Jolly Roger Bay
Jolly Roger Bay is the third course of Super Mario 64. It can be accessed from the painting in the rightmost room of the first floor of Princess Peach's castle. The door leading to it requires at least 3 Power Stars to be opened.
| Jolly Roger Bay | |
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| Course Info | |
| Abbreviation | JRB |
| Terrain | Water |
| Setting | Gloomy |
| Water | High |
| Course Items | |
| Coins | 101 (  ×55 •  ×8 •  ×6)
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| Enemy Coins | 3 ( ×3)
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| Stars |  ×7
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| Caps |  ×3
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| Star Navigation | |
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| Overview | |
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Course Versions
There are three versions of the course that can appear by selecting different stars. Keep in mind that if there are any blue stars (uncollected) present in the star selection menu, then the last version that can be selected is the first blue star and not the stars after it:
- Version 1: Accessed by selecting Star 1. The ship is sunken under water, and the eel will be hiding in it. Additionally, there will be fog above the water in this version.
- Version 2: Accessed by selecting Star 2. The ship is floating at the surface of the water, and the eel is relocated at a hole. Bob-omb Buddy is available to talk to, allowing the cannon to be unlocked. Star 2 and 6 are also now collectable.
- Version 3: Accessed by selecting Star 3 through Star 6. This is version 2, with the exception that the eel will always be swimming around, without a star on its tail.
Coins
Jolly Roger Bay has one of the smallest coin counts in the game, which makes the 100 coin star in this stage extra difficult. Without advanced maneuvering, it is impossible to even get 100 coins without raising the ship, and missing a single blue coin can force a player to try again. This stage also lacks any coin duplication glitches, which leaves its total max at 104.
| Location | Count |
|---|---|
| The yellow [!] block near start | 3 |
| Ring of underwater coins near clams | 8 |
| Ring of coins around the tall spike | 8 |
| Vertical line of coins before the purple switch | 5 |
| Ring of coins near jet stream | 8 |
| Ring of coins near cave treasure chests | 8 |
| The lines of coins before the ship | 15 |
| 3 Goombas | 3 |
| 8 Red Coins | 16 |
| Blue coin block | 30 |
| Total | 104 |
A Press Counts
In the A Button Challenge, it takes one A Presses to collect all seven stars. The lone A press is used to jump up and get the star in Treasure of the Ocean Cave. Metal Cap is required to collect Through the Jet Stream without A presses.
| Star | A Presses | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | 1* | 2 |
| 4 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | 0 | 1 |
| 6 | 0 | 1 |
| 100 | 0 | 3 |
| *Required to jump up to collect the star. | ||
Entering Jolly Roger Bay (0x)
Performing a dive recover allows entering the painting without pressing A.
Plunder in the Sunken Ship (0x)
Due to the requirement of not pressing A, the player can only swim by pressing B with the maximum speed of 7, and therefore navigating the water requires a lot of caution. Mario can optionally pick up the shiny shell to increase swimming speed and conserve it by precise B presses. With the aid of the surface above and a ring of coins close to the ship, luring the eel out is easy. Once Mario is inside the sunken ship, the most difficult part is collecting the star in the item block without pressing A since the star is 377 units above the floor[1]. Frame-walking is required to walk up the nearby steep slopes. Then, Mario falls into the spot slightly below the item block, and ground pounds it to collect the star.
Can the Eel Come Out to Play? (0x)
The star can be collected easily by swimming to the tail end of Unagi the eel, though it is slightly more difficult to do so because the swimming is much slower without pressing A.
Treasure of the Ocean Cave (1x)
Potential Breakthrough:
With recent developments on Mario's hyperspeed techniques, it is now possible for Mario to accumulate 175 speed, but it is not good enough. If Mario can achieve 262 speed, Mario is able to reach the Chest star from afar by speed conservation.
