How Speedrunners Broke Spyro

[00:03] world grew up playing. The game simply radiates nostalgia with its mystical worlds and creative [music] levels. But today, I want to take you back to just 3 months after its original release. In December 1998, Next Generation magazine

[00:19] interviewed the president of Universal Interactive, a man named Mark [music] Cerny. Mark's company helped develop Spyro and he was asked several typical questions about designing [music] the game. But there was something very

[00:33] interesting that he revealed in this interview. Mark Cerny, the president of the company that made Spyro, completed the first ever speedrun of the game. Mark said the following. I've reached and beaten Nasty Norc in 105 minutes. If

[00:50] anyone can beat that, please email me your time. Well, Mark, I hope that you're able to see this video because even though it took more than 10 years to get going, your game eventually spawned a [music] massive speedrunning

[01:03] scene. And although you set the first world record, future players broke the game apart like nobody could have imagined. This is the history of how imagined. This is the history of how they did it. [music]

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[03:05] activity over the next decade. This isn't too surprising since speedrunning as a whole was an obscure hobby at the time. However, this changed in 2010 with the emergence of Speed Demos Archive. SDA was a website that accepted and

[03:21] verified highquality speedruns [music] where community members could gather to discuss their runs. Spyro was a popular topic in the early days of SDA. There theoretical speedruns, how you'd have to route everything out. Sometimes forum

[03:37] goers would casually mention how fast they beat the game after routing a bit and doing an attempt to go fast. A couple claims from Epic Fail 7 beat Mark Cernney's time. Then there was a speedrunning tournament where the finals

[03:51] involved racing to complete Spyro 1. Two runners faced off, but the only one to finish was a speedrunner [music] named Luke RF44. It's unclear if his time of 1 hour 17 minutes and 7 seconds was officially a

[04:05] world record. Finally, in June 2010, a group of SDA members were trying to figure out the fastest route through the game. One runner named La Pony 36 did a test run to see what sort of time he could get. His 1139 was good, but had

[04:22] plenty of mistakes. self- admitted by Leon. It was really just practice to see if his run was viable and how fast it could be. In the comment section of his run was a post by someone named Cot who had these amazing words for Leon.

[04:39] To be perfectly honest with you, I think I can easily beat your time with no practice whatsoever. You really need to get your act together. Oh well, you've inspired me to beat you now, so expect an upload. This is one of the best

[04:54] YouTube comments I've ever read. And perhaps the best part about it. Cot actually backed up his claim. Later that year, Cot submitted his speedrun of Spyro to SDA. He was faster than Leonier by nearly 12 minutes. He constructed a

[05:12] brilliant route through the game, which he wrote about in great detail in the run comments on SDA. So, a quick overview for those who are new to Spyro. trying to collect gems, [music] rescue dragons, and recover dragon eggs.

[05:27] These are scattered throughout each of the games five worlds. Each world contains a home world, three main levels, a flight level, and a [music] boss level. You can choose

[05:41] which to play and which to skip, but to move to the next world, you must reach a certain amount of dragons, gems, or eggs. So, Code had to figure out which levels he wanted to enter, which he wanted to skip, and the optimal route

[05:54] for collecting just enough of each item to move through the [music] game. By the end, you need to collect 6,000 gems, 50 dragons, and five eggs with different checkpoints earlier to keep progressing through the game. The most important

[06:09] part is the gems. There's so many options with literally thousands to collect across the levels and the home worlds. To give you an idea of Kote's strategy, let's look at how he handled the first world, Artisans. [music] He

[06:23] rescued three dragons in the home world, then completed the flight level, which gives 300 gems. He then entered his first main level, Town Square, and collected four dragons, an egg, and just over a 100 gems. Kau then entered the

[06:38] level Stonehill where he quickly got three more dragons to reach 10. [music] This was enough to move to the next world, but instead of exiting the level, he stayed a while longer, collecting more gems and rescuing an 11th dragon.

[06:52] This is because it's often faster to collect all dragons in a level rather than entering new levels. You need 50 dragons eventually anyway, so might as well collect more in one place. He even collected one more dragon in the home

[07:05] world before finally moving to the peacekeepers [music] world with 12 peacekeepers [music] world with 12 dragons, one egg, and 460 gems. Kot spent much more time in peacekeepers than artisans [music] as there's more

[07:17] gems and dragons to collect. He played all levels and eventually left peacekeepers with 27 dragons, two eggs, [music] and 1,735 gems. Still a ways to go. Next up was Magic Crafters. [music] Kot said this

[07:33] world contained his worst level of the run, Wizard Peak. He got unnecessarily hit a few times, died once, and was sloppy collecting gems, but he did collect a lot of gems in this level and the rest [music] of the world. He

[07:47] reached the five eggs he needed and left the world with 41 dragons and 3,544 [music] gems. The next world was Beast Makers. It contains the infamous level treetops, [music] which many players struggled with as a kid. At one point,

[08:02] Cout had to do a series of supercharges and then a glide to just barely make it over to [music] an island, which contained both a dragon and about 100 gems. He couldn't afford to skip it, and he died once trying, but he did reach it

[08:15] on the second try. [music] Later in the level, he rescued another dragon and got 300 more gems. By the time Kot [music] finished Beast Makers, he'd gotten his 50th and final dragon. Now it was time for Dreamw Weavers [music] where he

[08:28] could focus solely on collecting gems. Kot entered Haunted Towers, icy [music] flight, and the boss level for gems. Once he defeated Jacques, he reached 6,000. [music] After 57 1/2 minutes, Kat had collected

[08:43] everything needed [music] to finish the game. It was time to head to Nasty's world. This world contains two main levels, Norc Cove and Twilight Harbor, and then the final fight with Nasty Norc. Kot just had to avoid any big

[08:57] mistakes. Both main levels contain a myriad of enemies, but he played well, never dying and taking just a few hits. Finally, in Nasty Norc, Kote chased down the thieves for the two keys, chased Nasty Norc himself, and platformed to

[09:13] the end. Game complete [music] in 1 hour, 1 minute, and 46 seconds. In the run description, Kauet pointed out that he could have picked up more gems in the early worlds where the game is the easiest. Instead, he had balanced it

[09:27] more through the game, collecting the most in the middle worlds. His run went on SDA and was recognized as the world record. Many site members congratulated him as this was by far the best speedrun the game had ever seen. But as good as

[09:42] it was, it didn't last very long. Lots of speedrunners were interested in Spyro, and Cote's run just gave them more motivation to try. One such runner more motivation to try. One such runner was Crash 4 one 596. We'll just call him

[09:57] Crash. At the very end of 2010, Crash beat Coat's run by 5 minutes, partially because of the version of the game he played. Crash played on NTSC while Kote

[10:09] played on PAL. PAL has a slower frame rate and load times. And although the developers tried to compensate by making Spyro run faster, it's still 1 to 2 minutes slower than NTSC. So Crash had a built-in advantage. But that wasn't all

[10:25] that Crash did to save time. It was all about the routing. >> Crash frontloaded his gems, collecting more in the first two worlds, which let him skip things in the rest of the game. He was able to spend far less time in

[10:38] the levels high caves, Wizard Peak, Treetops, and Metalhead. He didn't even bother entering haunted towers in Dreamweavers. This all added up to multiple minutes of time [music] save leading to a final time of 5608.

