: Re-recorded 8-4 with an improvement of one more coin found by andrewg , along with 1-3 and 1-4 and a few minor adjustments. ( Watch or download the encode for the previous version if you like.)

One day Mario got bored defeating the old lame Bowser and rescuing the same princess so many times, so he started challenging himself by wondering: how many coins could be gotten in one life only?Unfortunately, in the end, the princess took away all the money he had collected for 26 minutes and 10 seconds, and was immediately kidnapped again.

Unlike other SMB TASes that basically run through the whole stages, here you can see Mario slowing down for coins very often, which presents more actions. If you're merely thinking of something like a fuller-scaled warpless run with Mario getting all the coins he can see, you'd be surprised, for it's actually NOT warpless, and Mario has skipped a few coins on his way according to the strategy.

1. How many coins are there in SMB?Counting each coin bricks as 16 coins (the best you can get, although not possible in every condition), and searching through every routes found on the map, we may find 1225 coins in total.

Supernatural loops

We all know in SMB there are natural loops inside mazes like 4-4, 7-4 and 8-4, but we've also found 2 places where you can travel back to where you've been before through pipes as many times as you want, one in 4-2, and the other in 6-2. The principle of it is similar to the Wrong Warp glitch in 4-2 of the any% run , a pipe will lead you to the previous exit if the new entry point hasn't been loaded from the screen. It's likely that the designers who placed those entry points weren't aware that we can manipulate Mario's screen X position to the right side of the screen to alter the exits of some pipes, leaving a few loopholes we can use. In 4-2, the Warp Zone information won't be loaded until the point where the screen stops scrolling, therefore, as long as the Warp Zone's text isn't shown, Mario can return to his starting point through any of those 3 empty pipes. The quickest way of moving Mario to the right side of the screen here is to continually bump into the stairs, and the previous fall to get 2 coins underneath also matters a lot as it saves a bump and about 4 frames each time. The strategy in the Warp Zone stage brings us 19 coins every 23 in-game seconds, which far surpasses the number of coins from the rest of 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, and the entire world 5 all together. And because of its high performance price ratio, it's totally worthy for Mario to skip some of the coins underground in exchange of more loops from the Coin Heaven. In 4-2, the Warp Zone information won't be loaded until the point where the screen stops scrolling, therefore, as long as the Warp Zone's text isn't shown, Mario can return to his starting point through any of those 3 empty pipes. The quickest way of moving Mario to the right side of the screen here is to continually bump into the stairs, and the previous fall to get 2 coins underneath also matters a lot as it saves a bump and about 4 frames each time. The strategy in the Warp Zone stage brings us 19 coins every 23 in-game seconds, which far surpasses the number of coins from the rest of 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, and the entire world 5 all together. And because of its high performance price ratio, it's totally worthy for Mario to skip some of the coins underground in exchange of more loops from the Coin Heaven. In 6-2, manipulating screen X position for the loop is pretty extreme and almost impossible. We have to make the best of everything we can use to push Mario further to the right: the first 3 pipes, the left and right side of the bricks, the edge and the corner of the entrance pipe, everything. Because there are only 26 coins within a loop of 36 in-game seconds, which are much less compared to the Coin Heaven's route or the underwater route plus another secret coin room's route, we choose to focus on Coin Heaven and only loop for 8 times, which is the route with the most coins according to our calculation. In 6-2, manipulating screen X position for the loop is pretty extreme and almost impossible. We have to make the best of everything we can use to push Mario further to the right: the first 3 pipes, the left and right side of the bricks, the edge and the corner of the entrance pipe, everything. Because there are only 26 coins within a loop of 36 in-game seconds, which are much less compared to the Coin Heaven's route or the underwater route plus another secret coin room's route, we choose to focus on Coin Heaven and only loop for 8 times, which is the route with the most coins according to our calculation. In 8-4, normally we can only get 19 coins from the maze, but with the improvement from andrewg, 1 in-game second can be saved from each time by entering a glitched pipe, bringing us one extra coin. However, performing a wall jump then the pipe glitch is about 2.2 seconds slower than running ahead in real time, so it's best to do as few times of the pipe glitch as possible to ensure "the maximum coins within the fastest time". Getting hit to save a time doing the pipe glitch will be one of our future improvements. In 8-4, normally we can only get 19 coins from the maze, but with the improvement from andrewg, 1 in-game second can be saved from each time by entering a glitched pipe, bringing us one extra coin. However, performing a wall jump then the pipe glitch is about 2.2 seconds slower than running ahead in real time, so it's best to do as few times of the pipe glitch as possible to ensure "the maximum coins within the fastest time". Getting hit to save a time doing the pipe glitch will be one of our future improvements.

The 21 frame rule of the coin brick

You can get a minimum of 2 coins and a maximum of 16 coins from a coin brick before it turns to a used block, as the trigger is based on the timer starting from the first hit instead of the number of coins. Due to the 21 frame rule from its internal timer, only in one third of the time in each 21-frame period is Mario able to hit 16 coins from a coin brick, so in this run, sometimes it's important to delay for certain frames before hitting the coin brick to get the first hit at the right time. There are 2 coin bricks in 1-2 that are higher than the rest. To get the maximum number of coins from those two, Mario has to keep hitting them with the maximum jumping speed by hitting the edge of a solid object or the screen at the running speed first, jump the instance he touches the floor, and release and never push direction keys until the last jump. Even so, Mario's only able to get no more than 12 coins from each of them due to their height. There are 2 coin bricks in 1-2 that are higher than the rest. To get the maximum number of coins from those two, Mario has to keep hitting them with the maximum jumping speed by hitting the edge of a solid object or the screen at the running speed first, jump the instance he touches the floor, and release and never push direction keys until the last jump. Even so, Mario's only able to get no more than 12 coins from each of them due to their height.

Keep moving upward after breaking a brick

It can sometimes be very significant and useful when hitting the corner of a brick, like in the secret coin room in 3-1.

Fireballs hitting invisible objects

Probably due to the ghost of the penultimate Goomba in 1-1, an invisible object coming out of thin air right before the flagpole can be hit multiple times using fireballs. The principle of this odd glitch still needs further studies.

Shooting a new loaded enemy from the left side of the screen

One of the most unusual glitches I've met in SMB. It only happened once in 8-4 right after getting the 1425th coin, when Mario shot the exact fireball on the exact position at the exact time, so rare that I haven't been able to reproduce it ever since. The fireball indeed hits the Piranha plant the moment it's loaded (but not shown on the screen yet) from a strange universe, but up until today I haven't figured out how it works, or whether it can be applied to other spots with other types of enemies. If it can, this glitch could be quite useful in SMB TASes once we learn how to reproduce it. And some minor glitches mentioned below, such as going through the wall on a moving lift (in 6-2); axe not disappearing (in 1-4); hitting the star inside the wall (in 1-2); fireballs and enemies disappearing in the maze (in 8-4); completing the stage on 000 (in 4-2, 6-2, 8-4, technically not a glitch though), etc. And some minor glitches mentioned below, such as going through the wall on a moving lift (in 6-2); axe not disappearing (in 1-4); hitting the star inside the wall (in 1-2); fireballs and enemies disappearing in the maze (in 8-4); completing the stage on 000 (in 4-2, 6-2, 8-4, technically not a glitch though), etc.

We've applied the most advanced SMB techniques to this run, including most of the glitches shown in previous SMB TASes. Here are something more: