BlazeMSX
[MKWII TAS] Maple Treeway - 02:12.157 (Kart)
updated
Similarly to Coconut Mall, this is one of the few tracks where Funky Kong remains the fastest character for kart, since there's practically zero snaking aside from the lap transitions, and every single orange miniturbo is interrupted by a boost ramp, rendering Dry Bowser's miniturbo stat advantage almost completely useless.
After landing the final ramp on lap 3, I make use of a strange mechanic which could be considered a kart equivalent to superhopping. As you might know, karts can't do conventional superhopping, for the simple reason that they can't spindrift, which is why these inputs are slightly different. Upon landing, I reach max speed by hopping down the sloped ground, which creates an effect similar to supergrinding, only that the tires aren't stuck in the ground. The speed decreases once I reach the flat section of the road, but I can maintain a slightly higher speed than normal by continuing to sideways hop, which also has the benefit of giving me a better angle towards the finish line. In total, this saves around .04 from the trick landing to the finish line. I'm not sure how much use this mechanic could have in other kart TASes, but it's definitely worth researching further, even though snaking would likely be faster in most cases.
Music: Thousand Leaves - The Gathering
Of course, the use of the A-button in this game is quite a bit different from the Mario platforming games, since just pressing and holding the A-button a single time in MKW impacts the gameplay permanently, whereas in SM64 it only gives you a single hop, so it would be kind of pointless to consider this a "0x A presses" fast lap, as most time trials involve you pressing A during the countdown and never letting go for the rest of the run. With this in mind, basically every fast lap record in this game is technically "0x A presses", since the button press is initiated before the start of the lap. This is why it makes more sense to label this a "no A button" TAS, since A is never pressed or held throughout the entire lap.
There's also nothing necessarily special about completing a lap without pressing A, since you could just drive backwards in reverse while holding R or B, which is something a few people have actually done already as a meme category (youtu.be/ZmEQCcJW3Ck). However, if you've ever tried to do this, you'd quickly realize that your speed when in reverse is EXTREMELY slow, to the point where it takes nearly 10 minutes to finish a single run on most tracks, so I wanted to demonstrate that it was at least possible to complete an A button-less lap on DK Summit while maintaining your speed the entire time. In the end, I managed to get this lap within 1 second of the "normal" no-shortcut fast lap TAS, which is currently 31.770 by Zak. As a matter of fact, the main time loss actually comes from being unable to hop on the double cut, as opposed to the lack of the A-button.
The zipper pads, trickable mounds, and downwards slopes makes this track basically perfect for this challenge, but I had no idea if it would be possible to pull off the normal TAS double cut completely without pressing A or hopping. I think it goes without saying that this absolutely wasn't easy to do, since it's only possible to have enough speed to make it across the chasm because of multiple ultra-precise, QM-heavy setups that I don't even remotely understand.
Working on this introduced me to some weird in-game tech that I wasn't familiar with before, such as the "instant 98" landing being possible without the A button, and the discovery that rapidly braking causes you to deaccelerate much slower without the A button, which explains why I'm constantly hitting the drift button throughout this run despite using automatic. I imagine this is at least partially attributable to the fact that hitting the brake might cause you to bounce slightly for a few frames, but there could be other mechanics at play.
However, the real hero of this run is the game's midair mechanics, which is such that you don't actually normally de-accelerate if you're airborne, so the auto bounce mechanic really came in handy here.
Combining the auto bounce with the brake tech I mentioned earlier, it's actually possible to maintain much of your speed across a flat surface without the A-button, which I demonstrate at the end of the video.
I decided to include an input display for this run to visually demonstrate that the A button is never pressed a single time.
Music: xi-on - Cinderella Cage
This track has a very unique layout, with the course looping back around and sending players to drive earlier parts of the course backwards. This allowed for a few additional tricks by driving off of the backwards-facing ramps, of which a few are possibly RTA viable.
The spiral skip also provided a few seconds of time save. You need to trigger a key checkpoint halfway down the spiral in order for the lap to count, which is why I needed to land further to the right. Although it involves two precise clips, I imagine that this shortcut can also be performed RTA.
Music: Sonic 3D (Saturn) - Volcano Valley Zone Act 2
This version of the track has also been TASed a few times in the past by players like Grim and Maximiliano, so it has a bit of a legacy in the realm of CT TASing.
There are several other CTGP throwbacks that I want to get around to doing eventually, including some mostly forgotten tracks off of CTGP 4.4 and 1.01. I also have a few other runs I need to get around to recording and uploading as well.
