Weekly Speedrun Community #2

TheSimilier

This week we are going to take a look at a game recommanded by @[deleted] .

This Week:
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I don't know all that much about this Title since I never played this game and only very rarely watch runs of it prior to this last week. So don't expect as much depth on my part than the last time. Nonetheless I will try to do my best to deliver.

Like Mirror's Edge this game has 4 categories: Any%, 79 Shines, 96 Shines and 120 Shines.
Again, Any% simply being as fast as possible with defeating Bowser. 79 Shines is about getting all eleven Shines per main Stage and defeating Bowser. In 96 Shines one needs to get every Shine expect the ones that are collected by trading blue coins. And 120 Shines is basically 100%, get every Shine in the game and then defeat Bowser.

This game has overall rather long speedrun, especially with 79 Shines and 96 Shines being over two hours long and 120 Shines being a little bit over three hours. But let's take a look at the current records, shall we?
Any% is seeing quite a bit of action lately, with the three top records being all within the last two weeks. Bounceyboy is currently holding the world record with a solid 1h 16mins 49secs. Shortly after that comes Yamata0921 with a 1:17:20 (going with the time on the leaderboard here.), closely followed by Toobou with a 1:17:21 (no video listed). The top of the pack in 79 Shines is AverageTray with 2:28:01, followed by Toobou with a 2:29:13 (no video yet again) and Yamata0921s' 2:29:54 (don't know why the video say a different time that the leaderboard, but I'm just gonna stick to the Leaderboard time because it seems more official). 96 Shines is led by AverageTray as well with a 2:43:34 (Part 1/Part 2), followed by Toobou (2:45:36, there is a video of the first 19mins, but my japanese isn't good enough to find the rest on niconico) and ShadowMario27 (2:45:44). 120 Shines, AverageTray again, this time with a 3:10:19. Only 2mins 24secs behind him is ShadowMario27 and 19secs slower is Yamata0921.

(This time the times are RT, Real Time, unlike Mirror's Edge which was in-Game time.)

The only glitch that is used in the run, is basically just how fucked up collision is when it comes to slopes. It's very good to see in the runs and doesn't need all that much explanation, but basically by using another object like a coconut or a moving platform it's quite easy, or at least it seem quite easy, to get OoB (Out of Bounds) on slopes.

(Just in case you didn't notice, my photoshop skills are near zero. So I'm kinda sorry for that.)

Anyhow, as for guides to learn this game, all I was able to find was this Tutorial for Any% and this work and progress document with different small tutorials in different levels, mostly without commentary tho. So if you really want to get into the game I recommand either watching people like AverageTray, ShadowMario27 or Bounceyboy, their Chats and the runner themself should be happy to answer any questions you might have about the run. What I'd recommand as well is streaming the game yourself, some of the other members of the community might show up from time to time, most of them able to answer quite a few questions as well.

When it comes to competition than there is a lot of space on the leaderboard to get your own run ranked. The total of people on the Any% is 501, with a time difference of 5h 46mins and 6secs between first and last. The other categories aren't run quite as much, with a playercount of 57 for 79 shines (time difference between first and last is 2:58:13); 51 player in 96 Shines (time difference on the leaderboard is 3:37:03) and 87 players in total on the 120 Shines leaderboard, with a time difference between world record and last one ranked of nine hours 4 minutes and 18 seconds. So feel free to get your own run on there.

The Leaderboard can be found under: http://www.speedrun.com/sms

This is the end of this weeks 'Weekly Speedrun Community', I hope it was to your likings.
Feel free to leave any kind of advice, critic or suggestions for next weeks post.

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monothedog

The first game I finished on my Gamecube, I love this shit out of this game and the races I've seen are pretty cool too.

Katherine

SMS has a couple of glitches when it comes to any% especially. any% is mainly based around getting the 7th shine on each level as this is always the 'Shadow Mario' level which progresses the plot. Most levels are done in routine fashion, just 1-7 then move on. However a couple of levels alter this. Bianco Hills and Pinna Park. Pinna park has a really interesting a pretty recent glitch that allows you to access the yoshi secret shine 6 early by unlocking Yoshi for that level then glitching into the loading zone for the secret which for some reason is still loaded on Pinna Park 2, by getting this shine you skip right to Pinna 6 which is a significant time save.

Another few glitches are Yoshi skip for Pianta Village which is, as Simi mentioned, is dodgy collision on slopes. Generally these collision glitches are the main run enders and the highest barrier for difficulty in the game. Unlike Mirror's Edge which was mostly optimization with some minor gitches, mostly just learning routing etc. SMS is a significantly harder to learn game. It involves massive optimization, route knowledge, amazing execution and in depth knowledge of the glitches. While the best runs are sub 1:20 a new player wouldn't be expected to get anything sub 3 or more hours in their early runs on any%. I personally tried running it but it's such a time consuming run, so I'm surprised it's been gaining in popularity.

But yeah, tldr I love SMS, for me it's the perfect blend of optimization, routing and interesting glitches. Much like OoT it's a very well known game so it's great fun to watch for speed runners and fans of the game alike! I'd definitely suggest checking out as he does live SMS runs for English language speakers very often and he's around 1:20 pace so he's still improving but there is still ways to go so the runs are equally consistent but still tense and entertaining for viewers.

For me one of my favorite things to think about when it comes to speedruns is the balance between fun game-play and fun viewing. I feel a lot of the 3D Nintendo games hit this balance perfectly. With their often interesting blend of interesting movement mechanics that are just innovative and new enough that they're in depth and interesting but still pretty buggy and exploitable. Take OoT for example, that game is much more glitch heavy but you're lucky if you see anyone actually walking forward in that game!

Anyway, awesome post Simi. Can't think of a game that'd I'd 100% suggest for next time but I remember enjoying a lot of OoT runs, however another Nintendo game might be a little stale. Maybe something like Sonic 06 however that's just for DarkspinesSonic's runs which I find hilarious and the speedruns of any of the 3D Sonic games are amazing. However that's just if you can't think of anything, however I think trying to find a game played at a high level by English speakers and with detailed commentary would probably be best for a community speedrun post, get's more people watching and into It. Loving the weekly posts! Keep them coming <3