In case you are dyin' to know the specifics, here is the footage of the official new record as implemented into the ol' nintender-box by one "darbian":
4 minutes and 56.528 seconds.
If you're new to the world of people trying to beat Mario One really really fast there's things in that video that probably stick out to the average Mario layman such as the obvious exploits of "glitches." Yes, there's some things in there the Mario layman might deem controversial.
Controversy has been ABOUNDS in the Mario-sphere ever since the first person broke 5 minutes and 8 seconds which was BELIEVED at the time to be a "perfect" time ... yet as new glitches were found through TAS* attempts and then that knowledge applied to man-runs the 5:08 kept being shaved lower and lower and lower .... and then Andrew Gardikis beat the game in UNDER 5 MINUTES and everyone collectively just freaked out.
Controversy has been ABOUNDS in the Mario-sphere ever since the first person broke 5 minutes and 8 seconds which was BELIEVED at the time to be a "perfect" time ... yet as new glitches were found through TAS* attempts and then that knowledge applied to man-runs the 5:08 kept being shaved lower and lower and lower .... and then Andrew Gardikis beat the game in UNDER 5 MINUTES and everyone collectively just freaked out.
The "official" video game records committee, the Twin Galaxy one you see in the Fist Full of Quarters documentary film, does not recognize these Mario records due to these glitches being 'sploited and still lists 5.08 as the official record. So, in some regards controversy still surrounds these feats.
I think claiming that 5:08 is still the record for Mario 1 is silly .... the record is 4:56528 ... and that's that.
Those glitches? They are not cheating ... they are doing these runs on the actual device the game was made for and are using the actual cartridge. These glitches exist in the official and non-altered versions of these games. The runners getting sub-fivers in Mario are people who can get 5.08 in their sleep or with their eyes closed ... so it's not like if these glitches weren't there they couldn't get the record. These people can five-oh-eight no problem ... but five-oh-eight WASN'T ENOUGH FOR THEM. They needed to go faster ... they needed to.
Like the plant jumping? You can jump through the plants in Mario 1 on Nintendo (not remakes though ... you can't sail through the back-end of piranha plants in the SNES version). The Nintender roms were so small (8-bit) that the programmers needed to cut a lot of corners to fit all the graphix, music, and animations in there .... the damage-event only ensues if you hit the front-end of the plant ... they saved space by not writing a damage-event to ensue on the back half of the plant.
The warp glitches fall under the same category too, those warp-events are written on screen to ensue and sometimes they carry over in the wrong place on some "frame-rolls" it seems so the warp event is played when the player interacts with a tube instead of the stalk for example ... or when you back the screen up a bit while a tube had a warp event that event might scramble into another closer tube. Using TAS runs, they found these glitches and used them.
The warp glitches fall under the same category too, those warp-events are written on screen to ensue and sometimes they carry over in the wrong place on some "frame-rolls" it seems so the warp event is played when the player interacts with a tube instead of the stalk for example ... or when you back the screen up a bit while a tube had a warp event that event might scramble into another closer tube. Using TAS runs, they found these glitches and used them.
Look, obviously this can be taken too far, some glitches are waaaay too over-the-top like this one:
This glitch is going too far, man.
To purport that this fellow "beat" Mario World in under six minutes is asinine and wrong. No, he did not beat Mario World ... and I know I just did a few paragraphs saying glitches are okay but there's a line in the sand where they stop being okay.
I define "Beating Mario" as the following:
Mario Must defeat Bowser and Save the Princess(obviously except for in Mario 2 ... whereas Mario must Defeat Wart and Wake Up)
That's the essence of engaging in this feat of strength and wills. You are becoming a plumber who needs to save a princess and you must defeat a reptile to accomplish this. That's what Mario is plain and simple... and whatever it is you do to arrive at Bowser and defeat him is irrelevant. The only criterion to "Beating Mario" and finishing the game is to beat Bowser and get the Princess, no ifs/and/buts 'bout it.
As for the above scenario in Mario World where this fellow gets a glitch in the first level and mashes up the game where it starts running the credits screen? No sir. No sirrrreeeee, sam. You did NOT beat Mario here. You did not even confront Bowser let alone BEAT him! So, no glory here. No glory? No dice, man.
All glitches are 'sploitable 'cept for ones that bypass the Bowser-defeating portion of the event. If you don't beat Bowser and Save the Princess ... you did not beat Mario.
When I look at the Mario World records I look under the "11 Exit" category ... I don't really care who has the gimmick records. It's a cool glitch but it's too glitchy, y'know. To me "11-Exit" is the real Mario World leader board.
*TAS is an acronym for Tool Assisted SpeedRun which is a pain staking process of using emulators with save-state functions and macros-functions to find what are the most time efficient "routes" to take in a video game. This description was too long for a bracket so I footnoted down here, baby.
Workin' at Perfekt
Mario Speed Running is no longer a competition to see who is the best at Mario. These young people are Working at Perfect/Perfekt now.
There's no competition between the handful of people who do this. If you read the forums for Mario Speed Running and other datum ... these people don't compete. They TAS-out glitches together, discuss route strategies, and cheer each other on. The handful of people who do this are like a small community of Mario Perfectionists who work together to try and achieve something almost unattainable in nature ... Perfection at Mario.
I remember a long time ago when I first wrote about this like 5 years ago, I made a joke that it's akin to the story of Icarus where he kept wanting to go higher on higher on his feathery wings that one day he touched the sun and his feathery wings melted.
