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You have six months to become a professional speed runner -- what game do you pick? Why?
- Thread starter Border
- Start date
The difference between the top 10 players must be a frame or 2, your gonna have to pull some magic out that pipe.
I think i could be competitive in Super Ghouls n Ghosts on the SNES. I can beat the whole game easily, i would just have to memorize the best routes, and boss strats.
Having said that, a top 10 is not easy to crack.
Bah, from the thread title, I was hoping this would be a "just for fun, if you could do any game possible, which would you pick?" y'know, to see people's personalities and stuff, but number 3 ruins that, because yeah, I would be someone who would pick something obscure if I were to get into speedrunning because that's legitimately what I would have the most interest in running to begin with (and have the bonus of hopefully introducing people to some cool stuff they have no idea about because while they would be obscure games, they wouldn't be terrible ones).
Making it some serious "deal with the devil" type thing ruins the fun of this for me a bit, because yeah, some people would pick obscure games to run if that were their choice... but that's just fine if that's their interest of course, and others would pick popular stuff, and it would just be cool to see what type of stuff people would pick either way.
So if that restriction doesn't exist, just for example purposes, I'd probably pick something like one of the Detective Conan Game Boy games. Like either The Mechanical Temple Murder Case or Legend of the Treasure of Strange Rock Island (which I'm kinda surprised have entries on speedrun.com period; granted, they each only have one run, but I wasn't even expecting their to be a page for either of these games), probably the former. And part of the reason for that would yeah, they're very obscure games, especially in the US, and I feel those would be part of their appeal if I were to speedrun them due to simultaneously exposing people to overlooked games and giving a good tastes for my preferences and tastes in games at the same time.
But why those particular ones to accomplish that? Well, they're basically mystery/adventure games that just advance by talking to people and getting all the information, evidence, and testimony you need to put the pieces of the murder cases of the game together. So that is to say, no combat or anything like that. A speedrun of a game like that would pretty much purely be focused exclusively on efficient routing (as in, taking care of stuff in the fastest order possible), efficient movement in general (as in, getting good at moving Conan and the other characters in the games in general and not just doing stuff in the best order but also just wasting as few steps as possible to do it and avoiding bonking into walls/walking passed NPCs and evidence as you're trying to go as fast as possible), and stuff like that.
It would be pure execution of knowledge of the game and movement, and if I were to get into speedrunning, that's probably the type of thing that would appeal to me most personally. As that might not sound exciting to others, and that's fine because a.) I'd be the one watching it, not them, they'd just be watching :P and b.) it's just like the laser-focus on one particular skill that would really appeal to me in terms of speedrunning. Like, picking a game like say Ocarina of Time for instance, there's so many different things you have to get good at in a game like that, like not just movement tech and stuff but learn all the glitches and stuff you need in the any% route and even if you're doing a glitchless category, you still have to not only become a pro at movement but also become a pro at using all your items and stuff and make sure that like you have all the strats for killing the bosses ASAP down-pat, and stuff like that. Or perhaps a better example is something like Pokémon where again, movement is absolutely huge in Pokémon game speedruns, believe it or not. But so is ability the think on the fly and make very quick routing decisions when say an unexpected critical hit or miss happens (or alternatively, the AI on an enemy trainer decides to use a move it doesn't normally use or hits something it rarely does and you just have to make do with that situation and figure out what to do really quick as stuff like that can easily up quick in terms not only of the damage you're taking, but also PP management in your moves, money management in terms of necessary healing item use to deal with those situations and just making due with limited resources due to going as fast as possible and even Pokémon Center visits using a lot of time so if something unexpected happens things can get real messy fast and dealing with that in a speedrun setting is not easy at all and is not only something I'm not exactly good at but very likely wouldn't have much fun with), and you'd need to get extremely good at situations like that to move up the leaderboards on games like that as well.
