A blindfolded Super Mario Odyssey speedrunner going by the alias of Katun24 managed to beat the game in five hours. Most speedrunners manage to finish Nintendo’s game in less than an hour, but this performance is truly special considering that he couldn’t see a thing.
While we’re not completely sure if there is a speedrunner subsection entirely devoted to beating Super Mario Odyssey blindfolded, Katun24’s impressive mark of 5:24:18 is now the world record, according to Kotaku.
ALSO: Super Mario Odyssey mod gives players a horrifying glimpse at Mario without a mustache
The Dutch speedrunner decided to follow some guidelines, such as finishing the game in one sitting. He didn’t use the Assist mode that gives Mario extra health and saves him from dying if falling from a level. But the chief rule for this challenge was that he couldn’t take the blindfold off at any point, for any reason whatsoever. Physiological needs be damned when you are speedrunning, right?
For a blindfolded Super Mario Odyssey speedrunner to achieve such a feat, he had to either resort to some sort of magic or to extensive training. As it turns out, it was the latter, with Katun24 practicing in a way that few players would probably be willing to. He ended up creating a document where he mapped every movement, every button press, in order to complete the challenge. He used a Gamecube controller to play through Super Mario Odyssey.
This was a huge endeavor, with Katun24 memorizing a script that would probably scare many gifted actors. Obviously, he had to deal with unpredictable moments, such as those times when Mario would spawn or other moments when the plumber would get stuck in a wall.
This isn’t the first speedrun for Katun24, a player that is used to master the art in games such as The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past or Super Mario World, a game that he also beat while playing blindfolded.
