[00:01] speed. Ever since the original advertisements from the early '90s, Sega has made it clear that in this game, they want you to go fast. No overheating. I like Genesis.
[00:13] that people would try to speedrun it. Beat the game as fast as humanly possible. But in a game already built for so much speed, what can you do to go for so much speed, what can you do to go faster?
[00:43] battling each other to see who can beat Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Genesis more quickly. There's been tricks, glitches, and a lot of speed. is the world record progression for Sonic 2.
[01:02] way that this game is timed. For most speedruns, the game is timed with a simple timer from start to finish. It's easy and probably the most straightforward way of timing a run. But for Sonic 2, instead of using a timer,
[01:15] in-game times that they get on the end of every level. Why is this? Well, when you beat a stage, you get points based on how quickly you beat the level. These points have to count down, which takes a significant amount of time. And instead
[01:30] of decreasing gradually as you beat the stage more slowly, they decrease For example, here's a clip that happened at AGDQ 2013. Mike 89, the runner on the right side, beat the stage in 24 seconds and got a 50,000 point bonus. Those
[01:47] 50,000 points were taking forever to countdown. Worester, the runner on the left side, knew that he was on pace to beat the stage in about 27 seconds. If he had finished any time under 30 seconds, he too would have gotten that
[02:00] 50,000 point bonus. So instead, he waits 3 seconds to finish at 30 seconds and collects his 10,000 point bonus, which counts down way faster. So much faster that even though he was significantly behind Mike 89, they exit the stage just
[02:16] about time. [Applause] So, in order to avoid intentionally losing time to gain time or going slow to go fast, runners decided that it made the most sense to time the run with
[02:29] in-game time. The origins of Sonic 2 speedrunning can be traced back to 2005. In November of that year, Mike 89 beat the game in 23 minutes and 14 seconds, but the video no longer exists. So, let's instead examine
[02:45] a 24minut and 23 seconds run that came about a month later by Suzaku. Suzaku amount of experience with Sonic games, but still pulled off a run he was quite proud of. It featured him flying through stages, building up as much speed as he
[03:01] well-known stages as Chemical Plant Zone and Casino Night Zone. It was always fun to go fast casually, but Suzaku was making a fool out of the game. He didn't have any huge tricks or glitches, but his movement through the levels was good
[03:15] enough to be the first video recorded run of Sonic 2. Now, speedrunning wasn't too big when Suzaku did his run. But as the months passed, the concept of popularity. People were looking for more games that could be ran, and naturally,
[03:29] the Sonic games were seen as some top contenders. A year later, in late 2006, one man proved that he was the top dog in Sonic 2. Stansky. Incredibly, he didn't just beat Suzaku's 24-minute run, but rather made it look completely
[03:44] obsolete. Stansky beat the game in 20 minutes and 2 seconds. He had a few tricks up his sleeve to help him out. In Chemical Plant Zone 2, he did a trick that involved Tails getting hit at the start intentionally
[03:58] and then running to the door. Tails then goes towards the door offcreen from the thinking that Sonic came from up above and letting him go down the ramp to skip half of the stage. And in Hilltop 1, Stansky realized that
[04:11] only the top portion of the lava has collision detection. By standing on the platform, he fell straight through the lava and triggered a zip that zipped him through the stage. Combining those tricks with beautiful gameplay in other
[04:25] stages, Stansky finished on top of the world by a large margin. He played beautifully. Very few mistakes, very good execution. But Stansky wasn't done yet. He knew there was still more he could do to Sonic, too. So, he got back
[04:38] to grinding and he showed undeniably that he was the best in the world at that he was the best in the world at Sonic 2.
[05:08] all the way to 1812. He was using tricks such as being pushed into the ground by the bolt in Metropolis 1 and three, making him skip to the end of the stage. other stages, he was able to put out times way ahead of anybody else that had
[05:22] confident that he even said in the anybody other than himself would ever beat it.
