Yoshi's Island 6-1 100

Nearly 8 years ago Spezzafer first attempted make this Tool Assisted Speedrun, but despite his efforts, his WIP was eventually discontinued at the start of level 4-3. However, his work was not in vain: his action-packed, exciting run showed what great potential the game had and inspired new TASers to give this run a try. In 2009, Baxter and NxCy picked up the project from scratch. After reaching level 3-3, walljumping was discovered, obsoleting most of the run. At the same time, a plethora of new tricks had been found for the earlier levels, ultimately tempting us to take the run back to 1-6 for a second version. Progress was fairly slow, but the pace picked up significantly when Carl Sagan joined the team while we were redoing level 2-2. After years of hard work, we finally managed to finish this project. We used well over a million rerecords for the making of this movie. This is not accurately reflected in the 868307 rerecords attached to the movie file as many rerecords are lost when doing tests, planning routes, and due to working on the TAS with multiple people in general, as only the fastest version is taken. The actual number of rerecords could be as high as twice the number that is shown. These rerecords were not only used for optimizing the TAS as much as possible, but also to make it as entertaining as possible. A hidden help box in 3-2 has the following message: 'We, the mario team poured our hearts and souls into creating this game for your entertainment. It is full of secrets.” (Link1, Link2) We wanted to make a TAS that fully shows off all of the excitement, color, and complexity that Yoshi's Island has to offer, and hope everyone enjoys watching!

Dec 29, 2013 I liked this one a lot too although maybe not quite as much as SMB3, although to be fair I skipped over most secret exits/levels as I plan to play back through and Luigi and 100% the game. Now I'm onto Yoshi's Island and only at 1-2. I like it a lot so far although it's very different. I played Yoshi's Story as a kid and really was not a fan.

Game objectives

Sep 12, 2009 This is a walkthrough of the game, plus featuring a few other things. The walkthrough is done differently, due to the build of the game. You see, Yoshi's Island DS has items that help you get a total of 100 points. The walkthrough will be in sections for each level, detailing important items.
World 6 (Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island) World 6 (also known as the Koopa Kingdom) is the sixth and final world of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and its re-release Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3, resembling the landscape and environment of.

Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43 rerecording v18
100% completion
- At the end of every level, the game gives you a score based on how many stars, red coins and flowers you collected in the level. There are 20 red coins and 5 flowers per level, hidden at fixed locations. These two items are merely collectibles and serve no real function other than being required for maximum score. Stars fuel Yoshi's health: the timer that counts down when Yoshi is hit is increased by 1 unit per star and is capped at 30. There are fixed locations in levels for bundles of stars, such as star clouds and middle rings, but stars can be gotten from various enemies and objects by firing red eggs at them. Red eggs are created whenever a regular green egg ricochets off of at least two surfaces. Each star and red coin is worth 1 point and a flower is worth 10 points, meaning a maximum of 100 points can be scored in a level. There are 6 worlds in the game, each with 8 levels. If all 8 levels in a world are completed with a score of 100, an extra level is unlocked in that world. The goal of 100% is to complete all 54 levels in the game with 100 points.
  - Note: it is possible to collect more than 20 red coins and 5 flowers in a some levels by using 1-1 warps or duplication red coins. There is also a level, 3-E, with 21 red coins and a level, 5-7, with 6 flowers. The game will not give you more than 100 points per level, so in these instances where more can be collected, we collect the minimum required for a score of 100 points.
Takes damage to save time
Uses a game restart sequence
- After beating the 8th level of a world for the first time, a cutscene occurs where the game shows your scores for each level in that world, unlocks the extra level if you have 100% in every level (always the case in this run), and shows Yoshi destroying a castle on the island screen before progressing to the next world. We skip all of this by resetting the game after the score tally screen for the 8th level, which saves a decent amount of time; over 20 seconds per world transition. Another good reason to use resets is that the game’s randomness is also reset, which means that any changes made before a reset will not influence the randomness later on. In particular this allowed us to redo parts of 2-8 and the entirety of 4-8 without affecting the rest of the run.
Forgoes warps
- There is a glitch in Yoshi’s Island where pressing left + right on the same frame at the level select screen causes the game to read your current number of coins when determining which level it should take you to. This trick is the basis of the ‘glitched any%’ category, where 68 coins are collected and the player then warps to 6-8. In theory this would allow for complex level routes, as it may be beneficial to warp to a stage later in the game if your current number of eggs is better suited for that level. However, this then forces the TASer to plan when and how many coins are collected throughout the game on top of stars and eggs. It may also be beneficial to use eggs to collect coins faster, which adds to the complexity. Moreover, it may not even be possible to abuse this trick, as beating later levels early can mess up the level select screen, disallowing you to return to previous worlds in some cases. To avoid any of this trouble we simply banned any use of left + right warping. Perhaps a more important reason (depending on your point of view) is that warping breaks the natural flow of the game and may detract from the run’s entertainment value.
Forgoes time-saving glitches
- In the game there are various ways to move between screens, such as pipes or hidden warps (e.g. 3-7 in the trees). The levels in the game are essentially giant grids of squares, and each square may have 1 exit assigned to it. If you trigger a screen transition (such as by going down a pipe) inside a square you will go to the square’s designated exit. However some screen exit triggers overlap other grid squares which do not have an exit assigned to them. Therefore, if you activate a trigger in an unintentional way, e.g. by being too high from a pipeglitch or landing on a warp from above instead of below, it’s possible to trigger a screen transition while inside a square with no exit. When this happens the game decides to take you to 1-1 at the top left, (0,0) coordinates. You can then go ahead and beat 1-1 and it will count as beating the original level. This trick can be done in a handful of levels and is usually faster than beating the level normally. However, we decided to ban this trick, as playing 1-1 over and over again may quickly become repetitive. It’s also the case that some of the levels which are skipped are interesting levels with cool tricks and routes. We disallowed this with the intent of producing the most entertaining run possible (in our and the forum majority’s opinions when we asked), and this restriction is also consistent with modern RTAs.
Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs
- The final restriction we made is on the 1/1 running trick, named after 1/1 swimming in SMW. This trick basically makes Yoshi run slightly faster than normal at the cost of alternating between pressing < and > every frame. The problem with this is that whenever you lick eggs you must release < and > on the dpad or you will lose speed. Only licks that occur for 1 frame are possible without any speed loss. This severely limits the entertainment possibilities, as modern Yoshi’s Island has become all about cool egg shots and juggling things. The constant wobbling may also be irksome for some. Rather than arbitrarily losing time on cool egg shots, we decided to simply ban this trick outright. Note that this also applies to other input sequences that can be repeated constantly to obtain a higher average speed than 767 subpixels per frame (1/1ing is just the prime example). As before, we disallowed this with entertainment in mind, and the frames lost from not using this trick are hardly visible anyway. This is the only time speed was sacrificed for entertainment.
Genre: Platform

Note that all of these restrictions were chosen while keeping the entertainment value of the run in mind. We consulted the forum to hear other people’s opinions about the different options, and took those into account. You might have preferred slightly different restrictions yourself, but we cannot satisfy everyone at the same time. In hindsight, we are very happy with the choices we made.

Tricks, Glitches and Techniques

Walljumps

If Yoshi moves faster than 3 pixels on a frame while extremely close to a wall, it is possible to move far enough into the wall for the game to put Yoshi as ‘standing on the ground’ for a frame. On this frame you can jump. Normal running speeds are too slow for this to occur (~760 subpixels per frame), but by pressing left for a frame you can get a speed boost for a frame, usually to around ~800 subpixels/frame.By carefully controlling Yoshi’s speed, you can make the frame with the high speed occur very close to the wall and get the trick. Walljumps are also only possible at ‘tile’ boundaries, i.e. every 16 pixels vertically. It is possible to chain many wall jumps by fluttering in between consecutive ones. You have to move far enough away from the wall to be able to accelerate back to a speed higher than your average running speed, and fluttering preserves height during this motion.

Shooting Through Walls

If an egg is fired on the walljump frame (traveling >3 pixels into the wall), it can pass through a one-block thick wall. This generally only works from the right side of the wall (as in 2-2, 4-E, and elsewhere), but for objects very near to the wall it still works from the left side (as in 3-7). An egg can however not completely go through the wall when shot from the left side of a wall.

Special Angles

When you start an eggshot, Yoshi’s aiming cursor cycles through a predetermined set of values. When starting at the bottom, it starts from the value 1024 and goes up by steps of 192 until it reaches the highest value of 11776. If you start aiming while pressing up, you will start at 11776 and the angle goes down by steps of 192. However, when going down, after reaching 1024,it keeps going down all the way to 0. After reaching 0, it goes up in steps of 192 again, but 1024 is not in the table of 192, so this time, the cycle will go through a completely different set of angles. These angles, which are accessed only by letting the angle run down from the highest angle to 0 are called the special angles. Thus the lowest possible egg angle, and other different angles, are only achievable using this method.

Arrow Teleport

If Yoshi jumps and eats a rotating arrow lift on the same frame, then Yoshi will warp on top of it when the arrow lift is spit out, as long as Yoshi is directly underneath it. Note that jumping and eating the lift on the same frame is only possible when the lift has certain angles, which is why a small wait is sometimes required before this glitch is pulled off. This glitch can be used to gain vertical distance quickly in areas with arrow lifts, such as 2-8, 4-4, and 5-8.

Pipeglitch

Normally, when you push down to enter a vertical pipe, Yoshi does an animation showing him climbing into the pipe, and after that animation is done the next screen loads. If you push down + jump on the same frame, Yoshi still goes down the pipe, but this animation is skipped, saving just under 30 frames. Note that this glitch also works for the non-pipe room transitions in level 4-E. This is also the glitch that causes Yoshi to warp back to level 1-1. Since we use the restriction of not warping back to 1-1 in this TAS, we avoid doing the pipeglitch at pipes where doing the glitch results in going back to 1-1.

Gatehack

There are many one-way gates in Yoshi’s Island that can be opened backwards through various means. A horizontal gate with a ceiling can be opened with an egg angled upwards if fired on the right frame. Additionally, any horizontal gate can be opened when certain enemies are spit into the gate. Finally, vertical gates can be opened by falling ‘dead’ eggs: after an egg ricochets a 4th time, it becomes untonguable and falls offscreen. It can however still push gates open like this, as is done in 2-1.

Shell Invulnerability

Yoshi is unable to be hit for a few frames after bouncing off of a koopa shell. This is exploited to get around the spike balls in 4-8.

Sprite Overload

The on-screen sprite limit is both a blessing and a curse in Yoshi’s Island. Because there are so many sprites that are easy to create such as stars, it is very easy to hit the sprite limit and cause new sprites to despawn. This is used in many places throughout the run to intentionally despawn enemies or objects that might slow Yoshi down, and also must be avoided in certain areas to prevent necessary items from despawning, i.e. 3-E. A red coin that despawned in level 1-5 was the reason why over half of the level had to be redone.

Perfect Flutter

By varying the number of frames jump is held and the delay before repressing jump, flutters can be significantly altered to be quicker or higher. There are many locations throughout the game that are just a few pixels out of each. Repeated fluttering is one method of many that can be used to gain enough height to access these areas.

Wall Spit

Normally, enemies spit at walls simply bounce off and Yoshi is unable to bounce off of them. However, if spit into the wall with the right speed/position, they catch the edge like a walljump and can be bounced on. This can be used to gain large amounts of vertical distance.

Slope Speed Change

When run on, slopes in general tend to slow Yoshi down. By just pressing left or right, Yoshi’s acceleration is always a multiple of 8 subpixels/frame^2. When holding one direction for a long time, Yoshi’s maximum speed is 760 on average, as it is cut off when going over 3 pixels per frame, which is 768 subpixels per frame. Slopes can however slow Yoshi down by numbers that do no have to be a multiple of 8, which means that Yoshi’s average speed when jumping off a slope can reach a value as high as 767 subpixels per frame. At this speed, you save about a frame every 100 frames compared to just moving at 760 subpixels/frame.

Offscreen Despawn

Most sprites despawn quickly when offscreen, and in the case of flowers, they don’t load off screen at all. This often makes camera positioning very important for collecting coins and flowers. Additionally, certain undesirable sprites can be left off screen intentionally to avoid having to deal with them, such as falling rocks or the trigger which causes a room to autoscroll like the third room of level 6-5 or level 1-E.

