The Quest to Beat abney317

foreign he's speedrunning Mario Kart 64. specifically the game's 150cc skips category it involves racing through all 16 tracks as fast as possible while allowing you to perform any of the game's numerous shortcuts Abney has been dominating this category for years he got the world record in February 2015 and now five and a half years later he's still never given it up but it's not just that Abney holds the record here this is the leaderboard we see sometimes in the 28th and high 27s and unsurprisingly ahead of them all is Matthias rustameyer with a remarkable 2706 and then there's Abney making a joke of the competition this was how the category had been for the better part of a decade and a big reason why is because during that time hardly anything new had been found Mario Kart 64 had established shortcuts many of which had been discovered literal decades ago there had been a few minor improvements but by 2020 there had been nothing substantial for years sure every now and then a random internet user would claim to have found something but there was always some issue it didn't actually save time or had been found already or is flat out fake so with no improvements Abney was able to dominate nobody could catch up to him without new strategies and this brings us to August 2nd 2020. Abney was doing attempts to improve his own world record when suddenly he gets a message from somebody new claiming to have made a large discovery can you send me a video about large discovery uh posted on Discord I don't know this had happened before just another random viewer trying to get the streamer's attention I'm gonna see what this guy's large Discovery is but still he had to take a look just so he could rule it out and get back to his attempts [Music] foreign [Music] this is actually holy cow this is an actual new shortcut what Abney didn't know it yet but this discovery was the first of several and his world record it was about to become very vulnerable this is his quest to hang on to it [Music] but first I want to tell you about this video's sponsor Opera GX Opera GX is basically the speedrunner's version of a web browser they found some of the biggest time saves in browsing history does your computer ever lag because Chrome or Firefox is using too much memory well you can perform a trick called lag Skip by using GX control in Opera GX you'll reduce slowdowns and save precious time but what about having to import all your settings and bookmarks from your previous web browser well opera GX found a skip for that too by utilizing their quick import tool you skip wasting time and instantly have everything transferred over they've also got GX mods where you can quickly modify background music keyboard and tab sounds browser and wallpaper visuals and much more [Music] then there's GX corner where you can stay up to date on gaming releases and uploads from your favorite YouTubers see their 12 latest videos only by using my dedicated tracking link if you want the fastest and best browsing Experience download Opera GX using my link in the description and pinned comment abney's mind was blown his chat was losing their minds and it all stemmed from forest 64. a viewer who had never posted in chat before today this is what was on the video that Forrest sent to Abney Royal Raceway the 11th track in the Run Forrest immediately turned around at the start and drove over some grass then grabbed an item triple red shells he then drove back across the finish line and carefully positioned himself he fired a red shell precisely drove into it and was launched on top of the wall lakitsu set him down behind the finish line and the game counted it as a lap Forrest repeated this twice skipped two more laps and just like that one of the game's longest courses was finished in just one minute Royal Raceway did have shortcuts before this but they were relatively minor you'd typically finish in about a minute 40. so as soon as Abney saw this video he knew the Run was changing forever perhaps even more Curious than the shortcut itself was the guy who discovered it he was simply known as Forest 64. yeah some random dude in the chat this round in the past when shortcuts were found it was usually by an established expert either a tool-assisted speedrunner or a player with thousands of hours in the game but Forest nobody in the community had heard of him before well Forrest first played the game in 2017 but didn't submit his run since he played on Wii U Virtual Console which was banned he began tassing the game for fun and became an expert on how the game's shortcuts worked he was perfectly happy staying in the background and not interacting with the community but then he found the Royal Raceway shortcut and felt compelled to tell people about it so he did the inner workings of this shortcut are quite complicated but here's a rundown of it by driving over certain regions away from the main track like this part of the grass the game sees that you've skipped over a decent portion of the track and it responds by storing your current position in memory if you then land on specific polygons like the top of the wall the game takes the position stored in its memory to determine where you are so lakitu sets you down near