So, TTYD has today 10 years old. I was just happy to see this day coming to celebrate it because It's not something I should ignore. I will do it in this post as I teased before, but now, replies!
I know it doesn't mean a lot, but the lack of other Paper characters in that trophy bunch sparks my interest slightly. I think if Paper Mario wasn't playable we would see a trophy of him by now. However, i'm making extremely wild guesses, and there is really no secure evidence available.
It really is a wild guess because I could say the same for those that imo, have less chance (like ray). It really has nothing to do with teasing not even alluding which was the case with Ridley (though, August 20 wasn't that obvious). We just saw today a starfox stage, but why now? It really is simple to answer: Sakurai *get out of the room*.
But if you want a good straw, Sakurai said in his captions that the stage would make other fighter run over the top of fox. Paper Mario can run over the top with airplane
So, if new info, I have no idea when.
Hi guys,
If someone could add me to the list of supporters that would be great.
Had an idea for Paper Mario's trailer.
Shot of Dreamland from space before cutting into Kirby fighting Bowser. Watching the fight is a lone figure who is heard gasping. The figure is then revealed to be a nervous looking Adeleine in front of a canvas. She has an idea and hurriedly starts painting. Close up shots of reds, blues and browns before Adeleine steps back and looks at the painting, pleased with herself. The painting comes to life and Bowser, now distracted looks over in horror. Cut away to Paper Mario putting his patented wooden hammer on his shoulder.
"Paper Mario Tears in!"
This starts playing as Paper Mario strolls across a stage. Goombella then starts tattling;
"You've finally made it! The Great Gonzales has made it to the biggest fighting stage in the world. The foes here are quite tough though"
Paper Mario starts hitting foes with his hammer, using a variety of moves;
"Your patented hammer, use it to your advantage, whether you're throwing it, or smashing enemies to Underwhere with it, you'll always be remembered for your hammer."
Paper Mario shoots Koops/Kooper out into an enemy, grabs a foe with Thoreau before using Watt to zap them away, finally, in a counter style move, Vivian ducks with Mario before using shade fist and burning the enemy:
"Don't forget about us Mario, we've always been here to help you and Smash Brothers is exactly the same."
Paper Mario is Donkey Kong Punched off the stage and KO'd
"Don't forget you're made from paper and as such you're very light, try not to take too much punishment."
Some more gameplay of Paper Mario is shown before cutting back to Dreamland where Bowser lay defeated. Paper Mario spots something in the distance and runs off. Kirby and Adeleine watch on, confused. Paper Mario is then shown with Mr. Game and Watch, the two start taunting as they are both pleased to find out they aren't the only flat character in the game.
I'll post some ideas for a move set later.
I hope you all enjoyed reading my very first post here.
WOW, first post? Welcome to Smashboards then and thank you for sharing it here
Only me can edit the first message as I own it, but I already added you.
I liked your trailer idea because it follows what I think will happen: misleading to surprise. This is even more by actually showing someone not playable (though, it would make sense that she's... I don't know assist or any role?). The only thing I wonder is, since it doesn't make sense for Gombella to have a voice, I assume it has to be in text in hey gorgeous font. But, would that make the flow of the trailer a little too slow? It has to go quite fast to feel dynamic, but then again, there's not that much text. It's just that it might feel awkward to read in a trailer. If it wasn't for that though, I would just LOVE the idea because of so much jokes potential. Love how it can quickly show his potential and the Game & Watch joke (really, who doesn't want that?).
Also, I added it to the OP (first post)
I'll be very happy to see another moveset because I said that I'm going to change the way the OP presents his potential and it would mean that full moveset would be more needed than partial one (to some extent at least).
Finally, I just want to tell you: THAT USERNAME!!! Great choice
So, I teased you before, but now, I'm going to do a very special post in honnor of TTYD anniversary. It will be long, but since it's the Paper Mario thread, it should be worth the read.
So, my teased was, as you might have guessed, a modified version of the TTYD intro text. It basically meant that I was at home as usual until something happened. As obvious as it might sound, it was because I received TTYD. Now, the tricky part is the video above. If you don't know me on this forum, you couldn't know what it meant. I use this video as a trademark in really long posts in debates or essay that should be considered the most serious way possible. I hear the music the whole time I type and I share it at the beginning of my post. It's a philosophy to remind me to think carefully and the reader to consider carefully as it can be critical in debates.
But this...isn't exactly a debate, but it needs to be read with consideration.
In this forum, I talked several times why SSBM was my best game of all time while TTYD was second (TL;DR, if I didn't play SSBM, so I didn't for TTYD). I did tell what I've done on this game, but the best explained part are scattered in this thread and don't explain everything.
So, you guessed it: I will do my memories of TTYD from first playtrough to today as I'm still addicted to it. This game has specials reasons why it became very important for me, but now...
EARTHBOUND MUSIC!!!
<realtalk>
[collapse=I SPOIL THE WHOLE GAME SO DON'T READ ANY SPOILER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW]
Before
So, I didn't know the series before a long time. It's actually weird that I never heard of it as I recently discovered that I love RPG. I only started to know about it 2 years ago when I saw a progressive an increasing popularity for speedruning Paper Mario (aka, PM64). One person made this game more and more popular as I was frequently watching speedruns. It increased so much after time that it is today VERY glitchy.
That's how I got interested and bought it on the Wii virtual console (aka, VC). Thing is, I heard about Paper Mario: The Thousand-year Door (aka, TTYD) at the same time. There's one person (Almolicious on twitch.tv) who run this game a lot and he's still today the record holder. I will tell you that just looking at the game with clueless informations, just that made me want to have it. I noticed this in some games, But this one has a little something I couldn't get.
So, I beat PM64 and found overall that it was a great game. This is actually ironic as it was the opposite when I was a kid. But then, I keep hearing about TTYD by most people being an improvement over PM64. I did speedrun a game: Zelda minish cap just for fun and feel what speedrun is. I'm telling this because that's how I knew someone who just kept telling me to buy the game (who would be relevant later). I know it seems good and I keep hearing about it, but can it be THAT good?
