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'Perfect' Zelda NES Speed Record Beaten

An anonymous reader writes "The last verified human Legend of Zelda (NES) speed record was 34 minutes. A few months ago, a re-recording emulator was used to make a 'perfect' video which was 31 and a half minutes. A team worked to optimize the path, and using an emulator created a new video which is 26:56, four and a half minutes faster. The video is 14% faster, and is the first Zelda run to be under a half hour. Furthermore, it achieved a sub-27 minute time, which was presumed impossible. Definitely worth checking out - you can grab the BitTorrent version of the AVI replay at Bisqwit's NES time-attack movie page." There's a thread on the NESvideos forum discussing the attempt, but can anyone succinctly explain the exact tricks the team used to speed up their time?

4 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. speed by tekunokurato · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've beaten the game extremely quickly using emulation by cheating and saving state to gain rupees quickly at the gambling house, then getting the blue ring and other important artifacts right off the bat. Speeds things up like crazy.

  2. Time Attacks Secondary Function by neostorm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have a huge game collection of oldschool titles I grew up with. Once in a while I pick them up to play through old favorites, but I am so busy nowadays that I rarely have 10 minutes to spare.

    Often times I just make a mental list of games that I'll play through again someday when I have the time. Well these Time attacks are a blessing in disguise, because I can relive all my old memories of childhood faves, not to mention in usually under 30 minutes!

    YEAH! THANK YOU GUYS!!

  3. Re:The scene is a singles bar by real_smiff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    you know, whenever something like this comes up, someone always makes a funny comment relating it to sex. and it is funnny, and it does get you modded up. but you know - and bear with me here, i'm in a thoughtful kinda mood - not everything in life has to be about sex. it may be the primary purpose of our genes to reproduce, but it doesn't have the be the #1 purpose of us. i'm sure the people doing this don't think it well help them score with chicks. so what, people do silly/apparently pointless things all the time, it's called art or sport or several other things and it's what makes life interesting and us (a little) different from animals. now, i wouldn't want to play video games over & over or make videos of it or make websites about it but if it amuses people great. i had a look at the zelda video because i had this game as a kid and it brought back some memories and i can respect the skill that was shown. and I was thinking, after watching a couple of minutes, skipping to the credits and hearing that tune again, the game is 18 years old, which is pretty amazing, and it definately qualifies as art. sorry if that makes me sad, and sorry about this rant. btw i do have a sense of humour and manage my own +5 funnies sometimes, not that that helps me score either.. ;)

    --

    This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.

  4. Re:What is wrong with you people? by ildon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think you're the one whose failing to understand what's going on. The article explaining that these are faked is like the 4th link out of 5 and isn't made out to be an important link in the article. I doubt more than 1% of slashdot readers actually click every single link in any article with that many links. They'll click the ones that appear most important.

    Further, if most people knew how these were made, they would reject them out-of-hand because anyone can sit there and hit save/load state 100 times until they beat the boss without getting hit. That doesn't show any skill at all.