Speed run of Super Paper Mario in 45 segments, completed on July 14 2007. Available in six versions: low/normal quality DivX, and normal/high/insane/low quality H.264 MPEG-4.

Author's comments:
First of all, thanks to:

* Radix, for hosting the run.
* nate, for encoding the run.
* Amazing Ampharos, who provided insightful advice and helped me turn my original sloppy first few segments into something worthy of a real speedrun.
* Mr_Potter, Satoryu, tkrausse, and forte_x, who also pointed out mistakes in my segments that I had to fix and faster ways to do things. Mr_Potter also found some tricks I used in my run.
* tjp7154, who gave me the idea for the Paragoomba jump in 2-1 and part of the idea for skipping most of the banister in 2-2.
* everyone who posted in the topic saying they looked forward to the run or really liked my segments, for spurring me on.

This is my first speedrun. I looked at many games, including Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Sonic Adventure 2, and even Twilight Princess (honestly, I could never be as good as Jiano at TP), before settling on running Super Paper Mario. There are many mistakes in this run, about 2 or 3 minutes of them, but I only covered the major ones in this commentary.

Highlights of this run include:

* 10 bounces in a row on O'Chunks in World 1-4
* Skipping a section of the level in World 2-1 using a Paragoomba
* The Brobot fight in World 4-4
* King Croacus fight in World 5-4
* Beating Mimi, the hardest boss in the game, in 43 seconds
* Abusing O'Chunks's AI in World 8-1 to defeat him easily and quickly without getting hit
* The final boss fights

And now for the segment-by-segment comments.

* Segment 1
o Not much to say here. Just a lot of talking. Boring.
o I later learnt that the fastest filename would actually be "9"; left to go to last row from the beginning, then down to 9, then straight to done. Faster then choosing the infinity sign. But whatever, that's extremely minor.

* Segment 2
o I hate the Bleck scenes in speedruns, because they take so long and all you do is press the 2 button. It gets really annoying when you have to attempt the segment many times. This segment took 4 improvements, each taking about maybe 50 tries, before I finished it. Needless to say, it was annoying.
o The Fire Burst has a use later.
o Skipping the Mega Star is faster, because it takes a long time to grow. I do get a Mega Star in World 7-4, however, because the time it saves is more than the time it wastes.

* Segment 3
o I made a major breakthrough in this segment. I found this huge button on the Wiimote labeled A, and apparently, it lets you flip into 3D! This must be some sort of easter egg. This is an even bigger breakthrough then way back when OoT speedrunners discovered how to hop fences without Goron Mask!
o Nothing much to say here.

* Segment 4
o O'Chunks was amazing. You can't get much better than 10 multibounces in a row. This is one of the highlights of this run.

* Segment 5
o Fracktail went really well. I managed to stay on him the entire boss battle.

* Segment 6
o This is what I used the Fire Burst for.

* Segment 7
o I managed to skip an entire section of the level leading up to the pipe in 2-1 by jumping off a Paragoomba onto the pipe at just the right time. It's much, much harder then it looks; this took me at least 100 tries.

* Segment 8
o I missed the invisible block once. Luckily, I hit it the second time.
* I also missed the jump to the brick wall by accident, but it doesn't look that way because I landed on an enemy. It gave me experience, so it wasn't all in vain. (I still haven't reached Level 2 by this point.)

* Segment 9
o I had a close shave with one of the Gnaws. It almost bit me in the beginning, but I got lucky.
o Duck jumping allows you to get into gaps that are too small for regular Mario, and it's abused a few times in this run. Here, I duck jump onto a block below the key chest one unit away from the ceiling, then flip into 3D and skip the whole banister part.

* Segment 10
o Another straightforward segment, perhaps the most straightforward one in the run. All I did was get Slim and get Rubees...

* Segment 11
o I just walk through Mimi's legs to the door she was guarding. That's some great programming.
o I accidentally pick the wrong Merlee, but it actually doesn't matter; the fight still starts. It's still really sloppy, though. But it doesn't waste much time.
o Mimi fight went pretty well, but I took some damage.

* Segment 12
o All the between-chapter parts are really straightforward; most of them took me 10 or so tries.

* Segment 13
o I killed Bowser with items because Boomer was too slow.
o After I recorded this, I found out that you can skip the underground section almost entirely, shaving off 30 seconds. But my backup of this segment was gone, so I had to live with it.

