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It'sa me, Kaizo Mario!

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
After having El Dorado on the brain since I finished it, and watching Barb play it on stream yesterday, I started a new run on version 1.1 today. I made it through the first five exits (i.e. half the game) in an hour and 40 minutes! For reference, my entire first play took ten and a half hours. I'd be going even faster, but for some reason I got really stuck on Ascension and spent at least 20-30 minutes trying to clear the first half. I don't know if mmBeefStew somehow changed something so the cheese I was doing didn't work anymore, or if I was just playing badly, but I couldn't pull that off anymore, so I had to learn the beginning of the level the intended way and that added some time. DMT only took me 10 minutes, which was nice. Poison mushrooms can still suck a butt, though.

@MCBanjoMike, can you point me towards the version of Akogare with custom music at some point? If I'm gonna replay that one I don't think I want to do it with the stock vanilla soundtrack.

I'm also considering Slop_core's other hack, Dancer to a Discordant System. I'm curious to see what kinds of levels he makes when he's not doing something intentionally easy. I haven't seen any of that hack, but the SMWC description says it's intermediate-level so I feel like I can probably handle it.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
Double posting because I wanted to share this mind-blowing fact that I learned last night: Panga made Super Dram World when he was fifteen years old.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
After having El Dorado on the brain since I finished it, and watching Barb play it on stream yesterday, I started a new run on version 1.1 today. I made it through the first five exits (i.e. half the game) in an hour and 40 minutes! For reference, my entire first play took ten and a half hours. I'd be going even faster, but for some reason I got really stuck on Ascension and spent at least 20-30 minutes trying to clear the first half. I don't know if mmBeefStew somehow changed something so the cheese I was doing didn't work anymore, or if I was just playing badly, but I couldn't pull that off anymore, so I had to learn the beginning of the level the intended way and that added some time. DMT only took me 10 minutes, which was nice. Poison mushrooms can still suck a butt, though.

@MCBanjoMike, can you point me towards the version of Akogare with custom music at some point? If I'm gonna replay that one I don't think I want to do it with the stock vanilla soundtrack.
That's what I've been telling you, dude, runbacks are the best! Learning hacks is super hard, but when you apply that knowledge and muscle memory to replay something, it's really gratifying to see how quickly it falls before you. I'd say my runbacks so far have all been 3-4x faster than the initial runs, it's pretty great.

As for me, after much irritation and more time than I'd like to admit, I've at least finished the first half of the orb level in El Dorado. I can't quite put into words why I wasn't enjoying it, because there were parts that were undeniably cool. The last trick, where you toss the key and follow it quickly with the orb, was pretty dang impressive, too. Do you know what was changed for version 1.1? I'm still playing on 1.0, like the serious kaizo person that I am.

Hoping to improve on my Hark 2 run tonight, I'm pretty sure it's within my grasp. And if it isn't, well, there's always YUMP. I unlocked a few new levels to try, including one whose name I'm pretty sure I've heard before...


ETA: OK, got through the second half of the orb level more quickly, now I get to play the awesome sunset level! Despite my gripes, this game has a real knack for making me feel astonished that I pulled something off. Kicking the orb, ditching the yoshi, picking the orb up again, throwing it and then teleporting to it and launching yourself to safety? That's pretty badass.

Also, Snake, if you'd like Akogare with custom music, sent me a DM and I'll give you a link to the, uh, patch.
 
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lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
As for me, after much irritation and more time than I'd like to admit, I've at least finished the first half of the orb level in El Dorado. I can't quite put into words why I wasn't enjoying it, because there were parts that were undeniably cool. The last trick, where you toss the key and follow it quickly with the orb, was pretty dang impressive, too. Do you know what was changed for version 1.1? I'm still playing on 1.0, like the serious kaizo person that I am.
Yeah, there's a part fairly early on in the first half where you spin jump off of two Spinies, grab an orb, then drop the orb into a hole while bouncing off a third Spiny. In 1.0, there are two death blocks to the right of the hole so you have to drop the orb at a very specific point. Pretty tough! In 1.1, those death blocks are gone and the hole is right against the wall, so you can just throw the orb whenever. Much easier. In my opinion, worth updating for, but you're already past that spot. Definitely update to 1.1 if you plan on doing a runback, though!

There is one other change later in the game, in the second half of Florida Man, but it's so negligible that at this point you're good to stay with 1.0.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
Oh yeah, that part was annoying. Not insurmountable, but I think that change is a net positive. It helped that the trick immediately after, where you launch yourself to the right and spin jump across the shells, was so incredibly cool - took some of the sting out. Anyway, I kind of like that we got past that section before it was nerfed, makes me feel like an old-school kaizo player. Back in my day, there were two extra death blocks on the right side, and we didn’t have coin indicators every three tiles! Darn whippersnappers.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
When I was your age, if we wanted to do a shell jump we had to walk through a field of Munchers, uphill both ways, with ice physics...
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
And my runback of El Dorado is complete! Three and a half hours, a seven hour improvement over my first play. I got stuck in the first half of Florida Man again, but it was mostly smooth sailing otherwise. I continue to be super impressed with the second half of Admiral Snackbar. What a good hack.

