The Hardest Mario Speedrun: The Lost Levels

since the beginning of time humans have enjoyed challenging themselves ever since the video game boom in the 1980s this same concept has been applied to the medium as a follow-up to the smash hit super mario brothers in 1985 nintendo has something greater of their sleeves in 1986 super mario brothers the lost levels will be released for the famicom disk system with the game being quite similar to the original the twist though a major spike in difficulty so difficult in fact that when being proposed in the united states nintendo of america scrapped the game entirely and released their own separate mario sequel based on another game while nintendo employees may have deemed the game too difficult to attempt in the 80s players over the following decades would think the opposite with such a challenging yet underrated mario title the lost levels would slowly build up a cult following today let's talk about how speedrunners brought the lost levels to life and gave it an entirely new meaning from the humble beginnings of andrew gardicus to the rapid rise of nifski this is the history of super mario brothers the lost levels [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] while proper speedrun history and other mario titles started as early as 2004. the lost levels was a bit different on may 2nd of 2008 a player you may know by the name of andrew g uploaded a run to speed demo's archive for a run this old it's quite mesmerizing to watch with andrew at this point already achieving records in super mario bros 1 2 and super mario world he was able to pick up another mario game quite quickly andrew had a bunch of slow downs and pauses but for a game this challenging that is quite understanding people are generally happy if they can beat the game in one sitting nonetheless in under 9 minutes the any percent route for this run goes through 12 levels by utilizing two warp zones you can warp to world 4 using the 1-2 warp zone play through all of world 4 and warp to world 8 by entering the warp zone in 5-2 to anyone familiar with the original super mario brothers this may feel quite off due to the original game's any percent route featuring way less levels between the higher difficulty and the larger amount of levels the lost levels is quite a larger game to wrap your head around in comparison to the original super mario brothers in terms of andrew's actual strategies in this run andrew clearly had already been familiar with the game in 5-2 he performed a wrong warp by positioning this pipe towards the left side of the screen jumping back towards the left and jumping in between the side of the screen and the pipe allowing him to both clip inside and enter said pipe this trick the game into loading a warp zoom that is normally entered through a pipe further to the right in the level this is the same concept as the infamous wrong warp in 4-2 in the original super mario bros that you may have seen explained before to see the first notable record in the game already go for a glitch like this is hard to imagine we will get back to this level more later but just know this won't be the last time we talk about this warp andrew's run will clock in at 8 minutes and 34 seconds but before we move past that let's talk about the timing in this game to make things simpler moving forward i am going to use the modern timing rules for all these runs timing starts on the first frame the timer appears at the top right of the corner in 1-1 and ends on the first frame that mario is invisible when touching the final axe in 8-4 there is also a second factor with timing in this game you may notice that between the end of 4-4 and the beginning of 5-1 there is a brief period where the screen is black this black screen is actually the console loading the rest of the game the platform this is on the famicom disk system uses physical disks as game media after 4-4 the game takes slight time to load into world 5. this brief loading period would get removed from speedrun times due to how much the loads can vary the length of these loads can change based off the conditions of the player's disk system or if the player is playing on a different platform such as emulator or virtual console with modern timing rules andrew's run would be an 833 due to his loads costing over half a second one last note before moving on is that andrew was not playing on original hardware he is actually playing on the wii virtual console release which is slightly slower to play on due to a slower frame rate this will be discussed again slightly further in close to a year later on march 22nd 2009 aguilar would upload a run on nego video that claimed a time of a26 with modern timing this would become an 824 shaving nine seconds off andrew many basic improvements were added in aguawf had an overall cleaner 1-2 with quicker maneuvers a faster 5-2 entrance with less slowdown and had a way more confident 8-4 he also had nicer bowser patterns which helped save a little more time he scooped up some other time in world 8 such as jumping off this koopa in 8-2 to immediately land on the block and reach the vine as well as not slowing