Mario Sunshine can be Beaten in Under 10 Minutes. Here's How

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Mario Sunshine speedruns have become even more broken thanks to some new glitch discoveries. It's now (theoretically) possible to beat the game in under 10 minutes. This is how the madness unfolded.
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Thanks to Noki Doki for help with this video: / nokidoki
SOURCES:
Watching 8 Cutscenes Prevents Super Mario Sunshine from Crashing - NokiDoki • Watching 8 Cutscenes P...
Cutscene Underflow Demo - NokiDoki • Cutscene Underflow Demo
[LOTAD] Super Mario Sunshine Arbitrary Code Execution: Any% in 34:28 - NokiDoki • [LOTAD] Super Mario Su...
[TAS]Super Mario Sunshine Arbitrary Code Execution Any% in 9:50.49 - Zelpikukirby & su • [TAS] GC Super Mario S...
[TAS] Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog 2 by Zurggriff & Aglar in 17:40.08 • [TAS] Genesis Sonic th...
Weegee's SMS ACE WR: • Super Mario Sunshine A...
#SuperMarioSunshine #speedrun #Mario

[@LunaticJ]

Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video. Go to strms.net/hellofresh_lunaticj, use my code LUNATICSEP10, and receive 10 free meals + free breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active if you’re in the US. The link and code are valid in all countries and the respective local discount will apply.

[@DJ_Level_3]

THE BUS ANALOGY I CAN'T

[@Phabrysio]

Peak moment😂 had to like the video after that one

[@justlookaroundpeople]

The shorter the speedrun the longer the explanation video!

[@asher3311]

honestly this isnt very long

[@phattjohnson]

@@asher3311 That's what she said! ;)

[@kr1v]

This is actually very true in most cases

[@ryazs3292]

Mario sunshine content in 2024, fuck yeah!

[@SuperZebezian]

I can't believe Matt Turk discovered this speedrunning glitch.

[@goldenwarrior1186]

Lmao

[@AverageTreyVG]

Great vid - I almost have the concept of an understanding of this now 😂 Would be cool to explain how RTA is done when that gets further developed (I'm even more shocked at how people figured that out)

[@VictorSilva-lj4wy]

Hey it's the yoin guy

[@ChefMeowMeow]

Oh boy! A video about a massive new game-breaking glitch found in a retro Nintendo game, how cool! Surely it won’t be arbitrary code execution!

[@AyeeSkippy]

still cooler than anything you've ever done

[@jaysonata3211]

ACE pisses me off too, it’s cool and all, impressive and proof of a community or community member’s technical knowledge, but it’s so uninteresting versus the spectacle of high level gameplay. I don’t really get excited when coders and TASers start shaking hands.

[@LuigiXHero]

I mean there's plenty of other categories ​@@jaysonata3211

[@alexpotts6520]

​​​​@@jaysonata3211 This is a reason why every single time ACE has been discovered in a game, it's created a new speedrunning category. The old non-ACE records haven't gone anywhere, and tbh are still more competitive and prestigious. FWIW though, from what I've seen about SMS ACE it also requires a really high level of execution, with frame-perfect inputs all over the place. It's definitely still "high level gameplay" even if it is a bit weird to actually watch a runner seemingly goofing around in Delfino Plaza for fifteen minutes.

[@rtyuik7]

​@@jaysonata3211i agree-- i want to see someone Beat The Game, not just Roll The Credits...

[@damianporter942]

please tell me this is about ACE because i havent been able to find ANYTHING on it aside from some run vods where things werent really explained well.

[@sebastiangudino9377]

You not gonna believe this

[@WackoMcGoose]

Kinda reminds me of that one Pokemon Any% run that requires a *_millisecond-perfect_* system reboot to create a Bad Clone, combined with TrainerID manip and going full Hackerman on box names, to get a credits warp (ScottFalco's "Totally Legit Speedruns" animation for it is chef's kiss).

[@QueenofTNT]

Some of the shit that people have figured out to do with ACE exploits in Pokemon games is absolutely insane. Programming your game to run full on ARM GBA code using the box names, gene editing using Glitzer Popping to get perfect event Pokemon that fool even PKHex's legitimacy and seed checks, creating your own glitched Pokemon that executes box name codes ON COMMAND simply by opening its summary whenever and wherever you like, changing your own Trainer ID on the fly, setting event flags to whatever state you want no matter your progress, literally programming your own Pokemon with its own custom event and location into the game on the fly...it's like watching school playground rumors come to life, all on vanilla hardware (and sometimes with preprogrammed controller inputs but still)

[@VinsCool]

I'm surprised Super Mario Sunshine got its own ACE route before Super Mario 64 now that I think about how much wide open that game is in comparison.

