Submission Text Full Submission Page
If your movie needs some setup provide a link to the verification movie.
This TAS starts from this Save file: https://tinyurl.com/52563m9y , since you need to unlock the Ghosts to beat them.
Emulator settings?
Predetermined.
A checksum of your ROM (SHA1 recommended).
SHA1: B06EFF12776BC31832D4E55A41F1A68B83B02BFC. Core: MelonDS. BIOS: not modified and matches the chosen game.
It is also highly recommended that you include the following information, as it significantly helps the Judges:
Information/ Description:
This DS game is the 2nd generation of games of the "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games" series and the first winter games, released along with the Wii version. It consists of several minigames called "Olympic Events", some of which you can play in a Time trial mode (there also exists a Story Mode, not relevant for this submission).
It is infamously known to DS players for having a challenge of Ghosts created by the staff of Sega (the "Staff Ghosts"), organized as "Normal", "Hard" and "Superhard" ghosts, unlike the other entries. This TAS defeats all the Superhard ghosts made by the Sega staff as fast as possible (so, each event showcases the fastest known TAS, beating the 5 events as fast as possible and maxing out the Final times in a few of them).
The TASes of every event have been on the works for years independently from each other and they are the result of continous improvements. We decided to unify them under this TAS project. These are:
Luge: Maxed out.
Skeleton: Maxed out.
Speed Skating: Maxed out.
Bobsleigh: 10+ iterations of this TAS have been made, this TAS contains the definitive version (45.562 seconds). Though it can be improved, it's hard enough I'm uncertain it can go below 45.500 seconds.
Alpine Skiing: The most interesting event from a TASing perspective.
Luge
You have to fill the gauge and stay inside the yellow line. After months of on and off research, the last milisecond of Luge was finally saved the previous year. This accomplishment was first made by the TASer Romario in 2021, a person known for impersonating runners, lying, threats and spamming, but he would never share his legendary TAS. It remained a mystery whether the TAS was real or a bluff, but I managed to replicate the IGT.
Skeleton
The Start forces you to dash with the stylus and mount the "skeleton", then you race to the finish line (sometimes, you can boost). The online rankings hinted towards an unknown strategy existing, because some users had unsual times. But the online rankings were known for the hackers in previous entries, we didn't know what to believe. As it turns out, the developers made a programming mistake that enables the player to do circles instead of dashing at the Start (Remy figured it out).
You can save 1 ms by delaying a boost. This happens because when you boost the character moves further inside the screen to create the feeling of speed. This last optimization was a happy accident of Romario, who happened to delay a boost, then he never shared the TAS. When we figured Skeleton out, his claim on Luge became believable.
Speed Sakting
You alternate between R and L to move faster, to turn you have to hold R and smash L, sometimes you can boost. Remy achieved an incredible time after several improvements back to back. Romario could only tie him, later on.
The developers commited one mistake with Speed Skating: You can go faster by holding R during the whole run and mashing L. This strategy is TAS-only. Other minor strats were discovered: waiting until the last moment to boost after turning, mashing L + R while boosting, and using Yoshi.
Bobsleigh
I made this section and nobody could defeat it. Bobsleigh was a very misunderstood event, and has the most hated ghost. First of all, you select 2 characters (tipically, Bowser and Vector), the Start comes down to mashing: you alternate B + Down. The Sega Staff performed a very tough start by mashing very fast, so most players immediately reset. Then you mount (RNG) and you race. The game has a few in-game tutorials, but they won't say much.
I was watching (useless) tutorials years ago and I found some commentators who knew what was wrong with this event. As it turns out, turning with the character sitting on the front of the "bobsled" makes you lose insane amounts of speed. Then it's a matter of turning the least you can with Vector, to prevent speed loss. The more Technique "skill" the character has, the easier it turns, so Bowser sits at the back and Vector leads the way.
If I have to point towards anything worth noting, beyond the history, that'd be that spreading the button presses that correspond to Vector is better than pressing for a while. Because it's faster to lose a bit of speed and watch it immediately increase, rather than decreasing it too much and waiting for the speed to go back up.