Looking up

When pressing up long enough, Yoshi will look upwards and the screen position scrolls upwards a bit. When Yoshi jumps during the scrolling of the screen, Yoshi will keep its position relative to the screen, meaning that a good portion above Yoshi is revealed. This for instance enables you to spawn and shoot the red coins in the 1-7 cloud room, and avoid having to use the beanstalk to access these coins.

Tonguing Through Walls

Yoshi’s tongue can naturally pass through many walls and objects. This can be used to acquire items, such as the key in 6-6, through the wall.

Tongue Turnaround

When Yoshi’s tongue hits a wall, it can cause him to come to an immediate stop. This is quite often the fastest way to turn around, as simply holding the opposite direction only gradually slows Yoshi down.

Facing Backwards Without Losing Time

The input <>>< can be used to face backwards without losing any time. This is used when an egg needs to be shot backwards, or when juggling eggs.

Red Coin Duplication

Flying shyguys carrying red coins can be used to duplicate red coins. This trick only works on the flyguys that stay on the screen, not the ones that fly in and leave. For it to work, you need to do the following: tongue the shyguy without picking up the red coin, spit out the shyguy so that it rolls offscreen, out of sight. Go to the side so that the place where the shyguy was flying in the first place is offscreen. When you turn back, a new shyguy, holding a red coin will have spawned, allowing you to pick up the same red coin again. Note that this trick does not work if you pick up the red coin beforehand or if you swallow or destroy the shyguy. Because the red coin on the ground will disappear after a short while, it is not possible to do this trick as often as you like on a single red coin carrying shyguy. Also note that it takes a bit of time to set up the duplication, and thus it is generally only used when a red coin or two would require going into an entirely separate room in the level. As mentioned before, obtaining more than 20 red coins does not score you any extra points when you finish the level. If you collect 20 or more red coins in a level you are simply awarded with 20 points.

Quick Ground Pound

Objects such as crates and posts can be ground pounded slightly faster by being as close to the object as possible when initiating the ground pound. The groundpound hits while Yoshi is still spinning around.

Offscreen Pot Break

The pot which contains a key in 1-4 can be broken immediately by an offscreen eggshot. This then causes the key to fly in the direction Yoshi is facing. Unfortunately, the same trick does not work on the 2-8 pot.

Baxter

Fondly named after its inventor, the Baxter is a method of flinging eggs over the goal ring to be picked up by the next Yoshi. This can also be pulled off when playing the game in real time, but it requires some skill. Because of this, the trick became a popular way of showing off skill during a speedrun, and it gained popularity. The speedrunner Trihex started calling the trick a “Baxter”, which is the name it is now commonly known by. It spawned a series of useful tricks mentioned below.

Key Baxter

Keys, like eggs, can be flung over a goal ring to the next Yoshi. This allows you to start the next level with a key and save the time to pick up the key in that level. In this TAS, this is only done in 2-3, as the requirements are quite specific: since you have to bring the key beyond the goal ring without collecting it (if you collected it, the key will vanish when hitting the goal ring), the key must be in the last room of the level. It is obviously also a requirement that a key is needed in the next level and that taking the key with you in this last room takes less time than actually collecting it in the next level. The latter was, for instance, not the case for taking a key from 4-7 in to 4-8.

Star Baxter

Stars can also be collected by the next Yoshi after beating a level. This makes certain stars accessible that would be otherwise impossible to obtain quickly such as the stars from the final flower in level 3-E.

Chicken Baxter

It is also possible to take Huffin Puffins (colloquially known as chickens) with you from one level to the next. If you aim a chicken, pushing Y will cancel your aiming. When this is done just before hitting the goal ring, it is possible that baby mario will take it to the next Yoshi like a regular egg. Normally, they fly away upon hitting the goal ring. Because these chickens are not meant to be taken to different levels, they are given random sprites in levels where they do not belong.

Autoscroll Trigger Skip

There are several autoscroll triggers that can be skipped. 1-E is normally a fairly long autoscroller. However, walljumping up the left wall and then bouncing across the flying bats lets Yoshi skip the trigger to begin the autoscroll, and complete the level at full speed. This same principle applies to the ending room of 6-5, but unfortunately was not possible for levels that begin with the autoscroll activated, as in 1-5, 5-6, and the first two rooms of 6-5.

Melon Bug Boost

Melon bugs have the interesting property of setting Yoshi’s speed to their own when Yoshi collides with one. If Yoshi spits out a melon bug, it will go faster than normal maximum movement speed. If he then collides with the bug, he will get this speed boost. If Yoshi quickly grabs the bug again he can then spit it out even faster. This can be repeated over and over to achieve incredibly high speeds, allowing Yoshi to pass through walls as in 4-5.

Enemy Height Boost

If Yoshi barely jumps over an enemy without colliding with it, it is possible to gain a few pixels of height because the game forces Yoshi up slightly. Using this height boost off a fallow spring in 4-3 allowed us to gain enough height for a walljump.

Moving Platform Jump

Moving platforms add to Yoshi’s speed up to a certain amount in the direction they are moving. This means that you can jump really high off of platforms moving vertically, and move really fast when jumping off of horizontal platforms. The maximum speed obtainable from a red platform is around 2,000 subpixels/frame (almost 3 times normal max speed).

Train Track Glitch

If the train lands directly on the starting tracks while holding left or right, it is possible to glitch off of the tracks. Since the tracks confine the train, it can be faster to do this, as in 2-8 and 5-8.

Ducking Fall

Yoshi’s hitbox becomes smaller when he ducks. Thus, if you duck while falling off of a ledge, it is possible to pass underneath a ceiling more quickly than would otherwise be possible.

Slow fall

Holding B slows Yoshi’s descent up to the maximum fall speed. This allows extra long jumps to be made if held after fluttering (or canceling a flutter).

Bottom of The Goal Ring

If Yoshi hits the bottom of the goal ring, the level ends a few frames sooner as it takes less time for the next Yoshi to grab baby mario and exit the screen.

Ground Pound Door Entry

Yoshi must be touching the ground in order to enter a door. When jumping up from below, ground pounding to touch the floor allows Yoshi to enter a door more quickly.

Carrying More than 6 Eggs

Normally Yoshi can only carry at most 6 eggs. If Yoshi is aiming an egg, it does not count to his total, and so he may pick up a new egg and have 6 in reserve as well as the one currently being aimed. If the shot is cancelled an egg is lost, however. Additionally, eggs/enemies may be juggled across a level and eaten/collected at a later point when we have more room to carry eggs.

Swag

The most important trick in Yoshi’s Island: juggling eggs and enemies and doing tons of crazy eggshots. This tantalizes Trihex into trying to incorporate ever-increasingly ridiculous swag in real time, thus ruining his speedruns.

Level Times

While there was no previously published movie in this category, we were able to compare our progress to some WIPs and test movies. These movies were very helpful for managing the number of eggs and stars throughout each level, to provide us with ideas, and to have something to compete with. These were the movies we compared with:

Level 1-1 to 4-2 by Spezzafer (smv)
Level 5-1 to 5-4 by Nono (Nicovideo) (no input file available)
Level 5-5 to 6-8 by Zvsp (Nicovideo 1/2) (Nicovideo 2/2) (smv)
Level 1-E to 6-E by Zvsp (Nicovideo) (smv)

Note that you will need the (J) v1.2 ROM for Zvsp’s smv files.Here is the complete list of our level times compared to Spezzafer’s and Zvsp’s movie:

Level	Our Time	Spezzafer’s / Zvsp’s Time	Difference
1-1	39.18	43.73	4.54
1-2	42.95	44.71	1.76
1-3	47.60	51.28	3.68
1-4	1:51.56	1:56.34	4.78
1-5	2:28.33	2:28.41	0.08
1-6	1:21.25	1:29.01	7.76
1-7	44.04	55.89	11.84
1-8	1:44.43	1:57.06	12.63
2-1	1:46.33	1:11.15	-35.81
2-2	1:38.09	2:01.04	22.94
2-3	1:16.75	1:19.09	2.35
2-4	2:07.00	2:35.96	28.96
2-5	1:10.65	1:35.93	25.28
2-6	1:16.79	1:25.03	8.23
2-7	1:47.28	2:01.45	14.16
2-8	3:23.93	3:38.55	14.61
3-1	1:00.61	1:02.83	2.21
3-2	36.36	43.18	6.81
3-3	2:20.93	2:24.94	4.01
3-4	3:15.75	3:23.61	7.86
3-5	50.39	51.26	0.86
3-6	54.35	1:12.71	18.36
3-7	1:44.73	1:52.06	7.33
3-8	1:43.63	1:48.28	4.65
4-1	1:24.31	1:35.15	10.83
4-2	1:15.54	1:18.65	3.10
4-3	1:11.11
4-4	3:22.55
4-5	58.89
4-6	1:14.76
4-7	45.70
4-8	2:16.83
5-1	1:18.16
5-2	1:00.68
5-3	2:22.91
5-4	2:52.36
5-5	1:23.68	1:27.41	3.73
5-6	3:37.76	3:39.78	2.01
5-7	1:11.93	1:31.68	19.75
5-8	2:27.46	2:47.08	19.61
6-1	1:14.73	1:16.18	1.44
6-2	1:09.21	1:11.63	2.41
6-3	44.04	44.93	0.88
6-4	3:08.01	3:11.59	3.58
6-5	4:57.53	4:58.16	0.63
6-6	1:19.36	1:27.73	8.36
6-7	2:03.98	2:09.44	5.46
6-8	4:32.83	4:40.14	7.31
1-E	27.39	36.25	8.84
2-E	33.91	34.68	0.76
3-E	16.93	24.46	7.53
4-E	1:33.61	1:59.01	25.39
5-E	1:45.11	1:49.20	4.08
6-E	1:39.16	1:44.66	5.50

Notes

The level times were measured from the first input frame of a level (when the “10 appears) to the frame where Yoshi does his throwing animation when hitting the goal ring. For levels with a boss, the time stops the first frame that the boss explosion can be heard. This is the same method of timing as used in the non-toolassisted individual level runs. Note that this method of timing does for instance not account for time saved compared to Spezzafer in between levels due to going through the goal ring at a lower position, or due to resetting the game in between worlds.
The time difference for level 2-1 is negative because Spezzafer finished this level faster than we did. Spezzafer used a 1-1 warp in this level, and we do not use any 1-1 warps in our TAS. See the Game Objectives section of this submission text for more information about this restriction.
In levels 5-5 to 5-8, Zvsp used 1/1ing to obtain a higher average speed than 767 which allowed him to save some frames here and there compared to us. We decided against using 1/1ing for reasons explained in the Game Objectives section of this submission text.
There are no level time comparisons for the levels 4-3 to 5-4 because we had no input files for these levels to compare to.

Level By Level Comments

Here we present the more notable moments in each level. We will often refer to particular tricks or glitches in this section. For a detailed explanation of these tricks, please see the “Tricks, glitches and techniques”-section of this submission text. A more in-depth, level by level analysis will be done in the form of an audio commentary, which will be found here later.

1-1: Make Eggs, Throw Eggs

A precise extended flutter followed by a perfect flutter can be done from the shy guy on the rock to reach the top area at the start of the level. We have to wait a little bit for him to walk to the top of the rock to get enough height. Creating red eggs and using them for stars is generally the fastest way to obtain 30 stars, as it allows us to skip clouds and middle rings. This will be seen throughout the run, but on 1-1 in particular we are able to skip the secret cloud at the cliff climbing section.

1-2: Watch Out Below!

A straightforward level. We skip the helicopter by using some flutters. This is the first level where we do the pipeglitch, which skips the animation of Yoshi going in to the pipe, saving nearly half a second.

1-3: The Cave of Chomp Rock

A technical level that demonstrates the use of eggs to pick up flowers and red coins at the very edge of the screen. A lot of things in this game are collected out of sight; be sure to listen out for the sound of red coins and flowers. In general if you see a random shot fly off into the void it’s to collect flowers/coins.

1-4: Burt the Bashful's Fort

In the first room of this level, we take a total of 7 eggs with us. Yoshi can only carry 6 eggs; a 7th egg is juggled so that we can pick it up later when an egg slot frees up. We shoot the pot off-screen to break it early. The key will fly in the direction Yoshi is facing, so we look to the left as it breaks.

