BillyWAR1All stars and comet medals of Super Mario Galaxy 2's World 1 collected in 12 Gameplay and 193 Total A Presses. This TAS was made over a couple of months by BillyWAR, Moosh, and PurpleSun
Definitely one of the bigger/more time-intensive TASes of Super Mario Galaxy 2 out there, and we're pretty proud of the result. It's also the biggest application of SMG Hexing where we were able to do TASes of the stars individually and then, to some extent, put them together for one TAS. We didn't spend too much time on optimizing the time of the TAS, and more wanted to demonstrate what all the strats look like, so a lot of really cool ABC strats and tech being shown off!
[TAS] SMG2 World 1 from Completed File in 12 (193) A Presses by BillyWAR, Moosh, and PurpleSunBillyWAR12021-03-07 | All stars and comet medals of Super Mario Galaxy 2's World 1 collected in 12 Gameplay and 193 Total A Presses. This TAS was made over a couple of months by BillyWAR, Moosh, and PurpleSun
Definitely one of the bigger/more time-intensive TASes of Super Mario Galaxy 2 out there, and we're pretty proud of the result. It's also the biggest application of SMG Hexing where we were able to do TASes of the stars individually and then, to some extent, put them together for one TAS. We didn't spend too much time on optimizing the time of the TAS, and more wanted to demonstrate what all the strats look like, so a lot of really cool ABC strats and tech being shown off!
0:00 - Sky Station 14:37 - Yoshi Star 33:56 - Flip-Swap 42:34 - Spin Dig 59:12 - Rightside Down 1:12:56 - Fluffy Bluff 1:33:45 - Fiery Flotilla[RTABC] The 58 Remaining A PressesBillyWAR12024-08-19 | RTABC Server: discord.gg/73JKC6f Previous Version: youtu.be/y5CI8e2fuWI
This video is an updated version of the video I made exactly a year ago *again* **again**. This is basically a copy of pannen's videos of the same name (Most recent one here: youtu.be/e_IEhqUAuCY), the rest of the vid's p explanatory. I'm not sure how many more A Press saves there'll be for RTABC, so def don't expect the next video to have 11 A Press saves in it again. I am actually really happy with how low the A Press has gotten recently, def not what I was expecting a few years ago.
ERRORS: None yet[SMG ABC] Deep Dark C Ghost Ship Daredevil Run 1.5xA (Mario)BillyWAR12024-02-13 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
This one was actually so cool. I originally thought this would be pretty simple to TAS because both of the saves in Deep Dark 1 pretty obviously required damage being taken. But then after messing around a bit with the shell I found that if you hold a shell, you can triple bounce off a second shell, and with a bit of spin-in-midair shenaniganry this would get you enough height to reach the mast without getting hit by the flame. I was originally pretty worried about whether the strat would actually work out, mostly because there wasn't obviously a way to get on the shell without falling off before you could double bounce. After a lot of messing a lot with jank though, I found this spot where it works. Overall an A Press save which seemed very unlikely a few stars ago but looks really cool to see done. Next is Deep Dark P which is gonna be... a task[SMG ABC] Deep Dark 3 Guppy in the Underground Lake 0xA (2xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12024-02-13 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Overall a pretty boring star, but don't worry Deep Dark C is actually hella cool (and is already uploaded because I forgot about this star while I was making the Deep Dark C TAS)[SMG ABC] Deep Dark 2 Bubble Blastoff 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-12-21 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Dude this star took me so long. While it didn't take me the full like 6 months or however long it's been since I uploaded an SMG1 video, it still look like a month of TASing, especially to make it coinless. Originally I got demotivated by the shorelaunch, because for some reason shorelaunches are occasionally a lot more powerful than usual, which is what you need in order to get enough height to land on the bubble blast platform. There isn't really much to say about it other than trial and error. The fish planet wasn't too hard, but the last planet was a nightmare to do. I had originally given up on doing it coinless after going through as much of the tennis ball cycles as I can, but right after I gave up I accidentally found a combination that works. This TAS might look simple, but there's so much that went into it. I'm so hyped for Deep Dark 3 and how free it should be.[SMG ABC] Throwback C Whomp Silver Star Speed Run 0xABillyWAR12023-12-02 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Yeah it's been a while since I uploaded but gonna try and get back into SMG ABC TASing soon. Moosh recently made a TAS of Throwback 2 0xA (youtu.be/4my18QyyFOM) as opposed to 0.5xA, but it was really uncertain as to whether you could do the star in 2 minutes to keep up with the timer, especially with needing the goomba manip. So I decided to try it out, and it was really close but was achievable. The strats for getting the goombas up is pretty much the same as his video, and the main timesave came from rerouting the bottom-most silver star to the end because of how much time it takes to get back up from there 0xA.
