EarthBound Anti-Piracy: This room in Dungeon Man is full of Nesses...!? [READ DESCRIPTION]

Описание: I challenged myself as an EarthBound speedrunner to defeat the game as fast as possible with Anti-Piracy Layer 3 active, using traditional EB Glitchless speedrun strategies. The primary function of Layer 3 is a spawn plate booster (every enemy spawn tile in the game is set to 100%), but it also activates some "dummy" spawn plates that otherwise go unused in the regular game, as well as enables some spawn plates to continue spawning enemies even after they're meant to be switched off after defeating a boss. This function can be activated independently of layers 1, 2, and 4 (which each render the game unfinishable) using just one Game Genie/Action Replay code in compatible emulators.

The intended purpose of this layer, to the community's understanding, is to literally make the game so overcrowded with enemy spawns that it would make anyone who tried to bootleg the game just not want to play it. However, I'm willing to bet that this function wasn't playtested very far, because I can't imagine most of the side effects of this single code alteration were entirely deliberate, nor did they even think anyone would ever get very far into the game under that condition,et alone with full awareness of what they're doing. (Also, I don't think very many people have even messed around with this functionality on their own, at least not in conjunction with other cheat codes like "auto-win all fights." In taking on this challenge I started to question how accurate some of the documentation on this subject even is.)

EarthBound is very sensitive regarding having too many "things" on screen (or, to be more specific, having too many "things" loaded in memory). This has been exploited even in the regular game for tricks like the Onett Barrier Skip (used by speedrunners in glitched categories), or Bike% (produces some wacky sprite glitches and cool looking/sounding crashes), but the effects of this limitation are magnified when every single spawn plate in the game is guaranteed to activate (almost) every time.

See, most areas of the game function perfectly fine, it's just overcrowded with enemies which produce lag and force you into fights, like some kind of EB "Hard Mode." In certain spots though, I ran into a number of interesting glitches. The one in this video might be my most significant discovery over the course of this challenge... I don't think there's any documentation of this particular occurrence anywhere on the internet.
Note: This was technically a speedrun, yes, but I also took some detours to experiment with specific areas that were glitch-prone and crash-prone, such as this one. My primary focus was to make notes of any specific areas where I would be absolutely required to turn the Action Replay code off in order to proceed (such as most of Threed post-rescue and the top floor of Fourside Dept. Store) but I also was interested in seeing what would happen if I tried: A) Disabling the code before entering the loading zone in order to be able to get INTO the next room without the game crashing, and B) Re-enabling the code while walking around in these messed up rooms. Most of the time, I wouldn't be able to get very far without a straight-up hardlock, but this time... we got something special.

According to community member JTolmar:
"it's trying to spawn enemy group 768 (there are 483 enemy groups)"
"boss swirl is based on enemy group number, not any property that makes sense, so that's why it's a boss swirl"

For those wondering: yes, I did complete this run! Without Layer 4 activated (which notoriously hardlocks during the Giygas fight and wipes your save data), I was able to defeat Giygas and make it all the way to the end credits, with a time of 7:43:59. This run, however, was split up into a few segments (not done all at once), was full of experimentation and detours using savestate and rewind (as mentioned above), and was performed with very little preparation or research done ahead of time. I died many times and had to improvise different strategies and safeties on the fly, and unfortunately I did wind up having to reload a savestate one time in order to not have to reset from my last in-game save from at least 30 minutes prior, so... by my "rules" with care to the community's rules in mind, this speedrun is "illegitimate."

However, I did successfully complete the challenge AND PROVE that the game is ALMOST COMPLETELY FINISHABLE under this condition. From what I can tell, there are less than 5 spots where I absolutely HAVE to temporarily turn off the code for a handful of seconds in order to progress without glitches, so now that I know what I know I absolutely intend on running this back WITH preparation, in one single segment. I think, with the right conditions and few enough unintended deaths, I can bring this time under 6.5 hours if not better. Wish me luck. (:

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