Bubzia, the blindfolded speedrunning specialist, is grinding a new category in Super Mario 64. Earlier this week, he embarked on a run that immediately turned to a disaster, replete with deaths, missed tricks, and bad jumps. It turned out to be a new world record.
Early in October, Bubzia completed a 118-day grind for a new world record in the blindfolded 16-star category with a sub-20 minute world record that the community once thought was "completely impossible." His new goal is a fresh world record in the blindfolded 70-star category, and to practice for that he's first grinding attempts in the 31-star category. Pretty much all of the 31-star tricks carry into 70-star, so attempting world records on the shorter category makes for a perfect way to practice the new tricks and routing that'll be essential for the bigger goal.
This week, one 31-star attempt got off to an immediately terrible start with a missed clip in the first level that forced Bubzia to use a backup strat. "Usually I would reset here if we would go for world record," he said. "I don't want to waste time on resets when we can practice so many stars on the run." At about eight minutes into the run, he lost track of his position in the game under the blindfold. He managed to find a door to regain his bearings, but noted "that's a reset of the run" under normal circumstances.
When he went flying off the side of a cliff carrying a baby penguin in the Cool, Cool Mountain course, Bubzia could only shake his head and say, "I give up. Honestly, fuck this star so much. It is ridiculous at this point." He died again a few minutes later when he forgot to set the correct camera angle. Then he died again - and again. Eventually he suffered a full game over, requiring him to run all the way back from the starting area. He ultimately died four times on a single star in Lethal Lava Land before finally claiming the prize. "That was basically first try, if you think about it," he joked.
After once again forgetting to set the correct camera mode 27 minutes into the attempt, Bubzia declared, "ugh, this run sucks, dude." A couple of minutes later, he had a decent run through one chunk of Hazy Maze Cave, noting "that was really clean - really, really clean star." But he once again lost his position just before grabbing the star itself. "I lied. I lied, dude. Okay? I lied, man. Where is the star?" He still managed to get the star after a few seconds of trial and error, but it served as "proof that I'm blindfolded, right there."
As the attempt was reaching its final stages, Bubzia said "I can't wait until we get actually good runs again," and that was pretty much the tone for the final few minutes of the video. But by this point, it had started to become clear to the Twitch chat - who were obviously not blindfolded while watching the the timing splits against Bubzia's previous efforts - that this run was somehow on world record pace. The new tricks and routing were just enough to overcome all the failures along the way.
"Imagine having to upload this mess as a WR," one commenter joked as the end of the game neared. But that's exactly what happened. Bubzia grabbed the final star, lifted his blindfold, and stared in absolute disbelief as he saw his final time. "Is that a world record? Oh my god, this is a joke. World record by five seconds. Oh my god. What the fuck? Dude, this run sucks. I'm not saying this to make the speedrun meme. This run literally sucks. This is so stupid," he said, laughing the whole time. "But hey, GGs, I guess! Yay!"
So yes, Bubzia's 39:12 completion of the blindfolded 31-star category currently stands as a world record - though given all the obvious room for improvement and Bubzia's continued efforts in the category, it likely won't hold for much longer. His goal is to get the time to around 35 minutes before moving onto the next category.
Bubzia's current, thoroughly cursed record is in good company until it's replaced, at least. Super Mario 64 speedruns are rife with triumphant misfortune, like the "most cringe world record of all time" set in 2023, or the single level record that was set earlier this year seconds after the runner called his effort "sloppy." You gotta take your Ws where you can get 'em, folks.
There's never a bad time to get into the best N64 games ever made.
