Speedrunning is often a hobby of seconds. Dedicated speedrunning communities will pour countless hours into beloved games to find all the tricks, glitches, and perfect moves to beat them as fast as humanly possible. But sometimes a speedrun strategy for a game has been so optimized that top speedrunners are fighting for seconds. In the case of NES classic?Super Mario Bros., speedrunners are not just fighting for seconds, but milliseconds, and yesterday a new world record was set. The new world record speedrun for?Super Mario Bros.?set by Twitch streamer Niftski is 4:54.948, and many are calling it a "perfect" run.
For at least 10 years now, Super Mario Bros. speedrunners have been slowly breaking each other's records within a five second timeframe starting with AndrewG's time inside 4:59 in 2010. In 2016, the record was set at 4:57.41 by speedrunner Darbian, who subsequently broke it again shortly afterward. Then, speedrunner Kosmic broke that record by a single frame and shaved the time down to 4:57.227. Since then,?Super Mario Bros. speedrunners have gotten better and better, and for almost a year now record times have been stuck in the 4:55 range.
Twelve Super Mario Bros.?speedrunners hold times inside the 4:55 mark, with the previous Any% record held by Miniland at 4:55.230. Niftski's new world record proves that getting inside the 4:54 mark is humanly possible, though for a while it was thought that only computers could achieve speeds like this. TAS (tool-assisted speedruns) have achieved times in the 4:54 range, but since Niftski is the first human to do so, gamers are wondering how long it will be before this record is topped.
Those unfamiliar with speedruns of?Super Mario Bros. will see some pretty impressive input work from Niftski in his YouTube video. Techniques employed in this run are numerous flagpole glitches, a wall clip, and pixel perfect jumps and landings. Although this video is only about 8 minutes, Niftski's original Twitch stream is a little over 2 hours and 40 minutes long, and most of that time he spends practicing specific techniques over and over. He also uses a keyboard instead of the classic NES controller. Although this may be his biggest achievement yet, Niftski holds a few other?Super Mario Bros. records including 1-1 as Fire Mario and 11xAny%.
According to Niftski's split times, he makes up the most ground in his record breaking run during the second half. After completing the run, he jumps out of his chair and screams for joy. Luckily this didn't turn into a heartbreaking speedrun fail, as he says in the video description that this was only his second time ever reaching World 8-4 at the 4:54 pace. He also says he doesn't plan on stopping after this run, and will likely continue to try and improve his time by a few more milliseconds.
Super Mario Bros. is available for various Nintendo platforms.