This video is an updated version of the video I made exactly a year ago *again*. This is basically a copy of pannen's videos of the same name (Most recent one here: youtu.be/e_IEhqUAuCY), the rest of the vid's p explanatory. Thanks to Zyon and Blobfish Times for helping me with the video, and yes I know the sound isn't working on the start of BitS but I wanted to cut the pause buffering out of the intro, so I just removed the audio and re-added the music so there wouldn't be constant random pausing noises.
ERRORS: A Press #27 should have a (x2) - Once for the Cruiser star and one for Somewhere Over the Rainbow[SMG ABC] Deep Dark 1 The Underground Ghost Ship 0.5xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-06-10 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Now this one is pretty cool, first actual A press save in a while. So PurpleSun made a 1xA TAS of this star a few years ago, where the only A Press was to get off the pole onto the top portion of the ship. I didn't really think it was savable, but PurpleSun did have an idea where you get a lot of height from a shell, and then fire boost on top, skipping the pole entirely. (Note that if you're on the pole and get fire boosted, you can't move horizontally so you have to start from beneath the pole.) After a lot of messing around, I managed to pull it off. The most annoying parts were getting the shell in the right spot to start the skip, and avoiding the actual pole while Mario is airborne. I did try getting it 0xA but I don't think you're able to get enough height, at least with the technique I was using. Still a very nice strat. The rest of the star is relatively straightforward except for the fireball at the end of the level. Normally when you kill the boss, all the fireballs disappear, so you can't use them to collect the star. However, if you kill a magikoopa while their fireball is still active, then the game actually won't unload the fireball when the boss is killed. Presumably it's because unloading the fireball is tied to unloading the magikoopa, so when the magikoopa is gone the game doesn't think there's anything to unload, including the fireball which does still exist. Thus, you're able to boost off it into the star. This still leaves 2 A Presses in the daredevil comet version of the level left - I doubt the pole is savable but maybe there's something to do on the star grab? Time will tell. Great start for Garden Dome.[SMG ABC] Bowser Jr.s Lava Reactor King Kalientes Spicy Return 0xA (2xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12023-06-08 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Pretty boring star again, do like the clean movement though. Next up is Deep Dark/Garden which should be very interesting.[SMG ABC] Sand Spiral Choosing a Favorite Snack 0.5xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-05-28 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Okay this one ended up being more interesting than expected. I was thinking that even 0xA you could just use the boo powerup and walk all the way to the moon, and then use the gravity field while entering the moon to orbit around the planet to collect the star. What I wasn't expecting is that you couldn't actually cross the small gaps in the rotating platform with just a spin because of how fast the platforms rotate and how spinning kills your horizontal speed. So the follow up strat was to bring the Magikoopa all the way to the end of the level, and have Mario fire boost to the moon/star (Shoutouts to Annoying for pointing out that the Magikoopa lands on the moon if you manip it far enough.) The problem is that once the Magikoopa shoots the fireball, they immediately go somewhere else that's out of range of shooting starbits to manip the Magikoopa further. So the final solution was to use P2 0.5xA to interrupt the Magikoopa's post-fire-shot animation, which keeps the Magikoopa in place so they fire another shot. I was then able to use one shot to get to the moon, and then another shot to boost into this star. While this strat should work with just P2 A, I was having a hard time keeping the magikoopa on frame with 0xA on P1, so I also ended up using 0.5xA as P1. Overall, a lot cooler than expected.
