Super Metroid - Complete (1:17)
Love me some Super Metroid, although I've never made a dedicated "speed run" attempt at it. In fact, I think part of what has always made this game so incredible for me is the amazing atmosphere and sense of exploration. It's like a genuine alien world where everything is strange and you never quite know what to expect. It's been a few years since I last played it, so I was definitely rusty. I got turned around in Norfair, the Wrecked Ship and Maridia a time or two just trying to remember where things are. Even though I felt that rushing through the game was doing it a disservice, I'll certainly make another attempt to trim my time down. I can maybe shave off 20 minutes or so, with all the uncessary backtracking I did this time but finishing it in anything under that is probably beyond my current skill/memorization level. Still, happy for any excuse to return to this classic game. One of my all-time favorites.
Update: Well, shaved some good time off my run this go-around. I still ended up wasting a few minutes in Maridia, once for getting turned around and once for having to farm for missiles before the Draygon fight. Also, I could probably save more time if I could figure out how to master the wall jump. Even in my younger years, I've always had trouble getting the wall jump (and even Space Jump) to behave consistently. Sometimes it simply doesn't respond to my inputs, even though I seem to be doing exactly what I'm supposed to. Sometimes, Samus will just plummet like a stone in the middle of space jumping and no amount of button-work will break her out of it. Not sure if that has anything to do with the game's programming or if it's just my obliviousness.
Update 2: With the help of research/prep and using a map to plot the most efficient routes between places, I expected to shave a bit of time off my last run but I didn't expect to get it down as much as I did. It's all about cutting corners at that stage. Trying to make every step count. And while I got a teeny, tiny bit better at wall-jumping thanks to a little practice, that's still the biggest barrier to getting through certain sections quickly. I realized after some practice sessions that I would ultimately end up wasting more time than I would save when my wall-jumping chains would inevitabley fail. So, let's just call this a "no wall-jump" run. And I think that's what separates the men from the boys in the world of Super Metroid speed-running. With hardened reflexes and reliable hardware (one of the reasons I ended up abandoning the Wii Virtual Console version for my playthroughs was the occasional lag and/or dropped input inherent in the wireless connection), you can cut serious minutes off the game. Regardless, I think I've cut it down to about as efficient as I can get without becoming a wall-jump fiend and all this time spent looking at the game through new eyes has only deepened my appreciation for it. It's just brilliantly designed all around and I think the fact that people still host serious competitions around it today speaks of it's timeless qualities.
Super Mario All-Stars - 628,800
Running no-death in Lost Levels is tricky in a few places, particularly if you're not familiar with the gimmicks a couple of the stages try to pull on you that can make progress impossible if you're not careful. I tend to call these sort of difficulty curve balls "Mega Man syndrome". The sort of things that are designed to be almost impossible to avoid without knowing they're coming (which a first-time player won't). I don't generally care for this kind of design but thankfully Mario games are so charming that it's easily forgiven. And the fact that I've played the mess out of All-Stars for more than 20 years probably helps temper my criticism.
Lost Levels isn't my favorite of the classic Marios by a long shot but it was fun to get back to it. I've never beaten it, although I have gotten as far as World 8 before. On single life though? Seems 4-3 is as far as I can go. Still, a pretty good score, I think.