[10:53] And Crash wasn't done. A month later, he beat his record in a tournament race with a 5535. And a few months later, he did it again with a 5444, specifically playing on POW so that Cout

[11:06] could compete with him. This time, he frontloaded his gems even more, collecting an extra 300 in Beast Maker so he could skip the level Jacques in Dreamweavers. Clearly, a trend was being set. Collect more gems early so you can

[11:20] skip levels later. Over the next few months, Crash made posts on task videos on SDA that off-handedly mentioned new times he'd set on Spyro 1. 5423 and then

[11:32] a time in the 51minut range. It's possible there were more records in between, but it seems like Crash didn't bother recording these runs cuz he felt he could do better. He was pulling away with the Spyro 1 record. Then in late

[11:46] 2011, another tople runner emerged, a player named Surreal. He'd been a speedrunner for a while, and since Spyro was a childhood game for him, he decided to give it a try. And perhaps more than

[11:58] any runner before him, Surreal did an enormous amount of research into his route. Rather than building on past runs, he essentially started from scratch and tried to create the best route possible. He developed a concept

[12:12] called the gemto time ratio. It's a way to figure out which gems are the most timeefficient to collect. For instance, if I can collect 10 gems over there, but it takes 4 seconds, the gem to time ratio would be 2.5.

[12:27] run and mapped out what he felt was the optimal route for collecting gems. Surreal regularly raced on speedruns live and set several world records in the process. But he also streamed to just.tv.

[12:41] just.tv. And on March 21st, 2012, he set a new record on stream with video that has survived to this day. This was a huge improvement over the last run with video footage of 4858.

[12:55] How did Surreal save nearly 6 minutes? Well, 2 minutes came from NTSC versus PAL. The remaining four were because Surreal was built differently. He

[13:07] demonstrated cleaner movement throughout the whole game, which allowed him to pick up time in level after level. He shifted his gems around so that by the time he made it to Dreamw Weavers, he barely had any to collect. He just

[13:20] picked up a couple hundred in Jacques, then was off to Nasty's World. In Norc Cove, he went for a trick called a wall glide to skip a chunk of the level. While gliding, you can angle Spyro into an incined surface and it'll maintain

[13:34] his height or give him more height. Then, by landing in the water repeatedly, you can just barely make it to the ledge. It was first used in a task by Leponier and Surreal implemented it in his run. So, a new gem route, new

[13:50] it in his run. So, a new gem route, new tricks, better gameplay, and a 4858, miles ahead of anybody else playing Spyro. And the best part, Surreal was Spyro. And the best part, Surreal was just getting started.

[14:12] Yes, dude. It's not sub 48, but that's pretty good.

[14:26] speedrunner. Throughout 2012, he lowered the Any% record [music] over and over, streaming all of it live to his fans on Twitch. Most of his videos survived, and it's fascinating to see his gameplay evolve. Starting with his 4546, [music]

[14:42] Surreal radically changed his gem route yet again. It had long been known that the flight level in Dreamweavers was faster than the one in Artisans by about 15 seconds. However, guards are blocking the Dreamweaver's flight level, and you

[14:55] normally have to use the laser cannon [music] to defeat them. But Surreal found that while rising from a jump, your momentum is preserved after getting hit, so you can get extra height and glide over the guards. This meant

[15:08] Surreal could switch around which flight level he played and spend barely any time in artisans at all. With a new route, Surreal kept the records coming. And as he did, he became more and more nonchalant.

[15:24] >> Finally, after more than a year of record improvements, Surreal got the run he was looking for. On November 1st, 2012, a record filled with all the new tricks from the past several [music] months. In Town Square, he did a tricky

[15:38] jump where he angled Spyro out to the side, then back toward the ledge, and finally charged to reach solid ground. Runners call it a ledge grind, and it allowed him to reach the upper area without having to go all the way around.

[15:52] Just before entering Crystal Flight in Magic Crafters, Surreal performed a trick called Bouldar Skip. Normally, when you rescue a dragon, a cutscene plays before you're able to move again. One potential exception is the dragon

[16:05] Bolar. By manipulating the camera away from him, then entering Crystal Flight from the opposite side, you can contact Bolar just before truly entering the level and be credited with rescuing him. No cutscene necessary. In Treetops,

[16:21] Surreal repeatedly used the supercharge ramps to reach islands early, tricks that a casual player wouldn't [music] even think of. All these tricks and more even think of. All these tricks and more led to a strong 4408, capping off a

[16:33] streak of 11 straight records from Surreal. He submitted the [music] run to SDA and received positive feedback from both the site verifiers and his peers. Small mistakes made a 43minute run seem possible, but all agreed that this was

[16:48] an amazing world record. By early 2013, Spyro was one of the fastest growing speed games in the world. Speedrunning as a whole was quite small. But compared to other popular games, Spyro 1 was thriving. So much so that just a few

[17:02] months after his 4408, Surreal already had two new competitors. The first was a player named Saboom. Saboom regularly raced Surreal in 2012, and while Surreal set the records,

[17:17] [music] Saboom improved just behind him. Well, in January 2013, Saboom broke through and got the first 43 in [music] Spyro history. Although it was streamed live to his Twitch account, the footage has since disappeared and can't be

[17:32] viewed today. This was the first time in over a year that Surreal wasn't [music] the record holder. Unsatisfied with this development, he began attempts to take back the record, [music] and it only took him a few days. He cleaned up some

[17:45] mistakes from his 4408 [music] and beat Saboom by 2 seconds with a casual guess I should highlight this [music] in the description. Surreal still had a bit of an advantage over Saboom, but I mentioned he had two

[17:59] competitors. One was Saboom and the other was BJ. BJ is an interesting case. While Saboom clearly raced alongside Surreal and improved, BJ was more on his

[18:11] Surreal and improved, BJ was more on his own. Yet, he improved fast. In December 2012, his personal best was over an hour. By February, [music] he had a low hour. By February, [music] he had a low 44. I don't know how he did it, but in a

[18:24] matter of weeks, BJ went from a noob to a world record contender. But one lesson he had to learn, it's one thing to be a contender, and it's another thing to actually break a [music] record. On March 7th, 2013, BJ was a bit behind

[18:40] an excellent world pushed him up to essentially tied. Coming down the home stretch, he had only Dreamw Weavers and Nasty's World remaining. He played Icy Flight, but needed a lot of gems in Jacques [music] to reach 6,000.

