This is my 64th TASVideos submission! What could be more suitable for this occasion than the N64 title of one of my favorite game franchises?
N64 Super Smash Bros. "playaround" in 7:55.1 by Noxxa
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.5.2
- 1P Mode
- Fox McCloud
- Very Hard difficulty
- No Damage Clear
- Aims for entertainment
- Heavy luck manipulation
About the game
Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 (usually referred to as Smash 64) is the first installment in the Super Smash Bros. series, developed by HAL Laboratory, directed by Masahiro Sakurai, published by Nintendo and released in 1999. Starting out in development with generic fighting game characters in its relatively unique platform fighting format with up to four players, it was then spiced up with the idea of putting various famous Nintendo characters up to the fight. The game became a commercial success, spawning various sequels on future Nintendo consoles, a few of which (in particular Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Switch) still have thriving competitive scenes to this day.
Being the first game of the series, it lacks several mechanics that became common-place in later smash games, and has some unique traits of its own. More about this in the mechanics section below.
About the run
This is an entertainment-focused playaround movie of Super Smash Bros. A playaround publication by Blaze
already exists for this site, but it is quite old, being from 2008, and has a meager 6.1 rating as of writing. It is actually by far the lowest-rated movie of all published Super Smash Bros. movies, and one of the worst-rated playaround movies on the site. I figured that surely, we can do better than this.
Since my
previous Smash game playaround TAS, I have taken in a lot of feedback and had a lot of thought about how to make movies such as this as entertaining as possible. Above everything else, this movie aims to feature gameplay that goes beyond a human player's capabilities, unique situations where everything surrounding the game is bent to the player's will, crazy events that are practically impossible to replicate, death-defying antics, and moments of comedy.
Besides entertaining the viewer, a few specific goal choices were made:
- Very Hard (hardest difficulty)
- 1 Stock (setting up the hardest possible condition)
- No Damage Clear bonus (one of the hardest bonuses to get)
- Never getting the negative Cheap Shot bonus (obtained by using one move more than 35% of the time in a round - avoiding this enforces good move planning and variety, and just looks nice on the bonus screens)
History
The idea for this movie actually originated from a playaround WIP using Fox that EZGames69 worked on in October 2020. It had some alright ideas, but lacked a lot of the technical skill that is intrinsic to this kind of game. As someone more familiar with the franchise, I gave some pointers on how it could be improved, but didn't have any interest at the time to work on it.
Fast forward to a few months later - I was trying to think of new interesting TAS projects, and had been watching some Smash 64 combo contest footage, and felt inspired to pick it up again. I contacted EZGames69 about it, and while he declined to co-author on the movie, I did regularly communicate with him about funny ideas, gathering feedback, and encoding challenges surrounding this game.
Character choice
Super Smash Bros. has 12 playable characters, of which 8 are available to pick from the start. The Blaze playaround uses Yoshi, but I already have
another published playaround of a Smash game featuring Yoshi, and I wanted to do something different (and I think Yoshi is more interesting in Melee than in Smash 64, anyway).
Among the remaining picks, I went with Fox, for his fast overall speed, high mobility, and various advanced techniques with lasers, shine, teleport, and so on - more about these below. Fox also has a great assortment of aerials for comboing - his neutral air, forward air and back air all having both strong and weak hits that can be used appropriately to extend his combos, his up air has a fixed-knockback first hit which also sets up great for follow-ups, and his down air is a drill move which also enables for grounded combo extensions and in some cases serves as a spiking option.
Tricks and game mechanics
This section is currently incomplete - further tricks used to be documented in due time (TODO)
Smash 64 compared with later Smash games
If you are familiar with later games in the franchise, it is important to note the mechanical differences between Smash 64 and later games.
There's a sizable list of mechanics or actions that do not exist in this game, but were added in subsequent games:
- Side-special moves
- Spot dodging
- Air dodging
- Chargeable smash attacks
- Directional Influence (DI) - although Smash Directional Influence (SDI) does exist, which in this game is commonly referred to as DI in competitive circles
- Dash-dancing
- Wall jumping
- Up throws or down throws (only forward and back throws)
- Grab pummels
- Wall teching
- Picking up items in the air
Other mechanics which have substantial differences:
- Hit stun in this game is very high, compared to later Smash games. Because of this, and the lack of DI as mentioned above, combos are enormously potent, and in high level play it is common for players to die from a single hit, leading into a combo that leads to death or to an edgeguard. Naturally, in a TAS setting this also makes comboing enormously powerful, with plenty of ways to convert a move into creative ways to KO the enemy with few methods of escaping.