[05:34] videos before, you know that this is something that nobody should ever ever claim. It doesn't matter if you have a runner as dominant as Andrew G. Yes. Yes.
[05:47] If somebody gets to run so far ahead as Ho Ruby, or if someone lowers their own record over and over as Darkwing Duck did, nobody ever holds a record forever. Times change and people with different skills come up. So for Stansky to claim
[06:01] that nobody would ever beat him was a little bit ridiculous. But here's the thing. Stansky got his 1812 in 2007. 5 years later it was still
[06:16] the world record. He was right. Nobody was able to beat him. It seemed his run truly was the ultimate run. But in early 2012, an Australian man wanted to challenge the notion that
[06:28] Stansky was the ultimate player. His name Mike 89. The same player who originally got a 23minute run without a surviving video recording way back in Well, it turns out he had gotten a bit better since then. He began to grind the
[06:43] game again in early 2012. And 3 months later, that March, he did it. But he didn't just edge out Stansky's 1812 run. Mike 89 got 1613.
[06:55] How is this possible? Nobody could beat Stansky's run for 5 years, then Mike suddenly beats it by two whole minutes. What was he doing differently? Well, the together a run faster than Stansky in 5
[07:08] developments in the game during those 5 years. In Metropolis 2, for example, he did another lava zip similar to the one that he did in Hilltop 1, where the game zipped him to the end of the stage because he got stuck in the wall.
[07:28] Tails to do yet another zip. He inched towards the edge of the drop in platform at the start and made Tails fall off while having Sonic remain on, causing the game to freak out and launch him around the stage. After getting this
[07:41] run, Stansky had been proven wrong. Mike 89 was the new champion. But just like most speedrunners do, Mike realized that he was close to a number barrier. He was just 13 seconds away from beating the game in 15 minutes. So Mike Giddy and a
[07:56] couple of other runners, TNT 314 and Timsy, were determined to become the first runner to beat the game in under 16 minutes. Each one had the skill to do it, but nobody knew who would be first. They each set off on their quest, and
[08:09] over the course of a few months, these runners battled it out. [Music] Who record [ __ ]
[08:27] [Music] 169.
[08:54] I don't know how good that skin is. 51. God damn it.
[09:07] first sub6minute run had it not been for mishaps in the later stages. But since they didn't save them on their Twitch page, they can't be seen today. Ultimately though, it would once again be Mike 89 who got the first sub6minute
[09:21] run, achieving it on November 15th, 2013. 2013. The curse is broken.
[09:36] been completed. Mike 89 won the race to get the first 15-minute run. And man, did he get a great one, 12 seconds under 16 minutes. Think about this, though. If you're a competitor and your opponent accomplishes a goal you're both going
[09:49] towards first, what do you do? In other words, if you were TNT314 or Timsy, would you have kept going to try to a 15-minute run of your own? Well, later the same day that Mike 89 got his sub 16-minute run, Tipsy started doing some
[10:04] attempts of his own. And he got on a run, a very, very good run. All of a sudden, he was five minutes away from beating the game and exiting the Metropolis stages. He was 9 seconds ahead of the world record that Mike 89
[10:17] had set just hours before. Dude, my heart is pounding. It was all going so well. All he had to do was hold it down for two more stages do was hold it down for two more stages and then
[10:37] No. No. I my finger slipped. I my finger slipped. My finger slipped on the controller
[10:56] seconds, ending his chance at the world record, but he still closed out a new PB that clocked in at 1608. Had he avoided the death and played the rest of the game as in the PB, he would have gotten 1544, a new world record by
[11:10] 4 seconds. Temp Z would later go on to get his own sub6 about a month later, although he still missed world record by about 10 seconds. Meanwhile, while these other runners were attempting to get their own 15-minute run, Mike 89 was
[11:23] record down farther and farther into the 15-minute void, he began using a new trick. He broke the collision detection in Wing Fortress Zone and he did stuff in Wing Fortress Zone and he did stuff like this
[11:54] trick in the game as well that he could possibly do. And in December 2013, Mike possibly do. And in December 2013, Mike 89 beat Sonic 2 in 15 minutes and 18 seconds. This run was the result of years of optimization and grinding. Mike
[12:08] 89 had gotten so good at the tricks and it completely mastered the movement that he decided the 1518 was by far the best run that had ever been done. He thought that it was so good that he would never have to come back to beat it because
[12:21] neither he nor anybody else would be able to top it. People all over the internet wondered how long the run would last for. A couple of years, maybe three, four, or 5 years. How about 6 months?
