Nintendo keeps trying to stop Metroid Speedrunners. It's not working.

Speedrunning is about perfecting a specific game, but what happens when the developers are actively trying to stop that from happening?
Follow Our Twitter: / lowestpercent
Edited by: ‪@zayloox‬

[@zayloox]

Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed the video. The Metroid Prime community puts a lot of effort into making these games one of the best out there. I'd recommend checking out some of their runs. In particular I'd like to thank @erinexplosives, @draconif, hazel and @mrmiguel211 for helping me research this topic and helping me to record/source footage. Hopefully we can get some more content out for y'all soon!

[@TheJayTA]

15 mins ago💀

[@sabrinavong1871]

Why does the video says it was uploaded a minute ago when this comment was made 14-15 minutes ago? Was the video on private?

[@The_Red_Scare]

@@sabrinavong1871 Maybe?

[@Arvl.]

Wheres smant

[@Akuretaki_Nikolay]

w

[@eiriseven]

It should be noted that there is an old interview in which a Retro employee reveals most of the sequence break patches were done at the behest of the game's producer.

[@Electric0eye]

I'd be shocked if there was even a chance this wasn't the case but its good to have confirmation

[@easytos]

Yeah, I can imagine to an ignorant higher up seeing so much dialogue pop up around the game you're above probably freaked them out. That someone being a suit who doesn't get speed running or gaming culture past its profitability.

[@eiriseven]

@easytos That's the thing, the producer, Kensuke Tanabe, is not some random suit, he playtests these games and provides feedback, as well as dictating the gimmicks and hooks for the games. When you realize this is the same person charged with Paper Mario, you start to see a clear pattern.

[@idontwantahandlethough]

​@@eiriseven look how they've massacred my boi...

[@yeeoof1995]

@@eirisevenhe poisons everything he touches.

[@ectothermic]

Important to note that sequence break fixes are done usually under orders from someone higher up. Developers generally don't mind, especially the obscure ones since the average player won't hit them and if they do it's a cool secret they have. Nowadays especially in the indie scene sequence breaking in Metroidvanias is almost encouraged unless it's exploiting something that genuinely breaks the game for everyone.

[@SSM24_]

Shoutouts to when the Celeste community found a major cutscene glitch that saves over a minute in Chapter 9 by letting you preserve 2 max dashes when you're not supposed to, and the main dev's reaction was, and I quote: "wowowow, so cool"

[@ectothermic]

@@SSM24_ Shoutouts to the Titanfall devs for separating PVP balance from Campaign balance so the speedrunners could keep their builds and bugs~ They've been in the GDQ events talking with bryonato during his runs and being active in the community.

[@MajoraZero]

Interview with former retro devs makes it veryclear that even if they were asked for it, they approved the idea and worked hard on it. They looked up speedrunning resources to get a list of things to fix. Things that were found later after much more likely to work on all versions. Fps example in Echoes current item loss skip. It works in Trilogy since it was found very late.

[@noahblack914]

And it's also important to note the word "usually" in your own comment, meaning that sometimes it _is_ the developers, because every situation is its own thing. Could be the higher-ups' fault, could be the developers, could be both.

[@jruler93]

That's the best attitude to have about it; if it doesn't hinder the casual experience, let glitch hunters and speedrunners do whatever.

[@MrCheeze]

Notably different is how Dread was handled. They specifically avoided patching anything, and in the one exceptional case where they actually patched a major glitch (invincibility), they even apologized for doing so in the patch notes. Also, there's an easter egg in the Kraid fight that can literally only be seen by sequence breaking.

[@dave9515]

Retro didn't make dread. It was MercurySteam. Don't give Retro credit on games they didn't work on.

[@KaitouKaiju]

​@@dave9515He never claimed Retro made Dread

[@JellySword8]

You guys are getting patch notes?

[@homerman76]

@@dave9515 He just said that Dread was handled differently and better, that doesn't give Retro credit, it gives Dread's developers credit

[@dave9515]

He never specified beyond they. Pretty sure he was lazily doing this. No need to defend someone that doesn't give the proper devs credits.@@KaitouKaiju

[@petrie911]

I love that they had a failsafe to force you back in bounds thinking that would hurt out of bounds travel. One of the most annoying parts of out of bounds travel was getting back in. You either needed to find a hole in the collision to let you back in or get into the place a room will be in the aether and let it load around you. This change makes out of bounds *more* powerful.

[@isHavvy]

Was probably asked to be added in case somebody accidentally falls out of bounds.

[@frozenfeet4534]

that failsafe is standard in basically every game because of the fear of casual players getting out of bounds without meaning to. the first example that comes to mind is paper mario where almost every skip ends with "fall off the edge of the map and upwarp somewhere"

[@petrie911]

@@frozenfeet4534 This is a little different from that sort of failsafe, where the goal is to prevent falling forever. That's more analogous to the game over at low heights (which is also new to this version of Prime). This failsafe is less common because exterior walls usually have one-sided collision.

[@FantomMisfit]

​@frozenfeet4534 It wasn't in OG Prime games. If you stepped in the wrong spot you'd fall miles(yes Hyperbole) below and essentially would have to reset

[@ryxiewuff]

This is an outsider perspective, so I could be completely off base, but the removal of the aether sounds less like an intentional change to nerf speed runs and more like an incidental thing that wasn't ported over when remastering the game on a new engine. It was some physics quirk deep in an engine's code, and when using a new engine, the same quirk wasn't there. That's the kind of thing they'd have to spend time putting back in, in my opinion.

[@KyleDavis328]

It certainly seems that way, the physics bounding box seems more like a limitation of the physics engine on Gamecube hardware, that when working on the remaster they thought, "What's the point of this anymore, the console can handle just calculating physics everywhere now?"

[@MarioMastar]

Might be one of those cases of "Arson murder and jaywalking" where because there's clear evidence of tampering to prevent speedrun tech, anything that was an accident based on new hardware would be seen as such. Reminds me of how Ocarina of Time 3D deliberately attempted to keep some of the fan favorite physics and mechanics like back walking and the Power crouch stab, and Super Mario bros kept the "Wall jump bug" as a feature for those who found it, given they're deliberately repeated in future releases despite far better collision algorithms. SM64's wall jump was even inspired by the fake wall jump from the 2D games given Mario only bonks off the wall and wouldn't get his "wall slide" until Sunshine. But removing the scan dash literally hurting the ability to scan enemies and bosses is just pure spite and as such, removing the Aether looks more like they deliberately would've wanted it gone, given they didn't bother removing the out of bounds clips (easy to do, replace the box with a void out) and must've wanted to spite players without actually fixing the game.

[@GeekCritique]

The video made it sound like they made a fixed version of Mario 64 just for the Japanese Virtual Console, but that's not quite it! A Japan-exclusive special edition of Mario 64 was released in the summer of 1997. The main selling point was that it supported the rumble pak, but it included all the fixes that had been in the international release, and fixed many other glitches on top of that, including backwards long jump. Nintendo considers it the most feature-complete version for the Japanese market, so it's the version they always get on Virtual Console/NSO. It was also used as the basis for 3D All-Stars worldwide.

[@Syndicate_LS]

I find it so funny that for 3d all stars they chose to use that one but then didn’t put any effort into patching the other games. I mean it’s not really much of a shock bc it’s all emulated (sunshine is definitive proof of it with the debug paths shown for objects in secret stages), but they still could have done it. I genuinely can never tell if Nintendo is lazy, or not. Sometimes they go out of their way to do what this video shows, and other times they’ll put zero effort into something

[@Mosethyoth]

​​@@Syndicate_LS as someone who's working in Software development let me shine some light on how this is handled. Usually the developer has a backlog of things to be implemented or fixed. The decision of what is more important is made higher up by people seeing neither code nor debug states. So while a developer usually notices bugs and can evaluate their impact he has no power over when they're done. And changes are always bumped up in the ranks when they get public attention that leaks over to the executives. The thought process is not "This could hurt our player experience." or "We need to stop players to do unintended stuff." It's "I've seen this thing happen that was not in the original use case description. Take care of it next." There aren't malicious thoughts but the coding resources are there and paid and distributed where the spotlight goes.

[@doomse150]

​@@Syndicate_LS Outside of the temporary stuff for the 35th Mario celebration, they usually are very much on top of things when it comes to both game polish and patching. TotK for example received almost daily patches when it came out. I genuinely don't know what happened with the 35th anniversary stuff. Either they were hit way harder by the first Covid waves than they were admitting, or something went terribly wrong with their plans because I genuinely can't believe that they planned on doing that weak of a celebration. I certainly doubt that it was "laziness" since there's no real precedent for that otherwise. A lot of their other decisions do make sense if you try viewing it from their perspective (although a lot of people don't like the probable reasoning), but that one will forever be a mystery. Maybe they originally intended to have Wonder ready for the anniversary, although that would be a massive delay.

[@hhdhpublic]

Since it was released in 97 it means that the fixes were done for other reasons than impeding speedrunning, right? Afaik speedrunning wasnt even a thing back then.

[@Syndicate_LS]

@@Mosethyoth I know, but my point is the 3d all stars collections actively went and chose the patched version, but they still didn’t bother to go ahead and patch the other games to match. The original was only patched because it was discovered so early, and rereleased super quickly in Japan. If they went and used a patched version, why didn’t they bother to patch the others? And if they didn’t bother to patch the others, why did they choose to use the patched version of sm64? Half effort half not.

[@Tael98]

It does bring a smile to my face when speedrunners find a way to use the patches to do skips that were previously unachievable.

[@rollanddev]

Building a better lock only gives someone a reason to build a better lockpick.

[@avalonjustin]

That's what they get for trying to punish players for their programming oversights!

[@santosic]

That is the icing on the cake for me. Not only do speedrunners still find a way to do skips and sequence breaks despite the patches, but they find new ways to do them using said patches that were only added to stop those things in the first place, lol.

[@HumilityInTeaching]

@@rollanddevpin this

[@Naymy]

Yeah, it is like the giving the guy in charge the finger and I am all for that.

[@devanbrowne8706]

On one hand, I certainly get how frustrating it is when patches remove fun speedrun tools. On the other hand, there's a certain kind of drama and intrigue that comes from the arms race between developers trying to patch sequence breaks out of their game, and speedrunners constantly discovering new ones.

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

and the discovered ones usually are caused by some random fix the devs did At some point they need to ask "Why even bother to patch this if they are just going to break it again?" Sure if it can easily be done by a casual unknowingly patch it but other than that i say let people have their fun

[@PixelSubstream]

It just ends up hurting the casual players to control a minority speedrunners

[@paragonyoshi4237]

For the most part, devs don't care. It's the higher up's, who see glitches like "Out of Bounds" as a potential for declining sales and consumer complaints. Since way the suits see it, potential costumers could see the glitches, think it's a broken product and opt to not buy it.

[@Sirfortune881]

​@@paragonyoshi4237cuz that is broken what don't people get about that your not sapose to glitch out of bounds and shit no developer has ever sead hey let make breaks in are game for the speedruners

[@Alienrun]

I still can't get over how the Sonic Mania devs added wind under Flying Battery 1 cause Tails could fly under a huge chunk of the level (its hard to do but you can do it)...then they added Ray later and cause his flying is more OP than Tails he can skip the same section despite their being wind! Makes me question what the point was honestly... (This isn't even getting into how they got rid of downhill roll jumping for no reason...but that's another story...)

[@SemiHypercube]

trying to patch out speedrun tricks can be a Sisyphean task

[@ssnsfronunder8234]

you must imagine nintendo happy (instead of pushing a big rock they're pushing a morph ball)

[@kristoffer3000]

@@ssnsfronunder8234 It's actually just a ball of lawsuit papers.

[@rollanddev]

@@kristoffer3000 I was going to say it's a ball of their fans' tears of frustration...

[@Miss_Trillium]

I had this itch in the back of my mind, like a memory forgotten Anyone else remember YandereDev?

[@sandordugalin8951]

I think Nintendo should take a fucking xanax.

[@JellySword8]

Super Metroid: "We designed the puzzles and progression to allow for sequence breaking" Metroid Prime: "You'll have fun how we tell you to"

[@kwakerjak]

They didn’t have a problem with sequence breaking in Super Metroid because that’s how THEY designed it, therefore it is approved fun.

[@ectothermic]

@@kwakerjaklet's not forget Zero Mission with tons of designed shortcuts to sequence break all of it, and Fusion which is so scripted and nailed down it's actually crazy.