And just for me personally, being able to give my all to one particular aspect of a game and just laser-focus on it is something that sounds like a much more enjoyable experience to see just how far I can push that one particular skill and how good at that particular type of skill I can get without anything else to distract me/split my attention. And mystery-adventure games/point-and-click adjacent-esque stuff like those Detective Conan games I mentioned would seem to be a great way of doing that while exposing people to some cool stuff that they probably don't know about (since they were never released in the US and with their age most people probably don't know about those particular games regardless, and yeah).
As for why Mechanical Temple Murder Case over Strange Rock Island? Well, mainly because the map of the game is smaller than Strange Rock Island and since I've never really done anything of the sort before, I'd want to start small and then work my way up. Also, playing them casually recently, my feeling was that Mechanical Temple Murder Case is just a shorter game in general, but looking at the times at speedrun.com, both are about the same time which is pretty interesting to me. But either way, with either of these games, another part of the appeal for either of them was definitely that they felt like they would be short and quick games to speedrun that wouldn't have taken more than a few hours at most, as there's no way I could do like 8+ hour speedruns. About 3 or 4 would definitely be my limit, and either of those games easily fall into that.
But in any case, playing more along with the thread's rules... I'm not really sure, honestly, because most of the really popular stuff isn't really something I'd ever have any interest in speedrunning myself and I'd pretty much be doomed. xD Like, the closet thing that occurs to me right now is something like Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak, which, according to speedrun.com only has 26 times, so it still doesn't really count under those rules, but... close enough hopefully?
But as for why Ham-Ham Heartbreak? Honestly, a lot of the same reasons as the Detective Conan games I mentioned: that because of the type of game it is, it would be more focused on movement than anything, and it's a very short game even casually if you know what you're doing, which both appeal to me for reasons I've mentioned already. Except unlike the Detective Conan games it's obviously nowhere near as obscure. But on the other hand, it's a completely adorable and super heartwarming game that I adore (and that more people should know about regardless), so that's more then fine.
Unfortunately, for exactly the reasons I like it (it being an adventure game where a speedrun would almost certainly exclusively be focused on stuff like routing and movement tech), even with the only 26 entries I seed on speedrun.com, while I haven't actually watched any of them, I'm going to go ahead and guess that the run is pretty well-refined and I'd be pretty much doomed if I were to try it. xD
But nonetheless, that's where, hypothetically speaking, my interest would be if I were to get into speedrunning in any capacity, so that's the type of stuff I would go with myself, probably.
(And also, I'm sure this is a much more detailed reply than you really expected from anyone. But this is a topic I've actually thought about a lot, not that I have any plans to do so because even if I had the opportunity I know'd I'd just keep using my time to do other things instead but it's just something I have fun thinking about sometimes all-the-same because I do watch a lot of Twitch and stuff, so it's just fun to get my thoughts I've been having for a bit anywhere actually out somewhere on paper, so to speak).
Making it some serious "deal with the devil" type thing ruins the fun of this for me a bit, because yeah, some people would pick obscure games to run if that were their choice... but that's just fine if that's their interest of course, and others would pick popular stuff, and it would just be cool to see what type of stuff people would pick either way.
So if that restriction doesn't exist, just for example purposes, I'd probably pick something like one of the Detective Conan Game Boy games. Like either The Mechanical Temple Murder Case or Legend of the Treasure of Strange Rock Island (which I'm kinda surprised have entries on speedrun.com period; granted, they each only have one run, but I wasn't even expecting their to be a page for either of these games), probably the former. And part of the reason for that would yeah, they're very obscure games, especially in the US, and I feel those would be part of their appeal if I were to speedrun them due to simultaneously exposing people to overlooked games and giving a good tastes for my preferences and tastes in games at the same time.
But why those particular ones to accomplish that? Well, they're basically mystery/adventure games that just advance by talking to people and getting all the information, evidence, and testimony you need to put the pieces of the murder cases of the game together. So that is to say, no combat or anything like that. A speedrun of a game like that would pretty much purely be focused exclusively on efficient routing (as in, taking care of stuff in the fastest order possible), efficient movement in general (as in, getting good at moving Conan and the other characters in the games in general and not just doing stuff in the best order but also just wasting as few steps as possible to do it and avoiding bonking into walls/walking passed NPCs and evidence as you're trying to go as fast as possible), and stuff like that.
