Metroid
Sequence Breaking
Wikipedia's article on Sequence breaking says:
"In computer and video games, sequence breaking is the act of performing actions or obtaining items out of the intended linear order, or of skipping 'required' actions or items entirely. Sequence breaking is often used to beat a game unusually quickly, to beat it while only completing a few objectives or obtaining a few items, to obtain useful items early in the game, or to help push a game as far as possible in some other way."
Which pretty much sums it up. The Metroid series of games is renowned for having =loads= of sequence breaking opportunities (with a few exceptions) and miscellaneous speed tricks, making Metroid games really fun to speedrun.
The number one source of information regarding sequence breaking and speedrunning any and all Metroid games is Metroid2002.com.
Here's a tool-assisted video (meaning it's not humanly possible to play this well, but theoretically everything is possible in the game) of crazy shit in Super Metroid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ewgBGXFR8A
My Videos
Mixed Speed Demos (December 2008)
Includes footage from both my 1:04 100% run and my 1:35 RBO run.
My Experiences
Haven't really done anything with this one, and it doesn't appeal to me all that much. It does bring back feelings of nostalgia though. I think the last time I played through it was when I played it on the Game Cube because it came as a subgame in Metroid Prime. There are speed tricks here, but not that many AFAIK.
Haven't even played through this one =/. It doesn't really appeal to me. It's -weird-. I think I own it though.
Simply =amazing= for speedrunning purposes. There's ALL SORTS of things to be done in this one. Besides sequence breaking and speed tricks, there's also the variety of different runs you can do--not only are there 100% runs, any% runs, and single-segment runs, but there are Suitless runs and RBO (Reverse Boss Order) runs, which are extremely challenging. One interesting thing about this game is that the physics are more "floaty" than other 2D Metroid games. Also there are a lot of wide open areas that don't exist in Fusion or Zero Mission. Also this is probably the game with the trickiest controls since there's actually a separate button for Running.
My first attempt at a 100% speedrun of Super Metroid resulted in a finish time of 1:04--not bad! I basically followed Red Scarlet's run, although I guess after researching it a bit more that might not have been optimal. My 1:04 run is on video but not uploaded anywhere.
I've finished my RBO run as well, with a completion time of 1:35 (70% items). It could have been faster but I was mainly playing for completion and wasn't too worried about time anyways. This run isn't uploaded anywhere either.
With the completion of my RBO run, you might say that I'm finished with Super Metroid...at least, for now.
Great game! Unfortunately there's no true sequence breaking because of the way they structure the upgrade system in this game, but there's still speedrunning to be done here! I haven't done any though =P. Maybe someday...
Also a great game! I haven't done too much with this one either, but I really enjoyed playing through it.
Ah...Metroid Prime. I have really fond memories of this one. There's also tons of stuff to do here. Me and my brother did a "mediocre speed run" project on this one. Basically we practiced each segment of the run a few times, and then gave ourselves one shot to record--no reloading if you get a bad run. So that was great fun, and we still have the vids on tape in case we ever want to watch them again and laugh at our mistakes.
I've played a little of this one, but never finished it. There isn't as much to be done here, sequence break-wise, as there is in Prime, unfortunately.
I've played a little of this one, but never finished it. There isn't as much to be done here, sequence break-wise, as there is in Prime, unfortunately.