- Shield stun is also very high. This means that if a character hits a shield, it quite commonly is possible for some characters to keep hitting the shield until it breaks, without the shielding player being able to release. This ironically makes shielding notoriously dangerous. Top-level Smash 64 play typically has players space very carefully around their opponents because any sort of touch can lead to a stock loss.
- Fast falling can not be performed if a character is performing an aerial - if a player wants a fast-falling aerial, they must do the fast fall first, and then perform the aerial. This makes the typical SHFFL (short hop-fast fall-lag cancel) impossible in most cases. Additionally, fast falling incurs extra landing lag (8 frames instead of 4), even when Z-cancelling.
- It is possible to grab characters that are knocked down on the ground (as long as they are not in a tech or getup animation).
Generic tricks
Analog jumps
In Smash 64, tap jump actually has a varying jump height depending on how far the stick is pressed (unlike all later Smash games, which only have two jump heights - short hop and full hop). This allows a lot more control (using TAS-level precision) with jump trajectories, which is very useful for movement in general.
The jump buttons have their own jump trajectories for short hop and full hop, with the short hop being shorter than any possible analog tap jump.
As an additional note, short hops have varying height of their own, depending on the horizontal movement of the character while jumping. A short hop straight upwards goes higher than a short hop that goes forward or backward. This also has many varieties depending on how far left or right is held.
Z-Cancel
Pressing Z shortly before landing on the ground with an aerial move will remove the aerial landing lag animation, instead replacing it with the standard landing (which can be 0 frames for a no-impact land, 4 for a default landing, or 8 for fast-fall landing).
Edge cancel
Another way to cancel landing lag is by landing right on the edge of a platform, with enough momentum that the character would slide off the platform just after landing.
How this exactly works depends on the direction the character faces compared to the edge:
- if the character is facing towards the platform (sliding backwards off the platform), they will slide off and end up in the air. At this point it's possible to perform any aerial move or action.
- if the character is facing away from the platform (sliding forwards), the landing animation will be cancelled with their teetering animation - this is known as a teeter cancel. This can be cancelled immediately by any ground move or action.
With optimal application, this effectively reduces landing lag to 1 frame, even from a fast-fall. This is very often used because of the quick follow-ups it enables.
No-impact land
On some occasions, it is possible to land on a platform without having any sort of landing, thereby having 0 frames of landing lag. This is known as a no-impact land, or NIL. This requires the character to have a very low vertical speed when landing, effectively clipping onto the platform rather than landing on it properly.
Some ways by which this is possible include:
- Jumping up a slope (e.g. on the fin on Sector Z)
- Jumping on a platform with just enough height to barely make it onto the platform (usually done with analog jumps)
Taunt cancel
Taunting off a dash can be cancelled if the character slides into a platform ledge, resulting in a teeter cancel. This technique is quite famous in Smash 64 for allowing repeated taunt sounds with many characters. Unfortunately, Fox is not one of those characters, but the technique is still useful at times if it is needed to reach an edge fast without jumping or falling off.
Pivot
Unlike all later Smash games, when pressing back while standing on the ground, the character will not change direction immediately - instead, they first enter a 6-frame long pivot animation before dashing off.
When pressing back during an initial dash, the character also goes through their pivot animation. If the direction is still held, the character will dash off again, or otherwise, they will be actionable after the pivot. Because the pivot animation is not immediate, it is not possible to dash-dance like the later games.
The only way to turn around without having to go through the pivot animation, besides using certain special moves, is to use forward smash in the opposite direction. One application of this is to get some extra range on forward smash by dashing, then pivoting, and then forward smashing.
Shield drop
Pressing down while shielding on a platform will cause the character to immediately drop through the platform, skipping the brief animation of dropping through the platform normally. Unlike in Melee, where the technique also exists but requires specific stick angles, this is trivial to perform in 64 because there is no risk of spot dodging.
This also allows dropping through platforms while dashing, although it can't be done in the first few dash frames because then the input would buffer a roll. This is used a few times to continue combos off a platform.
