After 280,000 attempts, the final level of Super Mario Maker turns out to be a fake, and now players can start celebrating a victory they already achieved a week ago

Super Mario Maker players have finally done it - they've beaten every single legitimate level uploaded to the original game before the servers shut down. The catch is that they already achieved victory last week, and they're only now able to celebrate the accomplishment after the creator of the last level standing came forward to reveal that it was a fake.

Up until today, the last level standing seemed to be Trimming the Herbs, an absurdly difficult stage that's just a few seconds long but requires near-inhuman precision to complete. Well, actually, it took more than "near" inhuman skills. Ahoyo, the original creator of the level, revealed today that it was uploaded with tool-assisted speedrun techniques that let him clear the stage and upload it without actually proving that a human could beat it. 

Some members of Team 0%, the group working to beat all the Super Mario Maker levels before servers shut down on April 8, already suspected that the level might have been uploaded through some illegitimate means. But prominent members of the group pretty quickly dismissed that idea, especially since the means to create a TAS for Wii U seemingly didn't exist.

Except, those tools actually did exist. "Someone had messaged me about a TAS they were working on for the Wii U," Ahoyo says in a message posted to the Team 0% Discord. "In a video they sent, it seemed to me like they had it working, but they told me they were abandoning the project. The TAS was replicated by my friend after two days of building." And thus, Trimming the Herbs was uploaded through this tool.

"I’m sorry for the drama it caused within the community, and I regret the ordeal, but at least it was interesting," Ahoyo says. "However in the end the truth matters most. Congratulations to Team 0% for their well-earned achievement! SMM is cleared, and The Last Dance was the last level!"

And, indeed, the community is celebrating last week's clear of The Last Dance by a player called Yamada as the ultimate victory over Super Mario Maker. It's a hell of an accomplishment, especially given how many stages were left at the start of the project and how close it all ultimately came to that final April 8 deadline.

But here's the thing: Trimming the Herbs wasn't the only TAS level that Ahoyo uploaded. The tool was also used to upload a stage called Bombs5 - a level which human players have managed to clear legitimately. Many players are now committed to continuing their attempts at Trimming the Herbs up until the very last moment. After all, what better bragging rights could there be than being the one to beat Super Mario Maker's impossible level?

The end is nigh – Animal Crossing and Mario Kart fans flock to the online modes of their favorite Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games as the service shutdown nears.