During the recent Kart 64 / Goldeneye meet in Virginia, we came across something unexpected. Mark Jones was playing Toad's Turnpike shortcut on the Japanese version of MK64, trying over and over to execute the "warp" portion of the shortcut. This is the version of the shortcut where Lakitu automatically places you down to the second half of the track, and only works on laps 2 and 3. Mark probably had at least 10 attempts that should have worked, so this definitely got my attention. I had previously had access to a Japanese version of Kart 64 in the early days of kart (late 90s) and thought I had confirmed that every known shortcut (at the time) was reproducible on the Japanese version. Apparently, this one was missed. So here's what we did:

We had two TVs side by side, one running the U.S. version, the other running the Japanese version. We closely analyzed the two, looking for any potential differences. The only main difference between Mark's attempts and mine were that I have always played shortcuts in "view 3" mode, or the perimeter mode which shows your relative position on the track. I thought I had a successful execution on lap 2 since the kart was showing up on the second half of the track at the moment I had the kart stuck on the rail. Oddly enough, Lakitu placed the kart back down at the early part of the track and reverted the alleged progress that was made. I have never ever seen this behavior on the U.S. version in all the time I have known about the shortcut.

The strangest part about all of this is that the Japanese version came out before the U.S. version. It appears that some fix was done on Nintendo's part between the two versions, but this fix evidently had side effects, allowing for the warp to be possible on the U.S. version. In a nutshell, this version of the shortcut does not work on the Japanese version!

As a result of this, I propose that all NTSC shortcut times for Toad's Turnpike must be immediately separated, since our U.S. version has an unfair advantage over the Japanese version. I have long been an advocate of keeping records across each version separate, so this definitely confirms my reasons. I know it's not practical to separate everything now, but in the spirit of fair play, this must be done for Toad's Turnpike at the very least. I suspect that other shortcuts (both current and future) may be potentially impacted by this as well. Time will tell how far this goes.

I propose that all NTSC shortcut times for Toad's Turnpike must be immediately separated


Um, no.  It's way too far into the game to do this.

Etch wrote on 08/18/08 at 22:43:19:


lmao, epic win

I propose that we seperate Brazilian and Dutch players from the rest of us as they obviously have some unfair advantage  

Patricio wrote on 08/18/08 at 22:00:20:

I never landed the lap 2 and 3 warp, just the shortcut at the beginning of lap 1 as best as I can recall.  Very strange that the glitch only works on later versions of the game.

I always knew I was playing at a disadvantage

Greg_I wrote on 08/19/08 at 05:09:53:


wahhaha I guess you called it skilled advatages right... or does it has to do with GABSPLITIFITY,,,,,,,  

VAJ

VAJ wrote on 08/19/08 at 09:03:39:


err am I missing something here or would u want to break his wr not tie it?

Greg_I wrote on 08/19/08 at 05:09:53:



agreed!!!! no, wait, i am brazilian, uhmmm

i didnt get what vaj said. 1st i though he was saying that pressing start will make u loose time, and by the end of his post i think that he means that it saves times by pressing it... i dont get it

and... leave my TT sc WRs alone!!!!

Karlo Tomazelli

Yeah that was strange that the second version and the american version which came out after were allowing a bug that the first version wasn't

MJL wrote on 08/19/08 at 14:25:08:


I think I know what you are referring to. Without getting into specifics, in that particular case, it regarded something that was possible on all versions, but was detrimental to the competitive nature of the game. In such cases I would agree, and oftentimes certain "killer" glitches are never made public for this reason. Those are the kinds of glitches I regret finding when they do happen, and hope that nobody else encounters them.

However, this recent TT sc situation is different, and I wish I had run into it sooner. The strat is already well known, but people playing on certain versions (specifically Japanese 1.0) are at a distinct disadvantage in that they cannot execute this version of the shortcut. If we were to find that some Australian PAL versions could do certain shortcuts, but the US NTSC could not, would anyone really want those times integrated? How about if something could be done on the Japanese NTSC version but not on the European PAL version? Seriously, let's be fair and impartial about this instead of just "sweeping it under the rug."

Patricio wrote on 08/19/08 at 17:07:08:


True, however we do have separate listings for things like the zero second glitch on Royal Raceway. I think a short listing or a brief mention like that would be a good compromise. Just have the highest time for Japanese 1.0 on Turnpike sc listed with a note stating why.

Shinji Masuda  1'33"90  - 29"83
Robin Usher  2'05"28 - 32"82

I don't know about japanese times elsewhere but those are the only good times set here.  Obviously Shinji's are done on 1.1 but maybe Robin used 1.0, otherwise he was a complete n00bert driving those times.  A chart for possibly one person is dumb, I rather see Robin's sexy mug on the WR tally for the time set on his version of mk64.

It might be the only WR Robin ever gets.

KGT87 wrote on 08/19/08 at 11:23:33:


What I meaned was you loose time by pressing start.... it doesn't save your ass at all...