After a tough eight-year battle, a series of new glitches completely changed The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker speedruns

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
(Image credit: Nintendo)

After eight years, the original 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has finally overtake༒n its HD remake 💧counterpart on speedrunning leaderboards.

The original GameCube version of Wind Waker is a famously broken game, so it may come as a surprise to you to learn that the HD remake, which patched out most of the glitches, ha🍬s had a faster speedrun time for so many years.

details. You can skip certain cutscenes, text and sailing speed are both increased, and the whole Triforce quest is shorter. So, even though there are more skips in the original version, the remaster has enough consistent time-saving features that it's eked out ahead of its predecessor.

The GameCube version was ahead of the remake until 2016 due to how much optimization had been done on its speedrunning route, but then a glitch called Item Sliding was discovered for the HD version which changed everything. It allowed super swimming and opened up strategi💜es for new skips and 𝓡enabled the remake speedrun to get 20 minutes ahead of the original.

Over the next couple of years, a series of new glitches and optimizations w▨ere found for the original version which helped bring the two times back on par with each other, but it took som🐟e serious experimenting and dedication from the GameCube runners to even stand a chance. They attempted to skip the Puppet Ganon boss using a technique that had previously only been done in a tool-assisted speedrun (TAS). It requires frame-perfect inputs and happens right at the end of the game, so the pressure is on.

By September 2020, the GameCube record was just a minute behind the Wii U's. But in 2022, an exploit using a Wii U pro controller was found which let HD players skip more cutscenes in the game, setting them far ahead of the GameCube💎 🐓runners again.

Why it took 8 Years⛄ to 💎beat this Wind Waker Speedrun - YouTube Why it took 8 Years to beat this Wind Waker Speedrun - YouTube

All hope seemed lost until earlier this year when two glitches were discoveredꦜ on the GameCube version of the game that allowed two skips to be set up more quickly and consistently than before, closing the gap on the two speedrun times once again.

These changes combined with a new strategy for clearing the Forsaken Fortress dungeon made it just about possible for GameCube runners to get ahead of Wii U players again, and a new record was set November 1🐬0, 2024, eight years since the last time the original was faster than the remake.

While ไI don't speedrun myself, I love the competitive and collaborative spirit that emerges when game communities take on these challenges – it's a joy to watch it all unfold.

As well as a new speedrun, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:we could be getting a Wind Waker fi⛄lm as the Sonic 3 writers 🥂set their sights on Link's sea-farin꧑g journey.

You should check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best speedruns ever if you want to see more games getting broken.

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll 🍸now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passionꦺ for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.