The story of Super Mario 64 speedrunning

In the beginning, there were 120 power stars... and a cake that Peach baked for Mario. She wrote him a letter telling him that there was said cake.

One day, at Peach's Castle, Bowser stole all 120 power stars and hid them in the castle's magical paintings. And suddenly, Princess Peach disappeared.

Mario arrives to the castle only to find out that Peach was gone! With his crazy ninja-like techniques and shenanigans, Mario springs into action again. In order to save the castle and Peach once again, Mario must travel across the magical paintings to find the power stars to restore the castle.

Many years of Super Mario 64 speedrunning has past, and Mario has kicked Bowser's ass and got tons of cake many times (I guess the SM64 story is like a loop every time one wants to speedrun the game). Tired of always having to go fetch at least 70 required power stars for Bowser every time (120 power stars if you like to do 100% runs), Mips one day told Mario that by using him to clip through the 30 star gate to Dire Dire Docks in the basement and along with Mario's trusty Long Jump Backwards glitch that could make him bypass the 50 star and 70 star doors, he could effectively beat the game within 16 power stars only. This was known to be the original Any% SM64 speedrun at the time.

It was later then discovered that Mario's Long Jump Backwards glitch was far more powerful than anybody expected, not only was it capable of bypassing through the aforementioned 50 star and 70 star gates but also the 8 star and 30 star gates, effectively shortening the any % requirement to only one power star because Dire Dire Docks still wants Mario to get at least a power star from the place.

And then, Mario can now beat the game without any power stars at all because he felt like Dire Dire Docks was unnecessary.