SGDQ, or Summer Games Done Quick, is a speedrunning charity fundraising marathon that wrapped up last weekend with a total of over $3 million raised for Doctors Without Borders. It included a run of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, a tense relay race in Super Mario Maker 2, and an absolutely nuts 30-minute run of Elden Ring as the finale.
But every year, there's always one run that rises above the rest — and, admittedly, it's usually a Zelda game, for whatever reason. This year, it was Ocarina of Time... or, it was sort of Ocarina of Time. Let us explain.
GDQ often features this thing called TASBot, you see — short for Tool-Assisted Speedrun bot — which can input button presses faster and more precisely than any human hand. That might sound like cheating, and it is, but it makes for some really impressive speedruns, like this one, which involved a bunch of Celeste speedrunners coming together to create the perfect Celeste speedrun over 2,000 hours:
The TASBot trick in the Ocarina of Time run, instead of allowing them to do precision-perfect platforming, instead allows for something called Arbitrary Code Execution, another common and very difficult speedrunning trick. Long, complicated story short — ACE lets players put in a series of specific button presses to trick the game into doing things.
In the case of Ocarina of Time, it lets them get the Triforce.
It also lets the speedrunners access a bunch of OoT's beta content, like the Arwing, the Butterfly item, and more. But that was all a ruse! It was all about the Triforce the whole time!
Except that wasn't what it was all about. Not entirely. At the end of the run, Link starts hearing someone whisper his name... and offer him a single wish. Be King of Hyrule, become rich, or see the future. And obviously, it has to be the last one, right?
And where else would the future take you than the latest Zelda game?
Link looks as baffled as we were, of course, and the speedrunners tell us that this is all in-engine, playing on the N64, not a video. Zelda appears to explain a little bit, and shows Link a cool new trick she's been working on.
The speedrunners sit and watch as tons of comments pour in and paint the sky, and it honestly looks like a pretty emotional moment for them — we imagine that this is the first run they've been able to do with this many participants, so it's not surprising.
Finally, Link says thank you (in Japanese) and he and Zelda walk off together. Not sure where they're going, since they're stuck on an island, but it's still sweet.
If you're still incredibly confused by TASBot, ACE, SGDQ, or any other acronym, you can check out Retro Game Mechanics Explained's explainer, although it may just confuse you more:
Did you watch the SGDQ marathon? What was your favourite speedrun? Tell us in the comments!
[source youtu.be]
Comments 16
The amount of technical knowledge that goes into something like this is insane, but to be honest I wasn't a fan of how they initially pretended that they were showing off unused beta content in the ROM. because at first it was believable, until it started turning into BotW at the end.
Im confused, is this all ACE on an original copy of the game, or it it ACE on a rom hack? Because i dunno how else the BOTW sequence would be possible otherwise.
Cool that they got this to run on the N64, but the ending is pretty corny. Also Link speaking just ruined it all for me.
@GsPandem I’m pretty sure this is a original copy. ACE essentially allows the player to reprogram the game, so it probably was all planned out in a romhack before they ported it into the game with ACE.
Definitely the most confusing article I've read in awhile.
I watched footage of this the other day, and despite even as a kid being annoyed by the rumours about getting the full Triforce in OoT (did nobody pay attention to the plot?!) and the ending being so twee and sugary sweet... I still teared up a bit at the sheer love for the game and the artistry and effort put into this project that shines through in the execution. I love it.
I saw this, and that final part had me crying. And the fact they did it all on the original cart, just by having TasBot feed a ton of button presses in to the game to essentially reprogram it, was astounding.
*also TasBot did a similar trick with Twitch chat at a GDQ a few years ago with a Pokemon cartridge 😁
This whole concept has me smelling burnt toast 🤯
I'm glad you reported on this, but I feel like the headline could spoil less of the ending and still be equally interesting. For example: "After 24 years, speedrunners finally obtained the Triforce in Ocarina of Time." The ending has more of an impact if you don't see it coming, you know?
This article may as well just be re-branded as “we fed a bunch of Zelda speed run articles into an AI and this is the resulting article.”
Makes no sense to me. Sounds like someone just speedran… nay… programmed a program to speed run a fake game which really doesn’t sound like much of anything really.
Still, cool to read about that… community… over there?
@SteamEngenius
TL;DR, Nintendo Life doesn't actually know the significance of "Triforce%" and they were very close to talking about it here, but they went off the rails and started talking about BotW.
The reason this is such a big deal is because it's a fan restoration mod of the heavily-rumoured Triforce item from Ocarina of Time, said to have been obtainable in the Temple of Light (aka Chamber of Sages) after Link has collected all of the Medallions.
They essentially stuck this extra cutscene into the game without modifying anything else, and it requires doing the ACE glitch in order to access this part of the game. The rest of the game remains unmodded.
I wish they had left the cutscene at Link touching the Triforce. The Breath of the Wild reference feels so tacked on.
@EarthboundBenjy This is exactly what irked me as well. I left the video being impressed, but not knowing where the real beta content ended and their custom ACE content began. Which wouldn't be a problem if they sold this as a technological magic show, but they sold it as a beta showcase
Wow this is awesome. I don't often watch such long videos, but I really recommend watching the whole thing. It is really incredible!
Yeah computers make the best speed runners thats why I myself would only consider player runs on an official console with an official control (no modifications)
Wasn't Link supposed to go mad like shown in Twilight Princess if he obtained them all?
A Ganondorf story against fierce deity Link going mental would be good you can even obtain Majora's mask someone pitch this
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