the grass where your position was stored the game thinks you've driven a full lap and you can drive forward to complete it this was a miracle look random people claim things all the time on the internet especially when it comes to speedrunning but this random guy 464 had actually found something it was incredible and Mario Kart 64 would probably never see something like this again if it didn't happen again the very next day on August 3rd 2020 someone else sents a private message it was another guy that nobody in the community had heard of before and once again he was claiming that he'd found a new shortcut and guess what he was absolutely right Rainbow Road just like the last shortcut you turn around at the start and go grab red shells you then drive forward and stop next to the finish line by firing a red shell behind you then driving into it you tumble over the edge in front of the Finish Line after you fall for a while and stop tumbling the game actually lets you back up in midair and you can cross back behind the finish line so when lakitu brings you back you're behind the finish line and the game gives you credit for having driven a full lap the guy who discovered this one is named Garrett gracel he apparently found it one day back in the 90s when he knocked his friend over the edge with a red shell and the game gave him credit for a lap he assumed the community knew about it and never brought it up but when he saw a speed run where players did a slower skip with a green shell he decided he should mention it to someone and he was right his Red Shell skip was faster by a solid 30 seconds it had been decades since an outsider had found the new shortcut now my sheer coincidence it had happened twice in two days by two separate people but while Garrett's shortcut was a one-off thing forest was still looking for more and over the next few days he come up with yet another one this time on Toad's Turnpike the setup is a little too complicated to explain here but it involves a lot of getting stuck in the railing and driving over the grass next to the track the end result is being able to hop into the railing next to the finish line and skipping a lap each time 45 seconds on Royal Raceway 30 seconds on Rainbow Road and now 55 seconds on Toad's Turnpike in the span of a week more than two minutes of time save were added to the Run Abney was still way ahead of the pack but if he didn't take advantage of this there was potential for these guys to catch him so Abney got to work despite the massive potential for time save this still wasn't going to be easy the Royal Raceway skip was extremely tough you had the time your Collision perfectly or you weren't making it on top of the wall still the world records started to pour in 25 29 then 25-25 [Music] -25 on September 7th Abney had his best chance yet a potential mid-24 minute run with three courses left standing in his way was Yoshi Valley if you get a speed item like a mushroom or Star you can jump over the fence and hit a seam on the wall this causes you to skip a lap upon being placed back down optimally you want to get Triple mushrooms you can do this three times once per lap but triple mushrooms is at best 25 percent likely so a decent backup is to drive around the rightmost path and hit this seam which both Skips a lap and moves you forward a bit upon respawning it's slower than getting triple shrooms but it still allows you to continue the run in most cases so Abney tried to get Triple shrooms but didn't get them no big deal he just had to hit the backup shortcut but then now dude I went out and losing bunch no dude runs over classic DK shouldn't have done it dude DK strikes again despite the three new shortcuts there were still so many other courses that could kill the Run they hadn't gone anywhere [Music] oh my God and besides that to capitalize on the time saves in Royal Raceway and Rainbow Road Abney had to get lucky with items he needed triple Reds which is only 20 likely you can sit on an item box repeatedly to get items but it can waste a lot of time especially if you get a star or gold mushroom at the end of September Abney would get another good chance he had a solid run going but then on Royal Raceway he managed to get six red shells some insurance just in case he missed the jump but he ended up going three for three getting a half minute time save nice let's go dude oh my God I'm saving a ton of time here we go the next few courses were pretty standard although falling in the water on Banshee Boardwalk costs a few seconds and so he answered rainbow road with a sizable lead he needed to get red shells quickly and avoid big time wasters like a star or gold shroom nice well and pretty much have to get Red's next item or it's kind of dead it wasn't quick but he had the Reds no insurance this time now he needed three hits in a row oh my God crazy 2509 this was the biggest cut off the record since 2017 and despite having obvious slowdowns it felt good to make progress looking at the leaderboard there was still no real threat to abny climate tea had moved into second place but he was over a minute and 40 seconds behind so apne decided to take a break resting assured that his world record was safe [Music] or was it there was now a little