[@moth.monster]

Mario 64 was clearly just programmed better :^)

[@gamingwithahandicapreviews]

I’ve been following sunshine’s speed running community for years how am I just hearing about this?

[@disfiguringthegoddess1102]

because Trey hasn't made a video about it lol.

[@gamingwithahandicapreviews]

@@disfiguringthegoddess1102 you mean hasn’t made a video on it I didn’t see nothing from trey

[@disfiguringthegoddess1102]

@@gamingwithahandicapreviews right. my b on that. typeo.

[@gamingwithahandicapreviews]

@@disfiguringthegoddess1102 s”all good man

[@ChavalR6]

@@disfiguringthegoddess1102baseddddd. Me looking out for the trey record history video update

[@FatalChronicBackPain]

my FAVORITE mario game getting recognized is always awesome! love the content :3

[@NokiDoki]

Can't wait to see how low we can get the RTA WR with this!

[@Jademalo]

I feel like you're slightly misusing the map analogy - The pointer doesn't change, what changes is the data at the location of that pointer is pointing to. It's more akin to someone digging up the treasure and replacing it with something else, but you're still using the map expecting to find the treasure.

[@Stardust_42]

The AverageTrey video about all this is gonna be so good🔥🔥🔥

[@yyigkg]

crazy how they've broken this game so badly

[@WildWaker]

Can you make a video about Mario Galaxy?

[@WeegeeSpeedruns]

Awesome video, cool to see sms ACE get a good video explaining the general concepts for viewers to understand! One small correction though, the turbo gate that's used to point to the spin buffer in the modern ACE routes is actually the one next to the beach pipe on the other side of the map, and that shine grabbed in the TAS to trigger ace is generally referred to as underbell. For anyone curious, the current RTA record uses the 100 coin shine instead to execute cutscene underflow because it was generally easier to execute, but new route developments have allowed for us to grab the underbell shine to execute the glitch instead just like the TAS, so the record will likely be lowered to around the 15-18 minute mark soon.

[@SMO_Boi]

I gotta say, i would have never expected this from a speed game I've been loosely following for about three years. great video!

[@phattjohnson]

Give the game a play!

[@SMO_Boi]

@@phattjohnson I’ve played the game, and I have actually held the 3das 10 shines wr, and it was pretty fun.

[@jasonm7445]

Totally expected Noki Doki before the video even started

[@Sugar3Glider]

Niki Doki riding the edge of reality for us.

[@monkeyman2022]

There are only 24 comments here?? Wow, that should be increased quickly, I love your videos and hope you get more recognition. Thank you!

[@DawnSRC]

Sick video! Love seeing classic games find such massive discoveries even this long after release.

[@AaronGarmon]

And I thought sub 12 was impressive…

[@もちの花]

I thought it was never going to fall under an hour...

[@Niosai]

Whoa

[@BeegChaosControls]

Super Mario Sunshine? More like Super Mario SunSkip.

[@sadierift1201]

-2

[@DarkbloomVis]

I never clicked so fast

[@mattguy1773]

Mario sunshine blj is probably a thing we haven't seen yet

[@1mariomaniac]

Yeah, that's because they very quickly figured out that issue and patched future versions of Mario's moveset to not allow BLJ. In fact, the Shindou version of Mario 64 released in Japan a year later actually had BLJ patched! Also Super Mario Sunshine doesn't have a long-jump.

[@geneericname7138]

​@@1mariomaniacI think autocorrect changed your last 'BLJ'. Unless Mario was actually able to do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu until they patched it in Japan.

[@1mariomaniac]

@@geneericname7138 LMAO edited, but now I wanna see N64 Mario doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 😆

[@Frommerman]

The moment you said "This overwrites the cutscene slots with garbage data" I knew we were headed to ACEland. There's no such thing as garbage data.

[@ludibroloplays]

I've been hearing about ACE stuff in Sunshine for a little while now but never knew how it worked, I had always thought finding exploits for ACE setups wasn't really a thing from the n64 era and on. This was a super cool one to learn about!

[@namenamename390]

Even with all the amazing speedrunning achievements that were accomplished over the years, no speedrunner has ever cemented their legacy as much as Darbian when he came up with the bus analogy. It will live on forever.

[@eiscreme3116]

The fun part that's arbitrary code execution is possible means you could literally reprogramm tge entire game like they did for triforce percent

[@NoraNoita]

and I just watched a 7 hour video about 100%ing super mario sunshine.