down in 8-3 andrew's record before missed a jump at the end of said level just like andrew's record ag will last new time would stand for closer to a year as well but on january 31st 2010 aguila would finally beat himself again he had an even larger time cut than before and got an 8-11 to get this he had minimal slowdown on 1-1 an even faster 1-2 and an improved bowser reaction in 4-4 the second half of this run would be where a majority of time save came from in 5-1 you perform a previously unused mechanic in speed runs dubbed a super jump a super jump is where if you time and hold jump at just the right time you can get a bunch of extra height off a koopa normally in 5-1 you need to hit invisible coin blocks to get past this giant wall but by abusing the super jump mechanic with a koopa the blocks can be skipped entirely from this point on rogers would keep performing this super jump in 5-1 on top of this you will see at the end of 8-2 the koopa bounce was performed again but you may notice something minor on top of that aggro laugh really quickly jumped and re-grabbed the vine this allows mario to reach the top slightly earlier this is an important trick that will be used again down the road finishing up in 8-4 aqualaff had a nicer performance and ended with a quicker final bowser fight just give it roughly four months and andrew g would return one more time on may 26 andrew would achieve an a12 if you've been paying attention you may realize that aguila's record was still a second faster than this this is true andrew's run was indeed slower but in terms of actual gameplay it was faster confused repeating myself from earlier andrew was playing on wii virtual consoles which has a slower frame rate than actual console or emulator the normal frame rate for nes and famicom disk systems ends up clocking in at 60.09 fps wii virtual console on the other hand only has a frame rate of 59.82 fps this means that the game on virtual console runs slightly slower and in terms of speed runs that time will eventually rack up in modern times virtual console runs don't get their times readjusted from frame rate but i feel that this time is still very notable if this run was done on console back then it would clock in at 810.04 beating aquilaf by at least a solid second andrew at the time even said that this was likely record just like aguawaf andrew had his own new strategy to throw into the run this time being a wall jump in 1-2 instead of relying on a platform to get above the pipe you can quickly time a jump off the side of this pipe allowing you to get to the warp zone quicker this wall jump was trickier than casually waiting but with it being so early in the run it became worth it due to how much time it saved overall besides this new trick andrew would also do the super jump in 5-1 and followed it up with a faster 5-2 andrew would have some trouble in world 8 such as missing a jump in the middle of 8-1 and missing a jump twice in 8-2 but ultimately secured a top time with nice bowser patterns in 8-4 [Music] over the following years andrew would keep his focus on super mario bros getting the first sub 5 minute time and over the span of three years we'll lower his time by another two seconds why are we talking about super mario bros though well let's talk about who would eventually beat andrew on june 25th 2014 iol who now goes by sarah doc would get the first 4 minute and 57 second time in the game with a 457.693 clearly they had plenty of skill if they were able to beat andrew later in the year on november 8th sarah dock beat andrew a second time and shattered andrew's four-year-old record and lost levels by a second unlike andrew saradoc opted out of a wall jump in 1-2 and on top of this bonked in the level as well this did not mean much since most mistakes were done in the second half of the run sarah doc would have a clean world four and world 5. following this ceredoc would fix up the mistakes andrew previously did they had a smooth 8-1 and got the koopa bounce in 8-2 they were also able to make their way up the vine right away unlike andrew to end everything off this run had a slightly faster 8-4 but had a bad first hazard nonetheless the time saves were enough to get the first sub 8 minute and 10 second time with an 809.07 just like andrew's record sarah docks would sit for quite a while too for the rest of 2014 nothing notable really happened the beginning months of 2015 would roll by and it seemed to be the same case finally halfway through the year on july 23rd sarah dock would beat their own time by roughly two and a half seconds remember how ceradoc opted out of a wall jump in 1-2 well the time saved from doing that is quite significant this time around they decided to go for it and even though they briefly had trouble with a jump before the warp zone the wall jump was still enough to put them two seconds ahead of the record just leaving 1-2 saranac will continue to play exactly like their previous record until 8-4 they had a slightly faster first room and this time got luckier and had nicer bowser patterns over the course of eight months saradoc was able to push down the record by three and a