Shield push off
The insane shield stun off of getting hit while in shield can be cancelled if the character is pushed off a platform. If this happens, the character is immediately actionable in the air, allowing for a way to quickly retaliate. This is used in the few occasions in the run where attacks are actually shielded instead of otherwise dodged.
Sliding forward smash
The first four frames of dash can be cancelled with a forward smash by pressing A. This has the side effect of causing a slide because the character is already moving in the dash when the forward smash starts. This can also be done with battering items, and is useful if a forward smash is needed with a little bit more range.
Teleport
Specific to a few characters (including Fox, Samus, and Jigglypuff), cancelling a dash turnaround exactly 3 frames into the animation (e.g. by jumping) gives a significant brief burst of speed to the character. This can be used for instance with extended jump-canceled up smashes.
Fox tricks
Short hop double laser
Fox famously can fire two lasers out of a short hop in this game. Combined with the fact that his lasers do 5-6% damage and stun the enemy, this gives him an incredibly powerful projectile game. This is used a few time for approaching, or whenever it is convenient to deal damage at range.
Notably, due to how short hop height works (see analog jumps above), it is not possible to short hop laser if the player presses full left or right on the analog stick, because the jump will be too short. To be precise, short hop double laser is possible if the analog stick X position is between -70 and 70 during the jump.
Laser turnaround
Pressing back and firing a laser (neutral special) can be used to instantly turn around in the air and land with regular landing lag. This is useful in some cases whenever a quick turnaround is needed (and Fox is actionable before landing). Use cases can be seen for example in Race to the Finish.
Shine cancel
Fox's reflector (down special, commonly known as shine) can be cancelled, making it a very quick attacking move. Unlike in Melee, it cannot be jumped out of - instead, it is cancelled by landing on the ground instead. This can be exploited by short hopping and immediately performing the shine on the first airborne frame, which resets vertical momentum and causes Fox to land nearly instantly, making him immediately actionable. This opens up a lot of combo opportunities.
Multi shine
Because of how fast shine cancel is and its complete lack of lag afterwards, it is possible to chain multiple shines into each other, which is known as multi-shining. This can be used to pressure shields, to show off, or in some cases chain multiple shine hits into each other. The latter is quite rare because shine sends at a slight downward angle and the enemy would usually hit the ground first. It often only works with specific DI from the enemy.
Another use of multi-shining is to reflect multiple projectiles at once, although use cases for this are relatively rare.
Shine landing
Inputting shine just before landing (typically from a fast-fall) with the proper vertical positioning will cause the shine to come out very briefly before landing on the ground, skipping any landing lag. This is sometimes useful for skipping fast-fall landing lag, but it is situational because a lot of vertical precision is required for it to save any time.
A quick way to land on a platform jumping from underneath is to go in with full speed, and use shine when just above the platform in order to cancel vertical momentum and land immediately. For optimal speed, usually some precise analog jump and double jump are required.
Shine turnaround
Another useful property of shine is the ability to turn around instantly near the end of the move. This is in some cases slightly faster than turning around normally, or when shine landing, or when platform landing. Basically any time shine is used, there's a practically free choice of which direction to face, which is valuable when turning around is otherwise usually takes some frames.
Shine reverse edge cancel
If Fox is pushed off a platform (e.g. by edge cancel, or forward smash cancel), he can quickly get back on the platform by fast falling, double jumping back to reverse momentum, and then using shine to land. This makes it possible to be actionable on the ground quickly even after an edge cancel that goes the wrong way.
Shine reverse turnaround slide off
Performing a shine near a ledge with a specific amount of forward velocity (off the edge) and turning around during the shine itself can be used to slide off the edge while facing towards it. This way, it is possible to quickly grab the ledge while either dashing towards it, or when standing next to it. If standing next to it, a relatively specific small analog X position is required to slide off - too little, and Fox won't go off stage, and too far, and the shine won't land on the ground and Fox will fall in his shine animation off stage.
Forward smash cancel
If forward smash clanks with another move while at the edge of the stage, the animation of the move places Fox off the edge, cancelling the move.
Luck-manipulation
The good ol' TAS classic manipulation has many varied uses. Here are some examples:
AI manipulation
AIs in this game follow a lot of randomness in their move choices. By performing some slightly different actions or otherwise manipulating the RNG, it's possible to manipulate enemies into performing convenient moves.
Some stages have ally AIs. These tend to be especially stupid, and manipulation instead comes down to getting them to use moves at all.