I think my shortlist of things to play next is Akogare 1 runback, Mahogen (which I haven't seen, but Shovda spoke very highly of on SMW Central), and Dancer to a Discordant System. I'm not particularly favoring any of them over the others, so I'll see how I'm feeling next time I feel like kaizo. At the moment I'm leaning towards Dancer, only because I'd like to keep the difficulty level of the hacks I've been playing somewhat consistent. We'll see!
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
Ah ha ha every level is worse than the last. Looking forward to when I finally play this game.

I think my shortlist of things to play next is Akogare 1 runback, Mahogen (which I haven't seen, but Shovda spoke very highly of on SMW Central), and Dancer to a Discordant System. I'm not particularly favoring any of them over the others, so I'll see how I'm feeling next time I feel like kaizo. At the moment I'm leaning towards Dancer, only because I'd like to keep the difficulty level of the hacks I've been playing somewhat consistent. We'll see!

I’ve actually been pretty regular in slop_core’s chat for a little while, he’s one of my favourite afternoon streamers. I was in Barb’s channel yesterday when he chose slop to raid and I was so happy for the dude, he totally deserves to succeed. I haven’t tried Dancer yet (and there are a couple hacks I think I’d like to play first), but the sequel is shaping up nicely.

Meanwhile, I’ve got three exits left in El Dorado and I’m starting to be pretty motivated for the final push. Silhouette Summit was another excellent level with some great music (BeefStew apparently did most of the ports for the hack himself?) that once again really pushed me to do some stuff that I would have blanched at two months ago. The improvement is real!

By the way, if anyone is still considering getting a Super Nt, tomorrow’s supposed to be the day. Good luck...
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
Yeah, slop_core seems like a pretty cool guy, I pop into his streams pretty often too. (Also, how old is he? He looks 12 but he appears to be heavily tattooed.)

You're in the home stretch of El Dorado! The last two levels in particular are just so good. The midway of Silhouette Summit is probably my favorite gentle troll. And yeah, BeefStew did most of the ports, and Admiral Snackbar features one of his own compositions that's one of the best songs in the game. You need to play that level on stream so I can spam all the various JAM emotes! You're gonna have to do some light cape work in Florida Man first, though, so feel free to ask if any of that's confusing.

I will probably try for a Super NT tomorrow, against my better judgment...we'll see how it goes!
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
For lack of anything better to do this afternoon, I finally fired up an Akogare 1 runback. Got through the first 7 exits in a bit over an hour, which felt kinda great given that in my first playthrough I wasn't even at the midway of the third level after two and a half. Turns out I've gotten better at kaizo in the intervening months! Also turns out my original assessment of the early levels was right, they're still kinda joyless. I'm past the first two overworld screens though, so I think things pick up from here. I barely remember anything about this hack!

Also got a nice casual yump in the first switch palace, nbd.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
I can't say I'm not a little curious...

Anyway, Riff 2 looks like a great hack, if very difficult. I've watched Infamous Greg play it dozens of times, been curious to give it a try myself. But, uh, not quite yet.
 

SilentSnake

Administrator
(He/him)
Staff member
Moderator
What I will say is holy crap is this easier than GPW2. I feel like I just took off weighted clothing and am a competent kaizo player suddenly.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
GPW2 is the high-altitude training of kaizo, confirmed.

I've been coming around to the idea that I'm going to play it eventually, so I've been trying to think of hacks to bridge the difficulty gap between that and Invictus. Riff 2 seems like a reasonable one (once you get used to the lack of retry), someone in Slop_core's chat (and then the man himself) recommended Peachy Moat World as a good stepping stone too. I still think I'm going to play Dancer to a Discordant System when I wrap Akogare up, but after that I might try to step the difficulty up again.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
I don’t know, man, after my brief session with Marathon I’m starting to wonder if I might be ready? That was going way better than I expected it to. I do want to wrap up El Dorado first (ITEM FLY HOW??) and maybe play an easier hack like Bunbun 2 before diving back into something hard, but I had fun on Friday and I might be ready for more soon.

Of course, I’d still like to get one more PB in Hark 2, try to push my time below 30 minutes before submitting a run. But I’m running out of steam on that front, I think I’ll probably give it one more solid try today or tomorrow and then I’ll move on. I’m not quite ready for the true speedrun grind just yet, it seems.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
I mean, sure, one could always dive in, but with Snake saying levels have been taking him 2-10 hours, I think I want another stepping stone or two before I throw myself onto Barb's altar of fish and kaizo blocks.

