The Twitch streamer Liam plays the old “Nintendo 64” game Super Mario 64 almost daily on his channel. He tries to complete the game as quickly as possible at 100% – he is doing a speedrun. However, at the end of a promising run, he makes a mistake that costs him dearly. MeinMMO shows you the last thrilling seconds and explains what is behind the complicated speedrun.
What makes the speedrun so complicated?
- Liam plays a category of the Super Mario 64 (SM 64) speedrun that allows glitches and tricks.
- The category is called “120 Star” and requires the speedrunner to collect all 120 stars of the game – thus completing SM 64 at 100%. The current world record in this category is 1 hour 37 minutes and 53 seconds.
- The speedrun involves some tricky tricks that require a lot of practice and can fail at any time.
- The streamer usually has no breaks, as SM 64 is very hectic and fast. It is a 3D jump-and-run and requires full attention and concentration almost every second. Cutscenes to catch your breath can be counted on one hand.
Speedrunner Liam fails at simple trick
What cost Liam the world record? In the last battle against Bowser, Mario must throw his arch-enemy against spiky bombs at the edge of the field. You have to grab Bowser by his tail and spin around to gain momentum and throw him properly against a bomb.
A small trick is applied where you dash directly to Bowser when he flies back onto the platform after being recently hit by a bomb. This allows the player to skip an attack cycle from Bowser, grab him by the tail again, and throw him against a bomb.
The player must accomplish this three times for Bowser to finally give up. The speedrunner succeeded twice but failed miserably on the third attempt by throwing Bowser next to the bomb.
Liam tried to save the fail and went quickly and too close to Bowser on his attempt to grab his tail again. As a result, Bowser knocked Mario off the cliff.
“Why was Bowser at the corner of the damn map? Oh my God. I have never seen him stop there in my entire damn life,” Liam cursed as he frustratingly ended the speedrun.
What new world record could Liam have achieved? Liam could have achieved a time of 1:37:36. That would have been an improvement of 17 seconds. At the level of speedruns, that is a huge time savings and would have surely secured him the throne for a longer time.
Nevertheless, Liam would have only improved his own world record, which he has held for 3 months. Behind him is the speedrunner batora with a time of 1:38:21, so there’s plenty of distance.
The trickiest tricks of the Super Mario 64 speedrun
What tricky tricks are there? To give you a little insight into the speedrun of Super Mario 64, we show you a few of the trickiest tricks of the run that Liam has to master to deliver a successful run.
- BLJ (Backwards Long Jumps) – Mario can execute a long jump forward. In the speedrun, you can use the trick to build up speed and move quickly backward to glitch through doors or walls. You need to press the required buttons so fast that you perform the jump repeatedly and backwards. YouTuber Gred MacD gives you an insight.
- Bomb Clip – Here you use an enemy called Bomb-omb that you need to grab. After that, you should jump quickly and accurately so that you land in the right place and can pick up the enemy at the right time. Then, you also have to navigate to the goal where you want to glitch through. Correct and quick combinations of various buttons and the joystick are necessary. YouTuber Drogie’s N64 Videos gives you an insight.
- Cannonless – In one level of the game, a star is hidden behind a wall that you usually have to destroy with a shot from the cannon. However, if you run against the wall at the correct angle, you can also collect the star without destroying it. It’s a very precise trick for which many follow a fixed setup to make collecting the star more reliable. YouTuber Deyrenkenin gives you an insight into the setup, but Liam simply runs toward the wall at the correct angle and collects the star in his speedrun (via Twitch, at 2:53:36).
There are more tricky tricks and passages such as the Lakitu Bounce, Owlless or collecting the red coins in the desert level of the game. A summary of all the important aspects of the “SM 64” speedrun can be found in the official Google Doc.
Some of the mentioned tricks are used often during the speedrun and can fail at any time if the player is not fully focused – so it’s really nerve-wracking.
It’s worth checking out a “SM 64” speedrun if you like the old classic or Mario games. Such a speedrun can sometimes be more exciting than a movie or series.
What do you think of speedruns? Have you ever followed one on Twitch or are you more of a fan of normal playthroughs? Feel free to write it in the comments.