I usually don't tend to find a lot of game to be so good that it's a mind blower. When I heard about a game being great, I usually end the game with a very enjoyable experience, but not as memorable to be the second best one (being the best is impossible). For example, I played zelda a link between world and I agree, it's really good, but will I remember my experience years later? Probably not since it's wasn't notable enough (except Lorule castle's theme that one was epic).
So, I didn't expect that I wouldn't end up like PM64 because I had my expectations at normal. However, with how much praise this game got, I finally decided that it was worth the 40$ on Ebay.
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[collapse=part 1]
First playtrough: mind blown
I received it in November 2012. As silly as it sounds, since I already watched enough speedrun to tell, My first time I played the game was during what in speedrun is called a "blind race". It's not a typical race until goal because the concept is that you have to be clueless when you play which means you need to not have started any save file and go trough the game as fast as possible to reach the goal. It's silly, but mine was just for ch1 so I agreed anyway. I can only tell you one thing: I was bad since I accepted 2 tutorials.
I erased the file to now TRULY starts. I never expected to start the very same file that has today a stuck time counter at 99:99.
Right when I boot the game, the intro was neat. BUT THAT TITLE MUSIC IS ANOTHER SCALE!!! I literally danced in my chair for around 15 minutes on it. I was honestly very doubtful because you do not expect ANY game to have a music that is so catchy and good on the title screen BEFORE YOU START YOUR FILE ON THE MEMORY CARD!!! That's probably the quickest way I saw to make a game awesome. That's when I started to think that I might just find this one particularly good. I still don't why I just loved so much to even look at the screen though.
So, at the beginning, I was introduced to elements that on the moment, wasn't relevant, but became to be as I play. That's the reason you have to play it to feel it. I didn't even noticed that the Rogueport music was very good until I kept hearing it and found it very fitting. Same goes for the text style and window: you only get why they are there after playing some time. Even if I found them appealing before, I again, couldn't tell why because you really need to play it to know.
And then, it became to be quite different on the second map with the Gombella cutscene. I just found that for any Mario game and even games in general, the humour seemed to have his own style too. Details like the pianta with the accent in the background while in the foregorund, texts about vital plot informations was just silly and funny. It actually is the whole humour: "silly". It just turns out that it's my favourite humour type so I liked jokes. But it became to be really weird compared to PM64 with Rogueport itself; dark. I just love how it got to the point when it was really obvious especially with the text. Just seeing graffiti in a Mario is already unusual, but seeing real life stuff with credits card fraud was totally unexpected. To remind you, I haven't played Earthbound until last February, but the feeling was pretty similar. I even think it might have inspiration from it, but I'll tell you later. It's also why the music fits so much: it sort of feel like a contrast between good and bad which is the whole contrast of the East and West side of the town.You can only notice that visually after beating Chapter 2, but you already can read text before. Again, you need to play it to know.
Then, I really enjoyed the frankly's theme. I figured it out later that it was a good way to get your attention to read vital informations so getting stuck is more unlikely. Actually, seeing the text in the bubble was already appealing that I just wanted to read for the sake of seeing texts effects. That's quite neat since it helps for those who dislike reading in games.
So, I think so far you're seeing a pattern, every thing so far was detailed with elements to just make the game look good. Normally, contents that are very good don't necessarily look so. The title screen music however, has to announce something amazing in that regard. Details like animation when you enter a pipe or just basically seeing anything folds was just enjoyable to see. It's purely aesthetic, but it just pushes you more and more to play. That's the whole game right there: you started; you can't give up before the end. Hey! that reminds me of this: "No crying until the end". I don't think it's a coincidence if it's just happens to share the same philosophy.
And then, it actually started to be good as it looks. The black chests... the best tutorial joke ever that became a running gag. I know some game likes to explain in a funny way, but not to the point of even making you believe the total opposite of any conventions in games: power up. You agree that it helps? I mean there's the word "up" so it must improve at least. The chest acting in pity and literally calling you a "fool" as soon as you open it was just "WTH?". To even push it further by trying to act like a villain that tricked you to give a curse, just seemed so random. But giving the power up is like you don't understand any more. It's a scale of irony that is so high that it is laughable. It's not even done, he even enjoy the fact that he would have done something nasty while he did the total opposite.
And the question... ah the question just killed me. In tutorial, it happens often to ask something like "Do you need to see the explanation again?" or anything that confirms you're understanding. This was the best: he asks you if you got how terrible his curse is. He even assumed that it was, but the true funny part is having to tilt the stick and press A to answer that it was. Doing the opposite doesn't just redo the tutorial, but you get insulted by him saying that you're an idiot to not get it. You have no choice, but to answer "yeah it was terrible" which is not the default choice. That, is an impressive way to break the fourth wall...like earthbound and the rolling HP meter.
So, after trying to understand if I just lived a tutorial, I continued. Honestly, as average as the Chapter 1 is, I enjoy it mainly because of more aesthetic. You just have to play more since the games prompts you every time to be hyped at any moment. Just seeing a text bubble makes you want to see them more; same for the environment. I found petal meadows and Petalburg lovely. And the battles...oh the battles was like a festival of effects every single time. This is why I want so much this stage: if it can make me want to trigger a battle for the sake of doing it, it would certainly makes me want to choose this stage again and again which is what Sakurai wants in the first place. Really, it became to a point when the meaningful action of just doing a single jump was hype for the stylish! moves. Add partners and badges and it's just as crazy as it sounds and maybe even more with audiences. Just the music speaks for itself it's so quick and catchy while the battles are quick and hype. It's fun for a short time, but in multiple instances.