1-5: Hop! Hop! Donut Lifts

The first autoscroller of the run. Due to a sprite overload, a red coin near the beginning despawned, which we only noticed later on in the level, meaning we had to redo most of the level. We saved a few frames by having a good x-position at the end of the level, but other than that there is not much to say as far as speed goes. We did spent a lot of time trying to make this level as entertaining as possible.

1-6: Shy Guys on Stilts

The first door in this level can be opened sooner by the use of a ground pound. It is faster to shoot the red coins after finishing the mole section, rather than picking them up as the mole. We collect a bunch of extra eggs in this level. These are all needed to speed up 1-7 and 1-8. We needed a lot of red eggs going into level 1-7 in order to skip the middle ring, which ultimately lead to the discovery of the so-called Baxter shot, where an egg is juggled past the goal ring and collected by the next Yoshi. In general, a lot of time was spent finding the fastest route across multiple levels taking into account the number of eggs available, their color, the number of stars, etc.

1-7: Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy

A lot happens in this level in a short period of time. We use a lot of red eggs to get 30 stars, skipping the middle ring. Collecting the melon also saves some eggs. In the sky room we shoot all the red coins from the ground. Looking up is required to scroll the camera up far enough so that the coins may be hit. Shooting eggs from specific positions at a precise angle allowed us to collect the 4 red coins by only using 2 eggs. Normally you are supposed to push a rock to unveil a beanstalk, which you then use to climb up to the clouds.

1-8: Salvo the Slime's Castle

Wall jumps allow us to navigate the water room very quickly. The strategy for Salvo uses one of the enemies that spawns, intended for you to refill your eggs with. Spitting this enemy directly into Salvo enabled us to continuously damage the boss, which results in a very fast kill.

2-1: Visit Koopa and Para-Koopa

A vertical gatehack completely skips the baby mario section. We ride Poochy briefly as he runs faster than Yoshi. This level features a wrong warp that puts you further ahead in the same level. We use a pipeglitch after the Poochy room to warp straight into the autoscroller. It is possible to do a continuous flutter underneath a falling block. Near the end we use this to preserve an extended flutter underneath a block to stay low enough to shoot the flower, and then used the extended flutter to climb up the block.

2-2: The Baseball Boys

By using a combination of wall jumps and extended flutters we managed to climb the first part of this level very fast. The second room features the first use of shooting through walls, which allowed us to skip the leftmost part of that room. With a sequence of very precise shots it is possible to shoot all the red coins in the mole area, completely skipping the mole.

2-3: What's Gusty Taste Like?

A mostly straightforward level, with a lot of interesting egg shots to keep things going at full speed. It is faster to avoid picking up the Baby Mario Star. The final room also features the sole key Baxter of the run. We collect this key by tonguing it through a wall.

2-4: The Bigger Boo's Fort

Having the key from 2-3 saves a huge amount of time, as it skips a large detour necessary to get the intended key. We also use a gatehack to skip the intended detour of a later room.

2-5: Watch Out for Lakitu

This is an action-packed level with many enemies lying around to play with. Ground pounding into the shell cancels the otherwise inescapable pounding animation, allowing us to break the crate above the pit rather than pushing it forward first. With a long chain of walljumps we completely skip having to use the train. The final room is a great example of how the TAS can run through a complicated section and collect everything without losing much time.

2-6: The Cave of the Mystery Maze

A big trick early on here involves throwing an egg down and slowly following it. The egg flies past where a gate normally exists, as we delay scrolling the camera to spawn the gate after the egg has gone by it. The egg then picks up the red coins behind the gate. This saves a very large amount of time, and this gate cannot be gatehacked, as there is no ceiling to do the typical egg shot at. Note that egg shots through a 1-tile thick wall only work from the right side to the left, which means that the red coins at the top left of the large cave room have to be collected using the intended method.

2-7: Lakitu's Wall

The first use of red coin duplication in the run appears early on here and it saves a lot of time. We pick up 2 extra red coins to skip the ones in the pole near the 2nd flower, and a huge pole later on. There are red coins inside the area the huge pole encloses, so we shoot these through the pole on the right side. We also despawn the cannons early on to be able to ground pound the poles they guard uninterrupted. In the final room we skip the car by climbing on top of the help box. We also spent a lot of time planning the egg route for this level, as many eggs are needed in 2-8.

2-8: The Potted Ghost's Castle

In the first room, we jump off moving platform on the first frame, which provides a boost in the y-speed, allowing us to jump over the middle ring. Arrow teleportation massively speeds up the large spike room in this castle. This level also features one of the run’s 2 train tricks. On the way back from the train room we warp at the lower pipe rather than entering the normal pipe. This is another case where a wrong warp puts you further ahead in the same level. We enter the vase room with the largest number of eggs possible to shoot the vase with, as this is much faster than just pushing it. More arrow teleportation near the end gives this level a quick finish. In the boss we walljump over and push him from the right side, which is significantly faster than the intended method. When pushing him to the left, Yoshi slowly moves through the pot and will eventually be ejected to the left. To avoid this we occasionally duck.

3-1: Welcome to Monkey World!

We manipulated a monkey to serve as a platform at the start of the vertical climb in the second room. Walljumping also speeds up the climb quite a bit. Taking damage at the end of the level is equally fast as ducking, so naturally, we went with taking damage.

3-2: Jungle Rhythm...

Walljumping and shooting through walls greatly help the vertical part of this level and turned this relatively short stage into a big time saver. Due to lack of things to shoot for stars in this level, we had to end this level with a star Baxter which, besides just looking nice, was also the best strategy for this level.

3-3: Nep-Enut's Domain

It is actually rather tricky to collect the submarine bubble when falling down the hole. Using a ducking fall and the right acceleration enabled us to collect it this way. It is faster to take damage during the submarine section than to wait for the rotating blade to pass. The eggshot through a narrow opening above the water was one of the hardest eggshots in the entire game to get while minimizing slowdown. It took many hours to get.

3-4: Prince Froggy's Fort

There is an unavoidable middle ring in the final room of this level, meaning it is ideal to get as many stars as possible before touching it, to minimise the ring time. Having 29 stars instead of 30 is only a single frame slower; often less than or equal to the cost of manipulating a final star to be collectible anyway. The damage the boss takes per hit varies greatly, and with some careful control we managed to beat him in only 5 hits.

3-5: Jammin' Through the Trees

Not a lot to say here. This level is short but sweet.

3-6: The Cave of Harry Hedgehog

Shooting through walls skips the mole entirely, saving lots of time. The shot to collect all red coins is very precise, which is why this was the place where we discovered special angles. We didn’t end up using them here though. For 1 frame you can jump off a falling p-switch without activating it. In the secret room we use this to get enough height to shoot the flower.

3-7: Monkeys' Favorite Lake

We pick up the flower in the enclosure in the 2nd room with a wall shot. Eggs won’t go through walls when moving to the right, but they seem to go far enough to pick up the flower, which itself is sitting slightly inside the wall.

3-8: Naval Piranha's Castle

Simply by slowing down enough, it is possible to pass through the fish in the first room without being eaten. Shooting the big ghosts just off-screen hits them while they’re still growing. By doing this it’s possible to make them small enough to jump over in just 1 shot. Some walljumps avoid having to enter the water near the end. At the boss we use the famous quick kill easter egg.

4-1: GO! GO! MARIO!!

It is very well hidden, but if you pay close attention, you will notice that a red coin is duplicated in this level. This red coin is used to skip the Baby Mario section of this level. Also note how we use a bullet to get a big vertical as a small timesaver.

4-2: The Cave of the Lakitus

We use some very precise egg shots to avoid having to go up to the flower near the POW-block. Also note that a lakitu is spit off-screen in order to avoid a sprite overload which caused a red coin to despawn. We saved time in the falling room by using special angles and doing a ground pound when possible. Near the end, both arrows are hit roughly at the same time so that the egg’s path after hitting an arrow is only shown once.

4-3: Don't Look Back!

This level starts out by aiming an egg for quite some time, which is done to carry 7 eggs around. In the helicopter section, we use walljumps to gain enough height to spawn and shoot the red coins, skipping the helicopter. It is possible to shoot some of the red coins in this room from outside the room, through the wall, but unfortunately not all of them. With a lot of planning, we managed to get enough stars from shooting enemies to avoid having to use the middle ring.

4-4: Marching Milde's Fort

By using walljumps, we avoid having to watch the staircloud animations. This level required quite a bit of planning, since the four keys can be obtained in any order. The amount of eggs was a big factor in the order we choose as you cannot carry as many eggs when you are also carrying around the keys. In this level a large number of previously mentioned tricks are all used in quick succession, such as arrow teleports, walljumps, shots through walls and so on. The boss is shot across the room to minimize the number of ground pounds needed.

4-5: Chomp Rock Zone

An entire room is skipped by duplicating red coins. Then this level takes a very different turn from other Yoshi’s Island levels. A trick was discovered by ArneTheGreat to use melon bugs to achieve high speeds (see trick section for details). This was used to pass through walls and move through the end of the first room very quickly. Notice at the very end, the melon bug bounces back and knocks Yoshi into the wall, allowing for a walljump up to the final area. It is faster to use a chomp rock trick to reach the end of the second room, but unfortunately we cannot get enough stars while doing it, so it was not used in the end. To collect the final flower, an egg is first through to stun the pitcher, keeping him out of the way for a second egg to hit the flower.

4-6: Lake Shore Paradise

A wallshot at the start skips having to swim to get access to a coin. This level duplicates a lot of red coins to skip an entire cave room just before the final room. At the end, a star baxter is used to collect the final two stars.

4-7: Ride Like the Wind

Shells, unlike other things in the game, can be bounced on after ricocheted off of a wall. This, in conjunction with walljumps, are used to skip directly over the top of the level in the first room. We had a lot of difficulty managing all of the stars in this level, while still getting enough eggs. Eventually, we managed to skip the middle ring and while having enough eggs to collect everything else. An eggshot opens the horizontal gate from behind at the start of the last room, and the huffin puffin is transferred to the next Yoshi for use in 4-8.

4-8: Hookbill the Koopa's Castle

The spike balls are passed through using the invincibility frames granted by bouncing off of a koopa shell. The last one is respawned favorably so that Yoshi can barely squeak by under it. We skip several staircases in the 2nd room using offscreen eggshots that collect two red coins. Normally a middle ring blocks the crate containing the key, but we spawn a lot of stars to despawn the middle ring. The boss was the reason we brought the chicken from 4-7. Instead of having to fire multiple eggs at him to make him fall on his back, the chicken makes this happen immediately.

5-1: BLIZZARD!!!

This level features a bunch of red coin duplication to skip 2 side rooms. There’s a trick near the end of the first room where we keep the camera quite low as we climb up. This prevents a chomp rock from spawning too soon and blocking our path. An enemy wall spit is also used in the 2nd room to climb the area faster.

5-2: Ride the Ski Lifts

Interestingly, there is an egg hidden on top of a single piece of foam above the screen at the very start of the level. A ground pound makes the egg spout give many eggs at once, which was needed as there are very few enemies to eat in this level. Near the end, we turn around instantly by falling into the side of the penguin. Finally, a very precise flutter allows us to reach the final penguin sooner.

5-3: Danger - Icy Conditions Ahead

At the start of this level, we use a big flutter in combination with a walljump to go over the top of the screen, avoiding fluttering over the water. Due to the lack of things to shoot, we have to take the middle ring in this level. Using it turns the two enemies into the final two required stars. Then there is lots of skiing, which is optimized solely by jumping on the right frames.

5-4: Sluggy the Unshaven's Fort

We use a combination of walljumps and extended flutters to navigate this castle very quickly. Shooting the blue spikes saves time at the cost of some eggs, as otherwise we would have to flutter over them. One of the two big tricks in this level is skipping the middle floor entirely at the section with the staircases. Normally you are supposed to take a fairly long detour and pick up 2 red coins, but we get these by duplicating red coins in the long ghost room. After fluttering up to the top floor, we keep the screen low with perfect jumps to prevent an otherwise unavoidable middle ring from spawning. The second big trick in this level is a famous skip, which involves fluttering through the long ghost platform room instead of riding on the ghost. It is during this that we perform the red coin duplication by using a bat to climb up to the shy guys and breaking through the spike wall to scroll the screen enough for the duplication to work. Shooting the boss just off-screen allows us to damage him with a single shot, which makes the first hit faster. After every hit the boss is invincible for a certain period of time, so it doesn’t really matter how we do the next 3 hits.

5-5: Goonie Rides!

By jumping across the goonies in the 2nd room, we are able to skip using the helicopter. This part was tricky to navigate, and at one point we had to land on a falling goonie that we had shot to gain enough height. In the final room we use a series of wall jumps to climb up to the end faster. As we complete the final section of the part rather quickly, it takes a while for the red switch timer to run down, even after the goal ring.

5-6: Welcome to Cloud World

During the autoscroller, we managed to do a seven-egg juggle -- the largest number of eggs juggled in any of the current Yoshi’s Island TAS’s. In the last room, a spinning spiked platform is used to smack Yoshi really high off screen, but he takes no damage because it is off screen. Gusties are used at the end of the level to bounce off of and prevent the need to flutter. A chicken baxter is done at the end to take a chicken into 5-7.

5-7: Shifting Platforms Ahead

Penguins can be spit into the wall and bounced off of repeatedly. This is the only level in the game with 6 flowers. Doing a first frame jump on vertical red platforms can give a huge vertical boost. The extra flower is hidden way off screen, and is obtained by firing an egg into the sky. Shooting this somewhat hidden flower allows us to skip a room. At the end of the level, a tricky eggshot that passes through a flower because it has not yet loaded is used to get the red coins in the back, then ricochet back into the now-loaded flower.

5-8: Raphael the Raven's Castle

This level has quite a few tricky eggshots, including a ricochet for the first flower, and a wallshot for the second flower and some red coins. It required extensive luck manipulation to get the two stars from the third flower, as well as a tricky eggshot that hits the far left side of the flower. Arrow teleportation is used in the block break room, and quite a lot in the next room as well. A glitch to move off of the train tracks is used in the train room, which allows you to complete the section in only one train cooldown instead of having to grab another train bubble. The boss’s movement patterns can be manipulated, so that he moves as soon as possible and in a favorable direction, which avoids him using his slow attacks.

6-1: Scary Skeleton Goonies!

Due to an unavoidable middle ring in the second room, we had to collect as close to 30 stars in the first room as possible to minimize slowdown. In the second room, the lower red coins can be collected with an eggshot that passes through the crate. At the very end, the flying green enemies, like koopa shells, can be bounced off of immediately after hitting a wall, unlike most enemies. This prevents the need to flutter.

6-2: The Cave of the Bandits

A very precise eggshot is used to collect the flower in the second room. Baby mario walljumps are a lot easier than normal walljumps because he moves faster, and were used to skip a portion of the final room.

6-3: Beware the Spinning Logs

The spinning logs can be used to gain a lot of height, but it is only worthwhile if the alternative would be fluttering, as they do slow Yoshi down briefly. It was very difficult to manipulate all of the stars and shyguys to move correctly at the end of the level, as even minor changes cause shyguys’ movement patterns to change.

6-4: Tap-Tap the Red Nose's Fort

It is faster to briefly backtrack and go over the top of the level than to wait for the sliding columns at the end of the first room. There is usually a second key needed to complete this level, but a single big flutter is used to bypass the locked pipe. Fluttering over the lava is faster than taking the log of shame. Finally, the boss is knocked into the lava really quickly due to some crazy egg ricochets (recommend watching with slowdown).

6-5: The Very Loooooong Cave

Make sure to unmute your sound if it’s muted, as some of the level plays along with the music. The autoscroller section is just messing around as it can’t be sped up. The very last room is usually an autoscroller, but this is skipped by doing a few jumps on the first frame possible, which keeps the screen from scrolling and loading the trigger for the autoscrolling.

6-6: The Deep, Underground Maze

The first key is grabbed through the wall by freezing Yoshi’s tongue at maximum extension, which allows it to freely pass through walls. The rooms are done out of order due to the use of a walljump at the end to skip having to spawn a slow platform from a cloud. An enemy spit can be used to open gates backwards when eggs won’t work.

6-7: KEEP MOVING!!!!

The rotating platforms can be spawned faster by scrolling the screen up to them as soon as possible. This is accomplished by the long sequence of jumps at the beginning, and looking up later on. In the second room, the slow green autoscrolling platform is skipped, first by blasting through the foam with some tricky eggshots, and then walljumping up the vertical climb. Baby mario is skipped because we need to collect a flower from a cloud using eggs, and baby mario can’t fire eggs. Then, numerous gatehacks are used to reach the exit as fast as possible.

6-8: King Bowser's Castle

Door 4 is the fastest door at the start. Since kamek’s magic can turn wall tiles into enemies, we use that to obtain 30 stars during the autoscroller. Bouncing on baby bowser’s head prevents him from jumping, letting him take damage from a ground pound quicker. For final bowser, we found that hitting him with two eggs at once is the fastest strategy. Pause + select can be used to exit out of any level that has already been completed. At the very end, the game saves right as bowser explodes. If you pause the game just before that and then cancel it, for a few frames after the explosion it is possible to press select to end the level, as it occurs after the level has been saved. This is much faster than resetting the game to get to the extra levels.

Extra Levels:

In order to minimize overworld movement time, the extra levels are done last rather than at the end of every world. When you beat a world, the game puts you straight into the next world, meaning it takes 2 transitions to go back and complete the level you just unlocked and then to return to where you were. As we are still in world 6 after finishing 6-8, doing 6-E first also saves one world transition. Apart from this, the actual order of the extra levels at the end only costs a few frames to change, and was very difficult to optimize. Because some levels require more eggs than others, whereas other levels produce eggs, we had to constantly redo the ending order as we discovered new places to use or obtain eggs.

6-E: Castles - Masterpiece Set

The long tunnel ghosts at the start normally have to be hit with an egg many times, but spitting the first shyguy into them hits them repeatedly. Slowing down briefly before the tunnel ghosts also causes them to spit an enemy out much quicker, which we used for extra eggs. In the third room, we shot a lot of blue spikes with eggs to avoid having to slow down to dodge them. A combination of walljumps and bouncing off of eggs thrown by baseball boys allowed us to skip a platform autoscroller.

1-E: Poochy Ain't Stupid

This level is normally a long autoscroller, but the autoscroll trigger can be skipped by going over the first area. We look up at the start of this level in order to scroll the screen upward. This screen scroll carries over into all of the walljumps, allowing the bats to spawn further up. Bat positioning is highly random, with any movement or action altering their height, and had to be extensively manipulated to get the most desirable patterns.

2-E: Hit That Switch!!

While the intended route for this level involves riding around a lot of platforms, we are able to skip most of that by doing some fluttering after getting a big jump off of the first platform. Then, at the end of the level, we skip another set of platforms entirely. A walljump is used to go over the red blocks at the end in order to minimize fluttering.

3-E: More Monkey Madness

This is a notorious level for undesirable sprite overload, and as a result we had to scrape by with as few eggs as possible, as having extra would cause even more sprites to despawn. Even as it was, the 4th flower still despawned on us for quite a while, until we figured out the best way to remove sprites as quickly as possible in the middle section while still moving quickly. Star movement after spawning is random, so that had to be heavily manipulated to get everything we needed in this level. The final 3 stars are collected by the next Yoshi.

5-E: Kamek's Revenge

In the first screen, a key is clipped through a chomp rock by brushing the rock’s top left corner. Then, eggs are juggled up above the red switch because they would put Yoshi above 5 eggs +1 key if collected immediately. This allows us to shoot the star cloud and then use the egg aiming trick to acquire two extra eggs. At the end of the skiing section, a different helicopter cloud was collected at the start by doing a precise jump off of the final ski slope. This helicopter cloud was actually more convenient to get all the red coins as fast as possible. The baseball boys egg throws were used to collect several red coins without having to actually touch them with the helicopter. At the end of the helicopter section, we fly inside a penguin to quickly lose our upward y-speed, which lets us reach the end sooner.

4-E: The Impossible? Maze

We had been pondering what we could possibly do to shave off over a thousand frames in order to cut two hours, and 4-E seemed to have the most potential. We knew we could skip the red coins collected during the helicopter section with a wallshot, but we still needed to get to the top of the level. An inconvenient backwards water tunnel had been preventing us from making it to the top, until it was discovered that creative wall tonguing could minimize the amount the water pushed Yoshi backwards.

Ending

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the game, we are unable to end on the credits. The reward for getting 100% on an extra level in a world is a star at the top right of the title screen. Consequently, the mark of a full 100% completion of the game is having 6 stars there. We decided to end the run on this screen. Technically the last input necessary to truly have a 100% file is any button to exit the score tally screen on the final level, as the game doesn’t save you beating the level until the fadeout after the score tally. We thought ending on the title screen, displaying all 6 stars was a nicer way to finish than ending on the world 4 level select screen, and it costs very little extra time.

Author’s Comments

Baxter’s Comments

I always thought spezzafer's 100% WIP was one of the most entertaining bits of TASing I had seen, so I really wanted to see the complete game TASed. Unfortunately, Spezzafer had stopped working on the run permanently, and I knew that the best chance of ever seeing the completed TAS was giving it a go myself. I had some other projects I was working on at the time, and when I completed those, NxCy had just done an improved version of the glitched TAS for Yoshi's Island and had uploaded a movie on youtube that completed the first level on 100%. It was exciting to work with NxCy; he always had inventive ideas, creative solutions and produces very optimized work. Sometimes progress was fast, sometimes slow. Especially having to redo previously optimized work due to some new discovery didn't help the general pace. When we were redoing nearly the entire WIP due to the discovery of walljumps, Carl Sagan had just made an any% TAS of this game. He was very motivated to TAS this game, and he was a great addition to the team. Carl has a great eye for entertainment and is a very hard worker. The TAS moved along pretty smoothly from then on, with the occasional problems you are bound to walk into when working on a TAS of this size. At some points, it was hard to even imagine ever finishing this project, but it just had to be done. I'm really glad with the way the final product turned out but most of all, it was just a blast working on it with Carl and NxCy.

Carl Sagan’s Comments

I'd like to thank Nxcy and Baxter for allowing me to join them on this project. It has been quite an adventure tackling this game together, and getting trolled by it together. I remember finally getting through a difficult section in 5-2, and Baxter and I were thinking, 'well, the hard part is finally over.' Little did we know, something as simple as getting a shyguy to spawn so we could get an egg would plague us for the next several hours. It became a running gag that, as soon as we got to a part where we felt like we'd finally get a break, the game would throw something else unexpected at us. Sometimes our reward for getting through a section faster, like after Baxter's amazing eggshots to get the first flower in 4-2 (which I had dismissed as impossible), resulted in the game not loading the following red coins because we went through the area too quickly. And then there were the times when Baxter and I would spend hours failing to do a difficult walljump or some other trick, and we'd send Nxcy the file and he'd say, 'Got it!' 30 seconds later. Nxcy's endless creativity shows up time and time again in this run, and it was always awesome to see what he'd think of next. It has been a pleasure working together.

I also want to thank the entire #Yoshi community for all the love and support for the TAS. Trihex's HNNNGGs gave me the motivation to keep going every time ArneTheGreat discovered something new that required redoing a level ;) I'm happy to say the time has finally come... to F my hot TAS.

NxCy’s Comments

Special Thanks

Spezzafer, Nono and Zvsp

andymac, ArneTheGreat, Zvsp, Romi, Trihex, Spezzafer and Mister

For their suggestions, tips and glitches.

Partyboy1a

For his lua script which allowed us to easily edit our TAS. We used this script a LOT.

Aktan

All people that supported us on the forum, #yoshi on irc and elsewhere

Mothrayas: Judging.

Mothrayas: There is really not so much that needs to be said here. This is an incredible piece of art with a lot of effort put into maximizing both the optimization level of the run, as well as the entertainment value. The positively massive amount of rerecords, spent over three-and-a-half years of labor and patience, are a testament to this fact. This is to my mind (and that of many viewers) certainly one of the very best tool-assisted speedruns to appear on the site. Therefore, accepting for the Star tier - it does not deserve anything less than that.

Released in October 1995, this prequel to the Mario series takes place when Mario is just a baby. When being delivered by the stork, an accident occurs and Mario ends up on the island of the Yoshies, who transport him around the island seeking his other half. The game was re-released in September 2002 as 'Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3' for Game Boy Advance with six new secret levels.