Music: Demetori - 天狗が見ている - Eye of the Needles
This was the first time I had used TAS code (de-activatable live replay) for a TAF, since I had finally found an infinite shrooms code that functioned with it enabled. This actually turned out to be a massive gamechanger, since it allowed me to do much more precise tricks than before. This is also why the item display isn't animated, although that's just a minor visual issue.
After not TAFing for nearly half a decade, I'm kind of curious to see what other tracks I could possibly try in the future. I'd love some suggestions, although no guarantees that I'll actually do it.
Music: Touhou 10 - Native Faith
The water tunnel section probably looks extremely weird, but the water current already pushes you at max vehicle speed, so wheelies are unnecessary, and I found it was actually slightly faster to just hug the wall. Tricking also seems to lose a small amount of time. The speedometer says 84, but the game's calculation of "vehicle speed" doesn't always necessarily match the "true" speed.
I initially thought the ending cannon glitch was just a useless trick without any application, but it turns out it's either equal to landing in bounds, if not slightly faster.
Music: Chon - Breathe
Real-time BKT: 2:56.317 by Abhilash
This one wasn't easy to make. If the constant barrage of sub-frame movement wasn't already bad enough, I had to complicate things even further by discovering this bizarre truck bounce shortcut, which I first should explain, since it's probably extremely confusing to anyone who wasn't already aware of this strange property that the Moonview Highway vehicles have. For whatever reason, hitting the very tops of these trucks or cars doesn't stun the character, but instead allows you to bounce off it, reminiscent of a mushroom pad.
On lap 1, a truck is in the practically perfect position to do the shortcut optimally, but things became much more complicated by lap 2, requiring me to test out different shroomspots in order to match the pace of a useable truck cycle. In the end, I found that the fastest method was to save my 2 remaining shrooms for the shortcut, since the closest truck in this cycle was on the next lane over, meaning that 1 shroom couldn't give me enough speed or airtime. One of the more frustrating aspects of this run is the fact that I was slightly pace-locked by the truck position on lap 2, meaning that I had to intentionally lose a bit of time right before the shortcut by hopping over the boost panel, but it also allowed me to take the cut much tighter. Disaster was narrowly averted by being in the right position to just barely miss hitting the blue car upon landing. This shortcut should be RTA viable, especially considering how early in the run it is, but I don't think it'll be easy.
Music: Touhou Youyou Kengeki Musou: The Fairy's Adventurous Tale - Stage 1 Theme
Real-time BKT: 2:31.635 by Luke
I've wanted to TAS this track for about a year now, but I never got around to doing it until I felt like I could execute it properly, since there are a few sections which I knew were going to be difficult. While most of the time save over the RTA comes from either inhuman (rapid fire lows and the wheelie trigger on the first wood ramp) or extremely precise strats (the wall clip shortcut), I still use a few tricks which could have some application in real time runs:
1. Getting your back tire stuck under the ground on the slope going up to the off-road section at 0:36 allows you to get a much higher bounce when hopping, cutting off more of the off-road.
2. The small grey curb at 0:49 is trickable for some reason, which could be a relatively easy time save when paired with a well-timed hop. The low trick doesn't need to be anywhere near as fast as what I do here to be faster.
And, of course, that isn't to say that the wall clip shortcut at 0:41 isn't also RTA viable, since it absolutely is. It just would require a player to be good at both wall clips and the driving in order to save time, since it's by no means a game-breaking ultra shortcut, saving only a second or two. I'm curious to see how many would be willing to actually go for it in runs.
Music: Teruo Nakamura Rising Sun Band – A Day in the Life of a Frog
Real-time BKT is 1:25.483 by Doge youtube.com/watch?v=Du3k4LZYnzs
Previous TAS BKT is 1:24.074 by nindiddeh (-1.421 cut) youtube.com/watch?v=7pWK6K_mzk0
I created the lap 1 for this run over 2 months ago, but kept it on the back burner until I decided I wanted to complete the 3 lap. Unlike a lot of MKDD tracks, I think that Mushroom City actually ports over to MKW pretty well, and the several low trick ramps gave ample opportunity to shave seconds off of the RTA, despite the course being relatively simple overall. Probably the biggest flaw with this run is on the shroom lap 1, since I didn't figure out you could approach the final straight with an angle that allowed you to skip the entire dirt patch near the finish line. This caused me to shroom much earlier entering lap 2, meaning that my wheelie dropped earlier than what would be ideal, losing a little bit of time. Other than that, I think this run is pretty consistent. Probably the funniest thing about this run are the lowtricks off of the small speed bumps on the first and last turns, which most players apparently didn't even know existed, since the current BKT at the time of writing this description still doesn't use them, despite the fact that they save time even if you don't get a low trick. I only found out that they were trickable because of the instant finish code, since the CPU player is programmed to trick automatically on any ramp.
