#9437: Asumeh's NES Super Mario Bros. "low %, warpless" in 19:04.45

Game information

Super Mario Bros. is the revolutionary Nintendo Entertainment System videogame by Nintendo that swept the nation in 1985 and spawned one of the best-selling franchises that we know today.
In this game, the titular plumbing Mario brothers, Mario and Luigi, are off to save the Princess of Mushroom Kingdom, Peach, from the clutches of the evil King Koopa, AKA Bowser.

This TAS completes all of the levels in the game as fast as possible while avoiding all enemies, all powerups, and all coins; fireworks are not taken into account. (There's also no scale lifts being broken, but that's negligible as it didn't save any time in 3-3 in the first place.)
Basically think of all this like a "no coins" + "pacifist" run.

I chose to do "low% + warpless" because I found "low%" with warps to be too easy (and it's already been done multiple times). I don't believe anyone's done an optimized "low% + warpless" run before; a "no coins + warpless" run and a "pacifist + warpless" run have already been done. I think even then though, this should be considered a first.

I'd like to note here that this TAS does not aim for the lowest score as I don't wait before every flagpole, even though I do FPGs on pretty much every non-castle level. Very obviously, killing enemies and collecting coins and/or powerups earns you points, thus breaking the purpose of the "low%" run.
Understand that this will be mostly similar to the current "warpless" run of the game as it goes around completing all of the levels, but there will be differences in some of the levels to heed the goal (low%) in question. Most importantly, this run does not collect the Super Mushroom or the Fire Flower (as they are banned, considering they're powerups), so I do not kill Bowser on the castle levels (World X-4). Despite the flagpole glitches (FPGs), I'm still slower than Phil and Genisto's first published "warpless" run by five seconds lol
Also, since even the "all items" run for this game avoids vines since they don't count as an item, I figured I'd avoid them too.

Welp, guess I gotta get this show on the road huh...? Let's get to it! :) Most of 'em are gonna come fairly quickly...

Level-by-level comments

World 1-1

Entering the underground bonus room is actually faster than avoiding it.
I pressed Left + Right after landing, then did a couple of walljumps on the left side to make it over the coins, then backwards-jumped to slow down before landing to avoid bonking into the reverse L pipe.

2 frames to spare.

World 1-2

I aligned the X pixel against the two Goombas on screen 3 so I could jump over them with one jump, faster than one jump over each.
1 frame to spare.

World 1-3

Nothing special; it's already the fastest it can be.
3 frames to spare.

World 1-4

Nothing special.
11 frames to spare.

World 2-1

I slowed down at the end to avoid fireworks; doing so by performing the FPG via a springboard.
1 frame to spare.

World 2-2

I went under the coins at screen 7; nothing special otherwise.
12 frames to spare, 3 frames behind from being the fastest.

World 2-3

Nothing special.
15 frames to spare, 2 frames behind from being the fastest.

World 2-4

I went through the middle corridor instead of the bottom, then went between the coins in screen 5.
6 frames to spare, 6 frames behind from being the fastest.

World 3-1

I did a couple of lip jumps in the beginning, then went under the Koopa near the end of screen 9.
7 frames to spare, 10 frames behind from being the fastest.

World 3-2

I thought it'd be interesting to perform this FPG in the style of RTA. Meh. :/
14 frames to spare, 6 frames behind from being the fastest; that's still 1 frame behind from saving the next framerule. Pretty sure there's no way I can save it here...

World 3-3

Nothing special.
7 frames to spare.

World 3-4

Nothing special.
12 frames to spare.

World 4-1

I did a grounded starting accel (with a running jump), then went under the multi-coin block at the end.
3 frames to spare.

World 4-2

Alright, here's where things get interesting... for a moment.

