The History of Link's Break The Targets World Records

if you follow competitive gaming you likely know that smash is one of the largest fighting games on the planet but there's another competitive side of the game that is just as amazing and that's the speed running scene it's broken down into categories based on the different modes available across each game and the first three titles have a mini game called break the targets there's one course in particular that stands out above the rest for its level of difficulty with a history that reaches back before the game even released this is the history of lynx break the target course in super smash bros 64. break the targets is a game mode where players must destroy every target in a level as fast as possible with each character having their own unique course the targets can be done in any order and the timer ends when the last target is broken which brings us to the course itself link's course is very spacious and in a vertical style with lots of targets being above your initial starting area and two solid walls blocking your path from being able to move left and right and two of the platforms move on a cycle which adds another layer of difficulty for navigation link has some great attributes that help deal with these obstacles his falling speed is the second fastest in the game which helps navigate from the top and for abilities he has the boomerang which comes in handy for hitting targets that are far away and the bomb that has a big advantage we'll be looking at in just a bit those features help a great deal in a course this large but link does have some drawbacks overall he has the slowest jump animation of the characters in smash requiring seven frames to leave the ground and his dash speed is the second lowest in the game making him an exceptionally slow character with that in mind what did the first run look like the story starts back in 1998 when nintendo put out a promotional video for super smash bros that was filmed on sakurai's own tv and it happened to have footage of a run on link's course the route starts off by hitting the first three targets with the boomerang then climbing to the top left side to up b the first target and bond the second on the way down another boomerang is used to snipe three more targets before setting up the final ricochet boomerang to snipe the final target in the top right just as you upbeat the target in line with your final ascent despite this being a developer run it was very far ahead of its time for when it was done as the boomerang tricks used some very advanced pieces of tech so let's have a look when you throw the boomerang it will proceed to its max range before returning to link and you can hold a direction on the joystick to influence its trajectory in the y-axis if you dodge the boomerang instead of re-grabbing it will continue moving in the direction that you dodged allowing for some impressive trick shots to be pulled off but that's not all the second and third boomerang shots in this run were unique with the second being thrown through a wall and this is because the boomerang ignores collision with walls when it's returning to the player so by bouncing it off the left wall it will pass through the right with the ricochet shot being used on the third toss to hit the target in the top right with those tricks the first run by sakurai clocked in at 13 29 but it didn't say new record when he hit the last target so the real time may have been faster it wouldn't be beaten until about october 2001 when a little-known player named isaiah would reroute the stage if you're unfamiliar with the smash scene isaiah is one of the greatest smash 64 players of all time while his accomplishments were generally in ranked play versus other players he did have a lasting effect on break the targets so let's have a look instead of climbing to the left first this route ascends on the right side making use of two up b's to destroy the first targets and a boomerang to grab the two highest targets in the level on the jump down the target covered by the floor is hit with a slash through the wall and then the most significant piece of tech is used the four target boomerang at this point there are five targets left two on the ground level two in the middle section and a final at the top of the left section and what if i told you that all of these were going to be hit without leaving the bottom area when sakurai showed off the boomerang tech in his run that was just the tip of the iceberg because this trick has you smash the target next to the start position with a left facing boomerang then do an upward jump to avoid the regrab and have it smash the targets in the middle and fortunately for runners the boomerang's angular momentum doesn't cap out it keeps curving on its way up the stage and hits the topmost target just before link makes the attack for the final target in the bottom right giving isaiah a time of 1259 just shy of a full second ahead of soccer eyes time which brings us to november 2002 the bomb revolution this route goes back to the left first and changes the opening boomerang for a standard slash and as you jump to the first platform you'll take out a bomb and throw it just before you land on your next jump to snipe the bottom left target the biggest change comes from the middle section because you'll use a single move to break all three vertical targets and it's time we took a closer look at the bomb when you throw the bomb it will explode under two conditions when its timer is up or on contact with another object however in some circumstances the bomb will not explode and this is because the trigger for an explosion is tied to the bomb's speed when it collides with an object if it's moving at a slow enough speed it won't explode instead it uses the explosion timer and by throwing the bomb at the right moment you can position it so that it barely touches the target at the apex of the throw which means it breaks the target but doesn't explode but that's not all this throw accomplishes when the bomb clips the target it's nudged to the right very slightly but this is enough distance for it to be positioned directly over the two targets in the middle and with more than enough time left on the explosion timer it will fall to the ground smashing both targets on its way this leaves the final four targets which are done using the same strategies as the soccer eye route with some minor improvements the downward boomerang occurs at a slightly different timing and the final sequence has you jump then do the ricochet boomerang instead of waiting for the platform to ascend before finishing the run with an up b a japanese player named kobik would push this route to an 1149 sometime around november of 2002 and it would take 5 years before the time was lowered again if the last route was the bomb revolution this one is the bomb devolution as it cuts out every bomb throw and start from the right side again and it was created by none other than isaiah he knew that his old route still had time to squeeze out so instead of improving on the bomb strats he set out to optimizing his previous strategy the routing is almost identical as you start with a right side climb instead of a left but instead of hitting the first vertical target with an up b you would use a down air this gives you a small bounce that gets you on top of the platform and ready to move very quickly