1. Vestige Crossword

Yoshi's Island Yoshi series. SNES, Switch, SNESClassic. Level: 6-6: The Deep, Underground Maze. Any region USA / NTSC EUR / PAL JPN / NTSC. Any platform Super Nintendo Switch SNES Classic Mini. The Deep, Underground Maze. The Deep, Underground Maze is the sixth level of World 6 in the game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3. This level takes place, as the name suggests, in the depths of an underground maze.

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.

Vestige Crossword

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

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:

» » » 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:

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.

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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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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Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)