SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated) deserved to win Best Picture.
This is a 24-minute video explaining how to beat a Super Mario 64 level with only half an A-press. It's the most compelling film I've seen in years.
More than the countless hours of research behind the video and the 12 actual hours it took to make, the genius is in the commentary (complete with graphs and charts), from the internet's foremost Super Mario 64 savant Scott Buchanan.
But wait: How can you press A half a time?
Buchanan, aka pannenkoek2012, knows you're probably wondering that, so he begins the video by addressing the haters and under-estimators, and riding up on them like they escalators.
Basically a half A-press is when you press A to jump into the level, and hold it throughout the level, never releasing it, and thus, never performing a complete A-press.
The above is the first graphic introduced by pannenkoek2012. It's the first moment when we the viewer realize, shit, this video is serious.
After beating the game as a kid, Buchanan sought out further challenges within the game. That lead him to the forums of a website called SM64.com, where users shared detailed knowledge of coin maps, and more importantly, glitches. It was on SM64.com that Buchanan discovered the A-button challenge. It's just a constraint to add infinite replayability to the game, but Buchanan and his collaborators have elevated the A-button challenge to an artform.
In the SM64.com days, people were completing the game (getting all 120 stars) in about 212 A-presses. Buchanan, with the help of online collaborators, has got that number down to about 32. That's beating the entire game while only pressing jump 32 times. And he's still looking for ways to save A-presses.
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