RTA "Snow-Whirled" Tidal Wave strats proof-of-concept (Paper Mario 64)
40Proof-of-concept; recorded live on a retail N64 system, cartridge and controller. Might do a more in-depth Super Mario Files video on this at a later time, but basically this strat is to mash B, A, C-down in that order (or the reverse) in a consistent rhythm.
This should produce good results in theory because each button command is guaranteed to be different from the previous, and because of how the game handles failed button presses. After a successful press, you have a 50% chance of being right on the next input, but if you are wrong, the correct input will be buffered and automatically input 12 frames (0.4 seconds) later and all future inputs will be ignored until the 0.4 seconds are up. This is still on pace with average human reaction time, given PM64's input latency.
Mashing at a speed such that you get more than four but fewer than five button presses within 0.4 seconds (i.e. 10-12.5Hz) guarantees that if you get the wrong input and a correct buffered input, the next two buttons you press after the 0.4-second input block will be the ones that were not just pressed, perpetuating the cycle. I'm still working on figuring out exactly what the ideal mashing speed is, but around 11 buttons per second seems to be near maximum.
In the worst case, where the first button is two away from the one you start on and the button sequence generated is the opposite of what you are mashing, a perfect input sequence will still get 6 damage. The other 99%+ of the time, you'll get 7+, which is generally the maximum attainable with human reaction. Even if your mashing speed fluctuates a fair bit (0.091 seconds + std. deviation of 0.015 seconds per press) and you completely miss 1.5% of inputs, 80% of attempts will still get 7+ damage.
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