I watched a speedrun for super mario bros. 3 (not the tool assisted one), and I had thought his was better than it actually was. I think I just got confused because i watched a smb3 tool assited run here...
well, anyways... I think I can probably beat a time of 11:15. I had thought the time was 11:08 or 11:07, which I thought to be VERY tough to beat, and then realizing it was 11:15 made me think I have more of a chance to beat the speedrun. So in the next few months I will be doing a non- tool assisted run of smb3 to see if I am actually capable of beating the record. :)
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner
- Andrew Gardikis
Don't get too overconfident.
Speedrunning is one of the hardest things to do. I chose making TAS movies over speedrunning because it (speedrunning) was so stressful.
For SMB3, 11:15 is really good, better than almost anyone thinks. Randomness doesn't help at all.
The speedrun you saw is probably the one done by Sleepz some time ago. If you search the forum, you can probably find the thread where Sleepz and Michael Fried (who at the time was also planning to make a speedrun of SMB3) discussed speedrunning strategies of this game. You can probably find some tips there.
Some problems to consider in advance:
-Getting the acceleration at the start of the stages is particularly difficult. You may have to reset many times (and rewind your tape) should you mess it up. Altogether, you might even decide to accelerate later, as Sleepz did.
-You WILL need luck in this run. You have to hope that the hands don't pull you down in World 8. If you get pulled down, it will cost you about 20 seconds or so and will force you to reset the game and start over. You could do a run 10 times in a row and still get ruined because of it; keep this in mind.
By accelerate, I meant reaching the flashing P, and reaching it at the same time as in the TAS. Notice that Sleepz reaches top speed slightly later at the start of stages 1-2 and 1-3; this is intentional. Give it a try, it's deceivingly difficult.
I know I am already capable of beating his record. The only thing that screws me up now is the hands in world 8. If I can get by them, Im confident I can beat his record. i can beat a lot of the levels faster than sleepz. Not a lot faster, but still faster. 1-2, the first and second levels in world 8 that iare not ships as well. the others I do pretty close to identical to him.
my current record for smb3 = 11:57
i do 1-2 identical to the TAS. Not too difficult you just have to figure out what to do. I can do it about 1/2 the time.
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner
- Andrew Gardikis