Emulator/Sync Settings:

• Emulator Used: Dolphin 5.0 Lua + TAStudio (Syncs on Dolphin 5.0)
• Uses 1 Gamecube Controller, 0 Wii Remotes
• Dual Core and Idle Skipping Off
• DSP HLE Emulation
• Use PAL60 Mode
• ISO MD5 Checksum: c2255d53e08d6e1e6d25114be9f1bec1

Game Objectives:

• Completes the main story as fast as possible
• Uses hardest difficulty
• Takes damage to save time
  • Takes damage to save time
    • ...Like, WOW, that’s a lot of damage
• Uses death to save time
• Heavily manipulates luck
• Genre: Fighting

Game Overview:

Region Choice:

Difficulty/Category Choice:

Game Mechanics:

Basics

Other Techniques

• Dash Dancing: By turning in the opposite direction in the first six frames of a character’s dash, the character dashes again. While its usage in combat is severely limited in comparison to Melee (Which has a larger time window), it can be quickly used to generate dust and advance the RNG (Explained below).

• Turn-around Jump: The act of jumping in the middle of a character’s turn-around animation; this is used to better position needed aerial attacks.

• Directional Influence (DI): The ability to influence the trajectory one follows when launched by an attack. Is affected with precision down to individual control stick values (With the exception of the control stick’s deadzones).

• Smash DI (SDI): The ability to influence one’s position before being launched by an attack, possible during the attack’s “hitstun” period (When the attacker and attackee appear frozen). Unlike DI, SDI is only precise to the cardinal and diagonal directions. One can input a diagonal after a cardinal (I.E Left, then Left+Up), but not the reverse (I.E Left+Up, then Left).
  • Shield SDI: Similar to SDI, but when shielding an attack. Can only move left or right.

• Z-Drop: The ability to drop an item one is holding by pressing the Z button. Unlike on the ground, dropping an item while in the air doesn't have an animation, which means one can quickly deal damage with a combination of Z-Drops (Damaging enemies) and jumps (Which refreshes the ability to grab and drop items).

• DACUS: Short for “Dash Attack Cancelled Up Smash”, performed when a character cancels a dash attack with an Up Smash. Can provide significant boosts in speed, depending on the character.

RNG:

The Item Drop system:

Stickers

Damage Boosting & Bounce Boosting

Miscellaneous Tricks

• Pause Glitch: Pausing on the frame one enters an Ambush causes the camera to continue following you around instead of centering on the main fight area. The camera’s own blastzones also still exist, which means moving far away enough from an enemy causes it to despawn. This is used in many areas to completely skip past a fight. As the fight area’s blastzones also still exist, however, I can’t move too far on my own without dying - this is why you often see me perched motionless in an arbitrary location with the glitch active - I’m right at the edge of a blastzone.

• Ambush End Damage Boost: When an ambush ends, the camera goes back to following you instead of centering around an area. If one takes damage before the transition occurs, the camera doesn’t freeze in place. This was the only known way of doing large damage boosts before the better techniques were found.

• Wall/Ceiling/Corner Clipping: Under very rare circumstances, it’s possible to clip through certain areas of collision as if they didn’t exist. This is used a few times to go to unintended areas.

Stage-By-Stage Comments

The Beginning

The Midair Stadium

• Room 1: Kirby is chosen over Mario because of his “Kirbycide” technique that can end the match early. The odd movement at the beginning is to manipulate Mario to run over at full speed (Nothing else I did worked). Two pauses were done to manipulate RNG for the next section.

• Room 2: Peach is chosen because of her Down Special, which can pluck powerful items with correct RNG manipulation. I end up getting a Bob-Omb, and the rest of the fight follows. The optimal strategy is to despawn enemies as quickly as possible; simply reducing their HP to 0 isn’t enough, as their defeated corpses fly around until they hit something (Including another enemy, specific items, and the blastzones if nothing else). With that in mind, I either send defeated enemies into other enemies (Which has the extra bonus of damaging or despawning both the corpse and the alive enemy, if the latter’s HP is low enough), or to the blastzones if their distances to them are short enough. I throw a Trophy Stand at the final enemy to end the fight early, instead of waiting for its corpse to fly into a blastzone. This general strategy is used in every other fight in the game.

• Room 3: Kirby’s most damaging move is his aerial hammer, so that’s used in the boss fight. I opt to save Zelda (And Sheik) instead of Peach because of Sheik’s naturally faster movement and attacks.

