Super Mario 64 · Nintendo 64 · Skip · Saves: Enables the 0-star and 1-star categories (skips roughly 70 stars of content) · Documented: 2004
A speed-building glitch in which repeated backwards long jumps — typically on stairs — let Mario's backwards speed grow without limit, carrying him through star doors and other barriers.
The backwards long jump is the technique that defines Super Mario 64 competitive speedrunning. When Mario long-jumps, the game caps his forward speed but applies no matching cap when he is moving backwards. Each backwards long jump therefore adds to his backwards speed, and on a staircase, where he lands and can jump again almost immediately, that speed builds very quickly. With enough speed, Mario moves far enough in a single frame to pass barriers such as star doors and the looping Endless Stairs, which normally require a set number of Power Stars. The BLJ is central to the 0-star category, in which runners beat the final Bowser without collecting a single Power Star in around seven minutes, and it shapes the 1-star and 16-star routes too. Nintendo removed the glitch in the 1997 Japanese Shindou edition of the game.
A long jump normally carries Mario forward at a capped speed. Performed while moving backwards, it adds to his speed in the opposite direction with no corresponding cap. On a staircase Mario lands and can long-jump again within a frame or two, so his backwards speed builds rapidly to enormous values.
At those speeds Mario covers so much distance each frame that he can get past the point where a star door would stop him, or past the trigger that loops the Endless Stairs back on themselves. Barriers designed to demand dozens of stars can be passed with none.
Before the BLJ was discovered and understood, any% Super Mario 64 runs required collecting enough stars to open the game's major progression gates: 8 stars for the Bowser 1 door, 30 for the second key door, and 70 for the Endless Stairs. The BLJ rendered those requirements irrelevant. Runners found they could BLJ through the 8-star door at Bowser in the Dark World without collecting any stars at all, then BLJ through the Endless Stairs to reach the final Bowser immediately after. The theoretical star count needed for a complete run collapsed to zero.
The 0-star category became one of the most watched speedruns in online streaming history, partly because the contrast between the game's designed scope — 120 stars across fifteen worlds — and what runners actually visit (approximately three rooms) is so startling. The BLJ is the linchpin of that contrast, and it remains the most iconic technique in the N64 speedrunning catalogue despite being patched out of every modern port of the game.