Legendary Mario dev says the wild rush to beat every Super Mario Maker level before servers died is 'actually pretty cool'

The Super Mario Maker community united to complete all levels before the server shutdown. Nintendo's Takashi Tezuka expressed admiration for this accomplishment, although he was initially unaware of it. Despite the revelation that the final level, 'Trimming the Herbs,' was created using external tools, players persevered and achieved a legitimate victory. This story highlights the dedication of the gaming community and the enduring appeal of Super Mario.

The Super Mario Maker community rallied together to beat every single level uploaded to the game before the servers shut down earlier this month, and while the devs at Nintendo weren't initially aware of that effort, they now think it's pretty cool.

Takashi Tezuka, the legendary Nintendo dev who's worked on damn near every major Mario game going back to 1985, told Ars Technica ahead of the Super Mario Maker server shutdown that he's "very happy that there is this community that has spent so much time playing and creating these courses." But it seems he wasn't aware of Team 0%, the community team that worked together to defeat every course in the game.

"I will tell our staff," Tezuka told Ars Technica. "That's actually pretty cool." It's unclear exactly when this interview took place - it was only published this week - but it was likely at the Game Developers Conference, which concluded just as Team 0% was celebrating its win. Here's hoping Tezuka and the team at Nintendo were celebrating the victory with them.

The journey to fully beating Super Mario Maker was complicated by a seemingly impossible level called Trimming the Herbs, which was the last level standing when it was revealed that the stage's own creator cheated using external tools to beat the level and upload it. By Team 0%'s own rules, that meant that every fair level had already been anticlimactically completed weeks earlier.

Yet the players who had already spent weeks trying to beat the apparently unbeatable level weren't willing to give up, and finally managed to complete Trimming the Herbs legitimately just a few days before the ultimate server shutdown. That's a heck of a story of perseverance - though I don't know how much the original devs will enjoy a story that involves their game being compromised by an illegitimate level.

The Wii U might be long since done for, but there are plenty of upcoming Switch games to look forward to.