Frogless: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:19, 16 February 2023

Frogless is a technique that can be used to scale the Inside Top-Hat Tower level without capturing a frog. The most prominent part of the skip is a vertical trickjump used to climb a very tall ledge near the bottom of the level.

Uses

Minimum Captures

The most prominent use case of Frogless is in Minimum Captures runs, since it bypasses the need for any captures in the tower.

Speedrunning

In two-player speedruns, Frogless is the fastest known way to scale the interior of the tower. Horizontal movement is faster without the frog capture, and Frogless also eliminates the need to skip the cutscene that normally plays when first capturing a frog (which takes roughly a second). The primary disadvantage of not using a frog is slower vertical traversal, but since two-player mode allows cap bouncing instantly without throwing Cappy, allowing the vertical ledges to be scaled faster, this disadvantage is mitigated.

Variants

Upfrog

Upfrog refers to using the trickjump to skip the first set of frogs, but then capturing one of the frogs partway up the tower to complete the second half. This is viable as a speedrun strategy since the frogs in the second group do not trigger the same cutscene as the first group, eliminating the time needed to skip it.

This strategy was previously theorized to save time in single-player runs, due to bypassing the frog cutscene skip while still enabling fast climbing in the second half of the tower, but it is no longer viable since the discovery of Hydrophobia. However, in two-player mode, Upfrog is very close in speed to Frogless, which is currently the fastest method to traverse the tower. This is because Cappy can reach the second set of frogs from fairly far away in two-player mode. As such, it is not unlikely that Upfrog is actually optimal for two-player speedruns.

The name "Upfrog" is based on the word updog, which is famously used as a practical joke.

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 === Speedrunning ===
-In [[Two-player mode|two-player]] speedruns, Frogless is the fastest known way to scale the interior of the tower. Scaling the vertical ledges without a frog capture is much more efficient than in single-player mode due to the ability to [[cap bounce]] instantly without [[Cap throw|throwing Cappy]], which makes the skip save enough time due to circumventing the need to skip the cutscene that normally plays when first capturing a frog, as well as enabling faster horizontal movement.
+In [[Two-player mode|two-player]] speedruns, Frogless is the fastest known way to scale the interior of the tower. Horizontal movement is faster without the frog capture, and Frogless also eliminates the need to skip the cutscene that normally plays when first capturing a frog (which takes roughly a second). The primary disadvantage of not using a frog is slower vertical traversal, but since two-player mode allows [[cap bounce|cap bouncing]] instantly without [[Cap throw|throwing Cappy]], allowing the vertical ledges to be scaled faster, this disadvantage is mitigated.
 == Variants ==
 === Upfrog ===
-'''Upfrog''' refers to using the trickjump to skip the first set of frogs, but then capturing one of the frogs partway up the tower to complete the second half. This is viable as a speedrun strategy since the frogs in the second group do not trigger the cutscene, eliminating the time needed to skip it.
+'''Upfrog''' refers to using the trickjump to skip the first set of frogs, but then capturing one of the frogs partway up the tower to complete the second half. This is viable as a speedrun strategy since the frogs in the second group do not trigger the same cutscene as the first group, eliminating the time needed to skip it.
-a theorized speedrun strategy within the [[Inside Top-Hat Tower|Top-Hat Tower]] in the [[Cap Kingdom]]. It involves using the [[Frogless]] jump to skip the [[frog]] capture near the base of the tower, and instead climbing up to and capturing one of the frogs halfway up the tower. Unlike the frogs at the bottom of the tower, the frogs on the upper level do not have an associated cutscene, eliminating the need to input the cutscene skip sequence.
+This strategy was previously theorized to save time in single-player runs, due to bypassing the frog cutscene skip while still enabling fast climbing in the second half of the tower, but it is no longer viable since the discovery of [[Hydrophobia]]. However, in two-player mode, Upfrog is very close in speed to Frogless, which is currently the fastest method to traverse the tower. This is because Cappy can reach the second set of frogs from fairly far away in two-player mode. As such, it is not unlikely that Upfrog is actually optimal for two-player speedruns.
 The name "Upfrog" is based on the word [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/updog updog], which is famously used as a practical joke.
-== Explanation ==
-The Upfrog strategy involves skipping the first set of frog captures at the base of the Top-Hat Tower interior using movement similar to that used in Minimum Captures runs, and instead capturing one of the frogs among the second set, halfway up the tower. The key advantage to this is that the frogs in the second group do not trigger the cutscene that normally plays when Mario captures a frog for the first time. Although this cutscene can be skipped, doing so takes approximately a second.
-While it is possible to clear the entire tower without capturing any frogs, the movement for doing so becomes too slow in the second half to consider skipping the second set of frogs in mainstream speedruns.
-It is important to note that Upfrog has not actually been proven to be faster than the original strategy of capturing the frog at the bottom of the tower. However, some speedrunners have created spliced videos to show how fast Upfrog could potentially be, and it comes within mere frames of the fastest clips for the original movement. It is often theorized that Upfrog is ultimately the faster strategy, and may make an appearance in tool-assisted speedruns.
 [[Category:Speedrun tricks]]