Uploaded February 2022 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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(RTA timing: 7:12.438)
Here's another installment of my "Rough Drafts" series, where I publish TASes that I made for fun but didn't care enough about to fully optimize and/or make entertaining.

I made this TAS on my own while working on the any% version with Kriller37 over a year ago (youtu.be/crrkCUUICac), but didn't want to release it before that TAS. The route is definitely not optimal—this is just sort of a "proof of concept" showing off some interesting strategies and wonky behaviors of this romhack.

Some highlights/explanations:

Coins: Collecting coins delays the level loading procedure. Because Mario's speed is already set to the maximum that the level loading can keep up with, grabbing coins can be detrimental, causing Mario to catch up to the level loading seam and start page wrapping. So, I generally try to avoid coins where possible in this TAS.

Bowser: It's possible to jump over the axe at the end of a castle level, skipping the Bowser death animation entirely without the need to kill him with fireballs. This makes grabbing powerups generally unnecessary. However, if you skip the axe like that then Bowser and the mushroom retainer object will remain permanently loaded (until the next room transition), clogging up 3 of the 5 enemy slots and causing a bunch of stuff to despawn in later levels.

1-1: Death warp to 1-2, same as any%.
1-4: A firebar got in my way so I slowed down for it. There's probably a better way around it.
2-1: Death warp to 2-2. The level transition happens extremely early in this level.
2-3: Death warping here saves around 2 frames compared to just running through to 2-4.
3-3: Death warping to 3-4 here is actually 2 frames slower than running through. However, if I run through then I end up catching up to the level loading seam, which would force me to slow down significantly in 4-1 to avoid page wrapping.
4-3: I grab a mushroom so that I can damage-boost through a firebar in 4-4. The mushroom grab here is definitely improvable but I didn't really care to optimize it that much.
4-4: The clip is probably improvable but I didn't care to spend too much time on it.
5-4: Bowser is looking a bit...disjointed here. I suspect that it's because of the Bowser objects that stayed loaded from 4-4. I grab the axe here to give the level loading some time to catch up to avoid page-wrapping issues in 6-1 and onwards. Also, even if the level loading could keep up then the three Bowser objects (2 from 4-4, 1 from 5-4) and two mushroom retainer objects (1 each from 4-4 and 5-4) would prevent anything from spawning in 6-3, which would cause other issues.
6-2: I'm getting dangerously close to the level loading seam now, so I'm forced to death-warp here or else I'll start page wrapping.
6-3: I intentionally grab a bunch of coins in this level to delay the level loading. This is necessary for the death warp setup in 7-1, which saves a very respectable chunk of time.
7-1: Death warp to 7-2. For some reason, I need to be close to the level loading seam for this to work (hence why I grabbed a bunch of coins in 6-3).
7-3: Death warp to 7-4, same as 2-3.
8-3: Just like in any%, and unlike previous levels where we tried to avoid page wrapping, it's actually faster here to just hold right and power through until the 8-4 pipe.

FM2 download: dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/637419284/SMBFlowHyper_warpless.fm2