Best time: Single-segment 1:49:16 by Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos on 2012-02-04.
Individual-levels run: 100% and low% table.
Individual-levels run: Any% table.

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1:49:16 by Andy Diamos.

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Author's comments:

First off, I would like to give a huge thanks to Speed Demos Archive and everyone involved on their end, for providing me with so much excellent entertainment over the years, and for continuing to host wonderful charity marathons for great causes.

Yoshi's Island was one of the first speed runs I ever watched on Speed Demos Archive, and I was blown away by how entertaining Trihex's run of the game was. Years later, during Classic Games Done Quick and its sequel the following year, Trihex continued to impress me with his utter disregard for safety for the sake of being as entertaining as possible. Watching Trihex play is what got me into speed running, and his help getting me started on the game have made this run possible.

This any% run (any% means each level was completed as fast as possible, ignoring all the stars/red coins/flowers) is an improvement of 8 minutes and 59 seconds over Trihex's old run. Such a large improvement largely reflects how much more about the game has been discovered since 2005. The only reason it hasn't been improved sooner is because Trihex has since turned his attention to 100% runs.

Because Yoshi's Island contains such a large amount of time-saving but difficult tricks and glitches, simply pulling off all of the tricks in a reasonable amount of time and not dying are the biggest time savers in this run. For example, a frame-perfect jump (i.e. requiring pushing jump during a window of time of 1/60^th of a second) in 6-5 can kill a run an hour and 30 minutes in. This run is still far from perfect, but is certainly getting closer.

This run chooses to forgo the 1-1 warp glitches, for the sake of not seeing 1-1 played 5 times.

Finally, I'd like to give huge shoutouts to my girlfriend Sarah, for putting up with listening to Yoshi's Island for hours on end. Also, to the fabulous TASers Spezzafer, Nxcy, and Baxter, for discovering many of the tricks in this game. In particular, Nxcy has been incredibly helpful, taking time to test tricks and route choices for all of the Yoshi's Island speed runners. And again, without Trihex's tireless dedication to this game, this run never would have been possible.

Additionally, shoutouts are in order for all of the other Yoshi's Island speed runners and fans who are totally awesome and contributed in one way or another, especially those in #yoshi on IRC: Lee, whose trolling is only exceeded by his help; CrypticJackknife, for keeping me from killing myself in 5-4; Cleru, for her extensive game knowledge and otherwise being an incredibly nice person; and IqUnlimited, Matthewd49, IG-64, Dram, Blechy, Zeupar, Wawlconut, and all of the other people who enjoyed playing Yoshi's Island, a truly awesome game.

Below is a list of many of the tricks, glitches, and techniques used in this run. For more detailed commentary on the individual levels in the run, be sure to listen to the audio commentary!

Basic Yoshi's Island Mechanics

Avoiding Slopes: Yoshi's average speed is decreased while running along upward or downward slopes. Thus, most slopes are avoided by jumping over them. If a slope must be hit, jumping as soon as possible after landing minimizes the slowdown.

Tonguing: Tonguing on the ground always results in a loss of speed, unless the enemy being tongued is very close to Yoshi. Additionally, holding any direction on the d-pad while Yoshi's tongue is out in the air results in significant speed loss. Slowdown can be eliminated by only tonguing while in the air, and releasing the dpad after initiating the tongue.

Making Eggs: Making eggs sets Yoshi's speed to zero if performed on the ground. Therefore, making eggs only while jumping is preferable. However, any directional input while the egg making animation is occurring reduces Yoshi's speed similar to while tonguing. Thus, eggs are made while jumping, with the d-pad released after a quick initial press of 'down' to begin swallowing an enemy.

Taken together, these first 3 mechanics make up the basics for traveling through every level of Yoshi's Island.

Tricks, Glitches, Exploits, and Advanced Techniques

Extended Flutter: Whenever Yoshi bounces on an enemy, he gains a boosted flutter that travels much higher than could otherwise be reached. This basic technique is used to bypass certain areas, such as traveling over the tall wooden posts in 2-2 or in 4-5, or reaching the top of the ice in 5-3.

Perfect Fluttering: Normally, a flutter is done simply by pushing jump and holding it down until a flutter begins automatically. This produces a flutter which both comes out later, and does not give Yoshi optimal height. If jump is manually released right as Yoshi begins to fall, and then very quickly repressed (1-3 frames later), Yoshi will perform a flutter which travels a bit higher up. This is used to access several locations otherwise too high for Yoshi to jump to, such as the area above the red switch in 2-4 or traveling over the stone column in 6-4.

Sustained Fluttering: Perfect flutters can be chained indefinitely so that Yoshi does not lose height throughout consecutive flutters (in fact, several pixels of height can actually be gained between flutters). This is used to travel across areas that must be fluttered across to avoid slowing down (such as the water in 3-4), or even to gain even more height than a single perfect flutter.

Perfect Jumps: Perfect jumps are performed by jumping on the first frame possible as Yoshi is landing on the ground. These jumps produce several interesting effects, most notably due to the fact that the game does not seem to register Yoshi as having landed on the ground at all if a perfect jump is performed. This is often used in conjunction with an extended flutter: whenever Yoshi bounces on an enemy, he gets a much longer, and higher boosted flutter that can be used to reach high areas. However, the flutter must be performed before landing or else it is canceled, i.e. you cannot store a boosted flutter, you must use it immediately after bouncing on an enemy. This cancellation can be avoided by using a perfect jump, as the game never registers Yoshi as having touched the ground. This is used in the 1-2 skip, described below.

1-2 Skip: One of the most important uses for these techniques is in 1-2. In this trick, Yoshi bounces on a shyguy, and then perfect jumps off of a wooden post to retain the extended flutter from the shyguy (because perfect jumps do not register as landing). With the addition of a followup perfect flutter at the end of the extended flutter, Yoshi is able to access the top of the area and skip over a large portion of the level, saving around 25 seconds.

6-5 Autoscroll Skip: In 6-5, the second autoscroll section is triggered only when Yoshi contacts the ground above the middle save ring by the large pink block. Another interesting effect of perfect jumps is that they often do not cause the screen to scroll up, as screen scrolling seems to be tied to Yoshi contacting certain surfaces. If a perfect jump is performed in this area (you can tell when it is performed correctly due to the screen failing to scroll up), and Yoshi flutters for a bit afterwards, it is possible to never contact the ground and thus skip the final autoscroll section of 6-5. The 6-5 autoscroll skip saves 20-25 seconds.

Piranha Boss Quick Kill: In 3-8, the game developers included an easter egg that is performed by simply hitting the boss with an egg before Kamek transforms him into a giant piranha. This saves several minutes by skipping an otherwise lengthy boss fight, and is accompanied by the famous 'Oh my!' text.

Pipe Glitches: If down and jump are pressed on the exact same frame, Yoshi both jumps and goes down a pipe. This trick has several interesting properties when used on certain pipes, due to the fact that the jump causes Yoshi to enter a screen transition trigger from a different Y-position than would be typical (because he jumped). Its uses in 2-1 and 2-8 are described below.

Warp Glitches (mostly not used in this run):

2-1 Warp: A standard pipe glitch can be performed on the pipe at the end of the first screen. Because where Yoshi warps to is dependent on where Yoshi actually is and not which pipe he goes down, jumping causes the pipe to fail and results in Yoshi being sent to coordinates (0,0) – the top left corner – of the default level (1-1). Level 1-1 can then be completed, and the game will continue on as though you had just beaten the level in which the glitch was activated. It is much faster to beat 1-1 than it is to finish 2-1 (on the order of 45 seconds).

2-4 Warp: The same idea applies in 2-4, though the glitch is achieved by a different method. When Yoshi runs on top of a ghost into the pipe, Yoshi enters the pipe higher than he usually would (just like with jumping), and as a result the same 1-1 warp occurs. This warp skips the boss entirely, saving about 20 seconds over completing the level normally.

3-1 Warp: In 3-1, a 1-1 warp is achieved by simply fluttering over and then dropping onto the screen transition trigger in the trees above the middle save ring. The same principle applies, as normally this area is accessed from below by bouncing on an arrow that shoots Yoshi up and not from above. This warp saves somewhere around 5 seconds over beating the level normally.

4-7 Warp: If left is held as Yoshi bounces on the second arrow in 4-7, he will again bypass the regular screen transition and be warped to 1-1. This warp saves only a few seconds, due to the use of gatehacking later in the level.

2-8 Pipe Glitch: Another possibility of the pipe glitch, is that when Yoshi jumps and goes down a pipe, he will actually register as going through a different pipe. This occurs in 2-8, because another pipe is directly above the pipe the glitch is performed on, and thus the game registers Yoshi as going through that pipe instead of the one he is standing on. This also occurs in 2-1.

Gatehacking: There are many one-way gates in Yoshi's Island that can actually be opened backwards by several methods. By far the easiest real-time method for opening a gate from behind is to throw a straight upward-aimed egg at just the right spot towards the top of the gate. The egg glitches into the gate, and knocks it open, thus allowing Yoshi to go through an otherwise closed gate. This is used to save time in 2-4, skipping the staircase that is typically used in that area, and again in 4-7 (warpless route) to save a few seconds.

Sprite Overload, aka 'The Trihex Overload': When a large amount of sprites appear on the screen at the same time, eventually a limit is reached and no more sprites load. This is exploited in 2-7 by throwing a giant egg just before the bullet bill launchers, creating a large amount of stars. The resulting sprite overload causes the bullet bill launchers to fail to load, allowing Yoshi to avoid having to ground pound the posts and thus saving time. The more eggs Yoshi has during this trick, the easier it is to perform. This same effect can be caused by excessive showboating by Trihex, resulting in necessary red coins failing to load, and subsequent ragequitting of 100% attempts.

Rock Key Glitch: In 6-6, it is possible to tongue the first key through the wall by using the rock. When Yoshi jumps into certain objects such as rocks, they can push him to the side. Yoshi's tongue can often clip through walls, and thus fully extending Yoshi's tongue while jumping into the rock pushes the tongue just far enough into the wall to grab the key.

1-4 Pot Break: If the pot with the key in it is hit with an egg while it is just coming on screen, the pot will instantly break. This is faster than the normal method, which involves pushing the pot off of the platform it is on, causing it to shatter on the ground. Additionally, a weird effect of doing the off-screen pot break is that the key will fly in the direction Yoshi is facing, and thus facing to the left causes the key to fly to Yoshi.

For more information about speedrunning Yoshi's Island, check out the wiki at: http://yoshispeedruns.wikia.com