It would be pure execution of knowledge of the game and movement, and if I were to get into speedrunning, that's probably the type of thing that would appeal to me most personally. As that might not sound exciting to others, and that's fine because a.) I'd be the one watching it, not them, they'd just be watching :P and b.) it's just like the laser-focus on one particular skill that would really appeal to me in terms of speedrunning. Like, picking a game like say Ocarina of Time for instance, there's so many different things you have to get good at in a game like that, like not just movement tech and stuff but learn all the glitches and stuff you need in the any% route and even if you're doing a glitchless category, you still have to not only become a pro at movement but also become a pro at using all your items and stuff and make sure that like you have all the strats for killing the bosses ASAP down-pat, and stuff like that. Or perhaps a better example is something like Pokémon where again, movement is absolutely huge in Pokémon game speedruns, believe it or not. But so is ability the think on the fly and make very quick routing decisions when say an unexpected critical hit or miss happens (or alternatively, the AI on an enemy trainer decides to use a move it doesn't normally use or hits something it rarely does and you just have to make do with that situation and figure out what to do really quick as stuff like that can easily up quick in terms not only of the damage you're taking, but also PP management in your moves, money management in terms of necessary healing item use to deal with those situations and just making due with limited resources due to going as fast as possible and even Pokémon Center visits using a lot of time so if something unexpected happens things can get real messy fast and dealing with that in a speedrun setting is not easy at all and is not only something I'm not exactly good at but very likely wouldn't have much fun with), and you'd need to get extremely good at situations like that to move up the leaderboards on games like that as well.
And just for me personally, being able to give my all to one particular aspect of a game and just laser-focus on it is something that sounds like a much more enjoyable experience to see just how far I can push that one particular skill and how good at that particular type of skill I can get without anything else to distract me/split my attention. And mystery-adventure games/point-and-click adjacent-esque stuff like those Detective Conan games I mentioned would seem to be a great way of doing that while exposing people to some cool stuff that they probably don't know about (since they were never released in the US and with their age most people probably don't know about those particular games regardless, and yeah).
As for why Mechanical Temple Murder Case over Strange Rock Island? Well, mainly because the map of the game is smaller than Strange Rock Island and since I've never really done anything of the sort before, I'd want to start small and then work my way up. Also, playing them casually recently, my feeling was that Mechanical Temple Murder Case is just a shorter game in general, but looking at the times at speedrun.com, both are about the same time which is pretty interesting to me. But either way, with either of these games, another part of the appeal for either of them was definitely that they felt like they would be short and quick games to speedrun that wouldn't have taken more than a few hours at most, as there's no way I could do like 8+ hour speedruns. About 3 or 4 would definitely be my limit, and either of those games easily fall into that.
But in any case, playing more along with the thread's rules... I'm not really sure, honestly, because most of the really popular stuff isn't really something I'd ever have any interest in speedrunning myself and I'd pretty much be doomed. xD Like, the closet thing that occurs to me right now is something like Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak, which, according to speedrun.com only has 26 times, so it still doesn't really count under those rules, but... close enough hopefully?
But as for why Ham-Ham Heartbreak? Honestly, a lot of the same reasons as the Detective Conan games I mentioned: that because of the type of game it is, it would be more focused on movement than anything, and it's a very short game even casually if you know what you're doing, which both appeal to me for reasons I've mentioned already. Except unlike the Detective Conan games it's obviously nowhere near as obscure. But on the other hand, it's a completely adorable and super heartwarming game that I adore (and that more people should know about regardless), so that's more then fine.