[@EvdogMusic]

​@@ectothermicI like how Fusion makes players feel like the intended paths are sequence breaks

[@ectothermic]

@@EvdogMusic Well, Fusion holds your hand a lot and locks doors behind you, but it does have shortcuts between areas for the endgame yeah, anytime before that it's extremely linear and barely lets you explore. Zero Mission had a lot of intended shortcuts for skipping items, bosses, etc. That one actually had speedrunners in mind and embraced it. Every Metroid after has been progressively more railroady unfortunately.

[@ZelosSama]

Nah its nintendo they are like thisnin all their games the more it goes on

[@louiepikmin3184]

Babe wake up, new lowest percent video just dropped

[@ZACKY1Z]

I've been waiting for this moment for a long time

[@whydoiexist2180]

Been over 8 months

[@ssr8555]

Babe has been gone for 8 months now, please, let them go already😢

[@ruffes3141]

It do be like that xD

[@MichaelSchwartzJazz]

And it’s a zayloox episode 💜

[@Buphido]

Man, that kinda sucks. I didn’t even know they were so rigorous with patches in this series! Patching out out-of-bounds glitches or the like is already annoying, but adding rubble or locks in front of doors? Those are things that heavily impact casual play as well! Many ppl don’t like Prime 3 as much since it’s the most linear entry, which should show you that what they ACTUALLY want out of these games is the freedom to explore and play the game in (partially) their desired order! Oh and removing infinite bomb jump is one of the biggest sins, it’s probably the most iconic sequence break trick out of the entire franchise and removing it stings a lot.

[@Reishadowen]

The point of patching glitches should be to prevent ruining the immersion of the game & story. Speed-runners and challenge-runners aren't interested in immersion however, they are trying to mechanically master the game to perform incredible feats. If your game has glitches or exploits that are really only found by those who are looking for them, you're probably doing it right.

[@FerousFolly]

11:10 "they patched a glitch and thereby removed a huge skip from the run, but conveniently placed a brand new ledge that re-enables the huge skip" ngl bro sounds like you have a sympathiser on the dev tem

[@theMifyoo]

My thoughts are maybe they don't hate speedruners. But instead patched the game so the speedrunners could have the joy of breaking it again.

[@FerousFolly]

@@theMifyoo I kinda doubt that, but it's an interesting thought

[@Numbabu]

@@theMifyoorival factions within the dev team. One of them removes a big skip, but the infiltrator adds a ledge just big enough that speed runners can still make it.

[@BlueSparxLPs]

In these situations, I always feel it's a matter of "the devs don't want this change, someone with higher authority than them does." Really this is just malicious compliance in the player's favor and I'm all for it.

[@QwertyuiopThePie]

Honestly, this vid makes it sound like the game devs have it out for speedrunners, which is just absolutely not how the process works. If the devs are told to fix a bug, they have to fix the bug. It's their job.

[@jmporkbob]

If I'm not mistaken they patched the backwards long jump on the version of Mario 64 that released on the 64DD. And due to that being technically the "last" version of the game, it was used for all the VC releases for Japan, and I think it finally got used as a base for all regions in 3D All-Stars.

[@GeekCritique]

That's close, but not quite it! A Japan-exclusive version of Mario 64 came out on cartridge in the summer of 1997. The main selling point was that it supported the rumble pak, but it included fixes that had been in the international release, and fixed many other glitches as well, including backwards long jump. Nintendo considers it the most feature-complete version for the Japanese market, so it's the version they always get on Virtual Console, NSO, and it was used as the basis for 3D All-Stars worldwide.

[@jmporkbob]

@@GeekCritique You keep geekin

[@lpfan4491]

Yeah, the major breakingpoint was that it was only in japanese and they don't like touching the roms these days. They used it for 3D Allstars(And thus making one 3D Allstars version for all regions) because they used the same method as with the Fire Emblem 1-localization(that being to patch the text into the game using the emulator. if one extracts the rom, it is 1:1 the original japanese game)

[@menderbug1]

But the backwards longjump is in the 3D Allstars version, no?

[@MirrorHall_Clay]

​@menderbug1 no. It is very much not.

[@sebastianromero3393]

I really find Nintendo’s behaviour in this situation odd, as in the mainline games they seemed to mostly encourage sequence break to help beat the game faster.

[@No_Sleepee]

You forget Nintfndo back then actially liked their fans

[@sebastianromero3393]

@@No_Sleepee Touché

[@Safetyswitch]

except fusion

[@amberhernandez]

It's like the cartoons where someone's trying to plug leaks, but another hole pops up every time lol

[@arizimal]

A day with a new lowest percent video is a good day

[@abloogywoogywoo]

Thank you for this video. As a PAL gamer, I always felt like I was playing a harder game than those in America. The final boss is a damage-sponge pain in the ass on Normal mode. I’ve only ever beaten it once on Hard. Omega Pirate made me reset so many times I nearly broke my GameCube.

[@SIMIFU]

I dont know if that it completely intentional, they just really like to polish their games to a grand standard. For better...and for worse when it comes to bugs and glitches that also is just collateral damage for speedrunning.

[@DaijDjan]

Except as explained in the video, sometimes them removing tools speedrunner could use in ways they weren't intended to, they actually made the normal playing experience worse. Fixing bugs is good and important - changing stuff because speedrunners found loopholes and don't play the game you want them to, is just petty imho.

[@javiersaneiro6412]

​@@DaijDjan And who are you to say this makes normal playing experience worse? Just because it is harder doesn't mean it is worse. Maybe the dev's intention was for combat scanning to be dangerous and hard, and therefore, the fact that normal players could use the glitch to make it easier is something that is wrong that devs must fix. Precisely, the fact the glitch affects normal players gives the devs more reasons to fix it. As a developer myself (but not from video games), I could understand the devs. They coded the game with an intended gameplay, and I could understand why, for many of them, a speedrun video, no matter how fun it is for speedrunners and the audience, is a hall of shame of their coding mistakes. I understand that a developer would feel shame instead of pride in a video of their game showing the blatant mistake of a sequence-breaking glitch. Those videos are evidence that they have made mistakes in their work, and a programmer with pride in their job will prefer to fix it, even to the point that a big problem on this job is not being able to stop perfecting the code because we wait for programmers to keep working until they believe their code is perfect probably most of us won't ever finish any project. So, don't cause devs to be malicious against speedrunners with the explicit objective of breaking their way of play when, most of the time, the jobs have a mentality of "I coded the game to do this; if it does that instead, it means I made a mistake, and it's my job to fix it." And that is true in any sector, not just video games. They have nothing against speedrunners. Probably some devs never ever follow or even know about the existence of speedrunners (as proven with Mario 64, whose fixed version was made years before speedrunners existed at all), but it just happens that statistically, speedrunners have more chances to find those mistakes.

