Speed Runner Beats Ocarina of Time in Less Than 19 Minutes

[Gxas]

I'm pretty sure that passing through walls that are clearly supposed to be sealed and solid is cheating

"Clearly supposed to be sealed and solid" is very much different than "poorly programmed and not sealed and solid".

I know that you're all (those claiming this run illegitimate) set in your opinion and no amount of any rational or irrational thought, examples, or anything else will change your minds (this is the internet, after all), but why are you all so angry about this?

Seriously? How on earth does this affect you at all? Does it make the game less fun for you knowing that a group of people have fun in a different way? How dare they not play exactly like you do! Their mothers clearly did not raise them right if they have fun like that!!!

Here's the deal: People enjoy things differently. That's all there is to it. In the speedrunning community, at the any% level, this counts as the game being beaten. Plain and simple. It has been established that way by those who are a part of the community. Obviously you are not a part of that community if you disagree with these rules.

So then I must ask: why are you even reading this article if you don't see it as an accomplishment, when others do? Are you that angry that you desperately need to have the world agree with you on everything you believe? If so, what the hell makes you so right and everyone else so wrong?

And, on top of everything I said, jesus, people:

Spoiler

 

[RJ 17]

Do you not discount people who use the warps in super mario for speed runs? they are skipping entire worlds of content to speed run to the end, does that not bug you? these are called any% speedruns for a reason.

There's a difference, my friend, between using warp whistles in Mario 3 to go straight from world 1 to world 8. Warp whistles are built into the game. They're a valid item that can be used to skip the majority of the game, as such perfectly within "the spirit of the game". Warp whistles don't allow you to pass through what's supposed to be a solid wall and cut out 99% of the game. If the makers of the game had wanted Link to be able to go straight from the first dungeon to the final boss, they would have built in some kind of game mechanic that allowed you to do so that wouldn't require you to pass through what's supposed to be a solid wall.

Seems like some folks aren't as big a fans though. I get the whole "beat the game properly" mentality but I've always thought about speedruns this way: If something isn't necessary to beating the game, i.e its completion doesn't effect your ability to finish the game, and you are looking to beat the game as quickly as possible, why on Earth would you do it?

I mean, who defines a 100% run anyway? And who defines glitches? Is anything done outside of the original scope of the game designer's vision instantly a glitch? I get that walking through walls is not what we think of when we say finishing a game, but hell it's possible and much faster than not doing so, so why the heck wouldn't you? Cosmo certainly didn't change any part of the games coding, or tamper with his controller, so yes he is the fastest one ever. And that is damn impressive.

I'm not asking for a 100% completion of a game to qualify as a speed run. 100% completion of OOT would be completing all minigames, finding all heart pieces, killing all golden spiders, etc. A "true speed run" is fulfilling the bare minimal requirements (that being the key word there, "requirements") to complete a game from start to finish. As I mentioned above, the bare minimum requirements to beat Mario 3 is to collect 2 warp whistles in the first world and use them to skip to the final world. The warp whistles are a built-in mechanic of the game, they're supposed to be there.

OOT has no such warp mechanic built into the game. The game (without glitches) requires that you progress from one dungeon to the next until you reach the final boss. As I told DrOswald: there's a difference between making a jump that you're not intended to make and passing through a "solid" wall. There's a difference between noticing that running backwards makes you go faster than running forwards and magically teleporting from the first boss to the end of the game.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

"What you are looking for is an OOT MST Category"

MST stands for "Mystery Science Thearter" in my world. What is an MST run? And if he already holds the world record for doing it Legitimately why even - ((KABOOM!))


Sorry my head exploded there. In the interests of remaining civil and adult, thanks for the clarification. But that makes it worse.

You are losing me on your 100 meter dash argument. I feel this is because you are not understanding my point correctly. They still have to sprint the full 100 meters. If somebody teleported to the end of the 100 meters, and won in a half second taking only 3 steps, that would be Cosmo's Speed Run.

By Contrast, Hussein Bolt running like the impressive Human Blur that he is, BEAT THE GAME by running the Full 100 meters, the fastest.

