quickly going to the pause menu and selecting "Retry" before each stage. This is why you see the menu flash during each load in.

Similarly, the monkey performs a long dancing animation after completing each stage. We can skip this by going to the pause menu and selecting "Stage Select" since the game flags the level as completed as soon as the monkey goes through the goal tape. This is why the menu also flashes at the end of each stage.

Even though the input range for the control stick is contained by a circle, the inputs are actually mapped to a square. This means diagonal inputs are further away from the center (neutral) input, giving the monkey more acceleration than could be achieved with cardinal inputs. At the start of each stage, we hold up-right for a fraction of a second and then switch to up-left (or vice versa depending on the stage). Although this takes us on a longer path than simply holding straight up, the extra speed we gain from this greatly outweighs the extra distance rolled. Unfortunately, this stops benefiting us at a certain speed, so we can't just boost back and forth for limitless speed gain.

Nearly every level in SMB2 begins with the monkey on what is colloquially known as the starting platform (referenced in the game’s files as ”bridge”), and each starting platform is surrounded by walls. By nature of the physics engine, on most levels it is faster to strafe back and forth and ramp up the walls to gain air-time and build speed. (Each time we ramp up a wall is one "wall boost"). Each starting platform is asymmetric which means that frame boosting in one of the two possible directions (i.e. left at the start or right at the start) is always faster. On longer starting platforms, doing a frame boost and then doing two wall boosts seems to always save time over performing three wall boosts.

When falling in SMB2, it is faster to have the control stick nearer to neutral (no input) than it is to have the stick nearer to the edges. This is intuitive in the sense that if you are moving the control stick away from neutral, you end up converting your vertical speed to horizontal speed. (We don't exactly know how this works, but this is a simple way to think about it).

The inverse of fast falling is slow falling, and this is done by doing the opposite of fast falling (keeping the control stick as far away from neutral as possible). Similarly to how boosting works on the ground, you can cover more distance in the air by switching between the diagonal inputs up-left and up-right. One clear example is on 8-7 Warp, we use this technique to just barely reach the green goal. Without the air boosting, we wouldn't be able to cover the horizontal distance to reach the goal before falling too low to make it onto the platform.

At the end of nearly every starting platform, there appears to be an invisible lip that spans across the far edge of the floor. It is possible to interact with this lip at certain speeds/positions, and it provides a decent amount of height and speed when hit. On some levels this speed bump is favorable (1-1 Simple, 1-2 Hollow, 1-6 Floaters), and on some levels we have to actively avoid it to get a more optimal strategy to work (1-3 Switches, 1-9 Spinning Top).

On certain levels, you are able to gain speed while rolling across flat ground due to what are known as speed bumps. (These are different from the bumps you can get at the end of the starting platforms). These speed bumps are seemingly random, and mostly unpredictable until you've already managed to hit them. They can be found on the starting platforms (9-3 Spinning Saw) but they can also be found on other completely flat surfaces (4-2 Giant Comb, 5-8 Tower). Additionally, they are more commonly found where 2 polygons of a platform meet, usually on a "curved" surface, or at a corner where multiple shapes meet to approximate a curved shape (1-10 Curve Bridge, 6-5 Tiers).

Due to how certain parts of levels were created as 3d models, you can land on and interact with geometric parts that are not visible outside of viewing the stage's wireframe model. The square moving platform on 1-6 Floaters looks as though you would roll across the top of it smoothly, but with a precise angle you can interact with the top edge of the far wall, as if the edges were misaligned and it was sticking out above the floor. Similar collision is present on the goal platform of 10-7 Postmodern, where colliding with the corner of a box-shaped platform sends us in a different direction than you would expect.

The golden party ball (referenced in the game’s files as ”scent bag”) dangles above the goal tape on each level, and it contains some bizarre and surprisingly useful properties. Because this party ball is a bouncy movable object, at certain trajectories we can collide with it in a certain way to suck us into the goal sooner than is otherwise possible.This is most obvious on stages 7-3 Obstacle, 10-2 Gimmick, and 10-8 Revolution. The party ball can also be manipulated to swing to one side or the other, giving us room to squeeze next to it and finish through the goal so that we don't have to slow down in instances when we have too much height or speed (3-2 Reversible Gear, 6-1 Combination).

Samsara: i'm going to watch arthropod get absolutely destroyed and i will never be happier than in that moment I mean, uh, judging.

Samsara: Well, it wasn't just Arthropod getting absolutely destroyed, it was 99 other levels as well. This is a run I've wanted to see for a while and it absolutely did not disappoint in any way. Insane new strategies (Curve Bridge and Sieve were particular highlights for me, as well as basically all of World 10), very clear attention to saving as much time as possible through menuing, and most of all... fast (very fast)

Accepting as a new branch!

fsvgm777: Processing.