There is still room to optimize Mario even further, but the space to do so is shrinking, with much of the challenge focused on world 4-2, particularly an area that requires players to jump or slide through bricks. The difference between a record and a setback at this point is basically the time it takes to blink. If you go to, you will find that the top 300 speedruns on the game are all within five seconds of one another, and the top 20 entries are all within two seconds. His record was exactly 116 milliseconds faster than the prior record, set nine months ago.

(He was focused on other things, of course: By level 8-4, his heart rate had hit 163bpm.)Īnd because of a slight timing difference in his recording, he didn’t realize he had actually done significantly better than the prior record, at which point he had a proper freakout. And accidentally, he created a new source of tension on the model because the audio went out on his mic while he was playing, leading to the livestream chat freaking out because this guy was on an apparent record pace but had no way to communicate with him. Recently, a new record was set in the game by the speedrunner Niftski, using a somewhat new technique that saved a few fractions of a second by allowing the user to run through a set of bricks in 4-2.

Saving a fraction of a second can have a huge impact on how fast they can plow through 8-4, with the level 4-2, which contains a key warp screen, treated as the primary way to cut time by many speedrunners. In recent years, the focus in the original Super Mario game, from a speedrunning perspective, has been to cut fractions of time wherever possible, getting closer and closer to a perfect game. Many speedrunners also list their heart rate, showing the rush of energy and pressure in real time.

Speedruns follow a fairly common arc, in which the creator, often a livestreamer, is chatting with his viewer base, but then once they realize they’re getting close to something special, they stop talking about nachos and start focusing on the game. I didn’t get taught this skill over my many years of playing video games, Mario games in particular.īut I often find myself watching speedrunning videos, in awe of the fancy footwork and efforts to save individual frames that are common on Super Mario Bros. I am many things, but I am not a speedrunner. This number was already good, but it came out afterwards that Niftski actually did even better than this.

Super mario bros world speedrun record