Music: Jun Miyake - I Knew I Was
Real-time BKT is 1:42.989 by David (-2.737 cut) chadsoft.co.uk/time-trials/rkgd/64/7C/59A39D8D1D19202504D59636C05CF673ADC8.html
I made this run last year, so there's definitely a few things I could do better - particularly the start boost alignment - but there's really no point in not posting it, since I doubt I'll ever try to improve on it. I've also realized that I tend to TAS original CTs more often for whatever reason, so hopefully I'll get around to doing more retro tracks, since they generally play much differently to the tracks made specifically for MKW.
Music: SSH - Heavy Rain
Music: Legend of Dragoon - World Map 2
Real-time BKT is 2:27.719 by Jak (-3.651 cut)
I have a new computer now, meaning that recording and rendering Dolphin recordings isn't completely unbearable anymore, so I'll hopefully be able to upload more regularly now, since I still have a backlog of unuploaded TASes. Huge thanks to Ejay for showing me his recording and render settings. This track is easily one of the most visually stunning CTs I've ever seen, and it has a lot of cool gameplay elements I could make use of.
Music: Katsumi Horii Project - BuHouse of Peninsula
Thanks to Ejay for recording! youtube.com/channel/UCL6IvK60jAvowbyeDnu0Ybw
Real-time BKT is 3:13.264 by Justin
Driving onto the "power item only" route blocked by thwomps is a bit more precise than it might look, although I imagine there are more RTA-friendly versions of this skip that could be used. Clipping off of the sides of thwomps is actually pretty easy, so I could see that being used. The following turn involving riding along the seam and cutting off the corner is also really precise because of bean corners, but I don't think this strat is worth going for in RTA, since it doesn't save that much time. The most significant shortcut is the next section of the track, since it's so simple I can't believe it isn't used already. For some reason, the invisible wall that prevents you from just driving off the bridge and skipping the spiral turn doesn't actually extend to the back sides, so all you need to do is land on the seam between the road and the invisible wall, then drive back to hit the key checkpoint to get a lap count. This isn't precise at all, although the lack of texture on the invisible wall makes it slightly harder.
In case anyone is wondering, since this run passes through every key checkpoint on the track and doesn't exploit the checkpoint 0 bug, this is categorically a "no-ultra shortcut" run, regardless of how broken these shortcuts might be. It's completely up to the TT community as for whether or not these strats should be allowed in the no-glitch category or if a new one should be made altogether in something similar to the GV rock hop category.
Music: Yoshitaka Mihara - Burning Love
Thanks to Ejay for recording! youtube.com/channel/UCL6IvK60jAvowbyeDnu0Ybw
The main timesave in this run comes from the lap 1 glitch strat, which saves around .4-.5. In case you're confused as to how/why this even works, I briefly clip the side of the offroad terrain from the OOB as I fall into the tunnel, and quickly start charging a standstill midair to position myself to the left. Landing on the grey curb in an extremely precise position allows you to bounce forwards slightly, giving you just enough speed from the momentum to enter a drift, completely negating the need to charge a standstill miniturbo. Clipping into a ceiling completely kills your speed/momentum, so this trick allowed me to artificially get back up to drift speed after entering the tunnel.
I tried for a few days to get this strat to work on laps 2/3 with the tree clip, but it seems like the highly angled alignment from clipping the side of the mountain is necessary in actually clipping the offroad while still falling, since I'm pretty sure this trick only works if the front tip of your bike touches it for a single frame. You can still get the acceleration from the curb and enter a drift without doing the standstill realignment midair, but it isn't faster because your angle is completely off. Going out of your way to clip the mountain instead of clipping the tree on laps 2/3 loses much more time than the ~.5 timesave from the nostop recovery.
The massive timesave on lap 1 allowed for me to enter lap 2 quick enough to go to the left of the goomba on the first turn, which seems to be at least .05 faster than going around it. On lap 3's first turn I utilize a slipdrift to get my miniturbo out faster, but this unfortunately doesn't work on lap 2 because the goomba doesn't give you a whole lot of leeway, although this doesn't really save as much time as it might look, since spear's (relatively) high acceleration stat and poor miniturbo stat make slipdrifts a lot less powerful than they are with Flame Runner.
