The Glitch That Killed Majora's Mask Speedrunning (almost)

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In 2019, while speedruns of 3D Zelda games were thriving, a glitch discovery in Majora's Mask was so horrible, that it nearly killed all interest in speedrunning the game. This is the story of how that trick was found, and defeated.
Edited by: @SeedyZ
Special Thanks to JakeZSR for research assistance:
@JakeZSR
Extra Footage credits:
@Indextic
@Glitches0and0stuff
@sva161620
@exodus122
@EnNopp112
@MrCheeze
@MajinPhil
@FullGrownGaming
@dannyb21892
/ raggen171
#speedrun #zelda #nintendo

[@LunaticJ]

Song list in order: Majora's Mask - Title Demo Majora's Mask - Clock Town (Day 1) Majora's Mask - Milk Bar Majora's Mask - Astral Observatory Wii U System Music - Mii Maker - Mii Editor Wii U System Music - Friend List (Gamepad) Majora's Mask - Song of Healing Luigi's Mansion - Controls Luigi's Mansion - E. Gadd's Lab Luigi's Mansion - Training Majora's Mask - Mayor's House Council Room Majora's Mask - Staff Roll

[@frankcommatobe8009]

Thank you

[@lambybunny7173]

Thanks!

[@justaperson5868]

Just saying missed opportunity here

[@michealfunickrr3717]

wii u dev kit v4 owner here. i can help i wonder

[@JmastersJ]

Liked comment and video before watching, just because you listed the music. Love when people do this

[@AkumaAPN]

In Mario games, whenever a new Glitch completely destroyed the game, the community would just create a new category, so the old routes could remain competitive.

[@LunaticJ]

Zelda games including this one do as well. Majora’s Mask has “No Major Glitches” which are the main subcategories for any% and 100%. Ocarina of Time any% has changed so much, that old routes are preserved as separate categories on the leaderboard (Glitchless any%, No Wrong Warp, Defeat Ganon) or more restrictive categories like GSR which aims to maintain a consistent route.

[@SylviaRustyFae]

For just debug mode, srm, and each console; thats 16 extra subcategories for every main category which also, as alrdy mentioned, alrdy do that It wud be rly clunky at this pt, thats for sure

[@TyroRNG]

@@SylviaRustyFae while I agree that might be too many catagories. Not all glitch + console catagories are possible. Debug only works on WiiU (and that's why it was hated in the first place.)

[@SylviaRustyFae]

@@TyroRNG Ok yeah, i exaggerated a slight bit cuz i forgot to exclude those three categories

[@OldDistantHermit]

@@TyroRNG As someone who originally heard about speedrunning when everyone was talking about the iQue and later became a veteran in RPG speedrunning communities, not segregating by console has always and will always make no sense.

[@doctorreed_]

i love hearing names like "mrcheeze" and "popesquidward" spoken in a serious informative tone

[@SullySadface]

I remember hearing "TomatoAnus" said out loud multiple times at early GDQs. Ah, the good old days.

[@chadwarden5602]

My name Mistah Cheeze!

[@thelivingend127]

I hate it lol

[@theschnozzler]

​@@thelivingend127then don't watch the video

[@Mauripsu]

I feel kinda jealous I didn't come up with the name "popesquidward" first, it's so damn good

[@jacktravis2718]

The irony of Majora’s Mask having the most cursed speedrun techniques is truly something.

[@MarioMastar]

As a casual player it's really impressive. I didn't know there was a debug menu. It reminds me of those classic games where the debug menu was often hidden in a level select code and left in by the devs for players to just have fun with. No Action Replay/Gameshark required.

[@tellmewhenitsover]

Its more poetic than ironic

[@alejandrorivas4585]

Apt

[@EddieB-ready]

You... Do know what ironic means? Cuz this is anything but ironic, I'd say it's very fitting

[@schwarz8614]

@@EddieB-ready in general whenever somebody says something is "ironic" its not used correctly at all.

[@yummyos]

The story of someone searching for power hoping to improve their time in termina with unforeseen consequences for themselves and the people around them and almost leading to total annihilation… sounds familiar.

[@TheModdedwarfare3]

A finger of the monkey's paw curls.

[@ImZeDoctah]

@@carolbells2593Skull Kid and the plot of Majora’s Mask.

[@OnionChoppingNinja]

" Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn’t Stop To Think If They Should"

[@phantom-ri2tg]

@@OnionChoppingNinja Scientific progress is largely inevitable. Someone would eventually.

[@OnionChoppingNinja]

@@phantom-ri2tg woosh....

[@YuubiTimberwolf]

Honestly, if a glitch is found that takes all the fun out of the game, it needs a seperated category to spare most runners the pain.

[@devonm042690]

Seriously. Even if it wasn't only possible on the worst version, this just sounds like the ACE Credits Warp in OoT in terms of how 'fun' it would be, both to run and to watch.

[@Pabmyster]

It boggles the mind how long it took for them to come to this conclusion. Seems like a no-brainer

[@ThoraeJenkins]

@@Pabmyster You're vastly overestimating the capacity of most speedrunners.

[@Pendergast891]

@@devonm042690 yeah once the novelty wears off OoT SRM any% runs are boring af. at least the previous route had you fight things instead of warping directly to the credits

[@papaelf420]

the pain%

[@StarfieldDisarray]

Reminds me of when Grand Theft Auto San Andreas had a huge warp discovered that took you to the final mission. The catch was that not only was the set-up really annoying and finnicky (and you wouldn't find out you fucked it up until later) but it also only worked on the *Windows Store* version. Which was a PC port of a mobile port of a PC port of a PS2 game. Which is just as awful as you're imagining it.

[@jdlamb4212]

With the same time and effort you can dig a tunnel from your bedroom to a bank vault.

