Superstar Saga Marathon Route Notes

I am participating in the upcoming SpeedRunsCentral marathon on Feb 12-16 - http://www.twitch.tv/speedrunscentral

The route I take for marathons in Superstar Saga is different from my normal Any% route.  Due to the danger of softlocking in many parts of the last 30 minutes of the run I have to take certain precautions that will allow me to finish a run even if I softlock.

Here are the main differences in the marathon run:

1.  Only the Japanese version is marathon safe at time of writing

Bowser's Castle skip requires there to be an active timer event running in the background for the skip to work.  The timer event the run uses is the soul collecting game on Hoohoo Mountain.  If I reload a save file due to softlock then that timer event is wiped out.  The backup timer event is to play the surfing minigame in Oho Ocean.  The Japanese version can access it earlier because of barrel clipping but the English version would have to complete the game up to WooHoo Hooniversity which loses an hour.  This is the main reason why the Japanese version is marathon safe.

2.  Early Super Hammers are obtained

The Japanese route usually skips these, but getting Super Hammers allows me to make a safety save in Teehee Valley that I would otherwise be able to.  Getting Super Hammers costs about 2 minutes, but in the event of a softlock it makes up for it.

3.  I use the old Firebrand route instead of the current route with the sign glitch

Like Super Hammers, this is also for safety reasons.  If I softlock using the sign glitch route I will lose more time than the glitch saves.  It's also nicer from a commentary standpoint because it allows me to explain the barrel glitch and action command glitch separately instead of all at once.


A really good marathon run without softlocks would get around a 1:34, so there is no chance for a PB during a marathon run.  During the next week I will be doing runs for practice using the marathon route unless I have a REALLY good start in which case I'll attempt an Any% run