The History of Super Mario 64 16 Star World Records

[Music] super mario 64 16 star it's the most popular category in the most popular speed game of all time holding a record in it is one of gaming's toughest accomplishments ridiculous glitches and insane movements both requirements for a world record just a lucky few have been able to call themselves a record holder and with the incredible level of competition it's hard to hold on to it for long but let's take a look at those gamers and see how they did it this is the history of the 16 star world record [Music] super mario 64 has 120 stars you can collect there are speed run categories that involve collecting all of them however the developers only required you to collect 70 of them to beat the game that's how many you needed to make it up the endless staircase and into the final stage for years 70 stars was the minimum needed to beat super mario 64. but years after the game's release that number suddenly dropped to 50. eventually it was lowered again this time to 31 and in 2004 the number fell to just 16.

super mario 64 could now be completed in under half an hour and in the summer of 2004 the first 16 star speedruns of mario 64 were performed there were a handful of records set over the course of a few months from players like cyberwrath and christina corsac but the dust settled a bit when a runner named ilu dude set a big record in november 2004 he beat the game with 16 stars in 21 minutes and 56 seconds and here's how he did it [Music] the first goal in a 16 star speed run is to collect eight stars which unlocks the first bowser level bowser in the dark world he got the first star by going into bob on battlefield and ground pounding the chain chomp's pole three times unlocking the star one of the fastest ways to move in super mario 64 is the long jump so illu dude chained these together over and over whenever he could next he went into womp's fortress to collect five more stars he got the first two by going to the top of the stage defeating womp and then climbing to the top of the fortress he then quickly got the star on the ledge by side flipping to it then opened the cannon used it to blast away the wall and shot himself into the star to collect it a slow process that ate up around half a minute finally he got picked up by the owl to fall into the cage and collect another star that put his total at six stars the remaining two came from sliding down peach's slide to collect both stars despite a bit of slow movement along the way illu dude was then able to enter bowser in the dark world where he used long jumps all over to move through the stage it took two throws to hit bowser with a bomb but eventually he got the job done now that he could go into the basement illu dude's next goal was to collect seven more stars to allow mips the rabbit to appear the first two stars came from shifting sandland where he got one from quickly jumping at the top of the pyramid and the other from slowly waiting on top of a pillar for a bird to arrive the next two came from lethal lava land where illydude boiled the big bully and collected eight red coins his movement wasn't ideal in any of these sections as his only real strategy for moving fast was the long jump whenever he could finally the last three stars came from collecting the toad star then heading into hazy maze cave getting the emergency exit star and the watch for rolling rock star now illu dude had 15 stars which spawned mips the rabbit normally you can just grab him for a star but illu dude was going to use him for a trick discovered by dom dunk a few months prior this was the key to beating the game with 16 stars the first step is getting mips through this door by putting him down right in front of it then going through the door you can quickly jump back and stand inside the door from there you can pick up mips turn around and place them on the other side then you want to take mips to this door which you normally need 30 stars to pass through by placing him in front of it you can jump between mips and the door to get pushed through it skipping the 30 star requirement the mips clips could be difficult to perform but if done properly they would save many minutes off a super mario 64 speed run after this illu dude went into dire dire docks collected the submarine star to unlock bowser in the fire sea and went through it as fast as he could once again it took him two throws to defeat bowser but he now had the second key it was time to head upstairs where he was about to perform probably the most iconic trick in super mario 64 speedrunning the backwards long jump this trick was popularized in a november 2000 edition of nintendo power magazine but it's quite likely nintendo knew about it as early as 1997 since that year they released an updated version of super mario 64 in japan that made the trick impossible when you do a long jump but hold the stick backwards the game gives mario a slight boost of speed it normally snaps back to normal quickly after but if you land fast enough like on stairs it's preserved so you can do another backwards long jump by jumping over and over it's possible to catch mario in a loop where his speed continuously builds up he can keep going faster and faster if your speed builds fast enough it's possible to be on one side of wall on one frame and the other side on the next and that means if you mash correctly you can backwards long jump and fly through doors illu dude performed this on both the 50 star door and the endless staircase bypassing the requirements for 50 and 70 stars respectively then it was a matter of making it through bowser in the sky and hitting bowser with three bombs at the end it took him