So, I realised that the game not only do the unexpected, but also make the most usual action not that usual. Seriously, how can doing a normal jump, the same you do hundreds of times can even SOUND interesting? Earthbound had to use an auto fight system which was appreciated, but this is the first RPG I played that skipping most of the fights or using an auto fight would be LESS ENJOYABLE!!! I'm telling you, I tried FF7 and I couldn't stand the fights, but Pokemon was fine because of the repels (tough, X/Y look appealing because 3D animations). It's not even the same thing with how random these battles are so it doesn't expire. Actually, why RPG has to use a random encounter system while you could make the battle random to get over the encounter system?
I know, RNG is easily programmed compared to multiple npc. But I realised that so much details was there that they wouldn't mind to do anything possible as I played more.
Just one thing neat about the POW block because I died here: that's a great hidden tutorial. Telling how to use items is one thing, but making you realise that they are useful is a good idea to NOT think that they aren't.
Hooktail castle was pretty usual, but with a neat theme. Speaking of the theme, why I feel they are better while they look like normal vgm music? It took me a long time to figure this out, but if you listen to a music with the volume maxed, you will just feel the music as it was the real setting. Not only surround sound helps, but there's so much sound in the background that it improves the immersion of the music. "Answer the question!" is the best example of 20 seconds that with the background sound, increase the level of pressure. Along with a unique sound style, the music were quite different than other games. It makes simple cutscene like every ms mows encounter feels to be owned by the character. I actually found that some music were remixes way after I finished and let me tell you, the final result was some time just NOT the original and very far from it.
Just a little thing though, I found the spike labyrinth out of there. Maybe it was a hidden tutorial for time limits? Seems kinda of pointless, but I get a curse joke after so I said nothing. Oh, they change the way to insult you so the joke is still good. I found the 3D view very nice to see even though I ask why here? Maybe the game wants to tell you if it wasn't obvious that it's boss, but anyway.
Hooktail was standard for a boss and I really have nothing to say EXCEPT that lie joke. Just something I found nice to have even for a first boss. Btw, "Can't flee this fight!" is just... that feel.
The music and sounds here when you finish a Chapter just feel like happiness and, again, prompts you to play even more. Where does this end?
I'm now completely clueless on how I would find this game because so much details was there after the most average chapter. When honestly would I start to not like the game?
I'm just going to mention the intermissions: for making you NOT want to stop to play and if not the case, to make you look forward to continue, that was the best combination. Firs, the Peach one. is actually more deep than what it sounds. The TEC story is very deep if you pay a very close attention to the text. The best part that just really makes you love TEC is the quiz. Ok, the dumb choices was funny and the xnaut had hilarious jokes, but let me tell you that that moment needed serious though to be made. At the beginning, he says that he can't "answer that question" about grodius's secret plan. When he realises that he wants that peach is safe, but being a computer, he's in the absolute impossibility to answer the question. Problem? It's a computer so he was in the possibility of being 100% "working" but he could be "glitchy" to what was not told to him. No one told him to not PROMPT the question to someone with answers that are dumbs but the good one.
In fact, it became to a point when this story tried to say a well hidden message: love is like a computer glitch; if you have it, you will react intentionally, but unusually in your life. Not to mention that how honestly would the only way that he could "feel" love? See, if we told a computer that a particular style of person is fun to be with, but also to keep that person locked and isolated, really, what would happen? The absolute instructions doesn't make sense and are even contradictory, but again, what would happen if we didn't used an handler for such an exception? It will run, but erratically. Making his diagnosis report to tell him that he wants to know more on Peach would actually be a bug because no one told him to do so and it would clearly not be intended.
I don't know for you, but this story was really deep. To see it in segment between chapter is even better since it acts like a reward.
Now, Bowser. EVERY intermissions has just one word in mind: hi-la-rious! The joke quality here are just absurd. He looks pity every time and it's just so satisfying to see him NOT be the main villain, but the dumbest. Btw, enjoy this because that's not going to happen a lot. Really, to not use him makes this game more original. Yeah Peach is kidnapped (though they joke about how recurring this is), but with a deep story.
So, you have a love thriller intermissions with an hilarious one (not even going to comment on that mario bros game with freaking STAKES AS MUSHROOM!!!). Great rewards and you just want more...again.
Just going to speed this up because I already talked about the recurring elements so, get ready...
Intermission to ch2 isn't notable, but we still have the town getting worse every time.
Ch2: The artstyle is unique yet, consistent with keeping you to look forward to go further. Music is calm (I see this fitting with wii fit trainer btw). THAT MOMEMT WITH FLURRIE THOUGH!!! For those in the Ridley thread, that's why I made flurrie x ridley to just feel too awkward to even happen, but apparently, the manager saw the complete opposite... The tree is ok, without punies. With however, it's just... why? No that may be the only part with no purpose because I question why I have to do this. Please, show me how the system is powerful without affecting the experience too much. That boss theme though IS SO EPIC!!! There's a part that last for 10 seconds, only 10 seconds and just hearing it makes you powerless and pumped to fight. That's just the second boss btw... Loved that PM64 reference at the end of the ch.
Intermissions to ch3 could have been annoying because of the lens. It wasn't obvious. But more pianta accent makes it better.
Ch3: hands down the best and ironically, the most repetitive anyway. This chapter is the proof of the battle style being genius with even more randomness. It's 20 intended fight in a row that you have the same goal, but a different restriction that is completely random. Imagine this in any RPG to fight 20 times straight and to win every time even with a random restriction. It could mostly be translated as unoptimised farming and that is just annoying. Here, intended or not it would be fun just because of the battle system. I really think RPG should go that way because honestly, most of the worry of people being sceptical of RPG is lots of battles. The story was good though with being a thriller and the vibration pattern of X email.
intermission to ch4: It's not that interesting, but why do you write my name on myself? Seems fishy
ch4: I said "when does this end?" when talking about how the game wants me to play more and by being amazing with ch3, but honestly, this was the best troll ever. It tries to tell you at the beginning in a dark theme that something is fishy now. The trigger are scary: talk to someone -> talk to gatekeeper -> while trying to talk to someone else, first person got cursed. -> when reaching that person and coming back, gatekeeper got cursed -> open door and continue. That's not normal to just happens like that. It seems... bland. Really, simple road, small manson, all seems to go normal,but you still feel it's fishy. At this point, the game was about to be in the bad scale...until you realise that it's what the game wanted that you think about.
