Top 10 Comebacks in Speedrunning

Hello everyone, I'm Bescape and welcome to the Top 10 Speedrunning Comebacks. If I had to use one word to describe these fast races, it would be "clutch." Having a sick late game to make up for lost time early to mid game and then pulling a PB or WR out of nowhere is crazy. This just goes to show that no matter how you start a fast run, there's always the chance of having a sick comeback. So today we'll look at great examples of exactly this. Some of these

comebacks

also include the implementation of some crazy yolo strategies, so watch until the end, you won't want to miss them.

Of course, this video isn't limited to the entries featured, so if you know of any other great

speedrunning

comebacks

, let us know in the comments section. Firstly, we have Torje's speedrun of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the old any% path which does not use stale reference manipulation. So, Torje is a long-time racer of this game, and this specific race was in May 2016, when the world record was 17 minutes and 45.8 seconds by Skater. This run only had one notable time loss, and it was during his third split where he was supposed to run to the chest, jump into the hole that leads to Floor B1 of the Deku Tree, and jump and slash the wall in a 2-square. window to retreat from the wall and land on the upper level of the basement.

When Torje tried to jump to skip B1, Link's sword went through the wall completely without recoil, which meant he had to resort to a backup strategy to line up with a setup from the wall to jump to where he was standing. He's supposed to land after the jump-bar. This cost about 10 seconds, which was brutal considering here he was supposed to save 7.5 seconds compared to his PB. With a super-optimized game like Ocarina of Time, it would normally be very difficult to PB in this scenario, but for the rest of the race, Torje basically made no mistakes. After finishing the Collapse section, he saved about 4 seconds, which brought his best possible time to just one second below his PB.

His final division would be extremely difficult to follow. Since his PB was Ganon's fastest time in his history, he would have to match it or have a completely faster time. He then he ends up doing this. Friend that? Well. I'm half a second off the record right now. Half a second, with a missed B1 jump! He wins gold again in the last section and achieves a new personal best. He was only half a second off the world record at the time, with a botched B1 jump, so imagine if he had done it, he would have broken the world record by over 10 seconds, which at the time would have been crazy.

Before we continue, I would like to thank today's sponsor who made this video possible, and it is AFK Arena. Don't worry, it's much better than Raid: Shadow Legends. AFK Arena, developed by Lilith Games, is a strategic online role-playing game for mobile devices, and players can form a custom team and level up with the unique AFK prize automatic farming system. Unlike traditional mobile RPGs, AFK Arena is a rewarding and easy RPG that doesn't require a huge investment of time. The game is BestRPG4BusyU and is also the perfect side game to play while playing other PC or console games.

There are more than 40 million players worldwide and the game has appeared on the best-seller list on the App Store and Google Play. There are tons of heroes to collect and level up, with the two most recent additions being the new elite Celestial and Hypogean heroes, Zaphrael and Lucretia, who are free and available for alternate picking. The game is free and you too can stop an ancient evil from destroying the kingdom of Esperia. If you're looking for a new casual mobile game to play, there will be a link to the game in the description and pinned comment, and also a couple of bonus codes for awesome rewards, which will totally boost your journey. in the game.

Anyway, back to the video and I hope you all enjoy it. Next we have TheBlacktastic's Mega Man 9 speedrun, Any% Proto Man category. Proto Man mode is more difficult compared to Any%; Since Proto Man takes double damage and double knockback on everything, you need to save every life pellet you can. One of the first crucial points of the race is during the Galaxy Man boss fight. There are two patterns where Galaxy Man is close enough to the ground, allowing him to be killed in an attack phase. For the first few seconds, it looks like Bobby got a decent RNG, but then Galaxy flatly says he didn't and flies back into the air, costing him a few seconds.

Now with this particular pattern there was a bit of a time savings as he was able to deal a good amount of damage, but he is still in the red for a couple of seconds when he could have been ahead in the running race. . this point. The next hurdle is getting through the Plug Man stage almost perfectly with a specific course. It can take about 7 seconds or sometimes more if the narrow platforms required for this level are not precise. He runs a perfect Plug race, so now he has time to breathe until the Wily stages, which is the most critical part of the entire race.

