We've covered speedrunning in the past, and honestly, the level of granular detail it takes to do it is insane.
For the likes of 'Super Mario Bros.' on the NES, they actually measure movements by pixels and and milliseconds, utilising glitches and exploits in the game to make the speedrunner move faster through it. It's how these games are able to be beaten in increasingly smaller times.
No doubt when you played something like 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time', it probably took you a couple of weeks - intermittently, though it might have been - to clear the game. Obviously, when it's something like this, you're playing it for the story and the experience of it all. But what if you just wanted to get to the end? And were prepared to use glitches, exploits and cheats to get there?
Ocarina of Time has now been completed in under 17 minutes. Thank you everyone for joining me on the journey, but it doesn't end here! 🖤
(FUCK YES DUDE) pic.twitter.com/zr9INRkr1D— Torje (@Txrje) July 12, 2019
So it goes that Torje Amundsen, a Norwegian speedrunner, has now managed to clear 'Ocarina of Time' in 16 minutes, 58 seconds and 51 milliseconds. Because speedrunning is so heavily regulated, it's common practice for players to stream themselves making the run. As you can see from Torje's video, it's as precise as can be and involves using exploits, glitches and cheats in order to get to Ganondorf at the end.
In the speedrunning world, this is what's known as an 'Any%' speedrun, meaning that the game doesn't have to be completed 100% before it gets to the end screen. It can be whatever percentage complete it needs to be in order for the speedrunner to reach the end of the game.
Take a look. It really is nuts how quickly it's played.