What reaction you had after the game prompted you to save, saved, and you getting away from the camera leaving it stucked on the top of the steeple. What did you do? I tough it would have been the worst chapter, but it seemed it was a freeze for me so of course I tried to push button...wow, that was a mind blow. After the usual "WTH?", I realised how this game is using backtracking as way to make it BETTER! By giving you the feel you got stolen your identity, you want to get it back as fast as possible because if not, panic can haunt you and that's exactly what this ch is. Making you feel panicked and unsafe to even have to run away from the stealer 2 times. Fighting your own friends at the end is just painful for how you have to do that. I did not expected this ch to be my third favourite at all. Btw, the encounter (not battle) music of doopliss is the same melody as porky's theme on earthbound. I may think about the level up music, but the doopliss one is an obvious reference which makes me wondering if it got more inspiration of it.
to ch5: great intermission with the bobbery back story. Unless considering usual degradation of the town, nothing else to note.
Ch5 quite long honestly and very good in cutscene department. The thing with bobbery was...awkward. Some backtracking, but means more battles YAY! Pirate groto was ok it's just that I found it long, but again, curse joke and more battles. But that boss though, seriously that boss. First, music is very good (ssb4?) and the phase changes just makes this one more enjoyable with the different strategy you can use now. Fun fact: this is the most demanding moment for the system as on emulator, it lags at 15 fps which is 4 time slower. When I realised it's not the end because you fight WITH THE MAGNUS THEME!!! Dude that's a good way to end this ch.
To ch6: I have to tell it's good because of the 100 "I love you" text. First time I see a joke when there's an absurd amount of text that you have to pass each one of them making the task harder but even more absurd. Other than that, nothing to say.
Ch6: it really impressed me since it's following ch3 to be a break and because of text quality. Music is just relaxing with a radio effect especially at night when it's so lazy and relax. Getting trough the train in itself is annoying, but the fact that it's a calm and break environment doesn't make this bad at all, but better since it makes this break longer and it's good. Though, the text is so good. Everything Penington related is so hilarious. From thinking too deeply of the obvious of ignoring completely any sense of logic and priority is just fun to read. But that isn't the best joke: the diary was. I got that way later, but not just that ghost is silly, but also, that if you read his diairy after 5 prompts of suggesting to not do it, you directly and literally GAME OVER!!! If it sounds cruel, you have to be responsible to not save when you had like 15 minutes to do so in a small area with 2 saves. I laugh so much when I saw that. Riverside was ok but why they made the interior silent? More detail in my glitch hunt section. The boss was average and the same for his music, but that is expected in this chapter where everything is calm. Though, there's some weird stuff that could have happened more details later.
to ch7: almost nothing except getting oh dare I say it *cough* ultra hammer *cough*. You'll know why I said that later.
ch7: beginning is unfortunetely horrible, but not as ch2. You backtrack, but even with shortcuts, it's optimised to be the longest backtrack. Why they didn't do the opposite? The gold bo bomb coin joke was lol. 25 system window telling you "sleeping. Try again?" and even one faking waking up was so absurd with the nice and good text. When it gets interesting is the canon: music is fantastic and so is the cutscene. It's a good moment to feel motivated. On the moon, except the physics, nothing to add. The foretress though... MUSIC JUST WANT YOU TO FIGHT EVERYONE!!! Really, the battle is enough to make me fight, but with this? I love it. Though, navigation could be a little annoying, but otherwise is ok. Another magnus theme, another epic fight. Though, I think it's too similar than ch2. Nah, don't care music is good.
to ch8: That tec cutscene... Anyway, you're good for the TTYD right after so nothing. Though, the town is now at the maximum of its depression state. It's the worst now, every one has bad news and no good one. I found so immersive to assist to the possible collapse of the town as I played. However, the next and last ch proved me without any doubts that I'm loving this game a lot more than usual.
ch8: It relly is the most amazing chapter. the palace with everything before grodius is trial and recap of what you can do, but the riddle tower was particularly good with the music. Grodius fight is standard so much that it's obvious that there's more later, but the bowser one has an awesome theme. Final boss first phase was quite good, but making you attack and do nothing for 3 turns just makes you hopeless. And then...The most amazing part of the game and it will be the most memorable one: the crystal stars cutscene. It's can't be improved, no it can't. You just feel to have back up everywhere and it really gives a very strong feeling of encouragement. And who could forget that amazingness that is "We believe in you Mario!". This isn't a music no it's pure art and nothing else. I had to wait 5 minutes to realise that I was still playing a video game and hear this music after the cutscene. It's hand down the best encouragement music I've heard since it represent a progression with ups and down, but you still feel progress. That is something that is so me that I just think it's perfection. It's unremixable in this state.
Remember when I said someone convinced me to buy the game and kept talking about it? Well, that guy wanted to see my first attempt and most likely fail (he got her on his 13th attempt). So, I streamed this on twitch which the highlights are still available and you could clearly see it was an insane amount of luck. Here they are:
first:
http://www.twitch.tv/aldelaro5/c/1791058
second
http://www.twitch.tv/aldelaro5/c/1791061
I was slow because I was talking with him in the chat. Though, the one time after the crystal star cutscene was me being amazed of the audio and at the beginning of shadow queen final phase too. It's really the most complete boss theme I've heard and I hope it appears in smash.
I guess I can't get how difficult it should have been, but I was just too lucky. The ending though still follows the pattern of the whole chapter: the slowest ending possible with the most amazing thing possible. I just love this because it's like you right now: you played so much and got trough with interest so much that the ending would be hard to accept so it has to be smooth.
