$8,000 is on the line for the Super Mario 64 speedrunner who can bring the "dead" game back to life, but so far the only world records come from the guy who killed it in the first place: "If only I was eligible to claim my own bounty"

Super Mario 64 speedrunner Suigi puts on dark sunglasses and laughs — (Image credit: Suigi)

Super Mario 64 speedrunning was declared "dead" on November 17, 2024, when a runner who goes by Suigi managed to claim the world record in all of the game's five major categories. It was a legendary achievement, and despite the usual warnings that no world record scene ever truly dies, nobody has managed to topple any of Suigi's records. That's why the runner himself is now spearheading a multi-thousand-dollar bounty to try to bring the scene back to life.

Super Mario 64 speedruns are spread out across a variety of categories, mostly based on the number of stars you collect before beating the final boss. Suigi has held the record in all five major categories – 120 Star, 70 Star, 16 Star, 1 Star, and 0 Star – since 2024, and while there have been some new times set in that span, they've all come from Suigi himself. Other runners have come close, but no name has replaced Suigi's at the top of any of these leaderboards.

A HUGE $5000 BOUNTY for Super Mario 64 has begun... - YouTube

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To that end, Suigi put $1,000 on the line as a bounty to entice the runner who might finally beat one of his five world records. He's also soliciting donations from other runners and community members to sweeten the pot up to a maximum of $10,000 – and with the bounty already totalling $7,944, it seems likely that it'll hit that five-digit mark before all is said and done.

However high the bounty total goes, it'll be awarded to the first player to beat any of the five records on real N64 hardware – aside from Suigi himself, of course. He's actually already gotten a new world record in the 70 Star category, but has kindly barred himself from competing for the cash prize. "THE $7000 DOLLAR 70 STAR WORLD RECORD…" he laments in an all-caps Bluesky post. "IF ONLY I WAS ELIGIBLE TO CLAIM MY OWN BOUNTY."

You get two guesses as to what's on the top of our list of the best N64 games.

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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