Unfortunately, for exactly the reasons I like it (it being an adventure game where a speedrun would almost certainly exclusively be focused on stuff like routing and movement tech), even with the only 26 entries I seed on speedrun.com, while I haven't actually watched any of them, I'm going to go ahead and guess that the run is pretty well-refined and I'd be pretty much doomed if I were to try it. xD
But nonetheless, that's where, hypothetically speaking, my interest would be if I were to get into speedrunning in any capacity, so that's the type of stuff I would go with myself, probably.
(And also, I'm sure this is a much more detailed reply than you really expected from anyone. But this is a topic I've actually thought about a lot, not that I have any plans to do so because even if I had the opportunity I know'd I'd just keep using my time to do other things instead but it's just something I have fun thinking about sometimes all-the-same because I do watch a lot of Twitch and stuff, so it's just fun to get my thoughts I've been having for a bit anywhere actually out somewhere on paper, so to speak).
You really don't want to do this. Check some Werster videos on Youtube and you'll understand why. Shit's hilarious.
One of my favorites:
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Does the original Crash Team Racing have an active speedrunning community? Do racing games even qualify for 'speedruns'? Aside from that I can't really think of any other games which I'm really good at, and even then I think I would need a lot of practice to re-familiarise myself with the track layouts and optimal driving lines, etc.
Yeah, like I'm not really familiar with Gold and Silver and haven't watched anything involving them in a hot minute. But for Pokémon Crystal, I do watch Keizaron a lot and he has run the glitchless any% category of Crystal and well, with a category name like "glitchless" one might think there's nothing too fancy in such a run, right? Wrong. Even glitchless requires all kinds of fancy RNG movement manipulations which require like resetting the game multiple games and starting it on a particular frame to manipulate the ID of Kenya (the Spearow you're given near National Park) so that it's the winning number of the Radio Contest so that you get the Master Ball so you can use it to catch the Raikou. And on top of that you're also doing very particular RNG manipulation to get a very good Totodile at the beginning of the game while also trying to do a manip to keep encounters to a minimum which requires very precise movement. And then on top of all that, you're also doing a manip to try to ensure that the roamer Raikou will show up just outside Ecruteak ASAP, and it's all pretty crazy how much goes into a run like that.
Once you get the Raikou, things are pretty straightforward from there for the most part. But actually just getting there in a Crystal run is pretty nuts due to all the manips they do and how crazy precise a lot of that stuff is and how high the costs for mistakes can be until then.
His marathon runs tend to be a proper showcase of the kind of stuff that can go wrong for a run like that.
At the Pokemon Speedrun Marathon this summer for example he also ran Crystal but got really bad luck on Rival 3(in Burnt Tower). Due to this time loss the manipulation to get the Raikou no longer worked and the run was dead. A back-up save had to be used to continue the run for the event.
Gold doesn't have to worry about this particular aspect though, as Feraligatr is used throughout the whole game. Though that does make Red more RNG heavy at the end of the run.
I'm not sure if they count for the purpose of this thread, but I'd personally count them myself. Things can get pretty crazy in racing game speedruns, especially in terms of IL (individual level) speedruns, which should also certainly count IMO because of how much work go into those and how crazy they can get and how competitive they are and how much you're in for if you're going that route.
Like, I know nothing about CTR personally, but Mario Kart, well... These videos should illustrate what I'm talking about when it comes to ILs getting crazy sometimes in these games:
Zork.
I type fast.
In a more serious answer, I'm curious if there's a speedrunning community around Katamari Damacy; given the nature of the game I assume it'd be one structured inherently around per-level times rather than playing start-to-finish, which means there's multiple individual tables I could compete in; there's a lot of scope for learning and optimisation... and finally, it's a game I'm pretty good at.
I type fast.
In a more serious answer, I'm curious if there's a speedrunning community around Katamari Damacy; given the nature of the game I assume it'd be one structured inherently around per-level times rather than playing start-to-finish, which means there's multiple individual tables I could compete in; there's a lot of scope for learning and optimisation... and finally, it's a game I'm pretty good at.
