Breath of the Wild
Player5 started his Switch 2 (30fps) 100% grind in October in which he'd already comfortably beaten his v1.6.0 record twice. This trend continued last month as he lowered the record another two times to a 14:18. I remember exactly a year ago when the race for a sub-15 was on and now we seem to be closing in on the next hour barrier. Looking back at the 100% times from when I started and comparing them to today, it really is something to see how far this category has come over the last 5 years and how it still seems to be getting pushed further and further down. Of course we can't leave daqiu out of all of this, as they also got two new 60fps 100% records, leaving the category currently sitting just above the 15 hour mark.
For the last three years, Master Sword Restricted has primarily been dominated by meiju, Player5 and jm_runs. And finally jm got his first world record in the category, beating Player5's year-old record by 12 seconds. He wasn't entirely happy with this run, though, and came back the very next day and took MSR down another 44s into 1:13:xx territory. When MSR has ever had a new burst of activity in the past, it's always activity you have to keep your eye on because you never know who's going to get the next record or by how much and I'm very happy to see jm get the world record after being at the top for so long. On the DLC side of MSR, cloud started adding on the Trial of the Sword to her runs and has taken down the category almost 8 minutes already. It's good to see MSREx get a little more activity since it's only had three world records before, all within a 3-day period in Januray 2021!
Last month, I decided to set out to try to take back the Bread% world record after last having touched the category over 2 years ago. What carried this 13s improvement was scanning amiibo after Bombs, which also gave the advantage of having a rusty claymore to cut the grass. This skipped the requirement of having to stop at the Tabantha Bridge Stable for an axe instead. I've moved on for now but some mistakes on Plateau and at the end of the slide to the wheat are motivating in that they make it clear a 14 minute Bread% is absolutely possible and absolutely something I will end up going for.
moistgoolash has spent the last few months running All Kilton Medals on 1.8.2 30fps and recently decided to try his hand at the v1.6.0 run that has the added benefit of BLSS. The experience clearly carried over as he ended up breaking the year-old record by almost a full minute. This might just be the start of a series of new AKM records, as jm has thrown his hat back into the ring following his MSR world record, so we might see the category reach all new depths over the next few months.
All Dungeons (1.8.2 Switch 2 Edition)
huiwengege 1:30:19 (-3:02)
All Dungeons (Bug Limit, Switch 2)
Ryan24 2:10:00 (-1:52)
All Main Quests (Bug Limit, Switch 2)
Ryan24 3:41:20 (new)
100% (1.8.2 Switch 1 Edition)
Player5 14:26:22 (-5:15)
Player5 14:18:47 (-7:35)
100% (1.8.2 Switch 2 Edition)
daqiu 15:32:23 (new)
daqiu 15:15:35 (-16:48)
Great Plateau Any% (1.8.2 Switch 1 Edition)
LinkHarper 22:19 (new)
Great Plateau 100% (No DLC, 1.8.2 Switch 2 Edition)
LinkHarper 30:42 (new)
Great Plateau 100% (DLC, 1.8.2 Switch 2 Edition)
LinkHarper 30:47 (new)
Master Sword (Restricted, 1.0 - 1.7)
jm_runs 1:14:22 (-0:12)
jm_runs 1:13:38 (-0:44)
Master Sword (Restricted, Extended, 1.0 - 1.7)
cloud 1:47:36 (-0:55)
cloud 1:40:34 (-7:02)
All Kilton Medals (1.0 - 1.7)
moistgoolash 1:34:09 (-0:58)
Bread% (1.0 - 1.7)
cephla 15:08 (-0:13)
Tears of the Kingdom
MoldyMeatballs returned to Tears and has spent the month grinding out Any% some more, now extending his lead to almost a full minute over second place. Maybe I just wasn't following closely enough but it felt like this came out of nowhere and I was shocked in the best way to see 3 more world records in just two weeks. While all these runs on their own are only single-digit improvements, Moldy's splits in his 38:42 are an encouraging sign that this category will eventually fall below 38:30, while his sum of best is currently sub-38. Lime_s1 also consolidated his lead in Glitchless Any%, helped by a new wall grab fall damage cancel at the start of Descent that skips running from the centre of the chasm to the horriblins. Every new glitchless record feels like it inches ever closer to the 1 hour mark despite how optimised the run looks. But this new strat proves that there will always be new optimisations to find to bring it even closer to the next minute barrier.
This month was a little quieter than others and the main category being run on the extensions board was All Kohga Battles. parallelograms took advantage of some slightly new routing on 1.0 to achieve his first two world records. With the help of a much faster cart slide to get between Kohga 1 and Kohga 2, AKB is now looking like it might dip below the 50 minute mark. MrKorok also ran the first glitchless AKB run at 60fps that's almost 9 minutes faster than the Switch 1 record, proving once again the strength of S2E loads.
Any% (pre-v1.2.1)
MoldyMeatballs 38:52 (-0:03)
MoldyMeatballs 38:48 (-0:04)
MoldyMeatballs 38:42 (-0:06)
Any% (Glitchless, Switch 1)
Lime_s1 1:01:49 (-0:26)
All Dungeons (Switch 2 Edition)
NayruAcolyte 2:56:20 (new)
Great Sky Island Any% (Glitchless, Switch 2)
LuannesBestFriend07 25:57 (new)
All Kohga Battles (pre-v1.2.1)
parallelograms 51:29 (-0:31)
parallelograms 50:14 (-1:15)
All Kohga Battles (Glitchless, Switch 2 Edition)
MrKorok 1:13:40 (new)
Breath of the Kingdom
Any%
MoldyMeatballs 1:05:10 (-2:14)