Last week was a seven-day bonanza full of exciting speedruns, as the Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 marathon raised over $US2 million ($2.5 million) for charity. Here are some of my favourite runs from the show.
Final Fantasy 4 by riversmccown (starts at 17:03)
The first two hours of this FF4 run are a blast to watch, and then, just after speedrunner Rivers McCown gets to the Underground, everything explodes. You’ll see.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Randomizer by Andy and ChristosOwen (starts at 26:43)
Bored of perfectly running Link to the Past, some speedrunners have instead embraced the Randomizer, a mod that switches up the locations of every item in the game. Runners Andy and Christosowen took things one step further by playing it without a sword. The race that ensued was delightful chaos.
Super Dram World 2 by Grandpoobear (starts at 21:48)
There is nothing better than watching talented Super Mario World players race through Kaizo-style death-traps.
Animorphs: Shattered Reality by Keizaron (starts at 11:56)
Part of the “Awful Games Done Quick” block, this Animorphs speedrun is hilarious and worth watching just as a reminder that this was actually a video game that people used money to buy.
Dragon Warrior by NESCardinality (starts at 8:49)
Great commentary and ridiculous RNG make this speedy Dragon Warrior run worth watching.
Strider tutorial by jimmypoopins and darkman78 (starts at 25:01)
Rather than simply blaze through Strider, speedrunner Darkman78 decided to teach speedrunner Jimmypoopins how to do it. This run is divided into two parts. In the first, Darkman walks Jimmy through the process of speedrunning Strider. In the second, Jimmy has to do it himself. It’s a creative, funny run that showcases how anyone might start getting into speedrunning video games.
Donkey Kong Country reverse boss order by V0oid (starts at 16:17)
If you’ve ever wanted to see Donkey Kong Country broken into many little pieces, you have to watch this reverse-boss-order speedrun. It’s full of precise platforming and wild glitches.
Super Mario Sunshine by AverageTrey (starts at 23:30)
Entertaining, informative, and full of fun strategies for collecting all the Shines, this Sunshine run is worth watching even in a post-Odyssey world.
Comments
6 responses to “The Best Speedruns From AGDQ 2018”
Worth a look also is the bloodborne run, whilst the run itself is not quite as clean as it could have been, the commentary was super entertaining
I found myself laughing far too hard at the narration during the Ultima VI run. Squibbon’s deadpan delivery is glorious.
In fact, the commentary for a lot of the runs I caught were mostly pretty solid. A few made me cringe, with only one or two making me switch off entirely. The rest though? Amazingly solid.
Another one that’s well worth watching is Tinahacks’ run of Wonderboy 3 remake
. They’ve got a member of the DotEMU dev team on the couch giving insight to a number of the glitches & what went on during development. Great creator commentary!
Oooh. nearly forgot the lunacy that is Densha de D: Lightning Stage too! https://youtu.be/GzkNwc_uqEY?t=9m16s
Multi. Track. Drifting. Awwwww yeah
How did you miss Zallard1’s simultaneous Mike Tyson’s punch-out/super punch-out run? Godlike
It got its own article: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/01/guy-beats-both-punch-out-games-at-the-same-time-using-one-controller/