(Note that I forgot to add in P2 0.5xA when making this TAS until halfway through the level so *technically* this TAS isn't 0.5xA because P2 holds A midway through the course but this had exactly 0 impact on the game and I already reTASed the start of this stage like 4 times so whatever)[SMG ABC] Bonefin Kingfins Fearsome Waters 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-04-24 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Not only is this one not interesting from an ABC perspective, but it's so similar to the normal level that this beats the IL WR by several seconds even if you don't take into account the fact that the IL WR skips the cutscenes. Looks pretty clean though imo[SMG ABC] Toy Time S The Flipswitch Chain 0xA (6xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12023-04-22 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Yeah not gonna be much to explain for the next few ABC TASes, not until Deep Dark is there gonna be like, properly interesting stuff[SMG TAS] Dreadnought 1 - 1:04.13 (Mario)BillyWAR12023-04-17 | SMG TAS Server: discord.gg/h2YSCZm
So this star's actually HELLA sick. A few days ago I was in the mood to get some more stars on the sheet done, so I asked Xander to roll another star for me to TAS and he rolled this one. There's been a lot of work on this star already but it was really fun/satisfying to put them together and try to properly optimize the star. -5s on the LOTAD I did and like -40s or smth off the IL WR if you count the cutscenes. Thoughts on each segment First planet: This part I'm still not very sure about. There's a lot of ways to get up and a MTJ without a 2P Jump into a backflip ended up being the fastest for me, although there's like gotta be some way to get flung directly into the Launch Star. Enemy Manip/Skip: Super happy with how this one turned out, the idea for this segment is that you get Mario high enough to enter the weird upper gravity field, and then once you're in the sideways gravity you bounce off the lured Astrogoomba, and with gravity being this direction you can triple-bounce 2P on top of the rocket, from which you can fall all the way to the next Launch star, skipping 2 sections. Main improvements over the original skip was jumping off the first Astrogoomba in such a way that I get the single and double bounces at the same time, getting good enough spacing to triple bounce immediately off the Astrogoomba instead of waiting, and going up and around the gravity field instead of going to the left. Final Planet(s): I saw the basic idea for this ending from PurpleSun, but their version didn't quite make it to the star from just a wall jump. So what I did is to the wall-fall-jump-thingamabob to spin bonk off of the laser platform, and being able to fall backwards actually does give you enough speed to fall directly onto the star.
Thanks to Xander/PurpleSun for giving me ideas during the TASing process and shoutouts to usernameispassword/MarioandTrafficLightFan for figuring out the skip.[SMG ABC] Toy Time P Luigis Purple Coins 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-04-06 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Again nothing really that interesting other than the edge lift for the star grab - I kinda tried routing out a good 0xA set of purple coins but didn't care that much about being efficient so whatever[SMG ABC] Toy Time C Fast Foes of Toy Time 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-04-06 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Not really much to say other than that pretty cool looking, completely unnecessary, and mildly faster way of getting to the second planet RTA which I think's hella sick[SMG TAS] Beach Bowl P - 2:30.92 (Mario, LOTAD)BillyWAR12023-04-02 | SMG TAS Server: discord.gg/h2YSCZm
-33s off the 120 WR. This is the second session of the SMG Random Star TAS thing where a bunch of SMG TASers get together and TAS random stars in an attempt to help fill up the TAS sheet. This time everyone got pretty long stars (Including 3 Purple Coin Stars), so we all were having it take over a day. I'm the first one to finish so by that metric I'm kind of the winner (Even though some of the other ones are def fire so far) Some comments on the actual run: -Really like the tree climb at the start -The long jumps for the coins on the islands look so sloppy but I genuinely couldn't do any better -The long jump to and from the stump was actually suuuper tight but glad I made it -The 2P jump out of the swing honestly could be implemented RTA since it's not that hard and saves like a few seconds of having to swing the swing back a bit -I went back and forth a lot on the routing for how to deal with the 2 coins on top of the vine tree, but I eventually just settled on the normal route where you get the 2 coins during the tree run -The long jumps on the upper platforms look soooooooo bad but I am a really big fan of the way I climbed up the highest tree -I hate TASing swimming in this game -Everything after the swimming including the vine was like, very low-optimized so if it looks like I could've done the vine better you're probably right
