Happy Week #35!
I apologise for the unscheduled break last week. Unless you didn’t even notice. In that case, pretend I didn’t mention anything. It does always take me a little bit of time to get started again, but as soon as I do I get hooked once more. Writing is fun.
If you streamed on Twitch, this is your scheduled weekly reminder to back up or export your saved Highlights, especially if those are speedruns. As reported in Week #32 and all weeks after that, Twitch is going to enforce a 100-hour limit on Highlights starting on April 19th and will delete anything above that limit. Tell your friends!
Contents
Up to Speed ⚡️
Event News 📅
This Week’s Top Times 🏆
Frame by Frame (TAS Movies) 🔧
Reddit Choice 🔝
I encourage you to think about what happened recently in the communities you are a part of. If there are any stories, articles, glitches, events, or other topics I should cover, go ahead and submit them here or in the Gold Split Discord! 📨
Up to Speed ⚡️
🐐 Suigi improves two Super Mario 64 records (Leaderboard)
It’s unusual that records get their own post in this section, but there’s always exceptions. Week #21 of The Gold Split included the big story about Suigi’s clean sweep of all main categories in Super Mario 64. After a break, he returned to the short 0 Star and 1 Star categories and improved both by over 1.5 seconds within three days. Videos of both runs can be found on YouTube: 0 Star | 1 Star
💼 How speedrunners broke Get To Work (65-minute video)
Get To Work is a rage game with a satirical take on climbing the corporate ladder by Isto Inc. In this video, the level designer themselves talk through how the speedrun of the game evolved during the first ten days after its release. They do a great job at visualising the timeline and explain different techniques used in the run. A competition including prize money made sure that a lot of players participated in finding new strategies and glitches and also in grinding for many hours to really bring down the time.
💻 How to beat NES Mario games in 0.000005 seconds (41-minute video)
Creating a tool-assisted speedrun that beats Super Mario Bros. in just 0.2 seconds was apparently not enough for 100th Coin. In their latest video, they showcase and describe how to finish any Mario game on the NES in just five microseconds by executing custom code while swapping cartridges between CPU cycles. It’s a really techy explanation and I don’t fully grasp half of the concepts, but I still find these videos incredibly compelling.
📅 Registration, Submissions and Applications for SGDQ 2025 open (Bluesky Post)
Until March 31st, you may submit your showcases and/or apply for volunteer roles at one of the largest speedrunning events of the year. The ticket sales (registration) and hotel booking periods have opened as well. SGDQ 2025 will take place in Minneapolis and on Twitch between July 6th and July 13th and raise money for Doctors Without Borders. Links to more information are included in the post.
🕵️♂️ Exposing Trackmania’s Biggest Con-Man (59-minute video)
Trackmania content creator Wirtual and many of his peers unravel a string of clues and present strong evidence that the most infamous cheater in Trackmania history continued to be an active part of the community for over three years after being exposed through a series of undercover sock puppet accounts.
🔍 The biggest glitch in Final Fantasy VII explained (38-minute video)
Cloudsurfing is the name given to the infamous glitch in Final Fantasy VII that recently lead to the discovery of Disc 1 Skip, saving Aerith and changing her fate. There have been a few videos trying to describe the intricacies of how the glitch functions, but this one is the most technical and in-depth explanation I’m aware of. AceZephyr makes use of development tools and easy to understand animations to visualise what is really going on.
See AlsoSuper Mario Psp Iso Cso
💰 Zuma’s Revenge competition finishes (Leaderboard)
Speedrun.com’s prize money competition for the game Zuma’s Revenge finished on March 10th. Results:
Briefly
📜 The Evolution of Final Fantasy XV Speedrunning (26-minute video)
Event News 📅
Currently, the lovely people at Really Really Long a Thon are hosting yet another event that features incredibly long categories that you usually never get to see in other marathons. Check out the schedule, find something that you might enjoy and keep it on in the background if you can’t commit to paying attention for multiple hours.
