The Greatest Feat In Video Game History

hello you absolute legends how does one prove complete dominance over a game since the birth of video games half a century ago gamers everywhere have been clamoring to show they have mastered the hobby better than anyone else there are many ways you can display your skill but which is the best indicator of a player's overall competency in the early years by far the most widely accepted metric for one's ability was the high score the premise is simple if you can make the number bigger than everyone else you are the best player it's interesting to look back on those more primitive games and realize that high scores were such an integral part of their design as technology progressed and the immersive quality of games improved the need for a high score as a motivator diminished simply experiencing the game became incentive enough to keep people playing score counters gave way to detailed storylines and complex gameplay mechanics in its place a new metric would be needed in order to differentiate the strong from the week and that metric was time gamers went from trying to play for as long as possible eking out every point to playing as briefly as possible now if you could make the number lower than everyone else you are the best player in the 90s another form of gaming competition was beginning to emerge as well by this point video games had sufficiently evolved in complexity to facilitate deep and rewarding player vs player combat with the fighting and real-time strategy genres coming fully into their own the birth of competitive esports could truly begin and let's be honest when it comes to pure work ethic nothing rivals the output seen in esports teams especially those in south korea where players practice 8 to 12 hours every single day when it comes to pure realized skill it's hard to argue that anything tops what is seen in games like starcraft but ultimately achievements in this field are hard to quantify as by definition they are against other human beings with all of their unpredictability and flaws whether you believe high score competition speed running or esports is the pinnacle of gaming will come down to personal preference but there is one relatively new category of gaming that needs to be considered and that is called no hit to be fair no hit has always been around in some limited form but in the last few years it has exploded in popularity and there is one particular gaming franchise that has been leading the charge in building this new genre and that of course is dark souls there is something uniquely captivating about dark souls no hit runs it is likely solely responsible for the idea of no hit becoming as popular among gamers as it has dark souls players continue to push the limits of what's possible breaking barrier after barrier and in 2021 the gamer dino cinder gill managed to accomplish something that has to be considered as one of the greatest feats in video game history in this video we will take a look at what he did and why it is so important i hope you enjoy now a quick shout out to this video's sponsor skillshare i am a huge advocate for learning and skillshare is the perfect place to grow and develop skillshare offers thousands of inspiring classes for you to explore new skills or master your existing talents as someone who has amassed various skills over the years i went through a few of the classes i already had some expertise in and i can confirm the quality is extremely high the teachers really know their stuff lately i've been spending way too much time stressing about work so i am going to take the course the ultimate self-care playbook by jonathan van ness in order to find new ways to relax now skillshare has allowed me to offer a free trial of skillshare premium to the first 1000 legends who clicked the link in the description so please make sure to take advantage of this opportunity and start exploring your creativity today [Music] trying to beat a game without being hit by enemies isn't exactly a novel concept in fact it's essentially what players try to do anyway we just don't succeed we shy away from danger we learn patterns and try to predict enemy behavior so that we can avoid their attacks the basic human drive of self-preservation is still at work even when we play games what most of us don't do however is make a conscious decision to practice a game for long enough to where we can actually do it completing a game without being hit has always been a symbol of mastery and it's arguably an easier one to understand than something like speedrunning 20 years ago when speedrunning was still coming into its own i vividly remember reading comments like sure that's great but try doing it without getting hit it seems like many people valued perfection over speed in goldeneye specifically speedrunners would compete in a side league called license to kill for a skilled player merely beating the game untouched is far too easy so to make things more difficult we would increase enemies stats guards react quicker have perfect accuracy and will kill you in a single hit now this is a true challenge and it would take years before someone would beat every level in this fashion with the player greg whitmore achieving this feat in late 2002 most speed running communities of popular games have some kind of side challenge involving hitless or damageless runs some games even have this challenge built in like the golden strawberries of celeste which can only be earned by completing an entire chapter without a single death but nothing comes close in terms of both magnitude and insanity to the community centered around the dark souls franchise the original dark souls was a phenomenon and is cited as one of the greatest video games ever made it is undoubtedly a classic and is near perfect in every way it is also extremely difficult which frustrated the most casual of gamers but served to make the game even more