The original Super Mario Bros. as a speedrunning game has been picked apart and hacked at for years and years. Many players have dissected it, mastering the knowledge of “frame rules” and nailing multiple frame perfect inputs just to shave off milliseconds. In fact, the top 85 players in the Super Mario Bros. speedrunning leaderboard are all within five seconds of each other.
A longtime goal of the speedrunning community has been to achieve the fabled “4:55” run – a run that would’ve been considered impossible a few years back. While there had been great strides in cutting down times, the technical and downright gruesome demands of the game made it tough enough to get it under 5 minutes. Indeed, the previous world record holder was the speedrunning legend darbian, who logged a time of 4:56:528ms.
That was, until, Kosmicd12 made history.
4:55 Achieved
On September 24th, 2018, he made a spectacular run which clocked in at 4:55:913ms, achieving the once-thought unreachable time. Indeed, one YouTube comment said: “If you told me in 2012 a time like this would be achieved, I’d have banned you from my life. “
Here is the legendary run:
The near-perfect run was widely applauded by many in the speedrunning and competitive gaming communities. With how many attempts these pros give, it seemed unlikely that anybody would top this record, right?
Enter: somewes
Records Were Made To Be Broken
somewes was once the world record holder, stealing the spot from darbian’s 4:56:528ms, and he can frequently be seen streaming Super Mario Bros. on Twitch, practicing to achieve that perfect run. Many streams, while incredible to the average viewer, ended in disappointment for the ambition speedrunner.
His training buckled down when Kosmic made history with the 4:55 run, and he was eager to not only repeat but surpass this achievement. Indeed, many of his streams were titled “4:55 attempts” or something of the sort. But this run had only been completed once in history, and that was from one of the best in the world at his peak, with everything lining up in his favor. Surely, we were in for a long wait.
Well. Not so much.
On October 23rd, 2018, somewes claimed the title of fastest Super Mario Bros. player with a world record time of 4:55:796ms. Not even a month later, the time that once was considered a daydream was achieved – for the second time.
Here is somewes’ amazing run.
It’s not exactly certain how much more the record can be cut down by, given human limitations, but these two champions, as well as dozens more, are constantly pushing the game to its limits and honing their skills to literal perfection. For a category that’s been called dead, Super Mario Bros. Any% still has players who continue to amaze us.
