Minecraft Punch-Out!! Homage Will Blow Your Mind

I’ve got something to show you, but you should probably be sitting down first.

Alright, before I get to the mind-blowing part, I want you all to watch the clip embedded at right. Go ahead. I’ll go make a sandwich in the mean time.

Okay, done? That was a cute lil’ clip from Nintendo’s classic Punch-Out!!, right? Well, yes and no. It was a cute lil’ clip from that classic game, but it wasn’t taken within the NES classic. That video was created by Minecraft players manipulating blocks within the game one at a time to essentially mimic the process Nintendo’s console used every time it had to draw a new screen during play. Every single frame of that video was hand-crafted in what is possibly the most mind-numbingly meticulous way imaginable.

Given the clip’s two-minute-plus runtime that is a frankly insane amount of precise block manipulation.

Now that you know the trick behind the clip, you may also be interested in the below video documenting the process behind animating something like this within the Minecraft engine.

So, readers, I toss it to you: Obviously the end result here is pretty neat, but the amount of work that goes into it is truly insane. Do these Minecraft players have far too much free time that could be better used working toward a cure for cancer? Or is this exactly as important as saving the lives of millions of people annually?