endearing to those looking for a challenge the combat in dark souls is amazingly well crafted and boss fights offer an experience that is both equal parts demanding complex frustrating and fair as long as you've attained the requisite amount of skill and knowledge you can make pretty short work of them the steep learning curve combined with a rewarding command over the game once proficiency is reached is one of the reasons it is seen as the pinnacle of game design naturally being a game that is often touted as one of the most challenging mainstream entries ever made players saw it as a great opportunity to prove their talents for the years immediately preceding the game's release the pinnacle of achievement was seen as no death runs getting through the entire game without dying a single time but in 2013 two japanese speedrunners otunari and aihil would do something incredible they would beat the game without taking any damage from enemies as amazing as these runs were they didn't seem to garner much attention from the gaming community at least in the west these early playthroughs were definitely ahead of their time but aren't the kind of thing we would describe as no hit using today's standards for example the use of magic was heavily abused in order to avoid direct confrontations with enemies and perhaps even more importantly shields were used to block attacks while these blocks did prevent damage the use of a shield makes things significantly easier and are strictly forbidden by damageless players of the current era the true modern version of no hit wouldn't appear until late 2015 when legendary gamer the happy hobb decided to push dark souls even further he would attempt to beat dark souls without being hit by enemies but he would do it without the use of magic or blocking with a shield after months of effort on the 16th of february 2016 he would finally complete that challenge oh no world record holy [ __ ] we did it the happy hobbs run was a big deal and in an interview following the achievement the creator of dark souls hirataka miyazaki was quoted as saying he didn't believe it the timing of the first no hit run couldn't have been more impeccable either at this point in time the gaming world was anxiously awaiting the release of dark souls 3. there was plenty of hype surrounding the upcoming installment and hobbs know hit run inspired gamers to secure their own world first they wanted to be the first person to beat dark souls 3 without being hit it took gamers 5 years to beat dark souls in this fashion but dark souls 3 would be conquered in only 3 months while happy hogs original dark souls run was essentially a solo effort there was now a group of committed gamers racing to topple the third game after an intense race the honor of being the first person to beat dark souls 3 hitless went to farrar's khan get [ __ ] get [ __ ] [ __ ] man holy [ __ ] i did it i did it i did it i did it i did it i did it i did it i did it i i did it i did it i can't believe i did it i did it i did it i did it man i did it i legit did it oh my god from here the floodgates opened with no hit players spreading to every game in the franchise even bloodborne in 2017 demon souls bloodborne and dark souls 2 were all beaten in this way bloodborne isn't exactly part of the dark souls universe but it's a staple in the dark souls no-hit community it was developed by the same company fromsoft and was also directed by the creator of dark souls himself hirataka miyazaki once again was beaten there were two directions a player could go they could either make the challenge more difficult or make it longer attempting to beat more than one game consecutively today i will be exploring the latter but both avenues deserve credit one of the crazier examples is the gamer that cool black dude beating every single boss in dark souls without being hit using only the straight sword hilt the quote-unquote starting weapon that does barely any damage beating a single dark souls game unscathed is challenging enough but what about all three back to back after being the first person to complete all three games separately in 2017 the happy hobb set his sights on doing the impossible eight months later he would be facing the final boss on dark souls 3 on the cusp of creating gaming history after nine and a half hours of perfection this happened oh my [ __ ] god no [ __ ] way no [ __ ] way one of the most infamous chokes in dark souls or even gaming history it shows how unforgiving the games really are with each extra game added to a no-hit marathon things become exponentially more difficult not only because the statistical likelihood of success diminishes greatly with each addition but also due to the simple fact that these marathons take many hours to complete by the end players are physically and mentally exhausted but even up to and including the final boss a single mistake will cost you everything thankfully hob wouldn't be deterred and after another month of effort on the 9th of march 2018 he would do this trilogy now and run we did it [Music] [ __ ] 12 months game in history dark souls history this was monumental and wasn't just an important moment in the no hit community but also in the gaming community in general the achievement was even heavily celebrated in the speed running community which is when i personally first took notice of dark souls no hit with the trilogy completed it seemed as if there was nowhere left to go but as history ended up showing the happy hobb disagreed he immediately began work on not only demon souls dark souls predecessor but bloodborne as well he would again attempt to do the unthinkable beating five games in a row without being hit the run is called soulsborne or the god run a monstrous marathon totaling 15 hours when runs take this long the fails become even more painful in early march of 2019 hobb would be on the fifth game of the god run and this happened no [ __ ] no no