DI manipulation
When AIs get hit, their DI is more or less random. Manipulating this is important for many forms of combo extensions. For instance, chaining shine-dash-shine into each other requires the enemy to DI upwards and backwards in order for the second shine to connect without the enemy hitting the ground first.
Item manipulation
Items spawn on a fixed timer. In most 1P stages it happens every 20 seconds, although some stages have no items at all, and in the Fighting Polygon Team stage they spawn every 15 seconds. The position and type of item are both dependent on the RNG while spawning. For a playaround such as this, it's crucial to manipulate for items that are at a convenient position and that are fun to play around with.
Because of the relatively long time delay before an item can spawn in most stages, a lot of stages are done item-less simply because it would take too long for any sort of item to come in.
Poké ball manipulation
The Pokémon that comes out of a Poké Ball is also randomly selected when the ball opens.
Additionally, the Pokémon Clefairy uses Metronome, which selects a random move from the other Pokémon moves. Which move it uses is decided a few frames after it appears, so it can be manipulated (to some extent) separately from the appearance of the Clefairy itself.
Stage element manipulation
Various stages have random elements of their own that can be manipulated. A particular one relevant to the run is the Saffron City Pokémon spawn - both the timing of when a Pokémon comes out, and the type of Pokémon that comes out can be manipulated.
1P Game Stages
Beware of spoilers if you have not watched the run yet!
Stage 1 - VS Link
Link is allowed to pull a bomb so that we have an extra tool to combo with.
Hyrule Castle is famous for the right-side section with its walls allowing for extended combo opportunity, so that is an obvious choice to make use of as much as possible. Once Link's percent gets too high for most moves to viably combo there, it is extended further with various fixed or low knockback moves such as the first hit of up air, lasers, shine, drill (down air), and jabs.
The lengthy combo is ended by a forward tilt into the tent structure, which gives Link a nice slide-off, so that he becomes actionable straight away and still has a chance to throw a boomerang and recover. This sets up into a nice off-stage sequence of reflecting the boomerang, cancelling the boomerang knockback with a laser, and comboing that into drill and then a neutral air to finish.
Stage 2 - VS Yoshi Team (vs. 18)
The Yoshi team has much lower weight than regular foes, so several moves including shine are one-hit KOs. The first few Yoshis are dealt with by fast platform-cancelled shines in the way a speedrun would do it. Then other Yoshis are dealt with by a variety of other moves, such as a chain of drills, and one is shot by lasers and then forgets to recover.
At the 8-second mark, the Yoshis are synced up in time, and are luck-manipulated to appear in the same area so that they can be triple-KOed by shine. This also syncs up for the next three Yoshis, which are done with a very tight combo hitting all three at once.
A few more combo'd Yoshis later, on the 20-second mark an item spawns. This is manipulated to be an egg, which is thrown high off-screen in order to spawn-KO a Yoshi that was manipulated to be there. This is one of the few instances where an enemy is star KOed, because the lengthy KO animation is usually undesirable. The egg also spawns a Star Rod, which lands on the top platform.
The final Yoshi is combo'd with up airs, down airs, the thrown star rod, and finished with a sliding forward smash with the Star Rod, launching a star projectile. This combo was only one or two frames off from being escapable, if the Yoshi was able to double jump and armor out.
Stage 3 - VS Fox McCloud
Fox will laser at the start, but it is reflected with a running shine and then comboed into a throw.
The up air in the combo upwards the fin is no-impact landed, giving more time for the next couple of follow-up moves.
This is another stage with a wall for comboing on the right side, although it is not as well known because this stage isn't played as much. After some wall combo's, an Arwing is manipulated to appear in this area. Fox is comboed into the Arwing's lasers, bouncing him into the wall, and then comboing into the second laser volley from the Arwing (which is reflected), and the third laser volley hitting simulatenously. This results in a large explosion, swiftly KOing Fox. The fourth laser volley can be used nicely for the end frame.
Bonus Stage 1 - Break the Targets!
Stage 4 - VS Mario Bros.
Making sure that the ally (Link) is unhurt here was quite a challenge as Luigi immediately launches a fire ball at Link. This is intercepted with a jumping shine, which also nicely reflects the fire ball into Mario, setting the combo into motion.
The bumper at the top of the stage is used for various stage-specific combo extensions.
