Congratulations to the team and the community as a whole for this pretty amazing achievement.
Turns out the one level that the group was having trouble with was originally uploaded using something called a TAS, which renders it null and void, so they didn't actually have to beat that one to finish them all.
**Edited title. Making sure that the word 'level' doesn't fit. Have a good day. *
Ok so what's a TAS?
Kind of an anticlimactic ending? The last level was uploaded by cheating so we can't clear it?
Not that it diminishes the accomplishment, but it's still a bit... meh.
Tool assisted speedrun. Basically a program that executes inputs with speed and precision humans cannot replicate. No human has ever actually beaten it, so it's an illegitimate level.
So I never played SMM, but was the idea that one had to beat their own level in order to prove it was beatable before they could upload it? And so using a TAS for that initial upload is cheating because nobody else will be able to beat it?
Important point of clarification, the level isn't truly impossible, a TAS proves it's theoretically winnable. Bombs5 by the same author turns out to also have been TAS, but was beaten anyway.
The issue is that if the author themself couldn't do it humanly, then the community doesn't consider it legitimate. It's disqualified, the author even came out and said Team 0% should be declared victorious.
That said, several players are still grinding it anyway. They've come too far to stop now, consider it the optional postgame superboss so we can get the True Ending. And I really hope it happens.
To be clear, only levels the author has beaten should have been uploaded to Mario Maker. That's the rule that was in place. The level was uploaded but the author never beat it, breaking the rule. That's why it was rejected for project 0%.
His opinion here is him admitting that the level he is responsible for was illigetimate. The legitimacy of that level is something he actually has first hand knowledge over so why shouldn't is opinion hold weight?
He has acknowledged (finally) that he cheated and lied, so yeah he needed to say something, since he was responsible. And I guess he kinda half assed apologized (or made excuses or whatever he did).
But his opinion on whether they should be declared victorious or not shouldn't hold any weight.
Not only do they get to determine whether they have succeeded or not, but his blessing is more of an insult than anything since they would have declared themselves successful over a week ago and not had to waste hours of their lives trying to beat it and hunting for evidence that it was faked.
Okay I see your point that you are frustrated for the sake of the completionists because of what is ultimately this guys dishonesty, and you wish his opinion could be dismissed because you don't want the dishonest guys opinion to matter. That makes sense to me.
Evidently, tas had not been developed for smm until that point, and the creator did it intentionally to get caught and use that to announce the smm tas, but the level went pretty much unnoticed for years.
But if that was actually his intent, he could have uploaded it and admitted it right away, maybe even make a stream or video about it. But he waited until it was last for some reason. Waited maybe hoping someone would beat it and he wouldn't get caught? Waited until so, so many accusers attacked him first?
I never played the first, but was very into SMM2 for a while, and this is how I understand it:
A level would be made utilizing a strange bug to complete, and that bug is later patched out. So the level still exists online, but the updated version of the game (which is likely needed to access the online content, so using an older version isn't possible) cannot finish the level because the bug is absent. What's left is a level that can never be finished again, so if it wasn't' completed by someone before the patch, then it's unfinishable.
But if a TAS could complete it, then maybe this is a different issue.
Point of clarification. A TAS is any speedrun done with any tools. Even button turbo counts as a TAS. Most TAS videos/discussions are about the frame by frame input tools, though, because that is the ultimate and most entertaining form of TAS.