Niftski broke the Super Mario Bros. any% world record again on Halloween, and he did it dressed as Mario. According to Kotaku and Dexerto, his new time is 4:54.299, which beats the 4:54.332 he set in August. Dexerto puts the improvement at 33 milliseconds, and both outlets report the run is now just two frames away from a perfect run, measured against what Dexerto calls the category's practical theoretical limit.
Niftski announced the run in a post on X. Xarmo couldn't check that post directly, so everything below is credited to the two outlets that reported it.
A costume, a voice and a record
Kotaku reports that Niftski started the Halloween stream expecting a fun festive session, not a record. He was dressed as the plumber and, around the middle of a five-hour stream, began speaking in Mario's voice too. Moments before the run that counted, Kotaku quotes him saying: "Hopefully I don't get this today because that would be very stupid."
Then he did exactly that. "IT'S MARIO!" he shouted when the record went in, according to Kotaku, followed by "WHAT IN THE WORLD I CANNOT BREAK CHARACTER!"
Kotaku also reports that he complained about the stunt at times, telling viewers they could blame his mom for buying the fake mustache. But he ended up crediting the bit for taking the edge off. "It made me not nervous at all," Kotaku quotes him as saying. "It doesn't even feel real. It felt so casual." Kotaku adds that Niftski said the two missing frames were lost early in the game.
Kotaku describes Niftski as 22 years old and the current holder of the warpless and glitchless records as well as any%.
Two frames from a TAS tie
Dexerto quotes Niftski's post after the run: "Only 2 frames (33 milliseconds) stand between this run and absolute perfection / TAS tie."
As Dexerto explains, that target comes from a tool-assisted speedrun, or TAS, which uses frame-by-frame inputs to work out how fast the game can theoretically be beaten. The relevant benchmark is 4:54.265, made under the same rules as real-time runs. There is a faster TAS at 4:54.032, but Dexerto explains that it relies on pressing left and right at the same time, which a standard NES controller can't do, so it is banned for human attempts.
Dexerto also explains why shaving those last frames is so hard. Super Mario Bros. runs at 60 frames per second, so each frame lasts about 16.7 milliseconds. Most levels finish on 21-frame cycles, which means a runner can drop a few frames in some stages without losing time on the final clock. World 8-4 has no such cushion, so every jump and button press there counts.
A long, very close race
This is far from Niftski's first headline. Dexerto notes that in 2021 he became the first player to finish the game in under 4:55. Kotaku points out that the record only dipped below five minutes around 2010, when Andrew Gardikis gave the scene a new blueprint.
The current chase is a two-person affair, according to Dexerto. Brazilian runner LeKukie briefly took the record in June with a 4:54.365, cutting the gap to the TAS to six frames, before Niftski won it back two months later with the August run. Dexerto reports that both runners are still streaming attempts at the same target.
Riley's take: There's something perfect about a 1985 game, which Kotaku notes is still a hotbed of speedrunning, getting pushed to within two frames of a machine by a guy in a stick-on mustache. The pressure at this level is absurd, and Niftski's own explanation is that a silly voice made it feel casual. That's a pretty good argument for dressing up next time too.
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