SSBM TAS/TAP: All-Star Mode with Pichu in

This is a tool-assisted speedrun (TAS for short), meaning I played the game frame-by-frame and used savestates to get the outcome I wanted. This was not played in real time.

I had a prolonged weekend thanks to an ice storm, so I spent it making this. In this TAS, I clear Melee's All-Star Mode with Pichu without taking damage. Obviously with Pichu, taking no damage is different than with other characters, since about a third of his moveset has recoil damage. So I don't use that third. This leaves me with 3 throws, 3 aerial attacks, all of his tilt attacks, and 2 smash attacks. I can use Thunder as long as the bolt doesn't strike me, and while I can grab and throw, I can't pummel them without taking damage. I also lose his main recovery move so I have to airdodge a few times to recover.

This is not optimized. The only speed restriction I gave myself is that each match had to be under 30 seconds. If this is a record, it's because no one else has attempted it. There's a lot of room for improvement, and I can see this getting under 3 minutes pretty easily.

Here's some fight-by-fight commentary.

[Donkey Kong]

I'm not too satisfied with this fight, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I was like 5 fights in, and I didn't want to redo the entire run, so I left it in. I use a lot of bad attacks for racking up damage quickly (I never use Thunder in a fight after this one). This fight was more or less the first time I've used Pichu since before Brawl came out, and even then Pikachu's never been one of my mains, so I was getting a feel for the character more than anything.

[Ice Climbers]

Hitting Nana with an up-smash keeps her from resyncing with Popo and keeps her out of my way long enough to get the KO. Probably improvable.

[Bowser]

Bowser isn't too smart. If I take the hit, Bowser doesn't recover, making it faster. Perfect shielding is slower, so I use the regular shield. I don't see this fight getting faster in a no-damage run.

[Fox]

Decent, but could be better. Pichu doesn't have a spike, so I don't think I can use Great Fox's lasers to KO Fox fast.

[Dr. Mario and Luigi]

Like the Bowser fight, I take advantage of how Melee's CPUs don't deal with holes very well. This can be done faster if there's a better way to lead them into the hole, and I bet there is.

[Ness and Roy]

I spent forever trying to get the car to KO them, but the only way I managed was by taking damage, so I just KOed them normally.

[Link and Falco]

Falco isn't too smart either. Also the rock on the left side is really close to the blast border, so a backthrow KOs Link at pretty low health.

[Yoshi and Zelda]

Sheik what are you even doing?

[Pichu, Mewtwo, and Young Link]

Pretty happy with this fight. This is where I discovered that Pichu's back-throw has invincibility frames, which are pretty damn useful when the enemies start to pile up. Also stupid AI Pichu jumps right in front of the Super Scope right when it charges enough to KO him.

[Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Kirby]

Luck manipulation got me a Home-Run Bat. I tried throwing it left after I caught it, but it didn't have enough knockback. Throwing it down deals 1% more damage and has just enough knockback to KO Kirby. Also I spent a few rerecords getting the bat-catch taunt.

[Marth, Ganondorf, and Samus]

I'm going up against 3 characters with better range than me, so it took some doing to get some damage on them. I dodge more in this fight than the others. Luck manipulation got me the Warp Star, and I use it one frame before Samus would hit me. I tried to lure everyone to the star by the time it made its impact, but I missed Samus. Luckily I was able to hit her with an up-smash, so it wasn't much slower. Definitely room for improvement.

[Peach, Captain Falcon, and Mario]

Luck manipulation got me double Lip's Stick action. Item juggling is just the most fun thing ever when doing TASes. I approach Captain Falcon kind of awkwardly to avoid his get-up attack before getting the KO.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air up-air

Rerecord count: 1520+

1520 is the count in the movie file, but I redid some fights by reloading from earlier saves, and I no longer have the data for those fights. With them, I estimate the rerecord count is closer to 1900.