[18:54] >> Just give me all the gems. It's what I need right now. >> VJ collected some gems, then glided across this gap. On the other side was a group of armored horrors. All you have to do is jump up and charge them.

[19:14] I'm sorry for blowing you guys' ears out, but what just happened? >> He bonked and the enemy knocked him off. Run over. No matter. A month later, he had an even better chance. BJ kept it close with the record through Beast

[19:28] Makers, then pulled ahead in Dreamweavers. He was on pace for a 434x with just three levels to go. Norc Cove and Twilight Harbor both went fine. Now it was time for Nasty Norc. Here at the start, there are two thieves holding

[19:44] keys that you must catch, one after the other. [music] It's very important to catch them as soon as you see them. If you miss, you have to chase them down. BJ just had to make sure they didn't slip by him.

[20:08] happening. It was starting to get in his head. So many world record chances that died late. Some of them were ahead of the record by several seconds. It's easy to start convincing yourself that you can't do it when this happens. But BJ

[20:22] stuck with it. And finally on April 16th, he finished off a 4349. >> I freaking did it. It's all over, dude. I did it. I It's all over. Oh my god.

[20:35] Still, BJ felt this was far from his best run. It was slower than many of the record paces he'd had in the past couple months, largely thanks to a slow Magic Crafters. In fact, earlier in this run, after making the mistakes, BJ admitted

[20:49] finished as the record. >> Cuz if this ended up being world record, like I'd be like ashamed and I'd have to improve it anyways. >> So, there was still work to do. Later in April, BJ and Surreal both played more

[21:03] any% runs, trying for a faster time that would satisfy them. And it didn't take long to see results. Surreal struck first with a 4343. Then a week later, BJ countered with a big 4327.

[21:17] This time the run description looked different. BJ said, "This is the run that I've wanted for so long." And it was. He saved time in every world except was. He saved time in every world except for Peacekeepers. Sub 4330 was now a

[21:31] reality. Early 2013 was a period of rapid growth for Spyro speedrunning. Lots of new world records set by many new highlevel runners. Surreal, Saboom,

[21:43] and BJ all emerged onto the scene quickly and were all record contenders. But there's still one more runner I need to introduce who started just a bit to introduce who started just a bit later than the other three. His name is

[21:56] later than the other three. His name is Touvil. [music] He began in 2013, lowered his time in the first few months, and gradually became a record contender. [music] He'd go on to be an incredibly

[22:11] prolific speedrunner, most wellknown for discovering Gelato Beach Skip in Super [music] he was just starting out, trying to beat the Any% World Record in Spyro. After several months of lowering his personal

[22:26] best, on May 18th, 2013, Tuvall tied the world record almost to the frame. All right, finally, I got to get around. But it didn't make sense. Tuvall's

[22:39] movement seemed [music] better. He made fewer mistakes. Why wasn't he faster? Well, one day they figured it out. Tuvall was from the UK and didn't have access to an NTSC console, so he played on emulator, which has slower load

[22:55] times. Tuvall had tied the world record [music] despite playing at a 30-second [music] despite playing at a 30-second disadvantage.

[23:16] time he entered or exited a level, Tuol lost a small amount of time. But he didn't care. He wanted the record, and nothing was [music] going to stop him. To make up for the load difference, Tuol spent a lot of time routing the game. In

[23:31] fact, [music] he enjoyed routing more than actually speedrunning. He tried to find the very best gems to collect. And while it wasn't hugely different [music] from what other runners did, he saved time around the margins, partially

[23:44] canceling out the load differences. By mid 2013, BJ and Surreal had stepped back from running the game, leaving Saboom and Tuvall as the top two active runners. That summer, they took turns lowering the record further, eventually

[23:58] getting under 43 minutes. Videos for most of these runs were deleted. Evidence of their existence is scattered across the internet, but we know very little about the runs themselves. One thing we do know is that Saboom used a

[24:12] slower route than Tuvel. He did the slowest flight level, Sunny Flight, in Artisans and entered Terrace Village for a couple dragons. Since Saboom played on console, he likely would have been able to pull away from Tuville. But since he

[24:26] Tuville a [music] chance to compete with him. And compete they sure did. By the time we finally have our next [music] run with video, these two guys had battled and taken the record almost a

[24:39] battled and taken the record almost a full minute lower, a 4243 by Tuil. The gem route had totally changed [music] since the last record. Tuvil skipped the boss level Dr. Shmp in Peacekeepers since it takes a while and doesn't have

[24:52] very many gems. This saved a couple minutes, but left him with a 300 gem deficit, which he gradually made up over the next couple worlds. Beyond that, the time saves came from cleaner [music] execution. Even a few seconds in each

[25:05] world can really add up. But despite the improvements, there were still areas that Tuvo messed up. So, he and Sabum weren't nearly done. Through the rest of 2013, they continued to compete with each other, and the records kept coming.

[25:21] There we go. didn't check.

[25:33] >> There it is. Just the 4141, huh? Just the 4141, huh? By August, the time was down to a 4118 by Saboom. Following the pattern, it would now be Touvil's turn to take the

[25:45] record back. But I mentioned before that Tuville is an amazing glitch hunter. And well, in August, he made perhaps the greatest discovery in Spyro's history,

[25:58] greatest discovery in Spyro's history, Twilight Harbor Skip. with three [music] levels: Norc Cove, Twilight Harbor, and Nasty Norc. Once

[26:11] you beat Norc, the dragon head for Twilight Harbor opens up. Beat that level and Nasty Norc opens up. But apparently the developers were in a rush when making the end of the game because although the top of the Twilight Harbor

[26:25] Dragon is solid, the Nasty Norc dragon has no collision at the top. This means if you can somehow get up there, you can enter Nasty Norc even if the dragon head is closed. The developers knew this [music] and decided it was okay because

[26:39] despite monumental effort, they couldn't find a way to get on top and get through. For 15 years, that system worked just fine until Touvil came along. In August 2013, he uploaded a YouTube video called Nasty Norc early.

