SethBling
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2015–2022
9:01 · 4.3M views · Jan 21, 2015
SethBling performs the first credits warp in Super Mario World on a real SNES console, a glitch that plays the ending without beating Bowser. The run relies on pixel-perfect positioning and tools such as a helper ROM hack.
Cited as a landmark of speedrunning, where a trick once limited to tool-assisted runs was pulled off live on hardware.
5 comments from Hacker News
I believe it's been posted before, but sethbling (of vanilla-minecraft-hacks fame) pulled off the impossible and did the credit warp on an actual SNES, live[1]. As this video very-nicely explains, this required incredible amounts of pixel-perfect accuracy. Lining up the line of koopa shells on exact x-offsets and very narrow heights mid jump (!) to write the landing-sled - using a controller, realtime - is utterly insane. As a side note sethbling's latest project is teaching[2] (using neuro-evolution) his machine learning bot to play SMW[2], SMB1[3], and Mario Kart (original)[4]. While he machine learning is simple by today's standards, his brief videos give a really nice introduction to the topic that should be accessible to most people. [1] this video [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] [4] [LINK]
There was a time where is discovered the speedrun and tas communities and binge-watched everything it has to offer. I was constantly amazed by what the players achieved, and I especially liked the ones where the gap between tas and human player closes. SethBling made an elaborate, frame-perfect glitch exploit run of Super Mario World where he warps from the first level to the end credits - absolutely unbelievable. this video
Some highlights/historically significant examples of this: Super Mario World (TAS, 2014): [LINK] Super Mario Bros. 3 (TAS, 2014): [LINK] - The same run performed RTA (i.e. by a human using a real controller) at AGDQ 2015: [LINK] Super Mario World (RTA, 2015): this video Super Mario World "total control" (RTA, 2015): [LINK] Pokemon Yellow total control (TAS, 2017): [LINK] The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (RTA, 2019-ish?): [LINK] Ocarina of Time total control/"Triforce%" (TAS, 2022): [LINK] (explanation: [LINK] )
Ever since I saw someone beat Super Mario World by reprogramming the game from within the game itself ( this video ), I realized that speedrunning retro games is truly next-level these days.
Oh, sure. Still, it's not the first time a speedrunning trick has made its way from TAS into "live" runs. For instance, the SMW credits skip: this video