In the any% rules it says: "Beat the game, no restrictions." That means its allowed to play multiplayer right?

The reason i bring this up is because after beating 1-3 a toad will come on the overworld map and get captured by a goomba. If you add in a second player before 1-3, the goomba will not appear and toad will just run back to the castle. This would save a few seconds in any% (or any other category for that matter). Also in 8-A ive heard you can get in the first pipe without waiting for the pipe to rotate if you use multiplayer. This would save a lot of time.

So is this allowed?

For the normal Any% category, only 1 player is allowed to be played at any time, there is a separate category (Any% Multiplayer) where more than 1 controller can be used.

Im not saying the entire run would be played as multiplayer. Only 1-3 (and maybe 8-A). And the rules don't say that you arent allowed to to use 2 players. But i agree with your opinion

I'm not saying the entire run would be multiplayer, I'm saying that the Any% category only allows one controller for the duration of the run. It isn't in the rules though, so I do see where the confusion would come from, it's definitely an unspoken rule about this game, as well as most other NSMB games.

I don’t even think it would save time because the menuing.