[@keiharris332]

10:50 A grass/water type pokemon that grows up to wear a sombrero and abuse swift swim?!

[@itsmefranklinblack]

Time for bed. I heard you say ACE and thought All You Can Eat.

[@dultzywaltzy]

That’s wild

[@thingsiplay]

Games written in Rust are probably not fun for Speerunners.^^

[@Inkstar]

its crazy because this category is about to become a lot shorter 💀

[@mrrfyW]

6:39 JimmyHere viewers, you know what to do 😏

[@Legend_0O1231]

No I don’t.

[@mrrfyW]

@@Legend_0O1231 One piece

[@Legend_0O1231]

@@mrrfyW THE ONE PIECE IS REAL!

[@mrrfyW]

@@Legend_0O1231 there you go :)

[@sagacious03]

So far, it doesn't seem like ACE is human-viable. It requires insane precision & multiple controller inputs, no? Anyway, thanks for uploading!

[@williamdrum9899]

@@sagacious03 Depends on the game. For this one, probably not. For a game where you can input text, it's far easier

[@williamdrum9899]

I feel like any CD-ROM game is going to have an ACE exploit, simply due to how CD-based games work. (The disc's contents are loaded into RAM and executed from there)

[@rubixtheslime]

loading code into ram isn't really anything special. the problem is getting it to run something that isn't code. which is a lot harder to come by with more recent games. as hardware got (much) faster, programmers stopped relying on clever tricks to speed things up and just use code that works.

[@Efrayyyy]

I love when the video is longer than the speedrun

[@EnderrBoi]

LunaticJ can you make a video about Minus Elevation

[@highfiveshighfives4980]

Now do twilight princess

[@knifegaming997]

ayy first 15 minutes

[@rphntw1n]

Break everything!

[@essdee800]

Let’s go

[@Forr0n]

Your add segment with the promise to upload more often is not the best wording. Please don't repeat it. Just say it helps you not to worry as much about the finances. It is a small difference but might save you from unreflected criticism. Thank you for the great explanation and entertaining Video!

[@WhatIThoughtChannel]

6:44 - 7:24 What’s the music playing in the background here? I recognise it, but can’t remember where it’s from 😭

[@emishimaru-sama6449]

Headache -_-'' I think It would be easier to understand an ACE video Instead despite this Is well explained...

[@davidbeauchemin1840]

As soon as you talked about garbage data my mind went: "Find a way to write data in there and then underflow to execute." EDIT: Still don't know if I'm right as I'm still watching, but he did just mention ACE.

[@xono3819]

took a shot every time you said "cutscene" . I'm hospitalized now.

[@blockman_games17]

oh man how unpredictable! a relatively old nintendo game with a game breaking glitch discovered years after the game’s release!

[@AbruptAvalanche]

I can't wait for someone to use this to write the entirety of Animal Crossing into the system's RAM

[@GigaOtomia]

TAS: Tool Assisted Speedrun? No, to those who are daredevils and/or insane, Theoretically Achievable Speedrun.

[@Tayra_Reberta]

Hacking the game is not by normal means, so it's still impossible to beat Super Mario Sunshine in under 10 minutes. Reported for false information

[@UCXEO5L8xnaMJhtUsuNXhlmQ]

I gotta say the fact that they're not gonna do ACE subcategories for other categories than any% is pretty dumb. They're needlessly disincentivizing people from trying new things by giving them no recognition if they manage them.

[@PLUV1]

PLLLLAAAARRWAWAWAWASAWAWAWAWAWAWASAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWWAWAWAWAWWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA

[@blackheartb7316]

Why Mario sunshine IS a italiano ?

[@PokemarioThe2nd]

Italian is the fastest language overall (how quickly text is displayed), so that's what speedruns use

[@soul32ita51]

Per una volta l'italiano è utile

[@EthanTheWerewolf]

ACE is cool as hell, ive never heard of it until quite recently and its really cool how its being utilized in runs in so many different games

[@prizm9515]

Yeah, once you have ACE there's really no reason to add it to any category besides any%. Even if there was a 100% all source requirements category it would still be faster to just get them normally than to do the tedious water barrel set up fifty times. Ggs to orange.

[@brewski118sempire]

I'm way to high to understand cutscene underflow.

[@Zel-Veraan]

Looking forward to seeing RTA runs whittle this time down over the rest of this year.

[@Fixti0n]

I know that every single game has ACE, we just need to find it.

