New Category Suggestion
6 years ago
Washington, USA

So I was streaming some casual Super Mario Sunshine yesterday when I had a cool idea to make a new category for this community. In this category you are not allowed to jump. Obviously, you all probably have seen the "0x A Button Presses" speedruns for Super Mario 64. But I was thinking we could do a 20 shine speedrun without pressing the A button. Now, I know that some levels are actually impossible to do without pressing the A button so I was thinking as a community we could figure out what shines we could do specifically, so that we could get 20 shines. Here are the rules I put together for this 0x A button presses 20 shine speedrun.

¤Save file that the speedrun takes place on MUST have all episodes unlocked. ¤Timer starts at the start button on the file select menu ¤No A presses at all expect for the save menu and selecting an episode ¤Hover is allowed ¤If the A button is pressed, you MUST restart the run.

UPDATE 4/25/17 I have finished finding what levels are possible and which are not finally, I have gotten a solid route that consists of 27 shines to get in total. I decided to not have shadow mario missions, any episode 8s and the manta storm included from the route just because I want it to have just the main types of levels if you know what I mean. If you guys think I should include any of those that I have excluded please tell me. If you guys want to know the possible levels you can do and are in the current route here is a list of them, if not skip down.

Bianco 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Gelato 2, 3, 4 Serena 4, 5, 6 Pianta 1, 4, 5 (With Yoshi skip), 6 Ricco 1, 2, 3, 4 5 Pinna 1, 2, 4 Noki 3, 4 ,6 And Corona Mountain is Possible too

If you guys want to try this out for yourselves then you are in luck, because I have been uploading the routes for each one of these levels I just listed, on my YouTube channel which you can find under my profile picture.

To me, it doesn't matter if this is officially approved as a new category, I just enjoyed playing through this awesome game again. It really felt like new to me. This has been a lot of fun, but it really has just started because now I have the whole summer to speedrun my category and I know its going to be a blast, thanks to all who commented on this post, and I hope you have a great day!

Edited by the author 6 years ago
alumni likes this
Missouri, USA
Mungaru
She/Her, They/Them
6 years ago

wait so i can't press A to select a level?

SnowyParker likes this
Florida, USA

The main problem with this is how arbitrary it is. Part of the appeal of the SM64 A Button Challenge is the fact that you could start from a clean file and collect every star while pressing A less than 30 times, menus and all. The fact of the matter is that this run would have more A presses than the entirety of SM64 120 star. While I would be curious to see how certain levels could be optimized, there likely wouldn't be much interest in doing runs of this. Even the SM64 videos are clearly made with the intent of being demonstrations first and are not advertised as speedruns. Don't let the lack of a leaderboard discourage you from going forth with this, though.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
mwolfe11 and SnowyParker like this
Washington, USA

@Guggy You would only be allowed to press A on the menus and the episode select (aka level select)

Washington, USA

@samgaudreault43 Very true, maybe sometime in the future when me or someone finds the most optimized way (if that happenens) than maybe it would peak more interests in more people. And yes, I will continue this because in the end it really is just having fun right. :-). Thanks for response

alumni likes this
Colorado, USA

Honestly I think it would be really cool if you took this as the challenge it is rather than a speedrun challenge. It would be cool to see how many A presses it takes to beat any% and how many for 120 shines. Why not get an emulator and do some digging the way pannen and his team have been doing it for years? If it's something you're interested in, I'm sure you could get a nice viewership from it too.

SnowyParker likes this
Florida, USA

I took some time to route some levels for fun, and it comes down to one of a few scenarios.

  1. There is a fairly straightforward way to progress with no A presses.
  2. If there is no straightforward way to do it, there's probably a way to rocket buffer to help you out.
  3. Otherwise, the remaining A presses are incredibly unlikely to be saved.

Part of the appeal of the ABC for SM64 is the incredible amount of tricks and techniques at their disposal. You have PU movement, cloning, and a whole host of other mechanics that make those videos almost more of SM64 science, as opposed to just a quirky playthrough. As of right now, no really wacky mechanics exist in SMS, so it mostly consists of a lot of dives and hovers through the levels. While initial optimizations might be interesting, I doubt there will be much room for improvement.

Edit: Also a friendly reminder that a 120 run would have like 400 A presses just from blue coin/shine save prompts and shine selection alone.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
sblectric, SnowyParker, and alumni like this
Washington, USA

UPDATE: So I have been working hard these last couple days developing a good route for this category (or whatever you call it). I found that some levels will take use of Rocket and Turbo storage. I got a little help on performing a Turbo Storage glitch on Noki 6 from AverageTrey and I think this could work out if I finish my work. I have found a decent route for the levels: Bianco, Ricco, Gelato, Noki, Pinna, and some of Pianta. All I have left is the rest of Pianta and Serena + Corona (if possible) then im done. I will post a full tutorial for the route on youtube and I want to see if I can get this ball rolling :-). Thanks for all the comments so far and be sure to tune in to stay updated. I have had so much fun on stream making my own route because it makes the game feel so new, I am certain that you will feel the same once this is ready. Thanks! ^_^ -Snowy

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Waxy likes this