It took us nine months to finish Breath of the Wild, if by “finish” one means defeating Calamity Ganon and his Dark counterpart, admiring the clear skies over Hyrule Castle, and watching the credits roll.
Not exactly a speedrun.
What’s meant by a speedrun, by the way? We suppose that, by any definition, it wasn’t our game – but, as it turns out, there are many different categories of speedruns. (We’re talking about Zelda here, and specifically Breath of the Wild; we mean no disrespect to the Super Mario Odyssey or Minecraft speedrunner communities.)
The most well-known BOTW speedrun, not surprisingly, is the Castle run, also known as the any-percent run.[1] Unlike other games, Breath of the Wild allows the player to take on Ganon immediately after the Isolated Plateau quest is complete. Indeed, King Rhoam, aka the Old Man, acknowledges that going straight to the Castle is possible, although he advises against it; he suggests seeking out Impa instead. (We took his advice.)
There are other recognized BOTW speedruns, however: how long to do all the main quests, to complete 120 shrines, or to do a 100-percent game, for example. (On that last type, the 100-percenter, our clock is still ticking at two years, one month, three weeks, and some odd days. We’ll get there eventually.[2])
In fact, the types of speedruns are limited only by the player’s imagination, as evidenced by the moment in time in which the Bake a Loaf of Bread speedrun swept the BOTW world. Getting a particular type recognized by the running community is not a given, however. (Is there a record for the fastest time accumulating 100 Game Overs? Sign us up!)
There are sub-categories, too, such as with or without Amiibo, Normal mode or Master mode, on Wii or on Switch, and with or without glitches. That last makes us laugh; it can take us far longer to master a glitch than to do it the regular way.
But back to the Castle run, the one that Demelza most nags poor Itzal about. In this category, the player must complete the four shrines of the Isolated Plateau, and then, with “Defeat Ganon” now showing on the quest list, do just that. Do not pass the Plateau. Do not talk to Impa. Go directly to the Castle.
We’re amazed that anyone does this at all, in any amount of time, with or without Amiibo. Running to the Castle in your underwear with a Boko spear, unless you take the time to don well-worn trousers and an old shirt and to gather up a Woodcutter’s axe or two? Come on! Sure, there’s a set of Hylian trousers near the Temple of Time and scattered treasure chests with other armaments. One could also stop to cook up a meal or two, all without leaving the Plateau. But even if you use Amiibos to drop Epona, some fancy bows, nicer melee weapons, and a few pieces of armor – if you elect to do a Castle run, you’re still facing four Blights and then Ganon and then Dark Ganon, all with limited provisions and only four regular hearts.
We’re in awe. And one of us (guess who) talks about it a lot.
But in fact, we might try it, one of these days, using every Amiibo at our disposal.[3] And hunting and gathering and cooking. In that event, we expect we could do a Castle run in four or five days, provided we didn’t shower or take our usual cocktail and snack breaks. That hardly seems like a “run,” though. More like a saunter.
Speedrun tactics
How does a true speedrunner do it? We’ve watched some runs online. For most, there’s a drive-by through a Bokoblin camp to pick up a shield, essential to shield-surf and shave minutes off the run. One also uses a shield to crawl under the four Plateau shrines (okay, so maybe the technical term is shield-clipping), thus avoiding time spent to complete the Follow the Sheikah Slate quest, which opens the shrines to regular front-door business. Once in the shrines, the player does the minimum necessary, even if doing so involves losing some heart health, to get the rune and reach the monk as quickly as possible. Treasure chests be damned! Besides, each monk will replenish Link’s health, the runner says dismissively.
Shield-surfing isn’t the only travel speed enhancement. How about climbing atop a boulder that’s just been Stasis’ed in order to launch into the sky?
Still more impressive are those who – we don’t know how to explain this, although the running community would laugh at us for not understanding, let alone for attempting it – those who appear to bounce off the heads of enemies and catapult themselves in precisely the direction they want to go. The maneuver is known as the Bullet Time Bounce, which sounds more like a dance from the Roaring 20s. If ever we managed to catapult ourselves, it would be accidental, and we would likely bounce ourselves off the Plateau into oblivion.
Then there’s that weird thing some runners do with vases and live bombs…really doesn’t look like something for a family-friendly blog. But boy howdy, do they go fast.
Most runs we watched were in French, although the player was based in an English- or other-language-speaking country. Did someone actually time the difference between how long it took for cutscenes and dialogue sequences in one language versus another? (Upon further research, it appears someone did, and, in fact, French is the fastest.)
Whistle while you work – or run
In watching the tutorials – which mostly left us shaking our heads, both in disbelief and in acknowledgement that WE would never be able to do such tricks – we found one useful tool that could be applicable to, and achievable by, even non-speedrunners like us: whistle-running!
We often whistle accidentally, usually at the worst possible time (while crouching to avoid notice in an enemy camp or sneaking around in the Yiga Clan hideout), but we never knew that one could whistle purposefully, and not to summon one’s horse, but rather to speed up one’s rate of movement without depleting the stamina wheel. One can also do whistle-climbing, provided the incline isn’t too steep. We don’t know who came up with this originally …we wonder, sometimes, if younger gamers’ brains are simply wired differently, such that multiple players think of these crazy things simultaneously…but we’ll credit where we learned of it, from Limcube at speedrun.com.
Ganon and his henchmen
With the four shrines done, the paraglider earned, and the new Defeat Ganon quest enabled, it’s off to the Castle, still in one’s underwear.
Since the Divine Beasts have not been liberated, the player has first to deal with the four Blights before tackling the Big Guy and his darker half. We note, for the record, that if one had taken King Rhoam’s advice and instead sought out Impa first, that lady would have counseled against battling Ganon without the Divine Beasts on one’s side. (We took her advice, too.) And yet, in the runs we watched, players made short work of the Blights – under four minutes for all four. Ganon and Dark Ganon didn’t take much longer.
About time. . .
Speaking of time, which is, after all, the point: what’s a respectable run time?
When BOTW speedrunning first became A Thing, a scant two weeks after the game’s release, three speedrunners broke the hour mark. (There was some controversy over use of an Amiibo to spawn Epona.)
Now? There are multiple, verified runs at or around the 25-26 minute mark. At the time of this writing – we must use that disclaimer – a recent record run was under 25 minutes. Under 25! Amiibos were used during this run, but honestly? Even with Amiibos, it is mind-boggling. (As an aside, 25 minutes is about the time it takes us to finish arguing about whether to claim the Hylian trousers before leaving the Plateau. It’s an old fight. You’d think we’d be faster about it.)
And watching a speedrun is like watching an Olympic race with checkpoints along the way. SpeedyVai has just finished Owa Daim at 14 minutes, 18 seconds….she’s on track to get the paraglider in under 20….oh, dear, she lost some time with that Bokoblin head bounce …
Yep, one of these days, we might attempt a speedrun[4]. For now, we’re going to practice whistling while we shake up a pitcher of martinis. Whistle-shaking has been proven to chill the drink faster, you see, and we’re working on the world martini-making record. With or without olives.
[1] Defeating the Ganons with any percentage of other game completion.
[2] “If we live long enough,” Itzal quips.
[3] “We will not,” Itzal quips.
[4] “We certainly are not,” Itzal quips.