You should definitely finish El Dorado, though, because the final two levels (which are right after the one you're currently on) are probably my favorite in the game. Also, not sure if you actually need item fly help or not, but I'll leave this in case you want the info.

So flying with an item is exactly the same as flying normally, you just have to look at Mario's cape flapping to see when you need to pump instead of his head. For Florida Man specifically, what may be tripping you up is that you need to do a couple of turnarounds after you grab the key. One to get away from the wall and a second to face right again. All you need to do for those is tap X once for each (you may be grab X with your thumb while you're holding Y, I have more luck clawing my index finger over to hit X while keeping my thumb on Y -- you cannot let go of Y or you'll stop flying). Depending on your speed you may need to quickly press right on the d-pad to get moving again once you're facing the right direction, but once you're flying to the right again you'll need to pump a couple of times by pressing back like normal.
 

SilentSnake

Administrator
(He/him)
Staff member
Moderator
I do want to clarify that the 10 hour grinds applied only to Toasty Coals and Deuce Lair, one of which is skippable in Any%.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
Lincoln, thanks for the flying tips. I've still done next to no cape in kaizo, so I needed that clarification and I'm not sure I would have gotten it otherwise.

As for GPW2, I don't want to overestimate my own ability, but I've seen so many runs of that game that I think it will really help my progress. Obviously, at some point you actually have to play the damn game, but I feel like I lose a lot of my time to smooth brain syndrome. Figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing makes up an embarrassingly high percentage of the time I spend playing kaizo levels.

ETA: Finished Florida Man! Putting the checkpoint behind the P-switch timer was meeeeeaaaaaannn.

DOUBLE EDIT: And now I know why it's called Admiral Snackbar!
 
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MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
So since I couldn't properly say it last night: congratulations on your thing, Snake! Whatever, whoever or wherever it is will be, or already was, extremely exciting! I can't wait to find out more and/or continue to experience it.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
Akogare runback complete! It took 9 hours, which is a lot longer than I expected, but shorter than the almost 30 hours it took me the first time. 2168 deaths, compared to 7497 (I think). I sped through the first two thirds of the game in about three hours, but the final 10 exits became a little sloggier. Still, I don't think any level took longer than 40 minutes or so.

I don't know how, but in Mighty Mouse's custom music he somehow removed all music and sound effects from the credits...except for when the Yoshi eggs hatch. Kind of hilarious.

Next up: Dancer, I think.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
Spent a good chunk of time with El Dorado last night, but I didn't quite manage to finish it. Admiral Snackbar took me a little over two hours to complete, split fairly evenly between the two halves. I never really managed to get the arrow block jumps in the first half to line up consistently, which was irritating, but the second half was really something. The bits where you manipulate the key and screen wrap together were super impressive and did indeed make me feel sick as hell whenever I pulled them off. I made it to the checkpoint in the final level, but it was getting late and I decided to save the return trip for another day. I actually made the descent harder on myself than I needed to, because I thought you had to go both ways on a single life and I was trying to hit all the invisible blocks on my way down. It's much easier when you don't try to do that! Anyway, it remains a really impressive hack - extremely dense inputs that challenged me and made me grow as a player, combined with great aesthetics and music. I'll probably want to run this one back eventually, but I think it's a little difficult for me to pick up as a speedrun. Imagine how much it would improve my consistency to get good at it though...

Next up will probably be Bunbun 2 and/or Kibeth. I want to play some easier stuff that I can clear quickly before getting back to harder games. Maybe even a certain difficult hack that a lot of people seem to like?
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
The bits where you manipulate the key and screen wrap together were super impressive and did indeed make me feel sick as hell whenever I pulled them off.
The first time I saw the midair screenwrap key jump that starts that section, I actually said "Oh my god" out loud. What a good level.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
The first time I saw the midair screenwrap key jump that starts that section, I actually said "Oh my god" out loud. What a good level.
Yeah, I had a minute of "wait, is it really that? It can't be..." before trying it and realizing it was both super cool and not that hard to do.

EDIT: I watched a playthrough of El Dorado and, seeing it in action again...it's basically a Quickie World game that is hard? Not sure I could articulate why, aside from the relatively short levels, but there's something about it that gives me big QW2 vibes now that I look back on it. Also, WOULD YOU BELIEVE that the reason I had such a hard time with the jump in Snackbar was that I was doing it wrong?! I know, totally shocking. I was popping off the first arrow block, landing on the countdown platform as it fell and then jumping to the second. Turns out, you can just go straight from one arrow to the next! Definitely easier than what I was doing. MCBanjoMike: Certified Kaizo Doofus.
 
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SilentSnake

Administrator
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Staff member
Moderator
Mirkwood is down, that makes 15 exits! Feeling pretty good still, excited to keep going.
Grand Poo World 2 1.1-210414-124137.png
 
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