8 Speedruns That Have Been Completely Ruined

In this video, we'll be exploring 8 different speedruns that have been deemed "completely ruined" at some point by the speedrunning community. This can mean anything from a particularly terrible trick, to too many elements of luck, to a lack of a tangible storyline. I will be explaining the stories of each game, and I want YOU to decide whether or not you think they're actually ruined!

I hope you enjoy this video, I have never made content like this before. Let me know if you want to learn more about any of these games, or if you have any constructive feedback on this video! I hope you enjoy!

Editing by ariapath
Thumbnail by ZeskyWheat
Scripting and research by me, ariapath, and smloader

00:00 - Intro
00:38 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
08:55 - Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
10:52 - The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
14:03 - Super Mario Sunshine
16:26 - SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom
18:45 - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
22:55 - Donkey Kong 64
23:46 - Minecraft
30:44 - Outro
___

[Syphrus]

In skate 2, there is a category for completing every career challenge. The problem was ppl were running the category for years without realizing they didn't beat every career challenge. The game gives you a very linear set of challenges. And eventually no more challenges pop up meaning you beat every challenge. However there are 7 pools in the game you can find. The game only requires you to find 4. The remaining 3 were left out because it wasn't required to beat the game (any%). No where in the game was it incentivised to get the remaining 3. As it turns out, there were more career challenges if you found the remaining 3, invalidating 5 years worth of speed runs.

[trainerlsw]

Other games: Has insanely difficult mechanics that can make a run unbearable to play or has insane glitches that makes runs completely boring or too difficult to be enjoyed.
DK64: Comically invalidates 9 speedrun categories because of a single missed collectible.

[Landjrin]

That DK64 one is nuts.

That's like discovering there was a 121st star in Mario 64 or something like that.

[megacherv]

Fun fact related to the Majora's Mask ruin (which is called a 'buffer overflow'), that is how Insomniac used to patch RaC3's online mode. Because the PS2 didn't have a HDD by default, they couldn't just upload fixes or balance changes. Instead, they realised that the EULA that you download when you go to connect online, they would download more extra data that eventually overwrote a function pointer, allowing them to then 'patch' the game.

I can't find the interview right now but it's such an incredible trick that they utilised a flaw to their advantage

[Dirakiaa]

Pokemon Red is also fucked... You barely leave your room and warp straight to the Credits (Hall of Fame)

[gilolaes]

Shift has a stranglehold on BfBB is probably the biggest understatement of this video when you consider some of the crazy stuff he helped discover in that game.

[azer]

The Wind Waker is very much still alive, but people usually run other categories. The most competitive one is Any% No MSS which bans manual superswimming and puppet ganon skip, leading to a difficult but fun and doable run !

[landonhagan]

I think the strongest case for being truly ruined is OoT. There comes a stage where the game is so optimized that you're barely even playing it anymore, so what's even the point? By then, it's practically what philosophers would call a "solved game".

[nathanblackburn]

The irony of speedrunners optimising a game so intensely that they ruin it, kinda silly when you think about it

[canolathra]

RNG is always the largest issue with speedruns. The moment the fastest time is only available via RNG the run becomes an awful time for everyone.

[bigbangbot-SuperSqank]

Nice video Xem. Seeing this has reminded me that I once completely ruined a speedrun. Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure is basically Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 but with a Disney skin. The game was a short speedrun which overall was not too difficult for newcomers to get into. It didn't have many skips, exploits or glitches, it was just a clean run which needed strong routing and movement.

One day however, I found a trick called menu storage. You can pause the game when a cutscene starts or when you pickup a collectable and it will allow you to skate around during cutscenes while the save menu was open. This would naturally let you skip cutscenes. Originally, it was a very niche trick which was not very consistent or applicable but runners eventually found a way to make it consistent, allowing it to be used in a bunch of places. This started off by allowing the player to skip a few cutscenes, you could only really do it in certain places for specific missions but then I came in and caused chaos. I found that you could chain together menu storage across multiple missions which meant that on some levels, you could play the entire level with menu storage. This saved a whole bunch of time, allowing you to skip many cutscenes but the problem was that you only really had one chance to set it up (and if you missed it, you just missed it) and when you got it, you had to play the game while a big menu was overlaying the game and you had to make sure that menu stayed open while you played. It made the run faster but it significantly increased the barrier to entry and it turned veterans away from the game, killing any momentum it had. It was an arbitrary trick which made the game harder and more annoying to play and nobody wanted that.

