The races to the bottom of the clock
The most iconic speedrun in existence, defined by the sub-5-minute barrier and the discovery of wrong warps that allow players to skip entire worlds.
A deceptively complex speedrun built around screen-scrolling glitches and precise overworld routing to finish the game in under thirty minutes.
One of the most technically rich speedruns on the SNES, demanding mastery of mockball, the spacetime beam glitch, and wall-jumping to cut the game to under forty-one minutes.
Doom speedrunning began with id Software's own developers competing on internal time trials — making it one of the oldest documented speedrunning communities in gaming.
GoldenEye 007 developed one of the most competitive individual-level speedrun communities in any game, with the top players rivalling each other across all twenty missions on three difficulty settings.
Ocarina of Time Any% is the most technically complex N64 speedrun, using arbitrary code execution to skip to the credits from within the first dungeon in under seven minutes.
Quake speedrunning inherited the Doom community's infrastructure and added a fully 3D movement system whose bunny-hopping physics have been exploited to their mathematical limit.
Castlevania speedrunning is defined by frame-perfect staircase navigation, sub-weapon damage manipulation, and precise enemy aggro routing through one of the most unforgiving NES action games.
Mega Man 2 speedrunning optimises the boss weapon cycle, slide mechanics, and room-transition glitches across one of the most beloved action-platformer games on the NES.
Final Fantasy I speedrunning skips most of the RPG's content through a dungeon-loading glitch and optimised random encounter manipulation to finish in under one hour.
Battletoads is among the most notorious NES games for its difficulty, and its speedrun demands frame-perfect inputs through the Turbo Tunnel and Clinger Winger stages that eliminate even experienced runners.
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! speedrunning demands frame-perfect reaction to each opponent's attack patterns, with the Mike Tyson fight itself requiring a precise first-second punch that many runners never consistently execute.