A lot of games have trouble keeping players' attention. With so many different titles coming out, it's hard to really stand out from the crowd. Some games just get lost in the shuffle, and only end up getting played for a few weeks immediately after release.
Super Mario Bros., on the other hand, is still going strong after more than three decades. It's the perfect example of "easy to learn, tough to master"—just about anyone can pick the game up and start playing within a few minutes, but there are also those who have been playing the game since its release back in the '80s and are still trying to perfect their runs.
For years now, the World Record for fastest completion of Super Mario Bros. has hovered around five minutes. Back in 2014, the World Record was set at an astonishing 4:57.69—and yet, somehow, that record has just been broken. Darbian, a well-known speedrunner on Twitch, managed to beat the previous record and with a time of 4:57:627.
In other words, Darbian just broke the World Record by a fraction of a second.
To be fair, Darbian's run is an "Any %" run—basically, using warps, shortcuts and glitches is fair game. Obviously, playing through all of the levels in order would take far longer, but those runs are considered an entirely separate category. When it comes to the best overall time, Darbian is the new king.
The Twitch stream, if you can believe it, is even better: instead of simply watching the gameplay footage, you can watch as Darbian transforms from a fan who's just playing one of his favorite games to someone who's realized that they've broken a World Record. The heartbeat monitor in the corner is the cherry on top—by the end of his run, Darbian's heart is beating about as fast as someone in the middle of a cardio workout.
What's amazing is that Darbian wants to get even better. In a post on Reddit, Darbian listed a number of different improvements that could be made to his run—and, just like his World Record, it all comes down to a few hundredths of a second.
It just goes to show how ridiculously dedicated some gamers can be. If Darbian's right, there are still new World Records left to set!
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