Board 8 > Para watches and ranks every SGDQ '22 run

(+) Yeah! (+)

I played a ton of Perfect Dark (on N64, mind) but I can confirm that damage tanking in Perfect Dark can be extremely dicey on Secret or Perfect Agent (this was Secret Agent, right?) Notably, enemies are capable of headshots in the random hit distribution, which deals oodles of extra damage, and explosions in general, depending on how they want to cooperate, are capable of ending your whole damn career.

To respond to each bullet point:

• Out-of-bounding Datadyne Infiltration is a speedrunning rite of passage.
• Yes, the framerate is better, and the explosions not quite as eyebleedy. The runner also discussed how there isn't a radial menu for weapon quickswitches, either, which put in some work. Also not explained, if you weren't paying attention to it, was that *every* weapon in the game that's capable of killing someone has an "alternate fire" of sorts. Some are bog-standard - Joanna's typical Falcon pistol(s) have Pistol Whip by default. Some are fun, like the SuperDragon, which turns sideways to become a grenade launcher. It was a huge appeal of the game, especially in multiplayer providing your friends aren't dicks who made your game run in blur-motion with Tranquilizers. Lastly, the "Combat Boost" that was used during the Carrington Institute invasion mission slowed *everything* down in N64, including your own movement. 360's remaster just slows down enemies.
• Jonathan is a dick who ends so, so many runs of Area 51 because he has to John Woo his way into a thrown grenade.
• Do not give Elvis a gun.
• Yes.
• I forget the context of this bridge clip - was it in the last normal level?
• God damn it Elvis you had ONE JOB.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Have you watched runs of Spyro or Perfect Dark before?

Spyro yes a little bit, Perfect Dark not that I remember

Isquen posted...

I forget the context of this bridge clip - was it in the last normal level?

No it's the second to last level, it's just a part that has a lot of enemies

Oooh, Perfect Dark

Paratroopa1 posted...

Spyro is a tricky one - the game moves really fast, but because so much of it is just running from point A to point B it feels a little slow at first until you really understand the rhythm of the game and what the player is trying to do. I'm sure it's immediately a lot more relatable for someone who has played the game, but that's not me!

I was immediately put off by the Spyro run when I watched live. I couldn't really explain why, but this sums it up perfectly.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

I'm not familiar with the Crash Bandicoot series at all, so you should trust me when I say that this is a highlight run. It's just a super fun watch, as a speedrun of a pure platformer it's consistently entertaining throughout and has tons of cool execution, tricks, and the commentary is great throughout. This game is an especially good run for an uninitiated viewer because it's always so easy to see everything and easy to understand what the player needs to do to advance; the stakes are clear. Probably one of the better pure speedruns you'll see in the marathon.

- This is another game with slide kick canceling after Kirby. It's just a theme I guess! Apparently this game is particularly arthritis-inducing which is a shame.

- "We don't wanna bounce on these, so we're just gonna do this - okay, backup, so we're just gonna do that- okay, backup, so we're just gonna do THAT - I'm dead."

- There was almost a 'that's never happened before' in this run but he took it back.

- Apparently multiple possible chances to softlock your game in this, but all of them were avoided in this run, thankfully.

- I'm gonna dial in for this one, you guys talk about whatever. "Yeah, so this is the second snow level -" and he's already dead.

- "Beautiful. This is art. Spin these, slide back, slide back, slide back..."

- It is apparently a meme to insinuate that the lead dev put problems in the game just to mess with speedrunners.

- "Skip this flame, get over to these nitros, light this TNT and die. ...I did not die." "To be clear, dying was not the intended strat, it was just what potty was expecting."

- "You didn't die, we take those." "I did die. "You did? Well, it's midnight."

- I feel so bad for the donation comment in which they talked about playing this game as far as they could as a kid until they could save up to buy a memory card. I never had this problem as a kid - I didn't own a PS1, and my N64 came with a memory pak - but that's such a mood anyway. I totally get that feeling of just doing what you can.

- "You can kill seals with a charge by the way. A lot of people don't know that."

- This is the first time I've ever noticed someone mention having different input latency on the TV they're playing on, which is something that's always freaked me out about the idea of playing at GDQ. If something's even like a millisecond off I freak out. Potty seems to handle it though.

- On the game's gauntlet of three levels at the end - "One of them has a frame perfect trick, one of them you can't die at all [or the game softlocks], and one of them is just terrible."

- "I'm gonna say check this out assuming I do this perfect, so check this out."

- "That's it for me. I need to go to bed. Clap, I suppose." The audience clapped. He Jebbed the audience!

Perspective

It's monday! And we're definitely into the night block here, which means little-known indie games, which can be hit or miss but always a good place to find out about some games I've missed. Perspective is a little game made by students at Digipen in 2012, and I'm surprised I've never heard of it, because it seems pretty revolutionary for its time. "Forced perspective" like Superliminal and The Witness was mentioned, and this game predates both of them. It's a short run and it showcases a neat little game, so it's worth taking a look at - it's easy enough to follow along with how going fast and skipping a lot of the game works here.

I hope people will forgive me if I don't have a lengthy play by play for every run - some of these don't have too much to talk about.

Super Dream Dasher

A cute little indie platformer. Came out in 2021, but I hadn't heard of it before now. It's ok. Very much a "late night background noise" kind of run - it's one of those indie platformers with a bunch of levels and you die in one hit.

- "We just bought a powerup. They're called flavors in this game. The only important one for this speed run, is speed." Checks out.

- The plot of this game is that there's a giant turnip that a clock wizard is controlling and corrupting and the clock wizard is also a JoJo reference, somehow. Super Bonk is coming up, so this isn't even that weird, really.

- Orb #3. They were trying to avoid mentioning orbs, but you play as a sort of spherical character in this game, so it was probably inevitable.

- Final boss time. Oh, nevermind, we skipped the final boss. "For whatever reason, the outfit for this boss, if you do the taunt, it kills the boss instantly." I do not understand.

Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth

I think at the end of all this I'd like to make like, a top 10 best runs list, but then also a top 10 overlooked runs that you should check out, and this would go on the latter list. Check this one out! It's 10 minutes long but it's super dense - they warn at the beginning that there won't be time for donations and they're not kidding. This is kind of an indie 3D Zelda-like, reminiscent of Wind Waker (it even has its own version of Barrier Skip more or less), and it's all of that just condensed into this very short game with a lot of movement tech and glitches. It's entertaining and I'd recommend it. (This game was in the racial justice bundle on itchio so apparently I already own it, and you probably do as well. Might be worth checking out?)

- I'm amazed that these bid wars can still draw in money for games I've never heard of. Sometimes small games still have really tight-knit and dedicated communities and it's awesome to see.