[26:55] By standing on the open Norc cove head, then jumping out of a flop using a technique called a boosted skiitter jump. Tuvil barely made it to the top where there's no collision and through [music] to enter Nasty Norc. It meant he

[27:08] skipped playing Twilight Harbor entirely and saved nearly a full minute on the speedrun. Unfortunately, this was extremely difficult. It felt random [music] as to how much height you got from your jump and overall wasn't well

[27:22] understood, but it was clearly possible and saved an enormous amount of time. So, top runners had to go for it. They consistently get runs 40 minutes deep, then lose almost all of them to this one trick. It was exhausting. The few months

[27:39] after Twilight Harbor skips discovery is another fuzzy period in Spyro's history. We know that Tuville got a 4116 in September 2013, but from October through the following January, the only known record set was a 4037 by Saboom. It's

[27:55] very likely that other records were set around this time, especially because of the new skip, but there's no trace of anything. One thing we do know for sure, Twilight Harbor skip was a massive pain. Saboom and Touvol regularly got runs

[28:10] deep, then had to get this near impossible trick under pressure. It was terrible. So, Touvol looked at the setup. The glitch hunter in him went setup. The glitch hunter in him went into overdrive and he said, "I know how

[28:24] to fix this. We need to make Twilight Harbor skip [music] even harder. to rescue the dragon, play Norc Cove, then jump from the open Twilight Harbor

[28:40] head directly to Nasty Norc, [music] skipping the level. What would be really great was if you could skip all of this and go straight to Nasty Norc from the start. [music] Well, in October 2013, Touvol found a method to do just that.

[28:55] But oh boy, did it make Twilight Harbor Skip look like a walk in the park. See this? This is a rat which you can kill to replenish health. Not too interesting. Unless you ask Tuvil. He found that if you lure the rat to the

[29:11] right position, charge jump to kill it, and then race to the corner before it gets [music] there, it can land on you and eject you into the air. You can then land on top of Norc cove and glide straight to Nasty Norc. It's called the

[29:25] straight to Nasty Norc. It's called the rat proxy, and it's stupidly hard. You need to read the rat's positioning, then have him charge into the corner, [music] and then need to essentially weave around the side of the rat's hitbox to

[29:37] reach the [music] corner in time. It's like a lottery to get the positioning just right and beat the rat to the corner, then get the proxy. When Touvil posted this, the community reaction was, "Cool, that'll never be hit in a run,

[29:50] but it's nice that it's possible." For a few months, it was just an oddity and few months, it was just an oddity and nothing more. Then Touvil found another method. It was called Coveless. Instead of using the rat, you fly around the

[30:04] back of the nasty dragon head. Work your way up, then glide around inside. Looks pretty easy. It's not. You have to release charge frame perfectly to get a flop upward. Then you need several frame perfect wall glides all in a row to get

[30:20] and maintain enough height to make it inside. It was slightly easier than the rat proxy, [music] but not much. Tuvil tried hitting it on console and said it took him a thousand tries. Both Kovaleas and the rat proxy would save 40 seconds

[30:35] if ever hit in a run, but they were magnitudes harder than the already difficult Twilight Harbor skip. So improbable that they weren't even worth trying. All runners could realistically do in a run was Twilight Harbor Skip.

[30:48] But maybe one day the rap proxy or kovalis would come into play. Anyway, Touvil still had work to do and in the spring of 2014 he set two more records, spring of 2014 he set two more records, a 4025 and a 403. Most notably, he

[31:02] finally acquired an NTSC console and eliminated his 30-cond disadvantage. Then on June 7th, Tuvil broke the 40minute barrier with a 3946. A lot of the time save came from better movement and cleaning up small [music]

[31:17] mistakes. Nothing too flashy, but this is the work you must put in if you want to [music] set world records. Yet, since it still took him three tries to get Twilight Harbor Skip, Tuvil had to push onward. Once again, the timeline isn't

[31:30] 100% clear after this, but we know that 2 and 1/2 months later, Saboom got an enormous world record improvement of 3916. about the run itself, [music] but we know that the YouTube description simply

[31:44] said no words. So, this run was likely way ahead of its time. In January 2015, Touville beat it with a 3912. A run where he decided to just fly into a wall

[31:56] in Alpine Ridge. Oh, that makes more sense. There's no collision, and it's a more direct route. By now, Touvil and Saboom had been trading the record for years from a 43minute run all the way to a low

[32:10] [music] 39. They had separated themselves as by far the best runners themselves as by far the best runners [music] of Spyro Any%. But Spyro has another main category, 120%, where you must collect every single gem, dragon,

[32:24] and egg in the game. These two categories were on roughly equal footing, each with its own set of speedrunners. And in early 2015, 120%'s top runner decided to give any% a try. His name was Chris LBC.

[32:42] Chris was the longtime record holder and won 120%. [music] He'd beaten Tuville in mid 2014 and hadn't looked back, setting 10 records in a row and lowering the time by two full minutes. Across all that, he'd mostly ignored any%. But

[32:57] after dominating 120%, he was ready for a new challenge. As you'd expect, he picked up any% [music] fast, but it was a very different run from 120%. Since you're picking and choosing what to collect, your route matters a ton, and

[33:12] wiggle room overall. [music] The most frustrating part of the run for Chris was Twilight Harbor Skip, which isn't used in 120%. He developed some consistency with it, just like Tuville and Saboom, but still, Chris hated

[33:27] making it so far into runs just to throw most of them away. He grinded attempts like crazy, accumulating thousands of runs in just a few months. He was pretty aggressive at resetting early if he wasn't on a pace that he wanted. But

[33:41] thanks to his expertise in 120%, his movement [music] was impeccable, which let him pick up time over other runners. In late 2015, Chris got on the best pace Spiral any% had ever seen. He amassed a 30 gem lead after Beast Makers while

[33:56] being even with the record. Just about the only mistake was when he struggled to get an egg in Magic Crafters. After Jacques, Chris had about a 10-second lead over the 3912 world record, but it was time for Twilight Harbor skip. If he

[34:11] got this first try, he could get an incredible sub39. Second try and he could still break the record by a few seconds. Anything slower record by a few seconds. Anything slower and it was likely over.

[34:43] months, but it was worth the wait. Chris broke Tuville's record by 17 seconds. This was a near-perfect run. His mistakes were extremely minimal and there just wasn't much time save available. So naturally, Tuville had to

[34:59] try and beat it. In March 2016, Tuville got on a run that fell behind early. Lots of bonks and small mistakes. He then missed the proxy at the start of Cliff Town where an enemy lands on and ejects you up to the roof. He had to die

[35:12] ejects you up to the roof. He had to die and try again. Then Misty Bog was disastrous. At the end of the level, there's a hallway filled with enemies. It's a very inconsistent room. Sometimes you make it through unscathed. Other

[35:25] times you take lots of damage. In this run, Tuvil got hit several times, taking three hits from frogs before finally dying from a nc. [music] It cost another 20 seconds. By the time he made it to Nasty's World, Tuhul was over a half

[35:40] minute behind the record. A first try Twilight Harbor skip wouldn't come close to saving this. The only option remaining was to try and skip both Norc Cove and Twilight Harbor. I mentioned before there were two methods for this,

[35:55] and the more consistent one was Coveless. That's what Tuville was going to try to go for, but it wasn't looking good. He'd spent hours practicing just to hit it once. Yet, it was his only option to try and save this run.