bit of competition neither Runner was that close to the record but they were closer than anybody had been in years in third place was samek just over a minute away he'd had a pretty quick rise up the leaderboard in late 2020 and his 26-14 featured all three new shortcuts his biggest downfall was the fact that he had less experience than Abney so his driving was less precise and he bled time across the Run and in second place was kazuya his rise was a little more slow and steady but It ultimately led to him being the second to get a sub-26 minute run he could also drive a little bit quicker than cement but it was still a disadvantage compared to abny kazuya and samek were mainly in a battle with each other for second place but they were close enough to make Abney return to the game knowing there were still plenty of time to save and on his first session back Abney got on this run [Music] thank you one of my best joggers ever Maybe [Music] foreign [Music] oh my God dang is this 24. [Music] no way 24.58 this was the first minute barrier broken in nearly four years and it was all possible thanks to the three new shortcuts Rainbow Road and Royal Raceway were nearly perfect and Toad's Turnpike saved a bunch of time too this gave Abney some breathing room over his competitors but he knew there was still work to do take Mario Raceway for instance this is another course where you want to get Triple red shells so you can launch yourself over the wall on each lap but in this run it took Abney over half a minute until he could finally get them so Abney knew he had to keep going he had just cracked into the 24s now he was going to see how low he could take it about a week later Abney got on a run with a perfect Toad's Turnpike thrusting him into the lead he bled a bit from missing jumps on choco Mountain but then it was time for Mario Raceway Abney could save a big chunk of time here as long as he could get red shells and avoid items like stars no why Reds oh my God right here despite disastrous luck he still gained a tiny bit of time the Run continued to be up and down until he reached Yoshi Valley oh my God with triple shrooms Abney is able to enter Rainbow Road over half a minute ahead of the world record he just needed to get red shells I'm dude I'm just going blue shells are interesting you can do the shortcut just like you can with red shells but you can't get three of them at a time oh my God all right one blue right to this run so now he could only do the blue shell skip once then he had to go back and do the slower green shell skip twice this was gonna be close [Music] it's too late gotta be too late yeah [Music] hmm no way somehow he had pulled it off luck had tried to prevent it but Abney forced his way into a world record and as impressive as it was this run would be totally irrelevant by the next day awesome [Music] foreign [Music] 24 19. oh man that is a nice record this was the world record Abney had been looking for he nailed the new strategies and while there were some small time losses there were no glaring ones like we'd seen in past runs Abney was back to being more than a minute and a half ahead of second place there was no longer any threat to his world record but that didn't mean he wanted to stop playing he was on a roll all these improvements came in the span of just one week and while the world record was solid there were still time saves to be made so Abney pushed onward and a few days later he had a run that got off to the best pace of his life this runs crazy oh man this was mostly thanks to calamari desert this course features two major shortcuts the first is actually an intentional one from the Developers kind of if you drive most of the lap normally then go into the tunnel and activate a Star the game extends the Finish Line into the tunnel in Council app it was meant to be an Easter egg but speedrunners found a way to abuse it you can drive into the tunnel from the opposite side at the start of a lap then turn around and activate the star it counts as a lap completion in a fraction of the time the other shortcut also involves driving into the tunnel you take either red shells or a blue shell and knock yourself over the fence skipping most of the lap now both of these shortcuts save big time and ideally you want to do both that means getting red shells then grabbing a second item and having it be a star but getting triple Reds is 20 likely and a star is 30 so you've only got a six percent chance of getting the magic combination but when you do get it right away it saves big time so Abney kept playing this incredible run and after quick triple Reds on Mario Raceway he had a nearly 40 second lead but then he answered Royal Raceway once again needing triple red shells no dude I always miss that first it went way left [Music] maybe a two out of three I can keep this run going it's over in addition to needing a lot of luck the Royal Raceway skip is one of the hardest in the game be it from not getting red shells or messing up the shortcut most runs that make it to Royal Raceway die at Royal Raceway Abney continued to do runs over the following weeks but Royal Raceway was just being brutal run after run made it there on record Pace but they almost never made it through he