- The tutorial skip involves putting a rock in a corner, jumping onto it and clipping up to a ledge, then slide kicking off of it into a river into a cutscene trigger where a bridge explodes. Awesome.

- Not only does this game have a barrier skip, but it also has an infinite sword glitch! The barrier skip skips like literally 90% of the game, by the way, which is why the run is so short.

- Good tech name: Sleep storage. I wish I could do sleep storage in real life.

- "The jank boost! That's a swag strat!"

- The bid war is TIED! The runner ended up choosing their preferred option. I don't think I've ever seen this before at a GDQ.

- "So what I'm gonna do is jump on top of my dad, and wiggle around so that I remove the hitbox from his body."

- A shoutout to authorblues, who discovered this game, because of course he did.

- "And while I was stalling for time we're going to sleep into the air here. You can just do this. Amazing game."

DeepsPraw posted...

I was immediately put off by the Spyro run when I watched live. I couldn't really explain why, but this sums it up perfectly.

Shut up guiga

I played Perspective in 2012 or 13 so it's something that I was familiar with. It ended up being one of the few runs that I went back and watched the next day because I missed it live. It does end up being an interesting run just due to the design of it.

I already talked about it in the discord channel a bit, but I'll toss a little more on the Spyro fire here.

I do think the games have an absolutely bonkers level of quality for 3D movement for the time they came out. Like, I'd be hard-pressed to find a game that I think controls better. Not only that, but there's such a good tactile feeling to playing the games - given sound effects and rumble, it can be soothing for me to just bonk into things and flame everything, and I often have to cycle through the options of movement and attack in the game just because my brain gets pleasure from experiencing them all.

It's weird. Also weird is that they didn't skip the first dragon - that might be a remake only skip? I thought it was in both, but shrug.

Super Bonk

If you are completely uninitiated with Super Bonk and haven't seen it before, you should just stop reading and watch this run. Go! Go watch. It's... it's a special game.

- "I'm guessing most of you have never heard of Super Bonk." Wrong, motherfucker! I know exactly what's in store here.

- "And I'm guessing most of you that have aren't familiar with the speedrun." Okay, got me there.

- Our second powerup stage is called Cronk Bonk. I'm not sure if that counts as a stupid tech name.

- "Now, in games like Mario when you get squashed by a giant block, you die, or in other games you take damage or get flattened. When you get squashed by a block in the Bonk series, you..." I'm not going to spoil this by finishing that sentence. You have to see it for yourself.

- God bless the story recaps for this game. "What would have happened if we continued act 2 is that we wind up in a large glass of orange juice, we would have found out the owner of the house is a large dinosaur (surprise), who would have consumed us with the orange juice, we would have to navigate through the innards of the dinosaur to the heart, where we would have to fight a large mustached parasite inside the heart, upon defeating the parasite the dinosaur would sneeze, launching Bonk out of his nostril at escape velocity and sending him straight to the moon. Now nobody will have any questions about why we start act 3 on the moon."

- "This cave contains Crabless Lake. as you may have guessed, we do not want to turn into a crab, so we're gonna wait for these crab blocks. the reason we do not want to be a crab is because, as the sign says, no crab can climb. they cannot climb vines, and they cannot climb waterfalls, so if you get turned into a crab there it's a time loss." Just explaining what we already obviously know.

- "This warp, we're gonna be getting skips not just act 3 but all of act 4, so you know what that means, I've got some storyline to catch everyone up on. What happens at the end of act 3 here, we would have fought a samurai rabbit riding a mechanical thing as the boss, and upon defeating the rabbit, the pyramid explodes, the rabbit drops a giant blue candy, and bonk has to go navigate the rest of the solar system to look for a way home. Then Bonk would find a large creature-made comet, have to infiltrate the comet, defeat the boss of that comet which is a mammoth with a vacuum cleaner nose, and then cause the comet to explode, launching bonk out at a very high velocity and of course what happens when bonk is exposed to extreme conditions, you get turned into a crab again. and then there's a final crab autoscroller which is at the beginning of act 5 and that's what we'll be warping to." He wasn't kidding. It was a crab autoscroller.

- Who could have predicted that leadostrich's favorite form is Ostrich Bonk?

- Despite the fact that this game is mostly just for laughs, there actually was some genuinely cool movement tech here, especially in the last level where Bonk uses an unintended enemy bounce to get higher.

- ANGELA <3

Bulk Slash

I mostly only like seeing this one run out of a curiosity for old Saturn games and games of this era in general. The visual style of this game looks really cool, and it might be kind of fun, but the run is boring; skip it.

- This game literally begins with like a 4 minute autoscroller. Not the best of speed games.

- We get our first HONK of the marathon from a donation comment. I feel like the socially-distanced crowd and the few years of online events have really cut down on the memes, for better or worse.

- The anime girl in this game is cute and her name is... Medical Flare? I can never tell if I'm hearing that right, but this is a game called Bulk Slash.

- I am interested in the fact that there's apparently a fan translation of this game that comes with voice acting. That's cool and kind of rare!

- "Yeah the final boss was your childhood best friend who you murdered, but you know, it's war. Anyway, that's Bulk Slash."

Alien Cabal

It's Awful Games Done Quick, in summer! That's not a bad thing. It's 6 minutes long, so go watch this run, because I can't adequately explain it, and neither can the runner. Something about not being authorized, bees, and tearing the fabric of time and space a lot.

- The company that made Alien Cabal isn't around anymore. Wow, you don't say!

- This game is very strange to watch, and unfortunately I feel like the runner being the only one on commentary hurts here, because like I said, he just doesn't have time to explain everything and that's not his fault. I have absolutely no idea what he's doing here and that hurts the run.

- "I got kind of discombobulated, which is easy, because every room looks the same."

- You know a run isn't going to plan when you have to revert back to the Bee Save.

Bubble Bobble Part 2

I didn't even know there was a Bubble Bobble Part 2. There's Rainbow Islands, which I thought was like a Bubble Bobble Part 2 of sorts, but this isn't that. It's just a Bubble Bobble sequel. It has way better graphics than the first, which is nice. It's a very strange speed game, since it has probably the most intentional waiting I've ever seen in a speedrun, and the commentators don't do the best of jobs explaining what's going on here. Something about getting shoes and umbrellas and seven crystals to skip a bunch of levels? It's all a little confusing, but the game is cute, so I enjoyed it.

- I fucking wish I could get transformed into a cute dinosaur by an evil wizard and all Bub does is spend the entire game trying to get turned back. Dude just does not appreciate the gift he's been given here.

