A speedrunner has accomplished the monumental goal of beatingSuper Mario 64in less than 20 minutes using a drum set as a controller. In the over 25 years since its release,Super Mario 64remains one of the most popular and celebrated games of all time, particularly in the speedrunning community.Few games can accurately be described as genre-defining, butSuper Mario 64is widely known for being not just one of the best games of the 1990s, but also the game that showed what 3D games could be. It is jam-packed with secrets that have captivated the hearts and minds of gamers around the world. These secrets are of particular interest to the speedrunning community which has left no stone unturned when it comes to looking for ways to beat the game with seemingly impossible speed. These players have even upped the ante by adding certain conditions or restrictions to speedruns for an extra challenge, such asbeatingSuper Mario 64blindfolded.RELATED:Unearthed Super Mario 64 Screenshots Show Unused ‘Eyeball’ LevelMusician and streamer CZR has taken the notion of speedrun challenges to a new level and completed a 16-star run ofSuper Mario 64in 19:48, all while using a drum set to control the game. CZR had previously used his drum set to do speedruns of this and other games such asSuper Mario Bros.andThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. He calls this latest run his “proudest record to date,” having spent over two years working on it, beating his previous16-star record onSuper Mario 64of 56:36.
CZR has made a name for himself through his ability to speedrun games using a drum set, but this latest record is especially notable for coming so close to the times of other world records made by gamers who used standard controllers, such as thecurrent overallSuper Mario 64world recordof 6:27. Completion times this short are only possible by using exploits found within the game that let players do things like pass through walls. Access to these exploits sometimes requires speedrunners to play the games on original hardware as CZR did.
Like other popular speedrun games of its time,Super Mario 64is designed with multiple ways to advance through certain parts of the game which encourages players to explore. For some gamers, these challenges are not enough, and it has thus become a popular choice to implement things like unusual control methods or blindfolded runs, something that events such asSummer Games Done Quickhave smartly embraced. Accomplishments like those of CZR are a testament to the ingenuity of the speedrunning community and show that there will always be something more for these skilled players to work toward.