Individual-levels run of 100% in 2:44:56

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low% in 2:07:11

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Level #/name		100%			low%
Level #/name		Time	Date	Player	%, Time	Date	Player
1-1	Make Eggs, Throw Eggs	0:00:51	2006-09-28	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:00:37	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-2	Watch Out Below!	0:00:56	2006-04-03	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:00:32	2007-09-18	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-3	The Cave Of Chomp Rock	0:01:12	2006-07-12	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:03	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-4	Burt The Bashful's Fort	0:02:17	2006-04-05	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:10	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-5	Hop! Hop! Donut Lifts	0:02:28	2006-06-25	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:37	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-6	Shy-Guys On Stilts	0:01:53	2006-10-23	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:15	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-7	Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy	0:01:17	2006-05-31	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	3% 0:01:11	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-8	Salvo The Slime's Castle	0:02:24	2006-10-23	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	2% 0:02:21	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-S	Exercise in the Skies	0:02:58	2007-09-20	Mike 'grndino' Arnold	10% 0:01:57	2006-02-07	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
1-E	Poochy Ain't Stupid	0:01:03	2006-04-08	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:20	2006-03-15	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-1	Visit Koopa And Para-Koopa	0:02:24	2006-06-01	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:00	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-2	The Baseball Boys	0:02:55	2006-05-29	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:08	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-3	What's Gusty Taste Like?	0:01:39	2006-10-08	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:35	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-4	Bigger Boo's Fort	0:02:58	2006-04-13	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:00	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-5	Watch Out For Lakitu	0:01:54	2006-06-05	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:00	2005-11-14	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-6	The Cave Of The Mystery Maze	0:01:58	2006-04-15	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:27	2005-11-14	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-7	Lakitu's Wall	0:02:32	2006-06-04	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:34	2005-11-14	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-8	The Potted Ghost's Castle	0:04:25	2006-04-17	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:03:48	2005-11-14	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-S	Mystery of the Castle?	0:04:06	2008-05-25	Mike 'grndino' Arnold	0% 0:01:20	2006-01-26	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
2-E	Hit That Switch!!	0:00:49	2006-06-01	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	10% 0:00:35	2006-01-26	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-1	Welcome To Monkey World!	0:01:18	2006-04-17	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:20	2005-11-14	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-2	Jungle Rhythm...	0:01:09	2006-06-07	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:00:59	2005-11-14	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-3	Nep-Enuts' Domain	0:03:04	2006-06-06	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	1% 0:02:38	2005-11-23	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-4	Prince Froggy's Fort	0:03:57	2006-06-22	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:48	2005-11-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-5	Jammin' Through The Trees	0:01:16	2006-04-19	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:18	2005-11-24	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-6	The Cave Of Harry Hedgehog	0:01:46	2006-04-20	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	5% 0:01:02	2005-11-24	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-7	Monkeys' Favorite Lake	0:02:25	2006-05-01	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:26	2005-11-24	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-8	Naval Piranha's Castle	0:03:21	2006-05-06	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:56	2005-11-24	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-S	Go! Go! Morphing!	0:07:18	2007-10-02	Mike 'grndino' Arnold	1% 0:03:42	2006-02-19	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
3-E	More Monkey Madness	0:00:44	2006-05-07	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:00:33	2006-02-11	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-1	GO! GO! MARIO!!	0:01:51	2006-10-16	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	2% 0:01:39	2005-11-29	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-2	The Cave Of The Lakitus	0:01:44	2006-10-08	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:14	2005-11-29	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-3	Don't Look Back!	0:01:51	2006-10-08	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:20	2005-11-29	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-4	Marching Milde's Fort	0:04:49	2006-05-11	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:05:16	2005-12-06	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-5	Chomp Rock Zone	0:01:35	2006-05-10	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:19	2005-12-02	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-6	Lake Shore Paradise	0:02:34	2006-05-13	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:43	2005-12-06	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-7	Ride Like The Wind	0:01:17	2006-05-17	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:20	2005-12-06	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-8	Hookbill The Koopa's Castle	0:03:30	2006-05-17	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:03:19	2005-12-09	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-S	Fight Toadies w/ Toadies	0:03:11	2007-10-07	Mike 'grndino' Arnold	0% 0:02:58	2006-03-05	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
4-E	The Impossible? Maze	0:03:36	2004-05-02	David 'marshmallow' Gibbons	0% 0:02:10	2006-02-19	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-1	BLIZZARD!!!	0:02:19	2006-05-18	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:47	2005-12-13	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-2	Ride The Ski Lifts	0:01:30	2006-05-19	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:36	2005-12-13	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-3	Danger - Icy Conditions Ahead	0:02:46	2006-05-23	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	21% 0:02:44	2005-12-17	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-4	Sluggy The Unshaven's Fort	0:05:48	2006-05-22	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	10% 0:05:07	2005-12-17	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-5	Goonie Rides!	0:01:55	2006-05-23	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:46	2005-12-23	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-6	Welcome To Cloud World	0:03:54	2006-06-01	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:04:21	2005-12-23	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-7	Shifting Platforms Ahead	0:02:21	2006-05-23	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:36	2006-03-05	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-8	Raphael The Raven's Castle	0:03:30	2006-05-29	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	10% 0:02:51	2005-12-30	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-S	Items are fun!	0:06:38	2008-03-10	Mike 'grndino' Arnold	4% 0:00:23	2005-01-26	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
5-E	Kamek's Revenge	0:02:15	2004-05-05	David 'marshmallow' Gibbons	3% 0:02:04	2006-02-17	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-1	Scary Skeleton Goonies!	0:01:36	2006-05-29	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:02:01	2005-12-30	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-2	The Cave Of The Bandits	0:01:31	2006-05-25	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:59	2005-12-30	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-3	Beware The Spinning Logs	0:01:01	2006-05-29	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:09	2006-01-02	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-4	Tap-Tap The Red Nose's Fort	0:05:04	2006-06-29	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:04:00	2006-01-05	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-5	The Very Loooooong Cave	0:05:37	2004-05-06	David 'marshmallow' Gibbons	0% 0:04:19	2006-03-15	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-6	The Deep, Underground Maze	0:02:52	2006-06-29	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:01:07	2006-01-05	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-7	KEEP MOVING!!!!	0:03:29	2006-05-29	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:03:22	2006-01-05	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-8	King Bowser's Castle	0:05:08	2006-06-30	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	0% 0:05:30	2006-01-18	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-S	Endless World of Yoshis	0:07:46	2008-05-20	Mike 'grndino' Arnold	0% 0:03:24	2005-01-22	Mike 'grndino' Arnold
6-E	Castles - Masterpiece Set	0:02:41	2006-06-30	Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson	10% 0:02:35	2005-01-23	Mike 'grndino' Arnold

Note: Timing begins when start of level wipe ends, and ends when passing through the goal ring, or the circular boss explosion begins. You must start with 0 eggs and not use any items. Low%: On the Super Nintendo version, some stars are added after crossing the goal ring or beating the boss - these points will be ignored.

Mychal Jefferson's comments:

In association with Speed Demos Archive,

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
100% individual level table (52 of the 54 original levels improved)

» » » I n t r o

July 15, 2005
It finally happened. The single thing I wanted ever since I first registered at SDA, my name on a page, my name getting known, the era of « t r i . h e x » beginning! I completed and had on SDA both my 2:19:xx any% SS of Yoshi's Island (I won't go into details about this until I produce that needed improved any% SS) and my first set of videos for the 100% table. Despite how terrible the 2:19:xx SS was, everyone praised the 2 100% table improvements I had (1-1 and 1-2). I was shocked at how easy improving Marsh's 1-1 was, by over 10 seconds.

August-November 2005
A lacking memory is terrible. I can't remember much about the 100% table from this time. A lot of the information I can recall involves the history of the any% SS rather than the table progress. I did 6 runs total, the reason being I was very impatient and wanted the 1:58:14 SS up ASAP. So I dedicated 1 day to getting whatever I could done, and mail along with the SS.

January-February 2006
I was having a troubled time progressing with the Crash Bandicoot 2 speedrun, so I switched back and forth between progressing with the 100% table. I had rushed quite a few of the runs on the tape. I had about 12 finished in total. One night my little stepbrother asked me to record some episode of Family Guy for him. Idiotic me, recorded it with the speedrun tape in the VCR and overwrote 8 of the 12 speedruns. At first, I was very angry at myself for doing something so stupid ... But in retrospect, I'm glad it happened. This is the reason why the 3rd generation is so small, with only 4 speedruns, since those were far along in the tape, and survived. Also note how all of 3rd gen. is obsolete, it's likely I'd felt embarrassed if I had sent what I'd consider crap now back then. Realizing that the 3rd gen. stuff was crap inspired me to go forth with a bigger vision in mind, the entire 100% table!

March 2006
After just finishing the SDA Awards II, I was ready to start producing some speedrunning ownage. The situation was that I was putting everything on hold until I could upgrade in status and get a DVD recorder. At the time, Nate had a thread in Site Suggestion to counter the problem of video signal lag from DVD recorders which made attempting a speedrun with them damn near impossible. This thread eventually solved nothing and I settled on spending an additional $50 (USD) on a video signal amplifier which solves the problem. Also notable, is that I initially had a nice Pioneer DVD recorder, but returned it and went with Sir_VG's advice on a certain Panasonic DVD recorder. I must say, for the price, it's certainly worth the money. Now that I had the recording equipment, it was time to own ...

April 2006
Summer finally approached and I was anxious to speedrun everything I could while I was job-free. Since the beginning of my speedrunning career, I always viewed the 100% table for Yoshi's Island as a side-project. I either squeezed some levels here and there because I found a shortcut revolutionary enough to be published, or wanted the submit of speedruns at the time to seem more plentiful, I never thought about it as the main attraction of a submit. That changed whenever I found I could improve (at the time) most (now, all of) of the records set by David 'Marsh' Gibbons. Initially, I planned to only do World 1, or something involving a small quantity, but once I started producing better records, there was no stopping me ... at least, that's what I thought. Summer vacation to Florida to see my dad was coming soon, and I didn't want to hold out on those anxious to see what progress I made so far. So I finalized the DVDs I had recorded, and mailed off part 1 of the table project, containing 26 runs, of the first 26 levels. Reaction to these were, obviously, overwhelmingly positive, leaving everyone who had witnessed them anxious for what else I had in store.

June 2006
The two weeks spent with my dad I used to prepare, practicing during the free time I had (And switching between DDR MAX 1 and 2 as well). Once I returned home ... I began work on the Crash Bandicoot 2 speedrun. Afterward, I decided I strayed too far from Yoshi's Island and completed what was left of Yoshi's Island over a 3 week period. Producing a colossal 38 individual records improved. Only 2 levels remained untouched, E-4, because I'm still figuring a way to shortcut this level better, and E-5, because ... everyone hates that level with a passion.

August-December 2006
I took a downtime period due to school starting and the job killing a lot of the free time I had beforehand. Every other month or so, I'd randomly pick up Yoshi's Island, get into it for a few hours and achieve a few new records in the process. Most notably, improving 1-1 by 2 seconds.

» » » T h a n k s

Of course I have people to thank that would've never made this accomplishment possible without:

Radix, for rejecting every single run he ever has that I've ever submitted. He is the one who sparked the revolution within and made me the proud speedrunner I am today. Also, I'm going to guess that he's the one who's also been verifying my Yoshi's Island runs to date.

Nate, for being so patient with my crappy ability to ship clean DVDs and label them well. :P

» » » F A Q

Q: I'm confused about which levels you did in your latest update, could you show me what levels belong to which generation of improvements?
A: Since the 5th generation of improvements that Radix did an update of, most notably, not showing a list of what was improved, I noticed it's easy for even me to forget what the hell I did in which generation. Hopefully this bulleted list will help ease the confusion:

1st generation (July 2005)
- 1-1 in 1:16 [obsolete]
- 1-2 in 1:18 [obsolete]
2nd generation (November 2005)
- 1-1 in 0:58 [obsolete]
- 1-2 in 1:04 [obsolete]
- 4-5 in 1:48
- 4 others not noted in update
3rd generation (April 2006)
- 4-1 in 2:00 [obsolete]
- 4-2 in 1:53 [obsolete]
- 4-3 in 2:06 [obsolete]
- 4-4 in 4:53 [obsolete]
4th generation (May 2006), aka 'Uber Yoshi's Island Project' part 1
- 1-1 in 0:53 [obsolete]
- 1-2 in 0:56
- 1-3 in 1:13 [obsolete]
- 1-4 in 2:17
- 1-6 in 1:59 [obsolete]
- 1-8 in 2:28 [obsolete]
- 1-E in 1:03
- 2-3 in 1:44 [obsolete]
- 2-4 in 2:58
- 2-5 in 1:58 [obsolete]
- 2-6 in 1:58
- 2-7 in 2:43 [obsolete]
- 2-8 in 4:25
- 3-1 in 1:18
- 3-2 in 1:11 [obsolete]
- 3-3 in 3:12 [obsolete]
- 3-4 in 4:16 [obsolete]
- 3-5 in 1:16
5th generation (August 2006), aka 'Uber Yoshi's Island Project' part 2 38 levels improved,
- none listed in the update
6th generation (October 2006)
- 1-1 in 0:51
- 1-3 in 1:12
- 1-6 in 1:54
- 1-8 in 2:25
- 2-3 in 1:39
- 4-1 in 1:52
- 4-2 in 1:45
- 4-3 in 1:42

Q: You kept mentioning this 'Spezzafer' figure in your comments in a lot of levels, who the hell is that?
A: Spezzafer is a member of Bisqwit's tool-assisted speedrun site. I, personally, don't know the guy. I've never chatted with him, or know anything about him other than reading a few of his forum posts in 2 threads concerning whether he was still producing a 100% TAS for Yoshi's Island. A lot of the times I mention him, it's because I judge what he does as my scale. Most people who produce speedruns are aware of the obvious limitations presented to them, so they don't bother to compare a TAS to an authentic played-through speedrun. I strive for a higher quality than that. So I do compare. I try to incorporate as much of what he does into my own runs. For the 6th generation of improvements, it definitely won't stop there. As Spezz keeps updating the TAS forums with the progress he's done in a viewable SNES9x movie, I'll continue to base my level routes off of his.