- Ah yes, we need to bounce on a bubble six times, collect two shoes (that is the normal number of shoes to collect I guess), and spawn an umbrella to skip several levels. No, yeah, I'm totally following this Super Bonk-esque logic.

- They're going to count crystals like The Count, and it "won't be cringe at all, they promise." (They're right, of course, it's not cringe. Stop thinking everything innocent and fun is cringe, ya weirdos!)

- Bub's walk cycle is hypnotizing to look at. This game is cuter than the original!

- I like how there's just sports minigames in the middle of this game that function as unskippable cutscenes. Just have to take some time off to play volleyball. It's like Top Gun.

- Bub's real curse wasn't being turned into a tiny bubble dragon, but rather, having to end every level just sadly watching delicious melons and shaved ice disappear off the screen because it's not optimal to collect them. We don't even get to eat the giant burger. It's agonizing!

- The adorable truck with horrifying monster tires is the most hilarious enemy in this game.

- I will never get over the fact that the final boss's name is Super Drunk.

Blaster Master

It's Blaster Master! Just a run that we kind of have to have every three years or so. It's a tradition. This is like, the first 'classic' speedrun game of the marathon, which is nice. It's a race, but Blaster Master makes for a really good race because it tends to stay really close. And it's a glitchless race! A glitchless race where they decided to allow one kind-of glitch. Cue the endless debates from people who don't know what they're talking about!

- The intro remains the best part of this game. I love when he falls down a pit next to this cool tank, and it just immediately cuts next to him wearing the suit, with no explanation of how he found it or decided to put it on or anything. He's just like, yeah, I guess I pilot this tank now.

- "Is that a glitch?" "Sprite overloading? That just HAPPENS."

- I appreciate that they have so many gentlemans' agreements about someone pausing their run if the other player runs into some really bad luck beyond their control. That might be controversial, but I think it's kind of nice to agree to not let unlikely bad luck RNG outcomes decide the race.

- A lot of the donation comments pertain to the Blaster Master novelization and the game sequels that partially spun off the plot of the book, which is funny. I had no idea there was so much Blaster Master lore. There's even one donation comment that said they only read the book and never played the game!

- "Oh god this green is SO BRIGHT on this tv." The tvs' contrasts are so different that it looks like they're in two different levels.

- They are the top two and the bottom two runners of this category, since other categories are run far more often. I do like to see this glitchless category, though, since it shows off some parts of the game that are otherwise skipped.

- It's interesting that the japanese manual details the maps in this game up to area 7 but the north american manual only goes to 4.

- I love the glitch where the boss theme turns into the first area theme somehow.

- This race ends close, which boosts it a little bit in my watchability rankings.

Ninja Gaiden

Another classic speedrun game! I think it's really a shame that The Retro Runner, the current WR holder of this game, got shunted into a weird late night slot running one of the canonical speedrun games. Ninja Gaiden has a SummoningSalt video detailing its history, for pete's sake! This run is a must watch - it's rare to see the best runner of a game with a storied history run a game and destroy it this cleanly.

- I hate this game, by the way. I tried to learn how to speedrun it back in 2020 for the Big 20 race and I ultimately failed at even being able to beat the game. Absolutely infuriating. Even watching this game now brings back some trauma for me.

- Bzzt

- It's cool to see even the most minor of time saves in this game. This is one of the most optimized speedruns this side of Super Mario Bros, and it's cool to see even a fraction of a second get shaved off of this run.

- (singing) "We're gonna get the timer, stop the time, get the star, we got the star, throw the star now, grab the other fire wheel, kill the guy, disarm the gun, we jump and slash and now we go bouncy bouncy. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce." Beautiful.

- "This is the newest tech we have. We call it the Spicy Pickle." Add it to the list of stupid techs!

- This run is really short so I don't have a lot else to add, but please watch it, it's 11 minutes of sheer perfection.

Altered Beast

WISE FWOM YOUR GWAVE. This run is 6 minutes long. It exists.

- "I am jaekrock." "I'm spacecoastgaming." "And by our powers combined, we are space rock!" Everyone's introduction should be this awesome. Take notes.

- I can't get over the sheer homoeroticism at play in this game. It's just straight up some muscle growth/tf fetish stuff in a video game. I APPROVE of this, mind you.

- This run does gain a few points for the runners coordinating to have two bears stand on the villain's head and teabag him.

- There isn't really a lot of tech to this run except just knowing where the enemies are going to spawn and trying to get the same-frame powerups to skip a transformation sequence. It is kind of amusing how little there is to it where they're mostly just trying to stand in the correct spot on the screen at the right time.

- Does the boss that looks like a Metroid powerup count as an orb? I love that guy.

- I thought the best part of this game would be the coordinate buff wolfman kicking dance on the first boss, but it's beaten out by the two runners getting down on all fours and punching the final boss in the crotch from both sides over and over. Beautiful game. No further notes.

I want to go outside now, but I did need to catch up on some of these runs. I should have been spacing them out more but I'm dropping a bunch at once instead.

I'm changing the categories slightly. Again, of course, remember that a lot of this is just my own personal feelings about the runs, although I do rank them at least partially based on just how good I think the runs are in general.

Highlights: The cream of the crop. These are my favorite runs of the marathon, and if you don't have a lot of time, they're the ones I feel, both from a qualitative and a personal level, that you should make the biggest effort to watch. The games are interesting, the runs are compelling, and the commentary is entertaining.

Recommended: These runs are good, and I can recommend watching them even if you are not familiar with the game. I expect that any of the runs here could be considered a highlight by someone else, especially if you are familiar with the game in question.

Decent: Solid runs that I wouldn't recommend against watching. If you're a big fan of the game, it would go up to a recommended or even a highlight run potentially. I don't consider this run a must-watch, though, either because the game isn't interesting enough or the run wasn't entertaining throughout.

Skippable: The game's boring or the run's boring and not worth it. Unless you're a huge fan of the game I wouldn't bother.

---Highlights---
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Mass Effect
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Ninja Gaiden
---Recommended---
Shadow of the Colossus
Rolled Out!
Spyro the Dragon
Super Bonk
Blaster Master
Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth
Pokemon Snap
---Decent---
Bubble Bobble Part 2
Perspective
Perfect Dark
Alien Cabal
Altered Beast
WarioWare: Touched!
---Skippable---
Super Dream Dasher
Sonic Generations
Bulk Slash

I kept dragging my feet on watching The Pathless because it's 2 hours long and I had a bunch of other stuff to do this week but I also have two games I watched that I forgot to do writeups for. Oops!

McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure

Oh my god, I just noticed it's called TREASURE Land Adventure. Like Treasure, the devs who made it. Mindblowing. I watched the interview with Lizstar before this and I was really interested in this run just seeing how excited Lizstar was to share it, because it's one of Treasure's forgotten little gems; literally the second game they made after their debut with Gunstar Heroes. Unlike most games Lizstar does this one isn't total garbage! I enjoyed this run a lot, kind of reminds me of a poor man's Magical Quest Starring Mickey, commentary keeps the run fresh throughout despite some lengthy autoscroller segments that slow down the pacing dramatically.

- "If you're expecting to see a lot of McDonald's things, there is no food, but there are characters." The lack of food in this game truly is a baffling decision.

- This was, apparently, originally supposed to be a McDonald's game. I would have assumed that it was some other game with McDonald's branding pasted on it in post, but that is apparently not the case!

- I've been tracking "that's never happened before"s and there was one in this run but I don't remember what it was.

- "It is a Happy Meal box with teeth." "So it's a mimic? I mean, anything D&D related sparks me joy but that sounds demonic and this is for children." "You've never seen a childrens' game." This was referring to the ad campaign; I was sad there were no demonic Happy Meal boxes in this one.

- "One of the many, many weird things about this game is that Ronald has his health in the form of gems, and they're always like, Ronald, won't you help me with your famous gems? And I'm like what"

- The minecart level where you have to stand on the shoulders of ballet dancers to get across is utterly spectacular. This really is a Treasure game.

- The sumo wrestlers in the next level are also really cool, their stomps make all the terrain slant and you have to use that to get across. This game's not bad!

- I love that they keep doing Ronald's poses in the background on the couch - I can't get over how goofy they are.

- The penguins that are really happy but get mad and attack you if you attack them are the cutest thing ever.

- The music in the game is pretty banging, gotta say.

- "Here he is! Our boy!" "What's his name?" "Captain Lips!" "Oh, no, it's grown at this point. It's now Sir Mister Captain Lips Esquire III where we last left it."

- I still can't get over the fact that Ronald McDonald has gems in this game. *Famous* gems. Not like, burgers, or chicken mcnuggets, or something.

- Out of context GDQ: "Here's the bean tree, which everyone in my chat absolutely despises.

- "People walk into the practice room and be like, what is this game? And I'm like, don't even ask. If you're asking it's already too late."

- More out of context: "The treasure chest opens, and it turns out, the real treasure was the gay agenda all along."

- "It was hiding on the moon and it was released onto the world and this adventure was a complete waste of time but it was the friends we made along the way and that's the moral which is really annoying when I think about it."

- The final boss music in this game is sort of insane for a game like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJaWgvWvvgc

It makes for impressively good material for a metal arrangement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGf32gMnOxQ

- Prize segment after this run. Nothing special, but I do really want those Bubble Bobble perlers. I can never get over how good the melts are on these things.

NiGHTS into dreams...

Never played this game before! Even after watching it, I barely understand what this was about. It's like a 3D platformer for about five seconds but then you turn into a magical guy who flies through rings? So, it's like a better Superman 64? Why was Japan so obsessed with harlequin-themed video game characters in the late 90s? Seriously, you think I might be making that up, but there are SO MANY of them. This run was fine, but I didn't follow along too closely with most of it. I don't have much to say about it - it was mostly flying through some rings and quick killing some bosses.

- "If you see the console startup screen, boo."

- From a donation: "Thanks for showcasing this beautiful experience, sweet dreams, and save the nightopians." "...We may actually be killing a few nightopians."

- Casually turning into a bobsled is a pretty cool move, I have to admit.

- Cool tech names: "TAS Tower." Unfortunately, as expected from anything called TAS anything, it doesn't go flawlessly first try.

- "It's like getting hit by a red shell and then a blue shell. Ever get Mario Karted in Nights?"

- Orb #4

- Also a that's never happened before, I don't know what it was though.

- The ending where Elliot, the random boy at the beginning who barely factors into the game at all, becomes an awesome basketball player at the end is hilarious.

---Highlights---
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Mass Effect
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Ninja Gaiden
---Recommended---
Shadow of the Colossus
Rolled Out!
Spyro the Dragon
Super Bonk
Blaster Master
Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth
McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure
Pokemon Snap
---Decent---
Bubble Bobble Part 2
Perspective
Perfect Dark
Alien Cabal
Altered Beast
NiGHTS into dreams...
WarioWare: Touched!
---Skippable---
Super Dream Dasher
Sonic Generations
Bulk Slash

Glad you enjoyed TRRs Ninja Gaiden run! His channel is a lot of fun

Paratroopa1 posted...

Something about getting shoes and umbrellas and seven crystals to skip a bunch of levels? It's all a little confusing, but the game is cute, so I enjoyed it.
...
- Ah yes, we need to bounce on a bubble six times, collect two shoes (that is the normal number of shoes to collect I guess), and spawn an umbrella to skip several levels. No, yeah, I'm totally following this Super Bonk-esque logic.

The Bubble Bobble games (and Rainbow Islands) keep track of a bunch of different statistics - how many steps you take, how many bubbles you pop, how many times you fell from the bottom of the screen and wrapped around to the top, how many times the "Hurry Up!" warning has appeared, how many credits have been entered into the machine, etc. Whenever the number for one of these stats reaches a certain threshold, this determines what powerup will spawn in the next room (with a priority system to determine which item comes first in case of a tie). On the arcade games, these numbers don't reset between each play session, so it introduced some randomness to each experience and you never knew what rare item you might see next. These statistics even include how many times you picked up other types of items so that's probably what was going on there. I don't know the specifics for Part 2 but I'm guessing that collecting a certain number of shoes is the trigger for the umbrella, which is the level skip item.

You can see the item criteria for the arcade version of the first game here: https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Bubble_Bobble/Special_items

Paratroopa1 posted...

- The final boss music in this game is sort of insane for a game like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJaWgvWvvgc

dang, that main riff is heavily reminding me of some Sonic (I think?) track, but idr which...

I am here for more writeups done quick.

It's coming, I got stymied by this extremely long (and kind of boring) Pathless run and I've had a bunch of stuff going on this week

The Pathless

I didn't get any updates done for a while because I had some other stuff to focus on, but also, because this run was an absolute roadblock for me. I don't want to bully the runner or the couch commentator here, they both seem like absolutely lovely people! I don't want to focus on excessive negativity in these writeups because I think that everyone is trying their best and deserves to be respected.

