The most fundamental part of any Mario game is jumping. It’s the main method of action for the mustachioed wonder, letting him take down enemies, climb up obstacles, leap across chasms and more. With Mario’s jump being directly at the core of all his adventures, of course some players set out to work their way through a Mario game without jumping a single time.
For years now, players have been trying to find a way to complete Super Mario 64 without pressing the A button a single time. The Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge started in the early 2000s and dedicated speedrunners and fans alike have been doing their best to get Mario to the end without jumping. There have been massive strides made, but no one managed to pull off an A-less run until just this week.
The honor of the first Super Mario 64 run without the A button goes to Twitch streamer Marbler, and it only took them 86 hours to get the job done. Apparently this trick is only possible by playing the Wii Virtual Console release of the game, and Marbler had achieved a two-press A button run in that version of the game just 8 months back. At the time, Marbler said that the impossible was most likely possible, but it would require “some really absurd movement.”
Thanks to the discoveries of Super Mario 64 experts like Mr_Robert_Z, Bottles704, Thiago Trujillo, Mp16z, and bobmario511, Marbler now forever has his name in the Super Mario 64 record books. If you’d like to watch Marbler’s entire run or skim through for the exciting parts, you can find it here.
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