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!

Button Combinations

2 Player Minigames

• Start + Select during a level that you have already beaten returns you to the level select screen. (Also works during the intro level).
  

• 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 eggshot.
  

• 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 level select screen that changes how the egg button works.
Patient is the default. It makes it so that tapping A once begins egg aiming and tapping A again throws the egg.
Hasty on the other hand, sets it so that pushing A begins egg aiming and releasing A throws the egg. Most speedrunners use hasty, which allows you to more easily fire off quick egg shots by just tapping the button once, as opposed to twice.

You can also change the control scheme with the first help box in 1-3. It was said that swapping to hasty in 1-3 saves time compared to swapping at the level select screen. This was tested on the Japanese version of the game and the results are as follows:

• Swapping to hasty at level select takes 112 frames minimum and requires 9 inputs. 
• Swapping to hasty at the help box in 1-3 takes 117 frames minimum and requires 2 inputs.

Since 1-3 requires less inputs, it's likely to still save time over the level select control change in an RTA setting using the Japanese version. Switching to hasty in 1-3 while using the US version will likely lose time because of an extra text box the player must scroll through.

Transitions and Text

Playing on the Japanese version is estimated to save around 9 seconds in 100% and 7 seconds in Any% because of less text to scroll through.

• Holding any button during the score tally screen completes it as fast as possible -- no need to mash!
• Start, A, B, Y, and X can be used to select a new level during the overworld map transition (mash!)
• Alternate mashing down + A to skip text boxes as quickly as possible. Start slightly before the text box appears to have a better 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 several 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 that entering the level with a different amount of eggs would affect the time it takes for the level intro to complete.

Resetting the Console

If you reset the console after completing the 8th level of a world for the first time, you can skip a cutscene where the game shows your score for each level in that world, unlocks the extra level if you have 100% in every level and shows Yoshi destroying a castle on the island screen before progressing to the next world.

You can reset 5 frames after the score tally screen fades out completely. If you want to reset safely and not risk going too soon, you can wait until you hear the map theme start playing. If you reset too soon, you'll have to replay the last level of the world again, thus ruining your speedrun.

• In Any%, resetting after worlds 1 through 4 will save 13.283 seconds each time. Resetting after world 5 will save 37.4 seconds due to a longer cutscene. Overall, you'll save 1:30.533.

• In 100%, resetting after worlds 1 through 4 will save 20.95 seconds each time. Resetting after world 5 will save 44.85 seconds. Overall, you'll save 2:08.65.

Check the leaderboard rules to see which categories allow resetting the console.