Super Mario Bros. Speedrunner Kosmic Sets New World Record
By Nicholas Barth ·
The well known speedrunner was able to set another world record in Super Mario Bros. in Super Mario All Stars.
Speedrunner Kosmic is very familar with world records for Super Mario Bros., as the talented runner set the world record for running the NES version of the game with a time of 4:56:462. Now taking on the SNES remake of the original Super Mario Bros. in Super Mario All Stars, Kosmic added another world record to his collection with a time of 5:01:370 in the Any% category on April 6th.
Kosmic explained in his video's description that there are several differences between Super Smash Bros. in Super Mario All Stars and the original game that affect speedruns, especially when it comes to the enemies.
"Piranha plants have laughably small hitboxes on the NES version, but they are apropriately sized in this version. That means you not only have to do pipe jumps instead of just jumping straight over piranha plants, but the pipe jumps are harder than any pipe jumps in the NES version. The NES version also despawns enemies sometimes if there are too many sprites on screen, but this version does not. This makes 4-2 and 8-4 slower because you have to wait for piranha plants to get out of the way."
"Improvements I will be trying to make to this run: Getting better than "Luck" on the title screen (whether you save the framerule in 1-1 is based on when you push start on the title screen), and doing the pipe jump properly in 8-2," Kosmic continued when addressing future runs, "If everything comes together I should get a 4:59.9 which would be very exciting and satisfying to achieve!"
Even though it was a record setting performance, Kosmic is still analyzing his run and figuring out how to attain an even faster time his next attempt.
Kosmic secured the world record by outpacing previous record holder andrewg's run that was set July 15th, 2017 by 360 milliseconds. With speedrunning Super Mario Bros. a constant competition in the community, it will not be shocking to see someone gunning to break the newly established world record very soon. However, with his motivation to improve, it could very well be Kosmic himself to do so.
(cover photo courtesy of Nintendo)