[36:25] hello. Okay.

[36:40] speedrunners pop off when they do something cool. Tuvil is pretty close to the bottom. This was the most amazing thing Spyro speedrunning had ever seen. With his back against the wall, Tuvil had hit a one in a,000 trick to save a

[36:54] had hit a one in a,000 trick to save a world record. His reaction, well then, this wasn't supposed to happen. Maybe he was in shock. But the rest of the community lost their minds. Tuville had gotten Coveless in a [music]

[37:08] record. The rest of the run was nothing special. Big slowdowns in almost every world, but the fact alone that it had Kovalis made it very strong. The best a huge lead without any of the mistakes that Touvil made, then bleed most of but

[37:24] not all of it to skipping Kovless. It was a long shot even for these guys. For the next year and a half, nobody knew got a sub 40 and none of the top few runners [music] improved their times at all. There was much more focus on 120%

[37:39] where the world record dropped by nearly two full minutes. All the while, two full minutes. All the while, Touvil's 3851 remained on top in any%. Finally, in late 2017, there was an improvement. Saboom reportedly got a

[37:54] 3842, but yet again, the video was deleted. Still, it can't be overstated what Sabum did for Spyro speedrunning. [music] He used strategies years ahead of his time, and when his videos were viewable, his

[38:07] runs almost looked like they were from the future. He did this in multiple [music] categories across several Spyro games. Then in mid 2018, it was beaten games. Then in mid 2018, it was beaten again, this time by Chris LBC. It

[38:20] followed the exact blueprint from earlier. He cleaned up all of Tuvul's mistakes, gave back time from skipping Kovaleis, and still got a nice world record of 3831. Well, really, it was more than just a

[38:33] nice record. It was nearly perfect for the strategies used. Chris nailed everything, had no substantial mistakes, and got probably the cleanest record the game had ever seen. It was so good [music] that it thrust Spyro Any% into a

[38:48] [music] that it thrust Spyro Any% into a dormant period. See, the 3831 signified a run reaching its breaking point. To realistically lower the record further, [music] Kovless now had to be implemented in all

[39:01] runs. And there wasn't much motivation to run a category where more than 99% of runs were destined to die at the very end. All top runners agreed it wasn't worth trying. So, they all stopped. In the second half of 2018, all of 2019,

[39:18] and through 2020, there was hardly any movement at the top of the leaderboard. Everything remained quiet. Chris, Saboom, and Tuil all weren't budging. To

[39:30] break the gridlock at the top, one of two things needed to happen. Either something new had to be discovered or a new contender had to come along. Well, as fate would have it, in late 2020, Spyro got its first new record contender

[39:46] in years, and he's one of the most unique speedrunning personalities I've ever encountered. His name [music] is Deoman. Play this list for anybody who's ever loved somebody. Man, I love you. Keep

[40:00] loved somebody. Man, I love you. Keep chugging. Keep living. Keep loving. at the complete opposite end, competing with the likes of Nyski and VHJ. When he

[40:14] sets a record, he'll yell, >> "Yes, mother. That's right, baby. That's >> "Yes, mother. That's right, baby. That's right. 12152. LET'S GO. New world >> Give a motivational speech. >> I thought it wasn't going to happen. I

[40:28] was just too good. >> Or do something completely random. >> Or do something completely random. >> Go on. Pass it to me right now. >> He first started watching Spyro speedruns back when he was in high

[40:44] school, and his true passion was 120%. He preferred the simplicity of it. You need to worry about gems and routing [music] so much. But perhaps most importantly, Deo hated the idea of

[40:58] Twilight Harbor Skip and the fact that it was now replaced by something even harder. He just wanted to stay away from any% and focus on 120% where it wasn't needed. [music] So he did. For many months, Deo grinded 120%. And in

[41:12] months, Deo grinded 120%. And in December 2020, he beat Saboom and broke the world record. Let's go. Yeah, mother. Let's go. New world record. Low one. [screaming]

[41:32] 120% done, the next thing Deo could conquer was any%. But again, Kovless wasn't exactly his idea of a good time. Well, luckily for Deo Man, right around the time he broke the 120% record, there was an advancement at the end of any

[41:47] percent runs. It all comes back to the rat. [music] A Spyro runner named HopKid had long been interested in the rat proxy. He wondered if there was any way to make it more consistent. As it stood, rat proxy

[42:00] was even worse than Kovaleis. You did a charge jump into the wall, hoped you beat the rat there, and hoped to proxy. It was far, far under a 1% trick. [music] Well, in 2020, HopKid found a new method that was sort of the inverse

[42:15] of a charge jump. You'd start with a jump, then glide in toward the rat, charge to kill it, and have the rat land on top of you. Approaching the rat's hit sphere from above and slightly in front meant it was much easier to beat it to

[42:29] the corner. However, it also meant you now had to wait for the rat to go into the corner. And depending [music] on its pattern, this could be instant, could take several seconds, or could even take several minutes. Hopkid made a tutorial

[42:44] for his new method in mid 2020, [music] but it was mostly ignored by any% runners. When Deo saw this, his reaction was, and I quote, "Well, all these

[42:56] people are too lazy to do it in any percent, so I'll be the first." And so began Deo's quest. Hit the rat proxy in a run and break the world record. His consistency with the trick wasn't good, but it gradually got better. First one

[43:12] in 100, then one in 50. To practice, anytime he had a run make it there, he tried the trick until he hit it. Even if it took dozens of attempts, using this improved, and he occasionally had

[43:26] sessions as good as 1 in 10, he almost never hit it first try, but he [music] was getting better. It all led to a run on January 19th, 2021. While Deo made plenty of mistakes in Peacekeepers and Magic Crafters, he made it all the way

[43:40] to Nasty's World and finally got a first try rat proxy. >> Come on, baby. This is the one. This is the one right here. He ultimately finished with a 3833, just 2 seconds behind the world record. Deo was

[43:54] officially record capable. All he had to do now was get another slightly faster run into Nasty's World and hit another rat proxy. Not too bad, right?

[44:16] Oh man, come on. [music] run could [music] either be insane or it will probably die. One of those two. So, will probably die. One of those two. So, please pray for me.

[44:51] Why don't he want me, man? Why don't this run want me, man?

[45:05] No. Come on, dude.