[@javiersaneiro6412]

@@antipsychotic451 More fantasy that believing than fixes for glitches made 20 years ago were created just to piss in the future to speedrunners that weren't even born when the fixes were created isn't a fantasy? No, believing in that is not a fantasy. It is insanity.

[@stevenclark5173]

@@javiersaneiro6412 As a developer you should know that if your coding "fix" actively makes the user experience worse, then you need to find another solution. That was the problem with removing scan dash. Scan dashing was not something that negatively affected your average user in any way, shape or form. There is no way to have this perfectly developed game with no bugs or glitches that only allows for the "intended gameplay experience". All you end up doing is restricting the players freedom which is a net negative to your gameplay experience. If you want a good counterexample look at Metroid Dread. There was a sequence breaking glitch that could softlock the game. Did they patch the sequence break? No, they patched the softlock. That's how you solve the issue while keeping in the enhanced experience. I don't know why anyone would care about a developer's intended experience in a game or any software. The user's experience is all that matters. In the case of a game, are the users having fun and enjoying the game, then it's working as intended. Does your patching of the code enhance that fun or take away from it. Those are the only relevant questions and anything else is just letting developer ego/pride get in the way of their success. It reminds me of chefs who insist that foods be eaten or cooked in a certain way and anything else is just wrong or subpar. If the customer prefers ketchup on their A5 Wagyu filet cooked to medium well then that's their preference and it would be foolish to try and correct them.

[@DevilWearsAdidas]

I'd like to imagine the balance team being like "We see what you did here and we're going to go ahead and fix this" and then the Metroid community be like "YOU THOUGHT BRO"

[@Nupleyboi]

I like to imagine some of the stuff like the very slight slope in remaster to get space boots again was something that Retro intentionally put in "OH NO! We're so sorry mister Nintendo higher up! They somehow made it possible to get space boots again but in a different way! 😢"

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

but is the level geometry actually changed, or was that more difficult technique always available?

[@AlphaStrategyGuides]

​@@TheJacklikesvideosIt was physically changed. They placed a collision box there that only disappears when you open either of the two doors up here (collecting the boots are not required).

[@xboxgamer474246]

Creative tenacity! Love to see this kind of ingenuity.

[@PandaBearXVI]

I guess I understand why the devs would want to patch out known glitches and sequence breaks. Just from a pure "it's broken, it must be fixed" standpoint. But the speedrunning community is such a small fraction of people, I don't really understand why you'd want to devote the effort just to thwart like 0.2% of the people that play your game. The vast majority of your playerbase don't even know this stuff is possible (I didn't either). So... just let the speedrunners have their fun?

[@vyor8837]

It's Nintendo, if it isn't what they intended then it's bad abd needs to be banned.

[@ghoulbuster1]

You don't understand, Nintendo doesn't want you to have fun. Fun is against their ToS

[@BaneOfXistence4]

​@@SawGudmanThats true if you build a vehicle or a tool or literally anything that requires maximum safety and efficiency. But in relation to video games, they still "work" as intended despite the fact that other people "break" the game. And thats the beauty of it, you can choose how you want to play.

[@alexseguin5245]

@@SawGudman No. You always have the choice to fix it or not, and it's a good thing to reconsider what is intended depending on how your players use your game. Fortunately, good developers understand this, like those who made The Messenger.

[@Fine_i_set_the_handle]

a lot of people get upset when something they make isn't being used how they intended

[@logicfoxgaming1411]

Oh, it’s very nice seeing a video about Prime speedrunning. I joined the Prime Modding Community some time ago, and the first thing I remember seeing is that room collision in Life Grove was extended upwards in Remastered.

[@AlphaStrategyGuides]

They also extended it in Ruined Courtyard (SW3). 😭

[@logicfoxgaming1411]

@@AlphaStrategyGuides I ought to double check which rooms have had their collision raised. I do know that not all OoB rooms have been edited. For example, Gathering Hall was completely untouched.

[@Dark_Jaguar]

As much as I respect fixing issues with going through walls or into the aether, I can't understand their desire to fix sequence breaks that are both fun and fit within the established rules of the game, like very skilled jumping to reach certain platforms early, or bomb jumps. Let us have our sequence breaks. They're a big part of what makes Metroid games fun! I've kinda thought this ever since the old Gamecube days...

[@deadersurvival4716]

eSport players in Nintendo games: "First time?"

[@vyor8837]

Have you ever seen nintendo? Ever?

[@Mrperson0]

It's literally Nintendo. They don't want you to sequence break. If they ever remake Super Metroid, you can expect a bunch of its sequence breaks to be removed.

[@foop145]

I imagine they patch this stuff because they're worried about their brand. If they leave massive sequence breaks in the game, it reflects poorly on them as developers. If your game can be utterly broken with ease, your quality control is shit. From a business perspective, it's only natural to not want your company to develop a reputation for releasing inferior products. If you have a reputation for making glitchy games, other companies aren't gonna want to work with you. You'll also likely lose access to IPs you otherwise could've gotten. If George R.R. Martin wants to make a GoT game, he probably doesn't want it to be a buggy pile of garbage, even if that's what's most fun for speedrunners. As a gamer who loves speedruns, I'm not a fan of devs who try to kill speedrunning. But I can understand why a company might make such a choice. If speedrunners are beating your game in 3 minutes due to massive oversights in your code, that makes you look wildly incompetent.

