New Super Mario Bros. World Record Raises HUGE Questions 

After months of deliberation Lekukie's run has been APPROVED by the moderators. I will provide a slightly more context in an upcoming video.

He's not eating Pizza while doing it so it must be legit.

Got worried when I thought this was going to be a video about Kosmic cheating 😂

Update: LeKukie's run was verified yesterday. The mods voted, and the results were 8 people for yes, 0 people for no, and 5 people for abstain.

For anyone interested and not already knowing. Niftski has indeed achieved the first 4:54 ever on April 7th 2021. It was a 4:54:948 to be exact.

This is legit, he wasn't eating pizza and drinking coke

Jeez, my heart almost stopped when Kosmic was the first to appear on screen, I thought this video may be about him. Phew.

One thing about the run that I think is worth pointing out: it's not actually *that* suspicious that he knew immediately that he tied the record. He's a top level runner of 8-4 specifically, so he would actually have a very good idea exactly how many frames he lost and how many he could afford to lose. I initially was sure it was fake but after learning about his background, how frequently he streams, etc I don't think it's super likely that he faked it. It's about as hard to have your hands perfectly match the game inputs as it is to actually play the game.

Damn I didn't realize how close u can get to enemies without dying

Doesn't matter, he'll never achieve the record on Bowser's Big Bean Burrito

8:34 "he was banned from the mario kart ds community." Idk why I laughed at this lol

If you're curious, LeKukie's record is finally approved, so he's now sharing the same time as Kosmic.

This happens offline, too. When Wang Junxia bested the women’s 10,000 m record by a whopping 42 seconds, people initially believed she had run one round too few. The current world record is another 30 seconds faster.

I'm confused as to how "it would be too difficult to show the TV cable connection" when it's literally two feet from the output on the console to the input on the front of the TV. This reaction, combined with the history of cheating in another game, makes for a highly suspicious set of circumstances indeed. I do hope, for LeKukie's sake, that his run turns out to be legitimate, otherwise he faces the very real possibility of being blacklisted from the RTA speedrunning community as a whole. If it turns out that, once again, he is passing off a TAS as an RTA, then maybe he needs to move to the TAS running community instead, where he can show off those skills in creating perfect theoretical runs instead of trying to cheapen RTA viability.

The amount of “Eating pizza” and “Drinking coke” comments are hilarious to me, and I haven’t even been watching this channel for very long.

Can you imagine if professionals in the criminal justice system had half as much patience or thorough research of the people in question as these speed runner mods do?

I'm not even into speedrunning but it's so fascinating hearing Karl talk about it, so much effort put into this video, not to mention the players speedrunning. Cheers everyone!

It's clearly fake, he's not even eating coke and pizza.

Ties world record: ez "Show the back of the console": Sorry, seems too hard.

Karl, you, Goose, and Summoning Salt have given me a crash course in speed running and the community. While I dont run myself, I find these record coverage and content fascinating. Keep up the good work, and let's all hope for a remaster of 007. I might would join the community then.

Here's the thing if you look at his hand movements and the frame data from those hand movements and they match perfectly one to one. With the expected delay between a button press and a character reacting And the physics behaves as they should...like to pull that off while using a Tas. Its just tbh... At some point it becomes easier to pull it off for real then to cheat.

For me at least it’s quite simple, if you’ve got a bad history and you’re asked to provide further proof but you refuse then it’s clear as day something ain’t right.

I feel like the guy who was a cheater in the past was really grinding for a win.... but him not wanting to show the tv connection was suspicious for sure. If I was a cheater in the past, and I wanted to redeem myself, I would of done EVERYTHING to gain people's trust, even if it meant to show cables, open up the NES, Controller, and even the damn TV itself it it meant it. Why he doesn't prove himself for the cables is kinda beyond me. Also, where is his timer at? 0,o''

Niftski achieved 4.54 2 days ago, waiting on Karl's breakdown.

I love watching videos on speedrunning. It has become a science that one doesn't have to understand all the little details that go into it. I respect the dedication to all the players who spend many many hours perfecting their runs in a legitimate manner. God bless you all!

Cheated or not, the admin asked him to do something and he didn’t, that’d be a DQ from me chief

RU-vid algorithm: you're into exposing speedrunning cheats now Me: (never seen a speedrun) okay

Hi Karl! I am new to your channel and started with watching your Twin Galaxies Saga. I had seen “King Of Kong” years ago and you crafted a fantastic follow-up. The algorithm then pulled me into your videos about speed running, something I will admit I had never heard of but had participated in while trying to beat my fastest times on Goldeneye over 20 years ago! Your breakdown of how speed running works for different games is amazing. I have enjoyed learning more about your world and feel the tug of trying speed running. Thank you for showing me an exciting new way to enjoy an old hobby!

Who came back here after Karl's new video? I like that Karl decided to make it clear that he didn't mean to allude to the fact that he was cheating and decided to correct himself and tell the RU-vid comment to chill down cause commenters are usually just very trigger happy to call someone out.

His unwillingness to show the cords after having a run rejected along with history of cheating leads me to think his run should be left in limbo

"Oh, it's too hard to show the cables." Riiight. Whether he cheated or not, that's ridiculous, especially when you know you're being held to a higher standard of proof.

At first I read "New Super Mario Bros. World" as one game title and I just thought, yeah, that seems right.

- Timestamps - 00:00 Introduction 02:37 Skillshare Sponsor 03:31 LeKukie's "World Record" Tie And Skill 06:40 The Sudden Lost Levels "World Record" 08:21 LeKukie's Past And MKDS "World Records" 10:56 The Suspicious Approval 12:39 Niftski's New World Record And Timesave 16:27 The 4:54 Conclusion 17:53 Outro/Endscreen

I’d say that his deliberate refusal to show the cables should be enough to not let his run be counted. It’s fishy, on top of his shady past.

It does not matter how tight the rules get. In the end you could always make a TAS playback romhack and claim any world record for free while just pretending to play. It's not even difficult to do. You could even put in a button combo to go back to human input, then resume the TAS playback on the next level or something.

The run just got verified, this is gonna be interesting...

Interested to see the comments' reactions now that the run has been verified, I predict three camps, 1. Commenters who felt his run was legit feeling a sense of vindication 2. Commenters who believed it was was cheated changing their minds and accepting the mod team's verdict 3. Commenters who believed it was cheated and still do think it was cheated, denying the mod team's findings To me the most telling fact is that no mod elected to vote "no", even under anonymity no mod believes that the run is false, though the 5 who chose to abstain could be considered "on the fence" I suppose

“Obliterated” “by 0.2 milliseconds” seems about right

If someone has a history of cheating, they NEED to be held to a higher standard of play for any other game they attempt. Show the cables connect, show EVERYTHING, because you already lied to *one* group, what's slowing you down from lying to another?

about your emulation question at the end. The way I see it, emulations provide a way for many more people to be able to take part in a challenge, weather it be on their own leaderboard or a joint one doesn't matter to me. As long a sufficient proof would be shown while using an emulator, I think it should be valid!

I’ve never been a huge competitive gamer besides Halo 3 and Apex Legends HOWEVER after watching your videos I’ve become hooked. Atleast watching your videos about scandals, alleged cheating and no hit runs. You got me into a whole new rabbit holes of RU-vid. I love every second of it. Earned a new subscriber

Lekukie just started the framerule bus in 2nd gear after every load screen to save a framerule

10:50 3 major issues: -The cables area was obviously a mess even aside from being dark -The hand over lens was hilarious -The controller left the screen long enough for a swap

doctor: you have 5 minutes to live speedrunner: phew, I have enough time to play super mario bros

My position on emulation is that it shouldn't be a barrier so long as it can be demonstrated to be accurate enough to be indistinguishable from the real hardware the way SMB is. Once it reaches that point it's just flat-out arbitrary to reject emulated runs among the mainstream records when it's shown there's literally nothing separating the two.

karl jobst: "lekukis progression is not typical at all. in fact it is..." me "not typical ?" kar jobst: " *a* -typical" me: woah

Him not complying with moderator instructions even though he knew he needed far more evidence for his runs due to his history seems far too odd to me, I'd personally not be comfortable judging this run as legitimate.

It's funny to see a video from two years ago asking if 4.54 is possible, and then the recent video by Kosmic asking if 4.53 is possible.

I honestly want to get super good at a game, swipe a world record, and submit it as a nobody just to make people freak out and accuse me of cheating.

When I saw the title, I thought it was a world record for New Super Mario Bros, not a Super Mario Bros World Record that's new. Nintendo using the word "New" in their titles gets confusing.