Skyworld

• Room 1: A Bunny Hood is one of the items that can spawn out of the cube I land on, so I grab it to move more quickly.

• Room 2: I prevent the camera from freezing by damage boosting as the Ambush ends, and kill the Greap as early as possible by RNG Manipulating a Green Shell from the Cymul earlier in the level. For Pit, repeatedly rolling moves faster horizontally than running (A trait shared by many characters here, thanks in part to Subspace changing characters’ attributes), so that’s used to cover the distance from the Cymul to the Greap.

• Room 3: Pit is used over Mario because of his superior air attributes and speed. I take advantage of Brawl’s gliding mechanics to have Pit fly through the entire level and over a fight trigger. Pit’s Up-B can travel downwards faster than his fast-fall speed, so that was used at the starting section. While it appears that I use the move several times in a row without landing, I actually land for a single frame before falling through a given platform.

Sea of Clouds

• Room 1: Sheik’s roll is slightly faster than her run. I also use her Side-B to grab the ledge from a very far position.

• Room 2: This is the first instance of Bounce Boosting to prevent the camera from freezing, through the Feyesh enemies and their electric attacks.

• Room 3: I RNG manipulate a Super Mushroom from the Poppant to move faster and take care of the two fights more easily. I also use an Ambush End Damage Boost to fly over the last fight trigger and to the end of the level.

The Jungle

• Room 1: I RNG manipulate Super Mushrooms to move more quickly (The box has a 50/50 chance of containing either a Super Mushroom or a Poison Mushroom). With a Super Mushroom, Donkey Kong’s roll is faster than his run. I also charge his Neutral Special briefly after the cannon launch to land with no landing lag, saving a few frames.

• Room 2: Same as Room 1, but I also grab a Koopa Shell and Shell Jump over a fight trigger. Humorously, the last portion of the room isn’t initialized properly, making it seem as if Donkey Kong runs on thin air.

• Room 3: The first autoscroller of many throughout the run. I try to be flashy instead of standing around, and reach the door on the first frame it loads in.

• Room 4: I manipulate a Super Mushroom once again; DK’s Down Special is the best move in terms of damage per second for the Giant Goombas.

The Plains

• Room 1: I use the same Bounce Boosts as I did in Sea of Clouds. Pit’s Side-B is one of his best moves to clear out the blocks.

• Room 2: Another autoscroller, but the fights can be trivialized with the Pause Glitch and Pit’s very large recovery.

The Lake

• Room 1: I manipulate Rayquaza’s attack patterns by pausing a couple times, only getting hit by attacks that replace the endlag of Fox’s more powerful moves.

• Rooms 2-7: Fox’s fastest form of horizontal movement is repeatedly using Fox Illusion (Fox’s Side Special) right after jumping into the air; this is used when large enough distances need to be travelled.

• Room 8: I Pause Glitch the fight to remove the Giant Goomba, and manipulate a Super Mushroom to get back to the door more quickly.

• Room 11: I have to charge the Forward Smash for just a bit to finish off the Towtow in one hit.

• Room 12: Unfortunately, entering and exiting the single door in the level as soon as possible is still slower than letting the autoscroller progress normally, unlike future levels.

• Room 14: I have Bowser purposefully Bowsercide me, since I have a stock advantage. This saves a couple seconds over trying to KO Bowser traditionally.

The Ruined Zoo

• Room 1: I highlight how one can actually get behind the Porky Statue between damage cooldowns.

• Room 2: Ness is chosen over Lucas because of his higher DPS against Porky. Humorously, the best DPS option he has is continuously spammed Down Tilts, which I used as much as possible while Porky travelled aimlessly. After that, I used a mix of Smash Attacks with their endlag cancelled by falling off Porky’s top and aerial attacks.

• Room 3: Lucas is chosen over Pokemon Trainer because of his faster movement. I feel that this is one of the main areas that general Bounce Boosting would save time, but I thought it couldn’t be used at this point because no enemies explicitly used electric attacks here. Lucas’ fastest movement is a combination of his Zap Jump and Magnet Pull techniques; The Zap Jump is when Lucas uses his Side B one frame after Double Jumping (Gaining a considerable amount of height in the process), while the Magnet Pull is when Lucas uses his Down B after using his Side B (Getting sent backwards at a considerable speed).

• Room 4: Only the “main” Bytan enemies need to be killed in the fight in order to move on; their clones don’t add to that count.

