Don’t forget to blink
“Mario Maker has really provided an opportunity for very sadistic individuals, like this man playing right here, PangaeaPanga, to create horrifying levels for our amusement,” speedrunner Carl Sagan said during the gaming marathon Awesome Games Done Quick 2016.
I only managed to catch a few of the speedruns live during the week-long event, and one of them happened to be the Super Mario Maker Hard Level Race. What luck! The segment was wild: two teams of skilled players soared through some of the most imaginatively difficult user-made levels like they were nothing at all. Practice, practice, practice.
Panga’s notorious P-Break showed up, much to my delight. “It was at one point considered the hardest level that had ever been made in Super Mario Maker,” said Sagan. “…out of every about 10,000 attempts, it gets only one clear [from Mario Maker players]. And honestly, probably about half of all those clears are just us four beating it over and over again.”
Another runner, GrandPOOBear, chimed in: “Yeah, my first time through P-Break was 27 hours.” That’s 27 hours to beat a single level, and here they are racing in it.
Many of these nightmare creations were inspired by the ultra-hard Super Mario World rom hack Kaizo Mario. With that in mind, I’d also recommend this trip through Kaizo Mario Bros. 3: