Game objectives

  • Emulator used: DeSmuME 0.9.7 with Advanced Bus-Level Timing ON
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Takes damage to save time

Comments

Super Mario 64 DS was released in 2004 for the Nintendo DS. The game is a remake of Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64, bearing some new features on its storyline, gameplay and graphics. Unlike Super Mario 64, this time there are 4 playable characters, but only Yoshi is available at the start.

Glitches and Tricks

  • Outside the castle glitch: when using a slidekick, if you do it correctly with a certain angle (glitching inside the castle’s wall as you are entering the water), the character is pushed down to the water floor, bypassing the water-entry check into swim animation. However, getting too close to the water’s surface will trigger the swimming animation, making running to the moat door our only option. MKDasher found a new method where if you press A or B 4 frames before glitching, you’ll always go to the water floor no matter your position. This is slower than the normal method but due to disregarding position it can become faster situationally.
  • No input: this trick consists of not pressing any direction. It's useful while the character's speed is above normal top speed, since speed goes down slower than pressing any direction.
  • Standstill run: holding the dash button without pressing any direction button makes the character run staying still. After doing it, pressing a direction would make the character run faster than normal speed and gain extra height on jumps. The trick is useful when you need to wait for something to happen or to reach platforms that would be unreachable with normal jumps. It's used at unavoidable wait times in BitS, in the Bowser battle to gain extra height while re-grabbing and in the first star to reach the platform.
  • Dialogue glitch: it works by talking to toad/bunny when the game would be pushing you out of its sprite, making you go through boundaries with the right position.
  • Endless stairs skip: we have no accurate explanation, but doing a slidekick into the corner of the 2nd step of the stairs will make you launch high from where you can fall directly into BitS.

Possible improvements

Glitching Mario’s 8-star door to finish the game with a single star; looks possible and hasn't been tested enough.

Special Thanks

We would like to thank cwitty for his great work put into finding useful RAM addresses, without which this TAS would’ve been much weaker.

Suggested Screenshot

[dead link removed]

sgrunt: Replaced the submission file with one containing a 545 frame improvement as requested here.
Mukki: Judging...
Mukki: Good response. Accepting for publication.

GabCM: Grabbing this submission. I'll wait for a proper YouTube stream to be uploaded on the authors' YT channels.