Alpine Skiing
Alpine is a (complicated) TouchScreen event, TASed by Remy. You have to touch the gates to dash and move with the stylus, swiping increases your speed. After several TASes, he achieved a sub 39 second TAS.
The IGT champion reported a glitch that allows you to achieve a "double dash", which is so rare that it has been regarded as a TAS-only glitch. It requires the Player to wiggle in a very specific angle inside the gate. Remy has implemented it as much as it is possible, but the glitch is awfully restricted to the angle. We believe a revolution for Alpine Skiing is near, but after months of testing we remain dumbfounded. This submission has been halted for long, we didn't want to submit this TAS until we found something new related to the glitch. However, there is no possible time save with the knowledge we have achieved of this wiggle glitch.
The mysteries of the other events that I have explained took years to be fully figured out, so we believe the future is bright for Alpine Skiing. Plus, none of us can write lua scripts, so we have been working with a restricted number of tools.
It is worth noting that swiping constantly does not make you go faster and it actually can slow you down in some sections, specially the ending. There is a timing and pacing. There are random bumps that launch Bowser high up only when you go too fast (it's a glitch, not a feature). Also, you don't really need to release the "stylus" when you TAS, which enables us to immediately swipe again. The Champion believes that 2 of the gates used for the TAS were suboptimal (that we should have used the gates from the opposite side), however after testing we have not managed to go faster, so it's currently being explored.
TLDR
After defeating all ghosts you receive the "Ghost Master Badge". "All Ghosts" is an speedruning category found in "All Misc", that currently holds no submitted runs, because the sheer difficulty daunts most runners. Plus, the main attraction are the minigames (IL).

ViGadeomes: Claiming for judging.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2632)
Joined: 10/12/2011
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Location: The land down under.
Hello Chall99 & RemyMS and welcome to TASVideos. The SaveRAM file that's been provided is not a verification movie. The verification movie would be another movie instance of you unlocking the mode. Not a save instance.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Experienced player (689)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1794
Location: Brasil
i'm more interested in the actual tas, but i'm no judge, i just want to see the end results, can't you provide an encode, chall99 and remyms?
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Editor, Active player (458)
Joined: 2/11/2018
Posts: 240
Link to video Not sure if the Google Drive upload was changed but it does seem to be a verification movie. Reuploaded here. Verification movie produces SHA1 C99DF8487D92C4FF03FD17CF4ACAD774D2B77372 which is different to the submission's SaveRAM. Verification movie is also on a different ROM. Submission uses a bad ROM. However, it seems to sync with the correct SaveRAM and good ROM.
Experienced player (928)
Joined: 7/18/2016
Posts: 106
Location: United States
Finally, a TAS of this game which I played so much as a kid! And based on the submission notes, a well-researched one at that... While I would've liked to have seen a TAS of all the game's events, I understand that would've required significantly more effort, as clearly it was a monumental effort just to optimize these five. While this doesn't play through all single-player events, I personally think this should be acceptable for the site since Ghost is its own single player mode, and it was completed in full here.
Reviewer, Experienced player (919)
Joined: 11/18/2011
Posts: 312
Location: Morocco
So I did check the movie and I can confirm that both verification movie and the submission movie sync on the same game with BizHawk 2.8
  • Game Name: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)
  • SHA1: 4EFD51D1A74EE4F61AECFB3B204EF43E
I enjoyed the races in the movie but I have some points about your run:
  • I am very concerned about how the run is made. I notice that the authors use auto fire throughout the entire run, so I guess frame advance was not used at all, and that can cost a lot of frames. Usually, auto fire is not optimal for TASing, even if it can mash at a 30 Hz frequency. Frame advance is necessary to ensure that all your inputs are entered at the earliest possible frame.
  • The ending doesn't seem optimal as well. The game ends while input is still there which doesn't interact with the game, and there are some empty frames afterwards too, making the movie unnecessarily longer.
Not sure about the goal choice, but it seems it is valid as a mode on its own. I would love for the authors to confirm for me what I commented above because it does seem they did put a good effort in this run.
I still learn more about English. https://www.youtube.com/user/McBobX100
I wrote:
Working is the best way to achieve goals in speedruning. Hardworking is a pain.