This star was a nightmare to TAS, but it's got a lot of fun strats in it. Most notable was getting onto the first pole in the pole/ice section, getting onto the platform with the cannon on it, and especially the bossfight which was an absolute nightmare to TAS. There's a few ideas to save the A Presses but would take a load of effort to pull off if they're possible at all, so not looking into them rn. Next few stars are definitely going to be a lot easier which should be nice.[SMG ABC] Toy Time 2 Mario Meets Mario 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-03-18 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Pretty straightforward, just have some jank with getting around corners and stuff. Trying to TAS Toy Time 3 rn and it's being difficult but should be up p soon.[SMG ABC] Beach Bowl 3 The Secret Undersea Cavern 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-02-18 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
In my first runthrough of this star, I had done it 0.5xA (youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8EIL130JI), using edge lift to get the star 0.5xA, but yesterday Dendonodon showed that you can bring the goomba to the end of the stage and get up that way, saving the half A Press (youtu.be/VTloLDs5lTI) So I really quickly reTASed the star from the beginning of the level and without infinite starbits. Now it's actually a really neat star with the goomba escort.[SMG ABC] Toy Time 1 Heavy-Metal Mecha Bowser 2.5xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-02-12 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Okay this one is pretty funky fresh. Most of the level was already planned out by PurpleSun, then there's the skip to the plate which was originally found by usernameispassword, the big jump to the top of the mecha bowser was also found by PurpleSun, and then the ending with the star grab was found by Zimbo. I had a really fun time TASing this level, maybe it's just because the last one I did was Sea Slide so you can only really go up from there but the platforming had a lot of really fun movement on it with enemies and stuff. Only thing to say that's not obvious is that the bounce to the plate is actually suuuuuuper precise as Mario and the ending where you grab the star is surprsingly jank. The reason for 0.5xA is that you can't get up the yellow block 0xA. Additionally, I wanted to make this level powerupless to potentially save the dialogue A press in Any%, but I couldn't find a way to get to the top of the jar without it. Really excited for Toy Time[SMG ABC] Sea Slide S Hurry, Hes Hungry 1xA (7xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12023-02-05 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Pretty boring star, not much to say other than I forgor to do a landing cancel. Toy Time should be pretty funky[SMG ABC] Sea Slide P Purple Coins by the Seaside 1.5xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-01-25 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Another star where the A Press Count was actually higher than we thought it was. Really tedious star to do but should be one of the last tedious ones in the entire game. Usually this would be the longest star, but currently Honeyhive P is over twice as long (Although I have plans to change that once I'm done with the A Press saves) Most of the level is pretty straightforward with just some precise flying. The only problematic part is at 3:25, because you don't normally have enough fly power to just hold A and make it to the top cloud. The previous idea was to use shore launches (I'm not sure from where) but in this TAS I found that you can just edge lift, and that gives you enough extra height to make it to the next cloud.[SMG ABC] Flip-Out 1 Wicked Wall Jumps 11.5xA (Luigi, +CM)BillyWAR12023-01-12 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Well that was quick lol. Right after the first video usernameispassword figured out a way to do the spike jump without a first long jump by using the spike damage animation. Again huge thanks to Annoying for figuring out most of the route. Still an overall very cool star with a ton of tech in it.
The A presses are as follows: #0.5xA: Hold P2 for the checkpoint grab and spike manip #1: Megasideflip up past the first required wall jump section. #2: Megasideflip up through the second required wall jump, reaching the checkpoint. #3: Megasideflip from the last red square to the spike area. #4: Megasideflip up high enough to allow P2 to reach the checkpoint, activating it to cause a death warp. Hold this A press for the upcoming spider bounce. #5: Bounce off the three spiders, and wall jump to reach the comet medal #6: Spike jump up to the final wall jumping section. #7,8,9,10,11: Navigate the final section. Hold the final A press to reach the star platform.(OUTDATED) [SMG ABC] Flip-Out 1 Wicked Wall Jumps 12.5xA (Luigi, +CM)BillyWAR12023-01-12 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
This video is since out of date, an up-to-date version can be found here: youtu.be/1bwBkdTJMkc
So in the SMG ABC server Annoying was on an arc where she was revisiting Flip Out, and we managed to save 4 A Presses on their previous PB (Even though she did most of the work routing wise and I just TASed it)
Main thing that could save a bit more would be to figure out the spike jump - I was only ever able to get one from landing from a long jump but I really doubt that's actually required. But overall the star's really cool and features a lot of tech in it.