[@NisseDood]

Still better than the Saints row 2 pc port. Using keyboard to drive a car in that game is the most horrible thing ever because how overly sensitive the controls are.

[@Targethitter.]

As soon as a speedrun becomes a menu run it always sucks.

[@thomasmurrell9832]

Either that or ACE gets involved. It's why I HATED that Triforce% run of OoT.

[@PlutoDarknight]

​@@thomasmurrell9832 I find Triforce% to be a curiously polarizing category. Watching it is absolute ass, not necessarily because of TASBot's fault but simply because 500+ frame perfect inputs without any actual game progress are not entertaining. Yet I do enjoy seeing Triforce% as a testament to human ingenuity in regards to what ACE is capable of, between unlocking hidden content to being able to live patch external content into a running game.

[@thomasmurrell9832]

@@PlutoDarknight I agree that ACE is a SUPER fascinating tool, but once it gets involved in actual speed runs, I just think that's just dumb. SOME of the stuff they did with it in Triforce% was actually pretty cool (the Arwing fight and that lost content fountain were both pretty dope), but then again, I think it was the misleading nature of the first batch of videos that covered it leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Looking at you, Swanky.

[@jackdaniel3135]

I always knew the shadow wizards were out there pulling the strings. We aren't even safe in our speedruns.

[@anustart989fg]

I wonder what the vote would have been if women with penises were excluded.

[@TheXell]

Shadow Wizard Rupee Gang. We love travelling through time.

[@StephenBuergler]

They made a decision that was for the good of everyone and then faced the consequences.

[@JJAB91]

@@StephenBuergler The fact that I could theoretically beat the game faster than anyone using no outside exploits but have it "not count" because some nobodies in a discord said it doesn't is insanity.

[@Kidneyjoe42]

@@JJAB91 The true insanity is someone who knows nothing about speedrunning and was never going to run this game thinking they deserved to be consulted about its rules.

[@Zanthosus]

The fact that a separate WiiU VC/Debug category wasn't added is so confusing to me.

[@Goretantath]

It was, there was a wii u category. People just hated that it was faster than the original hardware and banned the debug menu out of spite.

[@lyyretv1126]

“Congrats on playing song of soaring” -ZFG

[@cameronjadewallace]

A true gem, that one

[@10superpower]

This sounds like a bunch of drama that could've easily been avoided by banning or making a separate category for debug runs

[@aDudeNamedMike]

They did ban the debug menu, if you watched the video. It didn't go over well. Lol

[@10superpower]

@aDudeNamedMike They waited too long to ban it. It wasn't one run or two runs to remove, it was several. That level of mess never goes over well.

[@duffman18]

​@@10superpower the problem is it's a relatively huge community of decentralised unrelated people across the globe. So no one person or even one team of people running a speedrunning website can unilaterally decide something for the entire community. It has to be agreed upon by, essentially, a super majority. Not even just a regular majority. Otherwise the complaining and whining will be intolerable. It might seem like common sense to do this, but groups of humans don't have common sense, only individuals do

[@ryan.crosby]

Or just require runs to be on original hardware. If a speedrun doesn't work on a real N64, you're not speedrunning MM anymore, you're exploiting glitches in an emulator.

[@coolspider295]

I disagree. The purpose of a speed run is to beat the game as fast as possible, not as "fast as fun". Instead of making a separate category for debug runs, they should have made a separate category for non-debug runs. Like "debugless %". Nothing about the glitch violates the rules of an any percent run.

[@L337N1NJ4L1NK]

>Ennopp achieves WR in basically every category >Leaves speedrunning to raise his family >WR is lowered via new tech, displacing Ennopp >Ennopp returns and reclaims WR >Ennopp leaves again We all agree the man is the undisputed king of MM speedrunning right?

[@teh_supar_hackr]

Yes, and if anyone dethrones Ennopp, the true speedrunning king will rise in 1/2 a nano second

[@thomasmurrell9832]

​@@teh_supar_hackr this sounds like every time Kaiba tries to one up the Pharaoh in the Yu-Gi-Oh anime. My popcorn machine 🅱️roke, anyone got any? I wanna watch this go down

[@Ontos1717]

he currently does not have a single record

[@originaljuiceberry]

@@Ontos1717W raggen

[@diamondseraph9369]

​@@thomasmurrell9832 I've got a popcorn machine and several bags of movie theater extra buttery microwave popcorn which one do you want?

[@kildozer2012]

I was there watching EnNopp when he got that first run. I was sitting there thinking to myself "This is gonna crush the spirit of so many runners and viewers." I was completely convinced that nobody would want to run or watch that category anymore, just like ACE on OOT, but to my surprise, a good bit of viewers stuck around to watch, as did the runners.

[@HappyYummmy]

it's just a game, not that deep go get a girlfriend or something

[@SylviaRustyFae]

​@@HappyYummmy It's just a youtube comment, not that deep; go get a boyfriend or something

[@kildozer2012]

@@HappyYummmy Says the guy that's probably never had a woman talk to him in his entire life. Leave you're moms' basement and touch some grass before shit talking someone that's probably double your age. Why are you even in this comment section if you don't understand how important of a hobby watching/doing speedruns is for some people. Then again, my comment wasn't all that deep. So maybe stop taking everything so serious and actually enjoy your life instead of trying to shit talk people you don't know

[@420.........]

The purpose of these runs is to end the run. Gtfo with this private vote to disable a valid speedrunning method.

[@SylviaRustyFae]

@@420......... Its still allowed in Unrestricted; its just not allowed in No Major Glitches Also, why hasnt the community pushed to unban it then?

[@helloiamtara]

(phils wife here) This video popped up on my recommended feed and i immediately remembered this as the absolute worst era I ever endured with Phil speedrunning bc he hated it so much. Everyone was always complaining (rightfully so lol) and I endured many many many hours of overhearing discord calls about this exact thing. It took over our lives for a bit. I clicked on the vid and what do you know - there’s Phil complaining allllll over again like it’s 2019 😂😂 thanks for the nostalgia and the amazing edit on this!!

