SNES Mario Circuit 3

SNES Mario Circuit 3 is the first course of the Lightning Cup in Mario Kart Wii. Its first appearance as a course was in Super Mario Kart. It is renowned for being the last track to possess more than one category - taking TASers nearly 15 years to find a useful exploit. The course is regularly the subject of jokes in the community, as a hypothethical ultra shortcut on SNES Mario Circuit 3 is often deemed the most impossible strategy that could be pulled off in the game, due to the track's glitch-proof model. It is a running gag for one to claim that they discovered, or will discover, how to perform an ultra on the course, as if to establish their superiority and skills as a TASer and glitchhunter.

Overview

Current BKTs

Type	Unrestricted	No Ultra	No Glitch
3lap	1:16.208		1:17.375
Flap	23.425

SNES Mario Circuit 3 currently benefits from superhopping in the 3lap category, and hence has both a UR 3lap and NG 3lap category.

Unrestricted 3lap

Video: 1:16.208 by Monster (2023)

The current strategy for UR 3lap is to perform superhopping. Each lap comprises a mix of standard driving on the road, superhopping on the road, and superhopping through offroad. At times, the EV accumulated from superhopping enables speeds of over 100 XZ to be reached in the offroad. The Zip Zip (Rapide in PAL regions) is used due to its ability to maintain drifts through the offroad, allowing for small shortcuts that otherwise would not be possible. Despite falling behind IDB on numerous occasions throughout lap 1, the superhopping is most effective from the last turn until the first turn during lap transitions. As such, ODB stays ahead from the end of lap 1 until the end of the race.

Unrestricted Flap

Video: 23.425 by Marth (2022)

The current strategy for the UR flap is to drive the track normally without glitches. The flap is entered with a miniturbo, and a chain of mushrooms and miniturbo boosts are then used to drive through large amounts of offroad. A wallclip is performed mid-way through the lap with the assistance of a miniturbo boost, and a hop, to gain airtime and hence a high clip.

This TAS by Marth is considered to be the most optimised run for any track's category in the game made thus far. This is due to the course's simplicity as well as Marth's unrivalled TASing ability.

No Glitch 3lap

Video: 1:17.375 by Akari and Marth (2019)

The current strategy for the NG 3lap is to drive the track normally. All turns consist of regular driving, and the mushroom is used to cut off a large portion of offroad each lap.

History

TO DO: History of all strat developments. Section devoted to superhopping and its development over time, as well as the pipe wallclip, and the block wallclip.

TAS Competitions

SNES Mario Circuit 3 has featured in two tasks of the MKWii TAS Competition (Task 13 2021 and Task 2 2024).

Future

Known timesaves

NG 3lap

• The startslide is heavily outdated, and is improvable by multiple milliseconds.
• Slight optimisations are possible on almost every turn, the most notable being the turn after the mushroom runs out. The fastest turn method here is detailed in the description of Marth's UR flap.
• Wallclipping one of the green pipes at the end of the 2nd turn allows you to hop over the corner of offroad, saving about 0.008.
• Wallclipping the blocks using a hop, as shown in the UR flap, saves 0.110 per lap.
• Re-drifting at the shroomspot to manipulate bike roll and get a tighter drift, as shown in the UR flap, can be implemented, saving time.
• It is faster by a handful of milliseconds to do a double hop at the end of the last turn over offroad, begin a drift, and charge it throughout the boost panel boost.

Potential timesaves

UR 3lap

• Minor superhopping optimisations may some extremely small amounts of time.