Addendum: My previous comment "read your own English" cam off as Far meaner and abrasive than intended, and I appologize for any Insult or offense it's lack of clarity may have caused before we all get ouselves in the news again. Only meant to say that 100% means 100%

 

[DrOswald]

Seems like some folks aren't as big a fans though. I get the whole "beat the game properly" mentality but I've always thought about speedruns this way: If something isn't necessary to beating the game, i.e its completion doesn't effect your ability to finish the game, and you are looking to beat the game as quickly as possible, why on Earth would you do it?

I mean, who defines a 100% run anyway? And who defines glitches? Is anything done outside of the original scope of the game designer's vision instantly a glitch? I get that walking through walls is not what we think of when we say finishing a game, but hell it's possible and much faster than not doing so, so why the heck wouldn't you? Cosmo certainly didn't change any part of the games coding, or tamper with his controller, so yes he is the fastest one ever. And that is damn impressive.

Because the Legend of Zelda REQUIRES you to defeat all the dungeons to GET to the end. Many games have a ton of optional material that you may bypass to reach the end of the story. Not so LoZ. He didn't have to change anything in the game because he KNOWINGLY AND DELIBERATELY purchased and used a glitched copy of the game. Effectively paying SOMEBODY ELSE to hack it for him. In my mind even weaker than doing it yourself.

As for the definition of a "100%" run, read your own English. ((Im sorry, that sounds WAY meaner than it is intended))

A 100% run, by definition would be 100% completion. But the Issue at hand is NOT whether 100% completion is necessary to BEAT a game's main quest line, but rather if you can claim to have beaten it AT ALL by using Glitches to circumvent 99% of the intended challenges in the game. You can NOT. Because you did NOT.

Do, or Do NOT. There is no Glitch.

Actually, no, he did not buy a glitched copy of the game. He has an unchanged, not at all hacked or edited copy of the game. The whole point of the any% run is that a factory standard Legend of Zelda DOES NOT REQUIRE you to defeat all the dungeons to GET to the end. This may be unintentional, but it is fact. The Legend of Zelda does not require you to defeat all the dungeons to beat the game.

 

[nyankaty]

I do have to say I am impressed. Sure, glitches are outside of the "spirit" of the game but there's merit in even finding the little loopholes that the game accidentally ended up with and it's definitely fun to see how people can find their way around a game. I especially love the idea of being able to leave the Lost Woods without finishing off good old Senor Deku first. I might actually do that myself just for shits and giggles.

Either way, good on you Cosmo. Your name will live on for a good 15 minutes for your achievement. OoT is an amazing game.

Edit: I would be interested to see how fast someone could do a 100% perfect, glitch-free completion of FFX. Some of the little sidequests in the game are painfully difficult.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

@ Dr Oswald. This is copied directly from the article.

"Now, there are some caveats to keep in mind. For one, the version of the game being played here is the Japanese edition which is faster during cutscenes than the English and PAL releases. It's also worth mentioning that this isn't a full completion of the game and that it exploits a glitch that allows the player to skip from the first boss battle to the end of the game." Or to paraphrase, ASTERISK XD.


You were saying what about a Glitched Copy? He bought the Japanese Cartridge, known to have these exact glitches. If the man speaks fluent Nihongo, and prefers to game Japanese titles in Japanese, then fine. Good on him. But my $50 is on that not being the case.

 

[RJ 17]

Ok then, clearly define cheating to me. Tell me what is and is not allowed in a speed run.

It's simple, really, cheating (in anything) is defined as going outside the parameters of the game. For instance...

I'm pretty sure that passing through walls that are clearly supposed to be sealed and solid is cheating

"Clearly supposed to be sealed and solid" is very much different than "poorly programmed and not sealed and solid".

...exploiting the fact that some programmer neglected to make a solid object actually solid is going out of the parameters of the game. Ask yourself this: is Link supposed to be able to pass through that door and end up at the final part of the game? No? Then it's cheating.