half seconds while this may be the end of sarah doc's reign someone else could be heard getting closer and closer from far away in the distance [Music] let us back up a bit before moving on to the next record starting in late 2013 darby and would start streaming retro speed runs primarily consisting of mario in late 2014 darby and achieved a sub 5 minute time in mario 1 and over the course of a year kept chipping off time he eventually set the world record with a 457.627 having finally conquered mario 1. darby darbian decided to set his eyes on another mario title the lost levels just a week later after his mario 1 record darby and said in 812 lost levels time and rapidly kept improving by the beginning of november he got quite close to saradoc with an 808 by this point darbian was replicating many top strategies seen among previous records he had a slightly slower 1-2 phil koopa bounced in 8-2 and bonked in 8-3 and interestingly enough did a strategy in 8-4 revolving a mushroom power-up by grabbing this mushroom in the following room you can walk off this ledge and clip into the floor which allows you to crouch under the first bowser on top of wasting all this time darby and also gets hit by the last bowser this safe gameplay was just enough to get him within two seconds of record but clearly darp was more than capable of getting said record himself just five days later on november 14th darbyon would finally make his way to the top and demolished saradox record by three and a half seconds noah did not misspeak over three seconds were shaved off the run first darp would save a frame roll against his personal best with a tighter 1-2 unfortunately he lost a frame rule with a slower 5-1 ending but there was plenty of more time to be saved darboy quickly made that frame roll back up with an awesome 5-2 wrong warp he would save even more time with a faster 8-1 than sarah dock saradoc had briefly slowed down a couple times towards the beginning of the level while darb placed right through it unfortunately darbian missed koopa jump in 8-2 just like his pb but was able to barely squeeze out another frame rule in 8-3 if darbian wanted this record he couldn't grab a mushroom for safety just like his personal best it was now or never darbian ran past the mushroom and with lucky bowser patterns improved the record to an 803.033 just like andrew and saradoc darbian would take a well-deserved break after this in the meantime he ran super mario land went back to mario 1 to get top times in the warpless category and also achieved a new any percent record twice on april 29th close to half a year later darby would once again destroy lost levels and beat his previous record by over a second the beginning of the run would mimic his record until 4-4 when he lost a frame rule from slightly slow movement and the section dubbed the shaft darbien would quickly save back that frame rule by making up the time from his slow 5-1 in his previous run dar would pull even further ahead with an even faster wrong warp setup and was now a full frame rule ahead of record once again he would fail the 8-2 koopa jump but just barely achieved the same frame rule as his previous time with quick enough movement ending 8-3 darb squeezed out another frame rule he hadn't done before it was now two frame rules or 0.7 seconds ahead entering 8-4 having a slightly faster 8-4 than previously darby achieved a new world record with an 802.08 not quite my goal not kawaii by this point you may have a question about the time of this run this run was getting closer and closer to the seven minute range was there really over two seconds worth of time save though the two big obvious improvements to darbian's record was getting the optimal 4-4 frame rule and getting the fast koopa jump frame rule in 8-2 well let's continue with darbian's progress to find these time saves darby and kept grinding any percent attempts and less than a month later on may 23rd beat himself yet again in 4-4 he was able to save two frame rules against before where did the second frame rule come from well in the previous run when going up the shaft section darbyian quickly jumps left and then red again off this block to get past the koopas what darb does now is simply do two quick back to back jumps which lands him on top of the koopas this is enough of a time save for an additional frame rule and put some 0.7 seconds ahead entering world five darbian would once again gain an additional frame rule and 5-2 by having an even faster wrong warp than done previously he saved just enough frames to now pull him a full second ahead darbian would finally get the koopa jump in 8-2 and also went for the frame rule where you re-grab the vine this now puts darby in five frame rules ahead for 1.7 seconds playing just like his previous record darbian now held the best time with an 8 flat point 15 about 10 frames away from the legendary sub 8 minute run after such a major time cut darbian would once again take a well-deserved break he would come up with a speed run called the super mario hour challenge that required beating mario 1 lost levels 2 3 world and 64 in under an hour on june 30th of 2016 he