The A presses are as follows: #0.5xA: Hold P2 for the checkpoint grab #1: Megasideflip up past the first required wall jump section. #2: Megasideflip up through the second required wall jump, reaching the checkpoint. #3: Megasideflip from the last red square to the spike area. #4: Megasideflip up high enough to allow P2 to reach the checkpoint, activating it to cause a death warp. Hold this A press for the upcoming spider bounce. #5: Bounce off the three spiders, and wall jump to reach the comet medal #6,7: Spike jump up to the final wall jumping section. #8,9,10,11,12: Navigate the final section. Hold the final A press to reach the star platform.[SMG ABC] Sea Slide C Underwater Cosmic Mario Race 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-01-06 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Another super quick one - Not really sure why this one was marked as 0.5xA other than people just didn't care, but it's p easy to TAS - 61 re-records. Next one will be an oof[SMG ABC] Sea Slide 3 The Silver Stars of Sea Slide 1xA (Mario)BillyWAR12023-01-05 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Pretty standard, haven't done an ABC star in a while so made this one real quick - I tried to avoid the cannon shot with some sort of bee shore launch or something but wasn't able to get anything really close to making it. Sea Slide C should be free and then Sea Slide P will take a bit to TAS[SMG TAS] Melty Molten S - 1:32.98 (+HL, Mario, LOTAD)BillyWAR12022-12-29 | SMG TAS Server: discord.gg/h2YSCZm
-13s off the 120 WR. So to get more of the stars done, Xander, Toogs, I, and a couple others are doing a thing where we roll a random star that hasn't been TASed yet and make a LOTAD, and I rolled Melty Molten S. This star is after prob 6 hours on my part (8 counting breaks). The start of climbing the volcano is a couple seconds faster than the RTA IL and it's probably improvable by a few more - There's only one part of the volcano that allows you to climb up to the top so I have to kinda go around, and there was exactly enough starbits in the route, so this way would def not be doable RTA. Pretty fun though and a lot of slope jank
First runthrough of the star, overall pretty sloppy but still saved 10+ seconds on the RTA record and about 20 seconds given the fact that the RTA record skips the cutscenes at the start. Gonna try out an alternate route idea and then if that doesn't work optimize this TAS a lot better[SMG ABC] Sea Slide 2 Faster than a Speeding Penguin 0xA (4xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-12-13 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Last of the three boring stars - I didn't spend too much time bothering to get a good time other than getting a few surface swims. Next star is where it starts getting a bit spicy[SMG ABC] Sea Slide 1 Going After Guppy 0xA (3xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-12-13 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Second of three really easy stars. Literally no reason to shore launch at the start and a surface swim definitely would've been faster, I just kinda did it to see if I could[SMG ABC] Gold Leaf S The Bell on the Big Tree 0.5xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-12-13 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
First of three really quick/straightforward stars that I decided to TAS all in a row. If you ignored cutscenes this would almost beat just the normal RTA record because of how much you schmoove around the tree with TAS. I don't think this is a half A Press that flipbug manip would be able to solve[SMG TAS] Rolling Green - 1:05.82 (Tutorial, English, Mario)BillyWAR12022-12-10 | SMG TAS Server: discord.gg/h2YSCZm
Improved my previous TAS by 21f: youtube.com/watch?v=he4CG5itG6s -6f from getting on the ball sooner, -10f from getting the first launch earlier -4f from earlier rail skip -1f from better final planet
Decided to take a break from ABC stuff to get back into normal TASing, so I finished up this WIP I made from a while back. Was surprised how hard it was to improve the TAS - presumably a properly good TASer could improve it a bit, but really not sure how much there'd be other than just a few frames here and there off the fundamental strategy.[SMG ABC] Gold Leaf P Purple Coins in the Woods 1xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-12-02 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