[45:18] Okay. Okay. Let's go. Okay. This could be world record. Come on, man. >> There it was. Deo was now the record

[45:32] holder in both 120% and any%. [music] In this run, he was pretty close with Chris's record through Peacekeepers, but suffered a big time loss when he lost his supercharge early in high caves. He saved a bit from great movement from

[45:46] beast makers. And while he had to wait about 15 seconds on the rat, he pulled way ahead after getting the proxy. And though it seemed to be inevitable for weeks, now that it had happened, Deo couldn't believe it.

[45:59] couldn't believe it. >> Holy moly. Hi, YouTube. Hi, YouTube. What up, YouTube? After a few hours, reality set in. And after thinking on it, Deo posted a message to Discord. I'm not done. He explained that he kind of

[46:14] only got record because of the rap proxy and that beyond the new trick, this was a worse run than Chris's 3831. Speaking objectively, it's hard to disagree with that. Deo said he'd only feel good about it if he got a 37minute

[46:29] run. that would be comparable to what Chris got plus the new rap proxy. It' truly be a better record no matter how you looked at it. Over the next few weeks, Deo scored a couple small record cuts. A 3815 followed by a 3814. [music]

[46:45] Each one had a second try rat proxy at the end, leaving obvious room for improvement. One new strategy he used was a wall clip in Metalhead. It works like a proxy, except the enemy's hitbox is so big that it ejects you forward. It

[46:59] was found by Humbleden and saves about 8 seconds. These new records were nice, but not quite what Deo was looking for. On March 23rd, Deo fell behind early after missing this jump in Dry Canyon. But after that, things went really well.

[47:15] He gradually chipped into his deficit [music] so that by the time he made it to Nasty's World, he was only barely behind. And then Deo got a first try rat proxy. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's go.

[47:37] >> A huge record and very close to his goal. But due to his big mishap in Dry Canyon, he was still a few seconds short. As great as this was, Deo didn't want to stop. He continued his stream that day. And a short while later, he

[47:53] got on another run. A lot of people, a lot of highle spyro point. But you think resetting got me a world record? Think about that. world record? Think about that. [music]

[48:16] to back? Bro, if I get another first try rat, dude, that would just be that'd be so legendary. That would just be the best.

[48:53] Come on, mother. THE BACK TO BACK. THE BACK TO BACK. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? I am the best there ever was. The best legendary. Two world

[49:05] records in one day. The first 37 ever done in this game. Woo! done in this game. Woo! Oh man, I am sick and I'm humbled. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment in Spyro speedrunning history. a 3803 and a

[49:21] 3757 on the same day. He started as just a [music] 120% specialist. Now, Deo was undoubtedly the game's best player, no matter the [music] category, and he'd

[49:33] just broken probably the last minute barrier possible in Spyro Any%. Mission accomplished. >> Two perfect rats. Two two perfect rats.

[49:45] Are you kidding [laughter] me? Chris, Saboom, and Tuval all weren't interested in playing anymore, and there really wasn't anyone else record capable. Even if there was, this was an optimized world record with a first try rat proxy.

[50:00] Deo had put it in a good spot. Top level Spyro has historically had alternating periods of activity and inactivity. After the 3757, it was inactive for about a year and a half. But in 2022, it entered a period

[50:15] of activity that has lasted to this day. It all started that November with the It all started that November with the emergence of a new tople runner, Lumi Laura. Laura first got into Spyro speedrunning

[50:28] in 2020. And while she had an unassuming start, that gradually changed. When Deo got his 3757, she was down in 24th place. In early 2022, she became the ninth person to get a sub 40. Half a year later, she became

[50:44] the fifth person to get a 38. It was slow, methodical improvement, but it mid [music] 2022. Part of the way she did this was by creating a new route nicknamed bikeless.

[50:58] In high caves, there's a strat called bike caves where you supercharge and then quickly run through the level collecting 104 gems. It's very difficult and historically killed a [music] lot of runs. Laura decided to try skipping it

[51:11] runs. Laura decided to try skipping it and collect those 104 gems elsewhere, scattered through the earlier and later worlds. It actually ended up being faster and much more consistent. It meant she got many more runs to the end

[51:23] meant she got many more runs to the end game. But as we know, in the end game is the [music] rat. And as good as your pace is, it really doesn't matter until [music] Laura got a 3808 with a 14-second

[51:37] mistake in Dreamweavers. Take out that mistake and the run [music] would have beaten Deo. It was clear now that Laura had what it took to break the record. But just like Deo, she had to get the rap proxy on a good pace.

[52:14] This is exactly what Deo went through 2 years earlier. Run after run on record pace, all dead to the rat. Laura was losing faith she'd ever be able to hit losing faith she'd ever be able to hit it in a run. So, in [music] a bold move,

[52:28] Laura decided to go back to Coveless full time and ignore the rat proxy. Coveless was a really unlikely trick, but she wasn't getting the rat, so maybe it was worth a try. It was just a matter of getting another run to Nasty's World,

[52:42] which at this point she did regularly. But on March 14th, Laura got not only a good pace, but the best pace Spyro had ever seen into Nasty's world. a 3554

[52:55] bikeless route was executed to perfection and the run was virtually mistake free. It was time to put her theory to the test. Laura was going to theory to the test. Laura was going to go for Coveless.

[53:22] Okay. All right. It's fine. We've got a chance at rat. It's rat. We got a chance at rat. That's not going in.

[53:35] got so much time. We literally got this chance.

[54:03] YES. YES. Oh my god. Three years of buildup and Laura had

[54:16] [music] finally done it. And it couldn't have been a stranger run. The best pace ever seen by far. Then going for and missing Kovaleis before backing it up with a first try rap proxy. At the end of it all was an outburst of pure

[54:32] emotion. >> World record is 9755 by me. [snorts] By me. >> The journey to break a world record sure

[54:44] isn't easy. It isn't straightforward. and it'll push you to your limits. But when it finally happens, the sense of accomplishment is unmatched. There were now two players with the sub 38, Laura and Deo. But they [music] weren't the

[54:59] only record contenders. It took Laura a while to get to 3755, several months of grinding in late 2022 and early 2023. And in that time, and early 2023. And in that time, another new player popped up, Ashreal.

