Hello guys!

Fascinated by the work of Summoning Salt on YouTube, I was frustrated to see him focusing only on NES games. It's be quite rad to start delving into the archives and trace the history of the any% category (and the 120% for that matter, though we should focus on one at first).

By no means am I a Spyro the Dragon speedrunning history expert. I have followed SSBMStuff, ChrisLBC for many years, and more recently Touval and AlexDest. But I am pretty sure there is far more things to it than what I am aware of.

So the idea is to brainstorm here about the history of the speedrun. Things we should focus on:

• find the historical first and legit run submitted
• list the tricks that made the run faster and when they were discovered
• find the speedrun associated to above tricks that would first introduce them
• for all above items, always cite the runner / trick hunter

Of course I'd like to gauge the interest of the community first. Please comment / augment the idea at will.

PS: the World Record Progression series from Summoning Salt in case you don't know about it yet https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxPYcr2zEkWInMyvvxmN22gjrRR0x__u

World Record is 38:42 by SSBM (Saboom)

Note that following times at the YouTube video time, not the time in the speed run.

Technics:

• Placement when releasing dragon
  • Dry Canyon at 05:44 to get keys immediately
  • Dr Shemp at 08:38 to avoid big detour around dragon
• “double” jump: neutral jump + charging
  • Stone Hill at 01:42: skip to hill top from end of level
  • Town Square at 02:47: skip to end of level from start
  • Dry Canyon at 05:38: skip to remote dragon / key without going into tower
  • Cliff Town o at 06:20: skip behind start of level without having to go on top of hill past the purple river o at 06:33: skip around house o at 06:48: skip to town’s roofs + light the rocket
  • Peace Keepers at 08:44: skip destroying rock with canon by double jumping across gap
  • Ice Cavern at 12:18 to clear gap in remote cavern near end of level
  • Alpine Ridge at 14:10 to clear gap while door is held closed by magician, to skip cycle.
  • Metalhead at 31:06: skip across river
  • Dream Weavers at 33:44: clear gap across void without using the magical elevator
  • Jacques at 35:50: two double jumps in a row to avoid flaming one of the lunatic clock enemy, avoiding annoying random cycle.
• proxy / slope glide (glide against a slope)
  • Artisans at 03:35 (skipping from Town Square to Artisans boss world)
  • Beast Makers at 22:36: skip around first electrified platforms using double jump and slope glide on fortress wall to enter Terrace Village immediately.
  • Terrace Village at 22:22: minor help on wall to cross gap near last part with electrified platforms.
• bump on object at end of flight level to avoid final animation
  • Night Flight at 10:13
  • Crystal Flight at 20:25
  • Wild Flight at 25:42 (little less apparent)
  • Icy Flight at 35:06
• out of bounds / skips:
  • Alpine Ridge at 15:03: skip to cavern by flying through non-solid wall
  • Misty Bog at 26:26: skip to end of level by abusing sparx two times in water
  • Beast Makers at 30:34: skip to Metalhead level by double jumping off the bridge’s rail.
  • Dream Weavers at 33:47: skip lunatics by bonking right in the middle of them and using proxy gliding. Allows early access to flight level. Flight levels are very cool because they yield a lot of gems in a minimal amount of time.
  • Gnorc Cove at 37:33: use enemy which throws explosive barrel and abuse his throwing move to get proxied in the air and skip to across hills to end of level (n o i c e)
  • Gnasty’s Worlds at 38:00: use double jump and weird bunk on Gnasty Gnorc level mouth to skip into the mouth through non-solid part on top.
• death warps:
  • Wizard Peaks at 18:25: by SSBM himself “faster or similar and collects xtra gems. all in all much more worth it. the glide back is lengthy”
• miscellaneous:
  • Wizard Peaks at 17:57: hold charge boost across a large section of the level
  • Beast Makers at 24:30: invincibility after damage abuse to destroy fireworks chests faster.
  • Tree Tops o at 29:01: unintended super charge jump to remote platform (to check by myself) o at 30:09 (start at 30:04 for full super charge): super charge jump on a upward slope to gain altitude and keep charging on top of unreachable platform (at least not intended this way).

Mistakes (if no loss reported, hardly significant):

• Peace Keepers at 09:05: miss gem when flaming treasure just before entering Night Flight
• Alpine Ridge at 14:55: charge bump on step
• Wizard Peaks at 18:49: charge bump on step
• Bloward at 21:50: miss three gems in a row (resulting in approx 2 seconds loss)
• Terrace Village (total of 3.5 seconds lost)
  • at 22:53: choke on steps at start of level (major)
  • at 23:41: slightly too early on electric cycle and get damaged from enemy (minor)
• Misty Bog at 27:29: bonk on a step just before dragon
• Tree Tops at 30:15: miss a gem and have to double back
• Beast Makers (roughly 2 seconds lost total)
  • at 32:59: slightly too early on electricity cycle after leaving perfect Metalhead (gold split)
  • at 33:07: bonk when trying double jump to skip to balloonist
• Jacques at 35:51: fails at jumping on platform on first try.
• Gnasty’s World at 37:51: fail first attempt at skip second level of Gnasty’s world by using double jump and skipping through non-solid wall on top of mouth. Second try he gets it and skips directly to Gnasty’s Gnorc.

Other remarks:

• Routing of Tree Tops is amazingly perfect (gold split)
• Time is lost during Dream Weavers levels but I cannot see where…
• Huuuge time gain at the end of approx. 18 seconds (I guess he must have missed the last skip to Gnasty’s Gnorc quite a few times in his last PB)