Known as a fool Jonah “ZoneVD” Leppälä holds a surprising title: he is Finland’s best Super Mario Bros. 3 video game player.
The legendary NES console game published by Nintendo already in 1988 is Leppälä, 29, five years older, but the game has been a part of Leppälä’s life since childhood.
– Mario 3 has always been a familiar and safe game for me. When you feel like you don’t know what you want to play, you can always grab Mario’s game cartridge. Mario is “comfort food” at its best for me, Leppälä describes his relationship with the game.
Leppälä is not only Finland’s fastest Mario 3 player in the listing on the speedrun.com website (you will switch to another service), also the reigning Finnish champion of the game’s points competition. The title was decided last year in the joint Nenäpäivä broadcast of E-eruhili and Finnruns ry. The competition will continue this weekend in the little Christmas broadcast, where in addition to the Mario competitions, we will also see other quick-play skill samples.
In the points competition, the players try not only to pass the game as quickly as possible, but also to complete tasks, where you get points for success. Achieving high scores in Mario 3 requires steely nerves, game skills and a bit of luck.
Last year, Leppälä managed to take the championship convincingly, but this time the task has already proven to be more demanding in the previous playoff matches of the SC competitions. The level of Mario 3 players in Finland has already risen to excellent, even when viewed worldwide.
Leppälä himself is partly to blame for the rise in the level.
Leppälän, who have played Mario since childhood, 29 and The same “True HyperMario” Loukkolan32, will also fight for the championship on the weekend Miro “Wow” Bin17 and Martti “March” Saunanen14. For younger players, interest in the game has started through Leppälä.
– The Speedrun hobby started when I watched Joona’s streams from the Flintstones game and got excited to play it. Joona then switched to Mario and that’s where my enthusiasm for the game started, Laari says.
According to Laari, what fascinates Mario above all is that the game’s speedrun scene is competitive and versatile. For example, the speedrun.com ranking lists are full of players who still play the game competitively.
Laari has played Super Mario Bros. In his opinion, 3 is relatively little, on average five to ten hours a week. The level of motivation to improve one’s game performance varies.
– Sometimes there are long periods when I can’t really play. Sometimes larger amounts have to be played every day. This year, the play-off schedule for the WC was determined based on the record time, so I wanted to improve my record because of that, says Laari.
Martti “Marsto” Saunanen also got into speedruns through Leppälä’s streams.
– A couple of years ago, I got lost watching Joona on the Twitch channel when he was playing Mario. I wanted to try and see if I could play it myself. After playing for a couple of months, I got excited to stream the game myself, and that’s where it started, says Saunanen.
Saunanen has quickly become one of Finland’s best Mario 3 players. In Speedrun.com’s ranking, he is ranked 30th worldwide, the fourth best among Finns. Laari shares Saunanen’s ranking with his second at the same time.
Last year, Saunanen already played in the points competition in the SC final against Leppälä. Leppälä was stronger at that time, but during the past year Saunanen has been training to win the SM title himself.
– I haven’t played Mario quite impossible, maybe a couple of times a week and a couple of hours at a time. The hobby has remained comfortable without becoming boring, Saunanen describes.
“The most rewarding thing has been to see how the community has been built”
Leppälä started speedrunning himself through the Flintstones game on NES. He is still the second fastest player through the game in the speedrun.com rankings, but there are significantly fewer challengers than in Super Mario Bros., which belongs to the classic cast of games. in 3.
For Mariossa Leppälä, it has been most rewarding to see how a community of players encouraging each other has arisen around the game in Finland.
– In the beginning, TrueHyperMario and I were the few Finns who played Mario competitively. We competed among ourselves for the title of the fastest in Finland and aimed towards the top of the world, which of course was a big motivator. Now Finland’s level is already so high that you can work for the WC title, Leppälä states.
Super Mario Bros. Only 11 players in the world have passed 3 faster than Leppälä. For top names, such as the Canadian who holds the world record Mitch “mitchflower power” For Fowler playing the game is practically a profession. Fowler earns his income by streaming his gameplay on his Twitch channel.
Leppälä realizes that chasing a world record is not very realistic for him when he is busy with other things. During the worst corona times, Leppälä’s work gigs, for example library performances, were at the shipyard, so there was also time for playing. Now there is enough work in addition to YouTube content production, for example writing books.
However, the competitive spirit does not let Leppälä rest on its laurels.
– I’m a bit lazy about Mario, since I’ve been able to hold the Finnish record quite safely for the last year. Now, however, it looks like the record is in jeopardy. At the very least, when someone passes by, you have to activate properly, Leppälä states.
The young challengers Laari and Saunanen plan to seriously challenge the Finnish champion who dominates the points competition this weekend. SE time is already in sight.
– The ultimate dream is to take the SM title and the top time in Finland. Either one would be cool, but I’m aiming for both, Laari states.
E-sport’s speedrun mini-Christmas 2022
Friday 9.12.
18.00 Super Mario Bros. 3 Championship Points Competition, Lower Playoff Chart Semi-Final, TrueHyperMario vs. Mondii
19.00 SMB3 upper chart semi-final, ZoneVD vs. Marsto (best of two)
Saturday 10.12.
12.00 Crash Bandicoot 2, player Alaapo
13.30 Shovel Knight: King of Cards, player VoddoV
15.00 SMB3 lower chart final
16.30 Hollow Knight, player Kaleva
18.30 SMB3 final match
You can follow E-eruhili’s and Finnruns ry’s speedrun mini-Christmas at Areena and E-sport’s Twitch channel (you will switch to another service).