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Speedrunning Super Metroid: A Guided Tour
When we played Super Metroid for Super Replay, it took over five hours. However, a dedicated community of gamers are committed to beating the SNES classic as quickly as possible. They achieve clear times as low as 45 minutes, accomplished by an array of amazing and precise tricks. These techniques are tough to master, and don't surface during the course of a normal playthrough, so we brought in a member of the speedrunning community to guide us through the elements of a successful Super Metroid speedrun.
GI's Joe Juba and Dan Ryckert are joined by Aaron "Golden" Barnhart, who you may recognize as a commentator from this year's speedrunning charity drive Awesome Games Done Quick. The marathon included a four-way race for Super Metroid (and raised over $1 million over the course of the marathon), and Golden was one of the voices taking viewers through the action. He does the same for us, picking up the controller and demonstrating some of the tricks that form the foundation of a solid speedrunning strategy (with additional clips provided by fellow speedrunner Zoast). See it for yourself in the video below; if you are familiar with Super Metroid, some of these techniques are nothing short of astounding.
Interested in delving deeper into the world of speedrunning? Check out our latest issue for an expanded feature on Super Metroid with more insight from Golden and other members of the speedrunning community. You can see more of Golden's and Zoast's work on SpeedRunsLive, or follow them individually on twitch.tv (Golden, Zoast).
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