Towards the end of 2020, Nintendo announced the ability to upload levels to the original game would be removed on March 31st 2021. This changed the mindset of the community, as the previous number of levels had been theoretically infinite, whereas after March 31st, the game was finite, and was “beatable”. Beatable in the sense that at least one person should have beaten every level.
This led to the formation of Team 0%, to clear levels that hadn’t been cleared. When uploads stopped, there were 47,876 levels to complete, so the community began to make their way through the workload. This was until an even more devastating piece of news hit. On October 4th 2023, Nintendo announced that online services for both the 3DS and Wii U would end in April 2024, the exact date has since been confirmed to be April 8th.
This then increased the magnitude of the challenge. As of January 15th, 4,722 levels remained, with less than three months left to wrap things up. As of writing this article (March 15th), that number is down to just one.
“Trimming the Herbs”, the penultimate level fell on March 15th, unfortunately leaving “The Last Dance”, as “The Penultimate Dance”. The community has worked tirelessly to get this close, seeing the Team 0% X account pop up and count down the final levels has been incredibly fun.
However, the level that remains is truly the hardest and the biggest threat to the project not being a success. “Trimming the Herbs” should in theory take less than 15 seconds, but in practice, the sheer volume of frame-perfect inputs required in that time frame, makes runs look perilous. It is now however the sole goal for the community, with many players throwing the hat in the ring to have the honour of taking the final clear in Super Mario Maker. In fact, bounties had been placed on many of the remaining levels, with “Trimming the Herbs” currently having at least a few hundred dollars on the line for the person who finally takes it down.
In contrast, while still incredibly difficult, with a very tight timer “The Last Dance”, was the penultimate level to be beaten. Requiring advanced tech on a tight timer has been the theme for most of the final levels to fall, despite the poetic nature if “The Last Dance” had indeed been the final level to fall.
Many runners are currently trying to beat the final level if you’re interested in seeing the work that goes into beating these levels, and to follow the final few days of this challenge, you can check out @team0percent on X. You can also check out Is Super Mario Maker beaten yet? to see the progress on the final level, and who knows, many years down the line we may see Team 0% rise again, to take on the remaining challenges of Super Mario Maker 2.