[@deadersurvival4716]

@@foop145 Aside from the fact that you've posted this on multiple threads, making you look like a Nintendo suck-up, I'm going to ignore that. No. Even if you could make the argument that "oh speedrunners show off glitches", that doesn't cover every category, and Nintendo goes after every category. And let's be honest, the ones that DO take those glitches and try to replicate them, are likely speedrunners in their own right. The rest of us just look at it and say "oh, that's cool" before moving on with our lives. Even then, let's make the devil's advocate argument that Nintendo is just lazy and it's easier to fuck over their ENTIRE speedrunning scene instead of just the major glitches; why would they target the esport's scene? And it isn't even around Smash (though that's the most obvious case), basically every time that a comp scene pops up around an Nintendo game, Nintendo does everything in their power to shut it down. The only time they've EVER supported (or ignored) their esport's scenes was Splatoon... Which lasted for an entire season before they cut funding, cut community prizing, and did everything in their power to shut it down. No, inevitably, this is Nintendo being a pack of pricks and not understanding the gamer culture they make games for.

[@bloodstoneore4630]

Glad to see this channel back

[@koytru]

It wasn't the game that was the problem. It wasn't the community, the development, or even the bugs, glitches, or "features" that were the problem. The problem was the people who thought they saw a problem.

[@czx_]

I literally came back to this channel earlier today after months, wondering when their next video will be posted. Well LP, You guys did not disappoint!

[@JonasRosenven]

You are not subscribed?

[@czx_]

@@JonasRosenven I am, I just came back to watch earlier videos.

[@spawnof200]

nintendo hates it when people have fun in a way they didnt intend for

[@OS-zp4cy]

"Nintendo keeps trying to stop Metroid Speedrunners" -> Proceeds to use Iwata's face in the thumbnail, as if he hasn't been dead for 8 years already

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

He's the speedrunner

[@Zilch93]

Yeah.... really bad taste to use iwata

[@carnage0685]

@@Zilch93 Yeah this uploader is a scumbag.

[@magodeluna]

It's happened most in Iwata's time

[@sephikong8323]

But it's still appropriate isn't it since most attempts at curtailing Speedrunning happened DURING his time

[@EerieBleary]

Nintendo: "So here we've patched out tons of known sequence breaks from our game, now it's completely bulletproof!" Metroid Prime Speedrunners: "Doesn't work"

[@MrMiguel211]

doesn't work

[@RudolfaSong]

I have been rewatching the old videos of lowest percent for months these are always the absolute best

[@darthnihilus1608]

Always a delight seeing a new Lowest% video being uploaded!

[@derous]

Kinda odd to use Iwata's image in the thumbnail.

[@0condolences]

not really

[@derous]

@@0condolences yeah

[@TrevelyanOO6]

Not just anti speed runners, my daughter closed my 1.1.1 zelda. When I picked up my switch i had 1.1.2. I was having a lot of fun, but after that I just headed straight to gannon, completed the game and never touched it again. I’m sure if I still had 1.1.1 gannon would still be alive and I would still be messing about enjoying the game.

[@jatoxo]

It's easy to look at this and antagonize the developers. If a game I made had pretty big glitches in it, or someone did end up finding a way to actually glitch out of the map (something devs spent a lot of time on to prevent), my main thought too would be "oh I should fix that". Especially if I am working on a remake. I wouldn't be against keeping bugs in if people want them, but leaving the game in that state would feel strange as a dev because your normal workflow is finding exactly those kinds of things and fixing them

[@paragonyoshi4237]

Wrong answer. Devs mostly don't care, as they are actually the ones to naturally see the out of bounds, since they're filling the void with a map to traverse. It's mostly ignorant suits, who think people will see glitches and bugs en masse and think of the game as trash. Hence they order the devs to fix it. But the reality of it, that it is all just paranoia. Most people don't care about this. And the few that do, are mostly i. diots

[@lostsauce0]

I think the problem is patching out bugs that only happen if you specifically try to trigger them (like backwards long jump). If it doesn't affect normal players, you're just pissing off speedrunners. I think it makes sense to fix something when it actually detracts from a normal player.

[@globalistgamer6418]

Yeah, I also feel this ascribes too much malign intent to the devs, especially since the older versions of the game are still playable. You could take the opposite argument and ascribe unrealistic generosity towards speedrunners as well: the developers designed a whole new speedrunning meta specifically for runners to to explore! Realistically, it's just that making the game function as close to intended as possible, regardless of whether that has other positive or negative consequences. There are 'elegant' bugs that I wish Nintendo had kept in later versions of games (e.g. item dashing in A Link to the Past, which the average person who didn't know would probably think was a intended feature if they saw because it procedurally animates in a way that looks natural and professional). However, things like out of bounds here aren't like that and appear obviously glitchy and artificial (even if they weren't able to prevent it occurring, I support them trying to at least deincentivize it). I think the issue is more that Prime's intended design is just not that good by Metroid standards (excessively slow movement with no equivalent to the likes of speedbooster and lack of inherent sequence-breaking tech like wall-jumps; overly segmented world design with noticeable per-room loading; arbitrary and awkwardly backtrack-heavy item placement). That makes it overly reliant on exploits (some of which would n other speedrun games typically get banned by the community, let alone developers) to try to replay smoothly, and is more what should be critiqued rather than the glitches themselves.

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

@@globalistgamer6418 "(even if they weren't able to prevent it occurring, I support them trying to at least deincentivize it)" fixing a glitch that takes the players OoB is one thing, changing how OoB works to spite people who deliberately go there instead is an asshole move. there's a difference between having a particular way you want the game to function and trying to enforce a particular style of play on users. none of the changes to OoB physics serve to improve, enhance, or polish the game experience for general use case players.

[@globalistgamer6418]

The amount of people who can or realistically would execute glitches probably isn't the only thing they care about. If there is a good incentive to use them for speedrunning, etc, they will appear in streams that are viewed by a much larger number of people, including people who haven't played the game and who Nintendo would think of primarily as potential customers. Although the reality is complex and some of those viewers wouldn't necessary see 'ugly' bugs as a reason to avoid buying the game, I also don't think it's unreasonable or irrational for Nintendo to be concerned about them making a negative impression.