But uh, okay, so this run was boring, and I badly need to get that off my chest. The game isn't a compelling speedrun - it's almost 2 hours long and the novelty of the movement wears off after about five minutes, and nothing else in the game is all that interesting to watch. That could have been offset by good commentary, but this was nearly 2 hours of dead air. The runner/couch explained basically nothing about the game and entire boss fights went by with barely a word. Almost any time there was commentary, it was either just gushing about the game or talking about how good its music is - which it's lovely that you love the game so much but as a viewer, I don't really know about the game or understand what's going on. I know a lot of good games that have good music. Explain what makes this one special, I'm begging you.

I made a commitment to watching every run, though, and I'm sticking by it! I procrastinated on this one for a long time but I did get through it. I'm not gonna make a new category at the bottom for bad runs, but this is the first run that was hard to get through. Oh well, at least I'm sure it'll be the worst run on Monday! (She said, knowingly)

I do really wanna stress though that I don't wanna bully the runner or the couch. They're trying their best! If this run was like a half an hour I wouldn't have minded nearly so much.

- This game does look kind of neat, at least. The movement tech is a little interesting at first but gets old, but I'm pretty sure this would be a fun game to play.

- Also, it has a super cute bird! I love our eagle friend. Nobody told me this would be a BIRD GAME. It does earn points for that.

- She names the eagle Pumpkin which is a very cute name for an eagle. We get to rub Pumpkin a few times throughout this run which is good.

- Pumpkin apparently comes from the same family as Claire from A Short Hike, having the ability to do multiple double jumps.

- The commentary hits a lot of 'bad commentary' cliches throughout this one. Besides "talking about how good the music is" we also get awkward jokes! This joke of Woody lines from Toy Story every time they pull on the string to climb a tower gets old.

- Donation: "Looking forward to seeing you guys never touch the ground!" (Runner touches the ground) "Whoops"

- Almost all of the dead air in this game is filled by a donation comment game of asking people what they would name the eagle in this game and it gets extremely repetitive, but it did bring in a surprising number of donations.

- The power of twitch chat demanding more bird rubs achieves more bird rubs.

- At some point during a boring stretch of the run I started looking at future games in the schedule. Thank goodness we get Castlevania IV next, just a nice, solid speedgame.

- Not skipping a cutscene that would save time just so we can see the very important story of this game. Dear speedrunners: I do not care about the plot of the game you run. I'm really, really sorry, but I just don't. And if you're going to explain the plot, you can go ahead and do it during the cutscene instead of later during the gameplay; I don't need to watch this game's cutscenes in church-like silence.

- I ended up accidentally watching 10 minutes of this run twice because Youtube forgot my place in the video and the game is so boring that I forgot where I was.

There was an interview with a MSF spokesperson after the Pathless run and he just seemed super chill and cool (and also disarmingly handsome). He just talked a lot about what MSF does, the usual, but he was just personable and engaging - sometimes these people can be awkward (but still important!) interviews but he wasn't at all. His top 5 games: Mass Effect 2, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Team Fortress 2, Ultima Online. Cool to have a spokesperson who's really into gaming.

Ty The Tasmanian Tiger

Not a ton to say about this run except that it had really good commentary, which helps the fact that it's a kind of whatever speed game. It seems like the runner has a lot of tech to show off though and a lot of tight execution, even though the result on the screen isn't really all that interesting to look at - but it's a fast paced run with really good rapport among the commentators so I'm still going to consider it a recommendation. This seems like a shockingly active speedrun community which does help the run seem more interesting, in a way.

- This is the first run that's off-site, by the way. Cool to see a hybrid event, I think, even though it might have caused some logistical issues. I dunno where the runner is from (I'm almost sure he mentioned it, I just wasn't paying attention) but I don't think it's the US.

- This game's from 2002 but I could have easily mandela effected myself into believing it was from the late 90's PS1 era. It's charming to think about the time when 3D mascot platformers were still a huge thing.

- Playing platformers, especially 3D platformers, on a keyboard seems completely insane, but what the hell do I know? He's the one who's absolutely killing this run. I mean, hey, the WR for Super Mario Bros is on a keyboard, so maybe keyboards are just the way to go once you really learn how to use them. Very precise, I suppose.

- "Perfect setup. Bad player though unfortunately."

- Gotta love a game where the hardest skip comes 3 minutes into the run.

- He has to use a controller at one point because for some reason he does a trick that locks him being unable to move with keyboard, but still able to move with a controller. Fascinating.

- "Moral of the story: don't name the hardest trick after yourself."

- There's an emu called RNG-mu and that's my favorite pun so far.

- The end of this run has quite a lot of out of bounds shenanigans, which are always fun to see in a 3d platformer. At the end of the game we end up throwing a boomerang out of bounds and I guess it hits the final boss and kills him or something. Yeah, that makes sense.

- Fast run! He's one second off of second place. This run was well executed.

i'm pretty sure running SMB on a keyboard is actually harder than with a controller (if i remember correctly, it's because input lag is a bigger issue on keyboard). the SMB WR is insane regardless but that makes it even more impressive!

it's funny because a lot of people complain about the SMB WR being on an emulator, as if that's "cheating" or something. i recall karl jobst making a pretty good video on this issue but he seems to have removed/privated it for some reason, because i can't find it anymore.

That's a very frequent conversation we have in the NES speedrunning community, and it really varies by game as far as the impact emulation vs. original hardware has. With most games they just ban certain emulators like Retroarch, and there are a lot of differing opinions on MESEN. I prefer to play on original hardware myself, but as long as people can show they're playing legitimately on an emulator I couldn't care less if they use one, as long as it's within the rules of the specific game and they aren't using features of the emulator that aren't available on original hardware.

For Friday the 13th, we didn't allow emulators up until recently because of how they could manipulate the games RNG due to how resets work. With that run there are 256 RNG seeds the game can give you, and the seed depends on the exact frame you press start on to begin the game (I want to say it was frame 110). When you reset on a console it hops to a random point in those tables and you can't really predict anything, but on emulators it always resets to the same state, so people were able to get the right seed around 40% of the time, where console players would be hitting reset for hours just to get a few attempts, and couldn't properly replicate that even with a full power off each time. Thankfully we have a romhack now that always gives the good starting seed, but prior to that it sucked.

Sorry for the long winded explanation there, but I feel like I might be in a pretty unique situation to be able to explain some of the emulator vs. original hardware thing from a speedrunner/moderator perspective.

oh cool, i didn't know you were a speedrunner. congrats on getting the jaws any% WR recently!

Thanks! It was a fun grind.

Super Castlevania IV

A favorite speedgame of mine, I like that it's just really straightforward and technical. A few glitches here and there, but just a nice display of precise execution for 40 minutes. Makes for a good race, because it's slow paced enough to follow what's going on, there's no route divergence, and both players are close for the entire race. This is just a solid race, nothing much more to say about it. The commentary is informative and VERY chill, so this has a low-energy-but-in-a-good-way feel to it, like watching golf. The commentary is a few seconds behind, which does negatively impact the race a bit.

