Super Mario Bros. Speedrunner walks away from the ‘impossible’ 4-2 trick

The Super Mario Bros. The sprint community is constantly looking for new ways to push the latest in technology, and one player has just achieved what was previously thought an impossible feat…at least for a human being.

In 2018, Speedrunner HappyLee Use a computer assistant to demonstrate a new way to shave a few frames From Super Mario Bros. World 4-2. It involved using precise inputs to get Mario to mesh (a clip) through a row of blocks – the top row – near the start of the level, pushing him to the right faster than ever before. Then it required a super precise jump on the warp tube. The sprint community assumed that a perfect, complete 4-2 run with this “top clip” trick could not be performed by human means due to the sheer precision required, and fortunately, they’ve since discovered alternative, easier ways to achieve a minimal 4-2 max. But on Monday, a fast runner named Tole was able to perform the 4-2 “top” trick without computer assistance.

Here’s what happens: With subtle input, Tole makes Luigi cut the corner of the top block, touch the ground inside the wall for one frame, and then jump out from inside the wall. According to HappyLee’s original discovery, this maneuver should shave three frames off the run. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s especially important in the 4-2 world because of a Super Mario Bros. A concept called frame rules.

Frame rules are a somewhat esoteric concept. in Super Mario Bros.the program Only checks level completion every 21 frames. Therefore, if you enter a castle at the end of a level after the last check, you will have to wait up to 20 frames for the next level to start.

Single fast runner Helpfully explain the base of the frame Using the bus analogy. Imagine that the castle is at the end of each of them Super Mario Bros. The level is a bus stop. The bus only arrives (the game records the player’s level victory) once every 21 frames (~0.35 seconds). So to set world records at some level, you can’t just be faster by a tiny fraction of the time; You have to be fast enough to catch the previous ‘bus’ leaving for the next world.

Catching up with a potential 4-2 level vector, as first illustrated by computer-assisted operations, is sometimes called “Lightning 4-2”. That’s why HappyLee computer aided trick, where Mario saves a few tires by cutting off the top block at level 4-2, making waves: it was another way for runners to get around the base of the tire and catch the first bus in theory. Stream Super Mario Bros. Niftski sprint champion He used a similar trick on his new world record run last week. The difference was that he jumped under the block and ran inside the wall – a completely different method, and much more practical for humans to use for real running.

Kotaku I reached out to Tole, but had not received a comment as of press time.

Since there are easier Lightning 4-2 ways, it’s possible that the pulled Lightning 4-2 Tole “top clip” is only for bragging rights. But fast runners who understood the sheer difficulty of playing here were suitably impressed by Tolly’s achievement. One commenter said, “Holy cow, I’ve questioned the viability of this method for years, and I’ve discontinued it.” Another wrote, “That’s fucking crazy,” emphasizing them.