[@Tique865]

Glad to see this channel isn't dead

[@claiminglight]

I am 100% on board with developers patching speed glitches of all forms out of games, for a number of reasons. Primarily: - If speedrunning a game doesn't look anything like playing the game, then I say you aren't really speedrunning the game. You may be the fastest to reach the credits, but that's like trying to 'speed run' a soccer match by getting a screwdriver and tampering with the clock. - Proficiency with precise setups and data mining aren't how games are played. It may be impressive from an execution angle when someone pulls off something extremely specific-- but have you ever noticed how many speedrunners actually suck at playing actual games? Recreating the path of a TAS through muscle memory isn't the same as being good at games. And when we watch speedruns-- we want to see people being good at games. - Non-professional players ruin games for themselves by watching what a speedrunner does before playing, then recreating what they do-- particularly when the skip or glitch is easy to preform. Some few gamers can handle the responsibility of holding themselves back from ruining their own experience. Most can't. Most players will, as Soren Johnson and Sid Meier's said, "optimize the fun out of a game,” and that, therefore, “one of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves.” And that's what's happening here. Developers are fixing games, not to stop runners from going fast-- but to make *playing the game* the optimal strategy. And what happens when you don't do anything to support the game instead? You get runs like OoT.

[@jimphilidor9031]

Metroid Prime on GameCube is so much fun to run because of all the cool tricks and sequence breaks you can do. While the PAL version had the scandash removed, you can still do almost any sequence break as in the NTSC version, but perhaps in a different way. The later versions are another story.

[@AjaySharma-kt4gm]

And they're back! Love this channel! A shame it uploads so less

[@Plotless00]

The one lesson i'll take away from this video is that NIntendo will never stop rereleasing Metroid Prime

[@satansbarman]

Right? 10 versions 😂

[@I.C.Weiner]

​@@satansbarman"Those are rookie numbers" Skyrim

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

A new upload? Now that I finished watching, I'll see everyone here again in 2024.

[@bdhdr4226]

Metroid Prime is my favorite game and what got me into speedrunning. I've always been frustrated by the removal of scan dashing but it's great to see new techniques found. I hadn't seen that new sun chamber tech yet, that's awesome!

[@sambeckettcat]

I have to wonder if instead of this being a vendetta against speedrunners, it’s that Nintendo simply has a policy of not letting bugs/unintended aspects of games remain, and it only seems to target speedruns because those make such things more noticeable, so those get “fixed” more often? Basically using speedrunners as post-release “bug testers”? (Same result in the end though, and doesn’t explain the dubious reasonings that one dev gave)

[@jevonp]

They didn’t do that for the other 3 games in the Mario 35 collection though

[@javiersaneiro6412]

@@jevonp That is not incompatible. Mario 35 collection are emulated rooms. They also have a policy to not touch emulated games (except to add translations, but sometimes not even that) and release the last version available, which is exactly what they did with the 35-anniversary collection, with Classic NSO games or the old Wii and WiiU VC: Releasing the latest rom available without absolutely no change. Metro Prime instead of a Remake, so it counts as a new game instead of an emulated rom, so, even if it is a remake of an old version, they treat it as a new game and fix any glitches that they would have fixed if they had found it on a new game you had never play.

[@jevonp]

@@javiersaneiro6412 that word salad didnt really make sense. they decided to fix bugs in one and didnt in another, nintendo isn't exactly consistent when it comes to this shit

[@javiersaneiro6412]

@@jevonp The only problem with your affirmation is that it is false. They didn't include any new fixes in the Mario 35 collection that weren't made 20 years ago. Just because you noticed now a fix made in 1997 doesn't mean Nintendo has made that fix now to stop you from speedrunning. They fixed it in 1997 because they found the glitch, but the Western audience didn't notice because it wasn't released outside of Japan. You are aware of those fixes today because they have re-released the game using the latest version available. It wasn't fixed to prevent speedrunners 20 years into the future. And the glitches they didn't fix? Probably because they weren't aware of them because they found those glitches independently from speedrunners. The problem with this video is that it overestimates the importance of speedrunners. Just because it happens that Nintendo fixed a glitch that affects speedrunners doesn't mean they did intentionally fight against them or even that Nintendo is aware of the existence of speedrunners.

[@sweetypuss]

​@mikael557 and that's why they should all be locked in rooms with no way to escape

[@helloismabye]

Kind of fucked up using Satoru Iwata's image in the thumbnail for this kind of video tbh

[@alulim4968]

Why? bc he was a perfect holy saint? this happened when he was alive.

[@vcom741]

Look, no one is the devil for patching exploits lol. It’s less of a “ooo that evil Nintendo!” And more just a thing that happened.

[@SwordsmanOrion]

Wow, the devs are really that petty? That's just sad.

[@CoralCopperHead]

Execs, not devs.

[@parkersmith9821]

More excited about Lowest Percent Metroid video than my birthday 🫡

[@fabmoneyy]

its been 8 months! thank you for coming back!

[@camwyn256]

I always saw getting Space Jump early like NG+ Or, more specifically, like Super Metroid. Playing a second time, you always had access to wall jumping, you just didn't know it, but a second play through you can do a different sequence

[@sackfu7952]

Nintendo really seems to hate when we play their games 'incorrect' i'm sure that if they ever caught their kids playing super Mario odyssey and pretending they were Goku, they'd assume their child had brain damage and send them off to be dissected and studied because they cannot comprehend a 'normal' person playing Mario in any other way than just going from world 1 to the bowser fight and then saying "I beat the game, guess that's it" I can understand patching out bugs that are incredibly game breaking and super easy to pull off to the point that casual players are just breaking the game effortlessly but in situations like speedrunning where it's mostly on speedrunners pulling off these tricks because they require such pin-perfect accuracy, trying to stop speedrunners from doing these tricks, especially if it means causal players get caught in the crossfire, is just petty and only meant to force the player base to play the game in the most normal, broing, "Get from point A the point B and then if you wanna play again, restart your file and play the game normally again, never deviate and play the game in a new and interesting way that we didn't intend for" sort of way. I'm also of the opinion that most of these patches were not Retro's idea, Nintendo higher ups who hate when their fans play their games in a way different to the specific way Nintendo wants you to play their games simply told Retro "Patch these out, now! No speedruns! Everyone must play the game this specific way forever!" And Retro, likely not being allowed to badmouth Nintendo publicly, were forced to go along with it.

[@RiddSann]

It really boggles my mind that some "higher-up" twats think paying their devs to patch OOB exploits in a 10+ years old game to ... kill its speedrun scene ? Like, dude, *you* are the one re-releasing the same game to keep making money from it, and speedrun *does* that too.

[@DisasterArea]

Metroid Prime 1 and 2 are probably my most favorite games. When their randomizers allowed for seeds to be generated quick and easy, I finally decided to learn some speedrun tricks to be able to play more diverse seeds. I'm not a speedrunner by any means, I just looked up some simple scan dashes and other little things to skip or speed up picking up items in a rando setting. But the whole process taught me a lot about the tech and design behind these games while also making me a better player at them. Learning all that only made me enjoy the games even more than ever.

