CriticKitten said:
you're being obtuse, the title of the escapist article is misleading, no one is arguing that, however the guy in the actual video is not claiming to be the quickest speedrun to beat the whole game barring optional material, it's a very specific category in the speedrunning community, and they have legit specific rulesets if you want to be in a certain category, which he did. Anything he used as an exploit was built into the game, he didn't use a modded controller, a modded game, nor a gameshark, he just used his wits and skills to be the quickest in that challenge. (the point of the challenge.) No one is claiming that this speed run is any more important than a speedrun of the main game (all the main temples/dungeons+master sword+ganon,etc..), because there is a separate category for that. He did BEAT the challenge, as that is what he was going for, using anything built within the game to finish the game, ergo, beat the final boss and cue the ending. Would I ever do this? hell no, it doesn't seem fun to me, but it's foolish of me to to try and argue it isn't legitimate, as a single player game, in a international community, under a certain ruleset, that he didn't beat the challenge fair and square.
I can make up my own rules for Monopoly and play my friends in a game of Kitty Steals Your Money Monopoly, but no one in their right mind would try and claim that my victory was remotely equal to that of a person who wins the game through the standard rule set.
You could perfectly claim that you were the best at that version of the game, sure, no one would be able to quarrel that unless they beat you, the reigning champ at it. Tons of games are made inside/based off of other games, I see no reason why (if your version was fun) your game would be any less legitimate than regular monopoly.
You can claim all you want that what he did is not legitimate, but by the rules in his category, yes, everything he did is legitimate.
I can't tell you how many times my friends and I have altered games to either speed them up or make them more interesting, and your stubbornness to not let people think outside the box in a single player scenario is astounding. I don't know what you expected coming in here with a 19~20 minute timer on the video, anyone with two brain cells rubbing together would estimate that he would go through that alone in cutscenes, let alone any gameplay of of OOT.