For the first time in recorded history, someone has beaten Super Mario 64 without ever using the A button, a new world record previously thought to be imp🍌ossible.
To fully contextualize just how monumental an achievement this is, let me remind you that the A button in Super Mario 64 is used to jum🍒p, making it one of the platformer's most vital inputs. This new world record was achieved without remapping anything and thus relies on creative use of the game's mechanics, glitches and exploits discovered in the ma🎃ny years since Super Mario 64's 1996 release, and of course, extreme precision.
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Basically, Super Mario 64 nerds have been competing to beat the classic platformer using the A button as little as possible, with the long-held assumption that it simply isn't possible to complete the game without hitting A at all. The Mario 64 wiki has an impressively comprehensive breakdown of all the major milestones in the challenge's history, as well as detailed information on techniques, just in case you want to catch up without, you know, spending half your day watching a Mario 64 speedrunning documentary, althoughꦜ there's absolutely no shame in t🧸hat.
Jumping to this week, managed to clear the game without hitting the A button once after a grueling 86-hour run. The feat was accomplished without any🦋 remapping on the Wii Virtual Console version of the game, which is apparently the only confirmed version where it's even possible to do this. Eight months ago, Marbler managed to beat the game using the A button only twice, and at the time said one A could be saved by playing the Wii Virtual Console version, though the final clear would require "some really absurd movement."
As Ukikipedia lays out, this was accomplished thanks to the decades-spanning foundation of A-press save discoveries accumulated by the s🅰peedrunning community. Ukikipedia gives special mentions to "Mr_Robert_Z, Bottles704, Thiago Trujillo, Mp16z, and most notably, bobmario511, who uploaded numerous videos in his channel dedicated to the A Button Chal🍒lenge."
Again, it's hard to overstate what an achievement this is, not only because it's more than 20 years in the making and was once thought impossible, but also because we all know how frighteningly eas💙y it is for devastation to strike during Mario 64 🐽speedruns.
After earning an English d﷽egree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG🐟 on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.
