The Gold Split - Week #41
Week #41 (May 15): SGDQ Games List; Jak 3; Pokémon; Echoes of Wisdom; GoldenEye 007; Event News; Fun; New Records: Mario Sunshine, Red Ball, Hollow Knight, Sekiro, Contra
Happy Week #41!
It’s good to be back! Anything more than two weeks really stretches the amount of time I’d like to be away from home. As a result of me still being a little knackered, this week is purely news-focused. Enjoy!
This is the last reminder to tell your friends about the Twitch Vodpocalypse: On Sunday, May19th, every user with more than 100 hours of saved Highlights will see videos in their library sucked into the void until the capacity limit is reached. It can’t be restated oven enough how important it is for the speedrunning community to come together in an effort to save footage that is threatened by this. If you’re still unaware… where have you been? Catch up on the story, use speedrun.com’s tools and tell your friends! ⚠️
Contents
I encourage you to think about what happened recently in the communities you are a part of. If there are any stories, articles, glitches, events, or other topics I should cover, go ahead and submit them here or in the Gold Split Discord! 📨
Up to Speed ⚡️
📋 Summer Games Done Quick 2025 Games List revealed (Games List)
Congratulations to all the performers that made it into the event! The list is - as always - filled with top tier showcases and warrants a separate article. Maybe next week? One of the largest speedrunning marathons of the year, SGDQ 2025 will run between July 6th and July 13th and once again raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders). The event takes place in Minneapolis. One juicy games list fact: the Deltarune showcase will include chapters 3 & 4 that are set to be released on June 5th.
🧠 Jak 3 Any% Speedrun Explained (26-minute video)
I personally prefer in-depth explanation of one or more glitches over video essays about a speedrun’s history. Here, Xyphles does an excellent job of breaking down each glitch in Jak 3 in the order in which they appear in the run. They use the debug screen, the code of the game itself, and wireframe views of the levels to unravel each one, making the whole run much accessible. If this makes you curious about the entire history of Jak 3 speedrunning, ThaRixer has you covered with a 6.5-hour long documentary spanning nine distinct eras.
🔧 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Leaderboard Updates (3-minute read)
The The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom leaderboard updates initially reported on in Week #39 are completed. The news post includes a transparent and full breakdown of the changes and why they are being implemented. I wish more communities would follow that process in order to inform and avoid confusion. The most impactful change is that speedruns of the game may now start from a save file that has already watched the first cutscene, making resets less punishing. The duration of the cutscene will still be added to the total time, keeping past and future runs comparable. Furthermore, extension categories like Low Echoes and All Automatons are also allowed to skip four minutes of cutscenes.
⏱️ GoldenEye’s Egyptian Temple gets new record after seven years (3-minute read)
The individual level speedruns for GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 are so optimised that shaving off a single second is a huge deal. The in-game time is counted in increments of one second, and so it’s not too dissimilar from saving a framerule in the Super Mario Bros. games. It doesn’t happen very often either. Chris G. achieved this recently in the level Egyptian and broke a record that stood for seven years, completing the level in 43 seconds. His run combines stellar execution with a few new techniques that make the time save possible. A description is available in the article.
💾 Pokémon Red Any% (Save Corruption) Speedrun Explained (22-minute video)
For all fans of deep-dives into game code and RAM manipulation, Bismuth breaks down how the corruption of the save file is achieved in Pokémon Red, making it possible to beat the game in under 79 seconds. It’s dense, but they make it relatively easy to follow along, even if I had to rewatch a section to fully get it.
💰 $1,800 Super Mario 64 Co-Op Tournament (2-minute read)
Super Mario 64 Co-Op is - as the name suggests - a modification for Super Mario 64 that allows up to 16 players to join the same world and collect stars together. According to the article, “The Co-Op Cup 64” is here to redefine competitive speedrunning, but let’s keep it in perspective and focus on the facts: the tournament is split into three parts and at the time of writing the first two have already concluded. Only the grand final on May 17th remains to be played, when the remaining 2-player teams go head-to-head to determine the winner of the $1,000 grand prize. The tournament is hosted by Logaaaaan64 and you’ll be able to watch the finals on his Twitch channel.
Event News 📅
This weekend kicks off the largest annual speedrunning event focused on RPG games: RPG Limit Break. For an entire week, you’ll be able to catch live runs of RPG franchises, including Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and many more. Last year’s event raised over $90,000 for a good cause and I’m sure the team and the runners are eager to break through the $100k barrier this time.
🏁 Finished
Fastest Furs LIVE at FWA 2025 raised $14,589 for Lost-n-Found Youth
BSG Marathon 38 raised €700 for MIND
McRaeathon 2025 raised £325 for Get Well Gamers UK
🔜 Upcoming
Starts May 16th: Pottergone 2025 (Schedule)
Starts May 17th: Anime Speedruns Festival 2025 (Schedule)
Starts May 18th: RPG Limit Break 2025 (Schedule), benefiting the National Alliance on Mental Illness
Starts May 22nd: UKSG Greeeen 2025 (Schedule), benefiting CRISIS
This Week’s Top Times 🏆
🥇 First Place
Super Mario Sunshine (Any%: GCN, No ACE) in 01:12:44.000 by inkstar
Video • Twitch • YouTubeRed Ball (12 Levels) in 00:02:29.000 by DividedByZero
VideoHollow Knight (Any%: No Major Glitches) in 00:30:49.000 by zVypurr (Any/All)
Video • YouTubeSuper Mario Galaxy (Any%: Mario, 1P) in 02:26:16.000 by amarishiro
Video • Twitch • YouTubeMario Kart Wii (32 Tracks: No Skips) in 00:59:29.010 by LukeGB
Video • Twitch • YouTubePeggle Deluxe (Adventure Mode) in 00:46:00.000 by WhaleEleven (He/Him)
Video • TwitchCuphead (Version 1.1+: Any%, Regular) in 00:27:16.210 by Grondious (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Shura: PC, Glitchless) in 00:28:11.000 by Yeruka
Video • Twitch • YouTubeContra (Any%) in 00:09:47.299 by k1ngk0opa
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSpyro the Dragon (Any%) in 00:36:43.000 by Composer (He/Him, They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeDark Souls Remastered (Any%: No Dropmod) in 00:19:17.000 by aeiouSoT (It/Its)
Video) • Twitch • YouTubeRatchet & Clank (NG+) in 00:18:18.000 by NeverNaber
Video
🥈 Second Place
Celeste (Any%) in 00:25:26.413 by P3RL (Any/All)
Video • TwitchGrand Theft Auto V (Segments: Trevor%) in 00:54:01.000 by piska
Video • YouTube
🥉 Third Place
Subway Surfers (No Coins: No Hoverboard/No Keys, Mobile) in 00:56:37.199 by baoshiwudi
VideoJak 3 (Any% No OoB: Original) in 00:23:22.000 by Bintendo (She/Her)
Video • Twitch • YouTube
Fun of the Week 📈
Reddit Choice 🔝
The r/speedrun choice of the week is… this thread, about popular games in which the speedrun is just entirely different from a casual playthrough. This feels like it gets asked every couple of months, but I’m not getting tired of finding new examples I hadn’t heard of before.
👋🏻 And that’s it for this week! See you next Thursday, May 22nd 2025. 👋🏻
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