[55:14] Laura's slow and steady improvement to the top was the complete opposite of Ash. She began as a tople vortex runner in 2021, a side category of Spyro speedrunning. So, by the time she took any% more seriously in late 2022, she

[55:29] was able to quickly go from a 4118 to a 39 flat, all during Laura's push for the top spot. Ash became a world record threat in a matter of weeks. Ultimately,

[55:41] Laura's record lasted just a few [music] days before Ash beat it with a 3746. Now, in a lot of ways, this run wasn't as good as Laura's. Ash slowly bled time through Peacekeepers, had a not great Misty bog, and missed the clip in

[55:56] Metalhead. But these were all fairly small mistakes, and most importantly, she got a first try rap proxy to save 30 seconds over Laura. Ash actually wrote in the description to just go watch Laura's run since it was better. But

[56:10] that's the power of a first try rat proxy. So we have Laura's run, which was amazing but bled half a minute in Nasty's World, and we have Ash's run, which was much slower but had an amazing Nasty's World. Combine these two runs

[56:25] Nasty's World. Combine these two runs and the result would be a sub 3730. That was the new goal. But although they ascended the leaderboard at different speeds, Laura [music] and Ash both arrived there at the same time and

[56:37] really enjoyed competing with each other. In fact, they looked at this goal as a collaboration, not a competition. They wanted to help each other get the 372X over the spring of 2023. That's exactly

[56:51] what played out. [music]

[57:39] my god, the dream run. After weeks of back and forth, Laura [music] got her self-described dream run. Time losses were very minimal. Getting stuck on a wall in Night Flight, missing gems in

[57:54] Misty Bog, some small movement mistakes, all adding up to just a handful of seconds across a more than halfhour speed run. Laura and Ash had worked together to take the run to this point. And while Laura had crossed the finish

[58:07] line, they both deserve the credit. This was a good spot to let the record rest for a while. It was sub 3730, a nice round milestone, and speedr runners like round milestones. All in all, a fantastic world record. But speedrunners

[58:23] are constantly looking for something new. A faster trick, a more consistent setup, a once optimized record can instantly become subpar. Depending on what's discovered, someone can wreak havoc just by discovering a new

[58:37] havoc just by discovering a new strategy. Loris 3727 lasted for a few strategy. Loris 3727 lasted for a few months, but in mid 2023, a player named months, but in mid 2023, a player named Days Bagabones came along. Mr. Bagabones

[58:49] discovered a couple new tricks in rapid succession. First, the long back rat, a method to force the rat to the corner without relying so much on its pattern. This was absolutely huge for consistency. You line yourself up in

[59:03] front of the rat so that the hit boxes are just barely touching. Then press square for exactly two frames to kill it and hold left or right so the rat drags you along with it to [music] the corner. This is called getting surfed. There are

[59:17] [music] depending on the rat's starting position. So although a ton of RNG was taken out, the trade-off was having to learn a seemingly endless amount of small adjustments. But boy was it worth it [music] with practice. Top level

[59:32] runners are able to get the long back rat about a third of the time. Long gone are the days of one in a thousand lottery tickets. The long back rat means any deep pace has a good chance. The other trick days found was Netor Skip.

[59:46] dragon [music] named Nester literally right in front of you. Runners didn't collect him because he's the [music] only dragon in the entire game where you can't skip his dialogue. At least you couldn't until Day's Bagabones came

[1:00:01] along. By perfectly timing and positioning [music] a flop, you can get stuck on top of his hitbox. The game autokills Spyro after a few seconds, and the cut scene never plays despite collecting the dragon. It's an extremely

[1:00:15] difficult quadruple frame perfect trick with timings all over the place. In most attempts, you'd reach the top but just fall off after a moment. It was initially viewed as unviable [music] for runs, but gradually any% players warmed

[1:00:30] up to it. It saves about 7 seconds and runners had to individually decide if over and over again at the start of runs. Between neester skip and the long back rat, days vagabones had breathed new life into Spyro speedrunning.

[1:00:45] A sentence that's never been spoken before. With new strategies come new records. [music] In the fall of 2023, Laura and Ash took turns lowering the world record another 10 [music] seconds. Laura chose to do Nester skip while Ash

[1:01:00] did not, and ultimately [music] that did give Laura a bit of an advantage. By the give Laura a bit of an advantage. By the end of 2023, her 3719 remained as the world record. We've seen a lot from Laura and Ash lately, but there was one

[1:01:13] contender who'd been uncharacteristically quiet over the past few years. Deo man. Deo hadn't touched any percent since 2021. He'd put all of any percent since 2021. He'd put all of his focus into [music] 120%. In 2023, he

[1:01:27] got what he considered to be the ultimate run of the category, an hour ultimate run of the category, an hour [music] and 20 minutes, the 120 in 120%. Once he got that, he embarked on a new quest. After all these years, could he

[1:01:42] climb the mountain again and reclaim the Any% world record? Deo had work to do. He had to learn bikeless, the long back rat, and other small optimizations. However, just like Ash, he decided to not go for neester skip. Everybody in

[1:01:59] [music] know, that route is actually not as good. Shut the up, nerds. >> It meant he got a lot of runs going and results quickly followed. In late March 2024, [music] Deo got PBS on backtoback days, 3730 and 3728.

[1:02:16] They each had big time losses, but despite the break, his skill was clearly right back up there with his rivals. But he wasn't the only one making a push. On April 7th, Ash tied Laura's record quite literally to the frame, 3719.233.

[1:02:34] 2 days later, she beat it by a second with a 3718. Just as before, Ash had a knack for making [music] quick moves in any%. World records 48 hours apart. But the 3718 did have mistakes and there [music]

[1:02:49] was still room to take it lower. He put the pressure back on Deo. In midappril he closed in with a 3725 which had a death at the start of Cliff Town. It would have been world record if not for that mistake. Ash countered with a 3717

[1:03:05] and 3715 [music] again just days later. Yes. Yes.

[1:03:19] response [music] every single time. She was relentless. But they were still neck andneck. Either runner had a chance at getting the dream run. On May 28th, Deo got a run that matched his PB's strong first two worlds, then started gradually

[1:03:34] pulling ahead. He entered Misty Bog, one of the hardest levels, and it went well. The good vibes kept rolling. a solid tree tops. Then he got the clip in Metal Head and even got a [music] gold split. After Dreamw Weavers went well, this was

[1:03:48] officially the fastest run ever [music] going into the rat proxy. Teao had no choice but to stay calm despite what was unfolding. This was the highest pressure unfolding. This was the highest pressure attempt at the rat proxy of all time.

[1:04:16] Yeah, dude. Let's go. >> It didn't set in at first. Perhaps he'd finish [music] the run, but the celebration ramped up over time, and we even got a classic Deo man speech. >> I was like hoping I could get in the low

[1:04:32] 3710s, and even then, I was considering putting it down at that point. This run special. This was an amazing run. So amazing that it was close to another minute barrier. There really wasn't much time to save,

[1:04:46] but if Deo could find four more seconds, he'd have a sub 37. Speedrunners can't he'd have a sub 37. Speedrunners can't resist those milestones. Deo kept going. He played all through the summer of 2024, but with such an optimized record,

[1:04:59] he struggled to get much. On August 23rd, he came really close with a 37 flat, missing the barrier by just a quarter of a second. And it didn't take long [music] to go the rest of the way. 10 days later, Deo had another extremely

[1:05:14] close run midway through, had a sloppy alpine ridge to lose a few seconds, and alpine ridge to lose a few seconds, and from there was nearly flawless. A first try rat, a quick chase, and all the popoffs that he'd suppressed came out at

[1:05:27] popoffs that he'd suppressed came out at once.