Probably one of the rarest occurrences in the game was luck-manipulated here, in that Link actually did two useful moves in a row, throwing a bomb and comboing into up B to KO Mario and combo Luigi further into the bumper.
Stage 5 - VS Pikachu
The main stage hazard here is the wall/door with Pokémon coming out of them. This is manipulated to happen as soon as possible, and the Pokémon manipulated to come out is Charmander.
Pikachu is stuck between Charmander's flames and by Fox multi-shining in place - this not only keeps Pikachu trapped between the hitboxes, but it also reflects some of the flames back onto Pikachu for extra damage.
Pikachu is then comboed between two of the buildings with a combination of drills. Because drill's knockback is so low, it was quite tricky to pull this off while still having Pikachu die first.
Stage 6 - VS Giant DK
Giant DK on Very Hard mode has such massive knockback resistance on low %s that it is impossible to really combo him. Therefore, I decided to go with an alternative strategy, having him use up B on stage and then pushing him off with a combination of shield push-back, and dashing in with a taunt to push DK off in a helpless state. This ends the battle quite quickly.
Since there's enough free airtime for it, Fox does all his aerial moves throughout the run.
Also, this run uses Fire Fox 11 times, with each of them requiring a specific analog angle for optimization.
Stage 7 - VS Kirby Team (vs. 8)
First Kirby (DK) is back-thrown into the next Kirby (Mario), and then promptly forgets to recover. Second Kirby is comboed off the throw into a high sequence of aerials.
Third Kirby (Link) gets his shield broken by a mix of double lasers from the ledge, some dashing multi-shines, and a few up airs. This is in fact a true block string - the Kirby could not escape having its shield broken. Meanwhile, fourth Kirby (Samus) is charging a charge shot. It fires into the third Kirby - in the process it passes through Fox's shine, due to it being intangible while in hitlag from hitting third Kirby with it.
Fifth Kirby (Yoshi) is also comboed with the help of the next Kirby (Fox), who is manipulated to constantly shoot lasers, while being comboed into them with shines. Each shine had to be manipulated such that Kirby would DI up, as otherwise it would hit the ground and not combo.
Seventh Kirby (Yoshi) is hit by a bumper, which then lands on the right side of the stage. Eighth Kirby is then comboed into it repeatedly with nice results.
Stage 8 - VS Samus Aran
One of Fox's flaws, which is most highlighted in a stage like this, is the lack of a powerful dunking move. This means that abilities to combo off the acid are quite limited.
Instead, I make use of another exploit with the acid - if the acid knockback is cancelled out (by hitting with meteor smashes in quick succession, which drill conveniently does), it's possible for Samus to fall through the acid, despite getting burned by it. This results in a quick end.
Like Giant DK, Metal Mario is so heavy that conventional combo tools are not a legitimate option. So it's time for chain throws instead. At low percent this does not truly combo either, but it's possible with some specific motions to dodge Metal Mario's get up attack and quickly regrab him, resulting in a sort of techchase situation instead. This works until Metal Mario's percentage is high enough until forward throw (and later back throw) starts to combo into itself.
Also at one point, after Metal Mario is thrown while near the edge, I use forward smash to clank with the getup attack, which due to how its animation works pushes Fox off stage. Then he uses shine to land back on and combo further after the getup attack.
By the end, Metal Mario is forward thrown so close to the ledge that Fox can move forward and cause Metal Mario to slide off - doing this and manipulating him to down air causes him to drop way below the level. Dropping down along with him and hitting him to clip his double jump results in a quick KO.
Bonus Stage 3 - Race to the Finish!
Just plain speed strategies here, using tricks like no-impact lands and laser turnarounds to save frames.
Conveniently, the rolling explosives are considered projectiles and can be shined through harmlessly. It does not even cause any hit lag.
The timer ends at 0:43, although it was just a few frames away from 0:44.
Stage 10 - VS Fighting Polygon Team (vs. 30)
At the start, I tried to entertain by thinking of as many different ways as possible to KO the fighting polygons while remaining speedy.
One of the first KOs is done by shielding in the middle of two polygons near the ledge, causing one to forward smash the other, and sliding off and getting back with shine to punish the forward smash and KO that polygon as well.
Another polygon is comboed by backthrowing another polygon into it, following up with a few lasers while jumping from one side platform to the other (this requires a very specific analog jump), and comboing into a pivot forward smash.
