The History of Blindfolded Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 one of the most iconic

speedruns of all time top level runs are

beautiful there's incredible movement

bizarre glitches and awesome tricks it

all adds up to a super popular speedrun

giving Mario 64 the impressive Legacy it

has but I've got a secret to share all

the gameplay you've just seen was

performed with a blindfold

on this might sound too insane to be

real but for the past several years

players have been trying to speedrun

Super Mario 64 without looking at the

screen how is this possible how do you

take a three-dimensional game and not

only play it with your eyes closed but

practically make it look easy let's take

a journey Inside the Minds of some of

speedr running's most impressive players

welcome to the world of blindfolded

Mario

64

[Music]

and now a word from this video sponsor

rocket money I don't know about you but

I'm subscribed to a number of streaming

services I try to switch between them

subscribing for a while before moving to

other ones only problem I forget to

cancel and end up paying for a service

I'm not using this is where rocket money

can help rocket money is the personal

finance app that helps you cancel

subscriptions lower bills and manage

your money better I think rocket money

is great for keeping track of your

subscriptions they identify recurring

charges and cancel unwanted

subscriptions for you but they're also

great for setting budgets they can

automatically monitor your spending by

category and notify you when you've

exceeded your limits rocket money has

helped save its customers an average of

$740 a year with over $500 million in

canceled subscriptions join today by

going to Rocket money.com summoning salt

or by clicking on the link in the

description to get started for free you

can unlock more features with a premium

membership but you can start off for

free so might as well try it and help

out my Channel That's rocket money.com

summoning

Sal blindfolded speed runs aren't A New

Concept for years blindfolded runs have

been a staple at Games Done Quick events

and Runners have even grinded at home to

optimize blindfolded World Records but

those were usually for simpler games

compared that to Mario 64 with its 3D

gameplay and wide open levels getting

consistency with this seemed out of the

question and for many years nobody

bothered trying but then we arrive in

2017 when the main character of our

story comes onto the scene neet Busia

Busia had seen players like Runner guy

2489 and 360 crism play blindfolded 3D

games before and it inspired him to see

what he could do in Super Mario 64 bubs

has started by figuring out a few basic

Stars blindfolded from there he expanded

to the rest of the game he slowly built

up his skills throughout

2017 and finally by October he was ready

to try for the First full game

completion of blindfolded Super Mario 64

here's how he did it first off this was

a 16st star run of the game collecting

at least 70 stars is the intended

glitchless route but that was not going

to happen with a blindfold on instead

bbia performed a popular speedrunning

route collect 16 of the easiest stars

then tackle a couple glitches to skip to

the last stage that was much more

manageable than going for 70 Stars right

from Bub's first inputs you can see his

General strategy he ran forward until he

heard Mario hit the wall then turned

right and kept going it was slow but

these inputs were hard to mess up and he

eventually made it to the cut scene in

Bob on Battlefield bubz worked on

getting to the top of the mountain for

the first star he used the camera angles

to his Advantage he'd run forward till

he hit an object then carefully adjusted

the camera and kept moving forward this

normalized his movement and lined him up

so he'd always end up running to the

same place every

time after gradually inching his way up

the slope he got to use audio techniques

on the boss he backflipped to pick him

up then counted the audio of Mario's

footsteps to know when he was in the

middle this lined him up so he was

perfectly underneath the star when it

spawned bbia ended up collecting three

stars in B on Battlefield and they all

followed the same idea very simple and

safe setups to reliably work his way

through the map he then headed to wamps

Fortress where he ultimately picked up

five more stars he used a plethora of

strategies to get these slowly back

flipping up the long ramp running from

wall to- wall and even using a bit of

muscle memory his setups were so

normalized that whenever something went

slightly Off Script he usually couldn't

recover and either died or restarted

this happened nine times throughout W's

Fortress bbia continued through the game

slowly but surely collecting Stars while

a lot of his strategies looked safe they

required an unbelievable amount of

memorization and skill to do

blindfolded none were harder than the

Bowser stages he needed Inside Out

knowledge of the level to ensure he

could platform without looking he had a

clever SCP strategy for the Bowser fight

Itself by constantly letting go and reg

grabbing his tail Mario gradually moves

forward eventually you'll collide with

the bomb and skip having to somehow aim

a Bowser throw without being able to see

after an hour and 25 minutes bubs had

collected 15 Stars he had a precise

setup to grab myips the rabbit and then

counted Mario's footsteps to know when

to turn through the hallways to clip

through the doors bub Zia had more

setups that involved reg grabbing mips

repeatedly they worked and Bub Zia was

through both doors after a few minutes

but then he arrived at the hardest part

of the entire run Bowser in the fire sea

there are so many cycles moving objects

and obstacles all over the place that

even with the best setups bbia couldn't

consistently make it through he had a

few smart strategies to help by

listening in the silly kicks he could

tell where the platform was in its cycle

a longer distance between each Kick

meant it was moving

down and a shorter distance meant it was

moving

[Music]

