8
votes
Rounding error in Wii VC allows for completion of Super Mario 64 with 0 A-presses
Link information
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- Title
- Bowser in the Fire Sea in 0x A Presses? (New Glitch Explanation)
- Authors
- bad_boot
- Duration
- 4:14
- Published
- May 28 2018
So since the Wii VC uses toward-zero float rounding, a specific platform in Bowser in the Fire Sea rises by 1 unit over exponential lengths of time. In theory (nobody's done it yet), this means that you'll be able to get to the end of the level by standing on the platform for around 8 days.
For those of you who know speedrunning, this is considered legit for any% only. 120-star 0xA is not made possible by this. (also, disclaimer: I don't follow the SM64 speedrunning community enough to know if this is the only thing standing in the way of a 120-star 0xA)
Explanation of terms:
Speedrun: to complete a game as quickly as possible.
Category: the rulesets involved in speedrunning. An example category is Any%, which means that you go from the start of the game to the end credits (or whatever the agreed-upon cutoff is) as quickly as possible using whatever means necessary. For example, the Any% run of Ocarina of Time uses a wrong-warp glitch to go straight from beating Queen Gohma to the escape from a collapsing Hyrule Castle. Contrast this with MST (Medallions, Stones, and Trials), which requires you to complete all of the major dungeons in the game, or 100%, which is MST plus collecting every item and skulltula
0xA: Completion of a given goal (I've only seen it for SM64 levels) without pressing the A button (in this case to jump). Example video here
EDIT: The discussion in /r/speedrun goes a bit deeper and has more knowledgeable contributions than my own
Are there speed running categories for different emulators or something? Like, is the Wii VC a category? Because otherwise, this seems kind of irrelevant to speed running on actual hardware and tool-assisted speed runs.
This glitch was only recently discovered and gives support to the argument for making Wii VC its own category. However, the fact that it only works on Wii VC makes Any% 0xA by default a Wii VC category
This is one of the reasons I love the speedrunning scene so much. The game is 22 years old and new things are still being discovered about it. Not that this bug is particularly useful for speedrunning given the 3-8 days waiting requirement... but it’s still fun and interesting.
A-press runs typically get lumped in under speedrunning, though the techniques they use to save a half an a-press can add days or weeks onto the run. If you haven't seen it, you really ought to watch pannenkoek2012's famous Watch For Rolling Rocks in 0.5 A Presses video.
The goal is to finish the game pressing the jump button as few times as possible. Lowest time is still a goal, but not the main one. If someone figured out how to raise this platform faster, they would, but it's still considered progress to save a buttonpress even if it takes 8 days.
If I'm not mistaken, this is specifically a bug with the Wii VC. It wouldn't be possible on the original, 22 year old game
Here's a spreadsheet that (I think) illustrates how a 1-A-press tool-assisted speedrun could be accomplished, outside of this Wii VC bug: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Jf-eScEFEu0lkfzJZZMZgdTi6sX4zYNZoIGz-AFUz38/edit#gid=0
I don't understand the nuances though, like why the 0.5 presses are truncated down to 0.
This video explains half A-presses (don't worry about the 20 minute length, the explanation is in the first 4 minutes).
The gist of it is you have to press A to enter the level, and at some point in the level A has to be held (or released). So instead of pressing A twice, you press it the first time (outside the level) and hold it until the point in the level that you need it.
For the whole run you only pressed and released A once for both of those actions, but within the level you never actually pressed A, just held and released it.
The video does a better job explaining it, and also goes into a specific case where it's needed.
Edit: Since it appears the half A presses are using the A press that is now avoidable, I don't see how a 0 A press run is possible unless they've also found a way to avoid all the half A presses.