six throws but it was enough to finish with a time of 2156 world record by a significant margin this run was pretty good for 2004 given how new the mips clips and bljs were however as noted before the movement left much to be desired and some tricks took several tries and about six months later a player named kirby carter would lower it by about a minute he definitely did clean up the movement a bit but was still mostly using long jumps he didn't miss as many throws on bowser and was able to get the bljs extremely quickly however the biggest revolution introduced in this run was the new more reliable version of the mips clips for the first one by dropping mips on the seam between the door and the wall mario gets pushed forward and becomes stuck inside the door the rest of the trick can be completed as before for the second clip it's the same process as the first clip but instead of getting stuck in the door mario gets pushed through all the way to the other side these clips were both faster and more consistent than before becoming the clear methods to use so going into mid 2005 kirby carter's 2046 was on top a solid record with video proof that from 2005 wasn't always a given the record timeline was pretty straightforward at this point and it followed a pattern seen by most early speed runs from the mid-2000s early runs recorded on vhs with primitive strategies followed by improvements in big chunks over the following years however after this point the 16 star history takes a bit of a turn for the next several years there would be two major caveats in the timeline first cheated or faked runs would be illegitimately on top of the leaderboard for more than 80 percent of the next decade for most games cheated runs do occasionally happen but rarely does it affect the record timeline as substantially as it did for 16 star so the fastest runs from legitimate players will be included in this video instead and second although most runs had video proof when performed records before 2013 have very little video surviving today and some of the surviving stuff is very low quality many runs were live streamed at the time but the videos weren't saved there were also many emulator records at this time but since they reduce lag and aren't kept on the same leaderboard as console runs they won't be included in this video it's a bit tricky to analyze runs from this period but we'll work with what we can after kirby carter's 2046 a player named lecourer103 would rapidly lower the record down to 1908 over the course of 2005. he posted his times on the speed demos archive forum but videos for these runs seem to have never made it online so despite lowering the record by a minute and a half there's not much to analyze then by 2009 the record scene moved to japan through august 2009 four players set a record show shigeru cass and taka most of these runs don't have surviving video and the ones that do were live streamed with 2009 levels of quality so instead we'll skip to december 2009 when we finally get a run with a clean video feed from taka remember kirby carter had gotten a 20 minute run in 2005 and there were allegedly 19 minute runs later that year what did taka get in 2009 how about a run clocking in at 17 minutes 18 seconds to put it bluntly this record was on another level [Music] the amount of tricks the level of optimization everything about taka's run was miles ahead of runs from years prior truth be told there had been many new strategies slowly implemented in runs over the years but they all came together in taka's record and they started literally right when the game begins normally once you reach the middle of the bridge lackatoo stops you for a cutscene by jumping on the very edge of the bridge railing taco is able to skip the trigger for the cutscene and save about 7 seconds once he went inside however the run really started to take off this was thanks in part to a handful of major new tricks kirby carter's run from 2005 was good but taka had some tricks up his sleeve that changed everything trick number one in bob on battlefield taka performed the bomb clip by activating the bomb and getting pushed by it toward the gate you can precisely jump before it explodes getting pushed through the gate to collect the star this saves close to 10 seconds over the standard method taka then went to womp's fortress and performed trick number two a legendary one known as cannonless the normal process for getting the blast away the wall star is slow and involves opening the cannon jumping in it shooting at the wall and landing to collect a star however this can all be skipped by performing canonless where you just run at the wall in the perfect spot and collect the star without blasting away the wall it saves around 20 seconds over using the cannon which is huge but the issue is the precision involved you need to hit the exact right spot on the wall for this to work so that mario grabs the ledge the star is on top of and his hitbox moves up to intersect with the star even taking time to set up the trick didn't help very much the most skilled players struggled to hit the trick more than about 20 of the time 16 star runs were transformed with canonless you had a couple shots to get it but if you failed you'd have to reset so now most runs wouldn't make it past the two and a half minute mark thankfully taka hit cannonless first try just so he can go and perform trick number three immediately after by triple jumping and wall kicking off the cage perfectly you could fall in it without having to use the owl it only saved around 6 seconds but owless became a staple of 16 star runs as well another big upgrade for taka was his movement older runs had just used long