up and later on by back flipping onto

this box bub Zia knew that even if he

took damage in the lava he was lined up

with the heart so he could recover safe

strategies like these helped but it

still took BB had nearly an hour to get

through fire sea with 11 deaths along

the way but eventually he cleared the

level and after 2 and 1/2 hours he was

in the home stretch next up were

backwards long jumps and there was no

big secret to doing these blindfolded he

just had to line up and hope his mashing

got him through the door and up the

stairs and finally Bowser in the sky

it's quite similar to fire SE in that

there's several Cycles you have to deal

with the hardest being the two elevators

right at the very end but thanks to a

combination of back flips audio cues and

normalization setups bubs had made it

through after three deaths the final

Bowser fight requires three throws and

bubsy's strategy for the first two was

letting Bowser run at him then dropping

him right into the bomb but that's not

an option for throw three so he had to

just randomly spin Bowser and hope he

hit a long one random throw away from

history being

made first try okay okay calm down I

need to connect this Stu calm down guys

calm down

[Music]

guys please man please should be to the

left two back flips or one back

flip no no no that's not good that's not

good

yes we did

it yes

guys we did it bbia had shocked the

world he could literally beat Super

Mario 64 with his eyes closed probably

one of the craziest gaming achievements

ever now his run did take over 3 hours

and he either died or restarted 33 times

across the game there was room for

optimization if bbia so desired but he

didn't he was the only person in the

world capable of doing this and he was

happy to move on with his life but

little did bubs know while he was

working on his 16 star run there was

another player on the other side of the

world doing the exact same thing zerf

neither player knew of the other's

existence and Bub's completed run came

as a big surprise to zerf he was still

working on individual Stars this other

guy was way ahead of him but zurf wasn't

deterred he talked with bbia learning

some of his strategies while improving

on his own he found different routes to

take and ways he could complete certain

Stars Faster by the time he started full

game runs in early 2018 he was a much

improved player zerf ended up beating

Bub's run by a few minutes on February

2nd and a month later he took a full

hour off the world record Mario 64

completed blindfolded in an hour and 58

minutes a big part of the Improvement

was the fact that zerf simply died less

than bbia he had to restart just 15

times across the run compared to busia's

33 but his route through the game was

also quicker for one thing he opted to

collect both Peach slide Stars he had a

fairly safe strategy to leap over the

edge and make it to the end before 21

seconds that's fast for a blindfolded

star he also switched out a couple stars

in hazy maze cave to save a bit more

time but beyond the route changes

zerf was simply faster than bbia he used

more audio cues to his Advantage for

instance in the Bowser stages he could

tell where the rotating platforms were

based on what part of the background

music was playing and just all over the

Run zurf strategies were a bit riskier

running up a slope rather than back

flipping and using fewer

setups meanwhile as zerf was lowering

the Mario 64 blindfolded record bubo was

working on other blindfolded games most

notably Pokemon and Kingdom Hearts he

planned to come back to Mario 64

eventually but if nothing else these

other games were still helping him

improve as a blindfolded speedrunner he

picked up on different blindfolded

strategies and ideas while he played and

as the months passed bubs realized there

was one technique that might really help

with Mario

64 something that would make his

movement look much more fluid almost

like he was playing with his eyes open

that fall Busia came back to Mario 64

implementing a trick called beat

counting beat counting is essentially

using the background music's beat as a

metronome to time your inputs to now

it's important to note that this isn't

the same as a music CU that's where you

wait for a specific moment in the song

to use as a

[Music]

queue instead beat counting is Simply

Having a consistent frame of reference

in this case the beat of the song to

help time different

[Music]