He saves four seconds after the first level of Wily's Castle and is finally in the green, making up for all the lost time. The Shark Submarine level is pretty standard and saves another two and a half seconds here. Now it's time for the late game, the first of which is Twin Devil and is a complete challenge. If you don't kill Wily 3's boss in the first attack cycle, you can lose up to 25 seconds, so yes, he is a running assassin. Pause Buffering is used to assist in this process, as pausing in Mega Man 9 cancels weapon fire.

Switching to Black Hole Bomb immediately after hitting a boss with another weapon allows the boss to be hit during his invulnerability window. After a pause, Bobby saves a whopping ten seconds in this fight. The world record at the time was 30 minutes and 20 seconds, and given that Bobby's personal best was 30:29, coupled with the fact that he was ahead by 12.7 seconds, he would have to play near perfection during the last four minutes to have hopes of a World Record. From this point on, everything went pretty well, with no notable time wasters. The only thing standing between Bobby and a new world record was the fight with Wily Capsule.

WE HAVE THE WORLD RECORD! WE HAVE THE WORLD RECORD! Retime that for Legacy Collection 2 and that's 30:18. 2 seconds down! 2 seconds under the world record! TWO SECONDS DOWN! Here we have the Paperario speedrun of Super Mario Sunshine, the 120 shine category. This race is quite legendary as it was the first race under 2 hours 58 minutes, and he has been moving down the category even further, with his current PB/WR clocking in at 2 hours 56 minutes and 42 seconds. This race got off to a really good start and was ahead of a 2:57 average pace by almost a minute. The record at the time was 2:58, so if he had played consistently for the rest of the race, he would have been able to achieve a 2:56, skipping 2:57 entirely.

Entering the second part of Gelato Beach, an unfortunate mishap occurred during the 100 coin shine. Activate the yellow switch near the top of the level, which spawns 20 coins on a hill. The strategy is to slide down the hill to collect the entire middle row of them and then time a dirt slam down the hill to avoid falling. Then you simply go back up the hill to collect them before time runs out. Given the coin route speedrunners follow, if you don't collect at least 19 of the 20 coins when time runs out, the remaining ones disappear and you basically have to go around collecting backup coins, which is a significant waste of time. .

After grabbing the first set of coins, Paperario hit the ground and tried to go back up the slope to collect the remaining coins, but got a sideways spin animation. This caused him to slide down the hill instead of running up it. After a couple more slides down the hill, Paper found it impossible to get all the coins. A total of 12 coins went missing, and he would now have to go around collecting coins that are not on the fast run route, such as killing Cataquacks and spraying birds on the tightrope for 1 coin each. He loses over a minute and a half on this section alone and then unfortunately loses 40 more seconds on Delfino Shines, many of which were movement errors while trying to reach the beach pipe.

At this point in the race, his best possible time is 2:57:35, so he would have to play almost perfectly for the last hour of the race to get a PB, much less a 2:57. . Coming out of the second half of Delfino, he makes up most of the lost time and is ahead with a seven second advantage. He then plays a solid second half of Ricco, saving 45 seconds and his best possible time is just 6 seconds off at 2:58. All that's left is to get to Bowser and grab the ground. Wow, it was still 2:57. God, I have never felt so dissatisfied with a PB in my life.

Uhh, dude, seriously, that's the first 2:57? Incredible. Uhh, okay, so I'm bitter inside, obviously I'm still super happy that I got 2:57. And in half an hour I'll probably be like, "Yeah, I got 2:57 that was fucking POGGERS, come on!" I'll be back tomorrow to get 2:56. Until then, peace, friends. This will be the first example in the video where a yolo strategy is used at the end of a race. This was Shift's old Any% SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom speedrun, which doesn't use Skee Ball Abuse to farm shiny items. This race was before the trick was discovered and was the first time Battle for Bikini Bottom was beaten in under 58 minutes.

Shift was in the red for most of the early game, but then saved some time by exiting SpongeBob's Dream. He is up and down for most of the middle of the game and towards the end of the race, he is about 5 seconds ahead of his PB coming out of the second half of Downtown Bikini Bottom. He unfortunately loses that time plus seven seconds coming out of the second half of Jellyfish Fields. Going into Sandy's Dream, Shift is about 8 seconds behind his 58:09 pace, and based on his splits, his best possible time is just over 58 minutes. So how is it possible that he barely lasts less than 58 minutes?