I don't really have any bullet points for this one - nothing especially funny or interesting happened, it's just a good race. There were a couple of deaths and lead changes here and there and the race was pretty close, occasionally synced. This run is basically what it says on the tin. Watch this if you want to see two people play Super Castlevania IV for 40 minutes. It's good, but it falls short of my 'recommendations' list because I don't think it stands out.

There was a prize segment here, with Sent and Mr Game and Shout. I like the Link's Awakening perler and the Mario pipe planter. Nothing notable or funny about this prize segment, it was straightforward.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

This run was an unexpected hit for me. Any Castlevania speedrun is always a really solid time, but I didn't know what to expect out of Harmony of Dissonance - what I got was not just a game with super interesting routing and technical execution, but one of my favorite runners so far. The runner for this one, JupiterClimb, does all of his own commentary WHILE he's running the game, and somehow manages to perfectly keep up - he's funny and insightful and explains EVERYTHING he does with perfection, while his execution never once suffers for it. I don't know if I've ever seen a runner juggle these two tasks so well before without having a couch commentator to bounce off of. This made this run a highlight for me, personally - definitely a run to watch.

- How the fuck do you pronounce Juste's name? Because the runner pronounces it as "Juiced," and I can't get over the idea of him being named Juiced Belmont.

- "I understand this game, over the years, earned a mixed reputation." I have to admit that I actually haven't given HoD much of a chance, and I think that maybe I'd like to go back and give it another shot.

- The combat in this speedrun is super interesting - you can get huge damage stacks by having multiple hitboxes overlapping an enemy at once, and the runner uses this to excellent effect. It's really fun to watch.

- There is ONE major problem with this run, which isn't anyone's fault - there were major internet issues in the first few minutes, which renders it unwatchable for a bit, and they had to cut away and get things under control. Fortunately, when the run comes back, there are very few hiccups afterwards and the rest of the run proceeds smoothly, but I was really worried there for a second. Keep this in mind when you watch.

- Oh god, they're doing a gimmick of LIMERICK donations during the downtime. This started at some point in between the last run and this run. Call me no fun, but I don't like the limericks.

- "Can we give it up for online block?" Only the donation reader applauds. Yeah, probably not gonna get a very warm reaction when it's causing a huge logistical problem at that very moment (though I do think having a hybrid event is a great idea).

- An animator for Netflix's Castlevania donated which is cool.

- Just a cool little technical thing I'm noticing - for most runs, especially SCIV just before this, I've had to full screen the window to really be able to see the game well and follow along with it closely, as opposed to having it in the corner of my screen while I do something else. But this game? Well, HoD is DESIGNED to be looked at on a small screen, so everything pops out really well even if I have a small window open. This is especially true after the saturation levels in this game were turned up to 11 as a response to how difficult CotM was to see.

- Goddamn the Gradius shield is so broken, it rules. It's fun that you can break the game enough that being super underleveled doesn't matter. It takes like over a minute of going to a side room and doing a long puzzle to get it, and it still saves tons of time.

- "How many people here love box puzzles? Oh, nobody? Well, bad news." (Fortunately, the internet troubles pop up around this point again.)

- Extremely cool final boss. This run was a really good run - nearly all of the execution is nailed.

---Highlights---
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Mass Effect
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Ninja Gaiden
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
---Recommended---
Shadow of the Colossus
Rolled Out!
Spyro the Dragon
Super Bonk
Blaster Master
Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth
McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure
Pokemon Snap
Ty The Tasmanian Tiger
---Decent---
Super Castlevania IV
Bubble Bobble Part 2
Perspective
Perfect Dark
Alien Cabal
Altered Beast
NiGHTS into dreams...
WarioWare: Touched!
---Skippable---
Super Dream Dasher
Sonic Generations
Bulk Slash
The Pathless

RaidenGarai posted...

That's a very frequent conversation we have in the NES speedrunning community, and it really varies by game as far as the impact emulation vs. original hardware has. With most games they just ban certain emulators like Retroarch, and there are a lot of differing opinions on MESEN. I prefer to play on original hardware myself, but as long as people can show they're playing legitimately on an emulator I couldn't care less if they use one, as long as it's within the rules of the specific game and they aren't using features of the emulator that aren't available on original hardware.

For Friday the 13th, we didn't allow emulators up until recently because of how they could manipulate the games RNG due to how resets work. With that run there are 256 RNG seeds the game can give you, and the seed depends on the exact frame you press start on to begin the game (I want to say it was frame 110). When you reset on a console it hops to a random point in those tables and you can't really predict anything, but on emulators it always resets to the same state, so people were able to get the right seed around 40% of the time, where console players would be hitting reset for hours just to get a few attempts, and couldn't properly replicate that even with a full power off each time. Thankfully we have a romhack now that always gives the good starting seed, but prior to that it sucked.

Sorry for the long winded explanation there, but I feel like I might be in a pretty unique situation to be able to explain some of the emulator vs. original hardware thing from a speedrunner/moderator perspective.

This is a cool explanation. I do think it's still best, as much as possible, to try to make emulation a legitimate alternative for real speedrunning, since having original hardware and a good setup to stream it on is still a major undertaking for many people and can gatekeep people out, and it's only going to get more and more difficult to maintain the hardware that runs these old games, whereas emulation is forever. But, it'll require making sure that emulation and hardware are as close as possible. Obviously on some consoles it's really not there yet, and occasionally weird issues like this crop up.

Paratroopa1 posted...

This is a cool explanation. I do think it's still best, as much as possible, to try to make emulation a legitimate alternative for real speedrunning, since having original hardware and a good setup to stream it on is still a major undertaking for many people and can gatekeep people out, and it's only going to get more and more difficult to maintain the hardware that runs these old games, whereas emulation is forever. But, it'll require making sure that emulation and hardware are as close as possible. Obviously on some consoles it's really not there yet, and occasionally weird issues like this crop up.

I agree completely! As far as I'm aware, there aren't any NES/SNES games that straight up ban emulators anymore, which is great for the Retro speedrunning community as a whole. Putting a cost barrier in front of people to run those games is just asking for trouble, you can't ask someone to put up $150 minimum in addition to the cost of things like a capture card just so they can try to play a game fast.

oh btw

Paratroopa1 posted...

- I keep forgetting that Stewart Copeland wrote this game's soundtrack. What the fuck?

he did the soundtrack for the first three spyros! you can check out a great toxtricity writeup for one of the spyro 1 tracks in his VGM ranking topic.