Back in elementary school whenever we had to run the mile for PE they'd simply set up a couple of cones a long way away from each other and have you run five laps around them. Could you simply turn around half way through a lap and start running back towards the cone that you just came from to cut down your time? Sure, there was nothing there stopping you from doing that. Were you supposed to? No, because then you're not running a full mile.

And just to be clear, Gxas, I came to this article because of a poorly written headline claiming that someone could beat OOT in under 20 minutes. When my suspicions were confirmed that it was done using a glitch, I felt like expressing that I wasn't impressed with this feat. I'm not angry or upset at the guy for doing this, hell I don't even know him. I'm simply stating my own personal opinion that in order to hold a record for a speed run, you should have to play through the minimal requirements of the game. As I mentioned in my previous post, the minimal requirements for OOT are progressing from one dungeon to the next until you reach the end. Just as the minimal requirements for completing a mile run back in elementary school were running around the cones 5 times. Just as the minimal requirements for completing Mario 3 are collecting 2 whistles in the first world and using them to warp straight to World 8. The whistles are built into the game and as such are perfectly fine as part of a speed run. You're supposed to be able to go straight from World 1 to World 8 in Mario 3. You're not supposed to be able to pass through a solid door and appear standing over Ganon's corpse in OOT.

So yeah, I'm not angry or disgruntled, I'm merely expressing my opinion that runs such as these are not really that impressive, and hardly worthy of being "record holding" or even having a news article written about them. I don't think I've ever seen a news article on this site about the 5 minute no star Mario 64 runs, what makes this so special?

 

[DrOswald]

"What you are looking for is an OOT MST Category"

MST stands for "Mystery Science Thearter" in my world. What is an MST run? And if he already holds the world record for doing it Legitimately why even - ((KABOOM!))


Sorry my head exploded there. In the interests of remaining civil and adult, thanks for the clarification. But that makes it worse.

You are losing me on your 100 meter dash argument. I feel this is because you are not understanding my point correctly. They still have to sprint the full 100 meters. If somebody teleported to the end of the 100 meters, and won in a half second taking only 3 steps, that would be Cosmo's Speed Run.

By Contrast, Hussein Bolt running like the impressive Human Blur that he is, BEAT THE GAME by running the Full 100 meters, the fastest.

The OOT MST run (standing for Medallions, Stones, Trials) is what you would normally think of as beating the game: Complete all the dungeons, collecting all the Medalions, Stones, and completing the Trials (being the individual segments of ganons castle.)

And the reason why he would speed run any% if he already runs MST is because they are different categories. It is like how Michael Phelps swims both the 100m butterfly and the 400m butterfly. There are actually many categories, each with specific rules on what is and what is not allowed. MST, 100%, All Dungeons, No Wrong Warp, Glitchless, and more.

The one overriding rule that unites all the categories is that they must be using a factory standard, unhacked game. That is to say, the player must follow the rules as written in the code of the game.

I understand your point perfectly well. You think that skipping most of the game is breaking the rules. What I am trying to communicate is that he is following the rules, they are just different from what you thought they were.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

Dr Oswald thank you for that clarification. I like your Michael Phelps Analogy. My understanding of the Rules was decidedly skewed by the Misleading Title of the Article, as RJ 17 just said.

Hoping we can agree on the following points today.

1- Clarity of Article Titles is Important. This inst the National enquirer, sensationalism doesn't help.
2- There are many categories of Speedrunning. Some of which make people shake their heads and cry Bullshit.
3- to each their own. Some see this as great, and some shake aforementioned heads.


These aside, I think the reasons for the vehemence here today comes back to Barry Bonds. To a great many of People, this appears to be cheating. And then, when the rules have been explained, it seems like competition cheating. And that's kind of OK. I mean, if all get to cheat equally then it's still fair. I would pay to watch the "Steroid Olympics" but I wouldn't give them a Medal.

Just an Asterisk. ;P

 

[DrOswald]

Ok then, clearly define cheating to me. Tell me what is and is not allowed in a speed run.

It's simple, really, cheating (in anything) is defined as going outside the parameters of the game.

But it is not going outside the parameters of the game as they are written. You may not like it, but as the rules are written in the code of the game all the things that happen in the any% run are within the parameters of the game.