So this run has a trick at the end that can save a lot of time or eliminate it completely. The community dubbed this hack “Fast Nut,” which at the time was considered just TAS. It's a one-frame boost from the slide that allows you to place the golden spatula on top of the acorn very quickly. It was also considered to have perfect positioning accuracy, without any useful setup or knowledge about frames or angles. The only way Shift could achieve a new PB is to hit him without problems, so there was no harm in trying since a PB was basically out of the question at this point.

What what? Holy shit. And he nailed it, saving about 15 seconds, which also lowered his best possible time to 57 minutes and 48 seconds, so the sub 58 dream was very possible. He completes the Flying Dutchman's Graveyard in 4 minutes and 12 seconds, which was a pretty sick chunk of time considering everything that can go wrong in the level. An extra 3 seconds are saved and all that's left is Chum Bucket Lab. Ready to run guys. "And that's all I have to say about it." *off-screen laughter* Oh my god. Shit. *offscreen laughs* Oh my god! WOOOOOO! Oh Jesus, I can't believe it worked, that it worked!

All world records from this point on included "fast nut" as a base trick, until Skee Ball Abuse was implemented in the any% route, making the trick obsolete. The following is a 100% speedrun of Jak 1 by OutrageousJosh. Over the past few years, Josh has established himself as the top Jak 1 speedrunner and currently holds all world records in all major categories. Earlier this year, he broke the 1 hour and 35 minute barrier at 100%, and it all came down to the last part of the race. He was up and down the entire time, but by the time he reached Mountain Pass, he was 24 seconds behind the world record.

Given the nature of the endgame, he would need to save a lot of time during this section if he wanted to achieve a 1:34. There's a trick that Jak racers do in the Any% No Lava Tube Skip category called Tree Hopping, and it goes something like this. You get full blue echo while riding a zoomer, jumping off a small slope on the ground, and bouncing off the top of a tree. If the bounce off the tree is good, you should balance the zoom in the air and then hit a second tree at the correct angle. You then land on a rock where there is a power cell waiting to be picked up.

Picking up the power cell using Tree Hopping compared to the intended mechanic saves about 25 seconds. This trick does not work completely on 100% execution because it is veryinconsistent and also because you have to do it more than an hour after the execution. If you miss it, the race is essentially dead. So, like Shift's run in Battle for Bikini Bottom, Josh had nothing to lose, so he gives it a try. Ah, come on friend! What the hell? Yooooooooo! And he smashed it, saving about 22 seconds after this split, and also lowering his best possible time by 20 seconds, so he has a little breathing room for the next 30 minutes.

Coming out of Snowy Mountain, he was ahead by 20 seconds and even had new PBs in a couple of his splits during that section. Lava Tube is pretty standard for him, there's not much time he could have wasted during that section. After Gol and Maia's Citadel, he had a 26 second lead and all he had to do was take down the final boss. I haven't been breathing. I haven't been breathing. *heavy breathing* *sigh of relief Woooooooo! Ooooh my god friend! This category is very difficult! My legs! I can barely feel my leg. Next we have another Ocarina of Time speedrun.

This is 100% managed by ZFG which also uses the old route without SRM. This was also the second world record race to incorporate a major route change at the time. During the first hour and 45 minutes he has a very good pace, leading by almost a minute until he approaches Dampe. As we know, Dampe can make a good streak bad or a bad streak good. Giving him ten rupees will cause him to dig up a piece of dirt, but there is only a 10% chance for him to dig up a piece of heart, which is 100% necessary. There are 8 mounds to dig in the cemetery and the game keeps track of how many attempts you have made.

On your 15th attempt, it guarantees a success, but on average it's faster to exit and reload the area, so the counter will always reset to 0. ZFG's world record was 4 hours, 10 minutes, and 17 seconds at that time. moment, and had a Second try with Dampe. This race, however, had a 12th attempt for Dampe, costing him 3 and a half minutes. Alright, the race is dead but I'll keep digging until Dampe gives it to me. Just to see what number I get up to. Any predictions? Over the next half hour, he would manage to save about a minute. Although he was still behind, things seemed doable, until this specific room in the Temple of Shadows.

