New World Record: Fastest Time Beating Super Mario Bros
I’d like to encourage you to take a moment to reflect on how long it might take you to perform or conduct certain daily tasks. You know, the sort of things like taking a shower, vacuuming the house, making breakfast, or even driving to work. Now, with that being said, how would your mind fathom the news that someone out there has achieved a world record by beating a game in an amount of time that would be quicker than most of those daily endeavors?
At first, it may not seem that impressive, after all, it would depend on the game, right? Well the game that was insanely sped through was none other than the age old classic, Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The Record
The record-breaker goes by an alias of “Blubbler,” and it was this individual who sped his way to victory by achieving a time of 4:57:69. Yes, you read that correctly, someone out there has beaten the original Super Mario Bros. in under five minutes. Yet, he was not the first, as the previous record-holding time was reported to be 4:58:09.
As with most records, there are a handful of naysayers who speculate that this was rigged, however so far, no official report proving it to be a hack has been made. In fact, most are stating that the entire act was done the old fashioned way with simply a console and a controller. No emulators, no tools, no use of slow-motion or replays. Yes, that’s right, there was no assistance or visual trickery involved, which makes watching it even more gut-wrenching. However, that’s not to say the use of glitches were not allowed to help shave off some time. Yet the glitches that were involved and used were all legitimate and not homebrewed or by means of third-party sources. A good example of this would be by shifting to the 3:20 minute marker on the video below to where he used a character known as “Bullet Bill” to his advantage in world 8-2.
The Video
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ24UHbhFM8]
Yes, that’s right. The video above is actual official footage recorded of the record-holding speedrun in its entirety. Watching it will allow you to experience each heart-pounding jump, every pesky threat or obstacle, and every coin—though few—that was gathered. There were plenty of moments where even I felt my nerves get the better of me to where I thought all would be lost. However “Blubbler” proved time and time again that he would prevail through endless acts of perfectly-timed jumps. It’s easy for me to describe a play-by-play of everything that occurred, however actions speak louder than words, and you would be doing yourself a great disservice if you did not simply click on the video and see for yourself.
Final Thoughts and Further Reading
While the previous record seemed pretty tough to beat, this just goes to prove that there is always something else that can be done to gain the edge by just a few mere milliseconds. In fact, some people claim that by following the same footsteps and touching the bottom of the flagpoles—rather than the tops—would save even more time.
Regardless, it seems that this current run will be very tough to beat as one could only imagine just how many playthroughs or practice-runs it took in order to memorize the uncanny sequences of jumps without fail. If you think you may have what it takes to beat this record, you can look through the rules and regulations for this particular speedrun here.
For further reading, as well as second opinions on the matter, feel free to read through source articles here and here.
So, what’s the quickest time you have ever obtained in beating the original Super Mario Bros.?