GamesPlatformerSuper Mario 64For the first time in 28 years, Super Mario 64 has been beaten without using the A button – and it only took 86 hoursWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesPlatformerSuper Mario 64For the first time in 28 years, Super Mario 64 has been beaten without using the A button – and it only took 86 hoursWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Nintendo)
For the first time in recorded history, someone has beaten Super Mario 64 without ever using the A button, a new world record previously thought to be impossible.
To fully contextualize just how monumental an achievement this is, let me remind you that the A button in Super Mario 64 is used to jump, making it one of the platformer’s most vital inputs. This new world record was achieved without remapping anything and thus relies on creative use of the game’s mechanics, glitches and exploits discovered in the many years since Super Mario 64’s 1996 release, and of course, extreme precision.
The Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge (ABC for short) has an incredibly complicated history going all the way back to the early 2000s, a few years after the game’s 1996 release. I was only made aware of this particular challenge this morning and don’t have nearly enough time to go over everything, but you can watch thisfive-hour explanation video from Bismuthif you want.
Basically, Super Mario 64 nerds have been competing to beat the classic platformer using the A button as little as possible, with the long-held assumption that it simply isn’t possible to complete the game without hitting A at all. The Mario 64 wikiUkikipediahas an impressively comprehensive breakdown of all the major milestones in the challenge’s history, as well as detailed information on techniques, just in case you want to catch up without, you know, spending half your day watching a Mario 64 speedrunning documentary, although there’s absolutely no shame in that.
Again, it’s hard to overstate what an achievement this is, not only because it’s more than 20 years in the making and was once thought impossible, but also because we all knowhow frighteningly easy it is for devastation to strike during Mario 64 speedruns.
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