Mario speedrunner Marbler recently beat Super Mario 64 without pressing the A button, a challenge known as "ABC (A-button Challenge)," that has eluded many players since as early as 2001.

Mario Player Completes Super Mario 64 ABC Challenge

Beat Entire Game in Over 86 Hours on the Wii U

Super Mario 64, a classic from the Nintendo 64 era, among numerous other games in the Mario series, has created a dedicated community of speedrunners and players who take on interesting game challenges. Among these, the A-button Challenge (ABC), a challenge wherein the number of presses of the A button, a vital button that enables Mario to perform the most basic, most important command—jump, is kept to a minimum or none.

The ABC Challenge cropping up the Mario community can be dated back to as far back as 2001, five years after the game's release in 1996. According to a Mario dedicated website, a player named Thiago Trujillo held the earliest, nearly complete count for the game with a total count of about 263 presses. Now, a speedrunner, "Marbler," successfully completed this challenge, finishing the game in over 86 hours, on the Wii's Virtual Console, without pressing the A button.

Sharing their entire journey on Twitch, Marbler showed that one key technique involves pressing the B button while running to activate a Dive motion and then pressing B again to cancel the dive, letting Mario jump of similar height to a standard A button jump. Additionally, pressing Start during other actions can help gain altitude and climb steep slopes.

Marbler then made use of a glitch, discovered in 2018, that allows floating platforms in the Bowser in the Fire Sea stage to rise slowly over time. By waiting approximately three days, players can bypass climbing a specific green pole without pressing A and continue to progress through the game. They then waited for roughly 72 hours for the platforms to rise.

After the platforms reached the needed height, Marbler made the jump successfully using the B button technique. Following this, they reached the final stage, Bowser in the Sky, and completed the game.

Source:
Marbler Twitch stream: Super Mario 64 RTABC, Finishing the 0xA Run
Super Mario 64 was just beaten without pressing the A button for the first time, and it took over 86 hours

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Charlene Aguila

A huge enthusiast of interactive games, turn-based RPGs, and horror-survivals that let you fire a gun. Her love for gaming started with the Shin Megami Tensei franchise and Dino Crisis. Although she'd try any game there is in the world, she will always have the biggest room in her heart for titles..