Video game speedrunners are known for bending games to their will. Whether through huge displays of skill or finding and implementing outrageous glitches to skip large portions of the game, speedrunners are always looking for new ways to claim that new best time.
Times don't get much better than SethBling's recent Super Mario World run for the Super Nintendo. He "finishes" the game in just around six minutes by skipping nearly all of it.
How is that possible? It's thanks to a glitch called the "credits warp." Essentially SethBling manipulates the game's memory by performing certain actions within the game. As he plays, he is rewriting the game's memory to his liking, eventually leading to a glitch that warps him to the credits for the game, as if he had just defeated Bowser.
It's crazy technical. SethBling must kill enemies a certain height off the ground, ensure certain animations happen off screen and place items in very specific spots in order to make the glitch work. He can't even really explain it in detail, but there is no denying it's impressive. Be sure to check out the video for a more in-depth explanation of the glitch.
He isn't the first to discover this glitch either, though he is the first to achieve it on an actual game console. Another speedrunner, Jeffw356, perfected the glitch while running the game on an emulator and managed to finish the game in a record time of five minutes.
Still, it's hard to deny the amount of technical know-how that goes into performing a feat like this. SethBling says he tried the run 158 times before he was successful, where just one shell out of place or one small mistake would mean a do-over. That's what we call dedication.