• Room 5: I skip another fight by using the Floow to damage boost.

The Battlefield Fortress

• Room 1: Marth’s roll is slightly faster than his run. The Sword Primids’ stab attack has a very high amount of Shield SDI, which I use to practically teleport across the screen in many instances.

• Room 3: Meta Knight is used because of his faster movement, DPS in the form of his Neutral Air, and his gliding ability to skip numerous fights (Explicitly for future rooms)

• Room 4: This is where Meta Knight gets to stretch his wings. It’s possible to skip the autoscroller alongside everything else on lower difficulties, but Intense makes it end too quickly before one can get to the end (Which causes the fight area’s blastzones to kick in, killing the player if they’re beyond them).

• Room 5: Ambush End Damage Boosting to the second cart is faster than riding the first one at a high enough percent.

• Room 6: By using Meta Knight's Down-B and continuously pressing up on the C-Stick while holding the Control Stick in a downwards direction, one can prolong the duration Meta Knight disappears for. This is called the Infinite Dimensional Cape technique, and it's his fastest form of ground movement at long enough distances. His second fastest form of ground movement is rolling.

• Room 7: Same situation as Room 6 in the beginning, but I also skip a fight by gliding over it with the help of a damage boost.

The Forest

• Room 1: I Pause Glitch the two fights present. If the blastzones extended just a bit farther out in the second one, I’d be able to enter the door.

• Room 2: I also Pause Glitch the fight in this room, using the Primid from beyond the fight to get enough airtime to despawn the enemies needed.

• Room 3: The Feyesh Bounce Boosting is back, which I use to fly over everything - including another fight.

Research Facility 1

• Room 1: I tested numerous methods, and found that the fastest movement was dash attacking through the boxes. While Zero Suit Samus’ roll isn’t faster than her run (For once), her dash attack almost ties it in speed, which is astonishing to me.

• Rooms 3 & 4: Pikachu is used over Zero Suit Samus because of his much faster movement. Quick Attack Cancels are fast, but tedious to properly optimize with the amount of possible angles one can Quick Attack at - this is in stark contrast to everyone else’s “Hold Right To Win” or “Dodge Periodically To Win” forms of movement.

• Room 5: It’s possible to skip the fight by precisely maneuvering under the fight trigger. It’s also possible to forego the intended route by using Thunder to hit the button from below. I grab the key on the way to the button more quickly by abusing Pikachu’s extended Quick Attack hurtbox and getting hit by the Buckot’s attack.

• Rooms 6-8: I take heavy amounts of damage in the autoscroller to make the return trip easier, which makes the last room blitzed with the help of Bounce Boosting from Quark Mines.

The Lake Shore

• Rooms 1 & 2: I use Mario over Pit because of loading time differences and the fact that Mario has a reliable meteor smash, while Pit doesn’t.

• Room 3: Yoshi is then used over everyone else because of his Egg Roll. I Pause Glitch (And subsequently die) to skip past the fight, then die again to use Pit to finish the level (As Pit’s faster than the rest of the characters left).

• Room 4: This is the first autoscroller I manipulate stickers for; I grab Valoo (Increased damage from indirect special attacks, for Peach), Ray Mk III (Increased Weapon damage, for Meta Knight), and Cupid Kirby (Carry a Star Rod in every room; I didn’t plan out who this was going to as I was uncertain about the sticker route at this point of the TAS’s development).

• Room 5: I discovered the generalized Bounce Boost right at the end of the fight in this room, which I utilize by blowing Yoshi up and sliding across the floor.

Path To The Ruins

• Rooms 1 & 2: I then abuse the newfound tech by Bounce Boosting everywhere with Lucas, skipping a fight in Room 1, and flying everywhere else in Room 2. While it is possible to fly over the last fight’s trigger in Room 2, there’s a barricade preventing one from going to the exit until the fight is completed. It’s possible to clip through it with enough speed, but I couldn’t find a way to get that speed in practice here.

The Cave

• Room 3: I momentarily clip out of bounds by Ambush End Damage Boosting before the rest of the level’s collision (Which is disabled during the fight) can load; I use this to cut some corners before Bounce Boosting immediately after. I also Pause Glitch the fight after it, despawning the Giant Goombas before rolling to another Bounce Boost opportunity.

The Ruins

• Room 2: It was here that I discovered that the Bullfrog stickers do spawn, and that I couldn’t find any earlier because of the levels I was in. I farmed as many as I could under the impression that this was a single-room opportunity. Fortunately, it wasn’t, and I was able to find more later down the line. I also end the autoscroller prematurely by entering the door as soon as possible.

