I decided that an update to the Story Mode TAS from 2009 was long overdue. While the TAS has amazing board luck, the minigames are where I see most potential for improvement (particularly eliminating minigame repeats). I am open to working on this as a collab.
Like I said on Discord, the differences between Saturn's TAS and this one could easily be chalked up to emulation differences. Looking back, he made his TAS on a completely deprecated and unacceptable version of Snes9x due to how inaccurate and garbage it is (I thought it was at least 1.51, but nope, 1.43). No matter what happens in terms of losses compared to Saturn, his run as a whole is still 100% invalid in our eyes, enough so that comparisons probably wouldn't even be made at all during the judgement process. If you have to sacrifice a few frames for something, it's not a problem at all.
Not to mention the fact he played on PAL when a Japanese NTSC version exists.
It uses SA-1, put to use in a way that allows creative level gimmicks that would be impossible otherwise in the Best world and many other levels throughout other worlds. Also, the secret final level has a massive amount of possibility for alternate paths.
This would be a great TAS that I'd love to see done. First, this hack is historically significant for being the first SMW hack to have 121 exits (the maximum amount possible with the game engine). Second, every level (except for the secret world) is open from the start, allowing route customization. Third, you start as Small Mario in every level, making flying over levels impossible in levels without a Cape. Lastly, the hack makes good use of the SA-1 chip.
How easy/hard is it to manipulate RNG? I feel (only from hearing the damage potential) you'd benefit more from the Whimsical ring, though I have no knowledge of how difficult it is to do so. Alternatively is it possible to corrupt your ring box much earlier in the game in order to get the Whimsical ring withouth having to spend any extra unnecessary time to get it the normal way? Or might doing so break the game in the long run due to the corrupted nature of the ring box?
Granted the Double-Edged ring would make everything a lot more predictable with the fixed damage, yet also a lot more dangerous. Alternatively it could also work if you got the Power Ring L-2 (plus two sword damage, getting hurt makes you loose an additional 1/2 heart) instead (or together with any other rings, though getting the level 2 Ring box so you can bring two rings with you would probably be more time consuming than it's worth).
In Ages, Seasons, and TMC, RNG only changes when certain events happen, such as swinging the sword, enemy movement, screen transitions, etc. so manipulating RNG is mostly done on screens such as the title screen, where the RNG constantly scrolls, or when there is down time, such as after a boss. manipulating RNG in the middle of a segment normally results in losing quite a few frames. Since the whimsical ring needs a very specific value (1/256), it would more than likely affect another part of the dungeon. I would definitely still look into using it in a future run.
The ring box getting corrupted is a side effect of the way we set up the last trick in the game, veran warp. It works by selecting a tile out of bounds that makes the game code go haywire. We need the tune of ages to reach this tile, that is why we have to beat D6, and consequently D1 and D3. So unfortunately there is no (known) way of corrupting the ring box earlier in the run.
getting the power ring L-2 would require getting the Long shot, which would mean entering and beating half of D7. The power ring Level 1, located in D1, would be a possibility.
I would probably also time the Double-Edged ring but I would bet that the whimsical ring would be faster.
Another fun fact, trying to look at your ring list with a corrupted ring box normally crashes the game.
You can get L2 Power Ring from the Advance Shop, thus getting it prior to D1. The Advance Shop has 1 Tier 3 ring for sale, and you can manipulate it to be the L2 Power Ring, a Tier 3 Ring.