Speedruns

I beat all the time requirements in both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 (with A ranks), many years ago. I don't usually do any speed runs unless it is part of the game.

 

I know it's a tool-assisted speedrun, but with the help of emulator slowdown and savestates, I managed to complete all of Sonic Boom in just under five and a half minutes. I am nowhere near as good in realtime however.

 

I tried doing a speed run, but..MAN I GOT BORED.

 

I do speedruns when it's part of the game itself to unlock stuff, like artwork or something like that.

But usually I play at my own pace.

 

I personally don't get tool assisted speedruns. You should try to get the fastest time you can without cheating (playing in slow motion? Really?) and editing together tons of save state recordings. From where I'm sitting real skill comes from being able to kick some serious ass on a game's original platform. I hate those S3&K speedruns where people force themselves inside a wall and skip an entire level (lookin' at you Sandopolis 2, be a man and face the ghosts and rising sand yourself). If I wanted to cheapen the experience that much I'd just use Debug mode, but then you might as well not be playing the game at all.

Speedrun the entirety of Sonic 3 & Knuckles in one sitting with one life. You might manage to impress me then. Might.

 

What's not to get? They're made for entertainment- some people enjoy watching a game being ripped to shreds through unfailing, unrealistic efficiency. They're certainly a spectacle, especially for people who aren't familiar with the techniques.

 

I'm very much with this, but don't get me wrong here. I can enjoy a TAS, but for-real speedrunning is where it's at. It's a crying shame the the rereleases of retro games (such as the Sonics) don't cater for this sort of hardcore metagaming with I don't know, leaderboards at the very least? I know I've personally (and with friends) been into the whole time-trial deal since Sonic CD came out, and can now personally beat the original Sonic in just short of 25 minutes. Completely unassisted.

I love to speedrun other games for my own enjoyment, too. Nailing an almost inhuman-looking run on the first part of Rocket Knight Adventures' third stage (with the rising and falling lava) and having a friend who also loves the game behind me watch and curse loudly in sheer disbelief... shit's awesome, dude.

Fuck achievements/trophies telling me what sort of gamer I am, I kick it oldschool with this shit.

 

I once got 19th place in the world rankings for Shrouded Forest's Rampage in Sonic and the Black Knight, does that count?

I tried to speedrun Final Egg in SADX to fix File:SADX Capsule.jpg. It didn't quite work out. Er, the speedrunning. The image is fine.

 

I find both TASes and regular speedruns entertaining, but for different reasons.

As mentioned before, normal speedruns are all about human skill and reflexes, and generally seeing what's humanly possible.

A TAS is about finding the maximum possible efficiency at which to achieve a goal (like fastest time), while pushing the game engine to its limits. The skill here is finding out how the engine ticks and how to exploit how it works. It may be done using slowdown and savestates, but it's actually not as easy as it sounds. I guess you can look at a TAS as more of a technical achievement rather than someone just playing a game.

That said, I don't see why you can only like one or the other. Really, they're two different things with similar names.

 

Back in 6th grade or so, I used to be able to speedrun through Sonic 2 in about 40-50 minutes (by playing it almost everyday).

Not anymore, though.

 

Basically this. In order to get through a game as fast as possible, usually some form of glitch-exploiting is required. Generally this makes the game difficult to follow from a gameplay perspective but instead we get a video of the entire game played out sequentially in a manner similar to the S3K glitches series, which people at least seem to like.

EDIT: And I'm pretty sure I can do Azure Lake in under 19 seconds. Hells yes.

 

I find speedruns fascinating to watch, so long as it looks like the person is actually playing the game. Take the Sonic 1 video posted on the first page. Green Hill Act 1 and 3, all of Spring Yard, Labyrinth Act 1 and 3, all of Star Light... They're astounding. They seem to be taking the game to its limits, and I was shaking my head in astonishment at what they could do.

Then the levels like Marble Zone which just rely on finding a spot that shoots you through the zone behind the scenes... It's... Boring. It's not even pretending to be playing the game. It's just finding a spot which glitches.

 

I'm the same boat as those who don't really care for tool assisted speedruns. Sure some of them are kind of neat the way they exploit glitches, but for the most part I don't enjoy them. I prefer real speedruns either in a emulator without savestates or on real hardware.

 

I don't do TASs, but I beat Sonic 2 in a little under 30 minutes.

 

I like both speedruns and TASs - both end up pushing something to the limits, they just push different things. A non-assisted speedrun pushes the human player to the limits, and a tool-assisted speedrun pushes the game engine to the limits. Different audiences, I suppose.

I suppose a TAS is less like showing off mad skills and more like moving art - somewhat abstract and not to everybody's taste.

I do, however, fully support good-old-fashioned displays of awesomeness.

 

I used to speedrun Sonic R back a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I don't have Gems Collection ready at the moment so I can't go back and check for sure, but I can finish Resort Island in under a minute (approx. 15-20 seconds/lap), and I held the top spot on many leaderboards throughout the net. I quit after I got to the point of where my times couldn't possibly get any lower (without cheating), but I do pop in the Saturn version every now and again for a nostalgia rush.

 

TASes also push the autor's patience to the limits.

By the way, this topic could be moved to general gaming so we could discuss the matter more openly :v:
Metroid Prime/Super Metroid Speedruns are freaking amazing. Both assisted and unassisted. I managed to get early Space Jump twice on MP =D

 

I don't speed-"run" so much as speed-"demolish". At least not when I see an opening for the latter.

A particularly flagrant example? Let's see...how about Aquatic Mine to the lost Chao in six and a half seconds--a time that beats even the much-less-interesting emerald piece mission. Or maybe Eternal Engine played out the way you might expect an open space venture to play out in real life, at least if real life involved talking foxes who build robotic suits that shoot lasers and allow their inhabitants to breathe in space. Oh, never mind.

It can be quite patience-testing like a TAS, too. This one took several thousand tries before I got something I was satisfied with, and even then there's a bit of room for improvement at the very end.

 

Whoa, those are great.

 

Hey look, a Guinness world record.

The enemy placement seemed to have been prepared for this route, already.