* Segment 14
o Jumping in and out of water while in 3D mode is faster than just swimming, and it lets you avoid enemies too. I do that a lot in this segment.

* Segment 15
o Instead of waiting for the platform to come back, I used Peach to float over to it.
o I HATE POISON CHERBILS. They were a major source of failed runs because of their poisonous gas.

* Segment 16
o I later found out that you can skip the pipe part of this segment with another Boomer trick. That's another 20 seconds of missed opportunities.
o I HATE AMAYZEE DAISIES. They're worse than Poison Cherbils, and this level places them in the worst spots.

* Segment 17
o The Dimentio battle went pretty well.
o I entered Critical for the first time in this segment, thanks to Spinies. Lakitus got me down to 1 HP at the end, too.

* Segment 18
o I had to go through the first 4 minutes of this with 1 HP, thanks to my sloppy last segment.
o The Francis fight was basically perfect. He didn't even get to attempt to attack me.

* Segment 19
o Yet another straightforward Between Chapter segment.

* Segment 20
o Carrie is much faster than space-swimming (as Squirps calls it), which is why I used Carrie here. Carrie is definitely my most used Pixl in this run, because she's much faster than walking. Dashell would be the fastest way of getting around, but the Pit of 100 trials takes way too long.

* Segment 21
o Just the rest of 4-1. Nothing much happened here.

* Segment 22
o The item beside the pipe isn't chocolate, it's Space Food. So I can't skip the Twinkle Mart in 4-3...unless there's some trick I don't know about.
o I got the old guy's offer down to 10 coins. I had to pay 100 coins on my first playthrough. :(
o Have you ever noticed that there are only four bathrooms in the entire game? Two are in Merlee's basement (wouldn't you hate having to go all the way down there just to go to the bathroom?), one is in space (and Fleep's been occupying that one for 1500 years), and one is in the Overthere (which only dead people and legendary heroes have access to). How do people go to the bathroom if they're so inaccesible? I actually have a theory about this. All the residents of each world take a dump or a pee in some random place, and given enough time that will form into a Cherbil. (There's a reason Cherbils look like buttcheeks.) Notice how there are so few Cherbils in Bleck's castle. That's because he can just do his business in his little Void. And there are almost no Cherbils on Planet Blobule or in the Overthere because those places have bathrooms. There are a few in Merlee's Mansion, but we can blame Mimi for that. (Guess what Rubees are made of?)
o I had a few missed jumps in this segment, but nothing too bad.

* Segment 23
o I think I navigated the space maze very well with Carrie.

* Segment 24
o I love this level. There weren't any major mistakes or notable tricks here, so that's all I have to say about this segment.

* Segment 25
o Mr. L and Brobot went great. I couldn't naturally damage Brobot (my attack was too low), so I relied on powerups. I still got a good time, though. The game was lagging a little because of how many shots I fired =P

* Segment 26
o I had a menu mistake at the end; I accidentally exited the character switching menu and had to go back in again.

* Segment 27
o The combination input was a little slow because I was reading it off a piece of paper. Do you really expect me to memorize that? I was reading the combination in 2-3 off a piece of paper too. But that was easier to memorize.

* Segment 28
o This O'Chunks also went really well. I made an ugly flipping mistake at the end. It didn't cost too much time, though (less than 5 seconds); it just looks ugly.

* Segment 29
o Another straightforward segment.

* Segment 30
o I throw the Cragnon off the switch just as it's coming down so I don't have to walk with him.

* Segment 31
o Mini Mario is slow, so I switch to Carrie while crawling back through the key card hole and use her, making Mario's face get bur. I do this in World 8-4 too when I have to get a hidden key.
o I went down to 1 HP in the O'Cabbage battle, then got it all restored with a level up. Other than that, O'Cabbage went pretty well.
o You can just skip the third hole, because its switch color (blue) already corresponds with the picture color (blue).
o I miss the last switch once, but I hit it.

* Segment 32
o Croacus was basically perfect. This is one of the hardest bosses in the game, and I didn't even take any damage. This helped me in the Sammer Guy tournament.

* Segment 33
o I did very well in the Sammer Guy tournament. Somehow, this segment only took me 3 tries. Both of the failed tries ended at the guy near the elevator because I accidentally talked to him.
o Hairy Arantula (the small guy) took me less than a second to beat. I think this sets some sort of record.