My understanding is that Juste is pronounced like juice but pronounce the J more like a zh sound, and add a t at the end

I always thought it was similar to "used" with a softer s and a t instead of a d ending.

FAITH: Chapter III

Uh, okay. I think I remember seeing the speedrun of chapter II and here's chapter III. I mean, the game is kinda cool and interesting looking, but I get absolutely nothing out of this speedrun at all. It just kind of seems like walking for 10 minutes. I don't know why you'd speedrun this. At least it was short, unlike the Pathless, but I'm putting this at the bottom just on principle - I don't know what the point of this run was. It was boring. I got nothing out of it as a viewer.

- "We have managed to sequence break the hell out of this game, but the problem is, it's a terribly boring run because nothing happens because everything's so broken." I can't tell if she's talking about this run, or an even more boring version of the run she didn't do.

- I do like the camera mechanic, though, where you take pictures and you can see the room for a brief second (and sometimes it's spooky). But uh, not a great viewing experience, since I REALLY can't tell what's happening.

- Oh noooooo they're still doing limericks during the downtime

Sly 2: Band of Thieves

Sure, it's a speedrun! That's fine. I haven't played this series and didn't get a ton out of watching it, personally, but I'm sure you would if you like this series. The runner is good and the commentary was good, but I had very little to say about this run, it was just kind of there.

- The fastest language in this game is Korean. That's new! Don't see that too often.

- This runner is running on a very loud keyboard, which confuses me. How do you play this game on a keyboard? I don't think there's a PC port. So either you plugged a keyboard into your PS3, or you're running this on an emulator? Or you have an exceptionally noisy PS3 controller? I'm perplexed by this. I don't think they ever brought it up in the run unless I'm just tired and missed it.

- I'm also confused by the fact that this is just a run of episode 1. So... not the full game? Doing one 'episode' of a game isn't that unusual but this doesn't seem like an episodic game, so I'm kinda confused by it not being the full game. I mean, that's fine, I think I would have been bored by like a 3 hour run or whatever, I'm just curious why it's one episode.

- This run is giving me Ty the Tasmanian Tiger vibes where the runner and commentary are great but the run doesn't leave a lasting impression.

- "So we have these strats called Nave strats, for some reason." (Nave is the runner)

Isquen posted...

I always thought it was similar to "used" with a softer s and a t instead of a d ending.

This is how I've always pronounced it.

Just bumping this for now. Sorry about the slow progress!

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

i'm pretty sure running SMB on a keyboard is actually harder than with a controller (if i remember correctly, it's because input lag is a bigger issue on keyboard). the SMB WR is insane regardless but that makes it even more impressive!

just wanted to make a note that since i made that post, the WR holder for SMB any% (niftski) actually improved his own record, once again on a keyboard. absolutely insane!

and yet, the WR run still isn't fully optimized!

Hi again! Like I said in my other topic where I rank games, I kinda fell into a weird no-writing death spiral for two weeks and couldn't pull myself out of it. I pulled myself out of it, so I'm back. I really don't want to fall behind on this because I feel like the iron has already become extremely cold (it's like two months since this event happened already!) but I am still sticking with the plan to watch every run and I should try to do it before AGDQ starts, so yeah, let's watch a bunch of runs.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019)

So, full disclosure, this game is kinda like, my favorite game of all time. The GB version, specifically, but the Switch version is pretty damn good too. So obviously I have a lot of bias towards any speedrun of this game in particular; that said, I do think this is a pretty great speedrun! Not that it should come as a surprise - Zelda games are always really solid. This is just a really good race that stays close the entire time and has great, really to-the-point commentary throughout. It's not quite a highlight for me, since I've seen it before, so I'm not gonna quite include it in my highlight reel, but it is a good, solid run.

- It's not exactly an incredible coincidence that someone who likes one Zelda game likes other Zelda games, but somehow, on the day I watched this run, I was already talking to Iceblue about Zelda 2 strats, while watching a tutorial Iceblue did on Zelda 1, and then he fucking showed up on this couch! All that on the same day! Freaked me out. Just can't get away from this guy, man.

- I love that the crane game in the remake is actually a pain in the ass when it's completely free in the GB version. The physics screw over both runners and it's hilarious.

- Piece of power routing stresses me out in this game. I hate any kind of routing in any game that really forces you to be precise about enemy kill counts and stuff like that and that really rears its ugly head here where you have to kill specific numbers of monsters in order to get a speed+offense boost.

- This game is run in German. Greetings from Germany! They make a big deal about reading the books in the library in German after the end of the run and it's an inside joke that I don't get.

- Appreciate the commentators' love for the sound design in this game. The little pitter-patter of Link's feet when he uses the pegasus boots is just the best!

- "Marin knows you're a thief, and that just kind of sets the tone for the relationship."

- This is a really minor thing, but for some reason the commentator used the phrase "breath of fresh air" when they meant "sigh of relief" and I found it funny. I mean, I get it, english idioms are a pain in the ass.

- Both Manbo's Mambo and the Frog Song of Soul receive respectful silence, as they deserve, but even better is that both runners hit both of them so close together that you can barely tell which screen is actually playing the theme. A lot of cliche "wow, isn't the music in this game great?" comments like every gdq run has, but this one really does deserve it.

- The boss of level 6: Face from Nick Jr.

- "Coming up, we have the best dialog box in the game. It's absolutely in German."

- The race is extremely close right up to the end, where the final boss decides it. Afterwards, while one screen plays a beautiful, tear-jerker epilogue, the other is the runner going to the library to read books in terrible broken German.

There is a prize segment after this. You can get a physical copy of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger for the Switch! Oh boy!

Bump

I'm out of the woods on covid now so expect me to do more of this soon for real. Like, really for real

Ico

I've never played or even seen Ico! I've only heard about how great it is. I'm not really much for super melancholy games, so it's just not really my vibe, but I'm sure it's great. This run was... a little bit painful to get through, if I'm totally honest with you, just because the runner and couch had a sense of humor that... well, it's prime cringe compilation fodder, let's put it that way. I don't have a problem with this - they clearly had so much fun, and hell yeah, absolutely live your best life speedrunning Ico the way you want to, fuck the haters. But for me, the constant terrible puns were a little bit draining. It was pretty hit or miss the whole way through - the lively commentary did keep me awake through the whole thing, at least, so I give them credit for that. The run itself is okay; it's basically a survival horror speedrun although that's not exactly how I'd describe the game itself. Mostly just running from objective to objective while figuring out how to ignore the enemies and carefully manage a near-permanent escort. Definitely a speedrun that's more for fans of Ico than it is for me, but I didn't hate it.

