Fish Clip
Fish Clip, also known as Seaside Boundary Manipulation, is a trick in the Seaside Kingdom that is used in numerous speedrun categories. This glitch was discovered by Syrkl and involves abusing the physics of the ocean boundary with a Cheep Cheep to clip out of bounds.
This trick is often recommended even to beginner speedrunners, since it is relatively simple to perform.
Explanation
The boundary surrounding the Seaside Kingdom acts as more of a force field than a barrier, slowly pushing the player backwards when they get near it. The farther out the player gets, the stronger the force will be pushing the player back inward.
However, if a Cheep Cheep is uncaptured and left at the location of the boundary, it will not be pushed. This means the player can leave a Cheep Cheep near the boundary, and then swim away as Mario to cause the force to subside. Capturing the Cheep Cheep with Cappy will cause Mario to warp back to it, leaving a temporary window where the force from the boundary has not yet caught up with the player's position, and the player can swim further out than normal.
Execution
To perform Fish Clip:
- Capture a Cheep Cheep and bring it near a small notch in the kingdom boundary near the Bubblaine Northern Reaches moon (pictured at right);
- Swim straight at the notch, moving roughly perpendicular to the boundary;
- Just as the Cheep Cheep stalls and is about to be pushed backward by the boundary, uncapture it;
- Swim a bit away from the boundary as Mario;
- Throw Cappy back toward the Cheep Cheep and home in to recapture it;
- Swim downward immediately.
If the steps were executed correctly, the Cheep Cheep should clip out of bounds below the ocean floor.
Speedrun usage
Any%
In the Any% category, Fish Clip is performed just after collecting the Bubblaine Northern Reaches moon. After performing the clip, the Gap in the Ocean Trench moon is collected from half-bounds by shaking the controller to perform a spin attack. The loading zone to the Sphynx's vault can then be entered from out of bounds, allowing the moon inside to be collected. This route replaces the previous route, which utilized Rocket Flower Refresh to collect the notes moon earlier in the route, instead of the moon from the Sphynx's vault.