Speed Run: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|"[[
{{quote|"I beat Super [[Metroid]] in under an hour and it was [[Worth It]]."|[[Retsupurae|Diabetus]], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}iiZxFYNtyh8 Super Metroid INCREDIBLE FUN]}}
A playthrough of a game with the intent of completing it as fast as possible for the purposes of entertainment and competition.
There are two types of speedruns: "regular" and "tool-assisted".
* '''Regular''' aka '''Realtime''' - Consists of a player sitting down with an actual copy of the game and playing it normally, using only whatever features are available on the original hardware.
** Some regular runs are '''Segmented'''. Each segment consists of a level or group of levels. Instead of playing the entire game in one sitting, the player is tasked to get the best time possible for each segment, retrying each segment as much as desired.
* '''Tool-assisted''' - Use [[Emulation]] to play the game frame-by-frame to create the optimal time possible, often exploiting glitches and manipulating random events along the way.
In both versions, [[Sequence Breaking]], route planning, and tight play are the key.
There are also three subcategories: [[
Speedruns are usually created as an attempt to show off one's skills, while still providing an entertaining video. (Most speedrun compilation sites have a requirement that the run must be reasonably entertaining, and under a certain length [usually
Some series that are popular for speedrunning are ''[[Quake]]'' (the series which arguably started competitive speedrunning), ''[[Doom]]'', ''[[Metroid]]'', ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'', ''[[
One of the most popular "regular" speedrun archive sites is [http://www.speeddemosarchive.com Speed Demos Archive]. For tool-assisted, technically perfect runs, try [http://tasvideos.org/ TAS Videos]. For speedruns and speedrun races performed live for your viewing pleasure, head over to [http://www.speedrunslive.com SpeedRunsLive].
▲=== Tropes associated with speed runs: ===
* [[Anticlimax Boss]]: Most bosses turn into this.
* [[Dungeon Bypass]]
* [[Good Bad Bugs]]
* [[Luck Manipulation Mechanic]]: Speedrunners find everything they can, intentional or not
* [[Mental Time Travel]] (for TAS players)
* [[Sequence Breaking]]
* [[Took a Level
{{examples|Examples (all links external):}}
* [http://www.archive.org/details/smb3dq This run] of ''[[Super Mario Bros.]] 3'' is one of the most famous tool-assisted speedruns of all time. When it first started making the rounds it was not initially advertised as being tool-assisted, which led many gamers to decry it as "fake". It has since been [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKvaWShi-oI obsoleted] by more than 35 seconds, but is still a good example of its type.▼
▲* [http://www.archive.org/details/smb3dq This run] of ''[[Super Mario Bros]] 3'' is one of the most famous tool-assisted speedruns of all time. When it first started making the rounds it was not initially advertised as being tool-assisted, which led many gamers to decry it as "fake". It has since been [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKvaWShi-oI obsoleted] by more than 35 seconds, but is still a good example of its type.
** Speaking of SMB 3, it's not only possible, but very easy for a moderately skilled player to finish the game in approximately twenty minutes if they know what they're doing. It requires the player to beat the first three levels of the game, the first mini-castle, and six more levels (in World 8). Not dying helps, but twenty minutes is if you ''take your time.''
** Then there's the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x9Pwy8C_6s quad-run TAS] of all four [[Super Mario Bros.]] NES games (original, [[Super Mario Bros the Lost Levels
* [http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/demos/NR/all_1950.dz The nightmare difficulty] for ''[[Quake (
** Even better, a run a few years back smashing that to pieces with a Nightmare run in [
** That version too has been updated to 11:30, but it hasn't been published yet (except in raw demo form). [http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/projects/qdqwavp2/ http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/projects/qdqwavp2/]
* ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' [[
** The above is just one product of the very active ''[[Metroid]]'' speedrunning community. Among other things, every 2D game has now been beaten in less than an hour (''Metroid II: Return of Samus'' was the last to fall). Here are a couple of the all-time classic runs:
** Red Scarlet's 100% ''Super Metroid'' run in fifty-five minutes, a work of art that stood proudly on Speed Demos Archive for seven years, has been replaced by [http://speeddemosarchive.com/SuperMetroid.html#100PAL Christopher Hill's time of forty-eight minutes].
