Compared to today’s games, most 8-bit games are pretty difficult, but Battletoads takes “Nintendo Hard” to a particularly sadistic extreme. The third stage of Battletoads, in which you have to zip a speeder bike around a series of obstacles at blazing speeds, has become one of the most infamous levels in video game history, and the game only gets harder and more unfair from there. Very few gamers have survived to even see Battletoads‘ later stages, never mind beat them.
Well, get ready to feel horribly inadequate as you watch speedrunner Piotr Delgado Kusielczuk (“The Mexican Runner”) set a new Battletoads world record of 12:45. No, that’s not 12 hours and 45 minutes (the amount of time it would take me to beat the speeder bike stage once), it’s 12 minutes and 45 seconds. One of the hardest games ever conceived bested in the time it takes to warm up a frozen pizza.
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You can check out the full run (with commentary) at the top of the post. Kuzielczuk exploits a variety of glitches to nab himself the world record, including one that lets you skip over the entire speeder bike stage. That said, make no mistake, there’s some super-impressive skills on display here. This run makes my palms sweat just watching it. Oh, and according to Kuzielczuk there are still a ton of places where he lost time, so an even more impressive record is no-doubt forthcoming.
Prior to breaking the Battletoads world record, Kuzielczuk was best-known for his three-year quest to beat all 714 NES games. Earlier this year he completed Super Mario Bros. 3 (saving the best for last), bringing that epic endeavor to an end. This guy is better than you at video games, is what I’m saying.
You can keep up with The Mexican Runner’s various exploits at his Twitch channel.
[via Kotaku]