was struggling to get runs deep more than he had in months meanwhile samek and kazuya saw an opportunity while Abney was stalled and not setting any records maybe this was their chance to improve [Music] [Music] no dude [Music] no dude why not even a chance [Music] [Music] no dude I got stuck on the side [Music] [Music] oh my God oh my God [Music] dude I'm gonna lose this run to missing every one of these [Music] oh my God [Music] the Gap had closed there was just 24 seconds between Abney and kazuya with samek not far behind kazuya had turned into a remarkably consistent player and he was doing the impossible he might have a shot at getting this world record well Abney had no choice but to keep trying on March 18th he built up another lead into Royal Raceway not as big as some previous runs but still a comfortable Advantage step one acquire red shelves [Music] that was easy now he had to hit them three out of three no margin for error um oh my God bout time it was officially on Abney took a 36 second lead into the special cup four courses separating him from a big world record [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] the first run under 24 minutes and it had a lot going for it a strong opening followed by three out of three on both Royal Raceway and Rainbow Road once again Abney now had a big separation from second place despite a massive effort kazuya was back to being nearly a minute behind now it was samek's turn to make things interesting [Music] nice let's go in April 2021 samek made a major push to lower his personal best he did thousands of attempts in a span of just weeks and he quickly saw results it all came to a head on May 13 2021 he had a standard run going out of frap snow land but after three out of three Hill jumps on Chaco Mountain he took a big lead nice another Perfection wow so entering Royal Raceway samek had a great opportunity as long as he could hit this three out of three Cruise all right another chance with nearly everything going his way the only thing that could make this better would be getting triple shrooms on Yoshi Valley [Music] he went into Rainbow Road and although it took him a while to get red shells he was still in position for a big PB please [Music] just like that samek had swooped into second place he suffered from slower driving compared to abny and took a while to line up a few of the shortcuts but this was still a really clean second place run now they were still far away but Abney now had two competitors that were closing in it'd be helpful if he could gain a bit more separation well there was one thing he could do a few months ago forest and another Tasser named weatherton had been looking into ways to go through walls for a proper explanation on how wall Clips work check out this video for my archrival bismuth most wall Clips are extremely precise and aren't viable for a full game Run but one day Forrest had an idea if you have enough speed you can clip into a wall and touch the surface behind it on Luigi Raceway this means you can start in front of the Finish Line then clip into the wall and touch the other side of the track which updates your section marker and finally be ejected from the wall and land behind the finish line this tricks the game into thinking you've driven a full lap without having really left the section right around the finish line you need the speed from a mushroom to do this so the best strategy was to grab an item pray it was Triple mushrooms and then precisely set up to Ram into the wall three times this is still extremely precise but it can save about 10 seconds over the old shortcut that could be just what Abney needed to keep lowering his time so while he knew it meant a ton of attempts would die right away Abney committed to going for it meanwhile kazuya got back to doing attempts as well difference was he opted to not go for anything new on Luigi Raceway it would lose him some time but it did mean he could get more runs going and with all the difficulties and Randomness that comes later in the Run playing is safe on Luigi Raceway wasn't such a bad idea still Abney had a big lead over kazuya was this finally the time he could put the record away for good and stop worrying about losing it [Music] ain't it God dang dude how how am I not fast enough dude [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] there was no denying it kazuya was closing in abney's lead was Vanishing and there was legitimate danger of losing a record that he had held for more than six years kazuya's Improvement was remarkable his driving had gotten faster and his consistency with the shortcuts was approaching what Abney could do and if he didn't act quickly kazuya was on a direct course to beat his world record so Abney acted as quickly as he could now this run was looking nice he'd gotten the time save in Luigi Raceway and a clean Toad's Turnpike to save a bunch more he missed just one Hill jump on Chaco mountain and got Reds right away on Mario Raceway going into Royal Raceway this was the best Pace he'd ever been on in his life but it was all for nothing if he couldn't get reds [Music] it's a stupid dude Abney was too close to the wall so the Red Shell hit it with too much speed and died had he been just slightly further