🏁 Finished
Frost Fatales 2025 raised $150,595 for the National Women's Law Center
⏱️ Running
Until March 31st: Really Really Lots Of Lore 6 (Schedule), benefitting the Transgender Law Center
🔜 Upcoming
Starts March 21st: NoReset6 (Schedule), benefitting the Virtual Guardians Foundation
This Week’s Top Times 🏆
🥇 First Place
Outlast (Any%: Main Game, PC) in 00:04:38.379 by SEAAGLE
VideoResident Evil 2 (PC: Leon A, PC (Vanilla), Any%, Normal) in 00:48:31.000 by LanceLM
Video • TwitchSpyro the Dragon (120%) in 01:19:57.000 by Dayoman (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeGetting Over It With Bennett Foddy (Snake) in 00:01:52.584 by xiaoWendy (Any/All)
VideoHalf-Life 2 (New Engine: Any% No Voidclip) in 00:37:31.530 by Buster12 (He/Him)
VideoHASTE: Broken Worlds (Demo Glitchless) in 00:06:00.000 by Zantrium
VideoPizza Tower (100%: Peppino, No Major Glitches) in 01:43:31.300 by slumbreon (She/Her)
VideoCeleste 64 (Any%) in 00:00:14.499 by Ellaquin (They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥈 Second Place
Hollow Knight (Any%: No Major Glitches) in 00:31:26.000 by Lep (He/Him, They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeYu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories (Any% (Manipless): 15 card) in 01:09:50.000 by A3r1uS
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSpyro the Dragon (Vortex) in 00:20:12.000 by Anne_Chovy (She/Her)
Video • TwitchSubnautica (Any%: Survival, Glitched) in 00:28:47.000 by whotag (She/Her)
Video • YouTube
🥉 Third Place
Pizza Tower (Any%: Peppino, No Major Glitches) in 01:02:57.532 by vlackSR
Video • Twitch • YouTubeFinal Fantasy X (PC: Any%) in 08:26:04.000 by CrimsonInferno9
Video • TwitchMultiple Mario Games (Sandbox Mario Any%: Solo) in 03:17:04.000 by Rodillo (He/Him)
Video • TwitchPikmin 4 (Rescue Olimar) in 01:11:53.000 by albut3
Video
Frame by Frame 🔧
I hope you like Pokémon! No less than four games of the franchise made it into this week’s TAS round-up. I did personally get really excited when I saw that Pokémon Snap would be one of them, but unfortunately a lot of time is spent looking at the sky or the ground to avoid lag. Still, that doesn’t make the perfect pictures taken any less impressive!
A really cool TAS movie I’d like to point out this week is for Zuma Deluxe. Watching a few perfect shots fired at the beginning of each round that result in a chain of explosions is just so satisfying. Bonus fun fact: one of the authors, QuocQuoc, also managed to come third and win prize money in speedrun.com’s recent competition.
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 (NES) in 12:40.48 by Tegron & feos
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game (1 Player)
Pokémon: Black Version (DS) in 2:49:11.29 by CasualPokePlayer
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game
Pokémon Snap (N64) in 20:33.50 by CoolHandMike
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game
Pac-Man World 3 (DS) in 21:10.73 by inconsistent
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game
Pocket Monsters: Green Version (GB) in 04:18.68by CasualPokePlayer
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Game End Glitch
Zuma Deluxe (Windows) in 21:21.14 by Dado & QuocQuoc
Video • Author Notes • Goal:
Balatro (Windows) in 02:28.30 by rythin
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Tutorial
Pokémon Pinball (GBC) in 02:54.25 by KusogeMan
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Defeat Mewtwo (Blue Board)
Reddit Choice 🔝
The r/speedrun choice of the week is… this thread about videos and YouTube channels that focus on in-depth explanations of glitches and bugs. You’ll find the usual suspects, but more than likely at least one you were unaware of!
👋🏻 And that’s it for this week! See you next Thursday, March 27th 2025. 👋🏻
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