would finally achieve his goal and over the years a few others would also follow suit and even beat darby in his time before returning to lost levels darwin beat his mario 1 any percent record again and also became the first human to save an additional frame rule with a flagpole glitch in 1-1 this allowed him to get the first ever 456 time in the game he would also finally get the record in the workless category and after briefly playing the all-stars version darbyon would finally return to the original lost levels in early 2017 he would finally return on january 19th and achieved a major milestone in the game darbian would play quite similar to his previous run but had one additional new time save up his sleeve this time in 5-2 there was now a new way to perform the wrong warp to load the warp zone dubbed the devil's spell instead of scrolling the screen to where the pipe is all the way to the left side you can stop just under the right side of the pipe jump next to it and with proper mashing clip inside and warp through it in this run darby's devil spell was fast enough to save an extra frame rule over the previous setup with the help of an infomercial this frame rule was just enough to break a new barrier with a new world record of 759.86 there's the line there's the line now folks that's row speed over eight years later the record had been lowered by over half a minute and into the new minute barrier while this may be the end of darbian's massive improvements this is nowhere near close to the end of time saves about to be performed backing up a bit once again let me introduce you to the next person in our story ever since 2012 a runner by the name of cosmic has been mastering many games he encounters cosbank has quite a long list of accomplishments over the years spanning all the way back to his beginnings from donkey kong 64 super mario bros billy hatcher super mario 3d land to of course the lost levels by late 2016 cosmic had conquered the world record and super mario bros any percent and if you've been paying attention you may have noticed a pattern between mario 1 and lost levels speed runners just a month before his mario 1 record cosmic had done a couple runs and lost levels cosmic would start honing in on the record and in april of 2017 achieved in 802 a giant chunk of time lost against darby's record was having trouble with the devil spell trick in 5-2 if cosmic could just nail this trick and clean up some other minor mistakes the record was easily his just a couple weeks later on may 14th cosmic would do just that and finally dethroned darbion cosmic would redeem himself in 5-2 and had a way faster devil spell than darby and had previously and during world 8 he was two frame rules ahead he sadly ended up shorting a jump in 8-1 and bonked this would cause one of his frame rules still being just one ahead entering 8-4 still being a frame roll ahead cosmic had a spectacular level with bowser patterns playing in his favor he was now the new champion of lost levels with a time clocking in at [Music] 759.527 starting in 2017 goofy chocobo would start picking up super mario bros and the lost levels by the end of the year he had already made quite a name for himself and achieved the any percent record and lost levels using only luigi this category is separate due to his physics being different than mario goofy would keep pushing his times further and further in 2018 he would start running super mario bros 3 and super mario world he would also get a 457 time in super mario bros any percent and also got the record in warplus on the all-stars version throughout the year goofy would keep chipping away at his 80 mario time and by the very end of the year on december 27th achieved a sub 8 time of his own he was just over two tenths of a second away from cosmic two major time saves for next time were getting a faster 1-2 frame rule and getting koopa bounce in 8-2 you may notice that in this run he goes for a different strategy in 1-2 instead of hitting and climbing invisible blocks to reach the warp zone with the right sub-pixels you can clip and mass jump to get into this wall you can then walk far enough to load the warp zone and jump into the pipe if goofy saved just one frame rule which remember is 0.35 seconds he would be cosmic and be the new record holder unlike previous time saves this 1-2 clip saves more than just one or two frame rules just days later on january 1st of 2019 goofy would do more runs and once again nailed this new 1-2 clip this clip put on 4 frame rules or 1.4 seconds ahead of cosmic just out of 1-2 while he'd lost a frame rule in 8-3 goofy would net another frame rule in world 8 due to not bonking and saving 2 frame rules in 8-1 knowing how much time he was ahead by goofy decided to play 8-4 really safe he especially slowed down a lot in room 1. while he lost over a second throughout the level he had just enough of a lead to still beat cosmic by just under half a second with a new record of 759.094 just a tenth of a second away from a new second barrier with how much time was lost in 8-4 alone the record was obviously far from dead goofy knew this as only 5 days later he would