Key Points:
- Suigi has secured all five major speedrunning categories in Super Mario 64, effectively declaring the game’s speedrunning community ‘dead’.
- Suigi’s dominance is so profound that his records in all 5 main categories remain largely unchallenged.
The Five Star Categories:
- 120 star: Completes every single star in the game.
- 70 star: Completes all normal requirements to reach the final level.
- 16 star: Uses glitches and techniques to significantly reduce required stars.
- 1 star: Further optimizes the 16 star run for a single star collection.
- 0 star: Eliminates stars entirely, focusing on time.
Background Details:
- Some of Suigi’s records were set over a year ago; his 16-star record alone still leads by 6 seconds.
- Suigi estimates it could take up to a couple of years before someone else beats his current world records.
How do you feel about the dedication and skill demonstrated in these ultra-optimized speedruns? Do such efforts bring value to gaming or are they more of an academic exercise?
Making your own valorial framework is a close cousin to accepting there is no inherent one.
This is true for many things (all things?), but I think we can agree that as pointless or challenging being fast driving a car, it still welcomes the intended use of the car, is surrounded by a broadly shared and accepted economical advantage.
Esports would be the equivalent, pushing to be the best at a game, the way it’s meant to be played.
Speedrun is getting into a racing car and mastering with an iron will getting in and out as fast as possible.
That’s absurdism rather nihilism, isn’t it? “One must imagine Sisyphus happy”
That’s how Nietzsche answers those that blame him for bringing forward relativism, and I don’t think speedrunning is absurd, just egregiously arbitrary.