First attempt:

Against the first three Goombas, I slowed down, then backward-jumped, making sure to land between the two Goombas every time; first, between the first and second Goombas, then between the second and third Goombas. Afterward, I jumped off, picking up running speed to continue forward. A manual slowdown and running jump is faster than Left + Right and standing jump; I was able to do so in a way that allowed for pulling ahead.
I slowed down before the reverse L pipe for the in-game timer to tick down another second to avoid fireworks.
This left me with 0 frames to spare.

Second attempt:

After finishing the TAS at first, I went back to the level due to suspicions about there being a way to make it over two Goombas while still squeezing between the second Goomba and the last Goomba. And I was right.
Again I backward-jumped, but I did a three-frame jump next to the first Goomba instead, making sure to jump with an appropriate X subspeed (of 240). Then, I left two blank frames, then held Left for 16 frames. The next frame, I landed between the second and third Goomba, then I jumped off.
No more slowdowns were required since I didn't need to avoid fireworks this time (I was able to finish two in-game seconds faster).
This now left me with a framerule saved, and now with 3 frames to spare.

After finding that improvement however... I needed to redo a few levels, which were: World 5-4, World 6-4, World 7-1, World 7-2, World 7-3 (slightly), World 8-2, and World 8-3.

World 4-3

Second-hardest level to beat without touching enemies or coins, in my opinion. In screen 1, you need to make a running jump over the five coins on the platform, make another jump quickly after to clear the gap, then make another quick jump over the next Koopa and the coins.
You also need to go under the next coins in screen 3, and make a tricky jump to the next platform on the edge of the lower one. Everything else afterward though should be okay. This is the only level with a firework by the way, and there's no use in trying to avoid it, since doing so would cost me a framerule. Not that it matters.

9 frames to spare.

World 4-4

This is an ordinary level, since no coins or powerups are present whatsoever.
I obviously had to take the correct path; clipping was just useless. I Left + Right'd (is that a thing?) the first turnaround, then bonked on the next ceiling while adjusting the X speed sub and X subpixel for the next turnaround. (Forgive me if the jumping afterward is annoying :c )

0 frames to spare!

World 5-1

No starting accel at all lol, then some awkward maneuvers I devised while still finishing with 247 in-game seconds remaining.
5 frames to spare.

World 5-2

Hammer Bros. in screen 7 created lag frames, so I had to think of a solution that would prevent those while still finishing with 347 in-game seconds left.
I waited one frame before performing the starting accel. I Left + Right'd on screen 6, then went in the middle corridor and slowed down making it over the middle hammer bro to jump on the edge.

I was able to finish 7 frames before the in-game timer could read "346" that way.

World 5-3

was brutal to TAS, all because I needed the platform on screen 5.
Eventually with Zen's help, I was able to come up with this– basically I needed to get closer to the right side of the screen without scrolling the camera at first, then slow down a couple times, especially at the end for one of the three enemies (Bullet Bill, Paratroopa, and Goomba) to despawn to prevent the platform from despawning before them; all this allowed for saving one framerule over my original efforts without screen scrolling.

This effort could be made 7 frames faster, but it's not enough to save another framerule. 0 frames to spare otherwise.

World 5-4

At first, I did a grounded starting accel (with no jumps), but after finding the World 4-2 improvement, I had to redo this level because the bottom firebar was now in the way. So I had to take the middle corridor again...
6 frames to spare.

World 6-1

I clipped in the top of the end structure; that did unfortunately leave me with 0 frames to spare.
I'd only be 4 frames behind from saving the next framerule at my fastest anyway.

World 6-2

Now a slowdown is actually required here to avoid fireworks. I clipped into the pipe at the end.
1 frame to spare, 15 frames behind from being the fastest.

World 6-3

Another slowdown required. Instant jump at the start instead of starting accel, but nothing special otherwise.
6 frames to spare.

World 6-4

Nothing special besides for the end.
After touching the axe, there's usually a few frames of delay before the bridge can begin to collapse. I mucked around a bit with that by delaying the axe touch so the bridge collapse would almost immediately follow later. Had I touched the axe a frame later, I would've had to wait 32 more frames for the bridge to begin collapsing.
I believe this follows a cycle, but I don't know much about it. I highly suspect that it's useless in speedruns though.