** Biospark's 1% ''Metroid Fusion'' run in [https://web.archive.org/web/20080724093434/http://speeddemosarchive.com/fusion.html#SS1 49 minutes] with no saves. In 1% conditions, one hit is fatal for most of the game; doing this in a ''single-segment'' run is mind-bogglingly hard.
* [http://www.archive.org/details/Halo2SingleSegment A no-death world record run] of ''[[Halo]] 2''. Published in the Guiness Book of World Records.
* In ''[[Marathon
* [http://www.archive.org/details/Mario64_SS_10132 70 stars and a defeated Bowser in just over one hour] in ''[[
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqFFAdO4VRA Here's a run with 16 stars!]
*** The description of the [http://tasvideos.org/2016M.html tool-assisted run] which collects exactly zero stars covers the history quite succinctly:
{{quote|
*** Someone has managed to pull off [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8I7mYVpCvY 0 stars unassisted].
** But [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBr1OmRgFFE collecting 120 stars] using tool assistance has produced some very interesting results and glitches. All that under 100 minutes.
* A rare example of an RPG speedrun that actually deserves the word "speed": ''[[
* The vast RPG ''[[Morrowind]]'' got [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88zViKk7l3I thrashed in seven minutes] thanks to ingenious (ab)use of the game's fast-travel powers.
** There's also [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_fFApDyki4 this speedrun,] utterly demolishing the previous video's time in 4 minutes and 19 seconds.
* ''[[
* This has understandably become almost a sport in the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series, with the record time for the entirety of ''Sonic the Hedgehog 2'' being 18 minutes and 12 seconds, and ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'' being almost completely broken by tool-assisted speedruns.
** Especially interesting for the first ''[[
** Sonic 1 on the Genesis/Mega Drive can be beaten in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qCxlls4uqY less than 21 minutes], real time. Green Hill Zone Act 3 in particular is pretty funny. The huge time bonus for clearing an act in less than 30 seconds is a factor; for a couple acts it's faster to avoid it.
* In ''[[
** ''[[
* It's possible (if you know the solution to the final two puzzles) to skip just about everything in ''[[Myst]]''. You can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIRtutbSwak start a new game and be watching the ending] in under a minute. Naturally this kills most of the replay value to the game, which is why the game is the only one in the Myst series to get an [[Updated Rerelease]] which adds some new stuff (but it doesn't change the way to get to the ending, unfortunately). Later games in the series actually required you to do the whole game.
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: Vice City'' was dominated in a single sitting of [http://speeddemosarchive.com/GrandTheftAutoVC.html just under two hours], skipping almost half of what would normally be considered obligatory story missions and sidequests.
** The same guy has also done ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: San Andreas'' in [http://speeddemosarchive.com/GrandTheftAutoSA.html six hours nine minutes]. Though that wasn't in a single sitting.
* Speedrunning is prominent in ''Zelda'' games as well. Fastest 100% speedrun of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
** 3 (out of 4) runners completed the game [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC1pu9OKXR0 LIVE in around 75 minutes]. The 4th failed on the last form of the final boss.
** The fastest MST time is [http://www.twitch.tv/cosmowright/b/304071259 2:31:45 by Cosmo], MST stands for "Medallions, Stones, Trials", which means beating all dungeons.
** The tool-assisted run is even crazier. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5THTOYdbtDY 19 minutes 46 seconds].
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
* Using a save file from ''Saga Frontier II'', it's possible to get an extra weapon in ''[[Legend of Mana]]'' and break the rest of the battles wide open. This weapon can allow you to beat the [http://speeddemosarchive.com/LegendOfMana.html#SSDragon final boss in 8 seconds.]
* A popular activity among Rubik's Cube fans is "speedcubing," or solving the cube as fast as possible. The world record for a 3x3x3 cube stands at 6.24 seconds.