push his own record down at this point with how many frame rules it saved 1-2 clip became standard and was used once more he would unfortunately lose the optimal frame rule in 4-4 it would make up for this by having a fast enough 8-3 to save a frame rule against his record that previously lost it he was now tied with his own record entering 8-4 he couldn't play it safe if he wanted a decent chance at a new best time he would go for a fast room one and play the rest of the level decent enough to beat his time by seven tenths of a second with a 758.329 and achieved a new milestone while being really close to another just one more frame rule needed to be saved to get the first 757 but who would be up to the task looking around at other mario runners sunwest would start playing super mario bros starting in early 2016 and quickly look at multiple times under five minutes wes would keep working on his any percent time and by 2018 we'll get two world records in the category going back to when west started in he also did a few runs of the lost levels by september he got an 809 and after his super mario bros records would return to the game again and got an 803 at the beginning of 2019 just like he did in super mario bros west would start demolishing his lost levels time he got his sub 8 minute time two weeks later and days after that got a 7 58 within weeks he was already a world record contender wes would keep pushing and on january 31st 2019 would have the ultimate run he was able to play 1-2 fast enough with the clip to save an additional frame rule against goofy but would struggle in 5-2 with devil's spill but was still tied with goofy's record west would stay tied with the record all the way into 8-4 to beat the record by a considerable amount west went way more aggressive in room 4 and started with a fast acceleration that allowed mario to build up speed quicker he also was very risky at the end of the room by doing a quick backwards jump on top of these koopas you will see that wes saved an in-game second year these time saves were enough for west to save multiple tenths of a second and got the first 757 with a 757.946 with wes just getting the record the game was heating up he was not the only one grinding the game at the time let me introduce you to the second person in this time period starting in 2018 takante would start running super mario bros just like many other previously mentioned players by the end of the year he would get a 456 in any percent and also started running the lost levels by december he already had an 802 just like wes entering 2019 he would keep chipping his time down first he got sub 8 then a 7 58 and following in west footsteps would do something quite incredible on february 7th takante would get the same 1-2 frame rule as wes and would play just like him until 4-4 both goofy and west losse frame rule and 4-4 end their records but decalte was able to move just fast enough to make it a single frame rule ahead takante would play like west the rest of the run and was still a single framerate head entering 8-4 just like west as well he went for a more aggressive 8-4 and claimed the record by over a third of a second with a 757.514 in just a month the record had been lowered by a second and a half but there was still more to go both decanti and west had non-optimal devil spells in 5-2 and with the progression of the game there was clearly more to be found the race for 756 was on with how rapidly the game was improved entering 2019 the rest of the year would be quiet 2020 though would be quite a different story multiple players would continue working on the game and on january 17th takate would finally show a new improvement takate would go more aggressive with his mashing in 5-2 with devil's spell and saved 2 frame rules over his record unfortunately he failed koopa bounce in 8-2 and lost the two frame rules he gained he would stay tied with his record entering 8-4 and like many times previously if decante wanted to improve this record he needed a more aggressive 8-4 he would attempt a fast excel entering room 4 which was unfortunately a little slow but with a good enough koopa bounce and a nice set of bowsers the first one now dubbed bruce by decante improved his own record with a 757.297 with the record being clutched by a better 8-4 takate was not quite done over the following days he would keep grinding and just three days later takate had another promising attempt he would be tied with his record until he had trouble with devil's spell and lost a frame rule takate would keep pushing on and luckily for him he got the 8-2 koopa bounce and saved two frame rules he was 0.35 seconds ahead entering 8-4 decate had another shot at lowering his record just two days after his previous unfortunately nerves got the best of him and had a slightly slow water section then failed to enter the pipe in the next room a fast excel and a good koopa section wouldn't be enough believe it or not takate tied his own record to the exact frame just three days after he said it with how many frame rules are in play in every frame counting in 8-4 the chances of this happening are very slim while it may