Hi there. Just discovered there was a SRC leaderboard for this game recently. I haven't attempted a run yet myself, but it's game I've played a lot growing up and I wanted to bring your attention to a glitch I used to mess with that can be used to skip straight to the final tournament. This trick is not valid for the current Any% since you have to reset and reload your save, but I was thinking maybe this could be the new Any% run (since you reach the credits much faster, only needing to complete one tournament) and the current category can be possibly renamed to either 'Glitchless' or 'All Tournaments'. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

1. Start a new file like normal and when you have control of the boat, immediately return to weigh-in (do not take the guide)

2. Progress like normal and when the game asks if you want to Save your Record, press B once to repeat the message

3. This time, press A to save. The game will glitch out a bit, but the trick is complete. Simply reset and reload your save and you will appear in the next tournament despite not qualifying

4. Repeat for tournaments 2 and 3, then complete the final tournament like normal (if you do the glitch on the final tournament, you will simply go back to the starting tournament with the game thinking you beat the game, but you don't see the credits or anything)

Took me several tries, but here is a run that finally went well for me that demonstrates this glitch. I'm using Snes9x 1.6.1, but I can guarantee the glitch works on console as well.

Howdy!

The skip seems cool, thanks for sharing! I've been kicking this around since you posted it, and I get hung up on renaming the Any % category. As the "main" category that gets most of the submissions (even if it's still not many, ha), I would rather keep it as Any %, and create a new category called Glitch %.

That way nothing changes for the runners with current times, but folks can see that there is another way to beat the game (the shorter way you've illustrated here).

I totally get what you're saying, in that Any % usually means "by any means necessary, glitched or otherwise", but that's not the case for every single game and it doesn't feel right here.

Like Super Metroid, it can be beaten in less than 60 seconds, but that's not Any %. Rather, their Any% is loosely "as-intended" without major exploits.

And I think that would serve us well here.

I look forward to your runs, and thanks for chiming in!

Understandable. I haven't looked at Super Metroid too much tbh (I'm more familiar with the Mario and Zelda leaderboards), but you're right. Using the name for their fastest category (Any% Glitched) would seem more fitting in this case. Up to you in the end of course.

I didn't see the glitch mentioned/documented anywhere else, which was kinda surprising since it seems easy to stumble upon through casual play. It can result in other weirdness as well depending on how many times you press B at the 'Save you Record?' prompt. Most of the time the game just crashes, but other times I've been able to re-enter the fishing screen again with the music still playing, for example. Sadly, no warp straight to the credits yet though.

I've never heard of that glitch, or seen it documented elsewhere either. I believe you may be the first to document it!

I used to play with debug mode, and gawk at the lunker bass, but your glitch is totally different.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588207-bassins-black-bass-with-hank-parker/cheats

Maybe you could upload some info there for folks to see!

We should totally get a catagory going for it though! I just tried a couple runs and it was fun.

I'd play this Any% Glitched category. Might attract new players looking for a short play through?

I would also like to add my support to get a glitched category added.

The shorter runs help to reduce the randomness that is a challenge when speed running this game. Its pretty rough having runs die to a bad bronze after 30-40 minute time investment.

Glitching right to Bluestone makes for a much more satisfying run, with all of the action focused on the most challenging level and biggest lunkers.

I think we should have a glitched category for sure, but maybe some others, like Bluestone 70% where we can glitch to bluestone but then its the fastest time to >70lbs or something.

I think these categories would do much to highlight the skill of the runner over the sheer randomness of the previous lakes.

New Any % Glitched category is added!