[@Tezos1644]

Nintendo doing nintendo things? Unexpected.

[@ivain1084]

Thanks for the video! Just one pet peeve though: I know "game dev" or "developper" is often used to mean either developper, game designer, game director or even studio executive, but this is one instance it *really* shouldn't. Despite what you said, there is no inconsistensy between individual game devs being fan of speedruns on one hand, and patches that remove exploits on the other hand. The latter are very probably demanded by managers, or studio executives, i.e. "higher ups". And a developper that cares about keeping his job would comply with what is asked of him, even if it removes an exploit he enjoys watching or hurts normal gameplay. As a side note, this distinction between roles is much less prominent in smaller structures like indie studios, where the game dev and game director can be the same person.

[@unai49999]

Seems like Nintendo is the only company that wants their games to be un-fun. Then they release totk where breaking the game and glitching through the celling are built in funtions.

[@frankenbou]

But why Iwata as Nintendo's face? RIP Iwata.

[@frankenbou]

@TigranK115 yeah, the thumbnail just reminded me that he is not around anymore.

[@alulim4968]

@@frankenbou well deal with it. He is not Mohhamad to be never depicted.

[@frankenbou]

@@alulim4968 deffo the comment I needed 10 months later to cure me from my Iwata obsession, thanks!

[@Videogabemoment]

Feel like using Satoru Iwata as a Nintendo representation wasn’t the best choice…

[@IShallRiseAgain]

While its nice to sometimes accommodate speed-runners and leave in benign bugs. I complete understand getting rid of bugs that have a chance of putting the game in a abnormal unintended state or cause crashes even if its unlikely a causal player will experience it. Although Nintendo can be assholes about speedrunning, like with pokemon and its excessive flag checking.

[@DillonMagreveous]

Rip Satoru Iwata

[@timschommer8548]

I really don't think that attempting to fix what could arguably be seen as problems with their product (sequence breaks, glitches, balancing issues, etc) qualifies as having a vendetta against speedrunners.

[@No_Life_Alex]

nintendo hating competitive harmless fun? oh my god! this is shocking and out of character! I would never expect this! woe is me!

[@Actual_Real_Person]

A Lowest Percent video after 8 months? Yes please!

[@reynoldskynaston9529]

As much as I don’t understand why devs patch many glitches out I also don’t think they do it stop speedrunners. I think it’s really as simple as “that’s a bug we need to fix”

[@No_Life_Alex]

I think it's bcuz nintendo has a history of just... hating any sort of competitiveness or playing the game in an unintended way. Hell, they took down pointcorw's challenge run videos for BOTW. They weren't even modded it was just a challenge run.

[@slenderMax28]

Well, if the glitch that's being patched out was discovered by speedrunners and is only being used by speedrunners, there's effectively no difference.

[@swagmuffin9000]

@@slenderMax28what do you mean?

[@bane2201]

@@swagmuffin9000 Pretty sure slenderMax meant that, if a bug doesn't affect casual players, then it doesn't matter whether the goal is _specifically_ to stop speedrunners or just to fix bugs. That is, assuming no one is being negatively affected by the bug, why fix the bug? Only people who choose to do the bug (speedrunners) are being affected, and they're benefiting from it.

[@swagmuffin9000]

@@bane2201 oh ok, gotcha

[@aurafox1]

The concept of trying to stop sequence breaking in a Metroid game is wild to me. This whole franchise is designed around it.

[@johnpett1955]

I wanna know why Nintendo cares so much about how people play their game. It's not like speedrunning glitches even effect the casual experience anyways.

[@KoroxasHeart]

"No, this isn't how you suppose to play the game" In a nutshell

[@lordofthevallies2280]

I always look forwards to these uploads. Thank you for giving us such consistently quality and informative content!

[@revine9243]

bot

[@Sillimant_]

"consistently" bot detected

[@cosmiclikesminecraft]

I just wish there was more built in freedom. Or super Metroid style sequence breaks where there’s plenty of replay ability for casual runs because a lot of the early item get tricks aren’t that hard

[@idlingabout6128]

glad to see this channel back!!

[@archerelms]

It's been a while, Lowest Percent! Glad to see you again!

[@StopChangingUsernamesYouTube]

It's such a silly thing to chase, really. A lot of the glitches speedrunners use are the sort that are both hard to trigger unknowingly and beneficial to the player. Those really don't scream "worth the time" unless there's an online component to the game. If it's easy to trigger by accident, softlocks you, and/or resets some collectable? Yeah, that's something to fix. The exception to my own views came up pretty recently with Zonai device duping in ToTK. For the early versions, you just had to fail to pull out something, perhaps due to being in a cave or just too close to a wall, and you had a non-zero chance of getting extra stuff without even meaning to or knowing how. _That's_ the sort of beneficial glitch I'd call worth trying to fix, and they did.

[@pianoboyedm4829]

I feel like some of these patches make sense from a general game design standpoint. Initiating a game over if the player starts falling out of bounds to prevent them being softlocked in an infinite fall is pretty standard

[@speertime]

I like how they remember this channel exists every couple months

[@mastermold10]

kind of ironic that they would try to stop speedruning when the first ever metroid game literaly had a mechanic built into it designed to ENCOURAGE speedrunning the game...

[@ActuallySamuel6710]

Great vid! Really gives Prime runners some good recognition, and also shows the dedication that the community has to break these games. Even today, the original release is still having some occasional new discoveries.

[@RoodyOh]

I don't think Nintendo has something against speedrunners in particular, I think it's their ideaology to get the games in a state how they are supposed to be played. Sure enough it's kinda frustrating to some speedrunners, but therefore we have the rule to always use the 1.0 version of a game so that everyone can compete in its original state.

[@Captain_Neckbeard]

Nintendo hates their entire customer base. See Smash, Mother, etc.

[@SnakebitSTI]

@@Captain_NeckbeardNintendo only hates non-Japanese Mother fans.

[@M64bros]

​@@Captain_NeckbeardYou mean the delusional ungrateful fanbase that has a bunch of 35-year-old neck beards that cry over a stupid 21-year-old game that are p3dos and pr3dators behind the scenes?