have been annoying takate was not giving up the very next day he would get another run he would stay tied with his record and get the same devil's spell frame rule as his previous one he would continue this tie until 8-2 where he once again nailed koopa bounce this time he was now two frame rules ahead entering 8-4 and all he had to do was finish he had a very safe beginning but would shake off his nerves and got fast excel and a good koopa bounce with bruce and bowser being pals cade set his own legendary milestone with the first 756 in the game with a 756.798 he was now safely a solid part of the game's history [Music] after takate's very unlikely record time and then his next day improvement things seem to settle down for a month or two but that would actually be quite the opposite cosmic would return to the game and between the months of april and june things would heat up pretty quickly on april 29th cosmic would best decate with a new time of 756.565 cosmic was tied with decate entering 8-4 and was just fast enough to beat the record by just over two-tenths of a second this would set the beginning of a back-and-forth battle to lower the record even further cosmic's new record would be short-lived akante was still grinding runs and on may 10th would snipe the record with a 756.415 lost a couple frame rules in 5-2 with devil's spill but with time saves against his run up his sleeve would redeem it with a fast a2 and 8-4 roughly a month after decate's new record on may 30th cosmic would once again just barely miss another second barrier and achieve a 756.016 in order to save time against akante he would go for flagpole glitch at the end of 4-2 this saves time by skipping the flagpole animation and is just enough frames to get a better frame rule cosmic would continue to stay a frame roll ahead throughout world 8 and while he had an amazing 8-4 sadly did not save enough frames to break another barrier luckily we would not have to wait too long for a new record because cosmic would keep grinding on july 3rd he achieved his wish of pushing the next second barrier by getting a 755.700 cosmic splits were messed up during the run so let's explain what actually happened he didn't go for flying full glitch in 4-2 which lost him a frame rule he saved one frame roll back in 5-2 by having an even faster devil spill and getting a 365 pipe entrance he also opted to save a frame rule in 8-1 in order to do this it requires no slow down and a precise koopa bounce that is a coin toss being a full frame rule ahead he had a good 8-4 and got the record by just over 300 milliseconds the grind was nowhere near over though while cosmic would not get the record back his competitor would by the end of the month on june 30th takate would lower the time once again with a 755.334 takati would keep up and even pull ahead of cosmic in 8-1 by saving an additional frame rule in 8-4 takate was able to save a frame against cosmic it was now again first place in the game takate kept grinding further and on july 21st would beat the record by a single frame with a 755.317 this one frame of time save would be from 8-4 due to the lack of frame rules in the level with different time saves previously being done such as 4-2 flagpole glitch 754 was easily possible there were also many additional never used time saves that could be used to lower this time the possibility of 754 and beyond was looking closer than ever before both decante and cosmic were grinding off and on to reach another milestone before taconte's record we just talked about he had already been on a 754 pace all the way to 8-4 thanks to going for flagpole glitch in 1-1 and 4-2 takate's progression would make the game finally simmer down a bit but that wouldn't last for quite long shockingly enough the next chapter in the game would once again stem from another super mario bros runner towards the end of 2019 nisky would start running super mario bros any percent and would quickly get a 456 by the end of the year entering 2020 nifski would get world records and some category extensions as well as the minus world ending category he would quickly be known as the top emulator player on keyboard and during the year he would keep shipping away at his times he got a 455 in any percent and november got the world record in 2021 he also became the first human to get the legendary 454 milestone in the game if you're curious about that go check out my video nifski would also start running lost levels and climbed his way up the leaderboard by august 2020 he had already achieved a 755 and got third place he would return in december and streamed 754 attempts one night on december 18th something legendary would happen on a stream he had an idea of doing a few 753 attempts to end the stream by saving additional frame rules i previously made a video on this run that you can check out if you really want but let's talk about it again once more nifski starts the run with a flagpole glitch in 1-1 this was found to be easier in runs thanks to a setup by kriller37 to set yourself up just right to perform the flagpole blitz and save time you need to perform a super jump the same mechanic used in 