jumps but taka carefully selected his moves to optimize the speed of each section diving was used all over for short speed boosts while long jumps still had their place for longer straight sections this upgraded movement could particularly be seen in bowser in the dark world where taka varied his movement all over to collect eight red coins for an additional star the back half was clean too fast mips clips and bljs helped save some additional time however the run definitely wasn't without its faults he had some slip ups like here in lethal lava land and he missed the throw on bowser at the very end but thanks to the upgrades in movement strategies and overall execution taka's run was more than three minutes faster than the early records super mario 64 speedruns were about to enter a new era gone were the days of infrequent records with sub-optimal strategies over the next year and a half the record would be broken nearly a dozen times most of the videos for these records didn't survive but the few we do have show gameplay far ahead of its time the two dominant record holders for this era were taka and shigeru they took turns lowering the record into the low 17s before shigeru broke the sub 17 barrier with a 16-54 but when taka took the record back with a 1652 he had a trick up his sleeve lblj lblj stands for lobby backwards long jump and its origins can be traced to an october 2006 video where mr robert z jumped up from below and grabbed an exposed ledge he theorized that you could then possibly do a backwards long jump and it turns out he was right a tool assisted runner named mijitsu showed it off in a task a month later and it was eventually adopted by runners by backwards long jumping into the basement ceiling which extends upwards you can land and repeatedly jump to build speed you then land in a black area outside the front door with a lot of speed still built up then you rotate the camera precisely to steer mario's speed toward the 8th star door if done properly mario will shoot through it and land next to the entrance for bowser in the dark world this ultimately saves time because many of the eight stars needed to open the door are slow like ground pounding womp three times by ignoring the eight star requirement players could now just get the key right away collect three fast stars in womp's fortress and head straight to the basement it saved half a minute overall armed with lblj shigeru would continue to grind 16 star in 2010 and 2011 he would pull away from taka lowering the record deeper into the 16s while optimizing his movement and tricks along the way it was starting to feel inevitable that somebody would break this 16 minute barrier [Music] but as it turns out the first person to get a sub 16 wouldn't be shigeru it wouldn't be taka either in fact it wasn't anyone who had set a 16 star record before in august 2011 someone else broke through with a 1554 and his name was matt turk [Music] nah i'm just kidding it was akira akira's run was a culmination of strategies that had been slowly developed over the years it started with lblj he got it very cleanly quickly rotating the camera to draw mario in bowser in the dark world after collecting eight red coins in the key he got canonless first try owlettes and the side flip star making all three of these stars seem effortless in lethal lava land he boiled the big bully got a couple stars in the volcano got the log rolling star via precise triple jump wall kick and got 8 red coins these 5 stars were all relatively quick the longest one taking only about 20 seconds he then went into shifting sand land got the star in the top of the pyramid then bounced off a snippet to get the bird star early in hazy may's cave he triple jumped to get into the dinosaur room quickly then grab the emergency exit and rolling rock stars the mips clips were about perfect and in dire dire docks akira went for the risky front sub to save a couple seconds he tore through bowser in the fire c barely making a fast cycle both the backwards long jumps were instantaneous and he nailed every bowser throw to wrap up a sub 16 minute run this seemed like it would be the last minute barrier ever broken in 16 star there simply wasn't enough time to save to take it past 15 minutes that being said there was still some room to take it lower into the 15s about six months later batora would grab the record for the first time with a 1552 losing a bit of time to bad movement early but saving time at the end with a cleaner bowser in the sky not to be outdone akira would beat him by a full 8 seconds in april 2013 thanks to a fast lblj at the start and tearing through the other bljs this 1544 would then stand on top of the leaderboard for the next two years that's an incredibly long time for a category as competitive as 16 star there were a few reasons this happened but one really big reason is a trick about three minutes into the run i'm talking of course about canonless it was a pretty big blow when two-thirds of your runs would die to the same trick right at the start there wasn't a way around it you either got cannonless or you reset for years cannonless had been ending record runs before they could really begin and it helped lead the stretches like this where no world records were set for many months if someone could just figure out a way to set it up consistently to grab the star every time it would open up so many new doors in 16 star in october 2014 that's exactly what sock folder did sock folder is a speed running legend he's found revolutionary setups for tricks in ocarina of time luigi's mansion even the original super mario bros once he sets his mind to figuring something out he is usually able to do so this