A Button Challenge

A Button Challenge
Abbreviation			ABC
Individual stars collectible			111 (Most versions), 109 (Wii VC)
Overall stars collectible			98 (Wii VC), 67 (Other versions)
Is beatable			Yes (Wii VC), No (Other versions)
Presses required for Any%			0 (Wii VC), 1 (Other versions)
Presses required for 120-Star			13 (JP 1.0), 16 (Most versions), 19 (Wii VC)
Star Details
BoB
WF
JRB
CCM
BBH
HMC
LLL
SSL
DDD
SL
WDW
TTM
THI
TTC
RR
Secret
Castle
Bowser

The A Button Challenge (initialism: ABC) is a challenge in which the number of presses of the A button is minimized, whether on a per-mission or a per-file basis. Because pressing A makes Mario jump, which is intended to be the main gameplay mechanic of Super Mario 64, great creativity and precision are required to progress in the game without using this "vital" function. The ABC is often connected to the discoveries of new glitches and techniques that can be used more generally throughout the game. Much of the material on the pannenkoek2012 and UncommentatedPannen channels is related to the A Button Challenge, with only 13 remaining A presses (10 unique A presses) left to optimize.

History

Main article: History of the A Button Challenge

Although much of the progress in the ABC has been made since 2013, the challenge existed for over a decade earlier. Pieces of what would become the ABC were present in different terms, as early as 2001 on Walton Dell's site on multiple level pages. Curtis Bright, who runs sm64.com, was keeping track of the ABC at least as early as December of 2006. Thiago Trujillo had what is the earliest, nearly complete count for the game (that we have access to) with a total count of about 263 presses. (This list is missing all navigation presses, two of the DDD stars, three of the TTC stars, one star in RR, and BitS.)

Pannenkoek's first ABC video was for 5 Itty Bitty Secrets, and was released in August 2013. The count at this point was about 212 presses, although this number dropped fairly quickly. Within the first 4 months, the count had fallen nearly 100 presses, and was down to 118. Over the next five years, many different people have worked on removing as many A presses as possible, and the number has dropped to only 13 A presses in a 120 star run, as well as 0 in any% on WiiVC.

Remaining A presses

A unique A press is a single circumstance under which A must be pressed to progress during a run. The same circumstance may occur multiple times, leading to multiple A presses; if a workaround is found for the unique A press, all of those individual A presses may be saved.

For example, if entering a course requires an A press, the case of entering the course is a unique A press, even if said course must be visited multiple times over the course of a run.

Unique A presses

#	×	Course	Purpose
1	2	SSL	Get out of the pyramid elevator / Get past the pole
2	1	THI	Double jump to a higher platform to collect red coins
3	1		Dive to the upper platform and grab the high red coin
-	3	TTC	Jump past the pole using Hyperspeed Grinding. Wii VC only.
-	1		Jump out of the Pedro spot on the pendulum box to gain vertical speed. Wii VC only.
4	1	PSS	Collect the Power Star
5	1	WMotR	Shoot out of the cannon after talking to the Bob-omb Buddy to reach the next cannon
6	1		Shoot out of the second cannon to fly around and collect the seven remaining red coins
7	1	BitFS	Get past the pole. Saved on Wii VC.
8	3	Castle	Enter TTC. On all versions except JP 1.0, this must be done 6 times instead of only 3.
9	1		Go to RR
10	1		Go to WMotR

Also, some levels require A to be held, but not necessarily to be pressed within that specific mission. These can be held from presses in previous levels, but take an extra press in single-star runs. Such A presses are notated as half A presses, and result in A press counts such as 2.5×. Only one half A press can be required per star.

Half A presses

#	×	Course	Purpose
1	1	JRB	Gain hyperspeed from kick landing
2	1	DDD	Clone the pole
3	1		Clone coin spawners for 100 coins
4	1	TTC	Kick the wall and get spawning displacement on the spinner, for 0× re-entry after Get a Hand

Version differences

There are many different versions of Super Mario 64 that have slightly different physics or glitches. These can change the A press and star counts.

On N64 JP 1.0, spawning displacement can be performed to save 3 A presses in TTC. On Wii VC, floats are rounded differently, which causes the rising platforms in BitFS to converge towards the center of the stage saving 1 A press, but also removes the glitchy ledge grab in TTC adding 4 more.

Version	A press count		Stars obtainable
	120 Star	70 Star	Individually	Overall
N64 JP 1.0	13	1	111	67
N64 US	16
N64 PAL
N64 JP 1.3
iQue
Wii VC JP	19	0	109	98
Wii VC US
Wii VC PAL
Wii U VC JP	16	1	111	67
Wii U VC US
Wii U VC PAL
3D All-Stars
NSO JP
NSO US
NSO PAL

Notes

See also

• A Button Challenge playlist by pannenkoek2012
• A Button Challenge routes by pannenkoek2012
• Complete History of the A Button Challenge by Bismuth (as of 2022, slightly outdated)