[@angelic428]

this is the only ACE speedrun route that i genuinely do not follow nor understand at all 😭

[@notalostnumber8660]

Yes! a KZbinr says that this is Use After Free! rather than just the term used by runners

[@Heartache1470]

It's so beautiful :) Maybe one day I'll try to do a speedrun of Sunshine

[@jakemoffett1511]

This is insanely impressive, a game 20 years on still getting broken beyond repair.

[@CaptainFalcon333]

We need a counter for how many times ''cutscenes'' is mentioned.

[@HoopleBogart]

You can put this on 1.25 speed and it almost sounds normal.

[@alpha210]

I thought it was a Sethbling video 🥲

[@MrKylederp]

R.I.P Sunshine speedruns 😢

[@maxlimit9129]

oh word? they found ACE in SMS?

[@ziongomez7758]

My jaw dropped after this one 🗣️

[@ponenik1691]

lol i was waiting for bro to upload this

[@ethanauger253]

watching while drunk is wild

[@andrewclark3330]

5:55 to skip sponsorship ad. im really beginning to hate it when KZbinrs put these in the middle of the video

[@Eira_99]

Grow up

[@haunted_pixel]

​@@Eira_99God forbid someone doesn't want to sit through ads

[@Eira_99]

@@haunted_pixel skipping ads is fine, I skipped thru it. Complaining about it in the comments is immature behaviour.

[@haunted_pixel]

@@Eira_99 Yeah alright fair enough

[@OnlyTAS]

Sponsorblock my beloved ❤

[@MidnightWonko]

Man, Gamecube and all its Pausas.

[@zactastic4k955]

This is insane that this is possible

[@alexlefevre3555]

Weegee's tentacles extend to SMS now. That was a surprise!

[@LunaticJ]

Weegee used to run SMS years ago. He held the any% world record multiple times in 2019.

[@netizen10008]

NO WAY! NO WAY?! NOW WAY…

[@galaxyrend]

No matter how many times I relisten to the explanations I do not understand ACE in the slightest 😭

[@williamdrum9899]

It has to do with the way computers work behind the scenes. Very hard to explain but I will try. Although most programming languages have data types such as integer, text, etc, the CPU can't really tell the difference between them, nor does it actually know the difference between data and code. A computer has an internal variable called the "Program Counter" that represents the location in memory of the operation currently being performed, and automatically advances to the next line of code once an operation finishes. Whatever the Program Counter "sees," the CPU will attempt to execute as code, regardless of whether it's a 3D model, a string of text, a data table, or whatever. Usually this doesn't happen, since most programming languages (other than assembly) do their best to ensure the Program Counter only looks at code. However, through programming errors it's possible to "hijack" the Program Counter, sending it to wherever the player desires. More on this later. The second piece of ACE is called the "payload." This is where the player can use some sort of method of entering data that can also be interpreted by the CPU as valid code. This requires intimate knowledge of the game console's inner workings. Usually this involves text entry or controller input. For speedruns, the payload is typically a jump to the end credits sequence. TL;DR: * ACE abuses the CPU's inability to distinguish between code and data * User inputs data into RAM that the CPU would interpret as valid code * User abuses an exploit that forces the CPU to execute the inputted data as code

[@ponenik1691]

with tas tho?

[@jytvreal]

nice

[@KaanSepticher]

Aw man no bus anology

[@OkdakSempai]

It HAD to be ACE

[@egg6940]

Song at the end?

[@MoonMarshmallow]

NOT THE BUS 😂

[@ShirakoriMio]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA marO

[@theporkchopexpress3939]

Utter insanity

[@JoelTheParrot]

12:58 lol wow

[@williamdrum9899]

So I've been wondering: The game doesn't let you pause in midair. I wonder why. My theory is that the game had a bug the devs couldn't figure out how to fix so they just disabled midair pausing to prevent it

[@ChippiHeppu]

It's to prevent the player from exiting the level when they're about to fall into a death pit so they wouldn't lose a life. A lot of games do this, including Mario 64.

[@JoestarJordan]

It's so you don't leave when you are about to fall into a death pit it's a feature in most mario games Being unable to pause or at least leave midair

[@XPlayzzGamz]

Honami

[@jiyucy]

wow

[@ebox147]

It always goes back to ACE, huh

[@williamdrum9899]

Yes. Technically any CD-ROM game is a form of ACE since the contents of the CD are copied to the console's RAM and executed from there

[@kirigherkins]

Cutscenes are stored in the balls

[@mabec]

how can i speedrun this video

[@ATSM_33]

6:40 "One Piece", huh? I have heard those two words too many times

[@Thunder-Sky]

shoot for the moon? I thought this was sunshine, not odyssey