Nintendo 64 Mario 64 in 20 minutes and 1 life

*jaw drops* Amazing... simply amazing... I've gotta try some of those shortcuts sometime... though, too bad he used those glitches, that makes it a bit less impressive. Plus the shameless way he popped in archowl.com at some points.

 

Wow, I can actually view this one. Ok, well later I will watch it, but with the glitches it seems like it's more reasonable than originally thought. 20 minutes for 16 stars.... a little more than 1 minute a star, so not toooo insane, but I'm still dying to see the insanity live. Will be back later.

 

Ok, I've watched it now.

WARNING: ENTIRE POST CONTAINS SPOILERS DISPERSED AMONG A SHITLOAD OF COMMENTARY. IF YOU'RE ALLERGIC TO SPOILERS, SIMPLY DON'T READ IT YET AND WATCH THE VIDEO FIRST. I WILL NOT - I REPEAT - NOT DISGUISE EVERYTHING I SAY WITH A SPOILER TAG BECAUSE YOUR EYE WILL NOT PICK UP ANY SPOILERS JUST BY GLANCING AT THE PARAGRAPHS. SO IF YOU CAN PICK ANY OF THEM OUT, THEN IT'S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT. NO GO WATCH THE VIDEO. THANKYOU.

Yeah, I agree with Gamechamp. That was pretty cheap. I get the sense that the person was doing it for stylistic purposes to draw attention to the fact that this was an amazing video gaming feat, but if you're going to go that far and bring editing into play - even if it's something as simple as adding text - then you might as well go all the way and do something like showing a picture-on-picture of the guy being interviewed afterwards and talking about it or something. That's what I would have done. Otherwise, there's no real good reason to draw the viewer's attention away from the video like that. Simply mentioning a website doesn't justify the distraction. It's a moment of non-committance in video production. Shoulda hired someone like me to make a decent documentary-like production out of it.

Also, it was clear that the person had good handles on the controls, but there were a few moments where it was obvious that he messed up but tolerated it and went on because the messups weren't so bad. Some intances of this that I can think of off the top of my head are the two times where he tried to jump through the princess'es stain glass window in the tower. He missed to the left of it the first time he tried going through it on both times. Also, when he was in there the second time and had to jump off the ledge to land on the path below, he bounced off the gaurd rail on his way down. Any shorter and he would have missed. There were some other things that were questionable too. In the Bowser lava level, the first couple of times that he jumped across the place with the fading rafts that where covered by lava and sidelined by flamethrowers, he amazed me by jumping on exactly the right points while avoiding the lava. But I think the third time he did it, he touched the lava, and I think it was accidental since the butt burning didn't seem to take him anywhere he wouldn't have gone if he didn't do that. There was also a moment like this in the third Bowser level when he was on top of the circular platform. I forget exactly WHAT burned his but there, but I remember seeing him getting burned and then going around in circles on the rotating platform while waiting for it to wear off. So I think that was accidental, since it also didn't get him anywhere he couldn't have already gotten without doing that. There's probably some other instances, but that's all I remember.

I'm thinking that to pull this kind of thing off, he probably had to (1) get used to the game for hours upon hours upon hours upon days upon days upon days upon weeks, months, and so on... (2) he probably had to figure out where the quickest and most convenient string of consecutive stars were and map out both his path to get those stars on the big map as well as how to get TO the stars on the level maps, and (3) he probably also had to map out the minute details inside the level of where the tricky moves would be and come up with a repeatable and reliable strategy to do the move correctly each time, along with some back-up or worst case scenario strategies of what to do when the move fails or gets modified. And then of course, there's the glitches which had to be mastered.

I think the most surprising thing about this video to me is the fact that he had to grab the bunny. I know that it was necessary to get that one big glitch, but still, I'm amazed that that was part of it because I know how difficult it is to get that thing, and I would probably take 20 min alone just to do that. Stuff like that adds a tremendous amount of risk into the attempt because it depends on completing one big daring move and there's little room for variation or recovery. It's like trying to get through those extremely tight places or dips in the wall in helicopter.

 

I don't know if anyone noticed, but this thread is in the Mario Kart forum. Anyway, I watched the whole video and I agree with Gamechamp that it's unfortunate that he used glitches. That said, I'm definitely impressed with a lot of the shortcuts and his ability to do everything quickly without making any major mistakes that would have jeopardized the run, especially in the Bowser levels. He hardly ever even had to adjust the camera. Like Vega said, it probably took hundreds of hours of practice, and probably hundreds of attempts to get the (near) perfect run. I would like to see a Mario 64 speed run with no major glitches though, either getting the required 70 stars, or all 120.

 

I thought it was 60 stars required to win it.

And the camera angles is another thing I forgot to mention. I didn't realize that he wasn't changing camera angles until midway through when he used it in a more obvious way on one of the bowser levels. And it kinda startled me since he hadn't been doing it before.

 

Nope, it's 70. And I found 70 and 120 star runs at Speed Demos Archive, but not surprisingly they're pretty long (one hour and three hours), so I'll download one of them when I have a little more time.

 

Yeah, I was actually watching the stats to check just in case there were any dirty tricks being done. But it looks like it's all 100% real-time.

 

I'm not so sure about that. It may be "cheating" by common standards, but if the glitch is there in the game, then the only way you're going to finish the game in the fastest possible time is by using that glitch. It's not necessarily a bad thing; it just brings a different element to the speed runs and puts it in a different class. It's like the difference between a 100 meter dash and a triathalon. You wouldn't say that the triathalon is better than the dash just because it's longer and requires more endurance. It's just a different competition altogether. Same thing with the speed runs. If you like the long treks that require heavy endurance and consistancy over a long period of time, then the 120 star run would be more impressive. On the other hand, if you like the excitement of having to get every move perfect in the shortest span of time possible, then the 16-star run with glitches would be the best one. And if you like a balance between precision moves and endurance, then the minimum-70-star run would be the competition of choice. They each bring different elements to the competition.

Personally though, I like the quickest possible run. Why? Simply because every move counts. Sure, it's a real big feat to go for 70 or all 120 stars. But the thing that would discourage me from those ones is the fact that there's a LOT more room for messups and imperfections, all of which can still produce good runs but would still not have that pressure of "perfection" that the 16-star run has. Think about how many times in this guy's run he messed up in small ways. None of them were big enough to ruin the run, and they probably only costed him seconds here and seconds there, but multiply that several times and add on a wear down factor (for 1-3 hours of straight playing) and that's going to come out to a LOT of time that gets wasted, even though the run as a whole could still be fast and impressive.

But in all fairness, I haven't seen a 70 or 120 star run yet.