I recently started speedrunning SM64, but I really do suck badly! I have watched a lot of speedruns so I try to copy their style of play. However, I struggle with so many stars!

It took me maybe 10-15 tries to do the secret slide correctly in form of speedrunning. It took me around 1 hour 30 mins I think to do the ship clip in JRB correctly. I thought that glitch looked kinda easy to do, but I failed so many times even though I am sure I did everything correct (right speed, angle etc). He just didn't clip through the ship.

Now I am doing the 8 red coins for SSL, and I followed the speedrun guide. However, after getting the first red coin, I can't jump over the cliff because Mario doesn't jump long enough, so he slides back into the sand. I click the exact same buttons used in the guide, but somehow I can't get the same amount of height shown in the video.

I have played for several hours and only got 31 stars (but if I played without trying to do glitches and hard routes, I would probably have more stars. But I wanna be able to get the stars with hard, fast routes instead of easy, slow routes).

I struggle alot with SSL because it's so easy to die there. I wanna be able to speedrun SM64 but it's demotivating when I'm so bad in SM64 and it seems like I need 1000 of hours to be good in this game.

Any tips would appreciate. And were you guys this bad when you started speedrunning this game? Thank you. :)

No one ever said this game was easy. The guides aren't there to immediately make you a grandmaster, they're to get you started.

If your average person could get all these tricks on the first try, it would not be this highly regarded as a speed game.

I'd be glad to help if you recorded your gameplay, hard to say what you're doing wrong otherwise.

Also I don't think it's bad for a new player to struggle with ship clip or the TJ in SSL, I would be impressed if a new player could do those well right off the bat tbh, I don't think you have any reason to think you're bad.

This game takes A LOT of time to get good at, every runner that you consider good has poured countless hours into practicing the speedrun. For beginners 120 is particularly brutal due to how easy it is die, especially if you try to do all the speedrun movement and strats and you're not comfortable with it.

I don't think you should be discouraged but as someone that learned the hard way, I'd recommend doing 70 star before switching to 120. Even if your end goal is to get better at 120, there's massive overlap in the categories and you can focus more on getting familiarity with the movement basics better before tackling the more intricate stars in 120.

Also, if you need help with particular things you should join the discord and ask there. It's way better than using these forums.

I'm right there with you friend, I came to SM64 from Resident Evil 2 and the difficulty curve was astounding. It actually made me quit for about 3 months bc I couldn't do such simple stuff as Bomb Clip lol. I only recently came back with the intent to try harder this time.

Its normal to be bad as a Beginner. Ive myself have poured at least a couple hundred hours in this game and just now am getting decently well at the game. I to recommend starting with 70 since thats a less demanding category than 120 and gets a person better at movement rather than tricks like 16 star.

Thank you for the awesome responses everyone! I am close to getting 120 stars for the first time, and I have learned some tricks already. I played this a lot when I was a kid, but I never got every star in the game. Think I only got around 75 stars.

I have watched a lot of speedruns, so I remember how to get most of the stars. I have used a lot of guides to watch different movements for the different stars. Will be exciting to see how much I remember when I start getting all the stars for the second time.

My biggest challenge seems to remember every 100 coins on every map, and to learn every trick in TTC and RR. They are hell! I will try to do a 70 star run.