Music: Demetori - アリスマエステラ ~ Flow My Tears, the Said
Thank you to Ejay for recording and rendering!
youtube.com/channel/UCL6IvK60jAvowbyeDnu0Ybw
Real-time BKT is 2:00.882 by Daesia
I thought this track would be an fun undertaking, since I felt that the typically-two shroom crate cut the BKT uses could be done shroomless, which would not only allow me to do it all 3 laps, but would let me keep the shroom for the additional shortcut at the end. But what really got me interested in this course was the gate blocking the path on lap 1, since I wanted to see if there was a cool way to "cheese" the blocked path and get onto the lap 2/3 path on lap 1, which would save me a few seconds. As it turns out, the entrance to the secret pool area was not far away from the gate, which is completely adjacent to the lap 2/3 path, so all I needed to do was find a way to quickly escape it. Conveniently, there's a small mushroom pad on top of the pool, which was the solution I needed. Everyone knows that mushrooms are arguably the most broken collision type in the entire game, but a lesser known effect of the wall ride mechanic is that you can actually break through walls using the wall ride glitch, just as long as you trick against an inside corner. While it's probably a little too precise to be worth attempting shroomless in RTA, I imagine it would be pretty easy if you shroom off the mushroom pad, although it may be difficult to get it to save time over simply just doing the normal lap 1 path. Even with TAS, I only managed to save a few seconds. I ended up finding a faster way to do the crate jump on all 3 laps, but I'm happy with how this run turned out otherwise.
Music: Wangan Midnight - Lonely Chaser
Former BKT: 3:14.683 by Reo (-2.307 cut) youtu.be/VUJd4VFSGMU
Real time BKT: 3:19.228 by Luke
Since the new shortcut TAS pretty much consists of only lap 1's route + the beginning of lap 2's, I wanted to see what the complete track could look like TASed. Sware decided to take a break from TASing, so I copied our collab shortcut TAS up until the ramp shortcut, then finished the rest of it on my own. Since Most of this run wasn't collaborative, I don't think it's as optimized as the shortcut TAS, but I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out. A few turns still look pretty ugly to my eyes, though, like the turn after the SC ramp (I had to go wide to avoid the weird collision of the wall). To put into perspective just how ridiculously overpowered all of these TAS exclusive strats and optimizations are, this comes within .5 of the RTA shortcut WR.
Music: Golden Sun - Venus Lighthouse (Rock Version)
Huge shoutout to Ejay for recording this! youtube.com/channel/UCL6IvK60jAvowbyeDnu0Ybw
Real-time kart BKT is 2:00.616 by Iván youtu.be/IqIhav0lENo
This track has some interesting mechanics that cause the kart run to differ heavily from the bike TAS, including a lot of tricky snaking tech that was difficult to optimize.
A detail you might pick up on is that I tilt back on the last ramp landings, which might look kind of strange if you're used to only seeing bike TASes. For some reason, this seems to be faster with karts, at least on this type of trick ramp, since it allows you to land further forward without spending too much time in the air.
Also, I know I said that Funky Kong was probably going to be made mostly obsolete by Dry Bowser in kart runs, but for Coconut Mall he seems to still be the fastest character. This is likely to do with the high amount of trick and boost ramps, so Dry Bowser's overpowered miniturbo stat can't be taken advantage of enough to mitigate Funky' speed stat. Consider this track more of an exception, with the general rule being that Dry Bowser is usually faster than Funky Kong on more driving-based tracks.
This time actually beats Jascha's old 1:56.821 from 2011, which stood as the bike WR for over three years. I'll try to get a multighost video uploaded, since it makes for a really fascinating comparison.
Music: ポップンミュージック 12 いろは - 月雪に舞う華のように
Expect some more uploads soon.
Music: Tim Follin - Silver Surfer Stage 1
Huge shoutout to Ejay for recording this! youtube.com/channel/UCL6IvK60jAvowbyeDnu0Ybw
For whatever reason, flip tricking into a mushroom pad at a certain angle causes you to bounce off it with a massive speed boost, almost as if you're shrooming off it (look at the speedometer). You can also reduce your airtime off of these mushrooms by nosediving into the edge. I'm still not entirely sure why any of this works.
The last turn on this track is extremely awkward, and there's really no pretty way to approach it. I found it was fastest to slightly cut into the grass on the last turn lap 3, since it made my alignment tighter.
Music: Horii Katsumi Project - Flashback
Former TAS BKT: 2:57.871 by pfmp721 (-5.976 cut) youtu.be/fk8rc5P-z08
Real Time BKT: 3:01.496 by Emil youtu.be/Cf3XhTYBDZw
Huge shoutout to Ejay for recording this! youtube.com/channel/UCL6IvK60jAvowbyeDnu0Ybw
Lunar Spaceway is a track I've been interested in TASing for a while. It was an absolutely revolutionary track for when it was released, and I had attempted to do this a few times over the past 6 years or so, but I always abandoned it because of how difficult the course is to optimize. I finally decided to give it a shot again, and I was able to finish the full 3lap. This run is still improvable, since I later found my zipper-to-supergrind section on lap 1 was quite slow, but I'm very happy with how this turned out in general.
I honestly don't know why this shroomspot wasn't used earlier, since it's basically the only significant offroad cut on the track, although it's a little precise.
Music: Tom's Story - VL Raza
tomsstory.bandcamp.com
Real Time BKT: 2:32.556 by Batcake youtu.be/XQyaxGxyqcw
This track has a really interesting layout with a lot of potential for optimization, and the strats used differ heavily from the RTA BKT. The most interesting thing about this run is the respawn shortcut lap 3, which turns out to BARELY save any time compared to a fully optimized non-sc lap, to where it couldn't even make up for the time loss from the wiggler blocking my path at the start of the lap.
Music: Kirby Star Allies - Planet Earthfall
Real Time BKT: 2:00.446 by Emil
This track has a lot of weird tech that took a lot of trial and error to get right, but I'm pretty happy with this result. Lap 1 has a few issues, particularly with taking the 2nd turn too wide and not doing the janky jammed bridge trick off the boost ramp before the volcano, although the lap was otherwise solid. I had to get creative with the pipe section on laps 2/3 because the road is programmed to fall down by the time you get to it on the 2nd lap. Although I was fast enough to beat the cycle on lap 2, I found that the rumbling of the road caused my speed to drop slightly, so it turned out to be faster to just ride along the side of the pipe, which is slower on lap 1 for some reason, even though it looks like it would save time.
You might be able to notice I'm driving on the offroad before the pipe trick without losing speed, and that's because the boost from the zipper ramp before the trick ramp is still in effect (you can see something similar on Mario Circuit with the "KingAlex" ramp strat youtu.be/Os91vg5LvMM?t=84).
I'll probably try a simpler CT for my next TAS, since this was extremely annoying to complete. I also have a few kart TASes I still need to finish, but I'm not sure which project I'll work on first.
Music: 1inamillion - 3mangrove https://linkco.re/vRefQcNe?lang=ja
Former TAS BKT: 1:50.783 by TASPlasma (-4.128 cut)
Real Time BKT: 1:54.144 by Jak (-7.489 cut)
Dry Dry Ruins is now yet another track where the kart TAS beats the RTA bike WR, which was something I wasn't even sure was possible until I had finished lap 2, so this is incredibly satisfying. The triple pillar trick requires a pretty precise setup in order to save time, so I didn't figure out it was faster until I had already started lap 3, but that's not too big of a deal. Dry Bowser is pretty overpowered here, and I can't imagine there being too many tracks where Funky Kong is even optimal for karts anymore, since the miniturbo stat advantage seems to far outweigh the speed advantage, at least under most circumstances.
Music: Akira Wada - The Interloper
Real time BKT is 1:39.108 by Ando (-1.536 cut) youtu.be/IGio0bhFjvc
This run is pretty old now, but better late than never I guess? I added a few extra miniturbos and rapid fire hopped up the trick hill to do what is possibly the first kart super grind, but this run is otherwise similar to the RTA kart WR and just makes use of tighter lines and frame perfect snaking. Ando's driving here is really good already, so his ghost was very helpful in figuring out the optimal lines.
I figured out how to get lower shortcuts on lap 2 and 3, so I saved a small amount of time over lap 1, but the biggest time save would definitely come from the triple trick strat, which I only discovered when I was already on lap 3. The closest comparison I can think of is the Daisy Circuit stairdive due to it sending you both lower and further forward than the standard double trick, only it's far more precise.
Also, before anyone asks, I did do some testing with Funky Kong, but there were just too many miniturbos for his speed advantage to save time. Dry Bowser is used in many other kart categories, so this isn't too unusual. DwainiumB has a really interesting video visualizing the miniturbo stat advantage: youtu.be/af5C2TtHrt8
I've made a few other kart TASes over the past year or so that I still need to get around to uploading, although most were made to get acclimated to kart physics and aren't very optimized. It just takes a while to make these videos, so you'll probably need to wait a bit for me to get them all uploaded.