Therefore, you must use Link's Hookshot to launch yourself into the air and collect Silver Rupees. For the last silver rupee in the room that also opens the door, ZFG was too many pixels to the left and didn't reach it. He lands near the Remuerto in the room, which was a big deal. If Redead scares Link, he will lock you in place for a few seconds and if you don't hit him or move away fast enough, he will scare him again. Since ZFG missed the shot and landed near the Redead, this would scare Link for about 40 seconds.

In a normal game, you would only spend a second or two killing the Redead, but due to the glitches used, Link does not have a sword equipped, so there is no easy way to kill the enemy. He had Deku Sticks, but they are a limited resource so he couldn't use them. Gosh, I've never missed that rupee drop. I'm really crazy. I'm so angry dude. I can't get in the door. That had never happened before. After finally leaving the room, he is almost two minutes late, so he will need to save a lot of time to be able to perform PB.

After more than 2 and a half hours of running, the place where he was finally able to take a break was Spirit Temple. He messed up the scene jump in his PB, but he nails it in this run. The other big saving grace was whether Twinrova would cooperate or not, and it did. He saves more than a minute and a half in this section. Fast forward to almost 3 and a half hours, he saves time during the section where Link obtains the Bag of Bullets, gilding the segment. This is also the first time since before Dampe that he was ahead of his PB.

Immediately after this he did the Ocarina memory game that he had messed up in his PB. This small mistake was worth a whole minute of time savings, and this time he did it with ease, also achieving another gold split. For the next half hour, the streak was very good without any noticeable loss of time, and all he had to do was defeat Ganon. That could have cost me 4:08? I think I'm still fine. I think it will be 4:08:59. Very well, it doesn't matter. So, this race had a 12th attempt, Dampe. This means I lost... let me check how much time I lost against Dampe.

More than three and a half minutes, like 3:45. I lost 3:45 against Dampe. And... I got a 4:08, so that's good. It's worth noting that it completely missed the 4 hour and 9 minute threshold. You've never seen a 4:09 and you never will. Here we have Ben's speedrun in English for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, in the Any% No Script Stack Underflow category. About 4 years ago, a jump was found in the game that reduced the standard Any% by 40 minutes. It's quite technical, but all you need to know is that it saves a ton of time and, due to the nature of the jump, caused the leaderboards to split.

Ben had just set a new segment best time for the Cop Land mission and was 11 seconds ahead of his PB of 54 minutes and 23 seconds. His best possible time was 54 minutes, but if he played perfectly with his best segment times for the remaining missions and got at least 4 out of 5 fadeskips, he could hypothetically get a time of 53 minutes. Fadeskips are minor optimizations during something called instapassing, which basically allows you to complete missions as soon as you start them. You can instantly skip entire assets in Vice City and skip the entire second half of the game by doing this bug.

He says it during his career. The funny thing now is that if I play perfectly and get 4 out of 5 fadeskips, I will achieve 53 this. Which is really fun. It's worth noting that if you fail fadeskips at any point, the race is basically dead, making them extremely risky. Now it's time for the end of the game, starting with the Spilling The Beans mission. It's usually pretty easy, but the only scary thing is when you have to buy a property and start the fuss at the same time. This part is also based on cycles, so if you have a really bad cycle that is totally out of your control and you continue the rampage without purchasing the property, the race is dead.

Doing this strategy also means that you can't save before attempting the trick, so you'll only have one chance. He successfully completes the trick and achieves the mission by three seconds, so now his best possible time has just reached less than 54 minutes. Keep in mind that you still have to play perfect for the next 8 minutes, and the Hit The Courier mission is when you need to do 4 out of 5 fadeskips. The reason most Vice City racers don't do all 5 fadeskips is because the first one is too difficult and risky. A fadeskip creates a cross between the fade to start the mission and the fade to complete the asset failure so you can get both at the same time.

