For most mere mortals, beatingSuper Mario 64takes around 12 hours.
Unless you happen to beTwitchstreamer Cole GreenSuigi.
And hed do it without collecting a single star, too.
Key art of ‘Super Mario 64’Nintendo
But Cole (who prefers to keep his last name private) is not an ordinary gamer.Hes a speedrunner.
For him, the fun is in getting to the end of the experience as quickly as possible.
Hes damn good at it, too.
What is speedrunning?
Often, the practice is done with the help of glitches.
Sounds like cheating, right?
Speedrun communities, however, generally develop self-imposed rules for what is considered legitimate in a run.
You mightve even seen these exploits without realizing.
Within that cadre,Super Mario 64is by far the most popular.
To date, nearly8,000 contestantshave vied for a shot at aSuper Mario 64record.
Together, theyve submitted nearly 50,000 playthroughs of the game on the biggest online leaderboard.
For those who dont recall, the landmark game was developed alongside theNintendo64 in the mid-Nineties.
Though earlier consoles from companies like Atari provided joystick controls, most of it was cumbersome.
3D graphics were novel in 1996, and Nintendo established a blueprint for how they could look and feel.
BeforeSuper Mario 64, playing in 3D was much more cumbersome.
What setSuper Mario 64apart was its design ethos, led by creatorShigeru Miyamoto.
It was an astounding approach compared to Marios 2D adventures, which punished jumps lacking pixel perfect exactitude.
Years later, Miyamoto stands vindicated.
History remembers Marios movement as intuitive andSuper Mario 64as one of the best games of all time.
He controls the character so economically, its almost like watching an AI chart a theoretical perfect path forward.
Currently, Cole holds a whopping five records, each corresponding to a major category in the game.
When it comes to speedrunning, categories are determined by the number of stars a player must collect.
Cole has a record in every single one of these categories.
The most recent of these was nailed in late 2024, when hefinished the 70-star category in 46:26.
Though you cant see the controller, you’re able to hear every button-press land crisply.
By the time Cole arrives at the final Bowser showdown, the pieces start falling into place.
He throws and catches the boss without missing a beat; Mario is exactly where he needs to be.
With a laugh, Cole almost doesnt seem to believe it.
But as it starts to sink in, his face turns red.
Five, Cole cries out, face clasped in his hands.
Im the fucking best!
In a torrent of expletives and all caps, the chat lauds his accomplishment at an unreadable clip.
The closest runner-ups are all at a distant secondaccording to the official leaderboards.
Only one person has ever held four at once, and that was back in 2010.
Until Cole pulled it off, some fans thought sweeping all the major categories might be impossible.
The tricks are also much harder, which adds to the tension.
Sweating every moment of brief runs was blessing in disguise for Cole.
Categories like 70 and 120 stars can take anywhere between 45 to 90 minutes.
Undoubtedly, Cole started developing a sense of inner calm from a young age.
The Twitch streamer tellsRolling Stonethat the first game he can remember playing was with his babysitter.
I grew up playing a lot of video games, he says.
Cole only discovered the original N64 iteration when he turned eight.
Not so on the Nintendo 64.
It wasnt long until he fell in love with the acrobatics and their ease of control.
I dont really know how to describe it, but its really fast.
I feel like you have lots of control over every move.
The game doesnt really do anything for you.
Cole did pick up other interests amid his burgeoning Mario obsession growing up.
He played plenty ofMinecraft, he says, and spent some of his youth being forced to play piano.
None of these things stuck quite likeSuper Mariodid.
Thats when an online friend who was well-versed in the ways of speedrunning issued him a challenge.
The rest is history.
Then again, Cole would insist that some of his achievements are luck.
Despite his following on Twitch, hes humble and doesnt like being the center of attention.
Still, some aspects of the game can be practiced.
Cole does plenty of it.
Learning the ins and outs of 120 stars took him nearly a year of repetition.
Even so, hes still at the mercy of randomization.
But the boxes and enemy deaths spurt currency in unpredictable directions at variable speeds.
Tough spreads are inevitable, but thats part of what makes the whole gambit exciting.
During one of his record-breaking 120-star runs, for example, Coles timer wasnt looking promising.
He was a minute behind schedule, and starting to worry the attempt was a bust.
Then, the coins spread in his favor.
He went from being behind on time to saving nearly half a minute overall.
What are the chances someone else might be able to play perfectly and get some easy coins?
Cole seems skeptical that he could even recreate it.
Cole plans to spend the next year focusing on speedrunning, ideally in a more relaxed way.
Ive always been motivated by competition, and stressed out by it as well, Cole says.
Impressive as his streak has been, getting to this point has weighed on Cole.
The more records he gets, the more people expect from him.
For a stintlast summer, he almost burned out and gave up.
The way Cole saw it, getting five out of five records was implausible to begin with.
Im only one person, so eventually, five out of five would be out of reach.
It was thought impossible for a long time.
A year later, doubts have been laid by the wayside and hes riding the wave while he can.
One day, he figures, hell want to settle down and get a financially stable job.
Maybe hell follow up being the best gamer in the world by becoming an electrician.
Some have even said Im the best speedrunner of all time.
I understand the excitement over my crazy achievement but to say that is pretty ridiculous.
Its like saying a swimmer is the best athlete of all time, he adds.
