Early Vanish Cap is now humanly possible. Granted, this was done in an emulator and you have to mash like your life depends on it, but it's finally been done.

I just noticed they were wiped off the face of the resources section (I did put them in the right place). I’m not upset about this, because I did expect a scenario where they wouldn’t last long, but I do want to know some things. For the mods: is this a situation like the comments, where I have to do a verified run before I can add my splits to the resources?

Because I’m willing to do a verified run — the only reason I haven’t done one on here during my 3 years on this site is because I have a life of my own to live through (in fact, my second semester of college has just started).

If not and it’s only the mods who can add resources, then I apologize for adding my Classic Mode splits without knowing that. And as for my second question, directed towards all the Classic Mode runners: who managed to download the splits while they were still up?

And I propose a solution. Why not time runs using IGT instead of RTA? That way, the mods can still have players sit through cutscenes, but it won’t impact the runners in a negative way (and since @KrazyBossYT mentioned in a post of his own that using RTA with the new rule includes time stuck watching cutscenes, I figured I’d mention this — cutscenes do NOT add to the in-game timer).

Will this mean all 8 moderators going through every category (full game and the 130 IL categories) just to retime everything from RTA to IGT? Yes. However, I feel like this would be a change that would appease everyone at the end of the day.

(My mistake — forgot that there’s no IGT in Wonder. Still think the new rule is dumb, though.)

If that really is the last one, the journey has been a fun ride.

If it isn’t, then we’ll maybe have more to look forward to in the future? Not sure.

Also, mandatory leaderboard update is needed.

If you have the NSO Expansion Pack (which is $60 a year - 5 dollars a month), now’s a good time for newcomers to the scene to try Pulseman out. I actually tried the game out not too long ago, and it’s pretty fun.

Only question I have is HOW DO I GET THROUGH STAGE 5?! That place is a dang labyrinth! Anyways, hope this news revives the competition on the leaderboards!

I have college coming up in 3 days and I already shared this first part with Flepty, so I might as well share it with the rest of the community.

In Sports Mix, the sports you get for each of the matches against the Expert AI are completely randomized. This means the results you can get are split into four categories: Basketball First (or B-Ball First for short), Volleyball First (or Volley First for short), Dodgeball First and Hockey First. Now, Hockey First lineups are commonly dreaded amongst the Mario Sports Mix speedrunning community, but that’s something I’ll discuss much later on.

The lineups are as follows (note: due to the Basketball Expert AI in Mario Sports Mix being unfathomably hard, getting anyone of these six lineups is horrible unless you’re extremely good at the game):

• Round 1 Basketball, Round 2 Volleyball, Round 3 Dodgeball
• Round 1 Basketball, Round 2 Volleyball, Round 3 Hockey
• Round 1 Basketball, Round 2 Dodgeball, Round 3 Volleyball
• Round 1 Basketball, Round 2 Dodgeball, Round 3 Hockey
• Round 1 Basketball, Round 2 Hockey, Round 3 Volleyball
• Round 1 Basketball, Round 2 Hockey, Round 3 Dodgeball

(note: from this point on, these lineups will have Basketball in the position of either Round 2 or Round 3. Regardless, any lineup for Sports Mix that includes Basketball can be a run-killer, especially in the Star Cup):

• Round 1 Volleyball, Round 2 Basketball, Round 3 Dodgeball

• Round 1 Volleyball, Round 2 Basketball, Round 3 Hockey

• Round 1 Volleyball, Round 2 Dodgeball, Round 3 Basketball

• Round 1 Volleyball, Round 2 Dodgeball, Round 3 Hockey

• Round 1 Volleyball, Round 2 Hockey, Round 3 Basketball

• Round 1 Volleyball, Round 2 Hockey, Round 3 Dodgeball (featured in Zojalyx's 1:27:26 & Flepty's 1:01:04)

• Round 1 Dodgeball, Round 2 Basketball, Round 3 Volleyball (beneficial on Flower Cup for skipping Daisy Garden)

• Round 1 Dodgeball, Round 2 Basketball, Round 3 Hockey

• Round 1 Dodgeball, Round 2 Volleyball, Round 1 Basketball

• Round 1 Dodgeball, Round 2 Volleyball, Round 3 Hockey

• Round 1 Dodgeball, Round 2 Hockey, Round 3 Basketball

• Round 1 Dodgeball, Round 2 Hockey, Round 3 Volleyball

• Round 1 Hockey, Round 2 Basketball, Round 3 Volleyball (beneficial on Flower Cup for what I like to call WJ3, or Western Junction 3)

• Round 1 Hockey, Round 2 Basketball, Round 3 Dodgeball

• Round 1 Hockey, Round 2 Volleyball, Round 3 Basketball

• Round 1 Hockey, Round 2 Volleyball, Round 3 Dodgeball (featured in Circinus' 1:05:48)

• Round 1 Hockey, Round 2 Dodgeball, Round 3 Basketball

• Round 1 Hockey, Round 2 Dodgeball, Round 3 Volleyball (featured in Zojalyx's 1:27:26)

This means there are 24 possible lineups for a Sports Mix tournament (not counting the Behemoth King battle at the end of Star Cup), and 18 of them have Basketball as one of the sports (with 6 of them even having it as the first sport of the lineup). As a result, the odds needed to avoid Basketball in a Sports Mix tourney entirely are 1 in 12. However, that’s only just the beginning.

See, in order to get a better grasp of how RNG in a Sports Mix Tournament works, we need to dig a little deeper. Yeah, we have the lineups to go off of, but that’s barely even scratching the surface. Let’s discuss the odds of avoiding Basketball in just one Sports Mix match, which are 1 in 4.