Lets talk about an edge case. In the game Yoshi's island you are able to perform a impressive series of flutters and enemy boosts to jump over a very high wall in the game at the beginning of level 1-e, allowing you to bypass an invisible switch that would force the level to progress at a very slow pace. Observe in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnCYN6Vbra0

This clearly was not intended to be possible. But by a great skill it is possible. And no glitches happen here, by the way. There is no passing though solid walls, there is no exploit at all. By pure skill the speed runner pulls off something the developers did not think would be possible. Is this cheating?

Another example: in OOT you move faster by walking backwards. Clearly not intended. Is using this to your advantage cheating?

 

[Gxas]

Back in elementary school whenever we had to run the mile for PE they'd simply set up a couple of cones a long way away from each other and have you run five laps around them. Could you simply turn around half way through a lap and start running back towards the cone that you just came from to cut down your time? Sure, there was nothing there stopping you from doing that. Were you supposed to? No, because then you're not running a full mile.

You keep doing that thing where you compare video games to real-life events.

Real life is not programmed. It rarely has glitches like this that can be exploited.

You cannot compare speed running to any real-life sport at all, because they are two totally different things set up with two totally different sets of rules and expectations.

But you keep saying that you're not supposed to be able to do these glitches. And yet, you can do them. So, where does that leave us now? Obviously people are capable of doing these things. They're in the game. Regardless of whether you or anyone else sees them as cheating, they're in the game and can be used.

So, I fail to see why you make such a fuss about it happening. Nothing can be done to change how these people enjoy their games, and nothing can be done to change your mind on whether this is cheating or not, so why complain and share your opinion on it at all?

I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all. I'm using this thread to do so. I don't understand why people get so mad that people enjoy things differently than they do, so please, enlighten me? Why did it make you so frustrated that the headline was, in your mind, wrong? Who dictates that the headline is wrong at all? You? Why you? Explain this to me. I'm very curious about this and have been for years. Consider yourself my subject in a psychology/sociology experiment (not that I'm in any sort of psychology or sociology anything).

Please, I'm serious. I want to know.

 

[RJ 17]

Ok then, clearly define cheating to me. Tell me what is and is not allowed in a speed run.

It's simple, really, cheating (in anything) is defined as going outside the parameters of the game.

But it is not going outside the parameters of the game as they are written. You may not like it, but as the rules are written in the code of the game all the things that happen in the any% run are within the parameters of the game.

Lets talk about an edge case. In the game Yoshi's island you are able to perform a impressive series of flutters and enemy boosts to jump over a very high wall in the game at the beginning of level 1-e, allowing you to bypass an invisible switch that would force the level to progress at a very slow pace. Observe in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnCYN6Vbra0

This clearly was not intended to be possible. But by a great skill it is possible. And no glitches happen here, by the way. There is no passing though solid walls, there is no exploit at all. By pure skill the speed runner pulls off something the developers did not think would be possible. Is this cheating?

Another example: in OOT you move faster by walking backwards. Clearly not intended. Is using this to your advantage cheating?

Ha-ha! He didn't land on the bonus flower at the end!

But that Yoshi's Island run just points to what I was talking about with the mile run analogy: sure, you can go over that wall to skip the invisible switch that makes that level as challenging as it is (and I remember that level being obscenely difficult), but are you supposed to? You can cut between the cones in a mile run, but are you supposed to? There's a difference between what you're supposed to do - the parameters of the game - and what you can do by going outside of those parameters. The parameters of society say that I'm supposed to work an honest day's work to earn a living and support myself. Of course I could just get a gun and start robbing people. Am I supposed to rob people? No. Is there anything stopping me from robbing people? Other than my own morality, nope, there isn't.

That's what people mean by "the spirit of the game". The spirit of that Yoshi's Island level is to be exceedingly challenging specifically because the level scrolls at its own pace, meaning you have to perform a balancing act while riding on Poochy. The spirit of that level isn't to go so high that the game's trigger doesn't kick in allowing you to beat the level at your own pace. The spirit of OOT is to complete a, as you put it, MST run...not to pass through what's supposed to be a solid and sealed door to skip straight to the end of the game.