- Constantly going faster by having to make Ico call for Yorda constantly is giving me some major SHAAAAAAUN vibes. It's immediately hilarious, but the couch does their hardest to over-milk this gag until it's no longer funny by constantly attaching puns to it. Just let a funny thing be funny!

- Oh good we're singing Don't Stop Believing really early into this one. I was promised multiple parody songs and they did not disappoint, which was disappointing, though I admit the Layla one later one was actually pretty good.

- Almost all of my notes from this run were about how this style of humor was grating on me. That's basically all I remember from it. I watched this one like two weeks ago and I've been sitting on it for a while.

- I do love all of the donations that just said WAAAAAA (the Ico one, not the Waluigi one), but not so much when they try to put a pun to it. Yes, I too can think of words that start with 'wa'.

- Speaking of which, why would the punchline to Ico's favorite Mario character be Wario? WAAAAAAluigi was RIGHT THERE?

- There was another "That's never happened before" but I long ago lost track of how many of these there were.

- "Shadow of the Walossus" was *so* stupid that it wrapped around to being funny and I grimaced in a sort of pained way.

- "Four four, sailboat, lizard eating seagulls" Very helpful translation.

By the way sorry about my late update again because I lost internet for a little bit after recovering from covid but now I'M REALLY REALLY BACK AND GOING TO DO THIS EVERY DAY. IF I DON'T BE ANNOYING AT ME AND MAKE ME DO IT.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Alright, this one's an absolute must-watch. Grand Theft Auto speedruns are always kind of a 'meh' for me because I just don't like the series or genre much and they can be sort of repetitive, yet I always have a GREAT time watching them, and for sure in this case it's because of the runner, kz_frew, who brings an absolutely infectious energy to this run and is genuinely funny while also performing the run well. I don't like the game and still loved this run so this is an easy recommend to anyone.

- The best part of this game as a speedrun are the physics. Getting off the moped and just watching it fly off the screen never stops being funny, and the accidental car crashes are brilliant every time. Speedrunning this game is like a roguelike, you never know what you're gonna get.

- This run is a gold mine for random quotes about the gameplay. Some examples:

"We skip the party because we're too cool to be seen there for very long."
"We're gonna sit here and be told that this is where to buy guns, and then never buy guns. (Runs over someone in the street as he's talking) Sorry sir."
"We're gonna take another phone call and fall into the bushes immediately."
"It's faster in this game to get rid of the door to your vehicle. We can do this by grinding on the passenger side here."

- "I don't make the same mistake twice. I just make different mistakes over and over again."

- After forgetting introductions: "Hi I'm kz_frew, we're fifteen minutes into Vice City, this is pmctrilogy."

- There was a particularly funny part of this run where kz puts his controller down but then realizes he needs it and scrambles to grab it again. "That was probably the worst I've done in a while but it was funny so I don't care."

- There was a well-deserved emotional speech at the end of this one where kz_frew announced that after many GDQ runs, he's going to retire from GDQ and step aside for other runners. It was very sweet and didn't come across as too self-aggrandizing at all - he's earned the platform to wish farewell and pass the baton. He'll be missed!

The way commentary/donation comments think the absolute worst pun jokes of all time are good filler content when theyre not otherwise driving a joke into the ground has made GDQ a lot harder for me to watch in the last five or so years. If it gets bad enough on a game I dont really care about I just shut it off.

kz_frew is the most entertaining runner I've ever seen and I'll miss him dearly.

I'll update later today

did I say today I meant in a few days

Silent Hill 4: The Room

I feel bad because I actually watched this run like a week ago and forgot to update the topic on it. So I actually forgot what I wanted to say! All I know is that this run was great. Not the most entertaining speedrun ever but the commentary sells it - AnEternalEnigma and his insane jacket as well as the recently retired kz_frew and whoever the hell else was on this couch, don't remember, they all absolutely kill it. This one's just great - a definite must-watch just for the couch chemistry alone.

- "Guess what I did? I took the Fear 1 world record, baby! That was me! And then you got it back I believe and I don't know what's happened since then."

- Hi-C ecto cooler blood won the color bidding war. I will not stand for their slander of green ketchup. Green ketchup kicked ass.

- "I like the box art for this game. I saw it when I was a kid in Wal-Mart, and I was like, mommy, I want that one, but she buoght me GTA instead and changed my life forever." "And now you're retired."

- They run this one in the dreaded easy mode, which has always been a prickly topic for GDQ viewers. I don't mind it here - the game's not really about being super difficult or whatever, just about going through and doing tasks as fast as possible.

- AnEternalEnigma wanted to be a game show host when he grew up. He's got the jacket for it.

- They sure do amp up the FNAF bonus run a lot during this run to get it to its goal (which it hit, obviously) and oh boy, I can't wait to see that run!

- WE'RE SPEEDRUNNING, EILEEN

---Highlights---
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Mass Effect
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Ninja Gaiden
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Silent Hill 4: The Room
---Recommended---
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019)
Shadow of the Colossus
Rolled Out!
Spyro the Dragon
Super Bonk
Blaster Master
Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth
McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure
Pokemon Snap
Ty The Tasmanian Tiger
---Decent---
Super Castlevania IV
Bubble Bobble Part 2
Perspective
Perfect Dark
Ico
Alien Cabal
Altered Beast
Sly 2: Band of Thieves
NiGHTS into dreams...
WarioWare: Touched!
---Skippable---
Super Dream Dasher
Sonic Generations
Bulk Slash
The Pathless
FAITH: Chapter III

Also, either expect me to update this more frequently now that I've recovered from covid - or demand it from me, because I would really like to finish this before the next fucking gdq lol

Paratroopa1 posted...

- They run this one in the dreaded easy mode, which has always been a prickly topic for GDQ viewers. I don't mind it here - the game's not really about being super difficult or whatever, just about going through and doing tasks as fast as possible.

i don't think it should be a prickly topic. i remember when arcus was asked on his stream if ninja gaiden was a hard speedrun for him to learn because the game is so difficult, he replied something like: "when you start grinding a game, terms like 'easy' and 'hard' go out of the window. it's just a matter of putting in the hours."

i do get that certain speedruns are harder to learn than other runs. but that's a different issue than the "is there a significant difference between running a game on easy mode or hard mode" question.

Doesnt the difficulty level actually alter puzzle design in the Silent Hill games? Or at least a few of them? (I recall hearing of some Shakespeare play-related puzzle that is a nightmare on higher difficulties in one of the games) For a speed run where you already have the solutions memorized it doesnt make that much difference in terms of skill but they would probably be counted as separate categories if there are changes in the tasks you have to do

silent hills have difficulty and riddle difficulty as separate things. well 1-3 do. dont remember if 4 does