Speedrunning

[Moonface]

Speedrunning is a huge thing for games, and although none of us here do it I'm sure there's still plenty we can discuss about it!

What speed runs do you enjoy to watch? If you had the time to learn to speed run any game, what would it be? Share your answers and anything else about speedrunning here.

I don't watch a lot of speed runs, but normally any I do check out are for games I've played or know enough about to appreciate the run better. If I don't know the game, it's harder for me to appreciate the techniques being used because I don't know how the game normally is to tell how crazy things are getting. If I do check out a speed run of a game I don't know, it'll most likely be when it's one of those versus runs that features multiple people running at the same time, because those are always enjoyable even if it's just trying to complete something fast without any crazy techniques, like the Super Mario Maker versus runs that GDQ has sometimes.

[Dragon Lord]

I've pretty much fallen out of watching speedrunning. It was fun for a while, but it has become pretty stale and boring. Doesn't help that GDQ has turned into absolute garbage, so watching them is a pretty big no.

The only speedrunning channel I'll watch some times is RPG Limit Break when they have their Questing For Glory marathon (like GDQ but RPGs only). But even then I'll just pick and choose which runs I want to look into on YouTube, rather than watching the marathon live on Twitch.

Speedruns of randomizers are really the only thing interesting to me any more when it comes to speedrunning.

[Maniakkid25]

I don't watch much speedrunning, but I love the stories ABOUT speedrunning. New records broken, crazy records set, and just all sorts of insanity. I think one of my favorite stories is the new Twilight Princess strategy that takes, like, 24 hours to complete, and that was a new world record because it required collecting 1 less key item than the strategy before it. The category is called "low%", where the goal is explicitly to beat the game with as few items as possible. It's just as hilarious as it sounds.

[Mr EliteL]

Haven't watched much speedrunning, did more so I dunno in 2014 since that's when I remember watching SGDQ that had a Paper Mario TTYD speedrun and watched it all, not live but later on YouTube (I might've watched some live) by Almolicious. Knew of Trihex being a speedrunner of Yoshi's Island which may have the first thing I watched on speedrunning by don't know when that was. He was also on the couch during the PMTTYD SGDQ which made watching that more fun. Discovering for the first time you can have Flavio "join" your adventure for the rest of the game was the icing on the cake. Did tune in to some GDQ events but I don't recall any. Have watched part of a Super Mario 64 speedrun, also the Twilight Princess speedrun Maniak posted above some time ago too. That one is really funny.

If I were to speedrun, PMTTYD or Dragon's Dogma would the game(s) I'd do but, don't think I ever will just don't want to. The closest I've come to do a speedrun is for Touhou Double Focus for the trophy, which I haven't achieved yet although that's not abusing glitches or tricks or what have you that are typically found in true speedruns.

[ShiraNoMai]

Think I caught onto speedrunning from seeing a topic here on the forum once about it, or at least about GDQ. Something like that. Been watching since then (2013? Think I saw SGDQ 2013 first), and really got into Yoshi's Island speedruns particularly from seeing Trihex's runs.

It actually got me into trying speedrunning myself. I began learning the Yoshi's Island Warpless route in about 2016-2017? I spent at least a good 20+ hours learning the first two levels, getting a feel for the route, etc. Got stuck on item jumping in 1-2 and encountered a wall that I couldn't overcome in the end, due to not wanting to dedicate that much time to a trick.

Speedrunning, unfortunately, really requires a LOT of time to be put into practice, and as time goes on in my life, ain't got none of that anymore, sadly. But it's definitely a highly respectable art and I love witnessing the birth, the growth and the WRs for speedruns. They're really fascinating and it's a really cool process.

[Moonface]

I don't watch much speedrunning, but I love the stories ABOUT speedrunning. New records broken, crazy records set, and just all sorts of insanity.

Have you ever seen the story about Super Mario Bros. and the lengths people have gone to to attain the best possible time achievable by humans? It's an incredibly interesting watch:

[Maniakkid25]

I LOVE Summoning Salt! He's such a great storyteller! But yeah, if all the individual levels are added together, there is only 1 FRAME LEFT in Super Mario Bros. to save! It's absolutely insane!

[Moonface]

What other videos of theirs would you recommend @Maniakkid25? That's the only one I've watched by them so far.

[Maniakkid25]

The Quest to Beat Matt Turk is excellent, along with his two videos on Mario Kart Wii's Ultra Shortcuts, Choco Mountain, and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. That last one is especially hilarious, because literally a couple HOURS after the video was published, the World Record got beaten.

[Moonface]

Right now GDQ is showcasing a run where someone is doing a 70 Star run in Super Mario 64 entirely blindfolded! I haven't been watching it intently the entire time, but for when I have paid attention it's insane watching someone do this and do it as quickly as they can.

