Only a game like Dark Souls could beat your self-esteem down to this point: you break the speed run world record and still think the run sucks. That’s precisely what happened to Dark Souls player Kahmul78.
After being the first player to ever break 50 minutes with a 49:55 run, Kahmuhl still isn’t happy. In fact, he prefers his previous personal best of 50:09. He has good reason for the opinion. Kahmul’s 50:09 is pretty much flawless, but new strategies have been uncovered that help cut roughly 35 seconds from the time, meaning that Kahmul’s current record of 49:55 has a few tiny flaws in it. He expects he’ll beat the current world record again fairly soon.
Watch live video from Kahmul78 on Twitch
Still, watching this speed run — particularly as someone who isn’t tuned in to the Dark Souls speed run scene — is phenomenal. I can’t believe the speed and the ease with which Kahmul disposed of some of these bosses. Bosses that literally took me hours to defeat. My first playthrough of Dark Souls took 50 hours. This guy can beat it in less than 50 minutes.
Human beings are incredible.
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5 responses to “Man Breaks Dark Souls World Record, Still Thinks He Sucks”
That seems to be a bit of a trend with Dark Souls speed runners. I used to watch a few of them a while ago and you’d be amazed how hard they are on themselves. Honestly, when I saw this title I was expecting the runner to be Santzo84.
It’s pretty much the same with any kind of performance or creative endeavour (eg. Gymnastics, writing, art, acting, etc.). To the outside observer, all we see is an amazing thing while the artist/performer/actor, who has knowledge of their intentions, only sees the many ways in which they failed to follow that plan or the mistakes they made in pursuit of their idealised goal.
I would say its the same with most speed runners in general. You’d have to have a certain type of personality if you’re willing to attempt something over and over again for the gain of a few seconds. Speed runners are constantly working out different paths and techniques.
Succeed or fail, they’re always striving for better times.
I’m not really one for speed runs but a few months after Metroid Prime was released I watched a few videos and thought I’d give it a crack. Let’s just say I never got close but I did gain an appreciation of the knowledge and skill required to be good at speed runs.
Yeah, guy is down on himself from about four minutes in! “Sub-50 is not even a good run any more…”