Game:

HyperZone (1991)

Duration: 26:29

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86

You can find my in depth companion article for this speed run at Gaming Rebellion. I talk about speed running in general and what it takes to complete a speed run, step by step: http://www.gamingrebellion.com/2017/02/hyperzone-lesson-crafting-world-record-speed-run/

The raw video of my run, with and without commentary will be posted at Speed Demos Archive in the coming weeks. I will post the link here when it becomes available.

As for the video on this channel, this is my "World Record" run of HyperZone on the Super Nintendo complete with custom overlay, commentary and sprite work from the game. It was verified by SDA (Speed Demos Archive) and as far as I can tell, there is no one that has beaten this game faster. I put "World Record" in quotations because quite honestly, there aren't a lot of people vying for the title. None the less though, I was able to beat the previous run by TheSuperSNES by roughly 24 seconds. I owe the runner PJ a big debt of gratitude for his correspondence as well as giving me tips to help save time. You can view his run here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kb3RzhA5cs&t=179s

Speedrunning isn't something you would normally associate with the SHMUP genre. But due to HyperZone, in essence, being a racer/SHMUP hybrid, it works as you must concentrate on not losing speed. There isn't any way to actually gain speed though, as you accelerate to 448 and no faster, but there are a plethora of things that will slow you down. So obviously, in order to pull off a great speed run you need to avoid as many obstacles and enemies as possible, as well as beat the bosses as fast as you can (among other tricks).

I should also mention that this is the first speedrun I have ever completed. I have tried quite a few over the years but for one reason or another was never able to complete one. This time though, I finally managed to pull it off. It took 3 months of practice (as well sporadic play over the past 20+ years) and a whole lot of determination in order accomplish it. I feel it's a fairly entertaining run to watch and I tried to give an informative commentary track as well.

Also something new I did for this run was create an overlay for the video to showcase the games ships, enemies, bosses etc. I also kept track of my score and played around with some cool effects. My hope is that it added to the experience of the run in a positive way. It's an idea that has been going around in my head for a while as a way to visually enhance my runs. Hopefully people agree.

As is SHMUP Master tradition (and SDA rules), I used original hardware to capture the run. In this case, a SNES Mini model SNS-101, a Framemeister upscaler hooked up to an Extreme Cap U3 Capture Card for 1080p 60FPS footage. Although you may notice some distortion in the game footage. For whatever reason, (probably all the vertical scrolling and fast action) YouTubes VP9 encoding HATED this game.

*Special thanks to Patrick ‘PJ’ DiCesare. Without his amazing run I probably never could have pulled this off. Please check out his YouTube channel for LOTS of awesome speed runs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTnU4Ffbehftics2IPq46_w

*Also a special thanks to Flying Omelette who runs THE HyperZone Shrine. The lengths he went to in order to explore every facet of this game is quite frankly, astounding. He was also awesome enough to rip most of the sprites, which I used here in this article. For that, I am grateful as you won’t find complete sprites for this game anywhere else on the net. You can find the website here: http://www.flyingomelette.com/shrines/hyperzone/hyperzone-index.php

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