away he could have hit this three out of three instead his best run ever was thrown in the garbage this was a tough pill to swallow but he'd gotten there before that meant he could get there again and unbelievably the very next day Abney found himself in the same spot a 30-second lead into Royal Raceway good enough to once again be his best Pace ever this was a perfect chance for Redemption just hold it together [Music] [Music] God Abney had been playing this category for seven years those were the two fastest runs he'd ever had back to back days both killed in the exact same spot but like any good speedrunner Abney knew he had to push onward he'd had some really crazy Paces lately if he could just get back there and execute on Royal Raceway he'd have the world record in the bag but I don't think Abney was prepared for the type of run he'd have on September 28th 2021 [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] no triple mushrooms but that was okay Abney had a backup plan he'd drive over to a spot on the grass then use his star to do the shortcut once and the golden shroom to do it again it would only cost them a few seconds everything was okay [Music] I'm lost gone for it dude I sleep dumb when I go and look at my RNG calculations that I do where it was like one in 900 chance of getting acceptable RNG I got the RNG in this round [Music] [Music] it's a room [Music] just one more course rainbow road but the Red Shell skip had not gone well for him lately good news was he had a 20 second buffer to work with if he could just get red shells and hit the trick there was room for a big world record but he needed to not miss foreign [Music] he had done it again right when kazuya was starting to close in Abney added another 18 seconds of separation kazuya and samek had both made a good effort but at the end of the day this was abney's category he was just flat out better at it than everyone else the new strategies had made things interesting but not enough to ever lose the record kazuya had given it all he could but he was never able to close the gap he was a good player but simply couldn't keep up with Abney and with this world record the most optimized one the game had seen in years it was hopeless there was nothing to do but watch it sit at the top of the leaderboard whoa [Laughter] something amazing has happened to kazuya he's getting times that nobody saw coming his driving is better he's hitting the shortcuts consistently and it all culminated in a 23-40 from December 2021. it was an extremely similar run to what Abney got getting red shells quickly everywhere and not missing a single one [Music] kazuya was now 11 seconds from the world record he'd been playing this game non-stop for over a year and it was starting to look like it might pay off big time was he the real deal well he continued on a while longer without any improvements but in February 2022 he got on another run that saved time early thanks to getting a blue shell star combo on calamari desert he saved more time with the clean toads Turnpike and suddenly he had a 15 second lead over his run if he could preserve this the rest of the way this run was going to be the world record but still standing in his way was Royal Raceway [Music] [Music] like I said kazuya had gotten extremely consistent with these shortcuts five courses from a world record [Music] [Music] Center [Music] foreign [Music] there were now two seconds between Abney and kazuya had he not missed a jump on DK jungle Parkway or had he gotten triple shrooms on Yoshi Valley this run would have been the world record and someone other than Abney would be in the top spot for the first time in seven years naturally abny came back to do more runs trying to play defense and hang on to his record but he struggled to get anything going This Record had been synonymous with him for close to a decade now it was hard to believe that it might be coming to an end all kazooga needed was a run that kept it close into the special cup where he could save a bunch of time and beat the world record a few weeks later kazuya got on a run with a really clean choco Mountain it took a while to get red shells on Mario Raceway but he got through it he bled a little bit of time on Royal Raceway but only a few seconds this was the exact type of run he was looking for a deficit that he could overcome in the special cup so kazuya got to work [Music] there it was kazuya had a seven second lead into rainbow road if he could get red shells then hit the shortcut three times in a row he was about to take the world record one course to go no red shells simple bad luck cost kazuya the world record this was the best chance he'd ever had to get it and his time was running out Abney and kazuya were neck and neck each player was actively doing attempts to break the world record was kazuya going to be able to take the record or would abney's record streak remain Unbroken it all came down to who could lower their time first well in April 2022 one of these players broke through [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] after more than 50 000 attempts kazuya was the 150cc skips world record holder congratulations poured in across the community it was just surreal to see a new name on top of