Are there any crazy speed runs or speed run categories that anyone else knows about? I've never heard of a blindfolded run with that amount of game being played before.

[Maniakkid25]

I knew about Blindfolded runs before; the most popular games are SM64 and OoT, so of course those have blindfolded runs. Mike Tyson's Punch Out also has blindfolded runs, but I really think if you want to see insane speed runs, watch an any% speedrun on a game that's been HIGHLY optimized. Super Mario Bros. is highly optimized, but it's not very interesting to watch unless you already know the mechanics they are abusing to get those runs. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark are also highly optimized, but you have no idea what's going on because of the base strategy: look down. No, seriously, by staring at the ground, you will get faster times because you reduce the amount of lag in the game. Not as many objects to load in, you understand. Ocarina of Time's Any% is completely busted to hell thanks to the new Credits Warp that was found not to long ago, as well, much like Super Mario World and SMB3 was years before, but it's another one of those "this is only impressive if you actually knowing what's going on under the hood". I'm not talking about those.

Mario Kart 64: Choco Mountain's Fastest lap (or FLap) is under 3 SECONDS because of an insane trick called the Weathertenko, where you clip into a wall and fall back down it in a precise way to trick the game into thinking you're WAY further down the track than you are.

Half-Life 2: Once, there was a speedrun known as "Half-Life 2 Done Quick", which beat the game in 1 hour, 36 minutes, and 57 seconds. This was a "segmented" speedrun, which means it wasn't accomplished in one go, but split apart into multiple pieces that were combined together to make a speed run. The current world record for the game is nearly half that time in ONE GO!

Mario Kart Wii: In a lot of ways, almost all the Mario Kart games have something broken about them, and Mario Kart Wii is so hilariously busted it's amazing. Bouncing off out of bounds areas, wall riding, and other madness make up the "Ultra Shortcuts" that are just ridiculous to watch. It's insane.

Super Metroid: Not really any fancy wall-clips or stuff like that. Just straight up speed-demoning the entire damn game. It's actually damn impressive to watch.

Super Mario 64: I kind of have to mention this one. Despite the fact that you're supposed to only be able to beat the game when you have at least 70 stars, you can actually beat the game with NONE of them. The Current record for it is 6 minutes, 31.52 seconds. And even when you DON'T know what they are doing, the runs look absolutely cheated, it's hilarious.

[Mr EliteL]

I have to check out a or the best Super Metroid speed run like Maniak mentioned, don't think I've watched a run like that before, or don't remember seeing any.

[ShiraNoMai]

Super Metroid is one of the classics. It's where the "Save/Kill The Animals" donation incentive from GDQ comes from (where you can have the runner for Super Metroid opt to do the fastest option (kill) or the humane option (save) at the end of the run, where Samus escapes the facility and passes a caged box of animals). I think I followed OatsNGoats (popular runner of this game) after watching one of his runs once.

The SM64 runs are also dope, but that blindfolded run was something else. I would expect it to be one of the shorter categories (0-star, 1-star, etc) but for it to be 70-stars is insanity to me. That level of memorization is crazy.

[Maniakkid25]

After recently watching an in-depth video explaining one, I've suddenly realized this topic would be incomplete without the mention of the other side of the speedrun: the Tool-Assisted Speedrun, or TAS.

So, for those that don't know the lingo, a Tool-Assisted Speedrun is a speedrun done by a computer. Rather than a player actually play the game, a talented programmer using external "tools" manipulates the game to create a theoretical speedrun. Things like programming inputs frame by frame, save states, and RNG manipulation. While there have been bad actors who have tried to pass off TASes as authentic, TASers in general are met with well-regard in the community, often being seen as the "scientists" of speedrunning, helping to develop new strategies or just making crazy stuff happen that no one thought of.

But there are three kinds of TASes: those that showcase the theoretical human limits as they are known, those that break new ground and show what could eventually be done, and then there's what I like to call "TAS shenanigans". These are just showcases of how far someone could break the game, often using abilities that are inpossible for a human to replicate. Things like 30 hits/second button presses, pressing impossible button combos, or tricks that are way outside of human precision to replicate. Repeated frame- and pixel-perfect maneuvers, movement so precise that literal SECONDS of a degree mean it won't work, crap like that. It's actually hilarious to see some of these, just because of tge nonsense that these characters get up to.

[ShiraNoMai]

TAS can be boring or entertaining as all hell, especially like the last ones you mentioned.

I think one of my favorite vanilla-type TAS runs are the Tetris Grandmaster TAS runs. Just feels like your eyeballs are melting out of your head trying to keep up with the piece movements

The TAS run at this past GDQ was something I didn't consider ever having a TAS made for it: Sonic Heroes. It was crazy to see what they could come up with to make it all possible and some of the tricks they use to abuse were pretty amusing