[@JorgetePanete]

Phil's*

[@darkerdaemon7794]

​@@JorgetePanete technically it would be phils' in this situation, since it isn't an action but rather the abstract subject so ya... You corrected someone and was still wrong 😂

[@JorgetePanete]

@@darkerdaemon7794 1: his name is Phil 2: the wife of Phil -> Phil's 3: stop taking drugs

[@darkerdaemon7794]

@@JorgetePanete how about you actually look up the meaning of ' and try telling me that again? Lmfao, you need to lay off the drugs.

[@darkerdaemon7794]

@@JorgetePanete just to be crystal clear, because I know you are going to feign ignorance and not actually look it up but apostrophes denote possession when used in that fashion. Meaning Phil ' is / has = Phil's. It can also mean contractions by manner of omissions when used like isn't hasn't etc but! Since using it in proper English translates to Phil is wife / Phil has wife, here doesn't make sense nor is it proper English; so the actual way to use the apostrophe here is Phils', as it literally isn't a contraction nor is it an action denoting possession. Though you could argue being his wife makes her his possession I'd say that's both redundant and missing the entire point of the sentence since her being his wife isn't even the subject. It also isn't the medieval era. So yeah, I'm correcting you in a comment where you incorrectly tried to correct someone else. Which you know is annoying and cringe because you clearly took offense and resulted to personal attacks when I did the same to you, except the irony is you started it.

[@harrisjones2190]

HMS Cutscene Skip is probably my favourite vessel of the royal navy

[@TheCreepyLantern]

the shadow government..... fuck i love how insane speedrunning communities' get

[@NIX-FLIX]

I mean if your only going to allow high ranking officials to privately vote over what you can and can’t do it’s the textbook definition of a shadow government

[@user-xk5fs1zu3m]

autistic*

[@josepetersen7112]

To be fair, "a private vote among select community members selected by the mods" is pretty retarded.

[@Icalasari]

Yeah, something like that decision is something that should be in the mod's realm. They saw the effects, they saw how it damaged the community, and with groups like 4chan who would totally bomb it to ensure the broken stuff stays just to make everybody's lives miserable, a private vote made much more sense It's a power that should be used _incredibly sparingly,_ but it's something that makes sense

[@NIX-FLIX]

@@Icalasari speed runners are a lot nicer than those who are on 4-Chan and such though I get your point it is incredibly unlikely any attacks would’ve happened

[@lordgeovanni]

Honestly, if there ever is a vote, it needs to be not only public, but also explained in detail. That was just scummy behavior and those mods deserved to be removed. Especially because in 2 weeks time there could easily be another WR that is "invalidated" for not following the rules, even though the "rule" is just in their heads. And speedrunners need to understand a very crucial aspect to speedrunning - if you don't run the category, it doesn't affect you. There would be nothing wrong with 2+ people suddenly saying "I refuse to run with Debug Menu" and if enough people are insistent on it, it will either cause a Debug-Free category, or force a revision of rules check. And even better, that isn't forcing a rule change - it just limits the participation of the hated run and in turn reduces its impact on the speedrunning community for that game.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Ok, lets for sake of argument they do create a new category for the debug menu runs. They label it "meme%". And the debug menu is banned in every other category. Is that acceptable? Because if your answer isn't "yes", then your argument doesn't really carry weight. The entire point was to get rid of a thing that was killing the community SOLELY because it was being taken seriously as a representative of the community. People see it, associate it with the community, and then AVOID THE COMMUNITY as a result. That's a bad thing. Separating the community from that poisonous association was the entire point. De-legitimizing the concept of using the debug menu was the point.

[@DlcEnergy]

Just so people @@dontmisunderstand6041 you, let me simplify all that: "Ok lets say hypothetically that your opinion is to not put debug in its own category, then you have no argument sir. Because putting it in its own category is the point. Otherwise everyone would avoid."

[@Kidneyjoe42]

The only people who were scum in that situation were the ones defending something that should have been banned from the very beginning.

[@lordgeovanni]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 ​ @DlcEnergy I could swear that I replied to this already, but with the next reply below, I decided to post again as it seems to not have been saved. Please accept my apology if it somehow is still posted without me noticing it. There is two parts for my reply here. First is the actions of the moderators, the 'secret' vote that banned Debug Menu, and the reason is why I already stated: The community needs to be able to know the rules prior to attempting the speedruns. It isn't right for the moderators to have a secret rule that a speedrunner might "violate" while creating a new WR. Second, there is a very clear issue with line-veto on some parts of a game simply to allow a category to be named something that it is not. "Any%" along with "Glitchless%", "100%" and a few other such terms are easily and widely understood by people visiting any community with regard to the speedruns under those labels. In this situation, "Any%" still will be using the Debug Menu. And the simple reason is - it is the fastest. That is the purpose of "Any%". If they want to restrict something from the speedrun, it needs to be explained, and partially within the name of the category. "Any% No Debug" is a fine enough name for this, and they can so-called "retire" the "Any%" Category as being something uninteresting (aka just have no one running it) or if there are still participants, well speedrunners who don't want Debug can just... not use Debug. It isn't that difficult. "People avoiding the community" isn't an acceptable answer, there are already hundreds of different speedruns that take a lot of explanation or defining that a fresh face wouldn't instantly know. For example, the Pokemon Yellow Any% isn't ran the same way a TAS is, and that is because it is less than a second. It takes a corruption of data on loading a game, where the Trainer ID is a specific value. That isn't fun or interesting. But it IS still called "Any%". And then you have the "Any%" that shows up on Speedrun's website, and it shows real people who are able to complete the game in a little over a minute, but that is still with Save Corruption - which is why those who seek to avoid that category go into the "Any% No Save Corruption" category.