On the other hand, simply noticing that Link runs faster backwards than forwards is perfectly fine. It's a built-in mechanic of the game, it might look a little goofy to run backwards everywhere but I'd say going through an MST run with Link walking backwards the entire time would be infinitely more impressive than the video in this article. Hell, when I played OOT I'd always have link side-jumping his way across the world since I always thought that was the fastest way of travel.

And yes, I understand that there's all sorts of categories of speed runs that are accepted by the "speed running community". All I've been saying throughout all of this is that these kinds of speed runs are not at all impressive to me, and hardly worth mentioning.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

Ok then, clearly define cheating to me. Tell me what is and is not allowed in a speed run.

It's simple, really, cheating (in anything) is defined as going outside the parameters of the game.

But it is not going outside the parameters of the game as they are written. You may not like it, but as the rules are written in the code of the game all the things that happen in the any% run are within the parameters of the game.

Lets talk about an edge case. In the game Yoshi's island you are able to perform a impressive series of flutters and enemy boosts to jump over a very high wall in the game at the beginning of level 1-e, allowing you to bypass an invisible switch that would force the level to progress at a very slow pace. Observe in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnCYN6Vbra0

This clearly was not intended to be possible. But by a great skill it is possible. And no glitches happen here, by the way. There is no passing though solid walls, there is no exploit at all. By pure skill the speed runner pulls off something the developers did not think would be possible. Is this cheating?

Another example: in OOT you move faster by walking backwards. Clearly not intended. Is using this to your advantage cheating?

On the subject of going over walls in Mario Brothers: You remember world 1-2 in Mario Bros. 1 ? Going over /above/behind walls is an established piece of Mario Bros mechanics and lore. See also Mario 3, where Intentionally Programmed "wall clipping" on White blocks only, allowed you to obtain The Warp Whistle (already discussed) or access hidden areas, that were put there deliberately. If in a Mario Bros game, you can go over a wall, they know. They probably put it there. That is why the game does not glitch.

Using a direction of Movement in a game is not cheating. Nobody here is complaining about his Side-jumping and rolling and Back-flipping because we were all doing it when we played it back in the day. It is a simple fact of game mechanics, and In no way allows you to bypass 90% of the game. If there was a sprint feature, we would have used that. But instead we backflip because its faster, and because NINJITSU!

 

[Augustine]

I find it hard to believe that finding and executing well a couple glitches is more difficult than executing perfectly the entirety of the game.

Frankly, I never looked at speedruns before, so seeing the title I was, naturally, impressed. From the perspective of an outside observer, I did not see it as legitimate beating of the game. Sure, there's an impressive work, dedication, skill involved here, but of a different kind.
Truthful title should have been: "Speed Runner Beats Ocarina of Time in Less Than 19 Minutes by glitching 98% of the game". This sounds quite different, doesn't it?

 

[AxelxGabriel]

You know i cant help but notice just how bored the guy looked the whole time.

 

[RJ 17]

so why complain and share your opinion on it at all?

I'm sorry, and here I thought the entire point of having an open forum such as this was specifically so that people could share their opinions. By your logic, why bother having comment sections for any of these articles at all?

The comparison between games and real life is to show the difference between what is and isn't cheating, what is "within the spirit of the game" and what isn't (since that was a question specifically asked of my by DrOswald). It's not "within the spirit of the mile-run" to cut between the cones, but because there's no physical barrier actually stopping you from doing so that certainly doesn't mean that you can't just cut between the cones. This is a direct comparison to the game world. It's not "within the spirit of OOT" to be able to back through what's supposed to be a solid wall, but because of a glitch in the coding there's no physical barrier there stopping you from doing so.

I do find it rather humorous, though, that despite my telling you that all this hub-bub is simply me stating "I'm not impressed with this, and here is why I'm not impressed with this" equates to me being frustrated or angry...especially after I just specifically said that I'm not. Don't mistake my passionate explanations as being fueled by anger.