This process is very technical, so I'll have a link in the description if you'd like to learn more about how resource errors and fades work. The window to run them is quite narrow, so it's difficult to reach even 4/5 in a race. He manages to hit 4/5 and save four seconds, which was also his best segment in this mission. Next up is Cap The Collector, which is easily the hardest speedrun mission in the game. There are three groups of collectors coming to steal your assets and you must kill them in sequence. The next set only appears when the previous set is eliminated, so it is vital to kill them as soon as possible.

Ben starts by lining up a near pixel-perfect shot to shoot the first collectors and nails it. He then shoots the second and third group of collectors who successfully drive fast motorcycles. Now, the shots themselves are not difficult, but nerves can play a role in this section. Save an extra six seconds here and now it's time for the Keep Your Friends Close mission. Just before you start, you use a teleport bug that you set up long before the start of Cop Land. It only works if you've collected less than 20 items since that point, such as weapons, money, and save icons, to name a few.

After the teleport, the mission has a timer until the final boss appears. The weapon you use is effective at killing him, but sometimes when he takes damage he moves out of the way. Fortunately, it didn't happen during this race and Ben achieved a new personal best of 53 minutes and 59 seconds. If it had happened, he would have ended the 53-minute dream. Yeah! Yeah!!! Fuck yes! Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Oh my god, I can't feel my fucking body. Oh my god, I can't believe I did that. Holy shit, dude. I can't believe he did it. I literally said at the end of Cop Land that the funny thing is if I get 4 out of 5 fadeskips I can do 53 this.

And I got them and I did it. My God. Back in May of this year, Simply would achieve his first World Record in the 120 Stars category of Super Mario 64, with a time of 1 hour, 38 minutes and 28 seconds. Simply has been running the game for 8 years and all the hard work he had put in finally paid off. Not even 19 minutes into the race, we already have people in the chat saying, "THIS IS THE RACE." The start of the game is pretty standard, entering the basement at just over 23 minutes into the race and being a few seconds up as you exit Bob-omb Battlefield.

Save an extra 11 seconds on Shifting Sand Land, which is arguably one of the hardest levels early in the game, due to all the slight optimizations, like the 8 red coin star. Simply also did a great video on that specific star and I recommend watching it. Coming out of Vanish Cap, he has a 22 second lead, but unfortunately loses a good amount of time on Big Boo's Haunt. The next big obstacle is the 100 coin star in Dire Dire Docks, specifically the submarine section. A combination of precise wall kicks and tight platforming make him one of the toughest stars in the game.

It is also considered an important reset point at the end of the game. Due to the nature of the level, you unfortunately lose all of your saved time, plus an additional 13 seconds. However, the race is far from dead, you still have the whole upstairs to do and you can definitely save time on many of the later levels. So going into Wet Dry World, he's 16 seconds behind his PB, and it wasn't until the end of Tall Tall Mountain that he was finally on the green. Snowman's Land was one of the highlights of the race, saving a whopping 27 seconds and also reducing his best possible time by 2 seconds.

During the Cloud level, Simply unfortunately loses one of the red coins and it costs him 5 seconds. However, he still has great rhythm, so now it's time for the Tick Tock Clock, and he's once again in the green. In Rainbow Ride, he shaves off an extra second and the only thing standing between him and a world record is Bowser's throws. *happy cry* What's wrong? I did it. You did what? World record. Larry got the world record! *applause* Did you get the world record!? *applause* What did you get, what was your time? 1:38:28. Oh Lord! So, 11 seconds or 9 seconds? *applause* Guess who is number 1 in the world? *applause* If you've seen Karl Jobst's video about this race, we all know that the only word to describe this finish is "healthy." Next up is a Minecraft 1.14 Random Seed Glitchless speedrun by Illumina.

In fact, I covered this outrage on my personal channel in my video "The Great Minecraft Speedrunning War." In that video I documented the three main contenders in this

speedrunning

category: Illumina, Dream and realbenex. In a span of 51 days, the world record was exchanged between the three more than half a dozen times, but this particular race was one of the best moments of the war, because of how worn it was. The start of the race was pretty standard, optimal is to spawn in a desert at the start and hope there is a desert temple within viewing distance.