[1:05:41] to get the sub 37. The community gave him his well-deserved congratulations. Even his competitors who' played right alongside him. This was everything he alongside him. This was everything he wanted. The 120 and 120% and the sub 37

[1:05:54] in any%. Deo's journey was complete. His only time losses were small, 1 to two seconds here and there. This was a run that was poised to stand as the world record for a long, long time. But in speed running, you just never know what

[1:06:09] to expect. It only takes one new runner or one new strategy. Deo poured his heart and soul into this 3658 and it was an amazing run, but it lasted as the record for just a few months. In early

[1:06:24] 2025, along came a new top runner to any% Composer. [music] Much like Ash, Composer got their start in Vortex, getting the world record there in 2022. Vortex is a short run

[1:06:39] where every fraction of a second matters. It requires close attention to detail, and Composer applied that idea to any%. They wanted to squeeze every last frame out of the run and literally programmed practice codes to grind

[1:06:54] certain tricks over and over. A consistency first mentality seen in the world's best speedrunners like Nitsky and Suigi. [music] But we know how good Deo's run was, and there were no big time saves available. So to try and beat

[1:07:09] it, Composer looked for small time saves around the edges. Some that they'd found and some found by others. Turning around faster in Cliff Town before jumping on this roof. Taking a harsher line coming out of Shmp. A faster blind turn up the

[1:07:24] magic stairs. Turning around to the last gems faster in Treetops. There was a lot more like this. Individually, they each saved a [music] second or less. But combined, Composer could save several seconds over Deo. This was Composer's

[1:07:39] attention to detail in full effect. [music] It's the small things adding up. [music] It's the small things adding up. And it worked. In January 2025, 4 months after Deo sub37, Composer [music] beat it by exactly 1 second, and the

[1:07:53] community recognized that Composer had the potential to go much further. In an effort to reclaim his record, Deo came back to attempts with a brand new route called Shmplas. [music] He'd do Netor Skip and hang on to the extra dragon,

[1:08:08] then skip the boss, Dr. Shmp in Peacekeepers, where he gave back the one dragon advantage. It saved a few seconds and on April 25th he got a 3657 of his own. Composer on the other hand tried something a little different. They

[1:08:23] wanted to switch routes but were insistent on not doing neester skip. So they still skipped Dr. Shmp but collected Ivore in Dry Canyon instead of Nester. This is a very difficult dragon to collect fast and uses boosted

[1:08:37] skiitter jumps just like in the old Twilight Harbor skip, but Composer preferred it over Nester Skip and used it to get a 3643. A few days after that, they decided to randomly try Nester Skip when someone in

[1:08:51] chat suggested it and then broke the record with a 3639. >> Let's go. Let's go. So now they kind of had to do it going forward. Composer's final new route included Nester, skip, Ivor, and

[1:09:08] Shmplas. It was a brilliant route and helped them save even more time. After helped them save even more time. After another record of 3638 in July, Deo was left in the dust. The new time saves and routes were hard to keep up with and

[1:09:21] composer's consistency was unreal. He needed some sort of a response. And on needed some sort of a response. And on August 6th, he got one with a 3647. 9 seconds behind the record and still [music] not using the new route. But a

[1:09:34] few days later, Composer improved again with a 3635. Deo just couldn't keep up. Finally, Deo decided if he was going to stand a chance, he had to commit to the new route with Ivore. It was a pain, but

[1:09:48] Composer had raised the bar. This was the only way to compete with them. But would it be enough? On August 25th, Deo fell a bit behind early, then made a mistake in Bite Caves, which was now back in the run. He then missed an egg

[1:10:02] in Wizard Peak and had to get a backup at the end. This was a pretty big deficit. Now, it was time to see what this new route could do.

[1:10:41] I tied it. I tied record. Let's go. >> For the second time, Deo had tied the record. But unlike the tie from a few months ago, this was technically a couple frames faster [music] than

[1:10:53] couple frames faster [music] than Composer's run. So it was officially a new world record. Composer saw what Deo had done and booted up a stream of any%. >> Composer is grinding right now. Yo, let's go. It's entire. This would kind

[1:11:08] of break my heart a little, but it would be kind of funny if Composer beat the 35 today. I could totally see that happening. By the way, happening. By the way,

[1:11:34] [music] enjoyment. They made it look easy. Spyro has never seen a player like Composer. Many talented former record holders are just behind them on the leaderboard, but they struggle to keep up. And a lot of that is because of

[1:11:47] composers mentality. [music] It's consistency over everything and trying to optimize even the smallest of time saves. It may seem pointless on an individual level, but zoom out and they're able to pull time out of thin

[1:12:00] air. Over the course of a few weeks in the summer of 2025, composer set five more world records in a row, going from 3630 down to 3622. [music] The new route

[1:12:12] helped, the long back rat helped, but mostly it was their relentless attention to detail. Composer was able to save time that simply wasn't available to other top runners. Most interesting of all was the run they got on September

[1:12:27] 25th, 2025. [music] The run had two key mistakes in the levels Treetops and Jacques. It was a hopeless situation. Unless they could bust out a trick named Fasty Norc. By unlocking the nasty Norc key without

[1:12:42] triggering his queue to run, you can get far enough ahead of him that the game panics and teleports him straight to the [music] end of the chase. You can then reach him with a frame perfect jump and extremely tight positioning. composer

[1:12:55] had no choice but to try it and they actually hit it, saving 5 [music] seconds at the very end. Just enough to claim a new world record. This past February, composer was in a similar spot. No choice but to try.

[1:13:11] >> OH MY GOD. >> And they did it again. Bringing back another run from the dead. >> Holy dude. Spyro's had so many good [music] runners over the years. From Surreal and his

[1:13:25] dozen records in a row to Touvil and his game-breaking [music] discoveries and the more recent records set by Deo, Laura, and Ash. But composer is special. They've taken over in a way that's almost unheard of given modern

[1:13:39] competition. I've seen a lot over the years, but this is really impressive. This is how the top of the leaderboard currently looks. A pretty comfortable lead for Composer. Will they stay on top for years? Or is Mark Cerny about to

[1:13:52] make his comeback at last? Time will tell. This has been the history of Spyro tell. This has been the history of Spyro World Records. Thanks for watching.