🔬 Major Progress: Twilight Princess is 90% Decompiled
A massive milestone for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess fans — the game’s codebase is now 90% decompiled, according to YunataSavior. This brings the community one step closer to full modding, reverse-engineering, and preservation. For context, similar milestones in games like Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 paved the way for tool-assisted speedruns and even PC ports. Exciting times ahead for the Twilight Princess scene.
🎥 [SummoningSalt] Returns with “The History of Cuphead World Records”
The storytelling master himself, SummoningSalt, dropped a new documentary this week — The History of Cuphead World Records. It chronicles the evolution of a notoriously punishing game’s speedrun history, from its earliest records to today’s near-perfect boss fights. Expect masterful pacing, sharp editing, and plenty of those “how did they do that?” moments.
⚡ Mario Mayhem: Multiple World Records Fall
It’s been a huge week for Mario titles — both classic and modern:
- Niftski (🇺🇸) pulled off two world records in a single day for Super Mario Bros. Any%, finally untieing the long-standing 4:54.482 run by just two frames.
- In Super Mario Kart, KVD (🇳🇱) broke the 4,327-day-old record on Ghost Valley 2 PAL by a single frame — a legendary moment for one of the oldest WRs in the series.
- Meanwhile, Mario Kart World saw new records from Logan (DK Pass – 2:00.044) and Demon (Acorn Heights – 1:57.766), showing the franchise’s speedrunning legacy is still very much alive.
🕹️ Hidden Gems: ILs, Indies, and Passion Projects
- br0f achieved a dream run in Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) with a sub 1:30 Westopolis Dark, the result of a year of grinding.
- Dom-Tigre set a launch day WR for Tile Sprint (Classic Mode, 1:15.47), proving that new games can make big waves fast.
- yoshipro101 posted a 29:14 run in Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac, continuing the resurgence of early 2000s platformer speedruns.
- And VarietyPassion celebrated their biggest breakthrough yet with a new PB in SpongeBob: The Cosmic Shake — a full year after their last improvement.
🛹 Tony Hawk Rides Again
Speedrunner sneve made waves with two incredible combo runs:
- A full Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 100% speedrun — in one continuous combo, across 13 levels, with only one bail.
- A follow-up THPS3 one-combo speedrun (6 levels, 6 combos) and teasers for upcoming THPS4 content.
Tony Hawk speedrunning is all about style and precision, and these runs nail both.
📚 Community Discussions
- Guide Writing Tips: cherrymxorange opened a thoughtful discussion on crafting written speedrun guides — focusing on balancing clarity, pacing, and technical detail. If you’ve ever considered making your own written route or strat guide, this thread is a must-read.
- Deceptively Hard Tricks: SquealWheel asked what games hide their difficulty behind simple visuals. Super Metroid topped the mentions for its deceptively smooth-looking but brutally tight movement tech.
- Glitch Troubleshooting: TokaAriri ran into issues with the Resident Evil 4 minecart skip while using the HD Project mod — raising interesting questions about how mods impact glitch consistency.
🇩🇪 Event Spotlight: Zocktoberfest 2025
The German speedrunning community (Germench) is gearing up for Zocktoberfest, happening October 20–26 in Göttingen. The event will feature runs of Portal, Elden Ring, Kirby Super Star, Secret of Mana, and more — all in support of ADHS Deutschland e.V. (a charity supporting ADHD awareness and advocacy).
👉 Watch it live on Twitch.tv/Germench
🎶 Speedruns in a Music Video?
User riquid, a nerdcore musician, is putting together a speedrunning-themed music video and looking for community submissions. If you’ve got a flashy run and want to immortalize it in song form, this might be your chance.
🧭 Weekend Watchlist
- SummoningSalt’s Cuphead documentary
- Niftski’s new SMB WR
- Shadow the Hedgehog Sub 1:30
- Zocktoberfest schedule announcement
- Sneve’s Tony Hawk one-combo runs
Grab a snack, open a few Twitch tabs, and enjoy the grind.
That’s it for this week’s Speedrun Roundup!
Got a world record, personal best, or cool project to share? Drop it on r/speedrun — you might just be featured next week.
🏃💨 Until then, keep resetting, keep grinding, and remember: every frame counts.
Source: reddit.com