[@lordgeovanni]

@@Kidneyjoe42 There is absolutely no reason why Debug should be "banned from the very beginning". And the mere concept of creating new categories is specifically because speedrunners already do avoid some categories and craft new restrictions to create a more "fun" or "appealing" run. Saying that people are scum simply because they allowed a different type of run, than what they enjoyed running, to exist is beyond reasonable expectation.

[@HKlink]

Why didn't they just make a category split with their preference being the new default? Could even just go for something like "no Wii U exclusive glitches" to let people run on Wii U if they wanted but not force anyone to. And then make a new Wii U only category. This was definitely handled poorly, even if they had everyone's interests at heart.

[@bungeetoons]

Maybe speedrunners really did hate the wiiU virtual console that much, they'd rather conspire to take it out of the picture than run the risk of making other categories feel inferior.

[@theobserver4214]

@@bungeetoonsWii U emulator is really bad with various graphical bugs and full of input lag.

[@lunondisposable5382]

The whole "shadow government" debacle really goes against the entire spirit of community that speedrunning was built upon

[@lyrahtu9311]

What I love the most about speedrunning is when someone discovers a new strat, they’ll often make a tutorial to teach other players how to do it, despite it being a competitive community. It really shows how passionate people are about the games and community.

[@nokimokii]

I mean to be fair, what's the fun in having a competition when you're the only one who knows a technique that heavily increases your chances of winning?

[@ChaseSP1]

@@nokimokiiOther people will pour over your footage and figure out what you're doing anyway so it's a temporary advantage that leads to most people thinking you're really ignoring the community aspect of it, given any game a large enough pool is using a communal pool of knowledge built over time for the sake and making the game beaten as fast as possible

[@JacobShropshire]

I was playing majora’s mask on my n64 and the game crashed when I went to talk to the banker. I had just competed snowhead temple with the fairies and got the gilded sword. And some other heart pieces. I had to redo every thing!! And then while getting the final heart pieces, I realized with horror that I was missing one After an hour I discovered it was lost when the game crashed and I forgot to redo it. I now have ptsd whenever I talk to the banker.

[@Heinz-bx8sd]

Oh man feel sorry for you 😆 what a horrible night to have a buggy banker

[@alicepbg2042]

at least you can take solace in the fact that you are stealing the banker when you withdraw money in a new loop.

[@acribuss]

Bros abusing warp index like theyre trying to discover a new element in the periodic table

[@MajinPhil]

really enjoyed this!

[@LunaticJ]

Glad you enjoyed it a lot! I bet those were fun memories to revisit lol

[@tycameron1836]

I like watching your randomizer videos. Wouldn't mind watching you speed run majora's mask in the future

[@thedink69]

Hell yeah

[@jamtva]

As a viewer, the debug menu was the coolest thing ever for about two days. It was kind of amazing knowing the game was being beaten without beating all the dungeons for the first time. Even more amazing that it took 19 years to find a way to do it, and then only a few months to find a different, much better and more interesting way to do it.

[@centurosproductions8827]

Having to play the song 8000 times feels like a setup for one of those low% “the speedrun where you stare at a wall for 36 hours” videos.

[@Crowned_Hearts]

so for short Speedrunners found a glitch so boring that they had to find a better glitch to save themselves

[@MikeyTaylorGaming]

I recently found out that Donkey Kong 64 has a glitch like the one at 19:00 that unloads the object Chunky is holding and can fill the memory location with another one, latest video shows it briefly. As far as I can see, the only thing you can use it for is crashing the game though. Nothing interesting sadly 😅

[@smokyprogg]

Back in the day, you used a boulder dupe to create an insane amount of lag which let you moon kick from DK Isle to the top of the K Rool statue for the endgame. God I love that broken-ass game

[@MikeyTaylorGaming]

@@smokyprogg ahaha that's awesome! Lag creates some of the best glitches in DK64. The running community never mentioned that when I was asking about that glitch!

[@depotheose7890]

For now

[@Pendergast891]

you could do nothing and dk 64 would crash. hell it'd crash before you even turned on the console

[@orangeapples]

@@depotheose7890for reals. So many things in speedruns were a trick forgotten by people but it was actually a key to ACE.

[@xxXKillTheRedsXxx]

Moral of the story? Don’t vote on life changing things without consulting the people, or else they’ll throw you in the trash compactor

[@harrisonriggs8732]

"Majora's Mask Speedrunning Shadow Government Controversy" might be the funniest phrase I've ever heard

[@JakeZSR]

melted down my wii u in solidarity with my fallen community

[@SushiElemental]

o7

[@alexpotts6520]

14:11 lol at "walking straight is one of the hardest strats in this game"

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

crit wiggle

[@rodrigodanielflorencia9803]

I remember tuning on twitch to watch these hundo runs and immediately quit bc I didn't like watching runners do nothing but play song of soaring, now I'm back to watch Ennop's runs

[@deconyus3412]

Love the format of the video breaking down the finds that lead to the titular glitch. Makes the storytelling flow so well. Great job!

[@EvilApple567]

Wii U era was literally the "dark ages" due to that stupid filter over VC releases

[@Linkario]

This is the epitome of the Jurassic Park meme of concerning themselves with whether they could instead of concerning themselves with whether they should.

[@Cyynapse]

this always felt to me like doing a source game speedrun then just opening the console and loading the ending map

[@Cute___E]

Lmao accurate

[@4203105]

I'm 99% sure GlitchesAndStuff didn't discover the hidden owl warp to great bay. Afaik, that was known long before he joined the glitch hunting community.

[@fayescarlet]

Majora's Mask is my favorite game of all time, and speedrunning history is so fascinating. Both in one video is amazing. Thanks for such a good video!

