The Super Mario 64 blindfolded speedrunner Bubzia has set yet another impressive world record in the N64 classic, following what he describes as "months and months of chokes".
In the run, which was published on his YouTube channel yesterday, the speedrunner managed to break the 11-minute barrier in the 1-Star category — a famous Super Mario 64 speedrun category that requires the player to only collect one star to complete — achieving a time of 10 minutes 32 seconds.
This represents the fastest anyone has ever completed this category blindfolded, and is a huge personal milestone for Bubzia, who has been trying to beat his previous time of 11 minutes and 24 seconds for roughly half a year.
"FINALLY [...] we pulled through and the journey is over!," wrote Bubzia in a message over on his BlueSky, posted yesterday. "The 11 minute barrier is officially broken!"
As the publication GamesRadar notes in its reporting on this incredible feat, this comes off the back of a particularly unfortunate run Bubzia did back in May, which the speedrunner has subsequently gone on to call "The BEST Blindfolded Speedrun You Will Never See" in a video recapping what happened.
In this run, Bubzia put in what he has since described as his "very best blindfolded SM64 performance ever", which would have translated to a sub-10 minute run, only to be beaten in the final moments by some bad RNG that saw Bowser jumping five times in a row rather than performing the necessary charge attack that would allowed him to finish the fight.
In the past, Bubzia has stated in videos that he would leave the 1-Star category behind after achieving a sub 11-minute run, but we have to imagine he will be tempted to continue and see whether he can shave more seconds off his current record, now that he knows it is possible.