Super Mario Bros. Players Are Closing In on a Perfect Playthrough

Super Mario Bros. players are on the verge of pulling off a legendary feat. According to a new video from Kosmic, a Super Mario Bros. speedrunner who once held the world record for fastest completion time, players are now just .1 seconds away from achieving the first ever perfect playthrough of the game.

The video details the NES game’s most recent world record, which was set by a Brazilian player named LeKukie. It’s a fascinating story even without the history-making implications. LeKukie is a long-time speedrunner who was continually held back by his limited access to tech. The Mario speedrunning community banded together to get LeKukie some proper equipment, which turned him into a serious competitor overnight. He earned the world record in June by beating Super Mario Bros. in 4 minutes, 54 seconds, and 365 milliseconds.

The milliseconds are the important part of that runtime. Super Mario Bros. players have reduced the game to a science over decades of speedrun attempts. New world records don’t come all that often, and when they do, they are sometimes determined by single frames, not seconds. Thanks to recent breakthroughs in the community, players have determined that there is a theoretical limit to how fast Super Mario Bros. can be completed. LeKukie’s run was only .1 seconds behind the finish line — he was only six frames shy of perfection.

There’s a good reason that no one has pulled off the perfect game yet, even if there is a fully documented way to pull it off. A perfect run requires players to pull off a series of pixel-precise maneuvers that Kosmic explains in the video. While the most skilled players can pull them off in a vacuum, the challenge is hitting every single one in a continuous run. Even the best runs tend to fall short in the game’s final level, losing a few crucial frames to complicated jumps.

So, what’s LeKukie’s secret? LeKukie holds the NES controller in a bizarre way, which allows him to hit left and right back-to-back at lightning speed. That innovation allows him to pull off some of the game’s most advanced tricks even more consistently than players using a keyboard. Yes, the world record chase is so close at this point that even the way you hold a controller can make a huge difference.

According to Kosmic, the perfect Super Mario Bros. is an inevitability at this point. It’s just a matter of someone locking in and pulling off a run with no mistakes. (Easier said than done.) Whether it takes another few years or days, keep an eye on the Mario speedrunning scene over the next few months. History could be made at any moment.