[@IFinishedAVideoGame]

This was extremely interesting. There is just something about speedrunning old classic Nintendo games that is so interesting. Everyone knows them so well but there have this crazy long history that focuses on all these elements I never even knew were in the game! Thanks for making this

[@julianjolts5050]

Pretty big L to ban debug menu. Not only was it a few members privately reverting a mechanic the community votes yes on but it goes against the core purpose of any% beating the game as fast as possible using any method inside the game.

[@3possumsinatrenchcoat]

why didn't the ban get immediately overturned when the mods were all replaced then? seems if people actually wanted the thing to be valid they would've changed it the moment they got in charge. imo I'd prefer just splitting the run category versus a complete ban as a compromise, but so it goes ┐⁠(⁠´⁠ー⁠｀⁠)⁠┌

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

If people wanted to speedrun with the debug menu, they'd be doing it anyway. There is no authoritative force dictating which speedruns are allowed to exist.

[@TimothyGod]

​@@dontmisunderstand6041to an extent there is. You can do it, but it'll be a personal thing at best. If you upload it to a board, it's gotta follow guidelines and rules

[@Xezian]

i feel like instead of being banned debug menu shoulda been put in as a subcategory to the other categories. Just so that if people wanted to achieve the fastest times, they wouldnt be required to play on wii-u as it would be a niche subcategory

[@ingvarsuigin609]

"Shadow Government" did the usual CEO strategy - make a controversial decision, pin it on someone, they quit and are replaced, the decision stays.

[@charajaznao2829]

beautiful video, idk if i'm sensible rn or what, but i tear up a bit at the end with the music and the new day phrase. thanks for the hard work!

[@ChuggleDBuglGames]

This is where my conflicts with any% speed runs always come in. I don’t want glitchless because some runs have some insane tech, and I love seeing games destroyed while playing with its rules, but it loses all the charm when it pretty much just becomes programming to say you beat the game.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

"No major glitches" largely describes what I'd like to see in every speedrun. It doesn't have to be as-intended, but at least play the game.

[@rando843]

These are too rare for me to dismiss any% completely, considering that in like 80% of all other speedruns it's just cooler

[@communistyoutube]

glitchless vs glitched speedruns should always have both categories.

[@HaphazardDisastard]

It should be a separate category called "Debug Menu" or something. Skip the drama, no heated debates, no discussions needed. Just make it a separate category. Done. Simple. People are addicted to drama.

[@3possumsinatrenchcoat]

"bUT DEBUG SHOULD BE THE REAL MAIN RUN HOW DARE YOU CALL IT A SUBCATEGORY" (jk jk but I agree, honestly. not sure why it needed a full ban instead of just splitting into a new category. would probably die in a few weeks anyway when people realized it (imo) looked and played boring as hell)

[@HaphazardDisastard]

@@3possumsinatrenchcoat In m opinion, everything involving glitches is automatically a subcategory.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@HaphazardDisastard What counts as a glitch? Are ALL unintended mechanics glitches, like Ocarina of Time's power crouch stab? Are sequence breaks glitches? What about glitches that just happen randomly without you making them happen? Does that invalidate the run? I agree that "No Major Glitches" should be the default, but NO glitches is a big ask. Some games bug out if you look at them wrong, like DK64. I think you're oversimplifying a bit oo much.

[@HaphazardDisastard]

​@@dontmisunderstand6041 If you have to go out of your way to get a glitched behavior, that's a glitch. The power crouch stab is a glitch. Sequence breaks are glitches. The BotW shield jump is a glitch. None of these were intended behavior. Accidental glitches are bound to happen; they're fine. For some games like the first gen Pokémon games, the passive glitches (like the gen 1 miss and badge boosting other stats) cannot easily be avoided, so they are fine. (In other words, if you need to go out of your way to avoid a glitch, it's fine.) Yes, just saying glitches is oversimplified, but it's really not hard to determine what should be okay in a no-glitch run if you just stick to a few rules.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@HaphazardDisastard You contradict yourself a bit. You can go an entire playthrough without knowing about power crouch stab and using it to your advantage dozens of times on accident. It's one of the best examples of an extremely powerful glitch that can be invoked accidentally without even knowing it exists. There's also the pretty major issue of, what do you do when your no-glitch world record only actually has that record because an un-intended glitch occurs that saves them enough time to get that record? Your category is now fundamentally broken because the world record literally cannot be done legitimately by the ruleset for the category. That's a problem with the ruleset itself that can't just be ignored.

[@kajw.230]

It never ceases to amaze me on how much code of Nintendo's early games are entirely spaghetti. And on their modern games and hardware as well! Fun stuff.

[@KumoriNP]

At least they actually make good games. Unlike literally everything on Steam, other than ancient AAA games and garbage indie shovelware people rate Overwhelming Positive like brainless bots

[@fabriciolamana4106]

Can't forget Majora only had one year of development, so having spaghetti code is unsurprising

[@theotherjared9824]

Generally accepted coding practices weren't as universal as they are now. Proprietary software and no internet means programmers did what they thought was best and only consulted with the people they met regularly. Most games to this day take the "good enough" approach of making sure something works as intended then moving on.

[@9bit927]

The real insider secret is all code is spaghetti code, some just works for some reason

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

​@@fabriciolamana4106 the N64 was also the first console where they didn't write in assembly code so they probably kept a lot of habits.

[@NTSTS0]

I really enjoyed this video and its explanations. Speedrun routes dying to painful tech or requirements is very sad to me, and it makes me happy that we can use community legislation and different categories to make sure everyone can still have fun running their favorite games. Now, just have to wait for SM64 to start allowing cutscene skip...

[@Ckoz2829]

This reminds me of a glitch in Golden Eye that broke new ground in speedrunning but was panned by everyone because it requires you to stare at the ground for most of the run and it was just not entertaining to watch. I dunno if they still use that glitch.

