World Record Progression: Sonic 2 

breaking your brother's record and then having it taken away from you sounds like the epitome of being a sibling lmao

imagine just sitting in your room and your brother screams "yESS WORLD RECORD!!!!" and you know your brother just beat you

Stanski: “nobody will ever beat me!” Salt: “Stanski wasn’t just a clown, he was the entire circus.”

I find it hilarious that a common theme with Sonic runs, a game with a mascot known for being cocky, is people claiming their times couldn't possibly be bested. Edit: Wow! This comment blew up way more than intended these past 2 years. Out the gate I wanna say I love Sonic, his go-getter attitude is a great quality! My wording was a little off there. This also extends to the runners - Having pride in your achievements is awesome, keep being like the blue blur!

3 and a half years later... - 3 people have etched their names in history - the WR is almost a minute faster than mike89 - the first sub 14 run was achieved

Wow. So the Mike89 got the first AND last Sonic 2 WR? That's amazing.

I fucking love this series

Can we talk about how two brothers competed with each other for the world record? Sibling rivalry much?

No one else in the comments realizes the importance of this fact: MIKE89 AND WERSTER ARE BROTHERS

do the blue blur proud. god knows sega can't do it anymore.

God dammit I had almost forgotten about that 16:08 run :(.

Have you considered doing a WR progression on some of the pokemon games? It would be a werster documentary.

My boy werster

(For what its worth, the record currently stands at 14:20, by JoeyBaby69. Was set 2 weeks ago!)

Now I see why schools want us to learn how to add decimals

12:26 "somethingsalt", is that you?

*All communities need their scribes and storytellers* I’m no speed runner, just a gaming enthusiast who is grateful to learn these stories and proud to see all the channels you’re inspiring. Keep up the great work!

its cool you put in that one run where the dude failed right as he was on pace - in every other video, you only throw in the moments like that where they succeed, so by now the tension of those moments isn't as hard-hitting as the first couple videos i watched. it threw me for a loop!

Rewatched this today after seeing it years ago. Crazy to think that the record is now at 13m 15s.

At 6:26, the hype was building. "Australian Runner.........." Me: "Werster, Werster, Werster" Summoning Salt: "By the name of Mike.." Me: Oh :(

wow, Sonic's fast, too. *No, over heeere* I LIKE GENESIS

Now that you've introduced Wester we need a Pokemon episode

This honestly resonates with me as a Netflix-style documentary series. I'm sure with at the rate this series is growing if you messaged some of the speedrunners featured in a video you could do an interview type segment within the video.

I have so much respect for the type of people that obsess over things this much, they are relentless, this may just be a game but apply that kind of obsession to engineering, or cancer or something and these are the kinds of people that can literally save humanity from horrible problems.

Please do an update about eandis run. he got world first 12m59s

@3:23 in the audience, 3rd row back. Little grey and white hat? Face is covered, so you only see the hat, but das meeeeeee

39 now, 13 when i played this game on and on and on. My heart fucking MELTS when i hear any music of this game :D

Shout out to my boy Timpz

Gonna need a little followup for this one, Mike89's WR has been beaten

Crazy it’s now at just under 13 minutes

>new video >clicks video in one second >likes instantly >watches and loves >searches "[insert this video's game title] speedrun" >watches 10 hours worth of speedruns >lifewellspent.jpeg

they're down to 12:5x now

Metroid: Zero Mission world record progression next? I'm thinking about getting into speedrunning it and I'd love to get a rundown of the history for inspiration.

This game was pure *joy* for glitch hunters. I grew up messing with exploits in S&K and Sonic 2. We didn't have internet and I didn't know what speedrunning was. I just wall clipped once and became incredibly intrigued.

New Record 14:56 by Zaxon96 - 6th September 2019

When rewatching this video, I noticed that there were some videos released that were taken down to this date at 5:35 . I was wondering why that was, but if it was at all possible, I think the whole community would absolutely adore to be able to watch these videos!

Summoning Salt, I love your vids so much. They are well made and are very insightful.

12:27 is that Summoning Salt in his earlier days?

