Games That Were Beaten Incredibly Fast
Who doesn't love tearing through a good video game and beating it within a few days or so? But while reaching the credits of a game is all well and good, there are some who take the gaming experience further and play games on a totally different level, aiming to complete them as fast as they can. These gamers are called "speedrunners" and they work hard to find glitches and other tricks that will help them blaze through a game in record time. Here are some of the fastest completion times for various games. These players use glitches and exploits to make their way to the credits as fast as humanly possible, getting the best in-game completion time. Of course, by the time you read this article, these records may already have been broken. Well, except for the first one...
Pokemon Red - 0:00 by Michael Weber
Lots of gamers have fond memories of playing the very first Pokemon games, Blue and Red, and starting their adventures in a land full of fantastic creatures to collect and gym leaders to defeat. Speedrunner Michael Weber took on the challenge of finishing the game and defeating his rival...all while forgoing the rest of the game. In his run, he uses large-skip glitches to essentially beat the game with the in-game clock resting at 0:00. He goes from picking his first Pokemon to beating the game. It's nuts.
Two-Player 100-Man Brawl (Super Smash Bros. Brawl) - 01:14.68 by Adam Young
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a game that tests your reflexes, your knowledge of characters and their moves, and sometimes, it can test the strength of your friendships. Adam Young decided to test out something for himself, and ended up taking on the 100-man Brawl challenge, which pitted him against 100 characters controlled by the AI. He also took it one step further by playing the two-player 100-man Brawl challenge and controlled two Pikachus by himself, destroying all 100 enemies with a record time of 1:14.68. Now we're just wondering if he could do it blindfolded.
Half-Minute Hero (Hero 3) - 00:11.55 by Jim Dobler
Half-Minute Hero is a game that's almost built around the concept of a speedrun. The gameplay runs at an almost break-neck pace and tasks players with getting the fastest completion times, which is a tasty challenge for any speedrunner. Jim Dobler managed to take on the game's most difficult mode, Hero 3, and beat it with an in-game time of 0:00:11.55. This is quite the accomplishment, especially when you consider the fact that you get hit with random encounters every two steps and every move has to be calculated for fighting, buying equipment, and praying for crits. Don't blink or you'll miss just about everything during Dobler's run here.
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Maxim) - 0:00:45 by Tobias Nerg
This run in Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, completed by Tobias Nerg, employs Maxim mode, which is unlocked by completing the game and entering the name "MAXIM" when starting a new game. As you'll see in the speedrun, Maxim is a blur and dashes more than punk teenagers trying to skip out on a diner check. It's an incredibly technical run that can be messed up during the Dracula fight, so it's even more impressive that Nerg clocked in at 0:00:45.
Gone Home - 0:00:48 by "your name here"
Gone Home is a narrative-intense indie game that was released in 2013—but be warned that there will be spoilers in the video if you decide to watch and haven't played the game yet. There is a lot of exploration involved, with a whole lot of clue-finding and piecing together different details to figure out why your family's disappeared. But since this is a speedrun, a lot of that is glossed over and big chunks of narrative are skipped. Speedrunner "your name here" makes use of four time-saving glitches and exploits in order to jump ahead in this spoilerific run. The runner also uses techniques that increase movement speed, such as taking stairs straight up and turning towards a door rather than approaching it from an angle. Little tricks like this help with shaving down the completion time.
Clock Tower (Ending H) - 0:02:04 by Greg Innes
If you've never played the game Clock Tower, then you've never known true terror. Greg Innes has, and managed to get through it with a time of 0:02:04. It's not the most difficult of runs to complete, but Innes ran through the Wii Virtual Console version of the game with the Quick Start option and completed it to get Ending H, which is the worst ending you can get. According to Innes, getting the fastest time when trying to complete this ending involves a bit of randomness, which may or may not cause the killer character, Bobby, to despawn or otherwise leave the area.
The Last of Us: Left Behind - 0:05:58 by Greg Innes
The Last of Us was one of the most impressive games in the PlayStation 3's library. A DLC episode called Left Behind was released for the game, giving us a look at Ellie's past while filling in some holes in the Winter portion of the game. Greg Innes completed this DLC with the fastest time to date, clocking in at 0:05:58 thanks to some large-skip glitches. His reasons for completing this run in particular was to provide the skip with some more exposure, and to get a Last of Us page up on the Speed Demo Archives website. That way more people would be interested in finding more glitches and perform their own runs. One part of what makes this run so cool is that enemies despawn, meaning that you can finish fast and still keep your stuff. And in the apocalypse, that's a blessing.