no dude no no not the [ __ ] vanguard this wasn't even on a particularly difficult boss but dark souls no hit is extremely punishing and runs can end at any moment hop's plan was to complete the run before the release of the next fromsoft game sakiro scheduled for release in late march truthfully it seemed like an impossible task but on the 21st of march 2019 one day before release hobb would do this we did it this was it the run to end all runs 16 hours of perfect play there was surely nowhere to go from here well at least until the next day when sakiro was released as stupidly difficult as the god run was hobb decided that it still wasn't enough he immediately began work with sakiro and once he had finished it with no hits he would attempt to complete the sequel to the god run the god run 2 6 games back to back in 2016 the mere idea of completing a single game was almost unthinkable to most people and when you look at the reactions of the gamers that were the first to do it you can see how important it was it's really crazy to think how far the community has come since those early days the happy hob would work on the god run too otherwise known as soulsborne kiro for the next one and a half years the difficulty of these marathons had become so great that if you did decide to give them a go you'd almost certainly need to dedicate months or even years the happy hobb had been the face of dark souls no hit since day one being the first to beat the original dark souls the trilogy and soulsborne it seems almost inevitable that he would be the one to first complete soulsborne kiro but shockingly this wouldn't be the case on the 12th of october 2020 a relatively unknown streamer by the name of dobby summer would be the first sauce vanquiro noise run a truly monumental achievement that surprisingly didn't really get any attention nonetheless beating six games back to back to back without getting hit was already one of the greatest feats in video game history as i mentioned earlier there are two directions no hit runners can go in order to make things more challenging they can make runs longer or implement restrictions to make them more difficult by this point we had essentially reached the end when it comes to games that one could reasonably add that made any sense there were just no more similar from soft games now players were required to make things harder and that's where we come to the challenge known as sl1 in dark souls players collect souls which are dropped by enemies or bosses and are also found as consumables these souls can be used at bonfires to level up our character increasing our level enables us to raise our stats which is important for multiple reasons many weapons require our dexterity stat to be at a particular level before we can equip them soul level 1 or sl1 for short is a category of no hit that restricts players from ever levelling up their character this impacts the run tremendously as we just mentioned weapons require dexterity so players can only use weapons that don't do as much damage this extends the length of almost every boss battle but it's not just the length of time that makes it more difficult boss fights contain various phases that become progressively more difficult for example in dark souls 3 there is a boss called dragon slayer armor this fight has two distinct phases and in the second phase which begins when the armor gets to around 50 health pilgrim butterflies from either side will begin raining down projectiles so now you need to deal with both the armor and the projectiles making it significantly more complex however in unrestricted no hit runs once the boss gets to around half health players can execute an attack combination that basically ends the fight immediately skipping the second phase they can do this because the weapon they are able to equip outputs a sufficient amount of damage sl1 players don't do enough damage for this combination to work so they are forced to deal with both phases and it's not just damage players can't even raise their endurance meaning that their stamina bar never increases every attack role and sprint costs stamina meaning that the choice of action players can take are limited as well but by far the game that is impacted the most is dark souls 2. in the second installment not only are we limited in the ways i just mentioned but the amount of invincibility frames we get when rolling is directly tied to our stats at level 1 our iframes last only a quarter of a second this is half of what we get in other games to appreciate just how much more difficult dark souls 2 is for sl1 we only have to look at how long it took for someone to finally beat it dark souls 3 sl1 was beaten in 2016 by squealer killer dark souls 2 sl1 wouldn't be beaten until january of 2019 accomplished by the papa finn this was only two months before the happy hobb beat five games back to back without the level restriction amazingly though even with the insane difficulty of dark souls 2 players did get to work on beating all three dark souls games back to back at level 1. on the 4th of october 2019 legendary no-hit runner squirrel killer was on the perfect run he had beaten dark souls 1 dark souls 2 the most difficult of the three and was now on the final boss of the third game the lord of cinder is the perfect boss fight to end a marathon on the battle is extremely complex and has many different stages it's an amazing showcase of every skill a no-hit runner needs to possess everything is intentional even down to which direction the player rolls when avoiding attacks you need to know when you can and can't attack and you need to know when you should keep your distance or going close in standard no hit runs this fight lasts around 3 minutes but in sl1 it takes 7 or 8 minutes more than twice the length and there is no down time in this fight it's action the entire way through oh my god oh my god man [Music] after seven hours of