After more than 14 months, Mario Kart 64 All Cups has finally seen a new fastest time. With such an incredible time on the board, it takes some serious time, dedication, and maybe even a few miracles to improve upon it. On July 13th, 2018, Abney317 improved his world record time of 25m 46s 940ms (recorded in real time) by nearly 10 seconds with a time of 25m 36s 230ms!
This run takes place in the faster of the two “All Cups” categories and is usually referred to as All Cups (Skips), or sometimes 150cc Skips, due to the fact that it utilizes anything it can to go faster — skips, wall jumps, glitches, etc. Though the other All Cups category, All Cups (No Skips), allows for some minor shortcuts — such as cutting through grass or sand, and intended shortcuts like the tunnel in Koopa Troopa Beach — it cannot make use of some of the larger, unintended skips.
Going faster can definitely mean higher risk, more reliance on the right items, and heavy backup strats. Though the whole run is worth a watch, let’s checkout some of the most awesome and unlikely moments in the run.
The run was already very solid leading into Kalimari Desert, but the desert itself is when the first “We’ve got a run” really kicks in. Abney gets his perfect item combo, 3 red shells and a star allowing for this setup here. Watch his lap count carefully as he’s in the tunnel!
The very next stage, Toad’s Turnpike, Abney’s run was nearly all in vain when one of the opponents uses a lightning bolt. However, due to the way nearly half the course is skipped with an out of bounds maneuver, he just scrapes by. Before we show the clip, let’s watch the frame-by-frame… not just because we love the word Frame — it’s truly worth seeing!
And here’s how it looked in the run — reaction and all!
At this point he is a solid 17 second ahead of WR, but the lead loses some of its weight on the next two courses. Choco mountain may have been the weakest point in the run, due to failing a skip on the track during laps 2 and 3. Abney was able salvage the lost time with 2 really quick backups, keeping him well ahead and on pace for world record improvement.
Mario Raceway was up next, and ideally you’ll be able to pick up 3 red shells immediately, but it’s pretty unlikely. An unlikelihood which, if achieved, a twitch user promised a subscription. Well, they stayed true on their promise! Abney scored the perfect item drop. With enough runs it’s bound to happen on an incredible run like this one. A well deserved stroke of luck for putting in the countless hours of perfecting his craft followed up by clutching out the 3 skips.
It’s not necessarily one of the more hyped up moments of the run, but an interesting one. During Royal Raceway, Abney opts for a safer strategy, playing less aggressively than usual. He ends up getting a mushroom anyway, and saves himself a good chunk of time right at the end of the 3rd lap.
This next clip speaks for itself. As Abney describes it, it’s an “insanely good DK.” This trick is extremely precise and when under this kind of pressure is purely impressive to pull off at all but even more-so when done so efficiently. The climb back to the top with the mushroom and through the finish line tops it off.
Finally, on the last level of the run, when the stakes are the highest, Abney decides to play it a little safer by not going for a larger skip at the start of the run. However, by not going for this, he left himself open to disaster. After the first launch he takes over the edge of the track, he absolutely has to get the right item to fulfill his destiny. Check it out:
There are certainly other great moments during this run, but we wont show the run in full here — instead, we’ll guide you to the record on his twitch channel for you to check out yourself. Check out his page and give this guy a follow. He really puts his all into his goals.
