Update: Incredibly, Werster has managed to knock down that world record time even further, posting a new video showcasing a complete run that took just 23 minutes and 13 seconds (down from the 33-minute attempt we shared previously). You can see that new run above, and more info on the speedrun can be found in our original article below.
Original Article (Mon 29th Nov, 2021 12:00 GMT): Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have only been available for ten days, but speedrunners are already smashing it out of the park when it comes to beating the new games as quickly as possible.
YouTuber Werster has today shared a video showing the game being completed in just 33 minutes and ten seconds. At the time of writing, it's believed to be the world record for an 'any%' speedrun of the game, and it's pretty mindblowing to watch.
As you can imagine, all sorts of tricks and glitches are used to cut down the game's playing time (which, according to users submitting playthrough times on HowLongToBeat, would usually take the average player around 24 hours). Indeed, the vast majority of the game including Trainer battles and even Elite Four matches are skipped entirely thanks to some crazy glitches, and menu tricks such as turning off the sound (which apparently stops jingles from loading) are also used to shave off the seconds.
Check it out:
If you're interested in seeing exactly how this was done, Werster has shared a rundown of all the glitches used here. Perhaps one of the most important glitches is known as 'Door Storage', where having an open menu, then going to open a door and closing the menu during the animation that should follow, results in an interruption that causes certain scripts such as Pokémon encounters and Trainer battles to not load.
Interestingly, the same trick is used to perform the ridiculous Surfing you'll spot in the video; by performing the Door Storage glitch and then choosing to Surf, the game "completes the animation of entering the door, but on Bibarel, so you warp inside the door on Bibarel, and can Surf on Land".
How do people figure all of this out? Nice work, Werster!
Comments 42
And people complained about Metroid Dread being too short /s
My man werster~
The absolute madman~
Dont even think for a second werster found all this on his own! Speedrunning is a community effort with dozens of people working to uncover as much as they can, sharing their discoveries, route changes, and strats with one another. When a world record is smashed its not just the runner celebrating, its the entire community!!
"A Speedrunner"? Dude. Werster's a legend
@SmartNickname But he's a speed runner and most people wouldn't recognize his name. Super cool and congrats to him, though.
thats a lot of game for the buck
So he had to cheat? That's no true speed run
Respect goes to those Dark souls/Demon souls speed runners
@Dethmunk @UltimateOtaku91
In a standard any% speedrun, the criteria is "Completing the game's win condition in the shortest time by any completion total using any means necessary, excluding the use of hardware or software modification".
In other words since this fault exists within the game's code and can be performed without any modification, the community permits it.
That said, they'll usually establish categories that closer fit the normal progression of the game because "skip to the end" runs often have limited appeal.
@Dethmunk Lol, like exploits and glitches weren't being used in Speedruns from the beginning. Glitchless categories exist for a reason. They just rarely get news articles on them.
@Dethmunk Yes, it's a valid speedrun. People have been using glitches in speedruns for as long as there have been speedruns. There are typically separate categories for glitchless runs. There's lots of categories for lots of games. Hell, there's a "nipple%" meme category for Mario Odyssey where you play as fast as you can until you get the swimsuit costume to show Mario's nipples on screen.
Speedruns as a whole don't subscribe to one hard set of rules beyond obvious things like "don't splice video", "don't use turbo controllers", or "don't manipulate hardware". Check out the General Gameplay Rules section near the bottom of the page here: https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/site-rules
I've always found it boring when people use glitches to "speedrun" games. I don't care that it's considered legitimate, it's just boring. Cheesing mechanics is one thing, but exploiting glitches is lame. Like how Mario Kart 7 online was insanely broken and boring because everyone just decided to use exploits instead of testing their skills.
@SmartNickname
For real. He’s up there with Hotarubi, Mitch, and AndrewG.
@eaglebob345
I disagree. I love seeing games absolutely broken. Those are the speed runs I like.
Like Japan Version 1 of A Link to the Past reverse boss order. That’s one of my favorite categories on any game.
My guess is someone from QA department gives out the list of bugs that weren't fixed before release and then a few people get them and exploit for these stupid 'look at me I act like I finished a game without really playing it' videos.
If you could glitch it to show the end of game credits in the first minute then you can equally say you beat the game in 1 minute compared to these other crap ways of 'playing'
@Dethmunk
Utilizing glitches isn’t cheating. Cheating a speed run is classified as utilizing mechanics and tools outside of the game’s code to complete the run. For example, using a GameShark/Genie, or manipulating the video recording.
A “glitch” is a flaw with the game code. It’s perfectly legitimate because that glitch is contained solely within the game code. No outside methods are used.
Another thing, most glitched runs have extremely punishing execution. There’s a number of glitches in common games that are nearly impossible to activate consistently.
@TheRedComet Ok, so say there is a glitch that gives you the endgame right after the first minute.. that is a 1 minute speed run then right? or it's whoever sets the rules of what playing is wins?
@ChakraStomps
That would be classified as a Any% glitched run.
The community around popular games is very well developed and they agree as a coalition to create the categories.
Usually any% is the most popular and generally they run both glitched and glitchless runs.
So when the game gets patched, is this still valid?
Personally I don't like speed runs where the bulk of the game is "skipped" due to a defect in the game that was not intentional.
A speedrun of a RPG game... I don’t know how to feel about that.😥
@Cathousemaster yes, this will be still valid, but under a different category i.e. 1.10 update, as it's hard to switch Pokemon versions.
Just checked out his stream since he was live. Holy hell that's a toxic chat room.
I'm pretty confused by some of these comments. Breaking games usually isn't my thing, with some exceptions, and I don't speedrun, but I appreciate the artistry behind it.
