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SDA is the home of over 6000 Quake speed runs, but I felt it was time to featuring another game. We might be on PlanetQuake, but 'Speed Demos Archive' doesn't imply only Quake, and in any game that has a timer, you can try to run through it as fast as you can. I've always had a heart for Nintendo games and did casual speed runs of a few. I think the first was Super Metroid. Nine years later the sequel, Metroid Prime for the Nintendo Gamecube was released and I got it the first day it was out. I took over 14 hours the first time I finished it, but I planned on a real speed run eventually. It wasn't until almost six months later that I heard of a speed run done in 1:46 by CALFoolio, which inspired me to finally run it. After many attempts I got a time of 1:34... of course the record was by then already 1:28 by kip, and he soon got 1:23. I decided after that to focus on a 100% speed run: one that gets all 100 items in the game. At the end of June I finished my first one and got a time of 2:10. I was pretty impressed with myself, I beat CALFoolio's 100% time by 9 minutes. I started to hang out in #metroid on irc.esper.net, the chat room arranged for on the GameFAQs Metroid Prime message board. I received the videos of the 1:46 run from CAL, and then the 1:23 from kip when he did it. I learned things from both, but both of them only sent their vids to other "sequence breakers" who asked for them. I decided if I'd do a run I'd release it for all to see since GameSpy gives me as much space as I need. :-) Update: The videos of kip's 1:23 run (which doesn't care about 100% items) is now available at metroid2002.com! Everyone in #metroid wanted to see < 2:00 done for 100% but I said, "no way it would be me". After I tried a 100% on hard mode and ended up with 2:12, I knew my 2:10 on normal sucked: hard mode takes about 15 minutes more because all enemies have twice the health! I made a major change to the route, changed some other small things, and acquired a capture card to record a real attempt at a new 100% on normal. I started on August 9th 2003, and figured I'd take at
least a month. I didn't imagine it would be three whole months though! I finally
finished, vastly exceeding my original expectation of 1:49 and ending up with an amazing time of:
 1:37! I hope my imperfect run will inspire others to try, and I wish good luck to anyone crazy enough to do so. :-) Now onto the videos! To watch them you'll need DivX. The videos are split based on where I saved the game, recorded at 320x240, encoded to 512 kbps with 24 kbps audio, for an average of about 4 MB per minute. The quality improves drastically in part3 because I changed the brightness and contrast settings. In parts 1-5 there is an annoying buzzing sound that can be heard during quiet periods, but I finally figured out the cause so it's gone starting with part6. Each section has commentary that I've written up on a room by room basis, if you're not sure what I do I recommend you read it after you watch. Download links:
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