Super Mario 64 Speedrunner Beats a 2-Year Record

A speedrunning record for Super Mario 64 that was in place for two years has now been broken by several seconds.

The older Mario game is a speedrunner favorite, a game that some might consider the most popular speedrunning game around. Those who blow through the games have tried to set new records for Super Mario 64 for years now with the previous record for the game remaining unbroken for the past two years. That’s all changed now that another speedrunner has shaved a few seconds off of the last record to set a new one for speedrunners to challenge.

A speedrunner by the name of Drozdowsky is the one who now holds the new record of 6:41:76. The previous record-holder, Akira, finished Super Mario 64 with a time of 6:44:23. For those outside of the speedrunning community, finishing the game just a few seconds earlier might make it seem as though there’s not a huge difference between the times, but topping records by fractions of seconds is common practice when it comes to speedrunning. Many thought that the old Super Mario 64 record was nearly unbeatable, especially after it was in place for two years, but Drozdowsky proved that theory wrong by cutting more than two seconds off of the record. If people though it beating Akira’s was difficult, it’s going to be that much harder to topple Drozdowsky’s.

The video above shows the speedrunner’s quick journey through Super Mario 64 and the Mushroom Kingdom as the player squeezes his way through walls and other obstacles to traverse the game as swiftly as possible. Where one slipup or wrong trajectory on a jump could be the deciding factor between beating the record or coming in second place, there were more than a few moments during Drozdowsky’s playthrough that’ll make it look as though he’s not going to make it if you didn’t already know the outcome.

To get the full effect of the experience, you can also check out the speedrunner’s Twitch channel where the VOD is found that includes his reactions as soon as he ends the game and beats the record. Twitch chat is out in full force during this stream as well, though the responses are super uplifting compared to the normal barrage of memes that comes from Twitch. Viewers started getting excited once they realized that he could beat the record and cheered the speedrunner on until the finish.