'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?

Comments

Re:Mmm.

[thegrassyknowl]

I had an ex girlfriend who was awesome at Zelda. She could complete it in 30-40 minutes (on a real NES console). I didn't realise how good her time was because I could never fully understand the game.

Wow....

Re:"Trickery and Deceit in Speed-record Community"

[Anonymous Coward]

You should read [link=http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/nesvideos/whyhow .html#why]this page[/link] where they openly explain that they use tricks in emulators to ensure a 100% smooth play.

I especially like that they are honest about this, and the part where they comment on stupid, loud-mouth people in forums that think they're being cheated before reading the FAQ...

Don't worry, you don't apply to that group...

Re:speed

[Sancho]

It may make things easier, but if you can play a more or less perfect game, it doesn't actually speed things up. See, you don't NEED the blue ring to finish the game. Just never get hit. Other items can be gained easily on the way to the various dungeons, so there's no need to buy them. Even keys can be gained in an "optimal" way so that you rarely ever have to go out of your way to get one. Nothing you purchase in shops is necessary except maybe for the monster bait, and that's far enough along in the game that you don't need to gamble early to get it.

Fake?

[Gothic_Walrus]

Remember all of the attention that the 11 minute Super Mario Brothers 3 speed run received before it was proven to be faked?

Do we have any proof that this Zelda run isn't faked? As we saw with Mario, it's very possible to get a speed run that appears to be real by manipulating every single frame in an emulator...

Re:Fake?

[Ayaress]

Emulator runs aren't fake. It's the same game, and (baring horrible bugs in the emulator's support for some odd bit of add-on hardware in the cartridge) the mechanics are the same. However, you are right, they aren't considered official records, since the ability to savestate around the game to shave seconds here or there means they don't have to restart the whole game every time somebody has to scratch their nose. However, having used an emulator to plot a much faster route through the game, they can now go to the real hardware and take the same route. The official record they could make doing that would be a minute or two longer (to account mainly for mistakes in combat), but they're still pretty well guaranteed to break the standing hardware record.

Emulation Speed?

[Anm]

Can anyone comment on the accuracy of the speed of these emulators? Considering the dead time in just walking across the screen and loading a new screen, I don't think 14% increase there would very noticable. But details like that make a big difference. Personally, I'd have trouble trusting a recond time not played on an original NES.

Anm

Perhaps I'm a touch anal but...

[shaitand]

Doesn't beating Zelda mean beating the ENTIRE game, not just half of it?

The second quest is generally more difficult than the first. Saying you've set a speed record for beating the game but not even counting the second quest is pretty lame if you ask me.

With that said, the gameplay was pretty impressive, it's definately the fastest I've ever seen the first half of the game accomplished.