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** There is also a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8h6ilJ9dso tool-assisted run] of Rubik's World for the Nintendo DS that beats the world records for 2x2x2, 3x3x3, and 4x4x4 cubes.
* Sport stacking is a similar activity, in which you stack cups into a specified stack as fast as possible.
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'''s [[New Game
** Hardcore speedruns remove the advantages of items and donations, but still require permed skills from many Hardcore ascensions, as well as tighter planning. Luck doesn't hurt, either.
*** They only remove the advantage from donation equipment, you still need the familiars and skills just as much if not even more so.
** [[Harder Than Hard|Bad Moon]] speedruns do put everybody on a pretty equal footing, by temporarily stripping you of those familiars and skills. There's a guide out there for reliably doing one in
* ''[[Half-Life]]'' in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTUOn2EUFhk Half an Hour] uses the "exploiting glitches" method, and also uses such tricks as trapping a scientist in a door to stop it from closing all the way and using grenades to power jumps.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzPSa5jbQHw This Half-Life 2 speedrun] is notable in that... well, just read the comments. It exploits glitches just like Half an Hour, including bonking people with objects to make them teleport, and jumping off items you drop and grab below you to fly. Probably the best part is flying over the entire Ravenholm minus the mine area in 30 seconds, never seeing Father Grigori. A similarly wacko bit is the "Water Hazard" chapter; Gordon ditches the speedboat halfway through and glitches his way through a few miles of radioactive goo just so he won't have to wait for NPCs to attach a gun to the boat, and when the climactic battle against the chopper begins, [[Anticlimax|he leaps over a dam and runs away to the next area.]]
* ''[[Castlevania]]'' games have generally been very good for speedruns that go ridiculously faster than an average playthrough, but even the series' general high level of breakage in runs was dashed to pieces with [http://tasvideos.org/2996S.html this] TAS run beating [[Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance|Harmony of Dissonance]] in under 23 seconds.
** [http://tasvideos.org/1759M.html This] ''[[Castlevania Aria of Sorrow|Aria of Sorrow]]'' run demonstrates the power of luck manipulation in tool-assisted speedrunning; by creating a speedrun frame-by-frame, it's possible to ensure that the [[Random Number God]] always gives you the correct number. As a result, this run completes the game while collecting ''all 120 of the souls''
* [http://speeddemosarchive.com/GhostsnGoblins.html Here's] both loops of the notorious [[Nintendo Hard]] game ''Ghosts N' Goblins'' being completed in just under 23 minutes. And [http://speeddemosarchive.com/SuperGhoulsNGhosts.html here's] its Super Nintendo
* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' actually rewarded the player for doing a speedrun. Getting to a certain area in the final dungeon in less than 12 hours will net you an [[Infinity
* The ''[[Mega Man (
** There seems to be a small trend where people try to see how fast they can beat more than one game at the same time using the same controller. [http://tasvideos.org/380M.html Here's a TAS] that features a guy beating ''[[
*** The Mega Man X/X2 run has been obsoleted by [http://tasvideos.org/3277S.html this], a [[
** Time attacks on ''9'' are pretty impressive too [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JMneYgaUGg as seen here]. Due to weapon balancing, every weapon comes in handy even outside the boss fights, some of which are used more often and others less.
** ''Mega Man 10'' features time attack leaderboards and the ability to view the replays of any of the top ten times from any stage (or the whole game) from inside the game itself.
*** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAD8yp_qTL4 Now has its own TAS.] The first TAS for a current-generation console on TAS Videos, and it's for [[Retraux|a game designed to be a throwback to the NES.]]
* There's a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Szb6X5WqI&fmt=18 TAS] for NES ''[[
** Not as unusual as you might think. The goal in "Endless Mode" speedruns is usually to get the score to max out or "roll over".