[@abloogywoogywoo]

Nintendo are guilty of a lot of anti consumer practices over the years. They invented Region Locking.

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

Honestly i subscribe to the idea that they need to spend more time testing for glitches and less time patching. Hell i hate the idea of these days a game can be released then later patched through the internet connection as it allows them to be lazy

[@guizhangchen1999]

7:45: "Charging up speed for nearly a minute!" Wind Waker runners: "That's cute."

[@joshuasanderson7359]

I think it's silly to frame bug fixes as "trying to stop speed runners". Bugs and glitches are unintended functionality and it makes sense that a developer who takes pride in their work will want to iron out problems in the code and to minimise the amount of unexpected outcomes for players.

[@benardman2665]

I heard japanese devs dont hate speedrunners. Its more of a cultural thing, where they feel like any holes or glitches in their game makes them feel like a failure, thats shipping out a broken game.

[@KyleDavis328]

Retro is an American studio based out of Texas.

[@benardman2665]

@@KyleDavis328 who's money and broad direction come from which country?

[@Perroden]

I think it's impossible to release a complete game with zero bugs.

[@teazen_tea]

I honestly LOVE speedruners its so cool to see the rabdom obscure things that people come up with speedrunning documentarys are one of my favorite things to watch

[@evancoffland19]

I think maybe they misunderstand what speed running is. Perhaps they think it’s some kind of taunt? Like the player is saying, “your game is so easy and broken that I can beat it in 20 minutes.”

[@petedawg]

That’s all I can figure. Speedrunniing is also done by a small percentage of the gaming community.

[@genobreaker1054]

Metroids 1, 2, 3, 4 and Zero Mission all have special endings that at least partially depend on you beating the game within a certain time limit.

[@anubis243-x5h]

I will never understand Nintendo’s insistence you play the way they want under all circumstances. I get it when it’s something a casual player might run into frequently and it disrupts the intended flow of the game. But if you need to know what you’re doing to make the sequence break you’re VERY unlikely to have your experience spoiled.

[@swagmuffin9000]

Exactly! Seriously, what casual player is going to think about going through the mines backwards for instance? I'm not saying it's impossible someone would think about that door, but it's highly unlikely they will figure it out or try. Like you said, yes, they should fix stuff that anyone could potentially run into, and stop there.

[@Zeronightmarefox]

There's a really fair argument to be made, in which developing a game just for it to be skipped by a bug or glitch is really frustrating in itself.

[@VincentGuillotine]

it feels weird to hear an explanation of how patching was not always a thing. we've reached a point where most gamers don't know that

[@colbyboucher6391]

Right? I feel like I just aged twenty years

[@satansbarman]

​@@colbyboucher6391yep, the good old days when you bought a game in its final form, if it had glitches that was just how it was, or you'd get the "game of the year" edition that might have been patched. Also, no half finished games on release and no microtransactions for everything

[@TheShizzlemop]

what do you mean floppy disk, that's just "the save icon"

[@LeSpatiocorne]

I was wondering when lowest% will have an upload and what I see ? A new video ! 🎉 Thanks for all the amazing work and to the communities sharing these incredible details and making possible videos like that. 😊

[@WowCreativeUsername]

Sounds like classic Nintendo to me. "You will play out games the way we demand them to be played. Also gives us full price for old games."

[@thomasffrench3639]

Yeah it’s called taking pride in their work. Why would old games cost less than new ones if it was made post PS2 era if it is high in demand?

[@GlichCentral]

I understand patching major game-breaking glitches, and glitches that affect the casual experience, but making the game worse to remove some obscure exploit truly baffles me. The fact that someone managed to do something unintended aren’t grounds to make the game worse for everyone.

[@Damaniel3]

Nintendo: "Stop having fun wrong!"

[@megaman37456]

Me: BITCH I DO WHAT I WANT!

[@akuma_tenshi6176]

Oh thank whoever runs this Chanel, it's one of my favorites and I love to see new content on here

[@khfreak5531]

They literally encourage speed running in the game. If you can beat this much faster with 100% completion. You get a different ending thumbnail. Usually Samus without her armor. When I played Zero Mission and Fusion in my Jr. High years. I sped ran the crap out of those games. The driving force being that unlocked thumbnail. I didn’t understand why I was so driven then…. Lol

[@0tf850]

Absolutely fantastic use of clips and tight narration.

[@Lumiesfinetoo]

This is all kinda strange when you consider how speed run friendly dread was.

[@someone-ji2zb]

Speedrunning is a very small niche compared to how many people game. If people happen to highlight things that could be patched, then them being fixed isn't necessarily going to be targeted at speedrunning directly. Also I am not 100% sure why it even matters. If it becomes the norm in every game from now on, then the popular category simply shifts to glitchless. Frankly, while I get the appeal of glitches for the sake of time, I personally have always preferred watching the glitchless runs.

[@lpfan4491]

6:10 Actually, I have seen people do this one on the Wii, so I'm fairly sure it was trilogy that patched it. Can someone clarify? I still overall think Trilogy is still a contender for best version to play casually(The other contender is Remastered, though I have not gotten around to playing it yet), but it was certainly enlightening to learn that those overly annoying Powerbomb-checks were not originally there. Thanks, Tanabe.

[@KyleDavis328]

For someone who's only Metroid Prime experience was never finishing Prime 3 on Wii as a kid, Remaster has got to be the best official way to play Prime 1 for casual players. The modern controls alone make it all worth it. If Prime 4 is still a ways off I'm just hoping for 2 and 3 to get the same remaster treatment.

[@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606]

I've only played Metroid Prime Pinball so seeing Metroid Prime is a surreal experience; Artifact Temple, the final boss's second form, The Rock Boss in Phendrana Drifts, all things I know exclusively from a Top-down Pixelated DS lite screen

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

that's quite the unique perspective to get. i forgot pinball even existed, but remember when Prime launched.

[@dekuscorner2983]

It's got to be intentional to at least some degree, to make the walls solid would have been fairly simple, but they kept many of the OOB areas. Some of the other changes like the ledge to get the space jump seems to be also intentional, leading me to think that their goal wasn't necessarily to stop speed runners in this new game, but to make the run more difficult or interesting, and I fell somewhat validated in this thought by the inclusion of people on their teams that support speed running.

[@GMNEY_-rc6dl]

So glad u guys are uploading again