Super Mario Bros. is one of the most speedrun games ever, and as such it is extremely competitive. While fans may be familiar with the Any% speedrun category that sees players try to beat the game as fast as possible, there are several other categories as well. For this game, there's a rare speedrunning category that requires players to beat the game as fast as possible while blindfolded. This has been done before, but recently speedrunner Crescendo managed to do it even faster. He is now the world record holder for fastest time to beat Super Mario Bros. while blindfolded.
Speedrunning is split up into numerous categories, with the most common being the aforementioned Any% category. There are also 100% categories that require players to get all collectibles during their run, and a whole host of other categories as well. This blindfolded speedrun may not be able to beat Super Mario Bros. in 4 minutes and 54 seconds, but it still requires a ton of memorization, skill, and focus.
Crescendo beat Super Mario Bros. blindfolded in 11:55, explains that he started planning the run on May 29th of 2021, but didn't start making actual attempts until June 19th. By the end of his trials, he claims to have played about 40 hours worth of Super Mario Bros. speedrun attempts. Given that the full run was just over ten minutes, this means that he must have attempted the run at least 400 times. In reality, this number is probably much higher than that. Crescendo also makes an interesting comment claiming that his knowledge as a musician helped him with the run.
When playing a game blindfolded, speedrunners have to rely on their other senses to know where they are and what they need to do. As this game is very old, there aren't any tactile sensations such as controller rumble to tip the player off, so they instead must rely solely on sound. Unfortunately, Super Mario Bros. has very few sound queues, as outside of the music, the only things that make sounds are breaking blocks, defeating enemies, and (crucially) Mario's fireball ability. Watching the speedrun, fans should be able to tell that Crescendo uses the fireball to determine how far away from a wall he is.
Musicianship clearly plays a big role as well, as Crescendo frequently counts along to the music in order to time his jumps and other movements. This is particularly notable in the underwater section of World 8-4. The run can be viewed in full above, and although it's a bit slower paced than most speedruns, it's truly an impressive display of skill.
Super Mario Bros. is available now for NES.