Keeping with my usual expertise of not knowing in which of a couple of Fora to place this... I've had a long fascination with several things in gaming...
1. Glitches; above all else, glitches fascinate me, when coding goes wrong, in a harmless or even beneficial way... (bugs are crashes/etc. to me...)
2. 100%'s; while the total amount of games I've acquired 100% on could be counted on one hand (Kirby 64, Paper Mario*, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Super Paper Mario,) 100% fascinates me "total" completion... especially when 100% is more than 100% (101-3 in Donkey Kong games, 117 in a Spyro game, or just a notable 100%+, such as a total completion plus the Stop and Swops in Banjo-Kazooie...)
3. Instant Gratification; who doesn't like getting what they want instantly every now and then?
4. Oddities; things in games, oft due to an idea removed, but not in full, or some cameo/allusion for entertainment's sake...
5. A Good Show; something that really knocks you off your feet, be it a great game, great story, or one of those flukes that, on the contrary, brings you jumping TO your feet
6. An Old Game Brought Back To Life; when you dust off that cabinet and discover old treasures...
7. Minimalists; the reverse of 100%, common in Metroid games...
8. Luck Manipulation; beating the clock of the game, to a degree
* I am convinced I am stuck at 99.9999% as I'm missing 1 star piece and hence, badge... even though I did a walk through of piece by piece online countless times and still am missing the one...
Where am I going with this? My fascination in these has led me to several discoveries... several interesting sites... and strong interest in specific games...
Topping the game list are:
Pokemon Red/Green/Blue, and to a lesser extent, Yellow (Loath Pikachu, besides, a few fixes) - Due to several ways of saving space, may variables rely on strange things, it's why you can get Mew, Missingno., and M' without a Game Genie...
Donkey Kong 64 - There are a few bits and pieces that are peculiar about this game, good examples are the "AB room" as I'll call it, the control tower inside the island, and its connection to the leading game of the moment for me...
Banjo-Kazooie (the series) - Stop N' Swop... this little novelty has a few things known about it... and I have links which will elaborate... This game went through MANY changes in the time from conception to release, and to which have been alluded in every game since...
Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars - on a lower level, Abarna10 uncovered a few interesting things with debug which were, at least, entertaining, and it also holds one of the most peculiar, and arguably difficult challenges of any game I know... that isn't actually impossible
Numerous Legend of Zelda and (other) Donkey Kong games - for some reason these series have both had very extreme glitches... which lead to very interesting events...
Sonic 2 - I'm not sure how many of you know of it, but the omitted levels which were discovered from a New York Toy Show release sample cartridge which was stolen, and later copied to a pirated cartridge in China, have been released and are somewhat easy to find online... heading the list is the Hidden Palace Zone, which I believe has better art than its counterpart in S3K
Sonic Adventure 2 - this game has an unbelievable amount of glitches, which are very, very strange...
On a watching level, Super Mario 64, as I shall explain in video links...
And also I must note any game with a debug mode is very interesting, due to the ability to truly experience all the little toys in the game (to use all the rarest items and actually see their uses... not just for entertainment, but to really find out about them, sometimes they aren't quite as useful as they seemed)
Some sites I have stumbled upon for this include:
Flying Omelette's Kitchen
Flying Omelette's Kitchen (I linked to the oddities page, as that's what I am specifically referencing)
The Speed Demos Archive I really love speed runs, they can combine any number of the above interests (except 100%/Minimalist... I think anyway XD)
TASVideos Tool-assisted speed runs take this one step further, by
even falsifying the statement above...The Rare Witch Project Specifically for Banjo-Kazooie, the place for Stop N' Swop info...
TRsRockin THE page for PokÈmon Glitch-ness
Glitch City Laboratories if not, this is
S2B formerly known as Simon Wai's Sonic 2 Beta Page, this is a thorough explanation of the mysteries lost in the Sonic 2 product...
Secrets of Sonic Team one of two hubs of study for Sonic games... unfortunately left for dead as of now, though the site still works, just out of date...
Sonic Cult Viewer Discretion Advised the second of the two hubs, a little raunchier...
X-Cult the parent site for Sonic Cult...
Unseen64 another unreleased/prelease study site... I don't know as much about this one, so take a little caution, it may have popups, etc.
Super Mario RPG Secrets Abarna10's webside... and yes, I managed to find a Tripod page that has interesting stuff on it (no offense if someone... happens to have a Tripod)
The Mushroom Kingdom a plethora of Mario info...
Now... as for Super Mario 64... No game has been so thoroughly beaten as this... First... you can beat it with
100%, 120 Stars, or you can beat it with
70 Stars, the minimum requirement for the final boss fight... There used to be videos of others, 50 stars, to get in to the last area, 20 stars to get to the second boss fight, then, came the
16 Star run... now the only requirement is that rabbit appearing (hence 16)... Then people figured... that was too much, let's narrow it down to
one, why one? to get to the second boss, behind a painting until you get the star on the submarine... but that just wasn't satisfactory...
who needs stars anyway? but... don't you think that means it's over... this game's speed run has been fought for years, don't be shocked if one day someone figures out how to skip the keys as well...
some other strange videos have been made as well... I may update this if people show interest...
