Super Mario World has plenty of warps and tricks to help players finish the game faster than usual, but none are as extreme as the credits warp. This intense glitch was once thought to be nearly impossible for a human to perform, but one speedrunner recently used it to complete the game in less that one minute.
The Super Mario World credits warp is a kind of trick called “arbitrary code execution,” in which speedrunners can perform certain actions that change values in the game’s memory. This essentially programs the game to run specific code that triggers the game’s credits. Speedrunner and programmer SethBling used a new variation of the trick to complete the game in 54 seconds and 56 milliseconds earlier this week.
To accomplish the trick, SethBling plugs in four controllers and two Super Multitap peripherals and leaves specific buttons pressed down on the controllers. The inputs change memory bytes that tell the game to run certain code after he performs certain actions. These actions include stomping on specific koopa troopers in key locations, duplicating Yoshi blocks and kicking a red shell into the air while standing at a specific pixel.
If everything goes well, he can reach the end of the game without ever fighting Bowser. You can read a breakdown of the trick here.
SethBling first completed a credits warp in 2015 with a time of five minutes and 59 seconds. Since then, other speedrunners have pushed that time lower and lower. The previous credits warp record was one minute and 13 seconds. This new run cuts that time down and further destroys the childhood of anyone who thought that they were good at Super Mario World.
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13 responses to “People Can Now Beat Super Mario World In Less Than A Minute”
It’s interesting how people like this are basically breaking the game in different ways, but it’s not beating the game. Not even close.
I prefer not to think of as finishing the game, but rather reaching a point as quickly as possible – in this case, triggering the credits. I guess it’s just a matter of semantics.
As hard as this kind of thing is to perform, I think I still find runs that don’t rely on breaking the code to reach the end point more rewarding to watch.
Depends how you define “beat the game”. Does beating the game mean reaching the end credits? Does it mean only playing the minimum required levels? Does it mean playing every single level? Does it mean 100% completion?
This is why there are different categories of speedruns.
Yeah, that’s a good point and I’m really just talking about what I think beating the game is. For me, I think it’s playing a full level, defeating a boss.
In this video it’s just a code glitch in my eyes. He doesn’t actually do any real playing.
It’s cool that they have different categories for this reason. I’m from the SNES generation so I think that reflexes and skill are an important part of that game in particular.
Im with you Rowan. Beating the game is playing it from start to finish. Going through the bosses and saving the day.
Doesn’t matter if it’s 100% or you missed all the collectibles. It’s about exploring the world and getting to the end.
As @WhitePointer said above, that’s why they have different categories. To use Super Mario Bros, they use the hidden warp tubes to bypass 90% of the game, getting to World 8 with only a handful of maps (1-1, 1-2, 4-1, 4-2, 8-1+), and warp tubes.
By itself, the warp tubes aren’t glitching or anything like that, but they are also bypassing bosses by using them. So legit, or not? Assuming they are (its really just using the game as its presented), the runs are so pixel perfect these days that dropping the world record has now become a case of using very minor glitching in very specific places.
So does that negate the effort that’s 99.9% just playing the game, simply because they are tricking the game into loading a screen 0.1 seconds faster?
That’s why there are different categories. SMB has a category for all bosses (Warpless category – record sits at 19m 02s), but its not the one people care about, so doesn’t get reported on.
You see, even right there you’ve muddied the waters with an arbitrary disclaimer – “Doesn’t matter if it’s 100% or missed all of the collectables”. Why doesn’t it matter? Shouldn’t it matter if you’re supposed beat the game “properly”?
And if someone wants to speedrun the game and actually achieve 100% completion with all collectables, why should they be disadvantaged against a runner that doesn’t do that, because getting 100% is obviously going to take longer?
Even in SMW itself, without using glitches, you can beat the game legitimately with only 11 exits, skipping the vast majority of 96 exits designed into the game. The world record currently stands at 9m45s for that category. Are those runs not counted, according to your definition, because they only play about 10% of the levels and skip all boss battles except the final one?
What about warps that are deliberately designed into the game, as @grunt mentions? Are those okay to use, even if they skip a significant portion of the game? What about using glitches to skip past a single level or two, as opposed to a glitch that warps you straight to the end credits? Are those okay to use? What about “out of bounds” glitches that allow you to run past or fly over entire levels really quickly without needing to worry about any enemies? Are those okay to use? What about clipping or movement glitches that allow you to sequence break and reach later parts of the game before you’re intended to? Are those okay?
As you can see, this is why speedruns have multiple categories. Run the category that appeals to you the most. This guy beating the game in this particular category in under a minute doesn’t invalidate any glitchless speedruns that play the game as intended.
Take a look at how many different categories there are for SMW alone: https://www.speedrun.com/smw
Interestingly, as you can see on that page in the “0 Exit” category, this run has already been beaten by about 5 seconds.
When someone gets around to really refining this with a TAS, I wonder how low the time will go. This is still essentially a new category, and that time is going to drop repeatedly over the next few weeks now this new method is out there.
But because its a finicky process to get everything just right, its going to be hard (if not impossible) to mimic what a TAS will be able to pull off. Wonder what the TAS time will end up being.
Hey mate, yourself and @whitepointer have taken this too far. I’m not talking about a competitive completion, rather, a casual gamer at home on the couch completion.
That’s all. Cheers.
Not trying to sound facetious, but if that’s the case, why are you commenting on a story about speedrunning (which is about competitive completion by definition) if you’re talking about casual completion?
@whitepointer I was just joining the conversation with Rowan and sharing my point of view on the topic.
Cheers mate.
I hear what you’re saying but are you suggesting pixel perfect button pressing and using some weird code god magic isn’t skill? This guy is living in a different dimension to you or me haha. You have to respect that.
Wonder how many females have seen those sweet wall decals.