In many cases it's not easy to draw the line between "exploiting" an "unintentional defect" in a game versus mastering the game mechanics. Did BoTW's developers deliberately intend players to be able to do some of the crazy things you can do in that game? Did the Super Mario 64 team ever envision the kind of liquid Mario motion you see done nowadays when they were playtesting? No, but they came up with flexible game mechanics that were fun for players to explore.
There are many ways to play games, some of which are fun for some people and not fun for others. Whatever. Play and let play.
@Dethmunk Well I know its just an opinion, but for the most part, you couldn't actually speedrun the game normally, It would more or less end up being the time the game just takes, But the thing about glitching is that use them right, and you beat a world record.
The glitches kinda act as Moves in a sort.
@Dethmunk Thats why they have different categories, although I’m with you in that viewpoint.
Whilst I don’t deny the skill involved to find and exploit glitches, I hold No-Glitch Speedruns much more highly than those that use them as the player has used his/her skills to beat the game within the confines of the creators’ rules and boundaries. Its a bit like comparing 2 people who completed a Marathon, but the one with the faster time used a teleporter or some other exploit that wasn’t covered by the rules and won on a technicality.
Next speedrunner challenge = beat Pokemon BDSP in 23 seconds.
How to do that ?
Just play the credit roll of Pokemon BDSP from Youtube 😁
This speed run is a fun thing to pass the time, but it will never be legitimate.
any% speedrun is the most interesting because one new exploit or glitch can shake up the entire scene. Say a game that’s been speedrun for 5yrs now and the stable time is 3hrs long can one day drop to 1hr long to beat because of a new discovered exploit (and then another half hr because another exploit few days later), or that one legendary time that is 1hr due to the biggest RNG luck sack stayed as number 1 for years whilst all records are 1.5hrs at 2nd place onwards suddenly becomes beatable because a new technique shaves that much time off.
Glitchless isn’t as interesting because once everyone optimised their play to perfection, it’s only a matter of button mashing text faster and hoping for RNG to get faster times. You’ll get the occasional time shaved off but it’s usually just a few nano seconds and nothing really changed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oudZMniib08
This is the history of Mario Sunshine speedrun and I think it perfectly shows why any% is such an exciting category.
Finally to top it off, just beating the game fastest isn’t always any%. If it’s not interesting to watch, they’ll make a seperate category just for runs with that glitch like Super Mario World Speedrun category. There is the under 10min speedrun a which is this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gECESOoU8Es
But due to how boring it is to watch, this is put as it’s own category whilst longer runs with gameplay exploits rather than system exploits are still at the forefront even though the runs are way longer.
23 minoot gaem?!?! 3/10!
@gloom you clearly don't know anything about speedruns yet you talk like you do.
It's funny that all glitched Pokemon Speedruns turn out this way. I guess it's just the way the games were coded. You can beat the original Red/Blue and Gold/Silver in less than 5 minutes if you know what you are doing. The source code leak for BDSP is probably why we are seeing times this fast so early.
Would be nice to include glitch-less/no major glitches times in article too for fair comparison
@Dethmunk @Snatcher @icomma @Snow-Dust
Speed running has diffract categories, ranging all the way from clean/complete runs with no bugs to full assisted any % where all you need to do is trigger the end screen but can use high-concept hacks like cartage swapping. There are also fringe categories from no dying to you can only use one button. Basically if you want to try to beat a game in some specific way and there are other people in the community who think that's cool enough to make a competition out of ... game on.
Each gets there own world record speed, so you're always trying to best the other people using the same rule set you are. No one forces you to play a type of run you don't want to and no one forces you to watch a type you don't want to.
Instead of arguing about what "valid" or "interesting" or "fun to watch" ... just check out the community and find streamers that are playing the game the way you want to see it played. Everyone is into something different. Personally I love watching runs where the big window is the hardware memory state while a tiny little box in the corner is the actual game because I love watching that from a computer science perspective. But I also love unassisted runs from time to time, depending on the game.
@SmartNickname You’re right. I don’t watch something like this because I would never waste my time with someone cheating. Sure, it does take practice and time to figure it out, but it’s not even playing the game at this point. It’s nothing more than a demo on what glitches the devs missed. I understand that it’s fascinating to observe, but it isn’t legally a real speedrun by it’s true original definition. Goodbye!
@gloom
And what is the definition of speedruning? To finish something as fast as possible under a set of rules that a community has defined. This is a legitimate thing and you can’t argue against it. You may try, but you will fail. Don’t like it? That is fine. I’m not a big fan on this run since it has no gameplay, but it’s valid. This category will be dead in a short amount of time anyways, but others will be more interesting.
Glitch focused speed runs wills always be the most snore inducing. “Woohoo I did X, Y, and Z glitch and I’m done in 5 min!”
More skill involved playing the game legitimately because just the most minor of mistakes can send you back several hours.
What a broken game!
@Arawn93 It really depends on the run, but I agree that runs where a glitch is the focus is pretty boring. There are some runs with some pretty wild glitches (Skyward Sword with its bizzare Main Menu glitch is pretty interesting to watch), but the ones where it's a handful of menus and a rush to the final screen can be rather boring to watch.
And now it's down to 17 minutes and 17 seconds. He just uploaded it on youtube.
@Greatluigi Same here, everything for the TikTok clicks or something like that. I stay far away from this kind of 'coolness' and just enjoy the gameplay.
More like bratwerster, where's the sauerkraut??
we all play for different reasons
I usually only watch speed runs that are more in line with the full game, but the community effort to discover and execute all these exploits is impressive.
(update) there are people doing things like this everyday obviously because they have no life.
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