As of October 2006, he has only completed until 4-2. As he reveals more of Worlds 4-6, I'll naturally want to improve them. So look out for the 7th generation!

Mike Arnold's comments:

Avoiding items in Yoshi's Island seems counter-intuitive. Getting 100's across the board will open up new levels, while low scores are shown in red (meaning bad). But running in such an obscure category is an easy way to get your runs up without competition. =D

To get the minimum points, I usually knock Mario off near the end of the level, and retrieve him just before the Toadies take him away. Sometimes there's a red coin or flower I can't avoid getting, or there's no way to get hit near the end of the level, so not all levels have a low score of zero.

Sometimes I will reference a Low Score Guide made by GameFAQs user David Egyud, which can be found on this page: http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/gbadvance/game/561566.html

Levels of interest:

1-1 In this level, I neither make nor throw eggs.

1-2 The crux of this run is a glitch discovered by one spezzafer, whose intricately optimised constructed run has influenced every Yoshi's Island run you'll find on SDA (excepting Gibbon's holdouts). The glitch works based on how the game keeps track of whether or not you have a heightened flutter jump available, the kind you get from boosting off an enemy. Landing will get rid of this bonus, unless you only land for one frame. So, after I get my egg and am lucky enough to avoid the chomps, and bounce off a shy guy and immediately pop off the post there, using my boost and then struggling once more to get up top. In real time this can take a hundred attempts to get right, and it's not really possible to 'learn' it, you just get a feel for it and hope it works.

1-4 Suprisingly, I got this one down with my first recorded attempt. The pit of lava guarded by a giant Blarg is tough to cross without touching the ceiling of coins. I pause a little after hitting the blarg with an egg, to be sure the platforms are where they should be. The boss battle reveals how much of a newb I was (am?) at this game. You can hit almost immediately.

1-6 The popping ballon at the end here seems completely out of place, but it lets me get 0 stars.

1-7 I have to thank the FAQ for informing me how to get over a wall next to a seemingly unavoidable flower. The hardest part isn't getting the shy guy where he needs to be, but getting enough height off it and keeping it all the way to the wall.

1-8 Another bad boss battle. Blobs are really the worst thing for speed runs: random movement, easy to derail your 'rythem' by shielding against eggs when you don't expect it...bleh.

2-3 For the first part, I just make sure I have three eggs, which I use in the following cave. I go a little too slow firing the eggs exactly for the red coin skip. I also didn't know about holding B to make super mario run faster.

2-5 Red coins abound - watch the 100% run to get an appreciation for everything I avoid.

2-8 It's hard to super-flutter jump with my GBA, so I was anxious to move on. I even miss the boss door and take a second to notice - grr.

3-6 I forgot to check whether going over or under is faster. I did over.

3-8 Yay for the boss battle that's usually skipped. I let Naval Pirhana go for four passes, but three may be possible.

4-1 If you aren't preceding each of my runs with Marsh's 100's, start now. It could be possible to skip those two coins at the end, but only robots currently know how to wall climb.

4-3 Three Pirhana plant 'skips' in a row. Whew.

4-4 It's easy to collect red coins in the NE room, but I'm still more cautious than need be. The boss has lots of room for improvement.

4-7 Blech, I take forever to grab the Bullet Bill at the end, and waste time stopping to spit and re-eat (possible to do while moving).

4-8 My favorite =D. The first part is easy enough, but there's two ways to get to the locked door - through four red coins above, or through two red coins below. I don't think there's a way to go through above without hitting at least two coins (using eggs to remove spikes, maybe?). The way I did it is almost impossible to practice for. You can't just backtrack a little and try again - or easily judge when to jump, as each ride up is a little different. I've only done it about five or six times, total. Add this to a tricky pair of flowers and a split-second-close boss battle.

5-3 The FAQ says the minimum is 23 points, but I manage 21 by taking a short goonie ride. This one was fun to accomplish.

5-4 The writers of the FAQ went batshit trying to skip two red coins that I hover over quite easily.

6-1 Another super-flutter trick, like in 1-7. This one's harder to gather the victim for, though.

6-2 I take three tries to convince a mouse over (I was trying for the wrong one), which is depressing, cuz that's a really nice string of tricks at the end here.

6-4 I say =P to the blobs again, especially since the GBA version's tinier screen means the eggs can disappear offscreen where they wouldn't on the SNES. I really like my Tap-Tap strat, though. Too bad he didn't happen to be onscreen.

6-5 Radix suggested I improve this, after getting a one before. Failing this one is easy, both at a tricky red coin skip and at the end, where Mario likes to get back on early.

6-6 A couple shortcuts make this maze not so deep or underground. First off is the trick first discovered by me, which involves getting pushed around by a chomp rock to lick far enough to convince a key over to you. There's several ways to do this. Second is a somehow unobvious shortcut discovered first by the FAQ team. I thought at one time that I was the only one to know it, and was a little disappointed when I read it in the FAQ.

6-7 I get hit, but it's to make sure I don't hit instead the red coin nearby (you'll see it, it's spinning a little differently at the top).

6-8 I'm a wuss and lose a second or so on the plane section (flying below screen makes Kamek disappear). It's also an easy way to make sure I'm not hit or collecting something I don't want. Then I make sure to pick the best door - I get 4 more than anything, suprisingly. Jump at just the right time to avoid a string of red coins and a flower, then have some fun with Kamek. I get hit here (ick) and also miss Baby Bowser once. Giant Bowser has some interesting scripting. At 0-2 hits, he'll just step and shoot fire. On the third, of course, he'll summon more rocks. Then he'll go back to stepping and shooting, albeit more aggressively. If he only has one hp left, he'll stop firing altogether and just charge. So, I have to wait for him to get _right_next_to_me_ to get hit and fire the sixth and seventh eggs. This also means missed eggs don't count against me, unless it's the last two (which are hard to miss).

1-E Credit for the bat-boosting trick goes to either DK64_Master or some guy on Bisqwit's forum - a case of two indepentant discoverers.

2-E The FAQ people went crazy on this level again, devising a string of next to impossible tricks that I make quite obsolete.

3-S I'm terrible with vehicles =(. I'd love to see someone go by that red coin in the submarine faster.

4-E A few nice tricks here: First, I discovered that you can jump slightly higher by releasing and hitting the jump button at the apex of your jump. Next I get rid of a pirhana by letting it slip off the screen, but before my box does =). The last trick I'm quite proud of: it depends on losing the ability to touch things whilst inside a pirhana plant. The countdown is made more difficult because the ghost thing that changes my direction to be opposite lets go of me just before I go into the ring, so I have to depend on intertia to make sure I don't suddenly go the other way.

4-S A big run killer here is touching _any_ fuzzy, which makes the convoluted red coin skip next to impossible. And there's nothing worse than having an item skip on par with 4-8's directly after an on-rails section.

5-E It took a while to figure out exactly when to jump for each item skip. Also notice how I jump early at one point to grab a more opportune plane bubble.

100%

1-S The first thing in this run that bothers me is I the throwing two eggs at the beginning to get the flower: it could be much smoother, getting the egg out earlier and such. And then I miss an egg throw in the third room. But the rest of the third room went perfect; it usually doesn't. Those relentless green plants are quite sensitive actually, so I chose to ground pound instead of wasting an egg. Then, I let myself fall off a platform, struggle and aim and egg, and hit the ceiling so I struggle automatically. It's possible, actually, in the fourth room to jump off the red platform as soon as you land on it, and get way up there. The only caviot is that the camera doesn't follow you, and so you're collecting blind. The way my recording setup is set up, I don't hear the game while recording, so I never really had the patience to include that in there. And then also I flutter too soon for the third coin, wasting a couple seconds. The red platform trick is applicable in the next room as well, but it's somehow more difficult to pull off; odd, since the extra hovering wouldn't save you any time. The last room is always random. Well, that's not fair, there's actually a lot happening with how the camera moves in comparison to how the blocks are timed. It's difficult to ever get a fluid run, even on a particular set of 'stairs'. I try to look up every time I know I'm gonna be waiting, to get the blocks moving.

2-S Well there's bats at the start that are all random. I need an egg from the first three or four, and then I need to decide when to eat it, and then I decide when to start throwing it; I have to look out for a bat when I'm already holding one or when I'm throwing, to maybe change my jump height or stop aiming real quick. And then I hope for a bat to appear in the final pit so I can hop off it and not use the slower flutter. It rarely goes perfectly so I just go with whatever I'm given. In the next room however, I like the dozen or so jumps I make to be perfect or I tend to start down down A. A lot of them are stunted jumps, which has me pressing A a lot in midair. That single floating block I land on likes to pause the game to turn into a flatter version of itself. Also I initially wanted to avoid the baseball guy but I ended up needing his eggs.
The third room ended a lot of my attempts for a while. There's a million ways to attempt those couple jumps and only seventeen ways to get through unscathed. Eventually I got fed up with trying to squeeze between the switch blocks and the spikes, while avoiding the second guy's egg, and threw an egg to make my life easier. So then I make the climb up to the karate guys, who like to get knocked out by my eggs of freedom. And then when I free them, they want to punch me. The next couple rooms are pretty automatic, so I tend to space out during them.
...
Anyways, I grab the key though the wall cuz I'm cool like that, and then use an extra jump to skip a bit of platforming. So my goal is to make it to the key door. Usually you'd grab the bouncy thing and sloppily make your way up to top. But fuck that. You can either grab a shell or mosey a bandit over to the spike pit to get a boost up there. Between the two I'm not sure what's better. Grabbing a shell has me pausing a couple extra times, but the bandit moves kinda slow too. If I get this far I'll usually fail to boost correctly. So I'm kinda on nerves from here on out.
No matter much I practice clearing the way up for the bubble platform I'm always too cautious at this point. Only two egg throws are necessary and I could wrangle the bubble a lot quicker than I do. And then I hover above the spikes way too high to be considered cool looking. I should be able get those coins without looking up, but I just need to sure right then for some reason. In the final room, looking at it it bugs me now; I should throw an egg at the shy guy and collect the coin without pausing there.

3-S So there's a lot of swimming here at the first part, which means a full stop every so often. The second to last from in this room likes to not appear sometimes, which means a restart cuz I need his body. I get stuck on a wall for a half second just before leaving the room, which almost bugged me enough to restart. The submarine is a weird vehicle. It won't round a corner quickly unless you line up the turn just right. I would have preferred to not get stuck on the corner there near the spinning spike thing, but it doesn't matter since I'm waiting for it later anyways.
The train parts are always really boring. At one point it looks like I twitch for no reason but it's to position the outlined shy guy so he doesn't hit me. The fall after getting the flower went perfect; I'll usually get stuck on a corner or float too off course. Near the end of the room I try to keep just one shy guy alive for an egg, but two are there at the end and I got scared all the sudden.
The mole is boring at best and disagreeable at worst. It'll stop or go the opposite direction, or just plain fall off the thing sometimes. My plane route here went through a few revisions. At one point I was going the predefined route of starting at the top and working down, getting the lowermost flower last. Then I discovered you can tongue out of the forced crouch you're put it after being sucked back to a morph point, so I was using the first plane bubble to get to the bottom flower and then using it again to get to the second mole morph. But that involved a bit of waiting around waiting for the plane morph to time out, so I tried to see how far I could travel with the spare time I had. As it turns out, I can get to another plane bubble if I maneouver just right. The third mole bubble is used to dig out a specific pattern that will save time later as a plane. When I finish my tasks, I try to get as close to the suck back point as I can to save time. So, the yellow stuff helps me stop to get into that tight space as a plane. Getting back to the top, I was trying an extra-jump but it didn't work out.
Last of all is the best vehicle ever, the car! This level is only time you will see the car in a speedrun. So underappreciated. This thing can wall-climb, did you know that? No, you didn't. When somebody makes a hack of Yoshi's Island where you can play as the car all the time, I will be a happy man.

