Replay

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An image from the Replay menu in Brawl.

An image from the Replay menu in the Wii U version.

Replay is a feature in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. 4 that allows players to review previous gameplay moments.

In Brawl, once a match ends, players can press the Z button (on a lone Wii Remote, the B button is used instead) to save the replay onto the Wii or an SD card. Replays can only be saved if the match lasted less than 3 minutes, Sudden Death included, despite the game being capable of handling saving much longer matches than this. Hacks that remove this time limit exist for Brawl, and many mods for the game include such a hack; even with this hack, however, replays over 10 minutes do not function properly, as replays stop saving inputs beyond the 10 minute mark. Super Smash Bros. 4 does retain a time limit, but it is somewhere beyond 10 minutes, which allows all reasonable matches to be saved without issue; it is known a limit exists because abnormally long matches and Multi-Man runs cannot be saved.

When saved, replays will be named rp_YYMMDD_hhmm.bin, where YY, MM, DD, hh and mm indicate the year, month, day, hours, and minutes, respectively, when the replay was saved. If saved onto an SD card, they will be stored inside app\RSBX\rp, where X is J, E, or P depending on the game's region.

In Smash 4, players can save replays by pressing Y on the 3rd end-match-results page where it displays the detailed falls and KOs. Up to 64 replays can be saved in the 3DS version.

Smash Service

Prior to June 30, 2009, players could send their replays to be used for the Smash Service; after June 30, no more replays, custom stages, or screenshots would be accepted. One month later, on August 1, replay data was no longer being sent. Replays used for Smash Service were all from Stadium mode, especially Home-Run Contest and Target Smash!!, due to their typically shorter length and file size.

Data

Contrary to what may be expected, a replay is not saved as a video recording of the match. Instead, the input data from the match, the match's random number seed and the general rules are saved, so when a replay is watched, the game in fact re-generates the match from the data. This makes replays much smaller in file size than a video file, and it also allows pausing and camera movement during the replay.

Replays do not save the players' names, but this can be changed with a cheat code. For online battles, the game saves each player's server number and client number. When a player battles online, the player is seen as player 1 on his screen (client), but that may not be true for the server. In saved replays, each player's color and the numbers above the characters' heads indicate the client numbers (the ones that were seen on the screen of the one who saved the replay), whereas the order in which the character portraits appear on the bottom indicate the server numbers.

While playing online in the "With Anyone" mode, the characters' scores will not appear on the screen above the characters' icons. However, when battles are saved as replays, the replays will show the score numbers above the characters' icons as if the players were playing a Group Brawl with "Score Display" turned on in the brawl settings.

In Brawl, replays do not save the input data from CPU players; instead, each CPU player simply re-plays the match from scratch. The discovery of this fact was the final nail in the coffin for the rumour that the AI was capable of learning, as if this were possible, any replay involving CPUs would desync without having stored each CPU's "learning state" (as the CPUs would otherwise use new tactics in old situations), which is disproven. As amiibo have learning AI in SSB4, this system must have been changed slightly, either by recording CPU players' inputs or by storing the current AI state of each amiibo player.

Issues

If a character or other element is loaded during a match faster than expected (such as because of pausing or online lag), then the replay of that match will to "freeze" and finish loading the element before it can continue.

A common error noted in replays is that they may "desync" over time; the effects vary, though among the most common are actions occurring that did not previously occur, excessive lag followed by significantly increased playback speed, and the replay abruptly ending. With the Pokémon Trainer, particularly unusual effects can occur, such as him sending out a Pokémon which never loads or leaves the revival platform [1]. Replays of Wi-Fi matches are more likely to desync than local matches due to the frequent lag experienced in games, but local replays can also be subject to the problem. The cause of "desyncs" is unknown, though it is speculated it has to do with save data of replays becoming corrupted by some outside factor. In addition, it is possible for a replay that plays fine to randomly desynchronize when played again, and after some tries, play correctly again. Some Special Brawl modifiers can especially be responsible for desyncs, as some modifiers like Curry and Speed directly affect the speeds of characters and other actions.

In Super Smash Bros. 4, players are warned after saving their first replay that updates to the game from the eShop channel can potentially cause replays to not function; indeed, version 1.0.4 for the 3DS version prevented the game from running any previously saved replays.

A very rare bug causes saved replays to have idiosyncratic values in its timestamp, such as 781/88/2008 280:-480.

External links

Synchronization glitches

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmpZ933K6rA
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLv9d2tRUuo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDWGi3PmrsA
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO7RsByZtYY