As the sun sets on the Wii-U and 3DS online services, the hardest and most challenging Super Mario Maker level remains unbeaten.
Nintendo confirmed plans to discontinue the online services for both Wii-U and Nintendo 3DS back in January this year, with the shutdown scheduled for 4pm PDT on the 8th of April 2024.
With the shutdown deadline looming, a group of enthusiastic Super Mario Maker players known as ‘Team 0%‘, are attempting to complete every user-generated level in the game.
Nintendo previously disabled the ability to upload new, user-created levels to Super Mario Maker on the 31st of March 2021, effectively drawing a line in the sand and capping the amount of playable levels the game would ever have.
Team 0%, as the name implies has been working towards the goal where zero percent of the levels are unbeaten.
Over the past several months, the team has meticulously whittled down the list of over 25,000 outstanding levels, and now, finally, just a single level remains; Trimming the Herbs.
Unfortunately for Team 0% and the Super Mario Maker community, Trimming the Herbs is one of the hardest levels ever created.
Frame Perfect
With one level remaining, what is it that makes ‘Trimming the Herbs’ the hardest Super Mario Maker level?
In the words of Team 0%’s own Thab, Trimming the Herbs ‘doesn’t look as hard as you’d expect but it could ruin the project’.
Trimming the Herbs first appeared during a PogChamp Contest, where players designed extravagant levels that could, theoretically anyway, be cleared within ten seconds.
The ten seconds it would take to complete Trimming the Herbs consist of back-to-back, frame-perfect jumps, spinning saws, Piranha Plants, Boos, and a dastardly set of obstacles requiring players to drop, kick and bounce off bombs with pixel-perfect precision.
I’m certainly not an expert when it comes to Mario (the blue spiky lad on the Mega Drive was always my favourite growing up) and while I enjoy his exploits, I certainly don’t have the dexterity to complete Trimming the Herbs, although I’ll certainly be giving it a go.
The Wii-U and Nintendo 3DS online services have just over twenty days remaining before Nintendo shut the services down.
Will Team 0% complete their mission before the clock runs out in three weeks? Only time will tell.