Now, these may seem like easy odds, as each of the lineups I described only have one listed first sport - hence the naming of said lineups within the speedrunning community. However, when speedrunning Sports Mix (regardless of whether you’re doing All Cups or not), these need to be kept track of. Outside of what I like to call “The Six Saviors,” any other lineup can kill your run - especially the Basketball First lineups - if you don't know what I like to call "Shot Clock Abuse". And this is only just the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s get back to those 1 in 12 odds I discussed earlier. As the 1 Match odds for no Basketball are ¼, or 25%, that means those odds are multiplied by ⅓ to get the 1 Tournament odds for no Basketball, which are ¹⁄₁₂ - an 8% chance (I used 3 for the denominator as there are three rounds in every tournament).

For those who run Volleyball 2-on-2, how did you settle on your team combinations when making your run attempts? Because when I looked through the leaderboards for No Behemoth, I saw teams consisting of...

• Waluigi & Junior
• Diddy Kong & White Mage
• Ninja & Waluigi
• Junior & White Mage
• Junior & Toad
• Cactaur & Junior
• Waluigi & Black Mage
• Two Miis

The characters I've been using while playing the game casually on my downtime were Luigi, Black Mage and Waluigi (the latter of whom I swap either of the former two out for on occasions, though I did use Waluigi on my run through the tournament so I could take the Hidden Route that unlocked Black Mage), because those are the three I've had the most experience using back when I used to have a physical copy of this game as a kid (outside of my Mii, which basically plays like a nerfed Mario while having the same stats).

When I try to play the game, it gets all buggy and it won't show the disclaimer, title screen and main menu. Is there anyway to fix this? I'm playing via Project64 v1.6.

I can now say that I do indeed planning on speedrunning this game.

Are we supposed to (and do we HAVE to, with no exceptions) do this on Dolphin's recording system? Because if so, when I try to run the recording on Dolphin (it comes up as a .dtm file), it all comes up blank.

The way I usually record my runs is through the Xbox Capture System, which I can bring up by using the Win + G shortcut. While it may not show the window display, it still shows the FPS and Frame counters.

I'm sorry if not having a display window through the Xbox Capture Bar recordings doesn't sit well with you guys and violates the rules, but it's the only way I can get a visible recording of my runs.

Since there's people who use Crazy Hand to make some characters better/worse, can we have a category for modded characters? Or do we still have to use the base game board regardless?

If we can, I'd like to get an Arcade Mode category into this speedrun leaderboard. I'm all willing to record a run with Black Polnareff to show you all what it'd be like, but be warned that I am going to end up using continues on both Vanilla Ice and Dio since both of them are ANNOYING in this game.

How do I do BLJs in Project 64?

I just played the Japanese Arcade version of this game at Jonesy's Escape earlier tonight and I managed to unlock the only secret character in this game who ended up being integrated into the main canon in some form or another: Dark Sakura. I got past the first round due to the power of "Shosh!", but in the second round, let's just say Wolverine and Chun-Li are very annoying.

Still, I was wondering if we could add the hidden characters to the categories for this game. I even went as far as to write the Dark Sakura unlock code for the Arcade version down on a NAPKIN using a pen so that I'd remember how to unlock her for the next time.

Because Hidden Wizard got a WR time on Knuckles' route for Sonic 3 AIR DA Garden. Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/rpg_hiddenwizard

(He's still live and doing the Amy Spotlight Challenge, so wish him good luck!)

1. Espio's render during the opening sequence and his victory pose render in-game are referencing his sprite on the title screen in Knuckles' Chaotix. There are a few differences however, mainly the facts that Espio faces the other way and that he's frowning instead of smiling.

2. On the character select screen, Espio's CSS icon sprite references his old Knuckles' Chaotix sprite.

3. Speaking of the character select, Knuckles' CSS icon sprite references the cover on the Knuckles the Echidna Archives Volume 4 comic made by Archie. However, Knuckles in his CSS icon sprite is smiling instead of frowning.

4. The South Island stage references Green Hill Zone from the first Sonic the Hedgehog game.

5. The Casino Night stage references none other than Casino Night Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

6. Aurora Icefield bears a strong resemblance to Ice Cap Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, except for the fact that Aurora Icefield takes place at night.

7. The Mushroom Hill stage references Mushroom Hill Zone from Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

8. The Death Egg's Hangar stage bears a striking resemblance to the Silver Sonic battle arena from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

9. Fang's fighting pose is similar to that of Ryu, Ken, and Akuma's in the Street Fighter 3 series, even though this game came out before Street Fighter 3.

10. Sonic and Knuckles share the same idle fighting stance.

11. Espio's jump attack in this game is similar to that of his spin dash and jump attack in Knuckles' Chaotix.

The reason why I ask this of you is because I did an Espio run that was 8 minutes, 15 seconds, and 41 milliseconds (continues were included because Clone Espio and Metal Sonic are literally freaking annoying). I did it on the Xbox Series X my dad won in a lottery (the Xbox Series X can play Xbox 360 games, Sonic the Fighters included), but I don't have a capture card. I was wondering if I can still submit the run though, because some games mention in their rules that videos aren't required.

Is it limited to Time Attack only, or can we also do the Story Mode version?

I had an idea: for the PlayStation Portable version, why not have a category for the Final Battle mode? It can be split into two categories: one for the Final Bison fight, and one for the Shin Akuma fight.

I have a run on this game that was done through the Samurai Shodown Anthology on the PSP (via the PPSSPP emulator) on the easiest difficulty. I only did this run until I was defeated by Mina, her excessive use of arrows, and - of course - the foot dive, so after I was taken down by Mina, I ended the run off there.

I was still wondering if I could put it up here, as I did do an Arcade Mode run using Rera, but I just wanted your verification first.