Blindfolded Super Mario 64 speedrunner Bubzia is largely competing against himself these days, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to reach new heights - in fact, the pace of his accomplishments has only been accelerating. Bubzia has broken three blindfolded Super Mario 64 records over the past four days, including one that had stood for over two years.
Last week, Bubzia suffered the ultimate speedrunning tragedy when, partway through a run on world record pace, his webcam suddenly cut out, invalidating the run while he continued playing, obliviously blindfolded. He'd been on a months-long grind to break his own 2023 record in the blindfolded 70 star category, and while he ended up falling behind the pace on this occasion regardless of the webcam, it was tough to tell if this was a bad omen or an auspicious sign of things to come.
It was very much the latter. On February 18, Bubzia was running out of time toward the end of one of his daily 70-star grind streams, so he decided to quickly take a run at the much shorter 1-star category to wrap things up. The result? An unexpected new world record of 11:24, breaking the previous 12:13 set in December 2024. "I was not really nervous because I thought the run was pretty bad," Bubzia joked at the end of the run, which you can see in full below.
The next day, on February 19, Bubzia once again took a break from the 70-star grind, in part to shake off some rust and in part because he didn't want a new world record in the category before he could get the 1-star record uploaded to YouTube. So, he took a run at the 31-star category. The result? Another new world record - a 35:13, beating the previous time of 36:53 he set in November 2024.
"Are you kidding me, dude? Really? I said I don't want a world record because I don't have my 1 star on YouTube, even," Bubzia says with a laugh at the end of the run. "Augh. God damn it, dude, I messed up my upload schedule. Ah, shit. I mean, no, I'm happy, of course. Of course, I'm happy. But that was the only reason why I didn't run 70 today. I was like... I mean, I'll take it. It's okay. Literally suffering from success, man."
With that, Bubzia returned to the 70-star grind. Today, February 21, just two days after the last record... well, you probably know where this is going. A new 70-star world record of 1:22:11, beating Bubzia's old time of 1:25:11 set way back in June 2023. "Another day in the office, another world record, dude," Bubzia said. "Damn. Also the first 70-star record in years. Let's go! The third run in a row and third world record. Yeah, I'm popping off these days."
