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Welcome back to the guide on How to Become a Better Speedrunner. Last time, we discussed how to take a game you love, and figure out how you’re going to run the game from start to finish. This time, we will be going over just how to run the game, and how to best practice your game in particular. However, first things first, something we forgot to do in the last article, and this one is an important one.
How do you choose a game?
There are many reasons to choose a game, whether it is because of the popularity of it, the difficulty of it, or just because. However, if you want to get into Speedrunning, then there is pretty much one golden rule that will help determine whether you do become a speedrunner, or end up not taking part. The first game you should speedrun should always be your favourite game of all time. For me, it was Final Fantasy VII. Luckily, I started speedrunning thanks to being inspired by LzH’s own, CarNage64, who currently holds the FFVII No Slots WR for the console version of the game (a time of 8:00:51.55) which not only gave me the incentive to learn the game, but also an easy to watch and easy to study platform on which I base my runs on FFVII.
While I have yet to complete a single segment of the game, I am getting better the more I practice the game, so eventually a single segment will be possible. However, until then I continue to practice.
There are two ways to practice a game, one is the best way to practice at the beginning of your time running a game, and the second is how to practice all of the little nuances and small things, but this shouldn’t come until you’re holding the world record, so you won’t need to worry about it too much for now, but we’ll cover it before the end of the article.
The first method of practice is something I like to personally call “Divide and Conquer”. This method is plain and simple, and does what it says on the tin. You take the game you’re playing (in this example, Final Fantasy VII) and you find decent segments. You don’t go straight for a single segment run, you work on completing the first segment until you’ve nailed it. In FFVII, the first segment would be Midgar, from beginning to end. After you’ve practiced the segment over and over again (hopefully to a point where you can’t improve your time anymore, and even better a point where you aren’t referring to your notes) you then move on to the next segment.
Unfortunately for FFVII it’s a big jump, as it is a jump from a 2 hour run to a potentially 5+ hour run, which in this case, is Disc 1. Disc 1 has some of the worst parts of FFVII in it, so if you can master Disc 1, then there’s pretty much only 1 boss that can screw over a run once you move on to single segment. Again, you spend hours and hours nailing Disc 1 until you can do it blindfolded (well not really, but you get the idea.) Then, move on to the next segment, Disc 2, and finally, Single Segment.
This might seem more like learning a route than practicing, but if you ever get to a point where, after running a game a lot, you start to screw up Reactor 1 (looking at you, CarN!) on a not so rare basis, then you need to go back to running Midgar for a while until you have it nailed to a t once again. It’s not just a good practice strategy for new players, but for all kinds of players, from new to old.
The next type of practice is a lot easier to explain, but a lot more advanced, and more likely than not just going to be for perfectionists. And that is “Seek and Destroy”. Basically, find the EXACT point that you are suffering on (say, Demon’s Gate) and save just beforehand in a speedrun attempt. (Savestates are your friend here if you are running on an emulator of some kind) Then, load up your save, and work on the perfect strategy. Once you have finished the boss, reload, and do it again. You need to do this again, and again, and again, and again, until you can do it 10/10 times. If it is a game based heavily on RNG, then 8 or 9/10 times would suffice, but those cases where it fails should only really be in the most extreme of circumstances.
However, with this second technique, you will need to do this if you plan on speedrunning a game such as Super Mario 64, where everything is based on how well you can pull off specific tricks. If this is the case, you don’t really need savestates as you can easily practice the tricks anywhere, however you DO need to practice on a higher scale. You’ll need to do it a lot more than 10 times in a row to nail the trick, which is a bit of a shame, but it’s needed if you plan on becoming the new World Record holder!
Speaking of which, continuing with World Records! Woo!
First things first, since the last article, there’s been a new Ocarina of Time Any% WR for the first time in a very long time, set by CosmoWright! Next up, a “The Last Of Us” WR from LzH’s own, Holydiverj, with a time of 3:43:45, done on Hard mode with no New Game Plus! This one is an interesting one, as there are very few people that run the game! Make sure you check him out next time he’s on! Also, another new WR from Samura1man, getting the Super Mario Sunshine 100% WR with 3:29:12!
I think that having World Records in the article from yesterday is probably why there isn’t a large amount of WRs for this article! But for now, that is all from this week’s edition of The Green Split! Next week, what is the best way to show your speedrunning to the world? And also, a secret trick that a 38 year old single mom of 938 children discovered to lose weight that is making scientists furious! All that and more, next week, on The Green Split!
Oh yeah. SPLITS!
That’s not too bad I suppose! World Records obviously didn’t take as long as it should have!
And remember, an apple a day keeps the bad RNG away! Stay Green, folks!
-Rory