At the 15-second mark, the first item appears, which is manipulated to be a crate that is then manipulated to contain three Poké Balls - all the instruments needed to create utter chaos.
The first Poké Ball is manipulated to spawn Beedrill, which generates a swarm of Beedrill that horizontally go around the stage. The second Poké Ball is manipulated to spawn Clefairy, which uses Metronome, which in turn is manipulated to replicate Beedrill's effect. Now we have two swarms of Pokémon taking up most of the stage.
The third Poké Ball spawns Chansey, which drops three eggs to spawn further items. These eggs are manipulated into spawning a Star Rod and Beam Sword, with the third one being explosive just to add to the already ongoing chaos.
After the swarms of Beedrill/Clefairy have gone past, the remaining polygons are comboed using the battering items in various ways, while a Home Run Bat is also manipulated to appear on the top platform. A few polygons are manipulated to get some attacks out, just so they can hit each other with it.
Near the end, the Star Rod is thrown up to set up for the final polygon KO - using shine to combo into the falling Star Rod, which then bounces it back into a Home Run Bat smash attack. Ping!
Stage 11 - VS Master Hand
There's not that much that you can do to make the fight all that interesting - it's a flat stage, so there's little room for creative movement, and Master Hand cannot be comboed by design. Therefore, the fight ends up mainly going for speed, with just a bit of move variety to keep it a little interesting (and to avoid the negative Cheap Shot bonus). Master Hand is KOed with the timer at 4:47.
The credits are sped up through and all individual credits are hit. Unlike later games though, they aren't really kept track of, which lessens the impact a bit.
Challenger Approaching - VS Ness
The fastest move to hit Ness with that can be comboed off is down tilt from the top platform, using a shine platform land to get there quickly.
Some trickery is used to get Fox on the ledge quickly, which is used for some edge guarding shenanigans, and ending with a Fire Fox that just barely KOes Ness (helped by its mostly but not entirely vertical trajectory) before Fox falls down all the way to the bottom-right corner of the blast zone. Look at how tiny Fox looks from that camera angle!
Final notes
Screenshots
Encoding/publication notes
Also, the input file goes up to the start of the credits. I made an extended version of the run (used for the encode above) which clears the credits, end screens, and the Challenger Approaching fight at the end. The extended input file is available
here.
Outtakes
As a bonus, I put together a video with various alternate revisions/outtakes of stages that ended up not making it into the final run. Unfortunately I did not end up saving every variant made, but it's still a nice bit of extra content.
The video can be watched
here.
Thanks list
Thanks to the organisers and competitors of the Super Smash Con. combo contests, which provided lots of inspiration material (special shoutouts to Prince)
Thanks to previous TASers whose TASes were used for reference material and/or inspiration:
- Blaze
- EZGames69
- Haru
- Isotarge
- Mittenz
Thanks to everyone who gave feedback to my WIP videos:
- andypanther
- Aran;Jaeger
- BrunoValads
- Challenger
- DyllonStej
- EZGames69
- Hack3900
- Masterjun
- Natetheman223
- Really_Tall
- Samsara
- WarHippy
- Zinfidel
Thanks to the following people for helping with figuring out how to fix encoding/emulation issues:
Thanks to EZGames69:
And thanks to you for watching!
Be sure to let me know what your favorite part of the video was!
EZGames69: I liked the part where I, EZGames69, was mentioned several times in the thanks section, and I am definitely not Samsara pretending to be EZGames69 to claim this submission for judging.
Samsara: well i guess its faster than the published run, accepting
There's a large part of me tempted to just leave it there, because that's funny to me, but you know what's also funny to me? This good as heck playaround. Smash 64 has needed an updated playaround for a while and this not only surpasses it, but exceeds it in every way. Tighter pacing, more variety, much more entertaining, much more skillful looking, and it's clear that every frame was carefully crafted to just look as good as possible, even down to the final freeze frames of each fight. The (sort of obvious) highlight for me is the polygon team fight, just an absolute cacophony of destruction with a perfect ending, but the general messing with the AI and insane usage of stage hazards were also an absolute treat to watch and just an overall highlight of the movie. It's using every part of the buffalo, and it specifically... bred this buffalo to have every possible part... Look, I was never good at metaphors. Don't judge me. That's literally my job.
I'm very happy to see the full result; it looks absolutely wonderful.
My favorite parts were the 