I may have forgotten some parts because there was way too much, but what I can tell you is that you should understand why you have to play to know. You really can't get this experience by other means. That's why I see anyone doubting to buy it, I immediately act like someone who REALLY want that you buy it because trust me, you'll thanks me later.
It's that kind of game that when you see "the end" on screen, you're just sad, but any masterpieces has to end one day...unless...
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[collapse=part 2]
Why I glitch hunted this game?
I spent a week or 2 in post game with trouble center and 100% stuff. I normally don't do, but why I wouldn't? Btw, the only I didn't get is the 100th floor in the pit, but glitch hunting made me too lazy. After though, I realised something; the game being way too long to speedrun only almo is active on it and we see almost no talk, but in his chat. This is f course something that made me sad as I just got addicted now so I said something that started everything in their IRC chat. I wouldn't think it would start so brutally, but I still think truly what I said that day.
I said that I love so much this game that I would do anything to make it better for speedrun and that would even include to go through the trouble of trying to find glitches. 2 minutes after, a guy named cerpin pm ed me to tell me basic info and it just started like that.
That day, December 31 2012, the eve of new year, I found my first glitch: if you go between the npc and the trash behind the wall in rogueport East while being on yoshi and jump out, you may be able to clip into the trash. I didn't know how long I would do this, but I know one thing: it's going to be awesome!
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Glitch hunt: better than expected
Oh i waited for so long to write something about my experience because there's just too much to talk. I could literally take hours, but I will restrain from the most relevant moment.
First, for those who are wondering with the most clueless expression: "How can you intentionally find a glitch?". It's actually simple to understand; doing it is another thing though. I can explain it by one sentence I learned: the best way to find a glitch, is to be aware how to not glitch. In other words, getting data by theorizing and testing stuff in the game while running natively or emulated allows me to have a better idea how certain elements works. If I have a clear idea or a serious theory, what I want to do is testing the "toughness" of this mechanics by having the most improbable case you could ever think while playing. This could allow me to see flaws in those mechanics or to have a better idea of their defence. Defensive programming is made to handle most of errors or exceptions as possible while it requires more work, but a more stable module. This is very used in debugging because you would have a better idea of what's the error and makes debugging easier. Since of course I don't have access to their dev kit, I can only use my mind which is very slow, but can do the job.
That's how you would think as a glitch hunter, but it's not easy because of the requirements. First, you need to have basic programming knowledge. I had more than enough even tough I can't make a game. I did make a cmd program that prompts you a number between 1 and 1000 and you input a number as guess. Each time, the cmd tells you if it's lower or higher until you get it and it prints the number of attempts. Just that requires knowledge and it's so simple to do, but I mean, you have to know how data works generally. You also need to know about the game you're playing. This might be the dumbest thing I just said, but it's not as you might think. You really need to know informations that are most of the time pointless to know, but in glitch hunt. Stuff like the location of cutscene trigger. I do have a big memory so I still have a lot of info of the game. And last, but not least, you have to be the type of person that just loves logic. No seriously if you don't like math just because you have to think, this isn't for you.
Oh I forgot to mention. It's optional, but recommended: love the game you're glitch hunting. The deepness that you will go in this process is very surprising at times and not loving you're game overall will just not make you motivated since it requires a lot of work. It's important here because I expected to love the game less due to annoyance. The opposite happened.
Ok, I'm going to do a list in what I think is chronological because I just have too much to talk. So, here's what happened:
Cerpin stayed with me for the first 5 months. Every day at least one pm was sent, but most of the time, it was complete discussion on how to do this or that. I enjoyed those conversation so much.
Since I started on console, it was hard. I think it was so for 2 months before I got a emulator setup. I had to do the chapter 3 at least 5 times for testing things after. It became to be annoyance so I did a file system: file one is a place holder for copy, file 2 is after of ch2, file 3 is after ch5 and I kept the fourth one as my original file and post game one. Doing this helped a lot with testing, but for testing something in ch4 or 5, I had to do ch3. I will say though that it wasn't that bad, but it makes testing possibility harder because you would need to be more convinced to try a theory.
Since the first day, I was aware of multiple things like pausing while triggering paper mode will auto finish the animation upon unpausing. Little stuff like that, but the most noticable is that you can go out of bounds (aka, oob or not in the boundaries of the map zone) in post game in one of the room in excess expresso by using yoshi. Just that I had good ideas.
Then came the partners mechanics: their priority are weird. Stuff like triggering them while doing something else. Unfortunately, only in rare cases it did something most of the time being useless, but funny. If you trigger flurrie and jump some frames after, it will lock you're model on any rotation. So, you could literally moonwalk. There's other side effects like getting out of yoshi will suspend the frame you had just before so it could look like you're in Paper Mode, but you aren't and have the same hitbox. Gombella, flurrie and ms mows turned out to be the one that has abilities to do useful stuff, but they were discovered later. Tough, I remember that I tried to fall with gmbella text, nothing, but I never tough I was so close to discover the most useful glitch.
Doors are so weird. The jolene office one in ch3 doesn't want to open, but post game, there's a guard even tough the door is usable. You just have to be precise in your position, but flurrie glitch helps for locking side and not talk to the guard. The left most door in ch7 is the same, but hard and you have to use weird inputs. I don't remember exactly, but let's just say it was making suffer mario.
That's when I started to realise that this game is solid. Almost everytime you're oob by under and fall too much, you are respawned wehere you loaded the map. Completely useless.
