Pipes were upgraded yet again:

This time all 8 variations make an appearance (some pipes were missing in the last revision).
4 Colors.
1 Pipe Joint.
The possibility to reduce the size of any of the 33 objects.
Higher layer priority.

This upgrade should be the last as far as the pipes are concerned.

Try to play Level 8-6 and you'll see that when you get out of the chimney, the volcanic clouds (or any other animated background that would be there instead for that matter) are not animated.
To fix this:
_decompress arm9;
_go to offset 0×3C94E (US) or 0×2C2F6 (EU);
_change 02 02 into 03 01.

What you have to keep in mind is that:
_if you want to go to Area 2 from Area 1, you'll have to put 4 as the Area number.
_if you want to go to Area 1 from Area 2, you'll have to put 3 as the Area number.

This is because the 2 bytes mentioned earlier are actually the number of areas for Levels 8-5 and 8-6 respectively.
Once you change those 2 numbers, what happens is that the game expects to load the only Area of Level 8-6 from area number 164 (163 in US), but is still loaded from Area 163 (162 in US) due to that information staying as-is in overlay 8, thus the Area count begins from Area 1 Level 8-5 rather than Area 1 Level 8-6.

I'm wondering, since you're on such a roll with those patches, could you perhaps look into any of the following?


1. Giant Springboard Pickup
The pickup hitbox for the giant springboard is far too large and extends even above it, which makes you pick it up if you're holding B and don't press A in time when springing off it.

2. Regular switch w/Bowser Battle
The normal switches can kill Bowser by activating an event -- but the fight doesn't end. That only happens with the special switch created for the fight, which lacks all other switch settings, and it's bridge breaking property is quite useless, as it can be replicated with a string of tilegods -- if this was fixed, it'd make it possible to make the Bowser fights more varied.

3. Pipe-enter-off-moving-sprite
When you try to enter a pipe off a moving sprite, you can start entering said pipe in it's upper half, making Mario's head clip into the ground.

4. Snow effect restart in the same area
If you're in a zone with the snow effect (and possibly others?) and enter a pipe that leads to another zone in the same area, which also has a snow effect in it, the snow effect will glitchily 'restart' from the position it was in the first zone.

5. Balloon Boo "Normal Boo" mode hitbox
The hitbox is all wrong. If it was fixed, you could possibly even change the model to resemble an actual Giant Boo and have a custom-esque enemy.

6. Giant Swooper's Disappearing Hitbox
There's a split second during giant swooper's descent when it's hitbox suddenly disappears, for whatever reason.

I'd appreciate fixing any of the above, if you have the time/motivation.

A patch that I think would be nice, for people who want to add a challenge to their hack, is a patch that makes certain items, like the Fire Flower, act like how they did in the original Mario games(SMB, SMB2/TLL, SMB3, SMW/SMB4). Although, I wouldn't mind if it isn't made, I just thought that it would be a nice suggestion.
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I think Arctus means that "second powerup" Mario reverts to small Mario when hit.

And vice versa, where the secondary powerup makes Mario big if collected while small as well.
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Please have pity on that poor soul who only got 1 heart afterall…



Jokes aside, I already did number 3 on my hack before you even asked (actually it fixes pretty much everything wrong with the pipes), but I have yet to port it on the American version.

The only one that I did for now is number 4:
_Decompress overlay 10;
_Go to offset 0×4D35F (US) or 0×4A333 (EU);
_Change 1A into EA;
_Decompress overlay 54;
_Go to offset 0×BC6C (US) or 0×AF98 (EU);
_Change 0C00000A into 00000000;

What this does has nothing to do with the Texture effects, rather it changes the way a Scene is loaded from an Entrance.
Basically each time you take an Entrance the whole Area is reloaded no matter what, even if the Destination Area is the same as the Source Area.

Hmmm...
But that'll make cross-zone-events unusable won't it?

It shouldn't have any incidence.

But can you give me an example of what you mean by cross-zone event?
I have my idea of what you mean but I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

You have two zones, say, 0 and 1. You activate an event in Zone 1 and go to Zone 0. In the retail game, it stays active.

Now, switch the word zone with "area" there and this doesn't stay true. Which makes me wonder if essentially reloading the area will nuke the events.

Sh… sh…… shit!

Wow, the game actually managed to sucker punch me!
I got tricked because I tested with an Event ID of 8 or less, and it worked, but as soon as I tried an Event ID of 9 or above…


Oh well, testing time, I guess it's probably something simple like a CMP Rx,#8 or #9 along with the conditional branch to comment out.

So, just to confirm. In the retail: flags 1-8 persist across areas? I wonder if they persist with the "nonexistent area ID" overflow bug.

EDIT: both confirmed (by me and MeroMero)

Events won't get nuked anymore when reloading an Area, regardless of whether or not this Area is part of the current Level.

_ Decompress arm9
_ go to offset 0×1DEA8 (US) or 0×1E114 (EU) and change 020000E0 0E1001E0 by 00000000 00000000
_ go to offset 0×1DF00 (US) or 0×1E16C (EU) and change 020000E0 061001E0 by 00000000 00000000
_ go to offset 0×1DF34 (US) or 0×1E1A0 (EU) and change 0100C305 by 00000000

I needed those 2 mods because I'm using them as a complementary obstacle during the bosses fights of Worlds 6 and 7.

Kill Mini Bloopers spawned by the Blooper Nanny on Level Completion
_ decompress overlay 25
_ go to offset 0×50E0 (US) or 0×4CE4 (EU) and replace 23 by 22



Kill Flames spawned by Flame Chomp on Level Completion
_ decompress overlay 70
_ go to offset 0×18F8 (US) or 0×172C (EU) and replace 23 by 22

I thought of another thing, though it's debatable:

7. Shell Mario Roll on D-Pad Down only
Getting into the shell mode as Blue Shell Mario due to just running can get annoying, so perhaps making it be triggered by speed and pressing d-pad down together (something akin to Penguin Suit in Wii) could be a nice fix.

That in itself shouldn't be too difficult, but afterwards those would have to be checked too:
_ ground-pounding a slope or pressing Down when on a slope should still make Shell Mario roll downwards;
_ when Mario is already rolling, climbing a slope shouldn't slow him down nor make him go downwards;
_ not mandatory (and also I was thinking about this one for a while) but when under the effects of a Starman, rolling speed and running speed of Shell Mario should be made at ×2 of their original value.

Well, yes, I agree to all three there.

Also, the rolling mode should continue as long as D-Pad-Down is held (it continues as long as B is held in the retail game).

*My psychic abilities told me that in about 3 days from the moment I post this, you would have thought about low G mode.

Link updated in the footer for anyone who wants to have a taste of the new mechanics of Shell Mario.

...
Can't really apply that to an already-heavily-edited ROM, though.



I was thinking about it, but I did have that semi-taken-care-of