• Room 3: I’m able to Pause Glitch my way past most of the fights. I also manipulate a Hothead to make the rest of the room easier to deal with.

The Wilds

• Room 1: For some reason, Meta Knight can clip through the cliff, foregoing both the fight at the top of it and the need to climb it in the first place.

• Room 4: I’m able to manipulate another Bullfrog sticker without losing too much time.

The Ruined Hall

The Wilds 2

• Room 1: This is the first instance of PAL exclusive glitches. You’re normally expected to encounter an Ambush, get into a painfully slow autoscroller, and then encounter another Ambush. It’s possible to skip the first fight, but the camera doesn’t scroll beyond a specific point (As you’re not intended to free-roam there) - going any further to the right gets you KO’d. In NTSC, you respawn back at the start of the level, but the PAL version of the game spawns you further in the level, allowing you to finish the room. I also clip through the ceiling with an elevator after the death warp, moving towards the end a bit sooner than if I just rode the intended elevator up.

• Room 2: I skip another fight by damage boosting.

The Swamp

• Rooms 1 & 2: Fox’s Star Rod is comparatively less useful than the Carry Bob-Omb sticker, but it still has its use in dealing enough damage to make a Bob-Omb drop.

• Room 3: It’s also used in the fight against Giant Shadow Diddy to lead easier into a grab.

• Room 4: I finish the Pause Glitched fight by throwing the Star Rod at the right time. Unfortunately, I still have to wait for a cannon cycle.

• Room 6: The fight in this room is notable in that the Koopas present will not fully despawn unless their HP is fully reduced to 0; tapping them into the water or even Pause Glitching the fight does nothing. With that in mind, I manipulate a Bob-Omb during the first portion of the autoscroller to take two of them out as soon as the fight begins, Forward Smash three of them at once, and then manipulate another Bob-Omb to take out the final one from afar.

Research Facility 2

• Room 1: I’m able to build up enough damage to fly through the blockade right as it closes, saving several seconds of intended waiting.

• Room 3: This fight is a pain to deal with because both Pikachu and Zero Suit Samus don’t have meteor smashes. I had to get creative and use the stage’s geometry to my advantage, manipulating the two Samus’ to the left underside and hit them with Thunder, stage-spiking them with the help of a pause to manipulate whether they’d tech or not.

• Room 5: You’re intended to ride the moving platforms everywhere, get into an Ambush, and find your way to the exit. Older TASes went mostly the intended route, but skipped the fight by flying over it. In this one, I just Bounce Boost to the end in a straight line as soon as possible.

• Room 6: I also take the literal opposite route that was normally intended, with the help of Bounce Boosting repeatedly. Pikachu’s extended hurtbox makes an appearance again, getting hit by the Cymul.

Path to The Ancient Ruins

• Room 1: I damage boost and Pause Glitch in a way to completely skip the intended fight.

• Room 2: I end the fight by launching two Metal Primid corpses into the final one, reducings its health to zero and making it despawn on the spot.

The Glacial Peak

• Room 2: I manipulate more stickers in the very long autoscroller, re-adjusting my initial sticker route to add more characters. This time, I grab two Octopus stickers (Increased Leg damage; one for Falcon, and one for Kirby), Daroach (Increased Electric damage, for Falcon’s forward aerial attack), and Boulder (Increased Body/Spin damage, for Pikachu).

• Room 3: This is the first room where I just couldn’t find a good place to Bounce Boost; I tried many places and nothing appeared to work. The fight in this room is notable in that it doesn’t technically have an upper blastzone like the rest of the Ambushes in the game; you die if you land on a platform above a specific height, so I take care to not do that as I damage boost and Pause Glitch my way past it.

• Room 4: I purposefully let Lucario hit me so I can attack him more quickly.

The Canyon

• Room 1: Yoshi is used because of his Bullfrog sticker and better fighting ability in comparison to the rest of the playable characters. For some reason, enemies fall quickly to their deaths if they hit the corner of the pit, so I take out the Giant Primids this way.

Battleship Halberd Interior

• Room 2: Snake’s DACUS is his fastest form of movement, which is used alongside shield SDI from the Scope and Sword Primids.

• Room 3: Meta Knight’s Bullfrog sticker allows him to go out of bounds (Thanks to incomplete collision) and skip to the end of the room, completely bypassing the intended method of hitting numerous switches.