Triggers seems to be solid. I couldn't test that much on them, but I guess I need to explain what a sequence break is for later. The game and most games actually in some way have a sequence of events that goes from the beginning to the end. It's sort of like the time for a game. This one has a very simple sequence as the main one is linear which means that for one inputs, you get only one output. The problem is that the game doesn't check where you are in the sequence every time which can create what is called a sequence break. Let's say you are at point A and logically, you normally have to go to the point B and C in the respective order. But if a way exist to NOT go to point C from the point A which would normally not be intended for obvious reasons, the game will trigger C and continue as usual. For the game, you got to C so it's assumed that you got to B, but you didn't. Ocarina of time is a good example fun fact: you only need the first and last medallions to complete the game, not all six. Reasons? It's probably still like this today, but with n64 limitations, optimisation is a priority. Checking 2 flags (values that worth true or false) is less demanding than checking 6 flags value even tough it's a minor difference. I explained this because I found something that has to do with this if it's too confusing without getting what I said. I just want to note that you may go backwards if the trigger you're trying to get isn't assumed to be activated, but it's useful in rare cases.
A glitch was discovered by cerpin and it involves flurries with a door. If you use her and some frame after open a door, the game won't behave as it should. Normally, Mario should move to a spot and stay here some seconds to then begin to enter. But here, because you're in use of flurrie which freeze your speed, you go farther than you should out of that point. It can be altered with position and facing, but some uses was discovered when you can't reach the point after making the room loads without you. No cases was found useful, but our tests involved more the teleporter room from the sewers. At least for a month, we tried to get into that house without success. I think one of us got clipped from the outside, but I'm not sure.
And then, it slipped from us: ms mows glitch was discovered by nathan. It's still the most useful glitch found since it skips 30 to 40 minutes (that's the best and the whole game is 5-6 hours). Simple: as you fall on water, trigger Ms mows text and as soon as you pass the text, you regain control of mario in the air if you did it quick enough. The best part is that you can reach warps zone and activate their pipes and this allows to skip all ch5 EXCEPT the boat chest for the riddle tower. I have to say 3 things:
1 We were so close of discovering it that it was frustrating
2 the riddle tower would be the only spot you have to use the boat after ch5 which you skip. I tried way too much for a way with ms mows to skip the boat, but without uses.
3 The sequence is now f***** up: you do ch4, do the ms mows trouble and that is long, activate pipe, go to ch5 normally until you get bobbery, go to poshley via pipe, go in the train which trigger the ch6 and you do it normally to get ultra boots (that's so weird, but the trigger was probably loading the train zone), go to ch5 to get the boat (also, since you sequence break and got back, the ch5 is assumed finished so all trigger EXCEPT the black chest are activated) finally, go to ch6 again via pipes and get the star to continue normally. Confusing, but the boat chest not being triggered is weird and I got that way later. That moment was hype.
I messed up way too much with that stupid glitch. It's so annoying to do it repeatedly and it only ended up to not serve to anything. I wasted so much time in front of riddle tower like really it became to be annoying. Tough, there was some funny moments like I was able to walk underwater in Rogueport East (for some reasons, those water are rare and you guessed it, I tested on most of them). Oh btw, the glitch locks you're camera lol.
After being exhausted on testing this glitch (I hate it so much), I eventually ran out of ideas, but someone who isn't available a lot got access to an action replay or a hacking device on console. One of the hack was always increasing vertical speed or a moon jump. He tied to see if there was collision on the vent of grubba's office in ch3 and there was none! That is a very big deal because if you were somehow able to go there in ch3, you would go to the sir duct and trigger the cutscene here. Because of sequence logic, the game would assume that you did everything before that cutscene for that ch and the only remaining would be to get back in the office, get paper and fight the boss.
So, I heard of it, but cerpin asked me to try to get on the bookcase as a I had the perfect file for it. If you go on the highest point of the sofa, it might seems to either not pass closely or pass JUST tight enough. So, I tried and of course I couldn't realise that ground pound doesn't change your vertical position, but you need hacking tools to confirms that. I honestly tried so much stuff it was kinda random, but it just felt so close every time. After an hour, magic happened, I got there and I immediately had the first reflex to tell cerpin. That feel when you just might have found an hours skip with random attempts. Here's the thing though, I need to get footages of it as I could use a capture card. I will remember that day for a long time.
I was so hype to discover something big like this. Since it was on Friday, I always sleep one night at my grandmother's house so I packed up everything and I tried for hours to get literally, around 15-20 seconds of footages. I set a skype call with my friends to hype myself even more. That was so intense and of course, everyone in the speedrun community on that game freaked out on this as ch3 was the most rng heavy part and longest ch of the game. To skip it would mean better speedrun for a long time. So I might say I got some preasure which made this day even better. I didn't get how, but I managed to get the footages after 3 hours. of attempts. However, the video was in avi which was a problem because it took too much space to get uploaded properly on youtube. I failed 2 upload and wasted an hour so I had to convert the video...why this was so hard to find . Really, I have no idea but it took hours to find a converter on google that is free to use without trial and just convert and not doing other stuff. Anyway, I normally sleep at 1 : 30 AM on weekend but I had to sleep at 2 :30 when I got the video converted and sent to cerpin to not wait for the upload and sleep. The day after, it was online and is there:
The date is February 2 2013 so I discovered it on February 1, 2 months after I began my glitch hunt. I still remember this day again because it gave me so much hope to break this game enough. He gave me credits in the description for proof btw.
Of course, I had to first check if you can skip the ch and second, try to figure out how to do it since it might be useful (it actually is today, but only since last January). The former was annoying for me to get (I even remember to fall after I got it so frustrating). When I got it, it literally went into cerpin on stream telling me "what's there?" "check this trigger" "what happens if you try this?" and me responding in chat real time (I had to save which soft locks your game). Basically, my hopes were crushed because you need the supper hammer to break the vent to grubba (yeah it doesn't break the one in the other map) and you can only access the office by the duct or above which you need yoshi and even that, you would have a black wall so you can't see what you do.