After hearing the Battletoads music in this video. I'm curious as to whether there is an interesting world record progression to that game. I remember it was rated as the most challenging game of the year when it was released. My achievement was to beat it without warps and not dying, but I never timed it. Back in the 90's, I also managed to play 2 players by myself with a controller in each hand up to level 11.

This right here is the game of my childhood. You've done a great job at covering all this.

pokemon speedrun progression?

hey summoning - love the series - hope that u can make some money because you're really good at this - i've subscribed to ur patreon and look forward to the next vid :D xo

Im going to shout 'the curse is broken!" whenever anything cool happens from now on.

Wow, didn't know that Werster had a brother that also did speedrunning o.O

I love that advertisement “Wow he’s fast” “No over her-“ “I like genesis” ...great friendship right there.

This is one of my favorite franchises, and World Record Progression is an amazing series, that is so incredible, it looks professional. Keep up the good work. It shows.

I never imagined I would get so into these videos. Thanks so much for making them! You do a really nice job.

100% Ocarina of time. That glitches discovered in that game to beat it faster are insane.

Revisiting this without summoningsalt's normal intro is super weird.

this needs an updated video. it deserves it. sub 14 has been achieved.

After rewatching this I decided to check the current WR for sonic 2 and was pleasantly surprised by a shiny new sub 14 sitting proudly atop the leaderboard.

Damn, this dude stayed on top since the beginning, for the most part

I love the song choice at 5:32 Anyone who says that their run is unbeatable is a clown

Salt digs so deep to find info about runners time and the origin of glitches, he’s like Nardwaur the interviewer but for speed running

"The top dog"? Don't you mean top hog? :P

Oot or MM speedrun progression would be really cool ! Any % or 100% would be sick !

Finally Tails was ditched!

It would be interesting to have a little more depth on the tricks, and how those progress.

update: players JoeyBaby69 and ROMIK2005ROMA are tied for 1st place at 13:52, JoeyBaby69 getting there on 06/29/2021 and ROMIK2005ROMA getting there on 12/05/2021 note: on the website it says they were played with pauses, idk what that means but it’s probably important lol

Hey summoning salt I just wanted to ask you, Would you like any help with creating your thumbnails? I have lots of experience of making images/Thumbnails so just reply if you would like an assistant. Thank you for your time

I'd love to see a banjo speedrun progression

For a more recent game, how about Dark Souls 1? The games has had a nice progression of new trick discoveries and strategies since it's launch.

12:40 using that music from the Topgear game for Super Nintendo was an amazing touch.

Proving your little brothers questioned and unofficial world record as legitimate, by improving your old official world record by reproducing the same tactics in official environment, has to be the best the best anime plotline of speed running in a while

where did the hl2 vid go, i didnt get to watch it yet

This is very late but... Me: Sees the Speed run getting Emerald Hill in 20 secs Also Me: *I GOT MY 17 SECS AS CAUSAL ON PHONE*

Coming back to this video is still a treat, even if it's 4-1/2 years old. Love when that blue guy goes fast.

10:35 "My finger slipped." Story of my life...

Mike89's mom: how much sonic will you play Mike89:15 mins

Whenever I try to play the original classic games I subconsciously try to drop dash.

Yo btw I wanna thank you for these videos, I've always had trouble being invested in RTA runs overall, and you being able to condense the most interesting facets of running as a whole has been REALLY enjoyable.

Love internet history, especially topics like speedrunning!

"And a lot of speed." Boy, don't I know it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to prep for my next Sonic 2 speedrun stream. *Crushes up some pills and snorts them*

"Intentionally lose time to gain time" You just sumarized the plot of sonic generations.

My personal best is 22:24 minutes, very proud of it :)

Mike89's brother, Werster. Oh damn, you're gonna have a hard time Mike

5:30 Dude he legit said (you showed a screencap right before it) that no one else was interested in running the game enough to put a decent run together besides himself at the time. Like you said even with all those "major developments" no one was able to beat his wr. Showed you how much they cared at the time. It ain't fair to paint this guy as an arrogant prick.

and now a sub-13 is up lmao what a game

Fun fact. The funnest way to beat sonic '06 is speed-running.

