Speedruns of videogames

Since e-sports and gaming events are more and more common in our generation, I’d like to point out the “other side” of core gamers.
While most of you mainly know about the big gaming tournaments of counterstrike, league of legends/dota or fighting games, there are also the ones who fight against an invisible opponent, he’s not a human, nor a living thing in general. It’s the “TIME”. Speedruns yeah well, people who try to finish videogames as fast as possible.
Didn’t know of it yet? Well here we go~

I guess, even if you heard just a bit of it, what mostly should come into peoples mind are super mario speedruns. Since i’d say Super Mario 64 is “the” speedrun game. It’s maaaainly different from a casual playthrough, and if you see it the first time, its pretty intense. Also it’s one of the most successfull games i guess.
Atlest when it comes to speedrunning then.

Well yeah, there are games you already speedran without even knowing it yet. Thinking about Mario Kart? Racing Games? You always try to be the fastest one don’t you? And the more you played the game, the more you tried to improve your cornering and speed adjustments. Technically it is a speedrun. All you’d add now would be just a timer (a programm which shows the real time you need to reach a pre defined goal) to give the invisible opponent atleast a visualisation.
The two most famous categorys of the speedrun community are “any%” and “100%” (varying names depending on the game), meaning either
“Finish the game as fast as possible by using anything the game gives you -any%-”
and
“Finish everything (definition based) of the game as fast as possible -100%-”
Whatever you choose to do, its always “as fast as possible”. Thats the main intention of a speedrun.

Speedruns are divided into several other criteria, so they are not as easy to name as you may think, and always depend on what the “community” of the specific game decides it to be.

Popular distinctions are for example for multi plattform games, the console/pc/software you play it on.
It can be roughly divided into
“PC-Console-Emulator”
or more precise into for example
“PS1-PS2-GameCube-PC(SteamVersion)-PCRetailVersion-DolphinEmulator-NestopiaEmulator”
and so on~
Apart from that, you can also distinguish between regions. A good example might be “Mega Man 2” where the speedruns for any% glitchles (Using zipper glitches) and glitchless are divided between japanese “Rock Man” runs and NTSC/PAL “Mega Man” runs.

Especially for “japanese” versions the most common reason is because japanese versions text is “faster”, which basically means that there is not as much text displayed, so you get less or faster textboxes, which results in improvements and can result in big time improvements. Final Fantasy games (VII and VIII for example) are known for their long cutscenes and textboxes. Still speedruns exist and they vary between glitched 3hour runs for FF VII and usual 7-10 hour runs for FF VII-FFX for the category “any%”.
On such games faster textboxes can save you many minutes, up to even an hour or more. That’s why you sometimes see european or american runners, speedrunning japanese games, even without understanding a single kanji letter.

Apart from that, the whole game speed behaviour can vary between regions, plattforms played on, patch releases and versions of the game.
Many of the Playstation 1 games speed can be “manipulated” by just using a Playstation 2 console instead and turning on the “Disc Speed” option.
In general most runners tend to speedrun on the fastest but original console or pc, and only use emulators as a practice.

Especially for older console games, where the game itself can be 1) hard and expensive to get 2) easily damaged due to the many resets and playtime you spend on that game
people use manipulated cartridges/CDs for the games to still be able to play it on the original console by not having to buy a new game every 2 months.
For this purpose companys like “Everdrive” exist.
https://www.everdrive.de/de/102-sd2snes-flash-cart-flashcards-1.html
On such sites, you can buy cartridges and stuff. These cartridges contain a SD Slot where you can store all your retro games, and still play them on console.
[Short reminder that you need to own the real game aswell, piracy you know!]
Another tweak of these cartridges is, that you can create savestates and stuff on parts where its not usually possible, giving speedrunners the chance to practice particular parts of the game.

Plattforms where you can watch speedruns or get more informations are:

All Images should be Clickable! -^_^-

And the main streaming sites are:

You wont only see speedruns on twitch and hitbox, not even mainly, but they are there. I guarantee it!

Shoutouts to my favorite speedrunners:

Main Speedrunning Events during the year:
European Speedster Assembly:

Awesome Games Done Quick & Summer Games Done Quick:

All of these events collect donations for charity and give speedrunners a plattform to show their runs, live!
Also all of these events last around a whole week, so feel free to stay updated when the next event takes place! It’s always fun to watch.

Thanks for reading~

TheRealBarra

No i can't pause now!

Speedruns of videogames

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