Tool-assisted movies (15)

Barbarian is a game developed and published by Psygnosis in 1987. As a barbarian, the player is tasked to navigate through dungeons filled with enemies and traps. Gameplay is done via on-screen icons that can be selected with the mouse, joystick or the function keys, which, suffice to say, isn't the best control scheme for this genre.

eien86 braces through the control scheme and reaches the end in record time.

Contra: The Alien Wars is the third entry in the Contra series. Like its predecessors, it is a predominantly side-scrolling shooter with a heavy emphasis on action. The protagonist can fire in eight directions when standing still. New abilities include climbing on walls, grabbing poles and navigating tanks. Parts of scenery can be destroyed. Originally released on the SNES, this version of the game was released on the Game Boy in 1994.

ThunderAxe31 makes quick work of this game, while refusing to kill any enemies. Well, he accidentally stomped on a couple of them, watched one fall into the abyss, wasn't careful enough and enabled some landmines... Some enemies even exploded by themselves. But it was never his intention, okay? It's a pacifist completion.

Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. fighting game series is rather different from your typical fighting game. Instead of wearing your opponent's health down to 0, you must knock him or her out of the battlefield. Damage counts upwards, with knockback from attacks that hit you becoming more severe as your damage increases. Fighting controls are also simplified, making it very easy for even your non-gaming friends to pick up and play.

Super Smash Bros. Melee offers fighters from the wealth of Nintendo characters like Mario, Bowser, different Pokémon, Link, and Kirby. They can either fight through the single-player modes like Classic, Adventure, and Event Mode, or they battle it out against other characters in a four-player frenzy.

Additional characters and stages are unlocked as hidden objectives are met, and coins rewarded for playing in all modes can be spent on a capsule toy machine. The toys in the machine represent games from Nintendo's entire video game history, and each can be viewed in 3D with a brief description.

This time, PracticalTAS plays through the All-Star Mode (which gets unlocked after unlocking every character) as Luigi, whilst not dealing any damage to the opponents in the process.

An encode with the author's commentary is available right here.

Undertale is an RPG video game created by American indie developer Toby Fox in 2015.

The player controls a child who has fallen into the Underground: a large, secluded region under the surface of the Earth, separated by a magic barrier. The player meets various monsters during the journey back to the surface. Some monsters might engage the player in a fight. The combat system involves the player navigating through mini-bullet hell attacks by the opponent. They can opt to pacify or subdue monsters in order to spare them instead of killing them. These choices affect the game, with the dialogue, characters, and story changing based on outcomes.

There are 3 main endings: Neutral, True Pacifist, and Genocide. This movie attempts to reach the True Pacifist ending in the shortest amount of time possible. This route showcases almost all of what Undertale has to offer as a speed-game.

Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril may look old, but it's actually released in 2010. Mainly inspired by the PC game I Wanna Be the Guy, this game is classic platforming action, where anything can kill the player in one single hit.

Actually... not anymore! This run exploits a glitch involving pausing that makes the player invulnerable to everything, allowing the author to skip items they would normally need.

Simon is taking another shot at this castle, but feeling horrible for the destruction he caused last time, he is now trying to respect Dracula's property and leave the place untouched (even if his intention is to kill the count).

As a minimalist variation of a pacifist goal, this movie does not contain any destruction in the levels: candles and walls are left intact, items stay untouched, and no enemy is harmed — with the exception of the bosses, who are killed mercilessly with the help of the "critical hit" glitch.

With Simon sneaking by most enemies with no subweapons and only his leather whip, this ends up being quite a stealthy run.

eien86 & Challenger improve the previous run by 12.3 seconds, thanks to better optimization with the scroll glitch, a new route within the caves, better boss battles which allowed obtaining the orb early, and removal of lag frames.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

Contra is a popular side-scrolling shooter game for the NES, infamous for its fragile protagonists. It's also known as 魂斗羅 (Kontora) in Japan, and Probotector in Europe. GryZor is also used in Europe on some other systems. This run focuses on a specific goal: do not kill enemies directly unless absolutely necessary to complete the game.

This is an improvement of 11 frames over the previous publication by the same authors.

The city of St. Canard is plagued by an unseen crime wave. The intelligence agency S.H.U.S.H. suspects that the shady organization F.O.W.L. and their valued operative Steelbeak are its causes. The caped superhero Darkwing has made quite some enemies in the criminal circles thanks to his past heroic deeds, and now the entire city has to pay for that. Naturally, the valiant duck is determined to travel through the dangerous streets of St. Canard, defeat his foes, and foil Steelbeak's plans.

