Even today, attempts are still being made to break new records in classic games. Steven Kleisath and Stephen Boyer, current world champions of Mario Bros. in the individual mode (the first in the original arcade with 5,424,920 points and the second in the WolfMame emulator with 4,260,210) have come together to demonstrate that great feats can be accomplished even in confinement.
Taking advantage of the fact that the MAMEhub emulator has recently been updated to allow online play, both players, each from home, have set a new record in the toughest category of all: Play Mario Bros. cooperatively, at maximum difficulty, and without using the POW blocks that kill all the enemies on the screen. What is known as Ultimate NO POW Hardest Difficulty. Here it is.
The score achieved has been 1,280,550. They were defeated in the penultimate phase (of 99) after more than an hour of continuous play. Quite a feat that was picked up by Twin Galaxies, the body in charge of documenting records in arcade video games of all kinds. These have been the words that Kleisath has granted to the portal Kotaku after overcoming the challenge:
We have taken the game beyond its limits to the last frontier with this variant, and I doubt that any other couple in the world will be able to match or exceed this score today.
Although Twin Galaxies does not have an official category for this modality because it is too specific, no other equal score is known under these conditions. The cooperative world record for Mario Bros. Kleisath and Boyer also show it with 1,517,380 points, but on medium difficulty and using POW blocks.
You are probably wondering why they waited for the emulator update when Nintendo Switch allows to play the Mario Bros. classic through the internet. The answer is pretty simple: neither one has a switch. Of course, to see who is the handsome man who stands up to them.