An actual A Press save as opposed to just a half A Press save hype - The actual improvement comes from being able to collect the two Purple Coins on the swing without using the swing, and other than that the star is p much just doing the level. I'm also surprised how tight the sling star on the tower was and how tight the timer was - I actually needed to redo the second half of the TAS because my first attempt was too slow Also that A Press at the start is probably the most annoying A Press in SMG1 I know of - Guess that's what happens in this game when you can't get airborne. The next 3 stars should all be p boring unless I need to do Gold Leaf C as Luigi[SMG ABC] Gold Leaf C Cosmic Mario Forest Race 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-28 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Okay finally a star that doesn't involve a bunch of flipbug manip - This star was previously 0.5xA by PurpleSun (youtube.com/watch?v=KfOdAl_ykYg). Nothing really that different other than the movement just being a bit tighter in general, particularly the first segment since it's so hard to get ahead of the clone enough to get a double bounce. After that nothing too bad/different to TAS Speaking of PurpleSun, I'm probably gonna leave Gold Leaf C as Luigi to them - It'll prob involve a lot more required schmooving which is more their area but if they don't get anything before I finish Gold Leaf then I'll prob help / settle for 1xA Luigi[SMG ABC] Gold Leaf 3 When it Rains, it Pours 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-25 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
This one was by far the most annoying flipbug manip I've had to do, mostly in reference to the double flipbug bounce that first gets Mario to the wood platforms, which alone took me a ton of attempts to get flipbug positions that worked. All to save half an A Press, smh. Note that the reason I use P2 to shoot the flipbugs is that spinning the Wiimote in my usual TAS setup would cause the cursor to shake as well, so shooting the flipbugs with P2 makes it so that the cursor didn't move while shaking P1. Overall still a p fun star with all the jank in it and from just how much the flipbug gets carried. Okay there's probaly not gonna be any more flipbug manip for while, maybe[SMG ABC] Gold Leaf 2 Cataquack to the Skies 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-16 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Honestly pretty similar to GL1 in the broad scale where most of the star is pretty easy/quick but the flipbugs at the end are really time consuming. Up next is GL3 which I think will also be pretty neat if we can skip the bee mushroom[SMG ABC] Gold Leaf 1 Star Bunnies on the Hunt 0xA (2xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-13 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
T r i p l e Flipbug Bounce Bois - To be clear this stage is incredibly easy 0.5xA, but me and Salad wanted to save the half A Press which required the launch star to be activated without the bee, meaning I had to do something like this. I had an idea that was even cooler and only needed 2 flipbugs but the camera angles I could get wouldn't allow it. Still pretty nice[SMG ABC] Bowsers Dark Matter Plant Darkness on the Horizon 0xA (5xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-08 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Okay now *this* is an exciting star - The old record for this star was 1.5xA, but the addition comes in by saving the A Press needed to get past the pole, and avoiding the need for 2P and some better movement to get rid of the Half A Press Getting past the pole is kinda standard at this point - I get starbits to shoot the third goomba so that it gets high enough in the air for a triple bounce to make it to the higher platform. Note that you can't actually go through the gaps in the platforms through the bottom, they're only one-way. The other big strat is the star-grab which is significantly more cool imo. The main idea which came from usernameispassword is to get the astro-goomba high enough past the stairs so that you can bounce off it into the star, but there's a few hurdles to this that aren't really obvious from the video. The first obstacle is that if Mario stands on this one big platform, (the one halfway up the stairs), the astrogoomba actually immediately disappears and you can't get them back. Presumably this platform gets rid of all the enemies in the level to make the bossfight less laggy. username got around this by simply never landing on it, but it turns out that the very edge of the platform doesn't have the trigger on it, so I edge-lift around the side to avoid disappearing the goomba. The second obstacle is that during the bossfight, the gravity on the main planet disappears and doesn't re-appear until the bossfight ends, so if I didn't do anything the astro-goomba would fall up to the bossfight planet with me, and it won't fall back down when the bossfight is over. Username avoided this just by using P2 to keep the goomba in place, but to save this half A Press I decided to try to keep the astro-goomba off-camera the entire bossfight, so that it never completely falls to the bossfight planet. It was kinda jank keeping it off camera the whole time, and it meant that I had to do the bossfight slower than normal, since for example cutting of Bowser's spitting fire phase requires mario to go up to Bowser which will move the camera to a bad spot. Overall a pretty cool strat and a really cool star.
