Summary
We all want to go fast sometimes. Speedrunning is the perfect hobby for harnessing the skills and knowledge necessary to ascend the leaderboards. Of course, when you think of speedrunning, you think of games that can beaten in as little as 583 milliseconds. You may also think about the popular classics like Super Mario 64, a game that can beaten in a matter of minutes.
But when a game offers enough content that simply leaves players unable to finish a game within 20 to 30 hours in a casual setting, a speedrun of these games can take half a dozen hours to as long as several weeks. Make sure you’re not going too fast, as these games are a marathon, not a sprint.
All statistics provided courtesy ofSpeedrun.com
8Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (180 Emblems)
Embrace The Chaos (Emeralds)
The Sonic series, at least initially, had a very straightforward path to 100 percent completion: gather six (eventually, seven) Chaos Emeralds, then defeat Dr. Robotnik at the end of the story to secure the golden endings. The 2001 sequel to Sonic Adventure has 180 emblems for you to collect.
To find these 180 emblems, you must clear the main stories first, then acquire an A-Rank with every main character. You will still end up several dozen emblems short, as after this, you must still clear every remaining challenge the game has to offer. This includes, but is not limited to, becoming a parent to your Chao companions and engaging in multiple boss rushes with every group of characters.The current World Record sits at 7:19:08.
7Super Mario Odyssey (100%)
Mario Goes Around The World
Super Mario Odyssey has remained a popular choice for the speedrunning community at large since its 2017 release. Although the current Any% World Record sits at just under an hour, the game’s other categories are exponentially longer, culminating in the 100% Speedrun. To complete the 100% category, you’d already have to tackle the near-hour-long jaunt to defeat Bowser, which will only buy you roughly ten percent of the nearly 1,000 Power Moons required to finish the category.
The other areas you can explore in the Dark Side and Darker Side also must be cleared, and you must also bring World Peace to the Kingdoms you stop by along the way. Make sure you’ve routed your coin counts as you go, as 100% will also require buying every item in the game.The 100% category’s World Record presently stands at just north of 8.5 hours.
6The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Low%)
Staring Contest Time
This 2006 entry in the legendary franchise, Twilight Princess chronicles another one of the many adventures of Link, who is transformed into a wolf and must team up with Midna to rid himself of said curse and save Zelda from Ganondorf once again.
The Low% category of any game implies that you must complete the game with the fewest items possible. Twilight Princess takes this concept to an extreme, where runners have discovered that you must stare at a rupee for a period of up to 12 hours. This statement might seem like a joke, but it isn’t. The current World Record has found ways to shorten this wait time andpresently sits just north of 13 hours.
53D Mario Series - The 602 (Four 100% Runs)
How Many Stars, Exactly?
This compilation run of four separate Mario games—Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy, its sequel, and Super Mario Sunshine—has a grand total of 602 stars for you to collect.Mario 64, Galaxy 1, and Mario Sunshine all have 120 stars for you to collect, while Galaxy 2 offers a whopping 242 stars. Of the 19 hours you’ll spend tackling this run,approximately half will be spent traveling the Cosmosto complete Mario Galaxy 2.
To compete in this run, you must complete all four games in their entirety, back to back, although you may (rather mercifully) choose to take breaks during the run, and the run will change from an RTA (or Real Time Attack) to a TA (Time Attack) method timed run.The record currently sits at 19:09:15, and the theoretical floor time for this marathon sits at just over 18 hours.
Taking On The Wild, Wild West
The Any% category for Red Dead Redemption 2, the sequel to the 2010 Rockstar HitRed Dead Redemption, is already 12 hours. The 100% category for the 2018 return to the world of the series effectively doubles the length of time you have to spend navigating as John Morgan from 12 hours to 25 hours, or just over one full day.
The speedrun route for Red Dead Redemption 2 will take you through the game’s six main chapters and two epilogues, then on a trip around the open world of the Old West to complete the remaining requirements for 100 percent completion. These requirements will include every additional and side mission, obtain every collectible, and even surviving an ambush by gangs, all to complete the category withinthe current world record time of 25:09:21.
3Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories (100%)
Randomness Is The Name Of The Game
Released at the turn of the Millennium,Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memoriesis a game that the speedrunning community surrounding it will be best described as a truly random game. There have been multiple infamous moments of runners being trolled by the game’s RNG (otherwise known as random number generation), including multiple moments of being “Exodia’d.”
The Any% speedrun category of the game clocks in at just under one hour, assuming you learn how to manipulate the RNG, but the 100% category goes from one hour tojust over 72 hours. And through those 72 hours, you’d have to unlock all duelists, unlock all possible cards, and eventually beat the game. And you’d best believe that if you were to take on this category, you too would experience the pitfalls of RNG.
2Gran Turismo 4 (100%)
Racing Into The Record Books
Racing video gamesare often as much of a popular pick as any other for speedrunning. The frequent choice for many prospective racers, both new and old, is to tackle single laps on individual tracks. Many do choose to try and tackle speedruns of the full games. And from within the concept of tackling a full game speedrun, theGran Turismoseries offers a speedrun that truly tests your endurance.
The 100% category for Gran Turismo 4 currently sits at exactly 230 hours. Within those 230 hours, the four (yes, four people took on this speedrun) players who took on this challenge had a laundry list of achievements to tackle in the racing classic. The four-man team had to win every single individual race, win every championship, and pass every DM race to finally see out 100 percent completion after nearly nine days.
1Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings And The Lost Ocean (100%)
Two Weeks Later…
The first game of the Baten Kaitos series, which did not see a Western release until 2004, would already qualify for being on this list as its Unrestricted category will last for eight hours. The 100% category ascends above Gran Turismo 4 in the category of endurance testing, asthe current world record sits at 337 hours and 55 minutes.
But why? Patience is truly a virtue for this speedrun, and the reason why this speedrun will take away weeks of your life is the item otherwise known as the Splendid Hair.Acquiring this item first necessitates having to get a shampoo bottle, and then the wait begins. After two weeks, the bottle will change into the aforementioned splendid hair. Only after the two-week period passes can you finally proceed to complete the 100% category. Only six players have ever managed the feat of completing this category.
