Expert: Chamale - 5/19/2008

Question
I saw this guy beat the whole game in six minutes, he used some backwards slide up the stairs to get through two doors, how do I do this??

Answer
This was a tool-assisted speedrun. It wasn't done on the actual N64, it was done on a computer emulator. The game was played in slow-motion, and with the ability to rewind whenever a mistake was made. Making a tool-assisted speedrun takes planning and a lot of patience. There are TASes of hundreds of games on tasvideos.org

The TAS you're referring to sounds like the one made by Swordless Link. The main bug used in the run is the "backwards long jumpin" bug, or BLJ. When you do a long jump in Super Mario 64, Mario accelerates, but the programmers limited his top speed going forwards. However, they forgot to limit his top speed going backwards.

By going backwards on a staircase, it's possible to go backwards very quickly if you hit A fast enough. The trick is to do a forward long jump and then go backwards, all while jumping constantly. When you hit the stairs, hit A as fast as possible while keeping the joystick pointed behind Mario. If you do it right (though it's very hard), Mario will zoom up the stairs. The endless staircase is a good place to practice. If you go fast enough, you can bypass doors and even the barrier that makes the endless stairs endless.

If you'd like to make your own TAS, you can download one of the emulators at
http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/Homepages.html

Incidentally, I've made 2 TASes myself. You can see my River City Ransom run at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6837837618559851663&q=river+city+ransom...

and my Tom and Jerry run at

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=9076709858438332192&q=tom+and+jerry+tool-...


If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.