Top Melee player Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma has completed his first-ever Super Mario 64 speedrun.
Hungrybox is one of the best Super Smash Bros. players in the world, known as one of the “Five Gods” of the game. However, would all of his skills on older controllers translate into him becoming a good speedrunner, much like other Melee players who have taken on the challenge? Sort of.
The Jigglypuff main had been teasing the 16-star speedrun for a while, and finally had his chance to do it while at his YouTube manager Chia‘s house. During a celebration stream, both of them decided to take on the challenge since she had the original hardware available.
Chia is a previous record holder, getting through the game in 25 minutes and 17 seconds back in 2004. Despite not practicing for half a year, Chia was able to finish the speedrun in 29 minutes. Then it was Hungrybox’s turn.
Hungrybox started off on his own with no help. But fans questioned his abilities to finish the run when he tried to get the star from beating the Bob-omb King early on since it’s not part of the 16-star route. He was off to a very, very slow start. Still, he continued on his own with the goal of finishing Mario 64 in under an hour.
When Chia returned (with food), she started offering some assistance by telling him some strategies in each area. His pace increased but he was still messing up over and over, including even getting a game over. It became clear after he failed to get Mips for over two minutes in the basement that his sub-60 dream was dead.
Hungrybox was not deterred. He yelled: “Sub-90!”
Despite constant deaths throughout every level, Hungrybox showed some promise in two areas.
Hungrybox was very impressive with his Bowser throws. While not 100% accurate, he nailed many of them on the first try. Some of those were most definitely luck but fans were heavily invested at this point and didn’t care either way.
Then it was time to learn the backwards long jump technique, or BLJ strat. He landed this on his first try, which is no surprise for someone with such quick mechanical skills in Melee. But even this portion of the run was full of cursed moments, including when Hungrybox BLJ’d so well that he ended up warping into Wet Dry World. This added even more time to his run.
Despite all of the horribly angled jumps, missed attacks, and overall chaos, Hungrybox was able to complete his first-ever 16-star Super Mario speedrun at 1:20:57. The sub-90 dream was now a reality, putting him at rank 1637 of 1644 on Speed Run. The world record is currently 14:43 minutes.
On the bright side, since Adam “Armada” Lindgren has only done the 70-star speedrun, Hungrybox technically has another record over Armada. For now.
Iconic moments from the Hungrybox Super Mario 64 speedrun
8:04 – Chia teaches Hungrybox a technique to skip part of Hazy Maze Cave level to get an early star that he’s never even seen before, a now-obsolete strategy
8:55 – Hungrybox chases Mips for over 2 minutes
5:00 – Hungrybox gets a game over
10:50 – While on his last life, Hungrybox debates ending it all if he loses but gets another 1-up
11:45 – Hungrybox complains that Super Mario 64 speedrunning is harder than professional Melee
12:53 – Hungrybox BLJ’s too well and ends up in the wrong level
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