Music: The Perfect Sports - Cue
soundcloud.com/theperfectsports
Real time BKT is 1:26.262 by Luke (-0.793 cut)
Well, if you thought Dawn Township was basic next to Glimmer Express Trains, here's a TAS on what is arguably the simplest Mario Kart track of all time. I found this run enjoyable to make because of how straightforward everything was, without any annoying tech to deal with. Once I figured out the ideal lines on lap 1, I could breeze through the remaining laps. As it turns out, aside from the start boost slipdrift and a few quickhops, I didn't have to change much from the real time BKT, which is why I couldn't even cut a full second off of it. The pipe hitboxes are a lot larger than the actual model, so I can't go anywhere near them without bonking.
Since the full 5 lap splits don't display correctly:
Lap 1 - 16.889
Lap 2 - 16.647
Lap 3 - 16.641
Lap 4 - 17.658
Lap 5 - 17.634
Music: Tim Follin - Solstice Main Theme
Real time BKT is 1:29.886 by Watcha (-1.588 cut)
This track is a lot more simple and straightforward than Glimmer Express Trains, so I had a lot less potential to improve over the BKT this time around. I was hopeful I could supergrind off of two of the turns, but the slopes weren't adequate to gain enough speed to save time. Overall, I think this run is pretty solid, and I'm pretty sure that shroomspot at the end is the fastest use for that last shroom, although I wouldn't be surprised if something new is found.
I didn't use Dolphin to record like I did with Glimmer Express Trains, since recording on Wii is a lot more efficient and doesn't look that bad as long as YouTube prioritizes the upload and uses their best encoder. I have a backlog of a lot of TASes I still need to get around to uploading, and I think I'll actually be able to get around to recording them now.
Music: Sparhawks - Is That There? mindovermatterrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-quiet-hour
Former TAS BKT: 2:07.523 by Rocky (-0.546 cut)
Fastest time without TAS: 2:11.455 by Jascha
Thank you to Ejay B for recording and rendering this video for me! youtube.com/channel/UCL6IvK60jAvowbyeDnu0Ybw
I became interested in TASing DKJP NG back when I was still working on my glitch run, but I didn't anticipate just how difficult the shortcut would be to optimize. I gained a bit more understanding of the track past lap 1, which is why I found faster ways to do a few of the turns on laps 2 and 3. The most improvable section of the entire run is on the bridge turn before the cut lap 1, since I figured out how to get the "perfect" stick while turning tighter after the bridge on laps 2/3.
There were a few new strats I could have used, but I finished this run a few months back and didn't want to redo it.
Music: Tatsuo Hayashi - Hi-G
Secondly, huge props to Justin for coming up with the idea for the Thwomp Swamp glitch, and Snoop for the original Summer Starville ultra. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9UE...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Gl...
Every glitch shown in this video is theoretically possible for real time runs, as none of them use rapid fire hop abuse. However, many of them would be quite tricky to pull off without tools, so I pity anyone who tries to perform a few of these.
Brief rundown of each ultra shortcut:
1. Summer Starville - This course originally had an ultra on a previous version that was ultimately "patched" by having an invisible wall placed around the perimeter of the rooftop. Since the checkpoints weren't altered, all I had to do was find a way to get past the invisible walls. The solution was to make use of glitchy vertically-facing walls on the other buildings to get enough airtime.
2. GBA Bowser Castle 4 - This is probably the strangest one in the entire video. For whatever reason, if an OOB plane is facing vertically, you can pass right through it if you're traveling at a slow enough speed. This extremely niche mechanic lead to what might be the first ever track where the Phantom is the fastest bike, since it's the only one with a low enough acceleration and top speed to evade the out of bounds while shrooming or doing a standstill miniturbo. Since this glitch is doable shroomless, it's possible 3/3.
3. Cherry Blossom Garden - This one requires another obscure ingame mechanic to work. The main idea for this glitch is straightforward: simply wall clip across the gap to land near the last turn. However, I found that it wasn't that simple, since a normal wallclip doesn't allow you to clear the whole distance. Two common solutions for dealing with this is to either do a barrel roll clip or a rapid fire hop ejection to increase airtime, but I found that neither was possible on this track. However, I found that I could get a similar effect by just getting the bike's tires stuck beneath the ground.
4. Dreamworld Cloudway - This glitch simply makes use of the slightly broken physics of mushroom pad collision, where you can get a ridiculous amount of airtime if done correctly. The only tricky part about this glitch is getting the wallclip off the castle's turret to trigger checkpoint zone 0, but I'm sure at least a few people are crazy enough to grind this. By the way, the timesave estimate in the video is WAY off, since it should save only like 1 minute in total.
5. Candy Coaster - Clip inside the giant cake and ride along the wall to avoid crossing over the finish line backwards, then simply drive backwards long enough to trigger the last key checkpoint. Unfortunately, the checkpoint is placed quite far back, so it doesn't save as much time as some of the others.