time it was a way to solve canonless on october 8 2014 he came out with this complicated setup you would grab the ledge pull yourself up punch twice reset the camera walk straight down adjust the camera pull yourself up back flip punch walk straight down again reset the camera again then pull yourself up and walk down if all this was done properly you would grab the star every single time the obvious problem with this was how slow it was even if done quickly the setup costs 10 seconds over normal canonless that's a significant amount of time in a run like 16 star but luckily later the same day runner's def tech and gothic logic would find an improvement you didn't actually have to do the first part of the setup you could skip straight to jumping on the ledge next to the plank then perform the setup from there this meant you'd only lose 6 seconds instead of 10 which was a bit more reasonable and the whole process still lined you up perfectly to grab the ledge and collect the star it's no exaggeration to say that cannonless setup was one of the biggest finds in speedrunning history those two-thirds of runs that died at cannonless were now gone it now had a near 100 success rate this gave the record so much more potential since without having to reset as much early players could focus on optimizing the rest of the run so throughout 2015 a handful of runners were gunning for the record and what resulted was a mad dash to push the record down as much as possible [Music] god [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] joshua by may 2016 zaya had taken the record all the way to 1524 a run with a really fast lblj nearly every trick hit throughout the stages and fast bljs to boot the only real noticeable slowdowns were a slow start to pillarless and getting bad bolder luck in hazy maze cave a very impressive record given how many tricks were now in the run and incredibly this record too would stand for nearly two years but eventually a couple of new runners began to get really low times their personal bests dropped below 16 minutes eventually into the 1540 range and it became evident that both of them were going to make a push for the record this is aki and ouiji in november 2017 aki got on a run that had potential a great lblj pillarless canonless after getting the second key he was on pace for a 15 25 but could potentially get as low as 15 18 if he matched his best last split ever a record by 6 seconds it was all going to come down to the dljs [Music] they were decent but not good enough for a record aki would finish with a 15-28 four seconds behind zaya but a few months later he'd have another shot at it four seconds ahead of his last run he once again needed good bljs [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this time it was good enough a 15-22 beating ziya by two seconds and making aki the new record holder but a few days later it was ouija's turn [Music] i did it i did it it's over i did it man [Music] i did it [Music] i did it this was the first ever sub 1520 in 16 star history one new trick he and aki were using was in womp's fortress where he used a new setup for canon list called texture setup that had been theorized years prior by snowman instead of using sock folder's long setup ouija just lined up mario's feet with a texture in the side of the plank and went for it it wasn't as consistent as the normal setup but it was faster and still more consistent than no setup at all compromises like this had to be made now that the remaining time saves were disappearing he gained some time over rocky with a cleaner lethal lava land but lost some in bowser in the fire sea his bljs were excellent but he had a slight mistake at the end of bowser in the sky although the run had some downfalls it was still a record by five seconds not to be outdone aki would fire back six months later with a 15-16 he messed up the triple jump in hazy maze cave and his fire sea had a slow ending he made up the time over ouija however with a faster mips grab while standing and cleaning up his mistake in bowser in the sky he also threw bowser a bit faster each time saving a fraction of a second per throw at this point when the record was lowered it was typically only by a second or maybe a few seconds at most when records get as precise as 16 star where players have done tens of thousands of runs each taking time off in big chunks was pretty much out of the question but incredibly just three weeks after his 1516 aki was in position to do just that as always it came down to the bljs no pressure [Music] this was it an unbelievable chance to make history he just had to make it through bowser in the sky hit all three of the throws and he'd be golden [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] a 1508 was the largest cut off the record in more than three and a half years a near perfect run from start to finish the mistakes in hazy maze cave and fire sea were cleaned up and his movement overall was optimized for time saves too as you'd expect this run stayed at the top of the leaderboard for a long time six months later it was still in first second place was eight seconds behind nobody was getting close to it to have a realistic chance at beating this you'd need new strats the old ones had just about completely been optimized as good as aki was it would help to change his approach if he wanted to take the record under 1508 so as 2019 came around he looked into what else he could do to save time [Music] [Applause] [Music] first there was canonless texture setup was great but it lost a few seconds over just running at the wall and praying so aki decided that he needed to give up the consistency of the setup and go back to normal cannonless