Mario can swim into the pirate's cavern and open the four chests in the correct order. However, the star is 312 units high[2], but the maximum height of a star that a dive recover can reach is only 288 units high. With the nearby objects being either unhelpful (pillars and chests only have hurt hitboxes and horizontal pushing hitboxes, respectively) or not close enough to utilize (goombas), and course geometry not helping (edges too far away to use VSC), the only way for Mario to collect the star is to jump at the moment.
There are now investigations on how to build up speed in JRB, as it is proven that 262 speed will be sufficient in reaching the star[3], but the method of reaching such speed to use this strategy has yet to be found.
Red Coins on the Ship Afloat (0x)
The 5 red coins outside the ship are easy to collect. The biggest problem is the 3 red coins on the ship. When the ship oscillates on water, there is a very small window where the edges of the ship can be frame-walked on as they become steep floors, instead of walls and ceilings the pushes Mario out or prevents his movement, respectively. After walking onto the ship, Mario can then collect the remaining red coins and get the star.
Blast to the Stone Pillar (0x)
Mario needs to reach the stone pillar platform with the item block containing the star by going off a nearby pillar. To do so, Mario needs to build and conserve enough speed to go up the pillar and cross the gap. Two major breakthroughs lead to the method of reaching the star without using an A press. The first one is having enough speed to land on the platform from the top of the pillar without pressing A. The second one is building up speed using the pillar and conserving it using speed conservation tricks.
To generate such speed, Mario first frame-walk up the pillar and slide down into the water. Next, Mario generates the remaining speed by first restoring the speed it accumulated (via Z+C^, a speed conservation tactic), and then uses Hyper Speed Punching by standing on an ascending slope of a certain angle while punching. After punching, Mario immediately dives right back into the water to conserve the gained speed. Altogether, a maximum of 150 speed can be reached.
Finally, Mario restores the conserved speed and quickly ascends the pillar and dives to the platform at the top.
Through the Jet Stream (0x)
Mario needs to collect the Metal Cap to not getting pushed away by the stream. The Metal Cap is required to bypass the obstacle, as otherwise, Mario cannot swim fast enough through the stream without pressing A. To break open the Metal Cap without A presses, Mario needs to dive recover off a rock with speed and ground pound precisely. Then, Mario needs to stand at a subpixel-perfect position (x = 4979.16, z = 2481.86) to avoid getting pushed out sideways by the stream in order to collect the star in the center.
JRB 100 Coins (0x)
- Video: "JRB 100 Coins 0x A Presses"
With only 104 coins available in Jolly Roger Bay, getting 100 of them for the Power Star requires a lot of tricks.
The first trick is getting onto the ship with the aforementioned frame-walk method. This is required as there are 3 red coins on the ship, and collecting them is necessary to get the needed 100 coins.
The second trick is Goomba's extended chase, in order to have a Goomba getting closer to the blue-coin block. This is required so that Mario can gain enough height to bounce on the Goomba, and then ground-pound the blue-coin block to get all blue coins. In short, Pannenkoek exploits the fact that a Goomba's target angle is recalculated while chasing Mario by either making a Goomba walk into a ledge, colliding with another Goomba, walking onto a steep slope, or bumping into a wall, thereby extending the chase further than intended [4]. Using this method, Pannenkoek manipulates one Goomba by repeatedly making them bump into a steep slope of a rock and the wall, and then he manipulates the other Goomba to run into the same obstacles plus the previous Goomba, allowing Mario to use the Goomba to ground-pound on the blue-coin block.
Other Challenges
In a CCC Challenge, excluding coin missions, all stars can be collected, with Blast to the Stone Pillar and Through the Jet Stream being somewhat difficult RTA.
There are no stars that can be collected in No Buttons Allowed challenge, as Mario must swim for every star.
The only star possible in the No Joystick Allowed Challenge is Treasure of the Ocean Cave.
In the ABZ Challenge, the current course count stands at 15.5 presses.
References