as links up b has a long recovery window that loses a bunch of time the rest of the route is the same you hit the box target on your way down with a forward air then dodge a boomerang to hit four targets and smash the last isaiah grinded this route to an 11 31 sometime around march 2007 and marth 1 would tie that time on march 15th from 2011 to mid 2017 the improvements on the record were mainly just small optimizations to grind out a few frames worth of time save and the first person to improve on isaiah's 11 31 was a player named nt and t's optimization is very subtle as it only saves about 5 frames and before i reveal it i'd like you to watch the segment and comment down below what you think the change is bonus points for technical analysis included in your post did you catch it in isaiah's old record he threw the right side boomerang then jumped to avoid it and hit the bottom box target with a forward air but in nt's optimization he throws the boomerang then faces the opposite direction this doesn't seem like a big deal but when you get to the box target you can hit it with a back air instead which saves the hit lag from a forward air and an additional 5 frames from having to turn around using this small change nt clocked in a time of 1120 flat just a tenth of a second faster than isaiah's and it stood for another five years as break the targets again went into slumber not seeing a new record until 2017 when km would set a new time km ran the same route as nt and squeezed out a few extra frames by landing earlier and more to the right on the second target after his up b for a time of 1117 just two frames faster than nt and the first 11 1x in history the question of sub 11 was on everyone's mind but given that the run was so short it was already incredibly optimized so short of new strats it likely wasn't going to happen anytime soon so if sub 11 was out of the question what would the next record be how about a sub 10. km had one goal in mind not only did he want to improve the record he wanted to improve the way people approached the stage altogether and his thesis was simple why do we climb to the top only to make our way back down we know that the boomerang can take out four targets by making a well-timed curved shot as was seen in the first route that isaiah developed which leaves only six targets the bottom left the four on the right side and the final target in the top center km took this piece of tech and opened the route with it and to take care of the bottom left target he does one of the hardest moves in the game a frame perfect strong bomb throw in normal gameplay when you throw an item a lot is happening under the hood the game calculates damage based on the item's base damage and the speed at which it impacts an object the speed can be altered depending on how long you hold the stick in a direction before throwing and to hit the target on the left it needs to be perfectly timed and from an exact range the window for success is very small if you hold the stick too long you miss the window and if you time the throw wrong the angle will be off and to make matters worse all of this needs to be done while you're performing a backwards double jump if you pull it off there's still more new tech to master instead of doing a down air to the target on the platform you'll instead hit it with a neutral air then transition into a jump and boomerang throw once you land you'll want to dodge the regrab and let the boomerang travel below to hit the box target which leaves the final three nothing needed to change from the isaiah flick on these three targets it's a simple up b into a well-placed boomerang shot and using these strats km wouldn't just achieve the first sub-11 he'd set a new record of 989 the first sub 10 on december 4th 2017. this was an astounding time and revolutionized how break the targets was being approached and over the next year km would come up with a small optimization on the route instead of doing a neutral air onto the moving platform he discovered that it was slightly faster to land on the platform using tech called a shield drop a shield drop is an advanced technique that works on soft platforms where you drop through them while shielding to grant a single frame of invincibility but km used the tech to land on the platform and buffer a jump since it negates link's long jump animation this saves time not just from the jump but also the hit lag from the neutral air that he cut out as he uses the ricochet boomerang throw to hit the platform target and the box target before finishing the run in all it saved seven frames and he posted a 977 using the new shield drop tech on april 3rd 2018 and after this break the targets would settle down again but we wouldn't have to wait five years for the next tech this time it was only two and the inspiration came from a very unlikely place km was watching a video by prince another legendary smash 64 player where he was doing a break the targets run with restrictions and the first restriction happened to be a boomerang only run with link it used some of the tech we already went over but the interesting thing is that for the final target prince used a throw through the wall instead of hitting it when he was on the left side of the course this gave km the idea to throw the final boomerang to hit the center left target and then jump to the top right target with an up b instead of hitting the right target then waiting for the boomerang to rebound and hit the left target he also refined the bomb throw at the bottom after the toss instead of doing a backwards jump he routed in a turn around dash into a double jump which saved three to six frames overall but the biggest time save came from the new boomerang throw into up b so how much did it save almost two years to the day since his 977 km would answer that question and he posted this run [Music] a 910 flat shattering the first sub 10 record by almost seven tenths of a second km had pushed the run to places nobody had thought possible building upon the routes and contributions of the record holders that came before him he took one of the longest stages in the game and put it seconds ahead of the other courses and was just a tenth of a second away from a sub nine but the story doesn't end here because on may 4th 2020 he pulled off this run not only head km broke the sub 11 and the sub 10 barrier but with pure determination he set the first sub 9 breaking what is likely the last second barrier on the course and cementing his place in history the first three games of the smash series all have a break the targets mode and there are lots of courses with histories just as rich and exciting as this one but those are stories for another time if you want more smash content let me know down below and if you want updates on what i'm doing be sure to check out my patreon until next time thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Abyssoft

Views: 178,669

Keywords: smash, smash64, super smash bros, melee, ultimate, smash 4, nintendo, ssb, ssbm, ssbu, isai, sakurai, break the targets, btt, world record, speedrun, link, zelda, abyssoft

Id: gHRd_uj4PAQ

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/vikingja]

Break the Targets is such a sick mode, especially in the first 2 games! The unique stages makes it so much more fun. But Brawl was obviously much better than the later ones even tho it only had 5 courses. Great production!