intense gameplay squirrel killer managed to close it out and make it to the end beating the dark souls trilogy without being hit and without leveling is an amazing achievement arguably as challenging or even more so than the soulsborne run of five games performed earlier that same year but of course the story doesn't end here and if you've been paying attention you probably know where this is going after almost a year of working on each game individually the gamer dino cinder gill decided to take on the most difficult challenge yet he would attempt to complete the god run five games back to back without leveling his character to even consider attempting this kind of run is a testament to how far the community had come while the individual tends to get all of the credit when a run is performed the only reason these insane feats are even possible is because of the years of research theory crafting and dedication of many runners who devote their time to creating new strategies but at the end of the day someone has to be the one to actually do it and that man was dino cinder gill in 2021 he began daily attempts and shockingly it wouldn't take long before he would get some runs and before i show you some clips i just want to point out that during these marathon runs you can play the games in whichever order you like switching the order around not only reduces boredom but also allows runners to remain fresh on each game on the 17th of january he would be on game 4 bloodborne and this would happen [Music] i knew it i [ __ ] knew it there was damage missing i missed i missed one hit on the lag he would get another run to game 4 on the 2nd of february this time dark souls 2. oh can i actually pass through these guys now i can't dude february 12th again he was on game four playing bloodborne dude what the [ __ ] what the [ __ ] is this this is not dude i thought he was dead on march 11th he would reach game 5 for the first time he was over halfway through demon souls and this would happen no [ __ ] way dude no way no [ __ ] way i i threw a million skulls in what universe would you [ __ ] shoot at me [Music] this run shows that it's not just bosses where runs could end even regular mobs pose a massive threat on march 18th dina would get another chance again reaching game 5. this time it was dark souls 3 in my opinion the perfect finisher he had reached the lord of cinder the game's final boss after 15 hours of play and on the cusp of creating dark souls history he still needed to play the eight-minute fight to perfection suffering from fatigue and under extreme pressure this happened [Music] [Music] uh we did it [Music] [Music] trump [Music] oh god i'm so done with these guys a sincerely beautiful moment and it honestly makes me emotional every single time i watch it dina managed to beat bloodborne demon souls dark souls dark souls 2 and dark souls 3 back to back without being hit a single time and without increasing his character a single level truly one of the greatest achievements in video game history the question now is will this ever be taken further and if so who will be the one to do it eldon ring the next fromsoft game is set to come out in 2022 and not only will there be a race to be the first to complete it without being hit but eyes are also on the grand prize of a seven game back to back hitless run one thing is for sure it doesn't look like the madness will end anytime soon and considering how far dark souls plays have pushed the games in the last five years i know that whatever happens will probably blow my mind now before i finish the video i would like to take this opportunity to correct something that i said in a previous video back in may i talked about the new lawsuits filed by todd rogers and billy mitchell in that video i made the claim that apollo legend paid money to building mitchell as part of their settlement i would never make such a claim unless i had very good evidence to support my position in response to this billy mitchell released a video accusing me of lying and claimed that no money was exchanged he didn't provide any evidence to back up this claim nor did he attempt to get in contact with me to clear up any misinformation i may have had however i did investigate further as i would never want to provide false information to my viewers i reached out to a member of apollo's family who graciously agreed to clarify some details according to them despite mitchell's best efforts apollo legend would not pay any money and in the final version of the settlement there was no clause indicating that he was required to do so therefore the statement i made in that video was almost certainly incorrect i sincerely apologize for providing false information and no matter what kind of relationship i have with mitchell i do not believe that it is ever justified to lie or mislead mitchell also claimed that i was accusing him of murder this is certainly not the case i do have my opinion regarding the impact of the settlement on apollo's decision but ultimately it was no one's responsibility but his own the only reason i mentioned it in that video was because i felt like it was important to let you know what happened as i know many of you enjoyed his videos as always thank you so much for watching you legends i hope you are having a fantastic day and i will see you in the next video you

Channel: Karl Jobst

Views: 688,617

Rating: 4.9298782 out of 5

Keywords: dark souls, dark souls no hit, dark souls hitless, the happy hob, squillakilla, soulsborne, video game history, no hit history, world record, video game world record, no damage run

Id: ppJi6uAstP4

Length: 30min 13sec (1813 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/equalsnil]

Exactly what it sounds like. Playing Demons' Souls, Dark Souls I, II, and III, and Bloodborne, without getting hit by enemies, including hits blocked by shields - details on this page.

Link to the full marathon run here.