Controls

Buttons

B - Jump
Y - Tongue
A - Aim/throw egg
X - Nothing
L/R - Freezes egg aim cursor at current position

General Movement

⦁ There is no run button, except when controlling Super Baby Mario or the train vehicle.

⦁ Hold Y as Baby Mario to move faster. Hold A, B or Y as the train to move faster.

⦁ None of the other vehicles can be sped up.

⦁ The quickest way to come to a complete stop is to hold down on the dpad or to tongue a solid object.

⦁ Hold down while in the air to perform a ground pound.

⦁ Hold up while standing still to scroll the screen upwards. It also makes Baby Mario and Yoshi look up.

⦁ Visit the Movement Page for more information on how to control your Yoshi!

Combinations

2 Player Minigames

⦁ Start + Select during a level that you have already beaten returns you to the world map.

⦁ Pushing Y or down while aiming an egg cancels the egg throwing animation and swaps to the next egg.

⦁Holding up while starting egg aiming starts the egg cursor pointing up, then descends and will allow you to aim lower than a "neutral shot".

⦁ You can play bandit minigames directly from the map screen by holding Select and then pressing the combination: X, X, Y, B, A.

Patient VS. Hasty

File:Hasty controls.png

Hasty Controls

Two options are accessible on the world map that change how the egg button works.
Patient is the default. It makes it so that tapping A once begins the egg-firing animation and tapping it again fires the egg.
Hasty, on the other hand, sets it so that pushing A down begins the egg-firing animation, and releasing A fires the egg.
Most speedrunners use Hasty, which allows you to more easily fire off quick egg throws by just tapping the button once, as opposed to twice.

You can also change the controls on the first hint box in 1-3. It was said that swapping to Hasty in 1-3 saves time compared to swapping at the stage selection. This was tested on the Japanese version of the game and the results are as follows:

Swapping to hasty at stage select takes 112 frames minimum and requires 9 inputs. 

Swapping to hasty at the hint box in 1-3 takes 117 frames minimum and requires 2 inputs.

Since 1-3 requires way less inputs its likely to still save time over the stage select control change in an RTA setting using the Japanese cartridge. Switching to Hasty in 1-3 while using the North American cartridge will likely lose time because of an extra screen of dialog the player must scroll through.

Transitions and Dialogues

Playing the Japanese version is estimated to save around 9 seconds in 100% and 7 seconds in Any% because of dialogue.

• Holding any button during the score tally screen completes it as fast as possible -- no need to mash!
• Start, A, B, X, and Y can be used to select a new level during the overworld map transition (mash!)
• Alternate mashing down + A to skip dialogue boxes as quickly as possible. Start slightly before the dialogue begins to have a chance at getting a frame-perfect quick skip.
• Most level intro transitions (e.g. "1-1: Make Eggs, Throw Eggs") can be shortened by button mashing, which adds up to many seconds over the course of a run. The dpad and every button will work, so swirl the dpad and mash every button (including L and R). Mashing Example/Tutorial
• For a long time it was believed it was believed that mashing with 2 controllers would make the level intros go by faster, but that turned out to be wrong, and what really happened during the initial testing was entering the level with a different amount of eggs which affects the time it takes the level intro to complete.