• Room 6: In my Project M NG+ Debug% TAS, I found that it was possible to skip this room completely by damage boosting at the right spot at the right time to clip past several walls. However, it was Sonic’s frame that apparently helped in that success, as I tried it with all three playable characters here and couldn’t get a similar clip. With all my attempts ending in failure, I proceeded with the intended route.

Battleship Halberd Exterior

• Room 1: Peach is used over Sheik this time because of her damage boost abilities (AKA manipulating Bob-Ombs from her Down-B) without anyone else present, saving seven seconds in the first room alone. This strat would’ve been considered far too much of a challenge without the brute-forcing script. I delay entering the door by a few frames to manipulate a Bob-Omb earlier in Room 2.

• Room 5: I perform what’s probably the craziest strat in the run by manipulating a Bob-Omb as I still have momentum from the first one’s explosion, plucking it as I fall off the platform. It saves 75 frames in comparison to just reaching the end with a single Bob-Omb. The first Bob-Omb wasn’t used earlier because my only damage boost options are horizontal, while I needed vertical movement.

Battleship Halberd Bridge

• Room 1: “A weapon to surpass Metal Gear.” The fastest method of dealing damage with Peach is repeatedly Z-Dropping a Stitch Face turnip, which can be done even faster than other characters by cancelling Peach's float ability to land on the ground sooner.

Subspace Bomb Factory 1

• Room 1: I’m able to clip through the corner with the help of a Bob-Omb and the elevator moving downwards. I’m one frame away from triggering an Ambush in the room below me, locking me in place.

• Room 2: Pikachu’s powered up Neutral Air (From the Body/Spin sticker I put on him earlier) leaves the ROBs with a single sliver of health left; I found a Superspicy Curry item amidst the sea of others in the RNG sequence that could take care of that last little bit. It becomes sort of a moot point one enemy later, as a Super Mushroom - which increases damage greatly - is dropped.

Subspace Bomb Factory 2

• Room 2: I skip the intended fight to hit the blue switch by damage boosting over the trigger.

• Room 3: I Pause Glitch the fight to end it more quickly while also skipping the key requirement, similar to the out-of-bounds clip in The Cave.

• Room 4: This is the final large Ambush in the game, which I considered the last hurdle in making this TAS. It didn’t take as long as I expected.

• Room 5: The second PAL exclusive skip, where dying spawns you much further down the level. In the NTSC version, the camera doesn’t stop where it does in PAL, but you instead have to fall a great distance before reaching PAL’s respawn point.

• Room 8: You’re given two minutes to defeat Meta Ridley. I do it in less than twelve seconds.

Entrance to Subspace

• Room 1: Falcon is used for the first fight, then Meta Knight is used to skip the rest. I manipulate a Super Mushroom during the autoscroller to take care of the generators more easily. While it’s possible to skip the first fight with Meta Knight just like The Wilds 2, the camera stops scrolling beyond a certain distance in the same manner - and unlike The Wilds 2, you don’t respawn further ahead in the level. I’m forced to do the fights and autoscrollers as intended.

Subspace 1

• Room 1: I damage boost with the Bombeds’ explosions to reach the end faster.

• Room 2: I pause to manipulate the Poppant’s most damaging attack to appear, launching me right up to the exit door’s platform.

• Room 3: I get the Feyesh to follow me as I recover to the ending section of the level, using their attacks to get just a bit more height. I also use the Mite’s attack to damage boost to the end.

• Room 4: On ground, Luigi’s roll is his fastest movement option.

• Room 5: Falcon Get!

• Room 6: “Hello, Mario. Goodbye, Mario.”

• Room 7: Similarly to the first fight of the game, I use King Dedede’s Neutral B to inhale Bowser and fall to the bottom blastzone, winning because of my stock advantage.

Subspace 2

• Room 1: I make a very slight detour to save Peach, as she’s used for the final boss.

• Room 2: The fight before the autoscroller is similar to the fight in The Glacial Peak, in that you only die if you land on a platform beyond a specific height. I’m able to Pause Glitch here to take care of many Primids, before throwing a Trophy Stand at the Armight to end it immediately.

• Room 3: I’m able to Pause Glitch and damage boost in a way to completely despawn the Gamyga, which saves several seconds in spite of the fact that I die.

The Great Maze

Known Improvements

Theoretical Improvements

Final Thoughts