I've been speedrunning SM64 for almost 3 years now and one thing that I've slowly been noticing as time went on was how much time I've been wasting watching the intro cutscene over and over again. I didn't immediately notice it at first because I was playing 16 Star without LBLJ, but now that I'm playing categories that do require LBLJ like 1 Star, it's become so much more obvious how annoying it is to watch the same unskippable cutscene over and over again. And don't even get me started on if you're still learning Lakitu skip and aren't super consistent at it yet, You have to sit through 55 seconds of basically nothing, then play Mario for about 6 seconds, and then if you want to include Lakitu skip in your run and you fail it, welp that's just unfortunate for you I guess.

I believe including the option to make watching the intro cutscene optional would do nothing but good for the community, as it would allow runners to add more attempts into their session and jump straight into the action so that they can become more consistent at earlier tricks like Lakitu skip and LBLJ more quickly. All we would need to do is start the timer with 55~ seconds already on it so that it wouldn't affect the other runs on the leaderboard. We're doing nothing but harm by making it so that you HAVE to sit there, and do nothing but basically watch the screen for 55 seconds every single time you fail a run. Other runners can still view the cutscene if they want to, that's the beauty of making it OPTIONAL, you give the runners the freedom of choice!

Intro skip is already allowed on all categories that allow flashcarts to my knowledge. But generally this isn't going to be put into place partially since most of the top runners are on an original cart on console. I know the moderators have already considered the idea in the past though

i do think making it optional is best because if you start with lblj, mashing 12+ tps over and over again can be damaging to your arm, so that almost minute long rest actually helps

@ItsPietroFelix i mean, it still is completly optional if you want to play with the cutscene for your health, and you could even just skip the cutscene and yet wait 30 seconds by your own if you realy care about it; but that isn't the case for a lot of cases, and is completly apart from this, as you have no need of having a cutscene in order to rest by your own will

@ItsPietroFelix Yeah that's pretty valid, there are benefits to bot including and not including the cutscene at the beginning but like I said before, that's the best part about making it optional, you can still include it if you want to. My friend made a video with this very topic being a pretty big part of it, and I highly recommend giving it a watch since it's pretty well made and makes a lot of great points.

At the end of the day its only a minute. Take the time to get a stretch, drink some water, catch up on twitch chat, all of that. Can also be a good time to reset yourself mentally.

@Nebula_Composer yeah i watched tree's video, really well made and goes over a lot of points. and even though its "only" a minute long, i agree that waiting a full minute to lose the run 10 seconds in is kinda annoying

@2003041 depends on the runner, but there are runners that i've seen massively reset on the first like 20 seconds of the actual gameplay super consistently because of lblj (and lakitu skip and whatnot); you wait the triple than the attempt itself takes, taking 4 times the time it would take without the cutscene; that is a lot of time

at that level, you do NOT need a whole minute of mental calm or drinking water for each attempt

at anything even remotely close to what i just said i would just start from a setuped file and fuck off with the leaderboard lol (doesnt realy mean a lot to this because i dont often run this game but yea)

"it's only a minute"

40,000 minutes later:

@KilleDragon honestly yeah, I know a few runners who don't submit runs to the leaderboard because they skip don't want to deal with the cutscene

I mean tbf you're talking to someone who runs a game that requires a full console reset for any new attempts so its not like this amount of time bothers me. You guys are fine.

that sounds unfortunate, but yea in the games possible is cool trying to minimize that time

n64 also has to reset for this game but luckily that one doesnt take that long in comparison, but the cutscene which is the bad part could be completly optional

@2003041 Resetting an N64 console for SM64 doesn't take nearly as long as the length of the intro cutscene, they aren't rly comparable considering one is a few seconds long, and the other is nearly a full minute

Oh I was talking about a PS1 game that has to load for about 1-2 minutes on a reset every time before i can even start an attempt. Either way we're arguing for something that has a 99% chance of not changing at all and is just 1 minute of your life. If it was anything more significant than that, I'm sure there would have been changes sooner than now.

Well saying that it's "just 1 minute of your life" doesn't really work if you're resetting over and over again, the time can add up really quickly. However yeah, it's extremely saddening that, realistically speaking, the mods won't give this option a chance at all which I think is just a poor decision on their part.

If you are esetting over and over again, you maybe should do more practice instead of doing runs.

People who want this keep forgetting that the most viable way to do this is with save states, at which point there is a rising risk of splicing. And yeah like mulptv said, if you fail the first trick withtin the first 10 seconds you are able to move around, practice would help more.