Super Mario 64 is undoubtedly one of the great speed games, with hundreds of players competing for every record day after day. While most runners tend to be focused on the more popular categories, 120 star and so on, runner Xoofey poured his energy into one of the game’s more obscure records.
The first mission of Lethal Lava Land is titled ‘Boil the Big Bully’, a mission that rewards the player with a star if they push the titular Big Bully into the lava. In a speed game as optimised as Super Mario 64, players will naturally be competing over even the smallest corners of the game. This includes each individual star.
The previous speed record for completing the mission was held by Japanese runner Akira who completed the feat in 16.18 seconds (seen below). This record was set in May 2013 and held its position for almost a decade. In Akira’s video, we can see the runner utilise the popular backwards long jump (BLJ) technique to build appropriate momentum, before directing themselves straight into the Big Bully, knocking them into the lava in one movement.
Xoofey’s record-breaking run (below) clocks in at 16.08, around ten milliseconds faster. He employed the same technique as Akira but executed it just that bit more efficiently. Reflecting on his accomplishment in the description of the uploaded run, Xoofey thanked his counterpart Akira for the inspiration.
The runner provided an explanation of his pause buffering technique on the Reddit thread for the record, saying “We can release A during the pause menu so we can do more BLJs during the playable frames. The way [humans] do it is just by mashing start and A at the same time, I think the way the game prioritises button presses just happens to work out properly.”
Congratulations to Xoofey on his massive accomplishment.