Daily Debate: How Much Should We Value Speedruns?

Speedrunning Zelda games (that is, striving to finish a given game as fast as possible) has become a very popular pastime for fans. Over the last few months alone, we’ve seen new world records in Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda, and Majora’s Mask. It’s no argument that speedruns are extremely important to a number of fans, but the speedrunning community is not without its critics. There are many complicated opinions and thoughts on speedrunning, whether they relate to rules, glitches, or simple enjoyment. So, we’re giving you all an outlet to share your thoughts on Zelda speedruns.

Let me get my thoughts out of the way: I love the speedrunning community. It is a group of competitive, yet supportive players that work together and spur each other on to experience games in creative ways. In terms of speedruns themselves, I see them as ways to add new levels of depth to games that we already enjoy. I can’t count the many times I’ve played through Ocarina of Time completely and the way it was intended. After finishing and enjoying a game so many times, it’s interesting to see other creative ways players have found to finish the game. If a player can find a frame-perfect, near-impossible way to skip straight to Ganon, that’s interesting. It’s exciting to watch, in fact. There was a speedrunning event that took place last January at which a speedrunner finished all of Ocarina of Time‘s child dungeons blindfolded. To me, speedrunning is full of these creative opportunities to play the games we love. That’s my opinion; let’s look at other fans’ concerns.

Some fans don’t value speedruns for it detracts from a game’s enjoyment. Of course, for a game like Twilight Princess, a player should experience the story, characters, and setting to the fullest. As I said above, most speedrunners have already experienced these things, but I can understand that by watching a speedrunner completely break a given game, viewers may lose some of the magic in the parts of the game that were meant to enjoyed. Then there are the developers to consider. Obviously, finding ways to skip past intended challenges negates some effort by the developers. With this in mind, we can consider how speedruns takes away from a developers’ intention. Does this mean by valuing speedruns, we’re devaluing the work of developers? That’s for you to decide.

Many fans have expressed their distaste for speedruns’ tendency to use glitches and gameplay tricks to meet their ends. These fans see this practice as a form of cheating. Others have already defended glitch use by explaining that most games have more than one speedrunning category. An Any% category allows for such glitch use, whereas a glitchless run exists for those who don’t want to use glitches and tricks. Whatever your viewpoint, this is an interesting topic of discussion. Which type of speedrun should be valued more? Some will say that using glitches is not as impressive as finishing the game quickly as intended by the developers. I would ague that some glitches require a lot of skill and precision to execute, but I also appreciate the player that can finish every puzzle in every dungeon super fast.

Whatever your stance, please take the time to share your thoughts in the comments. Don’t forget that your opinion is just one of many, and everyone enjoys games differently. Should we value speedruns? Should some types of speedruns be valued more than others? Explain your point, and join the Daily Debate!

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