With further tests, it was impossible to clip through and it was proved later that it only has a loading zone after breaking the vent. Even if we got that hammer, you need yoshi to go the ch4. However, if we were able to do both, it would work because fun fact (proven before), after the second doopliss fight, you get all the partners you were supposed to have at this point which does include yoshi. You don't need him at ch4 so it's ok. The thing is, by checking after the glitch other trigger (you exit to the champion room), they were ALL activated EXCEPT the minor league room. That's weird, I didn't even registered (I even had to refuse the contract to stay in the office), but I only got why recently. The rank value is global so no matter what you do in the sequence, it's not changed since it's there every map. So, by default, it get to 20 so, if the game assumed I registered, I was in minor. If you try to use the gba however, it's suspended because you should break the vent and can't fight here. And you're partners say no message [English] for whatever reasons (it's an error message for no texts).
But here's came the possibility that became so frustrating I still hate that thing today: getting ultra hammer early. Just typing those words made me remember bad memories. It was proven that the ultra hammer chest platform was accessible and that the chest is openable from it with precise, but easy inputs. Problem is, how to get here? We tried lots of things, but only one made sense after a while: the second floor of the inn which has a wall that is next to the platform. There's a bed there so I tried to do stuff here without any success, but I tried for days of literally rolling and jumping on a bed. It's actually funny what you can do on it: infinite flip sound, roll getting hard to get out, infinite hop. Only funny stuff, but I can't get rough that wall. Even without yoshi, this would skip ms mows trouble center so 10 minutes which is considered very big. I had to let that for no, but more stuff happened.
Flurrie glitch on doors got an improvement that made everyone without exception including me look dumb. A random guy on twitch (even worse he tried something we never though for months) got a weird effect with flurrie glitch that can even prevents you from getting into the room so you are in an unloaded texture map except the room. Like rogueport, it feels so dark and annoying to tell where you are. It had so funny side effects like seeing the whole apartment complex in rogueport West disappears. Or hearing 2 music at the same time (this is of course too much so I had to reset, too awesome). But without any doubts, this is the best side effect, but it's useless.
Yeah the same who found ms mows glitch. The badges shop for some reasons has weird thing if you load it 2 times. First, you see a hand cursor at the center of the screen. Don't know why maybe it was loaded here for placeholder? And then, if you buy an item, it goes normally. But you can select the same place again with no icons and the item named invalid items with garbage description. We though it was a thing called the debug badges (it's an OP badges unused in the game), but I know today that it's literally nothing. It shows an item, but has nothing here and the only reasons it's showed is because by duplicating the map, you duplicated the flag that said this item is bough or not so it assumes that it's still not bough. This is probably why, but it can't be confirmed and is simply accepted as trusted theory.
The extension of the glitch you mash x. Yes we were that dumb of pressing it, but not mash it. Anyway, you go away from the point and since you're still pressing x again, it locks you're speed to the horizontal, but you still move towards the point while the third slide is only locked on the side you face. Clear example discovered this year:
Yeah collision of walls is disabled while the animation is going. though, don't try to do this it's way to hard to do it without tas tools.
And that's when I think I decided to move to dolphin. Took me days to get the setup, but it works. I had now access to emulators tools and using a memory hacking program, I could check values and if possible edit them. Right away the first thing I tried that everyone wanted to know that wasn't even possible with action replay was that elevator house. Hacked into it and it worked, but at the foretress, the elevators doesn't work and the floor you are isn't the one with the cards you need. Shame, but ch7 early is down. I mention it because this happened way too much now with what I could know now. So much impossibilities was discovered.
Though, I found a tons of stuff, but at one point, I realised that with a not that powerful PC, I could run the game at like 35 40 fps which is around the 2 third of normal speed. So, it took too much time to get through ch so I decided to do something crazy and that was the best ideas: make saves every time I reach one after triggers. I had to play the game normally to not have any cheats enabled as it could cause problem. I had to do the whole game at speed that is 2x slower than normal to get around 100-150 saves in total all named and organised properly. Cortez fight was at 15 fps which was 4x slower and it's the most demanding point of the game. It took me a whole week to do it, but I had the saves and I uploaded them on my dropbox to never loose them. I had to convert them to memory card saves, but they are still there today. Proof? Here, just tells dolphin to use it as the file after booting the emulator:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w720uj5jjukb2iz/TTYD Saves.7z
File is 2 mb, but takes 2 gb after uncompression. Don't ask why, but it works.
I was so tired after I took a week of break
This was the best idea I had because now, I was no longer limited to do ch3 50 times, but to go anywhere in 15 seconds (well, you have to reset, but anyway).
So, tested a lot, know more about the game overall. It went like this with big discoveries until May when for personal reasons, I had to stop my test. However, I will do a quick list of what I found in this period in quick succession:
Free look can change freely your camera. While using a cheat improperly as I fall in the water, I got infinately high which reveals my avatar I had now. I was scared for a 40 inch screen tv and they took more than the screen
Founds months later what it was, mario's arms upscaled. They also appears in the canon cutscene is ch7. It's still unknown why such an asset would be there today, but if you have any ideas, PM ME NOW.
Speaking of assets, the background on ch begin and ends is an upscaled version of another asset so much that it takes kilometers with the normal camera looking like some pixels. Dry bones in hooktail castle form an asteroid belt after the fight. So many of them. The canon cutscene in ch7 has so much bomb omb. The back of characters models is... weird (btw, no peach isn't naked when she takes her shower I checked). Some models appears t the origins of some map and are stored there when needed. peach models, however, can be seen at the second frankly cutsene in the house right beside him. So ironic but she was there to loads her icons for text.
The way this game manages trigger is in fact very solid. if you go trough a loading zone while it's playing, it doesn't end it and the trigger is still there. Though, the game will try everything he can to pull you back if you go away. Triggering 2 cutscene will simply queue the second one.
I found 2 ways to clip out the bed in the inn, 1 on yoshi cliped in or 2 on tube mode cliped in. Both won't do anything, but it was so frustrating to get that close. You would be able to open the chest, but now, you can't.
Triggering the cutscene before Doopliss second fight without vivian will crash the game for unhandled exception.