It's sort of true though, there's no real definition yet of what truly the Perfect time is in Mario 1. We thought 5:08 was written in stone then we thought 4:59 was the new stone-written time ... and now it's 4:56 .... there doesn't seem to be a time low enough so the attempts never end.
Working at Perfect is a concept that is both very noble yet also wrought with danger. My understanding of Perfection comes from the song "Working at Perfekt" by Geddy Lee where he describes the concept as:
Working at Perfekt
(-Lee, G.)Draw A Line
Strong And Clear
Make It Bend To Your Will
All The Lines
In A Face
So Hard To Make Stand Still
'till The Flaws Disappear
'till What's Wrong Disappears
'till All That's Wrong Will
Disappear
Working At Perfect
Got Me Down On My Knees
Success To Failure
Just A Matter Of Degrees
Success To Failure
Just A Matter Of Degrees
All The Colours Of The Day
Have Somehow Disappeared
All The Colours Of The Universe
Are Closer Than They Appear
Are Not As Close As They Appear
Are Not As Close As They Appear
Not As Close As They Appear
Nothing Is Perfect
Certainly Not Me
Success To Failure
Just A Matter Of Degrees
Working At Perfect
Got Me Down On My Knees
But When It's Right
It's Right As Rain
And When It's Right
There Is No Pain
And When It's Right
You Start Again
Working At Perfect
Got You Down On Your Knees
Success To Failure
Just A Matter Of Degrees
Success To Failure
Just A Matter Of Degrees
Perfection is this. It's a work that is painstakingly time-consuming yet you feel amazingly rewarded when you finally get what you're attempting to do "Right" ... and then you feel as of Rain ... yet even when you get it "Right" ... you still Start Again ... all over from the start and try and make it better. Perfection never really exists because the perfectionist will always thrive to out-perfect what is considered "Perfect".
It will get to a point where to achieve "Right" the difference between success and failure will begin to get thinner and thinner ... to the point where the difference between success and failure is just a mere matter of minute degrees. It's a process that literally can get you Down on Your Kneeeeeeees.
I watch these speedrun attempts sometimes and the glory of getting the route down and the frame rolls to hit and the glitches to snap .... is PAINSTAKING looking. I mean, these Mario Runners have probably made a million attempts at Mario.
I'm speaking from experience too. I used to have Mario in my routine of waking up. I'd start my day: 1. Eat 2. Shower 3. Coffee 4. Beat Mario (either 2 or World) then go to work. This is probably in like early 2000s like in my early 20s-ish ... the internet speed run Mario stuff hadn't begun yet. It was just routine ... it was eat something, clean my dirty-ass self, then become PERFEKT, then go to work and start the old day.
I was a speedrunner at Mario 2 (the whacky one with Wart and stuff) and World (the Yoshi one) ... I never dabbled too much in Mario 1. So, I'm not speaking about the process from some sort of alien perspective ... I dabbled in elite Mariomanship for a stitch in time.
The saying in that song, "Success To Failure is Just a Matter of Degrees", is true as true can be in the world of Mario SpeedRunning. I mean, I wouldn't place myself and my abilities even in the same league as the people who have sub-5 times. I'm not even close to that ability. They are hardcore at this. If they don't get a frame-roll synced up right ... reset and start over. If they don't get a glitch to snap .... reset and start over. If they get one firework to set off over the castle instead of zero .... reset and start over. If they don't get a certain enemy to spawn at a certain point that they need to get a glitch ... reset and start over..... if all the flaws don't disappear? Reset and start over. If all what's wrong does not disappear? Reset and start over.
And over and over and over.
When I first saw these videos online and saw people can rip and house and plex Marios more faster than me ... I thought I was gonna get back into the ol' mess and try and get more better .... and I tried to do the shit they do like the Bird-Jumping in 6-2 in Mario 2 ... and after a few tries I was like .... I dunno, I think I'm gonna call a Murtaugh on this shit and proclaim that I am simply too old for this shit. I knew in 6-2 that fateful day, that I wasn't gonna put the time and pain into this endeavour ... I simply was not strong enough to be the best at Mario-ing.
Like, these guys who Mario Run are pretty good at what they do, man ... and it took years of hardcore training to get there. I mean these guys have worked at Perfekt for years and won't stop .... they want to touch the sun with their Mario Wings.
Someone Make a DAMN MOVIE ABOUT THIS
I loved the Donkey Kong one called Fist Full of Quarters and I loved the Tetris documentary about the dude who got to level 30 on NES Tetris ... and I cannot believe no film maker has not reached out to the Mario 1 Speed Running community to do a movie of it.
I know in documentaries there's a lot of Spinal Tap elements and Kayfabe elements that seem to flourish ... and I loved Billy Mitchell's heel character in that Donkey Kong film ... but these Mario runners are all pretty young and it doesn't seem to be their style ..... Spinal Tap and Kayfabe stuff isn't the route to go with this one if someone is interested in making a Mario 1 speedrun Dock.
Going on those Mario forums from time to time over the years and reading some of the stuff they talk about and seeing what a community of like-minded people these handful of Mario runners seem to be ... a film maker should focus the film on three main themes which are Team Work, Friendship, and The Quest for Perfection.
The "characters" (yes even in documentaries the people are characters) in the dock could maybe Work Together to plan out how to be the best, they cheer each other on to out do each other and see their strategies implemented .... and then this beautiful display of friendship helps guide them down the Yellow Brick Road to Perfection.
Maybe it's just because I have dabbled in Mariomanship and Runnin' that I find the goings-on in this e-sport so intriguing but I think there's something here. I do.
It's a Modern Day Icarus Story .... a quest for Never-Ending Perfektion.