this same awful brutal trick that killed two-thirds of all runs years prior this was obviously a really tough move but the run was getting so optimized that it was worth it second aki went for a faster setup for pillarless developed by tama you would do the jump dive on the hill instead of going over the top this enabled you to get hands-free quicker and allow the trick to begin sooner than before with these setups in mind aki kept doing attempts on may 10th the new time saves helped him be six seconds ahead of the record early he would bleed some of this time in fire see but good bljs kept him well ahead three bowser throws later aki had done it again incredibly this record put aki 12 seconds ahead of anyone else on the leaderboard and he didn't stop there he kept doing attempts for a lower record he even had paces multiple seconds ahead of the 1504 but every time something would kill it but in late 2019 aki would finally get some competition at the top of the leaderboard and this particular runner certainly had credentials he was both the zero star and one star record holder he was one of the best in the world at optimizing fast movement and his name was dowsky [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] dowsky had previously held the 16 star record before getting a 15-16 the day before aki got his incredible 1508 however this time he wanted something more a record that would last for a while even though his personal best was a few seconds behind aki he knew he had the skill to keep up with him so dowsky's record attempts began and on november 17th he got on a run that fell behind early thanks to missing cannulas on the first try however he more than made up that time with a faster fire seat including a different strategy at the end where he avoided jumping on the edge of the stage he had a four second lead over the record this actually had sub 15 potential but as always the bljs stood in the way [Music] they weren't great but his best possible time was still one second ahead of the record if he could tear through the stage he'd have a chance [Music] i don't think i got it [Music] as it turns out it would be record by just over a tenth of a second for the first time in a year aki was no longer the record holder with so many times being set in short succession 16 star as a category was flourishing there was really only one problem at this point it had been almost two years since someone with a funny username had set a record in recent months there had been aki andowski but to get a good one you have to go back to ouija and his 1517 and even that one's not amazing compared to the likes of 420 blaze it and shivering erotic king banana well in early 2020 someone wanted to rectify that he started moving up on the leaderboards going from fifth to third place right behind the two 1504s and shortly thereafter he would end up taking the top spot and the runner's name certainly didn't disappoint on february 27th a 1503 was achieved by slippery nip he gained time early thanks to a faster lblj and managed to match dowski's speed in making the tsukushima cycle on the platforms in womp's fortress he gained time by hitting cannonless first try partially thanks to a setup by salt and ginger to adjust the camera and clip in the wall more consistently he maintained this four second lead until the second mips clip which took him two tries but gained about a second back on the dljs that worked out to a 1503 just ahead of dowsky and enough to make slippery nip the new record holder the community was beginning to approach a barrier they were now just four seconds away from a sub 15 minute run the last time a minute barrier had been broken was almost 9 years prior with akira's 15 54. now a run in the 14s was seeming inevitable but what time saves were left well looking at the 1503 record the big potential time saves were the 4 seconds lost due to the mips clip and a few seconds that could be saved on the bljs but beyond that there were still fractions of a second to squeeze out all over on lvlj lethal lava land bowser in the sky all from subtle faster strategies or improving movement those time saves all added up to a run well under 15 minutes but someone still had to take it there and one player who would make a big push was aki after getting a 1503 of his own aki would get a very promising run going on may 1st 2020 it was about even going into the mips clips where he messed up the first one instead of the second one still a strong fire sea and bljs kept him just ahead going into bowser in the sky and there he was able to make a faster elevator cycle called monomo's cycle by making his movement as tight as possible including an incredible triple jump dive onto the platform three throws later aki was so close to a sub 15.

[Music] one more second to go aki pushed onward over the coming days and weeks getting great runs on pace that eventually died to something the biggest culprit of course were the bljs getting mario to catch on the stairs seemed almost random at times if you didn't get him to catch within a few jumps it was run over and even making it through would usually result in losing time but aki knew sub 15 was within reach he just needed one good run past the bljs and on may 10th 2020 aki had this run it was about as close to a perfect run as you could get chances like this don't come along very often now more than ever the bljs needed to happen they didn't need to be very good he just needed something decent or he could get near perfect bljs this was his chance for the run of a lifetime here we go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] by the skin of his teeth aki had pulled out of 1459 the world's first sub 15.