Comment by tetrisgm

6 years ago

Excellent video. I'm impressed the author went to recreate the run frame by frame, and then used those findings to analyze what was happening. Never expected this video to turn into a full on reverse engineering explanation.

As a side note, this kind of speed run has become more popular in the recent years for a combination of reasons: - First, it's difficult to improve on the regular world records since they're so optimized (just have a look at Quake Done Quick and its sequels). - Second, the emulators available to the speed running community have evolved. They now include better ways to track what's happening in memory. - Third, the games themselves are understood better (as recently exemplified by the Super Mario 64 full reverse engineering).

So it's creating a whole new genre of runs that simply isn't about execution anymore.

If you're interested in the topic, you might like the Super Mario World speed run that uses a similar technique (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gECESOoU8Es), or the recent work on removing randomness from Wind Waker runs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hs451PfFzQ).

14 comments

tetrisgm

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lillesvin  6 years ago

> So it's creating a whole new genre of runs that simply isn't about execution anymore.

This sounds to me like a variant of "using glitches/sequence breaks isn't how the devs intended it to be played".

Arguably, setting up for these glitches and exploiting them in real-time (i.e. not TAS) using only a controller is still "execution".

  • tetrisgm  6 years ago

    Sure. I meant in the sense that if you just said execution without context, you'd simply expect that we'd be talking about mastering inputs. This requires a body of knowledge established completely outside of the game itself.

ehsankia  6 years ago

I'd argue that many frame perfect moves used to setting up the memory is very much execution. Maybe a different kind of execution, but still very much skill based.

  • hosh  6 years ago

    In this video, the speedrunner made a mistake and had to compensate on the fly to get the enemy into the exact position when he hit the pipe. I think that is more impressive than a perfect run.

    • hbogert  6 years ago

      Yes, mind was blown when he explained this. The executioner had the intrinsic knowledge of the inner workings to cope with this. Just wow.

madeofpalk  6 years ago

> So it's creating a whole new genre of runs that simply isn't about execution anymore.

Did we watch the same video?

It was completely about execution. You still need to be exceptionally good at the game to get those frame-perfect setups.

  • tetrisgm  6 years ago

    I meant in the sense that if you just said execution without context, you'd simply expect that we'd be talking about mastering inputs. This requires a body of knowledge established completely outside of the game itself.

    • madeofpalk  6 years ago

      Even then, once you get past a cursory knowledge of the game and mechanics, you start getting into understanding the implementation of the mechanics of the game. Then it's just a deeper and deeper rabbit hole until you're maniupulating bytecode by throwing P Switches up in the air.