Different partners that shouldn't be there gives some times no messages. Some conversation are hilarious.
I found that some tutorial for boots or paper abilities don't happen where you opened the chest, but may be going at 1000 pixels under the origins of the map. It was found before with flurrie glitch to be able to walk under rogueport without getting oob, but that was because this zone is allocated for the ultra hammer tutorials. It's probably because you need a lot of free space for those tutorials.
If you ever trigger the dead dry bones cutscene at hooktail castle while you're not with koops, it switches to him. However, that is even if you don't have him and you're stuck with him until you receive another one and he would disappear. That was actually very important for tas because it was useful there.
I found why the boat chest was disabled: we were so lucky. Only 3 triggers in the whole game are what I called, reversible trigger. These triggers for unknown reasons are never assumed to be enabled under any sequence breaking. This means that if you sequence break, you can revert the sequence back to those trigger by activating it. It's actually used not once, but twice today thanks to a glitch with Gombella found last January.
I hate zess t cutsene of his lens because you can't cross it there's no loading zone until you give it to him. Makes me having to take a detour in the sewers... I hate you zees.
I got used to rogueport sewers being my main area of global test since it runs smoother and the music is fitting. That's also why I still love that music.
Getting TTYD early is impossible, no loading zone.
It was found before that you could use gombella to skip loading zone that are zoned (not doored basically). Was useful later and made my best glitch useful.
I hate grubba cutscene too. I saw it too many times because of testing my glitch (it seems to be way too tight and I had suspicion).
Speaking of loading zones, every doored xones don't have a zone, but the interaction with the door is the trigger. Things is, it depends if the door is set to can be opened or can't.
Getting in background state on foreground is weird, you're stuck on the horizontal axis and you're smaller and flatter.
And I was done until August where my reasons got resolved. A tas just started and I know it would reveals glitch so I waited for them to finish in December and guess what? They released it for the new year occasion on December 31 2013 which is coincidently exactly a year after I got into glitch hunting.
I spent one last month last January and this time, I found the most useful stuff I wanted.
Finally found the mechanics of my glitch. You would need 7 more pixels of heigh to on the bookcase so in theory, this wouldn't be possible. However, I found that if you are at maximum 10.9 pixels away vertically from a hard corner of an object while trying to go into that corner, you will slightly clip in it and since you're so close of the top, it will eject you on the top. It works the same for every locks or small opened chest, but nothing after. You're missing 3 pixels for getting on top of small hammer block. Sounds like they knew about it. lol. I found a 0.4 seconds saves of a lock jump that is used today.
For tas, I gave the idea to try to hit both switches of hooktail entrance with hammer. A glitch that is tas only can make you go slightly faster and it was enough to being able to do it. This meant that they were able to skip getting koops. It's way too hard on console however.
Several glitches was found by mathieu w plourde which I talked with him some time and that's him who made my glitch useful because... huh... I'll explain at the end it will break your head. It used one of the reversible trigger in great tree to skip major league of ch3.
The tas did found glitches, but those were the remaining one and almost no potential was left.
The last glitch I helped to be found was a clip when you unspin from getting out of paper mode. Only works on narrow area, but now, useless. Though I was hyped.
So, that mathieu glitch now. If time travel is confusing, this is sequence travel it's even worse. If you don't understand, just assume it's magical
By using the Gombella trick on one map of great tree, you can skip a reversible trigger which was getting in a loading zone (I think it's you get on the log pipe early or so). So, whatever you do, it will still be disabled. You fight in ch3 to get the super hammer + yoshi and you derank sometime to prevent a cutscene from happening after. Then, you activate the reversible trigger so you're back in ch2 so you never started ch3, but since your rank is global, it's still kept. Since you got already the ticket, you can just go away back to ch3 and then you do my glitch to break the vent and beating the boss with yoshi and super hammer. It saves 10 minutes because of major league, but it also removes half of the worst rng which is a big improvement, but still not enough.
One day, I ralised there was too much impossibilities to continue. I stopped and the last thing I did was booting my console with the game and lstent the the intro music while reminding myself of all the moments I passed on this game. I will not deny it and I never will, but I cried for a good time on this melody.
My verdict on those 6 months? I was simply even more amazed to see that so much work was put into the inside of the game. I also still wanted to test again and again I was just addicted really. The best part? With how deep I got and how long I saw the same graphics and heard the same audio over and over and I still love that game. When I glitch hunted on console, I clocked my file from 2012 at 99 hours and 99 minutes and the timer is stuck here. I still have that file today, as a reminder of how much I got into it. I even got weird habits like mashing the text on my keyboards at the music rhythm. I probably spent like 500 hours? I can't even tell, but since I started, I was determined to get this game more attention. Which leads to...
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Today: still awesome after 10 years!
That's how I came here. I think you now understand most of my decisions and opinions on this thread now. I shared the sanctuary guardians music to tell you how it really changed me on how I could consider one game to make me so persistent and that needs serious consideration.
After a year and a half for me, and exactly 10 for life, TTYD just and deliberately refuses to get old. It will probably still refuse when I would get old because of how memorable it was. TTYD is a masterpice and I had to post this big memories to honnor it.
aldelaro5 - former glitch hunter of TTYD.
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I'm sorry, I'm late. I will change the tittle for one day, but this posts was way longer than I tough. I even think it's my longest without spoilers, but like I said, it's enjoyable to read for paper mario and TTYD fans. It's actually very interesting if you're interested in glitch or glitch hunting and the way I did that. It feels different to play as glitch hunter.
So, I hope that the part you will read was enjoyable. I enjoyed to type it and reminding me of all those moments.
If you think I got crazy, It's because it is, but that's not me who is crazy; that's my love for this game that is crazy.
Staarih , that's why I see him with partners because I feel they offer more versatility than any other unique abilities. But I said that it needs management which is where it gets interesting because that's how I see his balance.
