After a 118-day grind, a blindfolded sub-20 minute Super Mario 64 speedrun is here and the community's in disbelief: "This seemed completely impossible a few years ago"
Oct. 4, 2024“I cannot overstate how mentally taxing this was”
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Super Mario 64 speedrunner Bubzia has done what the community once thought impossible, securing a sub-20 minute time in the game’s 16 star category while blindfolded. And all it took to get here was a 118-day grind in one of thebest N64 gamesever made.
These days, aspiring Mario 64 runners - the regular, non-blindfolded kind - consider it a major milestone in their personal progress to complete a 16 star run in under 20 minutes. (The normal 16 star record is currently 14 minutes and 35 seconds.) So, earlier this year, Bubzia set to work breaking the 20 minute barrier blindfolded.
Starting from a personal best (and world record) of 22 minutes and 23 seconds, Bubzia began regular streams of blindfolded record attempts in January, and he managed several. 21:48 in February. 21:13 in June. 20:30 in August. 20:24 in September. Always inching closer, but never quite hitting that sub-20 goal.
“There are so many difficult points now in this optimized state,” Bubzia explained in arecap of the first 100 daysof the challenge. “You get maybe one run per day - out of a 3-hour stream - where you get past the first stage. It was insanely frustrating to run this. I cannot overstate how mentally taxing this was.”
That community response has been hovering between awe, disbelief, and simple congratulations to Bubzia on the accomplishment. Speedrun legendSummoning Salt puts it simply: “This seemed completely impossible a few years ago. Huge congrats to him for reaching his goal!”
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
For the first time in 28 years, Super Mario 64 has been beaten without using the A button – and it only took 86 hours.
Legendary Super Mario 64 speedrunner tries to beat the game blindfolded on a dance pad and fails, but not as badly as you or I would
Super Mario 64 speedrunning is “dead” after one runner claims all 5 major categories in what’s being dubbed “the greatest speedrunning achievement of all time”
Popular anime Castlevania: Nocturne season 2 gets new trailer and confirms release date