[@jamesknapp64]

Yeah they still look down (or up at the sky) for runs to save lag

[@popesquidward]

Nice video man, I think some of us have been really trying keep the game alive the last few years and videos like this really help explain it all. Majora’s Mask is a great speedrun and needs more attention! Well done 🤩

[@Chrisuan]

beautiful video and awesome history lesson! more please

[@FortuneCookieLies]

The debug menu should have been its own category and banned out of the others.

[@baneblade__]

Forcing players to buy a WiiU is inexcusable no matter the reason

[@MisterMunkki]

I find it interesting that they would allow use of the debug menu in a speedrun, in general for most games even if you found an elaborate ingame way to bring up the console and input a noclip command, it'd be a "fun" category at best, as you're still using the console x) I'm sure they had long discussions about this, just surprised

[@ASpySA]

I just can't get over how the real issue was that the Wii U version was so unpleasant for speedrunning, and while they'd go so far as to ban a specific glitch that was found to avoid having people run on the Wii U version...why not just ban the Wii U version? Or make that version its own category. The way it's presented here, that version is what everyone hated about it more than even the glitches being found on it.

[@LK.Cynric]

Great video! Both entertaining and informative. As a watcher I love when games are fun to watch even if they are slower, so I am always happy there's no major glitches category's.

[@DukeCyrus]

Could they not just make it a seperate category?

[@iantaakalla8180]

They can, but in this case, it is as good as pretty much letting it die, and any% requires doing whatever is necessary to get the best speedrun, and that unfortunately involves playing on the Japanese WiiU Virtual Console.

[@rtg_onefourtwoeightfiveseven]

@@iantaakalla8180 So? A category that nobody runs but you still _can_ if you want to is, in my opinion, better than a category that some arbitrary governing body says you can't run because they don't like it. Splitting the categories means that those who don't want to use the glitch don't have to, and those that do can.

[@TheUltimateRare]

I love how a game breaking glitch almost ruined the game and a even MORE game breaking glitch saved it. that's Irony.

[@skrrrtsusman3450]

you know, people say that if we lived forever, then we would get bored of everything a d want to die, yet there's crazy ppl that are fine playing the same game, doing the same thing, for a quarter or more of each day, for 20+ years. I think we'd be fine.

[@jdlamb4212]

And then some gods argue over every event in the universe and have discussions for 100,000,000 years about a specific interaction between two atoms in a hamster's testical.

[@Willingmess]

I now weirdly want the Wii U Version to somehow be optimal again after all the strays the console in general got. It’s not the Wii U’s fault the N64 emulator Nintendo put on it was garbage.

[@everythingpony]

21:58 isnt that basicly you saying " well uh i dont like it, so im banning it for everyone now" when i was working hard on those speedruns

[@Kiri68419]

ngl, I was expecting for the vote to be regarding Wii U D-pad mapping mods. Like, that's the ONLY reason Wii U was even used in the first place, so why not just let the D-pad fix mod be legal? All it would take is giving out a resource/tutorial on how to add the mod, since most runners seem to run on hacked Wiis anyway, plus Wii Hacking is easy to begin with (and technically free).

[@infjmale91]

Great video. Very interesting. I guess it's EVERY speed-running game's inevitable fate. Eventually, it can be glitched & broken to do instantly. I like the "Committee of Majora's Mask" part. The idea that they meet up, maybe wearing masks from the game, to discuss how broken the code is & if it should be allowed in an unofficial use of the game.

[@BrooklynStorm]

Good to see my man @majinphil getting some recognition! 😊

[@JackieJKENVtuber]

I get people didn't want the Wii U VC to remain competitive anymore, but banning it was a dick move - it's still a valid version of the game and if it results in faster times, it is still legitimate. If there's a board for SRM and NO SRM, why not boards for DEBUG MENU and NO DEBUG MENU?

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

If it being a valid version of the game kills the community that cares, what's the point in letting it be valid? "Let us kill you because it's unfair to stop us" is a horrible take.

[@JackieJKENVtuber]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 >casually ignores the obvious solution to have a leaderboard where it is not banned

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@JackieJKENVtuber You're ignoring the fact that the existence of a leaderboard where it was acceptable was the problem. Necessarily, to save the community there NEEDED to be a way to distance the community from that specific glitch. An easy and obvious way to tell observers "yeah anybody who takes this glitch seriously doesn't belong here".

[@JackieJKENVtuber]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 an easier way that preserves integrity is to relegate anyone that wants to play by those unfun rules to their own leaderboard: it will maintain the community that wants to have fun, it will maintain the part of the community that actually wants to do things faster and it will keep a fiasco about a private vote that bans that second group from actually taking place at all A leaderboard specifically for debug menu solves all the problems that happened and brings absolutely none, because anyone that doesn't want to compete with that leaderboard will just go for the main leaderboard instead

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@JackieJKENVtuber Necessarily, the solution has to insult and denigrate the category that allows it, in order to provide the separation between the legitimate community and the absolute joke that threatened to kill the community. The category being associated with speedrunning that game AT ALL is the problem. I suppose I could summarize the point with a simple question. Would you think it acceptable for the leaderboard in question to simply be titled "meme%"?

[@mikeloeven]

I cant even begin to fathom the sheer size of the galaxy brain you need to be able figure out how to buffer over flow into a debug menu using only a controller

[@isoceptic]

1:49 Describe the Fire Sanctuary Bird Statues: OK

[@neonthunder3261]

Someone should just set an unofficial WR with Debug Menu out of spite lol

[@blueyandicy]

deadass cause like this is an a-hole move

[@neonthunder3261]

@@blueyandicy If an edge is possible its worth going for or at least just make separate categories for it. I know Goldeneye 007 runners are forming a subsect using the new ports to get better times (even if some groups are against it)

[@mcspooky8180]

i often think about gta 5 speedrunning with controversial techniques. in gta 5 if you fail a mission 3 times in a row in one section you can skip the section you failed. this means the fattest gta 5 speedrun is just 3 hours of dying over and over and over. so of course it was hated and thus it was made its own category that no one wants to play

[@_boux]

My understanding is that most of these glitches work on emulators, so they'd let their own game die instead of accepting runs on emulator?