6. Skyline Avenue - Clip onto the bridge to avoid crossing into checkpoint zone 1, which allows for you to perform a shortcut that normally wouldn't count the lap. Unfortunately, you need to make use of some pretty janky collision to stay within checkpoint 0, which makes this glitch much harder to pull off. However, it still wouldn't surprise me if someone still manages to pull it off legit.
7. Sunset Raceway - This one is pretty self-explanatory, although I lost a lot of speed driving in offroad, since I couldn't wallclip far enough with Magikruiser.
8. Thwomp Swamp - Basically the same idea as rSL glitch, only it requires an even more difficult wallclip to perform.
9. New Moon Manor - This one is (by far) the most challenging one in the video. You need to make a completely blind leap over the invisible wall, then land perfectly on the seam of the OOB plane, all without falling off.
10. GCN Wario Colosseum - Ride along the seam of the wall to trigger checkpoint 0, then fall down to the track below. The finicky nature of driving inside the wall while also trying to avoid the fall boundary would make this one pretty difficult for RTA.
Good luck to whoever tries to pull these off in real time.
Music: Tim Follin - Beach Theme from Plok
Former TAS BKT: 2:53.992 by MK Flame Runner (-8.009 cut)
Real time BKT is 2:57.417 by Daesia
I've been interested in TASing custom tracks for a while now, since there's becoming less and less to do on the traditional Nintendo courses. CTGP Revolution's built in leaderboards helps foster a level of optimization on CTs that wouldn't have otherwise existed without it, and these tracks are often a bit more challenging than Nintendo courses, making them pretty entertaining with TAS. Not to mention, a lot of modern day CT creators have a weird obsession with making basically everything trickable, so there's a lot of potential for low trick tech there. I plan on making more of these, so if you have a CTGP track you'd like to see, I'd love to hear some suggestions.
As for this track in particular, the version I used isn't the most recent update, but it's the one that's found in CTGP, so it made more sense to TAS it.
I also have some other runs I need to get around to recording, so I might be uploading more content in the near future.
Music: Katsumi Horii Project - Non-Stop Paradise
These new strats save around three seconds over the old route in total, but they needed a lot of effort to even make them work. Overall I'm really happy with how this turned out, even though I'm sure there are faster methods to do the glitch recoveries. For the first glitch, you may notice that I clip off of a different, closer tree to the finish line, which requires a much more precise setup than the old strat due to the tree's hitbox and the lack of room to double wheelie. The no-stop glitches on lap 2 and 3 require multiple extremely precise inputs to perform that I'll spare you the details of.
I'm not sure how RTA viable these strats are, but none of the necessary inputs are humanly impossible, so everything in this run is theoretically doable in real time.
Music: Kiyoshi Sugimoto - Ivory Flower
Similarly to the newly found BC64 glitch, this is a rapid fire hop-based respawn glitch that (as far as we know) requires spear, which means that the full 3lap TAS will be an interesting project to undertake, but I’m sure there’s at least a few people in the TAS community who are crazy enough to try either, so that’s something to look forward to.
Malleo’s video on super grinding: youtube.com/watch?v=9_ufOUrVpdk (excellent TAS related content)
Summoning Salt’s ultra shortcut video: youtube.com/watch?v=mmJ_LT8bUj0 (another great channel that focuses on speedrunning history)
The new crate clip shortcut has the potential to save over 10 seconds on all three laps, but as you can tell, it's extremely cycle based. I don't think there's any other shortcut in this game that involves you clipping off of a moving object, let alone one on weird conveyor belt physics that makes getting air totally unpredictable. I didn't spend much time on this run at all (2 days), so it clearly lacks much optimization, but what's funny is that the crate cycles makes this completely irrelevant in some places, unless I end up driving so much faster that I can catch an earlier crate. By the way, I don't actually use spear because it's the only bike that can do the clip - I couldn't make it to the crate section fast enough to catch the cycle with an unoptimized beginning, so I switched to spear instead. Flame runner is absolutely faster here, but I'm not interested in optimizing this track any further, so that can be up to anyone willing to put up with this bizarre shortcut. I only made this run to show off the potential of this shortcut, but this category will be pushed down further with flame runner.
As for what many of you are probably thinking, there's nothing in this shortcut input-wise that's impossible to pull off RTA... But I'd pity anyone who grinded this to get it in a run. The clip itself might be simple enough, and you can get used to the moving crate position, but I don't think anyone is going to understand the conveyor belt mechanics, since getting any air at all for a clip off it is pretty much luck based. Would be interesting to see if someone can actually do it, though.
