Good Luck To Whoever Wants To Set A New World Record For 'Super Mario' Speedruns
Believe it or not, the world record completion time for 1985's "Super Mario Bros." is still going down. Speedrunner Kosmic, who has held the title before in this completion category — glitches allowed, warp zones allowed, a.k.a. "Any%" — just reclaimed the title from runner somewes yesterday with a time of 4:55.913, the first ever to crack the 55-second threshold. It also means Kosmic is currently first place in five major "Super Mario Bros." speedrunning categories:
You can watch the run below. Just do it, it's less than five minutes.
With games as old and popular as this, improvements to world record speedrun times come down to execution, meaning improvements usually measure in mere milliseconds. On the rare occasions when new, replicable timesaving glitches are discovered, competition can get interesting — if you're really curious about the world record progression for "Super Mario Bros.," I highly recommend watching this video by YouTube speedrun historian Summoning Salt (who, in the comments, acknowledges that it's time to update the video).
Shaving off milliseconds may not seem like a big deal, but check out this chart of Kosmic's last two years of run improvements (numbers via speedrun.com). From a then-3rd place time in February of 2016, Kosmic has improved upon his personal best eleven times, culminating in this historic world-first run. At this scale, leaps forward like Kosmic breaking the 4:55 barrier feel huge:
If history's any indication, there's no guarantee that Kosmic will stay the world record holder for long. Still, he'll be the first to have ever pushed the category down below 4:55 — congrats, Kosmic.