[@artemis1993]

First World countries seems to be very allergic to emulators for some reason. It's funny, because here in third world countries, it's pretty much not a concern for us. The contrast is huge

[@JI0MB]

The best part is that *technically* they still ARE using emulators, just official ones that Nintendo released more than a decade ago. Very weird double standards they have.

[@kaisumisu]

​@@JI0MB @artemis1993 @_boux i'm fairly sure it's because people using emulators on their personal pc's would introduce a lot of variety to how fast the games run, simply due to the differences in pc specs, and in games where the competition is so fierce mere seconds can make or break a WR run, that starts to matter a lot. not to mention general cheating is easier to do on a pc emulator than on a console copy. and while having to buy a specific console to play a specific version is not great, needing to have a pc with good specs would mean that the more money you can spend the faster of a time you can get, so if you happen to not have the money for a high end pc you'd be shit out of luck. of course with an N64 game it's not nearly as much of an issue due to not being nearly as resource intensive, but the difference still exists, and that difference is the reason why separate categories exist for the same game on different consoles, so it's probably easier to just ban emulators than to try regulating something so unwieldy. and with official emulators that only run on consoles which were all built (mostly) the same it's not an issue. TLDR: it introduces too many variables that depend fully on the pc setup of each individual player. i'm not an expert on speedruns or anything but this is my understanding on the situation, feel free to tell me if i got something wrong.

[@blueyandicy]

​@@kaisumisuNot at all. You do realize people run P.C games...right? There's this one weird trick they do to circumvent everything you mention: cap the frame rate. Anything related to performance stems from framerate. I'm...too high to finish this explanation. If you want an example check out the GTA V speedrun for the simon car glitch.

[@kaisumisu]

@@blueyandicy i guess that would circumvent it yeah 👍 i do know people run pc games, but i did kind of assume that there would be more that goes into it than just framerate alone

[@IDESTROYER236]

Shadow Money Speedrun Gang. We looove banning debug menus.

[@robotortoise]

Oh my god. I knew about the darkness filter and the input latency, but I didn't know that the lag and load times were WORSE on Wii U. Sheesh....! Thank you for making this video. It was really fun learning about all of this information I'll never use!

[@mike48931]

Imagine a port being so bad that a speed runner who makes a living off of showcasing precise inputs cannot even walk in a straight line.

[@SirGriefALot]

It's unbelievable that people can actually figure out these insanely complicated glitches. 🤯

[@John_EMIYA_Miller]

Yep, reminds me of the Mew glitch for Pokemon Red/Blue. I'm still bemused by the fact that someone figured out something so convoluted. But, I guess such things are inevitable when you not only have thousands of people playing and replaying a particular game, but also hundreds of people dedicated to finding such glitches in that game.

[@thetablue8507]

Great video. So many interesting bits in here

[@Swagtildawn]

Thank you for making videos that stay on topic and don't start off with a 10 minute history of the game and the company that makes it unless it's directly related to the topic at hand.

[@thanatosdraga]

I almost forgot Index Warping became a thing

[@TheFiddleFaddle]

16:45 "...where at 2:30am, aliens descend onto Romani Ranch." God this game was SO WEIRD 😂

[@theshockmaster2199]

So glad to see a video on what stopped me running my favorite game.

[@SevoraLF]

Thanks for putting so many eyes on the beauty of MM Speedrunning

[@Blaze1337]

MajiPhil's SGDQ 2019 100% run was amazing and still is.

[@WyvernLP]

At this point its no longer speed running and more like Glitchrunning.

[@standoidontwantalastname6500]

11:13 I'm... abit confused by this. If GCN Majora's Mask wasn't allowed due to no emulation, why were the Wii VC and Wii U VC even allowed then? They were emulated too. Wii VC uses the exact same internal emulator as the Zelda Collectors Edition even.

[@LunaticJ]

Gamecube is allowed. Emulators that weren’t official releases of the game were banned, although now they are allowed up to a certain time

[@maxb2000]

if you listen to the part you linked, he says it wasn't usable because the debug menu isn't in the port

[@standoidontwantalastname6500]

@@maxb2000 alright dick I was sleep deprived when i posted that, sorry for being human

[@ElementalPenguins]

I have an idea for a video, or at least something I would enjoy watching. I'm more so a casual viewer of speedrunning, but I do play retro games and doing some of the glitches, even if poorly and inconsistently can be fun. Would you ever do a video on easy but cool glitches people can do for fun? Like flying in Lake Hylia by clipping into the Gerudo Valley tent while on Epona in Ocarina of Time. Completely useless, but a cool novelty. Something like "Top 10 fun glitches YOU can do!" Preferrably on N64, but if it does well it could be a series. Anyway thanks for your time.

[@ElementalPenguins]

The burning stick 420% glitch with the bottle ocarina is cool too. Stuff like that.

[@AroundTheBlockAgain]

Agreed! For example, my siblings and I were always going for that Mario Kart 64 Rainbow Road skip off the first big hill and it wasn't terribly hard and it was fun. Maybe that's a bit of a baby league example, but it's often fun to participate and dip one's toes in.

[@UNHchabo]

If you want a SUPER easy glitched run to learn, you can easily learn to do A Link to the Past Any% in about 3 minutes. If you have gamer friends it's a neat one to show off. :)

[@mushymcmushington7176]

"And so Majora's Mask speedrunners all went out to buy a Wii U" There's something so funny to me about a bunch of people who dedicate themselves to Nintendo games not already owning a Wii U.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Why would anybody own a Wii U on purpose?