inputs for example you can run forward

then know to jump after three beats then

press jump again after four more beats

and so on this can help make otherwise

brutal sections become nearly trivial as

it replaces insane muscle memory with

consistent inputs beat counting was

first implemented in Super Mario 64 by a

player named Katon who used it in his 70

star run it helped him all over allowing

for fluid movement that looked like a

visual player at times after seeing it

utilized in other Speed games bubs

decided he had to try using it in 16

star so in September 2018 he came back

to Super Mario 64 he wanted to see how

much time he could take off of Z surf's

record of 1 hour and 58 minutes how much

could beat counting

help well right away bubs has saved time

on the very first star he picked up a

box and navigated into the corner of the

gate by beat counting by then setting it

down on top of Mario's hitbox he got

pushed behind the gate and was able to

collect the star this is an obscure old

trick known as box clip and predates the

more traditional bomb clip used in

modern visual runs new strategies with

beat counting were used throughout the

game often these helped big time with

consistency as well as being faster the

slide in cool cool Mountain was now beat

counted and bubs had a safer myips grab

thanks to beat counting too but the

biggest time saves with beat counting

were the Bowser stages especially fire

SE as you recall this is probably the

hardest level in the run it took zurf

over 17 minutes to get through it in his

world record but here bbia used a beat

count for the entire stage developed by

katun highlights included a section in

the Middle where he navigated without

adjusting the camera since he couldn't

see anyway there was no point in

changing the camera angle he still knew

exactly where to go pbia flew through

the whole level and ultimately he

completed it in Just 2 minutes a

15minute time save over zurf that's the

power of beat counting pubo was cruising

the Run was far from perfect but after

demolishing fire se he knew he was way

ahead of zf's world record he couldn't

see his exact pace of course but he knew

it had potential to be a big record the

backwards long jumps went well and

thanks to beat counting and other audio

cues Bowser in the sky was quick too

once again it all came down to hitting

this last bowser throw and then he could

find out just what type of pace this

really

[Music]

was yes

yes

Su 53

yes

yes

yes this was ahead of even his Wildest

Dreams Not only was it sub hour but it

was sub hour by several minutes the

whole game beaten blindfolded in 53

minutes the Run did have its slow

moments he died a handful of times and

the worst part was when he had to

intentionally drown to restart in dire

dire Docks but being able to cut a world

record in half did not happen very often

this was everything bub Zia wanted and

more beat counting had changed

blindfolded Mario 64 forever but once

again Bubsy had decided this was a good

place to stop despite there still being

room for improvements he remained

interested in exploring other

blindfolded speedruns so he stopped

playing and for the next year his

blindfolded world record remained

unchallenged but of course bubo wasn't

going to stay away for long 16 star was

his bread and butter and if you've seen

my other videos generally people who

dominate a game can't help but come back

to it time and time again bub Zia wanted

to see just how low he could take the

Blindfolded record so after a 10-month

break he spent the summer of 2019

rerouting the Run changing up the Stars

a bit and trying to optimize his

strategies by August he was ready to

start up runs again and over the course

of just 11 days he did

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

this I'm not happy man I'm not happy at

[Music]

[Music]

all no wa

it wo wo

you kidding

me

[Music]

dud oh my God

[Music]

[Music]

an unbelievable grind thanks to a

combination of beat counting incredible

muscle memory and a ton of skill bubs

had beaten Super Mario 64 blindfolded in

under 40 minutes this run had one big

mistake during myips he got lost and had

to quit back to the menu it cost about 2

minutes so a 36-minute run would be the

limit but there were no major mistakes

anywhere else 38 minutes was incredibly

optimized for this type of run it was

exact ly what he was looking for bbia

really was the king of blindfolded Mario

64 hardly anyone else had tried it and

those who had were well behind him he

could do with his eyes closed what

others couldn't do with their eyes open

and this 38-minute run was his

magnumopus

bbia was finally done with the grind no

one else even approaching his

times and then 3 weeks later something

very interesting happened completely out

of the blue a new submission appeared

for the Blindfolded Mario 64

leaderboards the player's name was

nobori

56 and he was claiming to have performed

a 35-minute blindfolded run a new world

record nobody in the community had heard

of him before and having someone brand

new instantly claim a big world record

was suspicious to say the least and when

the community watched his run it only

got stranger he wasn't beat counting at

all in fact it seemed like nearly

everything he did was muscle memory he

looked an awful lot like he could see

what was happening on screen at least

somewhat blindfolded speedruns can be

easy to fake if you can get any Vision

through your blindfold it makes the Run

magnitudes easier this was a tough one

to call maybe nobori was just an

unbelievable blindfolded gamer or maybe

he was a cheater over the following few

weeks nobori continued submitting runs

and gradually everything became

[Music]

clear noori was 100% legit and he was

actually that good so here's the thing

with nabori he has an absolute knack for

developing muscle memory once he does a

trick with his eyes open it doesn't take

much practice until he can consistently

do it without looking therefore the idea

of beat counting never even entered his

mind and he was able to perform nearly

everything faster even right from their

first movements in the castle you can

see the difference bubs had to set up

his moves and work his way to the first

door but noori adjusted the camera at

the perfect moment to do

[Music]