Darkwing Duck is a side-scrolling platform game featuring the titular character from the Disney television series. The gameplay is similar to Duck Tales, also resembling Mega Man games in many ways. Darkwing's default weapon is a gas gun; special adapters that modify its functions can be collected during exploration. By using his cape, Darkwing is able to deflect some of the enemy projectiles. Weapons can be changed via a sub-screen.

For a "pacifist" type of completion, this run avoids killing enemies (they might also have dropped health refills, so health management is mandatory), and to offer maximum variety in addition to the any% version, minimizes the use of subweapons (yet to save a single enemy's life, a single arrow is used). It offers some fresh action and manipulation on bosses, but can't be done entirely along with pacifist, so DreamYao has to use a single arrow to save a single enemy's life.

This is a 827 frame improvement over the previous movie.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

Ninja Gaiden is a classic action NES title known for its difficulty, starring famous ninja Ryu Hayabusa as its main protagonist. Ryu has just learned that his father has recently gone missing after being defeated in a dual against his rival. He must now take up his sword and avenge his father, all the while encountering government conspiracies and supernatural events.

In this run, a group of authors decide to eschew the usual ninja methods of killing anything that wants to hurt you and go for a pacifist run, only killing when necessary to progress. To accomplish this, the RNG was heavily manipulated and glitches were abused to skip as many fights as possible and reduce the number of enemies encountered. For more information, you can read the authors' notes here.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

Silver Surfer is a shoot 'em up released in 1990. You take control of the Silver Surfer across various levels that alternate between a side-scrolling and an overhead perspective.

The game is infamous for its legendary difficulty. The Silver Surfer has an enormous hitbox and can only take one hit, and there are many enemies cluttering each of the levels. To make matters worse, touching any wall, no matter how softly, results in instant death.

Despite this, Skaad and HardCoreMangeur ride through the game without harming a single enemy (except for the bosses, which are destroyed to be able to progress). Listen for the great music by the Follin brothers!

Watch a resync of this run being played back on a real console.

The guys who have an infinite supply of ammo and who destroy worlds bare-chested are back! Super C is completed as fast as possible, with an additional goal: do not kill enemies directly unless absolutely necessary to complete the game.

By using two players, self-sacrifice, and a number of new discoveries, Soig saves 00:51.45 over the previous movie by Heidman.

If pacifism isn't your style, you can check out these one-player and two-player runs.

Yo! Noid is a game centered around a short man in a rabbit suit making his way through New York City to defeat an identical man in a different color rabbit suit for a pizza reward. The game was conceived as part of a 1980s advertising campaign for Domino's Pizza. As anyone who has played the game knows, the game is quite difficult, since the controls are sluggish, one hit kills you, and the pizza bonus games at the end can be difficult to win if you don't pick up enough useful powerups.

With some movement glitches, warps, and luck manipulation, nesrocks beats this game very quickly. Not only that, to make the run even harder and more impressive, he doesn't kill any enemies.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

Not only was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night the first installment of the Castlevania series on PSX but also the first PSX game to have a published run here. Follow Dracula's son Alucard as he glitches through the castle on a quest to end his father's life.

This run beats the game at level 1 with 0 experience, and the only official (recorded in the bestiary) kill being Dracula. A few other enemies are killed using a glitch to avoid the kill being recorded or experience being awarded.

Note: Due to an emulation error, the audio in the ending FMV sequence doesn't play.

Night Striker is a third-person shoot 'em up developed for the arcades by Taito. Taking place in a cyberpunk world in 2049, a terrorist organization had kidnapped Doctor Masker Lindberry and his daughter, and it's up to you, as part of the United Nations Special Service Agency, to lead task force Night Striker and take down the terrorist organization and rescue Masker Lindberry and his daughter.

In this run, Darkman425 decides to take a more scenic route, showing off as many of the unique bosses the game can offer, and dodges everything that wants to destroy him while only destroying the bosses that are required in order to proceed. Unique to the Sega CD version of the game is a special arrangement of remixes of the original songs, which are chosen and played here for additional entertainment.

Trying to strike a compromise with peace activists, the guy who destroys the world bare-chested has been ordered to stop an alien invasion while taking as few lives as possible. As such, this run completes Contra III: The Alien Wars while only destroying enemies and obstacles if they prevent advancement. This requires much more careful dodging than the other run that avoids the warp glitch does.

Our hero takes the dodging one step further by adding the limitation that he cannot shoot enemy projectiles. However, frustrated by the lack of carnage and by the political pressure, our hero lets off steam sometimes by shooting the scenery and doing entertaining dances and poses.

This run improves the previous publication by 00:25.41 seconds.