** Many modes of the ''[[Tetris the Grand Master]]'' series, on the otherhand, ''encourage'' speedrunning. Top-notch runs include [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQRTFAwx0gI this sub-9'00" run of TGM 1]<ref>to compare, the time requirement for GM rank is 13'30", and that's just one of the requirements</ref> and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjwaHrYRCUs a completion of TGM2+ 's Death mode in 5'08"].
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* On the topic of [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMO]]s, ''[[Warhammer Online]]'' often has fast respawn timers on [[Player Versus Environment]] enemies, good if there's competition for said monsters, but you'd better hurry up and grab/kill what you need before they're back if you're 1) alone and 2) squishy. A respawned monster can easily take out a [[Squishy Wizard|Bright Wizard or Sorcerer]] who's already in a fight.
* ''[[Eversion]]'' switches to a time attack mode after you clear all the worlds. Additionally, the game starts doing a self-parody of {{spoiler|the creepy messages that sometimes replace the "READY!" screen in worlds X-7 and X-8, with messages like "GO!", "HURRY UP", "GAME ON", and "READY! TO RACE"}}.
* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' has various [[Scrappy Level
** One runner took it upon himself to run the [[
* ''[[Punch
* The ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' franchise also attracts a variety of speedrunners. Some examples include:
** [http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D2FA49DFD3C6175D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL A no-save Big Boss emblem run] of ''Metal Gear Solid'' in 1:49:01
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** And there's even a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUQY6RHrtbs BIGBOSS tool-assisted speedrun of MGS1] in 1:31:49.
* ''[[Grand Chase]]'' features this as part of its series of [[Player Versus Environment]] quests. It's not that hard, as you're given 15 minutes to finish a dungeon.
* ''[[
* ''[[Spyro the Dragon|Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage/Gateway to Glimmer]]'' has an interesting double jump glitch. With that glitch, speed runners can complete the game with 0 orbs or 40 orbs and only pay Moneybags thrice.
* Unlocking one of the challenge rooms in ''[[Spelunky]]'' requires beating the game in 10 minutes or less. The game can be [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD7uokR9d2w beaten much faster than that], though that takes at least as much luck as skill.
* Reaching Scenario 28 in ''[[Super Robot Wars Compact]]'' under 250 turns unlocks Shin Getter Robo. Also, if you clear a scenario in less than 11 turns, you can give a skill to one of your pilots.
* Speaking of short tool-assisted speedruns, there's the entire ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue
** For a longer (but still pretty incoherent) run, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCdFN2ENAiM Pokémon Red has been TASed in 41 minutes.] Game? What game?
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97LoQdruEX8 This] tool-assisted ''[[
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRz1udVhc08 This] tool-assisted run skips even that, reaching the ending in ''three and a half minutes'' by abusing sub-frame resets to turn save corruption into a science.
* NASA's [http://store.steampowered.com/app/39000/ free game] ''[[Moonbase Alpha]]'' is pretty-much a whole little multiplayer game built around the concept. The team of players has 25 minutes to repair the damaged life support systems of the lunar colony.
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** The fastest speed run of all time (On SDA) is actually [http://speeddemosarchive.com/Clue.html Clue], coming in at a time of three seconds. By the time you finish reading this, you could have already watched the run in its entirety.
** The speedrun of the PC version is now the fastest, clocking in at ''[http://dl.speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?Clue_PC_001 a mere second!]''
* Some TAS runs of [[Game Boy]] titles get a bit ridiculous thanks to the ability to manipulate the game's memory ''directly'' to take the player right to the ending. Demonstrated to great effect in the current standing runs of Pokémon Yellow version ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yXTpnUCh5Q 1:09.63]) and ''[[Super Mario Land 2:
** It doesn't have to be on [[Game Boy]]. Case in point: ''[[Super Mario World (
* A 43-minute world record [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RkVkewooBU run] of the original ''[[
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBuwNfsUTUQ This speedrun] of [[Arcanum]] uses a lot of [[Sequence Breaking]]. It involves killing Stringy Pete, who is widely considered to be the most difficult fight in the game, within 4 minutes of starting the game.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Self-Imposed Challenge]]
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