5-2 off the first koopa at the beginning of the level this jump is either a two or three frame window based off when the game starts you also need to worry about getting the correct sub-pixels it was found that while jumping in mid air here you need to hold both down and right you need to also let go of right before you land back on the ground again this will allow you to perform inputs at the end to skip the flying pull animation and save a frame rule entering 1-2 nisky was able to save one more frame rule this time save mainly comes from a new strategy involving the wall jump in room 1. nifski barely jumps backwards at this goomba section which makes the wall jump pixel later on less consistent but saves frames to make the next frame rule easier on the actual wall jump nifski does the jump backwards and allows him to enter the pipe quicker setting himself up for good sub pixels on this wall clip he saves enough frames during the level to save an additional 0.35 seconds against his run by this point other runners such as decante were now using the backwards wall jump in runs as well entering world 4 nifski is already two frame rules ahead of his 755. nisky next goes for 4-2 flagpole glitch that cosmic formerly did in one of his records and is now a full second ahead the last new frame rule that nifski saved in this room was in 5-2 after all this time the devil spell trick was still being optimized it was found that you can actually clip on the left side of the pipe with the right sub-pixels it's crits found a setup that aligns these subpixels up just right it involves holding down and right while walking off these blocks the setup is the easy part though the actual wrong warp itself is the hard part after mashing jump to clip into the pipe you need to run a little bit to the right to scroll the screen far enough to load the warp zone and then go down the pipe if you don't scroll the screen far enough right the wrong warp will not work if your mashing is too slow you can just sometimes barely miss the fastest frame rule this allowed nifski to get a 367 pipe entry and an extra frame rule saved he was now over a full second ahead of record and was now on 753 pace he would keep the same exact pace entering 8-4 and all he had to do was keep himself composed in order to make history he got the fast excel got the koopa bop bruce was nice and bowser let him get the first 753 and lost levels with a 753.936 nifski just barely broke a new second barrier while skipping over another the first 754 may have never happened but the first 753 for sure did [Music] with nifski having such a sudden improvement he left everyone in the dust and things seemed to simmer down a tiny bit nifsky took a break and so did a few others this didn't mean something wasn't brewing in the background though by the end of 2020 seven runners had achieved a 756 or better there was plenty of potential from all these runners and there was still plenty of potential time save nifski didn't opt for the fastest a2 frame rule and there was also plenty of other time saves starting to be worked on which led to increased interest in the category two players in particular would pique the interest of many people and the first one i want to talk about is scalpel scalpel would do his first super mario bros any percent run in 2018 but wouldn't run that much until 2020 when he quickly went from a 503 all the way down to a 456 by the end of the year during 2020 he also took a stab at the lost levels his first run in july was in 8 10 and would rapidly improve towards the end of the year from november to december he went from an 804 to a 756 this time would put scalpel in fifth place in 2021 scalpel would keep grinding the game in february he got a 755 and in march he got the any percent record with luigi achieving an 805 by this point scalpel was pretty confident in his ability and would start grinding world record attempts for any percent with mario there was now a person trying to best nisky's previously unimaginable accomplishment on april 11th he got 1-1 fifa glitch the same 1-2 frame rules nifski 4-2 flypokelich went for left-side devil spell in 5-2 and got the same exact frame rules as nifky throughout world 8. entering 8-4 he was tied with nifski scalpel would put up a fight and believe it or not he had an 8-4 performance that was exactly one frame faster than this key yes just one singular frame scalpel beat nifski's 753.96 with a 753.920 being knowledgeable the bowser patterns scalpel could never believe how he just barely bested nifski yes oh my god breaker by frame [Music] dude with someone finally being able to best nifsky the game had a new breath of life let me introduce you to another player eyeball one in late 2019 he would start grinding super mario bros any percent and went from a 501 to a 456 within a year at the very end of 2020 eyeball would make the popular mario 1 runner move and try lost levels he was able to pick up the game of play quickly and finished the year with a 756 tying a scalpel to the exact frame at the time eyeball would stroke the year by getting an even better 456 in super mario bros but quickly went back to lost