4-S The subtle way you direct the camera around at the beginning here will determine whether or not the koopas will align correctly and let you pass. If I can that far I'll usually fail trying to do an extra-jump after getting the red coins on the far right. There is a slightly faster way of getting up through the bullet bills, but the fickle success rate and the severe randomness later on made me deem it unworthy of a rerun. In the next room, on any given attempt, I will fail more often than not trying to: kill the red stilt guy in the middle without getting hit, collect a shell, launch the shell to the right place, and tongue the shell in the next room in a smooth motion (mistake was made here). Then I just have to climb the balloons fast and jump on the last two stilt guys in a way that will curve me up to the ledge. That egg I threw is supposed to be for the flower, but I had gone through enough fail points by then to allow a mistake.
I hate fuzzies. Really random, and the GBA's small screen means by the time I see one, I can't just aim an egg and kill it, I have to stop. After trying various Rambo techniques I decided it was best to be cautious. Getting through this room whilst trippin' is truly impossible. One touch I'm happy about it landing on the bullet bill without having to wait for one. And the next room is just on rails. I used to play around a lot more with the bullet bills while practicing but after going through those last three rooms I wasn't in a playful mood. My exit from the rails is a bit shoddy, and I get stuck on a corner for a bit. I should have delayed struggling for another tenth of a second.

5-S If you look at the dates for these individual runs, you'll see I wasn't moving along, producing these runs at a brisk pace. The time I spent on this level alone is more time than I spent on all of my low% runs two years prior.
This level seems like a joke if you just watch the any% or low%. Most of it is completely optional, which made that goal seem very taunting at times. I usually do the first room fine. I considered climbing up there to begin with, but this ceased to be viable once I realized you have to go down through here at least once. In the second room, I don't think you can get up there. I violated that bird everyway I could think of to try. I bounce off it in a particular way; it would usually bug me enough to restart if I didn't get it just right.
A lot of parts in this level go faster with just eggs, but birds are more sustainable as they come back to you, and I don't have to go out of my way to get them.
Underground, I need to suprise a bird and duck under it, then jump stuntedly at the right time to get a coin. On the right, I throw a bird as early as I can, and fail miserably at pulling off an extra-jump. As I ran this level, the number of failures allowed would slowly increase. Anyways, it's still faster than waiting around like they want you to.
The next room has one door that can be made into three exits. Looking back, I should've attempted these exits from most difficult to least, but I was set in my ways dammit. The three rooms they respectively lead to are identical looking. A couple attempts ended by me looking stupid and trying to go down a pipe that wasn't there.
The first of these rooms has me dealing with ice, which is fine until you get comfortable with it, then it screws you over. Melting the ice is even less manageable. When I get underground again I need to collect a key, which is supposed to be done by spitting seeds or whatever, but of course you can just lick it out. This doesn't always work right, sometimes the key will drop into the pit, or it'll take more than two licks (my limit). Or I could just hit the spikes.
And then I'm back in the starting room. Two or three eggs would solve all my problems here (and it looks quite slick), but I have birds and no eggs. The little room here became much easier after I found out that bird-type is super effective against bandit-type. It could have gone more succinctly, though.
Back in the dungeon, I go to the middle door. An alternative for getting up to the 'secret' area is to knock the taptaps outta the way and use a shy guy, but I need the ice breath later on anyways, so that doesn't work. Epic fail is found here as I have to jump three times to get two red coins, ugh. My intention for getting the flower was to avoid the red switch, but comparing it to the way it happened, there's probably not any time lost except for the fumbling beforehand.
Back outside, I fumble for an egg for some reason, but end up not needing it anway. Again eggs here would be faster, two eggs would get them all, with the right bouncing. And then I could look cool and ground pound right into the pipe.
The third door is the hardest, probably. The ice is easy to fall off of, or worse, waste time in little bits so it doesn't bug me enough to restart. I did average on this run. The ground pound was kinda improvised as I was getting anxious to finish the run.

6-S Every attempt at this level has a minute of on rails at the beginning. Which is just mean. If you grab the spike throwing guy at the right time he'll be spit out looking like a zombie from castlevania, with his arms curved forwards.

Anyways, this spike pit used to give me a lot of trouble. I happened upon a superb site made by bisclavaret, which, among videos of some constructed low% runs, contains a lot of research about how yoshi's island works. One such tidbit it gave me was the ground pound route through the spike pit. So, thanks bisclavaret!

Once at the bottom we see two fire pits (classic hellholes, very metroid-esque) which eventually lead to either end of a series of five rooms. The middle one is locked and I need to visit the other four before entering the fifth. At first, I did the rooms on the left first, but changed my mind after deciding to do the harder ones first. The east fire pit can be very disagreeable. I can eat at most one of the flames, and then if I run into another one, I have to stop and wait or restart. And the hitbox for the flames can be very grabby at times.

Throwing an egg at the cloud here isn't as automatic as its opposite. Throw it right away, and it'll miss; throw while too far to the left, and the camera will follow, spawn the morphous grey box, move to the cloud on right, and despawn the grey box. And I need the grey box, so the red switch has something to land on. It took me a while to realize that flattening out the box is unnecessary. Up above, I need a couple coins, but really, I could be more ballsy in getting them. The first one can be gotten by dancing much closer to the bullets and bats, and the second by not needing to look up, but then I'd never be sure I got it until five minutes later when the score reads 99. Yes, I am a pussy.

The next room kinda happens on its own, I will fail it from time to time. The western fire pit is 'safe', because there is always an easy way to deal with whatever comes up. In this case, though, I make a jumping error on one run and nearly get hit.

I have to get just a little more height from the jumping shy guys than from regular enemies, so I wait until they make it a little bit off the ground. Occasionally the bubble spitters will scoot to the right too much and kill my booster =/

I was anticipating the key grab and tried for it too early, which is why it took two licks. Some things are better done while braindead. So, having the key, I finish the last room there and get through the key door.

The spitting shy guy is not trustworty. If you spit him just slightly wrong, he'll bounce into the wrong nook, and if you try to land on him too soon he'll wait half a second and then damage you. And he needs to point the right way. The chomp rock is worse, probably the part of the run that could be improved most by tool assistance. If I push it too much it'll go way past the one way door, and it's not easy to stop or even tell if it's going too fast. So I babysit it. I screw up spitting to get the key, and then later as mario, trying to climb ledges too aggressively.

I did suprisingly well until getting outside. The spitting was very acceptable, the baseball dudes played nice (this ended many of my improvement attempts later on). I even got through the last few throws gracefully; camera control is key there.

And then I get outside. Of the many many hours I've spent on this level this was the first time I got here in a speedrunning context. Maybe it's good I screw up jumping, on subsequent attempts that included good jumping, Kamek has managed to nail me.

Individual-levels run in 1:23:46

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#	Level name	Time	Date	Player
1-1	Make Eggs, Throw Eggs	0:00:22	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
1-2	Watch Out Below!	0:00:21	2013-08-07	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
1-3	The Cave of Chomp Rock	0:00:41	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
1-4	Burt the Bashful's Fort	0:01:16	2013-04-11	Zachary 'zewing' Ewing
1-5	Hop! Hop! Donut Lifts	0:02:28	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
1-6	Shy Guys on Stilts	0:00:53	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
1-7	Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy	0:00:33	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
1-8	Salvo the Slime's Castle	0:01:35	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
1-E	Poochy Ain't Stupid	0:00:41	2013-08-01	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
2-1	Visit Koopa and Para-Koopa	0:00:39	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
2-2	The Baseball Boys	0:01:42	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
2-3	What's Gusty Taste Like?	0:01:00	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
2-4	The Bigger Boo's Fort	0:01:07	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
2-5	Watch Out for Lakitu	0:00:43	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
2-6	The Cave of the Mystery Maze	0:00:55	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
2-7	Lakitu's Wall	0:01:05	2013-07-30	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
2-8	The Potted Ghost's Castle	0:03:19	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
2-E	Hit That Switch!!	0:00:24	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
3-1	Welcome to Monkey World!	0:00:53	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
3-2	Jungle Rhythm...	0:00:40	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
3-3	Nep-Enut's Domain	0:02:14	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
3-4	Prince Froggy's Fort	0:02:26	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
3-5	Jammin' Through the Trees	0:00:50	2013-07-19	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
3-6	The Cave of Harry Hedgehog	0:00:43	2013-04-11	Zachary 'zewing' Ewing
3-7	Monkeys' Favorite Lake	0:01:07	2013-07-16	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
3-8	Naval Piranha's Castle	0:01:21	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
3-E	More Monkey Madness	0:00:14	2013-07-15	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
4-1	GO! GO! MARIO!!	0:01:14	2013-08-07	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
4-2	The Cave of the Lakitus	0:00:47	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
4-3	Don't Look Back!	0:00:56	2013-07-27	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
4-4	Marching Milde's Fort	0:04:23	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
4-5	Chomp Rock Zone	0:00:48	2013-07-18	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
4-6	Lake Shore Paradise	0:01:11	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
4-7	Ride Like the Wind	0:00:52	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
4-8	Hookbill the Koopa's Castle	0:02:31	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
4-E	The Impossible? Maze	0:01:10	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-1	BLIZZARD!!!	0:01:14	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-2	Ride the Ski Lifts	0:01:02	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-3	Danger - Icy Conditions Ahead	0:02:27	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-4	Sluggy the Unshaven's Fort	0:04:33	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-5	Goonie Rides!	0:01:24	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-6	Welcome to Cloud World	0:03:47	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-7	Shifting Platforms Ahead	0:01:14	2013-07-31	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
5-8	Raphael the Raven's Castle	0:02:17	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
5-E	Kamek's Revenge	0:01:37	2013-04-11	Zachary 'zewing' Ewing
6-1	Scary Skeleton Goonies!	0:01:18	2013-07-18	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
6-2	The Cave of the Bandits	0:01:13	2013-07-27	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
6-3	Beware the Spinning Logs	0:00:45	2013-07-18	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
6-4	Tap-Tap the Red Nose's Fort	0:02:28	2013-04-11	Zachary 'zewing' Ewing
6-5	The Very Loooooong Cave	0:03:48	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
6-6	The Deep, Underground Maze	0:00:40	2013-08-07	Austinn 'Davis' Hallman
6-7	KEEP MOVING!!!!	0:02:46	2013-04-11	Zachary 'zewing' Ewing
6-8	King Bowser's Castle	0:05:03	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos
6-E	Castles - Masterpiece Set	0:02:06	2011-06-27	Andy 'Carl Sagan' Diamos

Zachary 'zewing' Ewing's comments:

Burt The Bashful's Fort
Not much to say here, I don't think this can be beaten as I have to wait for dialogue to finish before I can exit which always makes the time 00:45.

The Cave Of Harry Hedgehog
Uses a slightly faser setup for rat spit

Kamek's Revenge
Using switch is slower than fluttering. Also getting first helicopter on way down is way faster than bottom chopper

Tap-Tap The Red Nose's Fort
Uses fastest way to kill salvo and uses lava skip. 5 egg method is still fastest way to kill Tap Tap

KEEP MOVING!!!!
Uses faster rotating platform climb with camera scroll and uses gatehack with enemy (takes 2 tries normally)

Austinn 'Davis' Hallman's comments:

Watch Out Below!
With the flower method, this should be optimized.

Poochy Ain't Stupid
Poochy IS stupid. No room for him in this speedrun.

Lakitu's Wall
Some subtle optimizations here and there, living the dream, and a sweet Baxter to finish it off.

Jammin' Through the Trees
I prefer the eggless approach at the start. Ends with my signature shy guy shot and a nice Baxter.

Monkeys' Favorite Lake
I hate myself for the microflutters at the beginning, but most everything else looks good; I got the monkey shot and the despawned door.

More Monkey Madnessgreiugre
Very short and simple. Held right and jumped when I needed to.

GO! GO! MARIO!!
With proper execution, the super star skip method should be faster.

Don't Look Back!
Hardest part is the Baxter.

Chomp Rock Zone
Pretty self-explanatory. No need to flutter before the second turtle skip.

Shifting Platforms Ahead
That piranha skip is a pain, but it's also awesome.

Scary Skeleton Goonies!
You have to be quick on your feet in this level. I got everything I wanted in this run.

The Cave of the Bandits
Pre-aim strats, egg canceling for fun, quick staircase, rat baseball, single flutter at the end.

Beware the Spinning Logs
It's best to use the spinning logs where you can, and avoid running on the sides of the mushrooms. But that 1UP goal spit makes the level.

The Deep, Underground Maze
Rockless

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