Super Mario World -- Credits Warp in 5:59.6 (First Time Ever on Console)
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as a landmark of speedrunning, where a trick once limited to tool-assisted runs was pulled off live on hardware.
What it is
SethBling performs the first credits warp in Super Mario World on a real SNES console, a glitch that plays the ending without beating Bowser. The run relies on pixel-perfect positioning and tools such as a helper ROM hack.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2015 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec pdkl95 · 2015-06 · on “Hacking Super Mario World to Warp to the Credits [video]”
I believe it's been posted before, but sethbling (of vanilla-minecraft-hacks fame) pulled off the impossible and did the credit warp on an actual SNES, live[1]. As this video very-nicely explains, this required incredible amounts of pixel-perfect accuracy. Lining up the line of koopa shells on exact x-offsets and very narrow heights mid jump (!) to write the landing-sled - using a controller, realtime - is utterly insane. As a side note sethbling's latest project is teaching[2] (using neuro-evolution) his machine learning bot to play SMW[2], SMB1[3], and Mario Kart (original)[4]. While he machine learning is simple by today's standards, his brief videos give a really nice introduction to the
Strong rec qz3 · 2018-05 · on “MrWint's GBC Pokémon: Yellow Version “Arbitrary Code Execution” (2017)”
There was a time where is discovered the speedrun and tas communities and binge-watched everything it has to offer. I was constantly amazed by what the players achieved, and I especially liked the ones where the gap between tas and human player closes. SethBling made an elaborate, frame-perfect glitch exploit run of Super Mario World where he warps from the first level to the end credits - absolutely unbelievable. [this video]
Cites duskwuff · 2015-05 · on “Gamer beats both Mega Man X and Mega Man X2 using the same controller”
Oh, sure. Still, it's not the first time a speedrunning trick has made its way from TAS into "live" runs. For instance, the SMW credits skip: [this video]
Cites alexose · 2021-11 · on “Writing a Fuzzer for NES Games”
Ever since I saw someone beat Super Mario World by reprogramming the game from within the game itself ( [this video] ), I realized that speedrunning retro games is truly next-level these days.
Cites NobodyNada · 2022-10 · on “Beating Super Mario Bros 3 in 19 frames (2021)”
Some highlights/historically significant examples of this: Super Mario World (TAS, 2014): [LINK] Super Mario Bros. 3 (TAS, 2014): [LINK] - The same run performed RTA (i.e. by a human using a real controller) at AGDQ 2015: [LINK] Super Mario World (RTA, 2015): [this video] Super Mario World "total control" (RTA, 2015): [LINK] Pokemon Yellow total control (TAS, 2017): [LINK] The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (RTA, 2019-ish?): [LINK] Ocarina of Time total control/"Triforce%" (TAS, 2022): [LINK] (explanation: [LINK] )