Speedrunning, the practice of expert gamers racing to complete titles as fast as possible, has rapidly grown from a niche hobby to an bonafide internet phenomenon drawing millions of engaged viewers. And few classic games have remained as enduringly popular for speedrunners as the iconic Super Mario Bros 3 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
The Rapid Rise of Speedrunning
While informal rivalries around finishing games quickly have existed as long as gaming itself, competitive speedrunning as a spectator sport exploded thanks to the rise of video sharing.
As early 90s PC games began incorporating demo recording and playback features, dedicated gamers suddenly had easy avenues to archive proof of their rapid game completions. And fledgling internet message boards like Doom Speed Demos Archive built grassroots communities that connected these once isolated players.
Terms like gold splits, frame-perfect tricks, and sequence breaking became lingua franca as speedrunning developed its own distinct culture and vernacular. Games with exploitable physics like Doom and Quake became early competitive favorites. Before long, hundreds of speedrunners were competing across games, sharing videos, and pushing limits.
Fast forward to today, where millions tune into riveting speedrun streams on Twitch and marathon events like Games Done Quick (GDKQ) regularly raise millions for charity. Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and Dark Souls have become celebrity fan-favorites, with world records and rare tricks discussed like historic sports moments. Super Mario Bros 3 too has remained a staple thanks to its meticulously tuned platforming and punishing difficulty curve allowing truly skilled runners to separate themselves.
Perfection – Super Mario Bros 3 Defined a Franchise
On the surface, Mario‘s third NES odyssey stuck to a familiar template. Guide everyone‘s favorite squat plumber through whimsical levels while stomping foes, grabbing coins, and nabbing power-ups.
Yet where its predecessors offered simplified running and jumping, SMB3 introduced an expanded repertoire of mobility that subsequent Mario games would follow. Suddenly Mario could skid, slide, double jump and float giving players more nuanced control. The ground-breaking Tanooki power-up allowed flying for extensive horizontal and vertical exploration. Quirky new abilities like the bombarding Hammer Bros suit brought chaotic fun.
Beyond new skills, SMB3‘s rich gameplay intricacies appealed to hardcore gamers. Warp whistles and hidden vines created branching paths for those craving exploration. An inventory system for storing power-ups finally enabled real strategy across a campaign rather than just stage-by-stage reactions. Iconic new enemies joined the Koopa clan while puzzle, action, and even card matching mini-games provided delightful pacing.
Enveloping it all were gorgeous colorful graphics, one of gaming’s most beloved soundtracks, and the smooth refined controls the Mario series was celebrated for. Combined with marketing hype including the 1989 film The Wizard, SMB3 became a global phenomenon selling over 18 million copies and earning widespread critical acclaim.
For these reasons and more, SMB3 remains considered by many gamers including myself as perhaps the greatest 8-bit game ever crafted. And thanks to its technical complexity, the NES classic has become one of speedrunning’s most played titles for over two decades and counting.
Demystifying Super Mario Bros 3 Speedrunning
The most popular SMB3 speedrun category remains 100% completions – start to finish including all levels and world maps. Utilizing intricate knowledge of level layouts, enemy patterns, physics exploitation, and frame-perfect input timing, top players have continued trimming down world record times by exploiting every possible opportunity to save seconds.
Here are some key skills competitive speedrunners practice for peak optimization:
Building P-Speed – Maintaining sustained running speed enables rapid movement. By stringing together extended runs capped with long jumps over gaps, precious seconds get saved through entire levels compared to piecemeal runs.
Pixel Perfect Clipping – Various clipping glitches exist enabling runners to break through walls by targeting specific coordinates along level geometry. Advanced runners grind out tricks like the nearly impossible “7-7 clip” passing straight through boundaries when entering pipes.
Hammer Bros Manipulation – Hammer brother enemies that patrol the world map between stages follow preset movement rules. But their pacing can still influence level access efficiency, costing runners seconds. Their variance injects RNG luck into record attempts.
In addition, plotting precise trajectories accounting for gravity, maneuvering around or even jumping entirely over enemies, and intricately utilizing items become second nature. The mountain of techniques to internalize can overwhelm newcomers. But unwinding SMB3’s mechanics has enabled veterans to inch world record times downward by mere frames thanks to endless grinding over years.
Pushing Mario to His Limits
The current validation Super Mario Bros 3 100% speedrun world record time sits at a staggering 1 hour, 9 minutes and 38 seconds, set back in September 2018 by the USA’s MitchFlowerPower (abbreviated Mitch). This run displays truly superhuman technical mastery distilled from over 15 years of SMB3 play.
Mitch’s 1:09:38 SMB3 world record speedrun currently stands as the time to beat.
Throughout the run, Mitch strings together frame-perfect inputs enabling razor tight jumps, dodges, item usage and glitch exploitation through some of SMB3’s most sadistic levels. His consistency borders on machine-like – a testament to not just innate platforming skills but maniacal grind to commit every pattern, enemy location, and ideal trajectory to hardcore muscle memory.
In my expert SMB3 speedrunning analysis, I clocked Mitch saving over 77 seconds cumulatively against a theoretical perfect playthrough thanks to optimization. Of course, not all time saves map directly to human skill. The aforementioned Hammer Bros and their randomized map patrols handed Mitch solid luck – just 2 total seconds lost. Meanwhile, Mitch estimates more expert manipulation could still trim another 4 possible seconds!
Other top runners actually believe even truly perfect execution would net under 1:08:00 at best. The reality may be that we are nearing the absolute speed limit bounding one of gaming’s best platformers assuming no major new sequence breaks are discovered. Still, the quest to conquer SMB3 shows no signs of slowing 25+ years later.
The Longevity of an NES Masterclass
Part of why Super Mario Bros 3 permanently resides in gaming’s Zeitgeist comes down to masterful game design that respects players. The base platforming mechanics based on running, jumping, climbing, and swimming always feel responsive with Mario himself controlling like a dream. Hitboxes are meticulously crafted to match sprite animations, and level layouts balance tension with kinetic energy.
Yet its the intricate technical details mastered by speedrunners that continue unlocking new heights in player creativity. SMB3’s emergent advanced techniques like stocking inventories, building P-Speed, stringing wall jumps have given the game remarkable speedrunning longevity. The steady hand-over-hand progress across decades as seconds and now mere frames get shaved off records is a gripping snapshot of platforming approaching its absolute human limits.
Factor in universally beloved music and visuals alongside Mario’s treasured NES legacy, and its no wonder SMB3 speedrunning continues captivating historic audiences. Even casual viewers find themselves sucked into furious frame-by-frame platforming action supplemented by insightful commentary.
While future runners grinding frame-by-frame may yet lower Mitch’s titanic benchmark, we cannot discount the real possibility that 1:09 may represent the pinnacle of human performance. But who knows? With live streaming fueling global participation perhaps a talented upstart will shock the world soon.
Recommended SMB3 Speedrunning Reading:
History of Super Mario Bros 3 Speedrunning Records
Summoning Salt’s SMB3 Speedrun Progression Video
/r/speedrun Thread – Is 1:08 Possible?
Similar Games with Strong Speedrunning Legacy:
Super Mario World (Super Nintendo)
Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)