levels and technically got the first 754 since nisky escaped the second barrier entering april he was now starting to grind record attempts at the exact same time as scalpel just three days after scalpel's record on april 14th eyeball would get his own impressive run eyeball would interestingly opt out of 1-1 final glitch and instead saved another frame rule in 8-2 both nifski and scalpel opted out of gaining an additional frame rule by quickly re-grabbing the vine at the end of the level most runners avoided this due to it being a difficult time save so late into the run hit boxes aren't always the best and you can clip through the vine going for this allowed eyeball to be tied with the record entering 8-4 every frame counts in 8-4 and eyeball wasn't playing around he didn't slow down in room 1 had a great water section decent fast exhale good koopa bop with a good enough bruce and bowser pattern achieve the new 80 world record by four frames with a 753.853 by this point many were looking at which frame rule to go for next clearly more than frames in 8-4 could be saved but who was determined enough to push forward [Music] just a month after scalpel and eyeball nisky made his return to the game and this time wanted the record to be beaten by a more sizable amount the very first attempt out of 1-1 on may 5th would be quite notable this time nisky tried to save an additional frame rule by doing a fast excel entering 4-3 accelerating quickly here can save enough frames to make an earlier frame rule but if this fails you can still make the normal frame rule just in time niski also went for an extra frame rule in 4-4 as backup an entire year before this in april 2020 kriller 37 found a tight setup that allows you to clip into a wall this skips the shaft section in 4-4 it involves a frame perfect jump and holding down plus right off a platform to get the right sub-pixels there is very little room for error in this trick the fact that it was now an option being used in runs was unimaginable after getting this nifski would play out the rest of the run achieving the same frame rules he had previously done keeping himself composed in 8-4 nisky had the crown for a second time with a 753.57 nifski was not stopping there though nifski having the motivation to previously skip an entire second barrier he was now interested in pushing yet another second off the record the 753 club was quite new but nifski already had another goal in mind the new goal a 752 [Music] previous milestones didn't happen overnight many had their eyes peeled es nifski instantly started grinding for 7.52 he would get a handful of attempts entering world 4 and sometimes even world 5. just two days after his record on may 7th nifski had another interesting run in the making he got one one fly pull glitch the same 1 2 frame rule and 4-2 fly pull glitch he would once again try for the fast excel frame rule in 4-3 but failed again just like before he would back this up with the clip in 4-4 nisky was now tied entering world 5 but he didn't want to just be tied he wanted to be even further ahead he went for a flightable glitch setup at the end of 5-1 and nailed it nissi had now brushed past three flyball glitches and continued with a clean left side devil spell if he were to stay on the same frame rule he would get a low 753 time nisky was in the market for a 752 though being the instant runner that he is he went for an extra frame rule in 8-2 by quickly re-grabbing the vine he was now far enough ahead to get a 752 if he played just like his last run with a good enough 8-4 nifski had broken yet another second barrier and achieved a 752-721 beating his former record by closer to a second as of making this this legendary run is still the current record this story is far from over nestle himself wants to push the run to a 751 and maybe even a 750 down the road many other runners also have their eyes on improving this run further tecate eyeball scalpel and cosmic have future plans with this game and many want to get at least a 752 runners such as eyeball don't see themselves going further than 752 while scalpel thinks that he can max out around the 750 area as of making this the human sum of best for the lost bubbles is 747.696 just over five seconds better than nisky while adding more and more time saves decreases the likelihood of a run the chances are never zero who will be the next record holder and will someone someday ever get the coveted sub 750 maybe someday someone will find even more lost time saves in the lost levels thank you for [Music] watching [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Storster

Views: 110,799

Keywords: The Lost History of the Lost Levels, the lost levels, super mario bros, super mario bros the lost levels, lost levels, speedrun explained, mario speedrun, storster, speedrun analysis, nes, nintendo, super mario bros explained, mario, speedrun analyzed, super mario speedrun, lost levels speedrun, lost levels world record, the lost levels speedrun, lost levels speedrun world record, kosmic, niftski, tecate, darbian

Id: un2F8AxawwQ

Length: 52min 38sec (3158 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021