Engine time now baby - Should be mostly easy star up until Toy Time[SMG ABC] Bigmouth Bigmouths Golden Bait 0xA (4xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-07 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
So you can do the starchip skip 0xA but it's actually really tight - Still makes this star semi-interesting. Alright the next star will actually be really cool I promise - Bowser 2[SMG ABC] Honeyclimb Scaling the Sticky Wall 0.5xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-07 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
So I thought this one would be really lame but it turns out that you can do fast flying 0.5xA, although I couldn't get it to give quite as much speed. So it's not quite as lame[SMG ABC] Dusty Dune G Treasure of the Pyramid 0xA (6xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-06 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Overall this star's p much what you'd expect, the main thing that's kinda clever is breaking the first crystal last so that you can just start airborne and collect the star. Kinda annoyed that this means you have to go up/down the pill again but whatever[SMG ABC] Dusty Dune S Bullet Bill on your Back 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-06 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Technically a half A Press save, but there's nothing really different between this version and the 0.5xA version other than just a slightly harder switch press. Other than the Bullet Bill knocking Mario on the switch, nothing really significant over Dusty Dune 3[SMG ABC] Dusty Dune P Purple Coins in the Sand 1xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-11-05 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6 Tried for a while to get it 0xA and managed to come up with like 5 methods that get really close to working, but nothing ended up working, so the star's p standard Next 4 stars should be p straightforward, and then after that Bowser 2 is gonna be rough[SMG ABC] Dusty Dune C Sandblast Speed Run 1xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-10-16 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Pretty much just Dusty Dune 2 but with a timer, and not being able to die to get rid of the coins, so there's an extra Dialogue Press at the end. I tried a while to save the A Press for the star grab for Mario or Luigi, but even though as I could get airborne, it wasn't really close enough to get to the star. Next up is Dusty Dune Purples which will be very funky[SMG ABC] Dusty Dune 2 Blasting through the Sand 1xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-10-03 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Not a ton conceptually to explain about this star - The only things that were annoying were getting onto the blue arrow on the green/orange arrow planet and the really tight edge lift ledge grabs on the final stairs. Both of which I'm pretty sure were strats that people did either 0.5xA or as Luigi and then assumed Mario could do it 0xA, but without edge lift I don't think you can do the final section lol[SMG ABC] Dusty Dune 1 Soaring on the Desert Winds 3xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-09-30 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Okay this one’s pretty in depth, took me a while to figure everything out. This saves 2.5 A Presses over the previous Mario record (youtube.com/watch?v=2Y4u8v49wcI) and 1.5 A Presses off the previous Luigi record, tying the two counts for this star.
The first addition comes at the start with the goomba manipulation. There’s not too much to actually explain here, nothing really special compared to the other goomba manip I’ve done. I could’ve saved one or maybe two deaths on the starbit grinding because I overestimated the amount I’d need, but whatever. One question someone might ask is why can’t I manipulate the other goomba to the wheels and save the other A Press, but the problem is that I couldn’t really think of a way to save the other A Press even if I got them over there. Maybe there’d be a way to save it as Luigi but not super confident, the gravity fields are p huge.
The much more funky part of the TAS comes from the end using multispin. What happens is that there are certain walls in this game (Presumably walls associated with wall jump areas) where Mario can’t run into them. In these areas, you can multispin, where Mario can spin and regrab the walls repeatedly to get effectively unlimited height. The problem with multispins (other than there not being that many spots you can do them) is that in order to regrab the wall, the spot where Mario became airborne has to be close to the corner. This usually makes it pretty hard to start a multispin without pressing A without the ground disappearing beneath Mario or something, so I use an A press to start the multispin. The save comes from being able to get around the ledge halfway up the left-most column by doing some pretty precise spinning and abusing the megaledgegrabs that are possible there. Definitely thinking that whether one megaledgegrabs has something to do with the multispins, but nothing confirmed. You might wonder why I can’t just multispin off of the second column to avoid the sideflip at the end, but again you run into the problem of not being able to become airborne close enough to the corner, so I couldn’t get a multispin.