this basically indistin isable from a

visual Runner how about getting to

Peach's

slide genuinely impressive even with

eyes open it was more of the same with

the Stars nobori went for super fast

strategies no beat count setups

necessary even though he died a few

times the time save for moving faster

more than made up for it but as you

might expect the place that nabori

improved the most was the Bowser stage

when Busia played Bowser in the sky he

kept moving but didn't do anything too

flashy super impressive for being

blindfolded but nobody would mistake it

for a

speedrun noori on the other

[Music]

hand standing left side and elevator

Skip it's really hard to believe that

all this is possible while blindfolded

but in in case there's any doubt theori

couldn't see at the end of every run he

took off his 18

blindfolds no way anyone could see

through all that he was simply so much

better than any other blindfolded player

he was running while the rest were

walking nobori had achieved a 26-minute

blindfolded run of Super Mario

64 simply inconceivable just a few weeks

ago there's one more moment of noor's

run I want to talk about the final

Bowser throw right at the very end this

throw had a few different strategies

over the years bubsy's initial method

was to just blindly throw and hope it

hit a bomb but zurf realized that since

the whoosh sound occurs at the same time

in every spin you could sink up your

joystick to the spinning and know

exactly when to release Bowser to hit a

[Music]

bomb this was the strategy that bubs had

preferred to use use but noori took it a

step further and used something else

that zerf had found by pausing during

the whoosh sound you can listen to the

Echo and judge whether or not Mario is

facing the

[Music]

bomb if he's not then you simply unpause

and try again but if he is then you can

immediately unpause and throw Bowser

it'll hit the bomb every time this is a

brilliant example of turning a seemingly

impossible t

Landing a blindfolded Bowser throw into

something relatively consistent even

though he was Miles Ahead of everyone

else nobori still felt he could save

time over his 26-minute run he died a

couple times and had a particularly slow

myip grab so a few months later nobori

came back and improved the record to 25

minutes a run that would have been even

faster had he not failed to grab

Bowser's tail and had to redo the fight

and just two days after that noori made

one more Improvement this run was truly

incredible from start to finish he

collected the first 11 Stars quickly

with no substantial time losses he died

once in hazy ma cave but it didn't cost

him badly his myips grab was

instantaneous right in front of the door

his Bowser stages were all fantastic his

bljs were super quick and on the last

fight he grabbed Bowser tail and landed

the third throw no retries

[Music]

needed 24 minutes is a genuinely

respectable time with your eyes open

noori had optimized this run to insane

standards hard to believe it was all

actually

possible as for bubs it was tough to

accept what had just happened he'd been

the king of blindfolded Mario 64 for

years and noori had demolished all of

his times when bubs had tried doing

theori strategies he could eventually

pull most of them off but his

consistency was poor definitely not good

enough to complete a full run with them

bbia had to accept that he wasn't going

to be beating noor's record for the next

year blindfolded 16 Star had no activity

there was no point when the world record

was this good players focused on other

categories with less optimized records

and unsurprisingly noori took the top

spot for those too just pure domination

but eventually everything calmed down

noori stopped playing and the rest

didn't bother trying to beat his times

it almost felt like he had killed

blindfolded Mario

64 but then in October 2020 buban

managed to get at 16 star into that

Year's awesome Games Done Quick this was

the first time anyone would be showing

off blindfolded Mario 64 on such a big

stage Busia may not have been on noori's

level but he wanted to put on a good

show so he knew he had to get

practicing bbia didn't have any

illusions of trying to take the record

instead he focused on playing for fun

looking for new strategies and not

taking things too seriously and maybe he

can improve a bit on his 38-minute PB

since noori's crazy muscle memory

strategies were out of the question bubs

focused on beat counting strategies he

found faster ones in W's Fortress and

cool cool mountain and on Bowser in the

sky beat counting allowed him to make a

faster elevator cycle at the start but

despite lots of practice he was still

slower than noori and he was dying more

the improvements slowly started to come

in first a 37-minute run and then nearly

a month later a 35-minute run both of

these had substantial time losses on the

bljs so bubs knew he had the potential

to go a few minutes lower but this is

exactly what he was looking for even if

he wasn't competing with noori it was

still nice to see some

improvement and as the weeks passed bbia

kept getting better his movement was

faster and he was dying less often he

started going for laat to skip sometimes

it wasn't very consistent but getting it

at all while blindfolded was amazing

bubsy's potential was much faster than

35 minutes if he could just string it

all together in a

[Music]

run fast mips okay it's very good okay

please be AJ dude it will come down to

The BJs

dude I'm

up oh my God this defense up 30 this was

a fantastic run for bubs he nailed

nearly all of his strategies and had he

not missed a throw on Bowser and had to

restart the Run would have been a

sub30 but still it was a great

Improvement he wasn't quite on the

boris's level but he was getting closer