This channel commentary gives me JCS Criminal Psych vibes and I love it

11:09 game isnt pushed down in the nes

The "it's too hard to show the cables behind the TV" sounded like a prison inmate trying to hide the knife in his pocket.

Hard to believe a cheater, especially if he refused to show the console connected to the TV.

the way you say LEGENDS just makes me feel epic thanks man xx c:

As an outsider to speed running, anyone caught cheating should be banned from holding any records in any official leaderboards.

Holy shit. For a second, I thought Kosmic’s run was in question. Good lord don’t do that to me.

I find myself getting sucked into speed running history and lore these days.

I think if you can just beat the original with 3 lives that is enough to impress me.

13:40 I knew as soon as he said obliterated that it was going to be like half a ms haha

moral of the story - if you don't say "holy cow" at the end of a smb WR, you are not legit

In the major communities I have full confidence in the mod teams to decide if emulation is or isn't okay. I mean jesus, these guys put out 30 page essays just to tell someone why their speedrun is accepted or rejected. These mods are doing like actual rocket science for speedruns, I trust they know what they are talking about when it comes to emulation.

Just woke up looking forward to being an absolute legend

Can i just say a huge thank you for saying niche instead of nitch. You save me an eye twitch every time.

Thing i dont like is how the runner immediately yelled how he tied the record the split second he touched the ax. I feel like a normal reaction would be to take half a second to process what your time is and then be like holy shit I tied record. Seems to me like he knew what his time would be before he even got past Bowser.

Seems legit to me. Breaking the WR is easy, pointing the camera at the cables, that's the real challenge IMO.

Just a quick thought on emu for competition in general not just speed running: It's not only practical, but a NECESSITY if we want these old games to survive into the modern era. There is no real reason why not. Hell I've been playing emulators in my phone for years because I can fit entire systems libraries on the thing it's not until we get to ps3 levels that the games are too big to realistically Put on your phone in most cases. I mean you see the change in gamers today. Whole generations have grown up without a console, they play on PC. And allot of gamers have grown up with wasd as their default control scheme. Even in the fighters I play, I grew up in the arcade so I have a stick collection. It's how I learned, how I'm most comfortable, but increasingly, the top players are showing up with HitBoxes and Mixboxes and pads. It's how they learned, how they're comfortable. And why not! Why spend as much as the dang game system (or even more for a really good one) just for what is essentially a specialized controller? My point is as time goes on, things change. Everything has to change to survive and if we want new players for our old games, we need to be open to change as well. One of my saddest stories is being an owner of a pretty awesome Sega Saturn library and knowing that if they never get emulation working for Saturn games, one day those games will be gone, completely unplayable. The Saturn itself is a finicky piece of hardware that required a ridiculous external battery and external memory (and possibly converter if your library is a GREAT one, like mine.) So if the battery was left too long and has corroded the system or if you don't have a backup memory card or if any one of a number of different "Go-Wrongs" pop up, no gamey gamey for you my friend, not on original hardware. So to sum it up I'll just reiterate, emulation is a MUST to preserve and pass on our gaming legacy to the next generation, our sons and daughters, the new gamers. We say, "Hey check this out! Now we have 3D graphics, but when I was your age everything was just as fun, if only a little more...flat." The fact new games in the 8 and 16 bit styles are being made for the PS5 and XBOX series X/S is just proof to me that this style of game is just that now, a style to choose from to make the game, an aesthetic choice in the developers tool kit, not a limitation forced by technology. And people buy it! Because good game is good game regardless of time period, graphics, or complexity of gameplay. That's why I implore all developers find a way to save your old games and IP's, embrace emulation instead of fighting it. It's not going anywhere and and if you support and promote it LEGALLY you can make money off of it, instead of, well, you know, YAAAARRRRR-HAAAAAARRRR!!!!! Just a ranty 2 cents from an ancient gamer nobody asked for. If you made it this far, give yourself a pat on the back and gold 🌟 ⭐ from me! 😁 Thanks for reading all this you really are kind for doing so. In the words of my favorite RU-vidr: Take care, toodle-oo, bye!!!

They verified lekukies run and now it’s tied for third!

1) He knew he was breaking a world record before the timer would even stop after finishing the game. In this video he's shown to do it twice. 2) Covered the camera while showing the back of the console connecting into the CRT TV. Even if it was "too difficult" why cover the camera? 3) Cheated before in the past 4) Touched a game for a top speed then magically never touches the game again? Not common among speed runners. Circumstantial but it reeks to high heaven of Bull Crap.