Enter the Matrix. As a kid, I had a lot of fun running through the levels as fast as possible. Could be fun to speedrun for real.
based on the meme speed runs I've seen in iateyourpie's twitch channel, I feel there is enough scarcity in SMRPG low level (for masochists), paper Mario 5 golden piggies (complete randomness) or mini game island (last resort because I would probably suck at it ) to be able to get and keep a
Record in the top 10.
I would choose SMRPG low level because it's my favorite game and it's very VERY RNG heavy, and there's not many runners (it's done once in a while and no one does it with any sort of consistency.
EDIT: yup, 6 runners, times from 8 hours to 17 hours, and the 8 hour one is basically a god run for Certain rng
https://www.speedrun.com/smrpg/full_game#Low_Level
Record in the top 10.
I would choose SMRPG low level because it's my favorite game and it's very VERY RNG heavy, and there's not many runners (it's done once in a while and no one does it with any sort of consistency.
EDIT: yup, 6 runners, times from 8 hours to 17 hours, and the 8 hour one is basically a god run for Certain rng
https://www.speedrun.com/smrpg/full_game#Low_Level
Spelunky
1. I have beaten the game, I play daily challenges, but I still have only scratched the surface regarding things to discover.
2. It's a game where it's actually fun to retry over and over.
3. Even experienced speedrunners are still discovering things, and new goals to base their playthroughs on.
1. I have beaten the game, I play daily challenges, but I still have only scratched the surface regarding things to discover.
2. It's a game where it's actually fun to retry over and over.
3. Even experienced speedrunners are still discovering things, and new goals to base their playthroughs on.
Mega Man X any% no glitch. I could probably get in the top 100 right now (just looking at speedrun.com records), if I had Joker's generous PTO package it would be no sweat.
I go with Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled.
I already nearly managed to get top 10 on Blizzard Bluff on Switch (though I'm way down the list now that more people have been gunning for the record). And there aren't too many people running the entire story mode, so despite being a popular speed running game I actually stand a decent chance of having a record stand.
I already nearly managed to get top 10 on Blizzard Bluff on Switch (though I'm way down the list now that more people have been gunning for the record). And there aren't too many people running the entire story mode, so despite being a popular speed running game I actually stand a decent chance of having a record stand.
Mass Effect 1. It's a game I like, have already beaten several times and even speed ran (in a totally casual way). And it's probably not so optimized that it would be impossible to break onto the leaderboard.
Halo 2. I've played the campaign many many times so it would probably make speed running it easier for me than any other games.
Ask this guy:
www.resetera.com
How do I become fast soon?
A couple of days ago, some guys at work were talking about their athletic skills. Well, they do not look very athletic to me (in fact they have a few extra pounds), but apparently one of them runs very fast. They have raced on the parking lot before and he always wins (never saw them race...
www.resetera.com
Given your rules and restrictions, I would just accept either my death or the death of a random loved one
Is there a good way to determine this because for me it would probably be either some king's quest game's 100% category or Knuckles' Chaotix
Probably Stardew Valley. Ive gotten better and better at advancing my farm and town development after about 6 different farms. As long as filling the museum is not part of it. I'm only missing one item on my oldest save and keep getting repeats of everything else.
Right now, my last playthrough of The Last Of Us on Grounded+ is still pretty fresh in my memory (a few weeks ago) and it seemed like there were enough patterns one could rely on throughout the game that I could reasonably learn to speedrun it relatively easily. A few glitches here and there, but they probably wouldn't break the learning process in the long run if I was playing it over and over. So yeah, maybe that one. And possibly the Remaster, since DS4s are still available in shops and so I wouldn't have to worry about having a reliable controller around.
The game I'm best at is probably Pac-Man:CE but you can't really speed-run it. I did have the #1 spot on one of the leaderboards back when it was new, so I imagine if I had 6-months where I was spending most of the day playing it, it wouldn't be too hard for me to get a Top 10 spot now.
Not counting my own two main games (which aren't really being done for speedruns), I'd say Celeste. I'm already extremely good at the game (193 strawberries), and with some practice and research on advanced movement techniques I'm pretty sure I could climb the echelons.