A no menu storage category was made later on which did breath some new life into the game but this admittedly happened way later than it should have and that was my fault. People simply didn't make too much noise about menu storage, everyone hated it in the background but they simply moved on with their lives rather than making a fuss about it (until years later at least). Nobody has ran the menu storage category since I pushed it while the no menu storage run has gotten to a point where the run is shorter than the current menu storage record.

And that is the story on how I ruined a speedrun. Out of the many games I have speedran, that was the most detrimental contribution I had made to a run. It was a shame because it is a neat little game and the trick was going to be found eventually but it is still something I feel guilty about. These things just eventually happen to some runs and they are more or less inevitable but it does hurt when you are the one that finds these things and it has a negative impact on the community.

[LunaticJ]

Dang the OoT part really hit home. I really wish people knew more about categories like MST (Medallions, Stones & Trials), as well as GSR (Ganondorf Source Requirement). GSR is basically a No Major Glitches category that’s been around for a long time, and bans RBA, GIM, wrong warps, and SRM. There is so much variety and community activity like Bingo and DannyB’s OoT Master Series task competitions that unfortunately don’t get much appreciation. I’m very impressed with the research on the OoT part, and I hope people take the time to check out some of the more competitive categories!

[Fires_Phoenix]

This is why I like Couriway, he's trying to beat Minecraft 100, 000 times and he is not allowed to reset. Makes for some really entertaining runs.

[healthyminds]

As a semi casual Mario Sunshine speedrunner, the game is incredibly fun to practice and speedrun! The key is to simply have reasonable goals instead of trying to get crazy perfect runs. Probably true for many other games.

[Needdisconnect]

0:04 “…but this can come at a price” carpel tunnel 😔

[bread]

The fact that Paper Mario 64 was not mentioned is a crime. The fact that you have to play Ocarina of Time for the majority of time in order to get a world record will always be funny to me.

[drasticgray]

For perspective on how obnoxious wind waker runs are: After doing a whole run of complex tricks requiring insane dexterity, you would skip puppet ganon. There's a vertical climb after the boss, then you go fight the real ganon and win the game. To get to the top of the arena the puppet ganon fight without fighting him, you used to need to execute a zombie hover. This trick requires a lineup, and high speed button mashing for an exhaustingly long time. As you get to the top of the room with no HP, you can't land on the platform with 0hp or you'll get a game over. Luckily there's a pot with a fairy in it up there, so if you can make contact with it during the hover you'll be able to fight ganon and finish the game. I remember the video of the dude zombie hovering in wind waker just before the final boss at WR pace, and the fairy doesn't revive him because it flies in random directions every time. He quit the category. I don't blame him at all, polishing your skills at something to a ridiculous degree and just having to accept that most runs aren't very lucky and you wont get your prize must feel horrible.

[aughlnal]

4:55 You don't open the chest, that would stop the glitch
By going in front of a chest with GIM you manipulate what item you will get when resurfacing from water

[Robbieokay]

ZFG quit any% a long time ago, he mostly ran other categories with 100% being the main one. Only reason he started pumping randomizers was because a couple runners were trying to work out a potential new route for 100% and it was taking a long time so he decided to try to get good at randomizers while waiting since he was decently interested in it with how many tricks and glitches can be used in randos that aren't viable or worthwhile to use in current speedruns. He still plans on going back to 100% at some point.

Also missed a chance to showcase how bad memory overload barrier skip in WW was at the start. It saved time overall but there were many spots in the run where the runner would just sit spamming the bow while counting to try and reach close to the amount needed to unload the barrier and finish it off in the castle.

[king_dedede]

In UYA's case I think it's also worth mentioning the new trophy strats (you unlock a PSN trophy and press load in the pause menu, but the load screen lags for about 10 seconds and you can load a file in a place you're not usually supposed to). Back when they were first about a year ago pretty much everyone agreed it was a big improvement, since the only implementation in runs skipped a very boring 6 minute arena mission. Since then, there's been a bunch of research and now there's massive skips in almost every category (e.g. blackwater early mission 3) which sounds nice at first, but in the long run I think it makes the game worse. If you want to be competitive, you now have to close the game after every run past the first 9 minutes to reset the trophy using a homebrew tool, which makes doing attempts a lot less fun for me. We've been looking for a way to do these strats without trophies for a while now but haven't had any luck, and the new skips are way too fast to just not go for, so it's not a great situation.

Anyway, if there's any PS3 homebrew developers reading this, there is a $50 bounty if someone can add a trophy lock/unlock feature to racman 😅