[@TimothyGod]

​@@dontmisunderstand6041cause until switch it has loads of exclusives

[@JI0MB]

@@TimothyGod Emulators though...

[@huntercahoon]

0:10 "...except for Twilight Princess." Calling us out like that lol. Savage.

[@thehumanprotractor4927]

Awesome video! Hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to say “they should’ve done this” or “this was easy to avoid” but keep in mind, glitches can take a long time to fully reveal their capabilities.

[@sbrtbruno2855]

It’s sick that i started to watch majin Phil a year ago and now realizing how important he is to the speed runner community and more: i literally waych all his vods now😭

[@8BitMisdreavus]

This video is sponsored by The Shadow Government

[@myopiniondoesntmatter7068]

Anime pfp discord mod pulling dodgy stuff, who would've guessed.

[@aqlcaramsm3907]

Amazing video! Loved the lore lol

[@MegasMan10]

Shoutout to Simpleflips on the couch of the GDQ run

[@Przemko27Z]

I'm kinda an outsider to speedrunning, so a lot of the particular limitations they have seem strange to me. I can see the case for making emulators a separate category, but banning them outright seems drastic, especially if the wii u virtual console is allowed.

[@MarkusHobelsberger]

Well, as a rule of thumb usually all "official releases" are allowed for speedrunning. For most games that's a good baseline decision, since not everyone has access to original hardware. But bad implementations like buggy (or in this case incomplete for missing the D pad) VC releases can be problematic.

[@Kidneyjoe42]

If games are timed with real time rather than in game time then emulators have the issue of people potentially having faster load times than official hardware. In a particularly competitive category you could end up with someone taking a world record simply because they had better hardware, which no one would be happy about.

[@Przemko27Z]

@@Kidneyjoe42 I feel like for a lot of retro games, the loading times on emulator should be roughly equivalent between modern hardware. And Virtual Console is basically already emulation, so if emulators being faster is an issue, so are the VCs. Also, PC games have speedruns and load times discrepancies don't seem to be the biggest issue.

[@Przemko27Z]

@@MarkusHobelsberger For a lot of older games, excluding emulation just frankly adds a big wall to accessibility. As in, I can set up an emulator in an evening. Getting a console is gonna cost quite a bit and require some setup to run and record. Especially with the older consoles.

[@Gensolink]

@@Przemko27Z i always wonder why they refuse emulator instead of separating it into a categories like you do console, it's just a weird way to gatekeep competitive speedrunning and like you said VC is an emulator but the difference is that it's official. I get that not every emulators are consistent so why not just make it so that one specific emulator is used ?

[@jessecook4466]

Yay, a speedrunning Zelda video to help with my brain rot

[@Kosac07]

Wow, hearing someone mention Indextic now when I remember being there when the warp was discovered and watching his streams, along with Thiefbug's, Ennopp's, RG's, etc. is somewhat nostalgic and surreal! I loved the SRL community back then!

[@KeiranTrick]

Idk if this is a thing or not, I don't follow overall speedrunning very closely so forgive me lol I am also very dumb about tech and programming/computers... I recall there was some new Mario 64 glitch that skipped a long climbing section, but it required a real life ray of sunlight to hit the system just right and have the 'radiation' change one byte on the board. Assuming MM runs on the Mario 64 engine as OoT does, could that mean that text overflow may be feasible for changing bytes the same way? Is there a way to use that to change that specific byte to allow that skip, or am I completely stupid?

[@HakumeiTenshi]

Lets get this straight. Majora's Mask speed running wasn't (almost) killed by a glitch, it was (almost) killed by people without the common sense to not allow debug menus in speedruns

[@MarkusHobelsberger]

I agree. This was the mistake they made to begin with. Any kind of debug menu or similar mechanics should always be banned by default.

[@Jmak]

​@@MarkusHobelsberger the run is called any % for a reason. any way to beat the game without cheating. if you manage to glitch to debug, that's how the run works. speedrunners are just salty

[@captainkittyca2]

@@Jmak exactly, they should make a category called noDebugMenu% if people don't want to buy the wii u to play it. But butchering any% isn't the way to go. I can understand that it'd be an unfortunate experience if you have to buy a poorly sold console and deal with crashes in wii u version, but at the end of the day, any% isn't about how fun the speedrun is, it's about the fastest way possible without modding and etc. Also, if most major MM speedrunners play in the noDebugMenu% category rather than any%, then most casual MM fans would watch the noDebugMenu% category than any% since noDebugMenu% would likely be updated a lot more with new glitches found etc. That way, any% can stay true to its name while noDebugMenu% can allow the fun to still persist overall.

[@HakumeiTenshi]

@Jmak Any% just refers to the bare minimum of completion to beat the game. It doesn't mean "Any means necessary" Otherwise should be able to plug in a game shark and speed run my games that way and no one should say a thing about it. And before you say something like "No, using a game shark is using tools outside of the game itself," it's literally the same thing as running your game on a specific console or hardware to exploit whatever console or version exclusive glitches.

[@HakumeiTenshi]

@@captainkittyca2 or we could just not try to justify using dev tools to cheat. That's pretty much a zero step process

[@noisepollution4473]

shoutouts to simpleflips, unexpected cameo

[@agitatedtofu2511]

It will always fascinate and boggle my mind how people can figure out how to manipulate code of the game without actually coding, but doing certain actons and procedures, its insane

[@Sgt.Wolfhart]

Man I need to go back and really play this game again. OOT was pretty easy to figure out as a young kid but this game was rough I never really got to far before the 3 days was up. I always loved the setting of the world and everything going on. I remember I rented an N64 and this game from blockbuster then 3 days later they closed down so I got to keep it.