If You Thought You'd Mastered These Games, You're Wrong

If you grew up playing oldschool video games, chances are that at some point, you and your friends have competed to see who could beat your favorites the fastest. Be it getting to the end of Super Mario Bros. first, or seeing if you could beat eachother's best lap times in Mario Kart.

Turns out we were amateurs the entire time.

Speedrunners take the concept of beating games quickly to a level that most of us could only dream of matching. These people take their in-depth knowledge of literally every aspect of a game's programming (including glitches), and use this to cut down hours of game time.

Here are some of our absolute favorite runs that will definitely blow your mind.

1) Pokémon Yellow - Game Completed Immediately

What's the fastest way to beat the game? Turns out it's not to catch 'em all: it's to use a glitch to beat the game right at the beginning! That's right, the game clock still reads 0:00 when you use this run tactic!

2) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Under 20 Minutes

One of the most expansive and open games of its time, Ocarina of Time had us all exploring Hyrule for dozens of hours as kids. Even if you try to blast through it, it's still going to take you a while.

That is, of course, unless you're speedrunner Torje, who uses a clever series of glitches to skip right from the first dungeon to the final boss!

3) Super Mario World - Just Over A Minute

This famous run uses manipulation of how the game reads the code of items and defeated enemies to trigger the end credits scene in just over a minute! You read that right.

Click to the next page for even more amazing speedruns!

4) Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! - Blindfold Race

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! is widely known as one of the hardest games of all time. It's an uphill battle to challenged the former heavyweight champion, and once you get there you have to deal with Tyson's punches that can take you out in a single hit.

So, of course, two speedrunners had a race to see who could beat it the fastest... while BLINDFOLDED. Feel inadequate yet?

5) Mario Kart 64 - All Courses In 20 Minutes

Sometimes runners use programs to help input controls in a way that would be all but impossible for humans to do. These are called Tool-Assisted Speedruns, or TASes. In this masterpiece of a TAS, we see every course of Mario Kart 64 beaten within twenty minutes using glitches and shortcuts to skip entire courses. Seriously, some levels are finished within seconds of starting them.

6) Super Mario 64 - Game Completed With 0 Stars

Considered by many to be the most impressive speedrun of a game ever, this completely unassisted run has the player using a multitude of glitches to beat Super Mario 64 in less than 10 minutes and without picking up a single star!

If you liked these, be sure to check out Games Done Quick! They're an organization of speedrunners who host semi-yearly events where runners beat games to raise money for charity.

They've raised millions of dollars for charities like The Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders, and best of all, their annual Summer Games Done Quick event starts on July 2nd, just over a week from now!

Share with anybody who loves retro games!