Speedrunner Suigi broke the world record for completing a 120-star run of Nintendo’s classic Super Mario 64 yesterday, April 12, not long after announcing himself too tired to try. Having streamed for six hours already, with four hours of practice and five aborted attempts, the 20-year-old was ready to pack it in for the night, but tried one more time. That resulted in a new world record time of 1:35:25, shaving 2.6 seconds off the previous best, which was also his own.
Again, this is the record for a full completion of Mario 64, which means collecting all 120 stars, rather than simply getting from the beginning of the game to the end as quickly as possible. Suigi’s previous record of 1:35:28 was recorded in November 2024, and until this weekend had stood unbeaten. A handful have come in just short since, with Karin getting the closest but still two seconds off eight months ago. But yesterday, in the most nonchalant way you could imagine, Suigi just moved the goalposts even further away while streaming on Twitch.
Ahead of the winning performance Suigi had put in a few other efforts, most of which were aborted after just a few minutes upon early mistakes being made. Then he had a run last for over an hour and 20 minutes, at which point a volley of issues and a triple-jump failure saw him give up the attempt. At that point he declared himself “cooked,” too tired to have another try and shocked to see he’d been streaming for six hours already. But then, seemingly out of habit more than purpose, he started over.
It didn’t look like it was going to be anything special. An hour in he was already over 21 seconds behind his previous record, although he recognized it was “still very doable.” So much of these attempts is about stringing together astonishing feats of gymnastics and exploits, and so many of them are very easy to miss. Knowing where he’d underperformed before, Suigi saw there was still hope, although he clearly wasn’t expecting it.
What’s even more impressive to me, as I watch this expert achieving such extraordinary precision and such nimble athletics, is that he’s also somehow acknowledging chat and thanking new subscribers and donors in the tiny moments when Mario pauses after jumping out of a painting. This is happening even as he begins reclaiming those 20-ish seconds over the next ten minutes in moments of fixed concentration broken by goofy jokes and comments on viewer analysis. Then in one glorious move he regains a massive 22 seconds in one level, to get 6.1 seconds ahead of his best with 15 minutes to go.
Phew, eh? Except, no! By 1:27 he gets himself a buffer of over 13 seconds, before an absolutely brutal error inside Tick Tock Clock wipes it all out and puts him back to six seconds behind. “Is it over?” he asks of himself looking at the clock. “No, it’s not,” he says, before adding, “It’s going to be fucking close, man.” Then the final battle against Bowser goes the best it possibly could, and victory is clawed from the turtle-y jaws of defeat.
As Suigi points out, those mistakes leave the field wide open for others—or more likely Suigi himself—to beat this best time in the future. At one point a sub-1:27 time was even looking possible, which would have been spectacular. If nothing else, it’s been proven extremely possible.
Top tip: Try not to think about how Suigi was ten years unborn when Super Mario 64 was released.