It just occured to me the SMB speedrun is faster than the Sonic the Hedgehog speedrun. Truly, irony.

I dont know if i trust his record, but someone coming out of nowhere to beat the top record is totally possible

“The circumstances of the run were extremely bizarre” not 10 seconds later “I want to provide an unbiased case on the run”

The World Record is in another castle

In a trust-based community like speed-running, you probably need a zero-tolerance policy for known cheaters.

So are we saying I can cheat by hiding something behind my tv. But as long as I show my controller and and cables then I’m good? Sweet.

So I was just watching Wirtual’s Channel watching a documentary about the speed run of a certain track and a few videos later I’m here. The algorithm works in mysterious ways

A mod asked him to show the cable and he didn't. That's enough to deny the run imo. But this also shows that even stronger methods need to be put in place to prevent cheating.

This has the same credibility of "my uncle works at sony japan and he got a playstation 6 but I can't show to you!"

You guys are nuts.. But I love seeing these old-school games from my wonder years.

Yup I know its old... but anyone see the cart not pushed down in the nes at 11:45 and the game on? 🤔 maybe I'm missing something or a optical illusion?

I love how he doesn’t hype up to the fact it’s fastest he has done while getting up to end and at the end he knows it’s tied straight away.

"It's fake, mon." - Hermes Conrad.

What I learned from GH and grinding in general is that anything can happen- and it can happen entirely at random

love the fact that u use gta mission music for the background xD

if they clearly outlined the proof expectations ahead of time, including showing the cables connected, and the expectations were not met, then the run cannot be accepted

Well he was asked to show the cables going inside his TV and he didnt so no record. It's easy as that. Refuse to give a blood sample for doping test after the race? No gold medal

To me, the weird part about not showing the cables behind the TV is that the CRT connection is at the front lol. You can clearly see the RWY cables at 6:10, though it should have been easy for Lekukie to show the entire cable running from controller to console to TV.

When I first saw the title of this video I thought he was talking about New Super Mario Bros. (DS).Lol.

"I can't show the cables in the back of the TV." Yet there are a set of RCA cables plugged in the front of the TV? Are those not the console? So then there's something else plugged into the TV. My thought is that there's another A/V source coming in the front channel of the TV (many old CRTs only had 2 RCA input channels, one in front (easy access) and one in back (hide the cables)) and that he's changing input sources from a recording to the actual live console. This can also be done without changing input sources on the TV itself if you have a switchbox. Some of us older gamers would have multiple consoles using RCA on CRTs you'd have a switchbox to change the inputs while still using only 1 input channel on the TV itself so you don't have to plug/unplug stuff constantly. There's a thousand ways to fake this and the guy not wanting to simply show the cables (and when asked by a MOD too???) in the back of the TV is a bit suspicious but I think his past of cheating is a massive red flag. There needs to be NO doubt of fraud on accepting WR position runs given that past.

"I tied world record" basically as he hits the finish line? That sounds incredibly sus. Usually you'd need at least a second to check the time and confirm if it's the same as the world record... (Didn't see any other comments on this.)

“Perfectly executing every strategy” Miniland and NiftSki’s 4:54- _hey_ 😘

I personally think that emulation is just fine as long as It doesn’t actually change how the base game works it’s just another way to open it up to new runners

My money is on "fake". All of that circumstantial evidence, plus known history of cheating by trying to pass off TAS runs as RTA, plus playing back on a CRT instead of getting a capture card (a known way to mask TAS playback by using the CRT quality to obfuscate details that would give it away), plus him refusing to show the back of the TV and console when specifically asked to by a proof moderator... No way that it's legit.

Who is this cheater that tried to steal SMB WR from Badabun?

“Happening in May of this year” Karl can time travel? It’s March right now!

The fact he refused to show the back of the console is super weird and to be fair even if he legitimately did it he did make himself look suspicious so I totally understand why they worried about putting him on the list.

"why didn't you show the cables" "my tv is wireless"

The even more impressive feat was that with the hand-cam on at all time he had to eat his pizza with his face alone.

Good content Karl 👍

It's nice to so an actually good player use the same keyboard control scheme as me (WASD + numpad)!