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Super Mario 64 has been out longer than many of you reading this right now have been alive, and it's still going strong, says one of its best speedrunners, Kally.
"I know a lot of 'the game is dead' posts are satire", Kally writes on Pastebin. "The game isn't dead, and it won't be for a long time." Kally would know, as they're currently number 11 on the game's 120-star speedrun with a time of one hour, 37 minutes, and 32 seconds, barely two minutes shy of the top spot.
For a game that came out in 1996, the speedrunning community for it is still active. Recently, a player known as Suigi set records for all of the game's categories, and their times are proving hard to beat. Their 120-star world record of one hour, 35 minutes, and 28 seconds was posted to the leaderboards just 17 days ago, and it seems a lot of people are worried they'll never top it.
Kally says that while some posts would have you believe people are put off of running the game due to how tough it will be to beat Suigi's records, "Most people speedrun as a hobby and as something to see improvement at. It is irrelevant how far away the pros are. People play basketball for fun. People play tennis for fun. People play football for fun."
The only game I've ever tried to speedrun is the PS3 remaster of God of War, and that was only because there's a trophy for beating it under a certain time. I didn't manage to do it and honestly, I just don't have the patience for speedruns, but I'm impressed by the skill of it.
Recounting their own journey, Kally writes, "My goal was to have fun, and to improve as much as I could. If I got bored and quit, then that's fine. I chipped away at my times, found I loved the hobby, and kept playing." Sounds like a healthy way to pursue speedrunning.
They've seen success as a streamer with the game, too. "I can reach upwards of 500 viewers when I'm on a run and I'm two minutes off WR! I highly doubt that people will decline to pick this game up because WR is so hard to beat. It's been that way forever, and people still picked it up."
Kally goes on to mention that the community for Super Mario 64 is still very active, with people hosting tournaments that are for runners of all skill ranges, so it's definitely not too late to get involved if you want to give it a try.
If you're not into Super Mario 64, why not check out our list of the best Mario games, almost all of them have speedrunning communities you could join.
