I was told that hitting the 4-1 powerup would give you good judges every time. If you get good judges, it doesn't matter where you land on the flagpole. I forced good judges, landed at the bottom, and didn't save the framerule?

It depends on where you land on the flag. If you are pretty high on the flagpole but you still brush at the block you will pretty much always save the framerule. But if you hit the middle and lower there is a less chance of saving the framerule. I'm pretty sure hitting the middle can sometimes be a little bit faster than hitting the bottom directly. Looking at your clip you hit the flagpole pretty low, but not as low as possible. I've seen people hit the bottom and save the framerule but that is because you can get lucky and save frames as I said before. And looking at your clip it didn't even look like you tried to hit the top of the flag. If I were you I would just always go for top of the flag and not risk losing a framerule. Here are pictures of the highest and lowest spot you can get on the flag when hitting the middle. https://imgur.com/a/mxFRZFY They are both different by a couple frames. I have saved the framerule while landing at the highest point of the flag after hitting the middle. I don't know about the lowest point though. But sometimes you get unlucky and don't save the framerule after hitting the highest point. I hope this long post helps if it is correct.

On the Japanese version of the SNES game if you hit a certain power up block you'll go backwards on the flag.

@B1GEY3DPYTHON I think "getting lucky" means getting good judges. But like 8-1, good judges can be forced (I was told). I didn't try to reach the top of the flagpole because I thought I forced good judges by hitting the mushroom block, but apparently I didn't.

Still just go for top of the flagpole lul. There is no point to hitting the bottom.

@zsjetu9 You've successfully disproven the theory that hitting the mushroom blocc will get good judges every single time and now we know SeemsGood @Mars02 Yes, that's true (and it is the block that zsjetu9 hit) but it's not really relevant to this.

Aldyn that has already been known lol. Roy has hit the block and bottom the flag and it hasn't saved the framerule many times.