Nintendo classic Super Mario Bros. has a new speedrun champion today.
During the early morning hours of Aug. 3, 2019 16-year-old tavenwebb2002 beat arguably the most recognizable video game of all time faster than any other person before in history. His time was officially recorded at 4:55.746, a full 50 milliseconds faster than previous record holder somewes. This run was an improvement of tavenwebb2002’s previous time of 4:56.512 achieved in Feb. 2019.
Super Mario Bros., released in 1985, is over twice as old as tavenwebb2002.
As one might expect of a world record run of a game this popular, tavenwebb2002 played better than anyone else in the world for nearly five minutes of frame-perfect execution. Numerous points of the run require timing to the 1/60th of a second and positioning smaller than a pixel. Any mistake or bad luck means the player has to restart their attempt.
Despite being a new record, the run was recorded in what some would describe as a more vintage approach to gameplay capture. While some runners use expensive capture equipment tavenwebb2002 had a camera pointed at his screen to record the historic run.
The reaction to the record seemed almost as if tavenwebb2002 had been freed from a curse, stating that the journey was over.
“I’m done, I’m done, I’m fricking done,” tavenwebb2002 stated as Mario stood at the final screen.
Tavenwebb2002’s ascent to the first place spot knocks down somewes to second place, as mentioned above. The top four is now rounded out by Kosmic in third place and RoyLT in fourth.
When asked about the record, tavenwebb2002 said that this was the most difficult thing he’s ever done and understands that the achievement may be difficult for some people to understand.
“All I gotta say is that going for a WR in a speedrun, which might not mean much to people who haven’t tried it, was the toughest mountain I’ve ever climbed,” tavenwebb2002 said. “but I could not be more thankful for the people that have pushed me to achieve this two year-long dream of mine.”
A full video of the run can be found on his Twitch page here.