Perhaps a better question is why do you care so much that I don't find this to be impressive? Why does my opinion on the matter offend you so? Or provoke such a profound curiosity within you? Why do you assume that I'm angry/frustrated about the way this person plays the game, and not simply unimpressed by the way this person plays the game as I've claimed numerous times now? Who gets to dictate what I find to be impressive? You? Why you? Why can't you simply say "I can see why some people wouldn't find this impressive"? So I'll turn your own question back onto you: does my finding this run to be unimpressive affect you in any way? If not, why should you care? Why bother commenting on any of my posts in the first place?

Oh, that's right, we're on an open forum which is specifically designed to share and debate opinions with one another. It seems we both have our answer now.

 

[Madmonk12345]

snippety

You keep saying supposed to. However, for many games, they weren't meant to be played quickly at all. they were meant to be explored. If someone speedruns skyrim, are they inherently missing the point and therefore don't deserve accreditations or rewards or praise for their work? There is no timer in OoT. It isn't a race, so why should anyone be speedrunning it at all? Why should a glitchless runner receive accolades or appreciation, for they are doing things they aren't supposed to be doing by going through it quickly at all? The game wasn't supposed to be speed run in the first place, and thusly using how the game was supposed to be played shouldn't factor into it at all.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

Back in elementary school whenever we had to run the mile for PE they'd simply set up a couple of cones a long way away from each other and have you run five laps around them. Could you simply turn around half way through a lap and start running back towards the cone that you just came from to cut down your time? Sure, there was nothing there stopping you from doing that. Were you supposed to? No, because then you're not running a full mile.

You keep doing that thing where you compare video games to real-life events.

Real life is not programmed. It rarely has glitches like this that can be exploited.

You cannot compare speed running to any real-life sport at all, because they are two totally different things set up with two totally different sets of rules and expectations.

But you keep saying that you're not supposed to be able to do these glitches. And yet, you can do them. So, where does that leave us now? Obviously people are capable of doing these things. They're in the game. Regardless of whether you or anyone else sees them as cheating, they're in the game and can be used.

So, I fail to see why you make such a fuss about it happening. Nothing can be done to change how these people enjoy their games, and nothing can be done to change your mind on whether this is cheating or not, so why complain and share your opinion on it at all?

I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all. I'm using this thread to do so. I don't understand why people get so mad that people enjoy things differently than they do, so please, enlighten me? Why did it make you so frustrated that the headline was, in your mind, wrong? Who dictates that the headline is wrong at all? You? Why you? Explain this to me. I'm very curious about this and have been for years. Consider yourself my subject in a psychology/sociology experiment (not that I'm in any sort of psychology or sociology anything).

Please, I'm serious. I want to know.

OH boy! Science time! I will participate in this as well, earnestly and Honestly as I am able. Ask your questions better though please. Present us with short, clear questions.

You are misconstruing RJ 17 opinions as anger at the way others are allowed to enjoy themselves, which I seriously Doubt. Please keep in mind that the nature of our discussion here is centered around cheating. The analogy to sports in real life is very apt, regardless of you being correct about "programming." Just because a Glitch exists, and I can exploit it, that does not mean it is not cheating. You see in Real Life, the rules do not actually stop people from cheating. They punish them for it by taking away Medals, removing acclaim and Titles, and denoting their "Exploits" with *does not really count.

And the Headline is misleading. Clear cut, simple; it states something that is False. Proper use of the language states that it is wrong. It even contains it's own " *note, doesn't really count " which I have previously posted.

Nobody is decrying the Validity of Speed Running, we are simply asserting that THIS one, did not in fact do what the Title of The Article, and the Runner, claimed.

Now I am not going to make this point again, and neither Should RJ have to. Let us please continue with your Experiment, as I am Intrigued. I am enjoying this Discussiona and if we could continue it I would be happy. Ask away.