Experienced player (658)
Joined: 5/16/2009
Posts: 235
Comicalflop wrote:
My only complaint is that despite the changes in physics, I still feel like some of the strats for the 8 stars shown here are slower routes than what's been accomplished in SM64. How much did you try achieving the current star strats from SM64?
We cant do the same strats in most of the stars due to yoshi limitations (he cant do wallkicks and dives) and physics. We will try to explain it with mor detail when we finish th improvement but for example in star 1, since yoshi cant do wallkicks we need to jump on the black block and do a stand running to give us the extra heigh we need to reach the platform. In lethal lava land mainly being damage from th lava is much slower so most of the strats dont work.
Joined: 8/3/2008
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Just watched it. Great stuff. Makes a nice change from the same old glitches we see on SM64 runs. Especially loved the entrance to the 2nd bowser level.
ALAKTORN
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actually, sorry to Mister Epic and the others but we won’t upload the encode to YT since there is a 5+ seconds improvement in the work, we’ll need a new encode… @Comicalflop: they’re different games, and that’s all I have to say edit: for the glitch, you need a motion angle from 5328–8191 (and obviously falling in line with the water’s surface, or you get HP / fall into it)
Experienced player (608)
Joined: 10/23/2004
Posts: 706
Well done. Nice change for pace. I played through this game when it first came out. I definitely prefer the N64 version, but you did well with this version. Curious question. Is it possible to beat the game with just Yoshi? I'm just curious what would happen in the ending. It already is a bit odd that Princess says "thank you all" to Mario and Yoshi :)
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ALAKTORN
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you can’t kill Bowser with Yoshi, so no it’s possible to beat Bowser in BitS with Wario and Luigi, but the game just freezes after you collect the star IIRC edit: MKDasher found a way that makes the positioning problem non existant, but it’s slower. (pressing B 2 frames before getting HP) edit2: nevermind it’s faster lol
Experienced player (504)
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Another thing I remember but am not 100% sure about: After getting a star and returning to the castle, you guys held up/left or whatever on the d-pad straight away, right? So that Yoshi/Mario would start moving on the first frame possible. IIRC, if you leave him standing for a few frames, then start holding a direction, he turns and faces that way instantly, instead of doing a slow turnaround like he does in the TAS. Let me know if this is the case, it should save a bit of time after each star if so.
ALAKTORN
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^that’s slower, actually. 4 frames slower probably due to the fact that you have so little acceleration, moving towards other directions doesn’t affect much, but it does rise speed so you can do a SK/LJ earlier, making it faster
Experienced player (504)
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Ah. Well in that case, I have no complaints other than the uberglitch thing, and I know you're improving that as we speak. Yes vote. The run was really cool to watch. BitFS in particular was awesome.
Editor, Experienced player (860)
Joined: 8/12/2008
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Woah! Didn't expect this run to look that different from a "normal" SM64 TAS. This game seems to have funny physics, though. Voting YES.
Brandon
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Yes vote. Was going to vote Meh until I saw the crazy rabbit glitches. Nice work!
All the best, Brandon Evans
ALAKTORN
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Swordless Link wrote:
I know you're improving that as we speak.
yeah, we were able to save around 500 frames over the current submission, but sadly the first bunny glitch desynched… we’ll try to redo it then re-hex it, hoping there won’t be any more desynchs, if there are it could take some days to fix everything
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there's actually no need to vote this, but i voted with a yes.
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How easy would this route be to replicate without TAS tools? In particular, are the sequence-breaking glitches frame-perfect, or are they possible by hand with a bit of retrying and experimentation?
ALAKTORN
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ais523 wrote:
How easy would this route be to replicate without TAS tools? In particular, are the sequence-breaking glitches frame-perfect, or are they possible by hand with a bit of retrying and experimentation?
the bunny glitches are pretty much impossible and we don’t know how we even got them but there are vids of people doing them on DS (or was it the same person?), if you’re lucky enough and use different placement for the bunnies, it can be done (afterall, you get unlimited tries for the bunnies after you grab them into position) the endless stairs skip is super easy, and the outside castle glitch should be doable with the right setup edit: desynchs everywhere :(
Joined: 12/29/2007
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Is getting the free star from Toad in the Hazy Maze Cave entrance really slower than any of the other 8 stars?
ALAKTORN
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Zowayix wrote:
Is getting the free star from Toad in the Hazy Maze Cave entrance really slower than any of the other 8 stars?
you can’t get it with Yoshi
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The cake is... The cake is a... Must resist urge to say it... Anyways, voted yes.
Synahel
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I must say, I was afraid it would look too much like an "old M64 run", though the game in itself is very different (come on, who wants to play at Yoshi?). It's fresh, it's fun, it's fine.
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MisterEpic was kind enough to grant me permission to do the High Resolution encode of this, and he'd continue to do the Primary encode, and the 512. Hope it's ok with everyone else involved. :-)
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A 16 star run with 50% less stars, but >100% more dinosaurs? Voting yes! (for the improved version that's in the works)
ALAKTORN
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http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/5309/immagine21s.jpg does anyone know why such a desynch would happen? I could understand the rabbit (RNG?) but even the water? anyway, as you can see we were saving 516 frames… but to synch the glitch MKDasher lost 2 on purpose, so 514 atm edit: oops, took the screen 1 frame early for the bottom screen… but it’s a lag frame so the picture’s the same
Lex
Joined: 6/25/2007
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That's weird. Your "Y inside" and "Y velocity inside" were different, but everything else was identical. Edit: Oh, "Z inside" was different too.
ALAKTORN
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Lex wrote:
That's weird. Your "Y inside" and "Y velocity inside" were different, but everything else was identical. Edit: Oh, "Z inside" was different too.
yeah but I “answered” that in the edit, I was 1 frame too early in the bottom screen, advancing once made the position synch edit: actually nevermind, the frames were correct… but the position didn’t synch O_o edit2: it’s dumb… the position desynchs and resynchs a few frames later continuosly…
Experienced player (504)
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You'll probably have to just redo it manually. BTW, did you test if saving and quitting after becoming Mario in the castle is faster than walking back outside of the castle? Seems like it might be, when going to the basement.
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So I decided to redo the water and found out that entering on BitFS with a dive is faster, so 2 frames saved. The total number of frames saved is 519 (movie lenght: 14:23.77). If we dont find anything else to save we'll post this one.
Swordless Link wrote:
You'll probably have to just redo it manually. BTW, did you test if saving and quitting after becoming Mario in the castle is faster than walking back outside of the castle? Seems like it might be, when going to the basement.
I dont think thats faster, saving and quitting, then appearing in the middle of the outside map.. I'll check it just in case but I think it isn't faster. Edit: checked, it's slower.