Username:
B
I
U
S
"
url
img
#
code
sup
sub
font
size
color
smiley
embarassed
thumbsup
happy
Huh?
Angry
Roll Eyes
Undecided
Lips Sealed
Kiss
Cry
Grin
Wink
Tongue
Shocked
Cheesy
Smiley
Sad
1 page
--
--
List results:
Search options:
Use \ before commas in usernames
It's been a while since I've foisted a category of turmoil upon the speedrunning populace. This category is for true Absolute Legends, Princess Rescuers, and Super Players only.

The reason I'm putting this in "Newer consoles"? The recommended versions to run this game, and especially practice it, are on newer ones. Wii VC (but not Wii U and Switch strangely) has no loading times. The Switch recently came out with Button Remapping, a feature that makes the already modernized Switch version objectively superior. The reproduction cart version that most runners use is new and isn't official. And the FDS version is terrible and will add hours to this category, not to mention explode during an extended run like this. That, and the hardware/controllers are better.

Anyway, this category involves getting as good of a score as you can in the game, a 9999950, except with some stipulations to prevent it from becoming too trivial.

First, no Koopa Grinding. Koopa Grinding, when done right, can turn this category into a glorified any% run, especially since it can be done very easily at the beginning. It also destroys the tension and trivializes the need to high score in other parts of the run.

Second, no warps. Warps can be used to skip hard parts and repeat easy parts of the run.

Third, no deaths prior to World 9. Similar to Koopa Grinding, some levels, such as 4-1, feature bonus areas that can be re-visited multiple times and offer enough coins to gain lives faster than you lose them. This is boring and trivializes the rest of the run. It's supposed to be a one-chance, risk vs. reward run. Also, it would reward players who get a game over and finish with 3 lives over those who don't and hang on with 1 life.

General Tips:

For the one chance you get, abuse loops, especially in castles.

Learn the Run n Duck technique, as well as Duck n Jump. Sometimes, you may have to Run, Duck, n Jump.

Prioritize coins and time over all else. An enemy that gives you 200 points might not even be worth the 4 mini-seconds it takes to fireball it. Meanwhile, Peach will reward you with 100,000 points (or the amount you would get from one optimal loop of World 9 approximately) for every life you end the game with while peace is being paved. Every coin-filled bonus room you can enter is worth it, especially if you can loop it, because each life bonus will shave minutes off the run.

When entering 9-1, make sure you have at least 91 coins and a Fire Flower. World 9 will start you with only 1 life (more can be gained) but keeps your power-up and the amount of coins you have. 9-2 has 9 coins and the Fire Flower will cut hours of time off the longer you keep it.

here comes the tricky part. At some point on the homestretch, you may want to enter 9-3 with a score ending with the last two digits before the perpetual zero being an odd number and a 5 (99984350 for example), due to the fact that you can loop the bonus room in 9-3 (which has no enemies except a Bowser) where each coin will give you an even 200 points. Here's why this is important- after all that hard work, a careless player can loop the high score back to 0 if they score one more than 9999950. When you have that number, lose all of your remaining lives in the lava and stop the timer when the title screen with "Top-9999950" appears.

Estimated Time to Beat for this run: 8-12 hours. Hope that's enough Mario for you.
Thread title:  
New strategy discovered! Flags give you an extra life if both your coin count and the final number of the timer has the same number, so plan accordingly. Memorize jump time and distance in levels where standing next to the flag isn't an option. Done correctly, this saves hours.
Don't feel discouraged to try this and e.g. link it in some future submission (people might be interested in seeing it) but just to be clear, the limitations sound a bit too arbitrary for this to make it into the SDA collection in case anyone was thinking it might. By that token, I guess this might be best moved to the casual speedrunning section.