* Segment 34
o Mimi is the hardest boss in the game, and I beat her in 43 seconds with Bowser's fire.
o Brobot also went really well.

* Segment 35
o It's faster to skip the ferry than to take it.
o You normally fill the water one last time when going back (at least, I did), but I super jumped to a convenient pipe and skipped that.
o Luigi's high jump means I can just jump on the pipes on the way back instead of flipping with Mario and going around all those spikes.
o I kill those Piranha Plants with Luigi on purpose to get EXP.

* Segment 36
o When I go back to the Underwhere, I use Carrie to cross the water, which is the fastest way of crossing the river.

* Segment 37
o I skip the rotating transport things (which came back from World 1) with Carrie.
o Bowser went really well. I usually take much more damage in this battle than I did.
o I've gotten better Underchomp battles, but since everything else in this segment was great I decided to keep it.

* Segment 38
o Luigi's super jump BREAKS this level. With it, you can skip entire clouds and get on vertical platforms without having to wait for them to come to you. You can also jump to your destination even when it's offscreen.
o I accidentally switch out Mario when I have to cross the gap near the arrow, and then quickly switch to Peach like I wanted to.

* Segment 39
o I was mean and didn't unfreeze any Nimbis except the three I had to. Yet they still managed to put together a huge army of maybe 200 at the end. How does this happen? Were they all hiding in a invisible box somewhere? They could get over the bridge gap and just kill all those Skellobits for us, because they can fly. So why don't they just do that?
o I decided to grab the Mega Star because I figured it would be faster than running through all that without the star. In 3D, you also need to do complex jumping in which the bricks are a major problem, and you have to be in 2D on the way back because you can't see backward in 3D on the way back. With the Mega Star, I don't need to flip into 3D, and I can just go back unhindered.
o I use Mr_Potter's trick to skip the horizontal elevator.
o Bonechill went pretty well.

* Segment 40
o Again, another straightforward segment. All I do is go to Flopside and place the Pure Heart in a pillar, then save next to Flopside Tower.

* Segment 41
o In the Castle Bleck segments, I abuse 3D to avoid all enemies for a faster time. But that's kind of obvious anyway.
o I completely own O'Chunks by abusing his AI. I didn't even take a single hit from him. I guess him getting larger made his brain even smaller...

* Segment 42
o I got a triple-bounce kill on the 3D Chromeba, something which I can't normally do.
o Mimi went basically perfectly. They should have switched this Mimi with the Mimi in 7-2, because the 7-2 Mimi was HARD, while this one was easy.

* Segment 43
o 2 segments left before this run is over.
o The level part went very well.
o I took a little damage in the space part of Dimentio's tag game, but it didn't waste too much time.
o Dimentio went really well.

* Segment 44
o I waited at the lifts so that I would get an ideal platform position. The default one doesn't let you get to the second platform, so you have to wait for the first platform to descend again.
o The level went pretty well, I think.

* Segment 45
o This segment took a LONG time for me to complete, at least 700 tries. Damn you Super Dimentio and your rapid-firing projectiles of death and my inability to infinite jump on your head except by sheer luck like I did in the final segment. Oh yeah, and you, Count Bleck, with your random first-stage movement.
o I've gotten better Bleck battles, but this one was still 14 seconds above my average, so I'm satisfied with it.
o By sheer luck, I manage to trap Super Dimentio in a corner and infinite jump on his head. For once, I was loving my luck there. And now I even know how to do that infinite jump after studying that segment; trap his head against the wall and just jump on him while hugging the wall and pressing right.
o Great, that level up after the final boss is REALLY going to help me. Thanks, game.
o Let me tell you a story of bad luck. I had just beaten the final boss on a really good try for this segment (the final one was better, though. Much much better.) and was congratulating myself for finally getting this segment done while skipping text, when the game just FROZE. Never happened again. I was really pissed off, because that was my best attempt so far.

WOO, THERE IT IS! There it is folks, that's how you speedrun Super Paper Mario without Goron Mask, or damage boosting, or...whatever.

Also, here's my Twilight Princess drowning speedrun!
http://files.filefront.com/Zelda+TP+Drowning+Speedrun/;8095252;;/fileinfo.html

Yes, I know, this commentary was long. Whoever wants to kill themselves doing an SS or 100%, be my guest.

- MrGuy

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