the leaderboard kazuya had cut it close he didn't get Triple shrooms on Yoshi Valley and it took some time to get red shells on Rainbow Road but he had left just enough room and eked out a one-second world record as for Abney there was nothing to be ashamed of kazuya had turned into a tremendous player and Abney had certainly left his mark on the community already it's extremely rare to hang on to a world record for as long as he did there was absolutely no shame in passing the torch to kazuya and riding off into the sunset leaving a streak of 29 consecutive world records as your legacy he could finally put the thousands of hours spent on this category behind him and move on with his speedrunning career but Abney said forget all that and five days later he did this [Music] thank you yes [Music] crazy well that didn't take long it had taken kazuya over a year of grinding to Edge out the world record it took Abney five days to thoroughly beat him back this was a pretty wild run from start to finish it began with triple Reds plus star on calamari desert and he just kept gaining time from there after nailing Royal Raceway three out of three Avenue is in position for a massive record but then he kind of backed off he bled a bit of time by playing the next courses safe and then despite getting triple shrooms on Yoshi Valley he lost 8 more seconds by really lining up the jumps carefully this run actually had the RNG for a sub-23 minute run but by playing it safe Abney wound up with a 23-21 still an excellent record although it had the potential to be even better look Abney may have briefly lost the world record to kazuya but it was only by one second he had still held the record for all but five days of the past seven years all concerns of his demise had been greatly exaggerated he just had a run go deep on Pace for a sub-23 something kazuya had never been close to it was time to go for the kill and push the record Out Of Reach [Music] ah man I guess it is possible okay ah it's over Dude dang it come on don't do this it was so good dude what is that I was stuck No I barely missed dang [Music] [Music] uh dude it had been weeks and while he'd had some promising runs something always went wrong to prevent a world record on Yoshi Valley he was trying to go for a risky strategy that would avoid triple shrooms but his success rate wasn't great with it in his Royal Raceway look had just been disastrous meanwhile kazuya was still right there he was seven seconds behind Abney but he'd gotten the record before could he take advantage of this opportunity [Music] thank you [Music] all right he had done it again and this time it was a pretty sizable Improvement he had a mistake early on Toad's Turnpike when he missed a lap Skip and had to do it again but he was able to climb out of the hole and didn't have another time lost until he missed the lap skip on Yoshi Valley but beyond that it was a beautiful run and kazuya had just proven something his one second world record wasn't a fluke he had actually caught up to Abney despite slower driving he had matched or perhaps surpassed him at hitting the game's shortcuts kazuya was the champion of 150 cc skips in the year since this record was set nobody has come close to approaching their times Abney and kazuya are more than a minute ahead of the competition both players have been grinding the category recently and have done thousands of attempts each they've both had promising runs but there's only been one additional world record this run was eerily similar to abney's 2321 it got off to an incredible start then slowly bled time partially by playing it safe on a few courses only difference was this record was seven seconds faster than abney's run it's hard to lose a world record it's a side of speedrunning that doesn't get talked about much everyone's excited when one player gets the record as they should be but to be on the other side can be brutal especially if it's a record that you've held for seven years it's become a constant part of your life at that point but it's important to remember nobody owns a world record and to illustrate what I mean I'm going to show you a clip from darbian after he set a world record in Super Mario Brothers any percent back in 2016 people were telling him that the Run was nearly dead and he might hold on to the record forever but turbian responded by saying this so instead of saying something silly like I think it will be over very soon and it's been a crazy ride I'm going to say that this game will never be over and the ride will only get crazier and I am just participating in one small part of the middle of the ride and there are many talented people who helped build the ride before me and there'll be many talented people who help finish off the ride after me more accurate words have never been spoken the point of all this be proud to have been a part of your game's history even after your times have been beaten because unlike a world record your legacy can last forever this has been just one small segment of Mario Kart 64's history thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Summoning Salt

Views: 2,334,418

Keywords:

Id: iqlUbLasZ-M

Length: 55min 14sec (3314 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2023