A YouTube user going by the name Kosmic just broke the world record for the Super Mario Bros. Any% speedrun, beating out the old record by just one tenth of a second.
It’s truly remarkable to watch as Kosmic bounces his way through level after level, taking advantages of hidden shortcuts and warp tunnels to bypass levels.
Check it out in the video player below.
The new world record, set by Kosmic for the Any% Super Mario Bros. speedrun is 4:55.646. It is truly amazing to watch him in action, as he makes it look 100% effortless. He jumps perfectly over enemies and Pirannah Plants, avoiding an entire army of Bullet Bills as he clocks in for a new record.
Speedrun gaming has given us all a little taste of just how bad we all were at some of the video games from the past. Games like Super Mario Bros. have been perfected by master players like this, to the point where they know every single level and exactly where to jump in order to get through a stage without breaking their gait.
“I did it,” Kosmic said in the video’s description. “Incredible run. Unbelievable 8-4. Very proud of everything that has led up to this run. This is everything I have ever wanted to accomplish in this speedrun, and even a little bit more. It is still improvable but I am not interested in the ridiculous things required to beat this.”
That last bit is interesting. Kosmic believes that this record he has set can be beaten, but officially throws in the towel on trying to beat it himself.
Of course, this is not Kosmic’s only Mario related world record. On top of the Any% category, he also holds the speedrun world record for Super Mario Bros. in the Warpless category.
The Any% category is actually simple to explain. To complete an Any% speedrun, you have to make your way through the game as fast as possible, taking advantage of any cheats, glitches, or shortcuts that are included in the game.
So many of these older games have a ton of secrets built into them that went mostly unnoticed in their original release period because the internet and YouTube didn’t exist yet. There are also a number of game breaking glitches still present in many of the original Nintendo games, since there was no internet connectivity or patches that could be issued for a game once it was released.