 

[RJ 17]

snippety

You keep saying supposed to. However, for many games, they weren't meant to be played quickly at all. they were meant to be explored. If someone speedruns skyrim, are they inherently missing the point and therefore don't deserve accreditations or rewards or praise for their work? There is no timer in OoT. It isn't a race, so why should anyone be speedrunning it at all? Why should a glitchless runner receive accolades or appreciation, for they are doing things they aren't supposed to be doing by going through it quickly at all? The game wasn't supposed to be speed run in the first place, and thusly using how the game was supposed to be played shouldn't factor into it at all.

Because there's a difference between being a completionist and a speedrunner, my friend.

In my opinion (that's right, all these posts fall under the jurisdiction of the dreaded O-word), a speed-run is - as I've said before - completing the minimal requirements of the game in order to complete it. Are you ignoring most of the game if you skip all the side stuff? Certainly. Is there anything or any valid reason for the rest of the game to be completely locked off until you've completed all the side stuff? No? Then if you're trying to show off by beating a game faster than anyone else, there's no need to do all the side stuff.

Using the Skyrim example, there's absolutely nothing that says that you HAVE to complete the Dark Brotherhood, Mage's College, Companions, Thieves Guild, and Civil War before you finish the main story line. You can go straight from the execution block to Whiterun to the first dungeon then back to Whiterun then to the Greybeards etc etc etc. However you're not supposed to be able to go from the execution block to running into the Keep with either the Stormcloak guy or the Imperial guy and somehow magically appearing in Sovngarde ready to fight Alduin. Someone who blazes through the main story of Skyrim with minimal stats in a very short amount of time would be impressive, someone who warps from the opening event of Skyrim to the final boss fight isn't impressive.

Again, this is just my personal taste for speedruns.

 

[DrOswald]

That's what people mean by "the spirit of the game". The spirit of that Yoshi's Island level is to be exceedingly challenging specifically because the level scrolls at its own pace, meaning you have to perform a balancing act while riding on Poochy. The spirit of that level isn't to go so high that the game's trigger doesn't kick in allowing you to beat the level at your own pace. The spirit of OOT is to complete a, as you put it, MST run...not to pass through what's supposed to be a solid and sealed door to skip straight to the end of the game.

On the subject of going over walls in Mario Brothers: You remember world 1-2 in Mario Bros. 1 ? Going over /above/behind walls is an established piece of Mario Bros mechanics and lore. See also Mario 3, where Intentionally Programmed "wall clipping" on White blocks only, allowed you to obtain The Warp Whistle (already discussed) or access hidden areas, that were put there deliberately. If in a Mario Bros game, you can go over a wall, they know. They probably put it there. That is why the game does not glitch.

And here we see the point. Two people, both with perfectly logical reasons, have come to the opposite conclusion on what is cheating or against "the spirit of the game" in speed running a game. But who is to make the call on if it is allowed? Which one of you is right? This is why the categories in speed running are defined as they are, to eliminate confusion. This is why the Any% category is always what is strictly possible in the game by the rules as coded. After that we have categories based on completion, following what is perceived as the original intent of the game, or some other point of significance (usually done to increase difficulty or make it more fun to watch.)

For the record, we know that the 1-e skip was not known by the developer or intended, but there is strong reason to believe that if they had discovered it they would have left it in or even rewarded the player for finding it.

Ha-ha! He didn't land on the bonus flower at the end!

This is actually intentional. If you watch a good speed runner do that level he will never hit the flower at the end. The mini game takes about 30 seconds so they skip it. The key is that the flower roulette is not random, it is based on how much time has passed from when the ring was spawned to when you enter the ring. Nearly every level in Yoshi's island has a technique to skip the bonus game. Many are simple. Some are difficult or unreliable. Each must be individually memorized.

P.S. I used to be in the camp that highly glitched runs were not legitimate. But as I got more and more into speed running I began to understand why the categories are setup the way they are. I personally think the any% run of OOT is boring and a bit silly. I much prefer the MST run because it is far more interesting. But I no longer see the any% run as any less legitimate. Fair warning though: if you go look up the MST run expecting a typical playthough, you are going to have a different thing coming. That run is glitched to hell and back. As are all OOT runs with the possible exception of glitchless, which is just full of minor glitches.