I've had the idea of doing this since 2015, when I initially discovered you could clip into the conveyor belt room using a much slower method, but I never was able to get clips to work on the conveyor belts. It wasn't until my friend Benny came along and recently ended up making it, proving it was faster even while slowing down for a few seconds. Go subscribe to his channel: youtube.com/channel/UCdTd-WU04eo11GrylNAsP7g
Music: Wooded Kingdom - Super Mario Odyssey
Music - Super Mario Kart: Koopa Beach
A few things about the run: I don't get a full start boost at the beginning, since you enter the cannon almost immediately after the countdown. Holding down the A button prevents you from sliding forward, so I avoided it for as long as I could. This allowed for me to start the race slightly ahead of my initial start position. The shortcut that Marc uploaded doesn't work on newer versions of this track, and it wouldn't even save time if it was possible. I manipulated a technique known as "side trick abuse" on the ramp at 1:03, where I use a right trick to land further forward than what is normally possible (this allows for my boost to start later). Getting the lowest trick possible off of ramps loses time under normal circumstances.
This track has been frequently TASed by different players over the years, and many interesting strat changes have also gone into it. If you're interested in seeing a brief chronological history of this course's progress, here are links to every TAS BKT (in order):
1:33.035 by Chill - youtube.com/watch?v=OdLfQfBo3Jw
1:29.988 by xDestroy2000 - youtube.com/watch?v=kxQ4Ts7hcfk
1:29.865 by Grim - youtu.be/Sk9yq-DVHBU
1:28.986 by Grim - youtube.com/watch?v=2fj43hfIX_g
1:28.568 by Delta - youtube.com/watch?v=a9M6FhTLeNs
1:27.978 by Delta - youtube.com/watch?v=k--6nzdPFr4
1:27.772 by Grim (no video)
1:26.732 by Grim - youtube.com/watch?v=yFgn_CQDBPQ
I want to continue making CT TASes, since the CTGP time trial community is massive, and the BKTs in 1.03 are very strong. It would be nice to see a theoretical limit for these tracks, so if you have any suggestions for me, I would love to hear it.
Music: Frozen Hillside - Kirby Air Ride
Music: ParagonX9 - Blue Sky
Music: Antonio Vivaldi - RV 532, Concerto For Two Mandolins in G Major, Allegro
Music: youtube.com/watch?v=a-0caBy_ncI
I started making this compilation sometime around October 2015, adding new clips part-by-part as time went on. I did my best to make these TAFs as "clean" and "perfect" as I possibly could, so obviously it took me nearly half a year to complete - for this I am sorry, and I hope to upload more content in the near future. This video is my best work so far, and I am proud to have finally been able to make it public.
To be clear: I didn't use ANY hacks to disable the fall boundary on ANY of these runs; I just used OOB manipulation glitches on many of them, giving the illusion of a typical "out of bounds hack". If anyone is still skeptical, I can give further proof of the clips and their legitimacy.
Music:
soundcloud.com/sound-sepher/hksr_battle03_ibz03
soundcloud.com/sound-sepher/rpg3
If you are wondering how exactly this glitch works, it's really nothing more than a checkpoint manipulation trick (similar to GV). The simple fact that the creator of the CT accidentally made the finish line extend past the wall of the last turn made it so you can drive around it, triggering the last main checkpoint of the track in the process, and getting a lap count. Here's a visual of what I'm explaining: http://prntscr.com/8wuv4k.
You guys should also feel free to give me video suggestions in the comments if you want me to TAS something.
I've wanted to do a 3lap run using the FLAP strat for a really long time, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. The second to last turn on this track is very tricky. If you compare all three laps together, you can see I take completely different lines every time around. This is due to the unique angles I ended up approaching the turn at. This shroomspot I used is probably around .5-.6 slower than the normal strat, so it's no surprise I didn't beat Dani's run in the process. The second lap is the fastest TAS FLAP time on GV2, but it can easily be taken lower if I were to be given the same advantage as Estaloy did in his run (better alignment for the glitch, all of the bricks fallen down.) About the wheelie trigger on the yellow ramp... I discovered that technique earlier today by complete accident, and was too lazy to improve it on the second lap (it only saves a small amount of time). I got by driving off of the ramp very briefly to the right, before switching directions. The trick ended up being so low that an animation barely appeared. I'll eventually do a normal TAS here, but I think I'm going to try to make an exclusively lap 1 TAS on Misty Ruins - reason being I think that track is totally in deserving of a proper run there.
Music - Bossfight - Flirt Flirt Oh It Hurts