This is because the strategy is to get TNT to blow up houses in Savanna Villages and then turn the wood into sticks to trade with villagers and unlock Ender Pearls. After Illumina gets everything he needs for the early game, he heads to the Nether at just over 6 minutes of running, which was a decent pace. He immediately finds an Abyssal Fortress and has to bridge it to the part that has flame generators. Somehow, he ends up falling to his death. *laughs* Frick! *laughs* How stupid. *laughs* Under normal circumstances, when this happens, the race could very well be over, since to claim your items you have to run back to the place where you died in the Nether, which means you have to run back to the place where you did the murder . portal.

Fortunately, the portal was not far from the starting location, so the race can still stay alive. He returns and, while he was on his way to get his items, heHe was too far away in one of his jumps and dies again. Will I die if I fall? K well, shit. Well, I think this race is dead. I think I killed this race. *laughs* This race is ironically dead. In total, this took about two minutes, so now you'll have to rely on a nearby Stronghold and a good final fight. At 17 minutes into the race, the exchange with the villagers ends, which despite the two-minute time loss in the Nether, was actually a pretty decent time.

It only took him five minutes to locate the Fortress, which was also a fantastic time. There was also a critical moment that saved this race, and on your way to the Final Portal you find an Ender Pearl in a chest. While digging in the Fortress, he only had eight Eyes of Ender, so he would have to bet on a 4-eyed portal, which is about a 1 in 47 chance. Since he found an Ender Pearl, he would now have to bet on a 3-eyed portal, which is about a 1 in 12 chance. If it's not a 3-eyed portal, the race is basically dead unless you magically find another pearl or Enderman in the Stronghold.

Miraculously, it's a 3-eyed portal, and enters The End in just over 23 minutes. The world record at the time was Dream's 26:44, and given Illumina's skill level, she could easily pull off a sub-4 minute Ender Dragon. struggle. We'll see. I have a diamond sword, so I should be able to do a lot of damage. Next time he'll go downtown, so it won't be a big deal. Uh oh. Uh oh. Yes Yes Yes! That was a good charge. You made the whole team laugh with this album. *laughs* Just like that, she had set a new world record with a time of 26 minutes and 3 seconds, probably in the craziest way imaginable.

For our last entry, we have Touval's Spyro 1 Any% speedrun, and this is historically one of the best endings to any speedrun. After leaving Dream Weavers, Touval was 31 seconds behind the world record, and the only way to achieve it would be to perform the most difficult trick in all of Spyro 1, Coveless. It's a trick where you skip Gnorc Cove and Twilight Harbor by going around the back of the entrance to Gnasty's level on the home world, getting a lucky mid-air flop, and executing one of the hardest wall slides in the game to can pass. the top of the sealed dragon head to enter the level early, saving a whopping 40 seconds.

Not only is this trick extremely inconsistent in racing, but there are high-level racers who have not even managed to perform the trick in practice. Doing it for the first time in a race would be absolutely disgusting. So let's see what happens. That? Hmm, hello? *laughs* Is that okay? He does it on the first try and then sets a new world record that would be unbeatable for more than three years. Oh, did I mention that Touval was the one who found this trick in the first place? Just for context as to how difficult this trick is, it has never been replicated on the first try in an Any% run since this, which was five years ago.

This race was certainly ahead of its time and remains in the top 3 times to this day. I would recommend watching ThaRixer's video on Touval, "The Man Who Broke Spyro in Half." It's a good watch and documents Touval's legacy in Spyro speedrunning, and hell, it even covers his finding the Gelato Beach jump in Super Mario Sunshine, a game he doesn't even direct. Alright, this marks the end of the video and if you enjoyed it, be sure to leave a thumbs up. I really enjoyed making this video and as always I want to thank everyone who provided me with information for each of these games, they are all listed in the description.

As I said before, this list wasn't limited to the featured entries, so if you know of any other great returns to speedrunning, let us know in the comments section; I would definitely like to see more examples. If you're enjoying the content EZScape and I publish, please subscribe to the channel for more speedrunning related content. I also do speedrunning related content on my personal channel, so check it out if you're interested, there will be a link in the description and on the final screen. That's all from me today, thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a wonderful day.