Yes, but you will need at least 86 hours. This is a feat accomplished in 2024 by an internet user named Marbler.
Released in 1996 on the Nintendo 64, Super Mario 64 is the first three-dimensional adventure of the famous mustachioed plumber. Entering 3D that still kept the basic gameplay: to progress, you always have to jump, avoid traps and enemies on different levels, collect stars.
Imagine that a passionate person managed to achieve a challenge that seemed impossible on paper: finish Super Mario 64 without pressing the A button, the one that lets you jump.
It’s counterintuitive to miss the most important action in a platform game. But this insane challenge has been around for a long time. There is even wiki page which provides information on the subject, called “A Button Challenge” or ABC. We learned that they have been enthusiasts for years Super Mario 64 try to complete the game by pressing the A button the minimum number of times. Only in 2024 was the ultimate feat achieved.
Over 86 hours to complete Super Mario 64 without skipping: it’s a crazy challenge
“ A few hours ago, Marbler completed Super Mario 64 without using the A button, for the first time in history. It lasted 86 hours (…). This is an amazing performance », we can read in this tweet posted on May 21. What a man named Marbler has achieved is truly amazing. His success rewards all these years spent finding the tiniest trick or tiniest loophole to save one jump, all the way up to zero.
Marbler did not use any support software. He asked Kotaku On May 23, it says: ” The significance of this attempt is indeed immense, at least for the A Button Challenge. There has never been a tool to support full running without jumping, as the Super Mario 64 community standards imply that it must be possible on console. » He could not even rely on a computer simulation — which is practice by speedrunnerswho then try to reproduce what the machine did.
To achieve his goals, Marbler used the version available on the Wii Virtual Console, which adds several exploitable bugs compared to the original Wii game. Nintendo 64. The rest is a mixture of patience (waiting for hours until an opportunity arises to skip an entire section), skill and precision. And a hint of luck too when, for example, it leans on an enemy to be thrown further, in a usually random direction (1 chance in 32 that it’s the right one).
Marbler manipulates everything he can to his advantage, but it’s not always enough. ” This allows me to reach a probability of 16/32, to which I add the fact that Mario can land at two angles that leave him alive, giving an 18 out of 32 chance of success (56.25%). Not ideal to have RNG at the end of such a difficult trick, but still better than 3% “, he admits.
If the entire attempt exceeded 86 hours, the effective playing time does not even reach ten. Training, on the other hand, was long. ” I would say I trained around 150-200 hours, not counting the research and strategy development part which is 50-100 hours “, explains Marbler, who can really be proud of himself. On Reddithe is logically applauded.
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