Lol, I read the thumbnail as "SONIC 2, the hedgehog".

This run has already been broken, the new record is held by Zaxon96 and is 14:56.

Top 10 anime betrayals: #1 Werster beating Mike89 only to get banned

I remember playing this game SOOOOO much as a kid. It usually took me around 2 hours to beat it. The fact that people can beat it in 15 minutes is insane to me.

yo u gotta update ur video someone beat the world record sir

SuPeRbOoMfAn beat the record! 13m59s

I keep watching all of the reruns. You have a special talent. Love your vids!

12:26 Did you create your own thread just cause you couldn’t find any? lol

2:17 Blueglass ruins EVERYTHING

10:48 Knees weak. Arms are heavy, moms spaghetti.

As far as I'm concerned Sonic speedrun records only count if it includes all chaos emeralds and no glich abuse.

super mario sunshine pls

My record will stand forev- Aaaaand it's gone

I detect a Kosmic at 14:54

Mike89 retired from speedrunning. And current record is 14:20. Jesus. He felt like it was almost a perfect run, yet in reality is not even close to what's possible. People don't even know all possible skips/glitches yet.

The world record as it stands is now 14:20 by JoeyBaby69 There appear to have been minor improvements in Emerald Hill and Chemical Plant. Interestingly Joey seems to have lost time in Aquatic Ruin, as he and SegaJunkie went into Casino Night at pretty much the same time. The big time saver seems to be a wallclip in Hill Top Act 2, that sends Joey absolutely barreling to the boss far faster than just the usual spindash jumps. Oil Ocean seems about the same. There's an additional wallclip in Metropolis Act 1 that speeds Joey along and as a result I think he only does one floorclip instead of Junkie's two. And Joey uses a new strategy in Metropolis boss, basically having Sonic damage the boss and Tails pop the decoys at the same time, greatly speeding things up. The next timesave seems to be... what I'm going to call "anti-gravity spindash" in Wing Fortress, instead of hopping on some of the platforms. His final big timesave is against the final boss, where Joey is able to score all 12 hits before the boss ever jumps once, saving a bunch of seconds

"The origins of Sonic 2 speedrunning can be traced back to 2005" This isn't really true though. It's a Speedrunning game by design, as were a lot of games back then. Timers weren't an arbitrary feature, they were a core component of many of these games, and a challenge which a lot more casual gamers indulged in much more than they do today. Obviously, footage is ultimately scarce, records were either not kept, or have been lost, but speedrunning was a far more prevalent aspect of playing videos games in the 80s and early 90s than it is today. Why do you think a lot of games had in game time, time trial and leaderboards? We'd invite our mates round and see who could pull off the best speeds in games like Mario and Sonic. People would huddle round an arcade cabinet to see who could get the fastest time and they were doing it all over the world in arcade centres and youth clubs. I think a lot of people making these history of speedrunning videos (as great as they are and I do love watching them) portray a fallacy (not necessarily intentionally) that speedrunning is somehow bigger today than when these games came out. If anything it's actually smaller, it's just much easier today to connect to a community who still enjoy to participate, and much easier to administrate (record keeping, documenting proof, making it accessible to an audience). I by no means look to discredit the speedrunners of today. I've no doubt that the WRs which currently stand are as fast as anybody has ever completed the games in their history, not necessarily because of a increase level of player skill, but because knowledge of shortcuts and glitches is much easier to share. Beating a world record is more of a collaborative effort than it ever has been, but these players obviously also need immense skill to pull it off.

Given how much sonic 2 has developed since mike89's sub 15, this video, no offence, does not do the world record progression justice. a lot of the times in this video you describe things as "new strats" but dont actually talk about the differences in the runs. what new strategies? was it a new level wrap or zip, or a way of finding speed, etc? I heard about a year ago you wanted to remake some of your old videos, and i think this one is a good candidate.

Why was this reuploaded?

Ok, does anyone know the song that starts playing around 12:35? I can't tell if it's a Sonic track, or just background music, but I'm digging it.

I'm kind of obsessed with these videos. Great job putting this together.