Super Mario 64 Speedrunner Beats Game Using Drums

Super Mario 64 has long been one of the most speedrun games of all time. For many, it's the perfect blend of a game that is both extremely popular yet difficult enough to challenge the speedrunning community. Now, one player has gone above and beyond, opting to do a playthrough of Super Mario 64 using only drums.

A recent mod of Super Mario 64 added permadeath among other features, but the difficulty imparted by permadeath pales in comparison to playing the game on a drum kit. For viewer ease, YouTuber CZR included overlays of each button over their corresponding drum component. For instance, the start button is tied to a cymbal, while movement direction is tied to each tom. The result is a run that is not only jaw-droppingly impressive but, at times, absolutely pleasing to the ear.

In this run, CZR went for 70 stars—the amount normally required for the final segment of Super Mario 64. In the past, CZR has completed a 16-star run in less than an hour. For his latest run, however, CZR managed to gather 70 stars and beat the game in 1:28:09. To put that into perspective, the current world record run set on an N64, for 70 stars, was done in 46:59. That's the fastest time ever recorded, and CZR didn't even take twice as long, using drums as a controller.

This is not the first time that fans have seen an unusual controller utilized in Super Mario 64. Last year, a YouTuber used a Kinect to play Super Mario 64. But CZR's record is not merely impressive for its novelty, but for the remarkable time tied to his achievement. He manages to pull off all the wall glitches, wall jumps, and accurate camera repositioning that are expected by a controller run. In fact, if the video was posted without any accompanying footage of CZR, the run would appear for all intents and purposes as a solid controller run.

If the Super Mario 64 speedruns were not impressive enough, CZR also holds the world record speedrun—with drums—for Ocarina of Time. While the two titles often compete for the title of greatest N64 game of all time, CZR has also expanded his efforts beyond the N64, recently taking shots at both Pokemon Blue and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and he's even taken his musical talents beyond the drums, recently setting a world record run in Super Mario 64 on the piano as well.

The fated day of March 31 has come to pass. Mario hasn't exactly 'died', as all the memes said he would, but it was certainly a sad and important day for the Mario franchise. Nintendo has taken Super Mario Bros 35 offline, and it's no longer producing copies of Super Mario 3D All-Stars. This collection was a truly delightful thing to see assembled for the Switch, bringing some of Mario's best adventures together under one roof. Many fans are surely still upset with Nintendo for making Super Mario 3D All-Stars a highly limited time event. All three games on it were more than worthy of a longer run on the Switch.