[12:35] Here's the thing. Mike 89's brother, Worester, was also really, really good at Sonic games, and he wanted the record in Sonic the Hedgehog, too. After grinding in the middle of 2014, he got a 1540. An excellent time for sure, but
[12:50] one that was still 22 seconds behind the world record. Worester needed something more to help him push his time down. So, he looked into the world of strats that were known but were considered to be too risky and dangerous for his single
[13:02] segment run and plan to use them in his own single segment run because why not? He was trying to beat a run that was so good anyway, he needed every edge over it that he could possibly get. Now, these particular strats didn't
[13:14] necessarily end up saving him much time. By comparison, he only ended up saving a few seconds each in Casino Night 2 and the Death Egg fight with him. But Worcester's execution everywhere else had gotten a lot better over the months
[13:26] that he was playing the game. He was ultimately able to get a 1508 with the ultimately able to get a 1508 with the help of new strats on June 3rd, 2014. This run was celebrated all over the official Sonic leaderboards. So quickly,
[13:38] someone had been able to beat a run that was thought to be nearly unbeatable. But after months of being on the top of the leaderboards, the run was completely removed. The problem was Worester did his run on
[13:50] an emulator known as Gens. When he did the run, it was considered completely fine to do speedruns with it. But in 2015, runners decided that doing runs on that particular emulator would no longer be allowed because it was sometimes
[14:03] inaccurate. It had tasking capabilities and Sonic 1 runners were even using this emulator to claim times under false pretenses. The only thing that they could really do was ban the emulator completely and that had to include all
[14:16] past runs done on it too to keep everything fair. So the 1508, which had by then, was removed from the leaderboards, and Mike 89 was back on the top with 1518. These complications over the true number
[14:31] one spot caused much confusion as time passed. By 2017, neither record had been beaten by anybody, so Mike 89 wanted to clear the air once and for all. beat clear the air once and for all. beat both his 1518 and Warsters 1508.
[14:45] We were now in 2017. The last time Mike 89 broke the record was in 2013. Over the course of 4 years, the skill of a speedrunner goes up. So when he started doing attempts against worst splits, he's able to keep up with them. And he
[14:59] got on a run on April 20th that was keeping pace. One thing that helped was his first try. Okay, it's first go. It's not a quick first go. That's still first go. So, he saved some time there. And while
[15:14] he did lose some time on Wing Fortress, he still closed out the run a second ahead of Worester. Yes. Yes. I know it's only 1 second, but I don't
[15:28] care. But since he was so close, he might as well get a run under 15 minutes as well, right? And two months later, he had a really nice run, gained the time back that he lost in Wing Fortress, and
[15:41] that he lost in Wing Fortress, and finished the game. Yes. [Music]
[15:58] stands for Sonic 2. For over a decade, Sonic 2 has introduced many to the concept of speedrunning. While the timing mechanism it's led to some of the craziest world record pushes in speedrunning history.
[16:13] would never be beaten, but of course they were. Runs always get beaten, but whoever wants to beat Mike 89's 1458 will have a mountain to climb. That run was a product of him running the game for 12 years off and on. Whoever tops it
[16:29] will permanently have their name etched into speedrunning history. Thanks for watching. [Music]