Overall definitely a fun one to TAS and saving 2.5 A Presses is pretty nice. I don’t think the rest of Dust Dune will be nearly as difficult, but who knows[SMG ABC] Freezeflame S Conquering the Summit 0xA (2xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-09-20 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
So this one was actually really fun to work out, the idea of using the bats to get up was username's idea but the actual execution here is like completely different. Normally you can't actually bounce off the icebats because you just get frozen instead, so it's not immediately clear that you can use them to get up. The way to get around this is that when Mario has invincibility frames, then they can't get frozen again and so actually can bounce on the bats. From there the two problems are that the invincibility frames don't last a very long time (iirc you can move for less than 2 seconds with them) which isn't usually enough to be able to triple bounce off something, and whenever Mario spins the bat gets flung really far away, which makes it hard to bounce off. The solution comes from abusing the level geometry. After the bat runs into Mario to get invincibility frames, I shoot the bat a couple times so that the bat is falling in between the two platforms when Mario starts moving, so that Mario can just fall onto the bat and avoid the first spin. From there, I try to bounce off the bat in such a way that the bat always goes towards the wall, causing the bat to not move laterally much. Finally, I have Mario spin as soon as possible so that the bat moves upwards, partly so I get enough height to get to the top area, and partly so that I can get the bounces in quicker, giving me just enough time to triple bounce off the bat and land on the top platform. Overall, a pretty neat strat. Next up is Dusty Dune which I hate normally but might actually be pretty cool for ABC - feel like there could be a lot of room for saves.[SMG ABC] Freezeflame P Purple Coins on the Summit 1xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-09-18 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
So when I started working on this star we thought it actually would be 0xA or 0.5xA, but it turns out the bats which are there in the Secret star are actually not here in FFP, so we had to raise the A Press count above what we expected for this star. I really like long stars like these, where you end up going all around the course. Notable things include the megasideflip to reach the top of the mountain, using edgelift to go back and forth on the ice seesaw platform to avoid the platform going back down significantly, and just in general a lot of the routing other than the several times you have to fall off the slide I'm really happy with.[SMG ABC] Freezeflame C Frosty Cosmic Mario Race 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-09-17 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
So this star's pretty easy as Mario, but as Luigi it's like soooo much harder. Thanks a lot to Purple for making the Luigi version of the star for me, and their vid is here youtube.com/watch?v=SQI6vXVXT0I - They had to do a lot of stuff to actually make him fast enough[SMG ABC] Freezeflame 3 Hot and Cold Collide 0xA (Mario)BillyWAR12022-09-17 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
Honestly a pretty boring star overall, although the camera jankness at the first planet is definitely not what I was expecting lol. I wish I could've caught better cycles during the lava section of the grass planet, but just *barely* couldn't make one. Also thought it'd be pretty fun to make a TAS where I was at 1 Health the entire time to see if it'd annoy people (Especially since I'm pretty sure it'd actually be optimal to do it here)[SMG ABC] Freezeflame 1 The Frozen Peak of Baron Brrr 0xA (2xA) (Mario)BillyWAR12022-09-15 | SMG ABC Server: discord.gg/qWVzVF6
So this one was actually kinda insane - The strat Salad came up with and suggested I do for this star was way simpler than what's shown here - just go to the slingstar to start Freezeflame S, and then you can slope walk from there to the boss arena. However I got really curious as to whether you could do the "intended" route 0xA as well, and it turns out with a lot of enemy manip you can. This route is def a lot slower but it is a lot cooler, so wanted to show it off. Freezeflame 2 already has a really good TAS by Purple (youtube.com/watch?v=dVxVeLdXLw8) so I'm just gonna move onto Freezeflame 3, which might end up being pretty boring apart from the final section.