12 frames to spare.

World 7-1

Another slowdown required to avoid fireworks... so I made a wacky maneuver around the Hammer Bros. on screen 8.
16 frames to spare

World 7-2

Here, I'm turning around in rhythm to the in-game timer.
Originally, I was able to clip near the end (same as the "warpless" and "all items" runs in World 2-2), but I can't anymore after finding the World 4-2 improvement due to changed Cheep Cheep placements.

13 frames to spare.

World 7-3

Just a few entertainment-based slowdowns, including one where I jumped over the coins just before the checkpoint in screen 6.
8 frames to spare, 9 frames behind from being the fastest.

World 7-4

Another ordinary level, since no coins or powerups are present; same as World 4-4.
Still nothing special besides for the end; I fiddled with the Bowser cycle thingy again lol (walljumped next to the axe).

1 frame to spare.

World 8-1

This is obviously the hardest level to beat without getting coins because you need to lure a Goomba into the pit so you can bounce on it to get across. It's even harder if you're going for without killing enemies as well because you need to make a very precise walljump (which, coincidentally, is faster than luring the Goomba in a "no coins" run). Worse yet, it's not even optional.
So uh... I guess we're gonna do that.

9 frames to spare, 1 frame behind from being the fastest.

World 8-2

One more required slowdown to avoid fireworks, though that's usually ignored since we do the full flagpole glitch (FFPG) instead. But since this is "low%"...
Like a dork (-ish), I kinda decided to push the boundaries of slowing down for entertainment on this one; mostly jumping over the Lakitu and missing it, revealing the 1UP Mushroom by using the springboard, and jumping between the Buzzy Beetles in screen 7.
On the redo with the 4-2 improvement, I had to slow down to make it over the last Paratroopa <_<

1 frame to spare, 15 frames behind from being the fastest; that's still 5 frames behind from saving the next framerule.

World 8-3

For another FPG, we need one last slowdown. Absolutely not needed if we're gonna just touch the top of the flag... but I'm doing the FPG anyway.
I waited 32 frames before performing the usual starting accel and (simply put) running through the level at breakneck speed. No further slowdowns afterward (besides for the FPG).
Nothing special here unfortunately other than that.

I think this idea worked a lot better in my head. :/

World 8-4

Finally, time to break out the speed! Although a lot of it is just gonna be the same as HappyLee's "warps" run (though I at least tried to differentiate the inputs)...

Room 1

Not much you can do. In fact I think it's the only room where it doesn't take much to be the fastest at all.

Room 2

The last piranha plant despawned (how nice), so I was okay here. It was that final walljump that I struggled a bit with.

Room 3

I struggled for a while to finish this room in 195 frames (the fastest possible). Once I eventually figured it out, I think the difference in the turnaround showed compared to HappyLee's efforts lol.

Room 4

Very slight slowdowns but otherwise nothing interesting, since I still match HL's efforts.

Room 5

One last super minor slowdown for funsies.

And, well... That's it. :)

Possible improvements?

I don't think there's any that I know of. As much as I'd like to say that World 5-3 can be improved, I doubt it's possible to squeeze another framerule in, considering the amount of screen scrolling that I need to do.

Additional thoughts?

Special thanks to Zen (on the Super Mario Speedrunning (8-bit) Discord server) for finding a way to save a framerule in World 5-3! You can also check out some of their stuff too, I think you might be interested.

I spent a month out of my time making this on-and-off, and I figured that I would submit here today since the movie rules have been more lenient over the years (and since apparently this lil fella got uploaded :P ). I checked and double-checked that I stayed true to my goal and that I'm the fastest in every level in the game, so hopefully I didn't miss anything, as usual.
Do I think this run should be published? Eh... Maybe. I think I have a bit of hope though...
Nonetheless, I hope that this run made a bit of your New Year's Eve.