[hoherd]

> Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases

Is that really true though? If it cares about holding, such as in gliding in the air, then it necessarily cares about not holding, such as being in the air but not gliding, and the way to transition from being in the air gliding to being in the air not gliding is to release.

Is that wrong? I've only ever played M64 for like 5 minutes, but it's been on my list and I keep urging my children to get into it as a way for me to find the time to get into it too.

[hn92726819]

I could see how this could be confusing. SM64 does distinguish between before a release and after a release, so technically the game itself doesn't care. I think what they were trying to say is that there really isn't any benefit in speedrunning the game to keep track of releasing (and this can be confirmed in the video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A&t=105).

I think it's possible that if the next level requires .5 a presses but, for example, you are falling with a wing cap in the current level, you have to decide between bumping that half a press into a full a press or losing time when falling with the wing cap. I just don't think it's a common case though because you could use a different route where the held A won't affect you. It looks like in the A Button Challenge (ABC), there are only 5 half a presses: https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge