Left feeling empty now that AGDQ 2025 is over? Do not fret! Here are amazing speedruns that we have handpicked for you! Go and grab some popcorn, and your favourite beverage, because we’re in for a wild ride!
Metroid is one of the most popular series to speedrun, and it follows that each game would have a lot of fierce competition on the leaderboards. Behind the scenes however, there are tightly knit communities dedicated to tearing the Metroid games apart as a team, combing over the games frame by frame, and the result of this incredible work are countless of amazing speedruns through the universe of Metroid.
I wish to commemorate this journey towards faster times by highlighting speedruns I enjoy a lot, making sure to include a variety of Metroid games, and different speedrun categories!
Before I begin, I’d like to explain certain terms that might not be intuitive for those unfamiliar with speedrunning. The meaning of these terms may change depending on the game, but for Metroid speedruns, the definitions are loosely:
Any%: a speedrun that aims to beat the game as fast as possible, where the runner only acquires item expansions or abilities if they make the run faster.
100%: a speedrun where the player has to acquire all item expansions, but may ignore abilities if they don’t count towards the end percentage.
0%: a speedrun where the player can’t acquire any item expansions, but may obtain abilities as they wish if they don’t count towards the end percentage.
Low%: a speedrun where the player cannot acquire any item expansions, nor obtain abilities unless they must be used to progress the game.
Unrestricted: a speedrun that can use any glitch in order to beat the game. Exceptions can be made, but they’re few.
No Major Glitches: a speedrun that can use glitches, but certain glitches are banned from use. Typically that includes out of bounds movement.
Glitchless: a speedrun that cannot use glitches regardless.
TAS: Tool-Assisted Speedrun, a type of run that demonstrates the theoretical limit of a game. Usually played in an emulator where various tools can be used, such as frame advancing, save states, and so on. These runs don’t compete on a leaderboard, but are highly valuable for researching the games.
RTA: Real-Time Attack, a timing method where the speedrun time is counted from start to finish, without any interruptions.
IGT: In-Game Time, a timing method that uses the time shown from the game completion screen. The game timer may stop counting in certain cases, usually when the player doesn’t have control over the character.
Super Metroid Reverse Boss Order by ShinyZeni
Zeni is an amazing speedrunner, who definitely likes to push the limits of the games he plays. He is a top runner for Super Metroid that has dedicated himself to optimizing the game as far as he can, seeing great success in that avenue. He has made countless runs through the game, and one of my favourites is the Reverse Boss Order run he did, which at the time of writing happens to be the world record!
Normally, Super Metroid has an intended order of main bosses to defeat, that being:
- Kraid
- Phantoon
- Draygon
- Ridley
Using tricks like Wall Jumps, Shinesparks, Crystal Flashes, etc., you can essentially fight those bosses in any order you’d like, and Reverse Boss Order makes the player go Ridley first, Draygon second, and so on!
When going Ridley first, you can’t even get any of the suits to help you, so it’s crucial to grab a larger amount of Energy Tanks (E-Tanks) to sustain yourself while the heat constantly ticks off your health bar. On the route Zeni chose to take, it’s necessary to collect an E-Tank much earlier than usual, requiring a triple frame perfect trick that fails half of the time even when you do everything right!
Just entering Lower Norfair is a major task. Zeni has to clear through Norfair’s heated corridors in a single swoop, which is not easy without the help of the Varia Suit. To top it all off, he has to jump in a pool of magma in order to reach the entrance of Ridley’s Lair, further raising the stakes!
Making it this far is quite impressive, but it’s not over yet. You have to defeat Ridley while the heat drains your energy, and what follows is an equally dangerous trek out of Norfair. Past that point, Samus won’t need to withstand the hell runs anymore. She may sigh in relief, only to realize…
The beauty of Reverse Boss Order is that you get to see Zebes in a different way. It dramatically changes how you think about moving around, and you need to use tricks you otherwise wouldn’t use. The boss fights get so intense, and the environment is even harsher on RBO.
This type of run requires dedication and practice, but it’s ultimately something anyone can learn if they want to. I’ve personally managed to learn all the tricks to pull it off, but I’ve not yet been able to finish one without the help of save states. Maybe that should be one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2025…
Zeni has a complete tutorial for beating the game in Reverse Boss Order, and I might just have a rewatch of it all myself!
Metroid Prime (Trilogy version) Any% by MrMiguel
Of course… it’s none other than MrMiguel! Miguel is a speedrunner that specializes in the Prime series of Metroid games, and he has plenty of World Records that still stand today. He is also a splendid runner of Metroid Dread, having a sub-hour run in the Any% Unrestricted category. Regardless of the game, Miguel makes valuable contributions, especially pertaining to discovering new strategies and timing different routes together!
The run that I want to highlight, is his current world record on the Trilogy version of Metroid Prime.
The speedruns of the Trilogy version are quite different from the ones on the original GameCube game. The prevalent scan dash is no longer a viable option to sequence break, and there are a lot of small changes to the map elsewhere, so they have to go through a completely different route compared to the GameCube version. That being said, sometimes the will of the community is strong enough to find another way, and that work can be seen on this speedrun!
After landing on Tallon IV, speedrunners rush to Chozo Ruins to acquire the basic abilities used throughout the game. After doing so, they return to the Landing Site in order to perform the first sequence break, Early Space Jump Boots. In order to reach the ledge behind the ship, they do a double bomb jump on a rock to gain just enough height. The rock isn’t flat, so they have to constantly maintain balance while placing the bombs.
Miguel however, doesn’t do any of that! Instead he insists on using a trick that was so difficult that it was thought to be TAS-only! Not only that, the trick can be done as soon as Samus steps out of the ship!
Getting Space Jump first is a huge time save, allowing Miguel to acquire Missiles on the Main Plaza first, then go straight to Ruined Shrine to regain the Morph Ball in a very efficient manner! This also lets him rush to the Charge Beam, Bombs, and Varia Suit abilities, which is a big route divergence compared to the route used in Draconif’s 2nd place run (also a very entertaining speedrun).
All of this is early in the run, but it gets crazier and crazier! At one point, Miguel accelerates towards infinity. He achieves this by making the game think he’s in a different room, then he uses the Morph Ball to get stuck, only being able to rotate faster and faster. Eventually he rotates so fast that he enters a glitched state that causes weird effects. One of those effects include being able to displace Samus’s position almost ‘everywhere’ for a frame, letting Miguel pick up two crucial items at once. Talk about being efficient!
Miguel always finds a way to get somewhere fast. He makes anything that ‘doesn’t work’, work, and as a result he achieves amazing things! My appreciation for his skill and dedication only grows as I learn the intricacies of the Prime games, truly!
However, it turns out that they are quite decent at other games as well! It is none other than…
Metroid II: Return of Samus 100% (No OOB) by Behemoth
Indeed, Behemoth is famed for his Super Metroid speedruns. However, I was glued to the screen throughout one of his 100% runs of Metroid II: Return of Samus, and I really want to highlight it!
Now, Metroid II physics are kind of weird, and lots of optimizations go towards being mindful of how Samus interacts with the terrain. Examples include:
- The Morph Ball is faster than running when you don’t have the Varia Suit equipped.
- Samus will bounce if she falls more than a tile in Morph Ball mode. Using Spider Ball on a wall before impact can mitigate this.
- Samus’s jump height is fixed after holding the jump button for roughly half of the max jump height, and the jump height is also lower when crouched.
What sets Metroid II apart from the other games is that a lot of the speedrun is based on planning ahead and being proactive. Morph Ball Bombs take around 1.5 seconds to explode, so the runner has to place them at the earliest possible timing. Another consideration are the Metroids themselves. Behemoth always finds a way to lure the Metroids to specific spots so that he can defeat them quickly, and on the topic of smaller enemies, he even does small things like manipulating the screen to spawn a Hornoad later than usual, so that he can roll beneath it. There are a lot of tiny moments like these that just makes my brain happy.
100% runs require a lot more concentration and willpower to succeed due to its length. What’s special about this game’s 100% run is that… It’s actually relatively short. Yet still, there are a ton of optimizations when it comes to collecting items, defeating enemies, and moving around. The compact nature of the game, along with the skill and knowledge from Behemoth, makes for a splendid run to witness!
The next runner has a talent for keeping the chat engaged, and was even name-dropped by a Metroid Dread developer in an interview of ours.
That’s right! It’s the one and only…
Metroid Prime Hunters All Items by Mr_Shasta
Shasta has many amazing runs under his belt, and he is a common sight at GDQ events, for good reasons! I ultimately chose his Metroid Prime Hunters run at AGDQ 2022, where he skillfully clips through walls, skips cutscenes, and avoids certain fights you otherwise would have to do.
He takes many shortcuts indeed, however that is not to say he doesn’t engage with the game’s content! After all, this is an All Items run! You still get to see his super efficient item collecting, and many headshots against enemies before him. Seriously, you do not want to go “1v1 Imperialist Only” against Shasta!
The majority of the run is inbounds, and the intended order is merely a suggestion! As someone quite familiar with the game, it is an absolute delight to see the rules bent and broken at his will.
What is most striking however, is that he does all of this while engaging thousands of live viewers, all by himself! Speedrunning requires a laser sharp focus, but Shasta doesn’t care about silly human limits, so he takes the time to explain how certain tricks work, makes plenty of jokes, and maintains an energetic and positive vibe throughout the run!! He goes above and beyond, and it cannot be overstated how impressive his runs are.
Mr_Shasta is currently working on a large-scale project called ‘DS Destruction’, where he intends to beat all DS games released in North America. He hasn’t yet played through Prime Hunters for that project, but has promised that it will be a special playthrough!
Metroid Dread NMG Low% Dread Mode by Charlotte
Charlotte speedruns Metroid Dread, and has an affinity towards glitchless runs, which tend to be more movement heavy due to fewer skips! Charlotte likes to challenge itself, and it accomplished an astonishing feat of beating Dread Mode without dying! This should’ve frankly made the news, but I suppose I get to cover the run here instead!
The category it ran was No Major Glitches, Minimum Items, in Dread Mode. Essentially, glitches are allowed except for those that make Samus go through level geometry, teleport by using the E.M.M.I. (yeah, you heard that right), or otherwise change the core of the game. Being a Low% run, Charlotte cannot acquire any Item Expansions or abilities that can be skipped, making the late game bosses really difficult! To top it all off, Samus cannot get hit by anything, as that would spell her doom!
To be honest, when I first heard about this run, I presumed that Charlotte would play it safe despite being well aware of its skills as a fellow Dread runner. As it turns out however, Charlotte ran through the corridors of ZDR as fast as it could, making risky moves that would kill Samus if just a single mistake was made, and there were a lot of close calls in this run!
Even if the enemies in Dread act consistently, there are many places where a player can get hit if they miss a shot or fail a jump. It speaks to its knowledge of the game and level of consistency that Charlotte never got hit during this run!
It gets even more tense in the end. Charlotte took a lot of aggressive positions during the boss fights to speed things up.
During the Raven Beak fight, Charlotte constantly spaced itself to account for his Beam Burst attack, which saves a lot of time but is extremely risky if you don’t know what you’re doing! Charlotte happens to be a Dread expert though, and the result speaks for itself. You really don’t want to miss out on this run. The fact that any misstep would lead to death, and the constant risk-taking, made for a really exciting speedrun!
The hitless run can be watched here:
There is a lot of joy from the world speedrunning, and it was genuinely an honour and pleasure to share the wonderful work from you all! Beating games fast tend to be a difficult endeavour, and while the concept might seem simple on the surface, it requires an immense amount of research and work to explore past the known limits of the games.
I would also like to thank the Metroid speedrunners of AGDQ 2025, and the broader speedrunning community! I loved the Metroid Prime race between Edzan and Vertigo. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it was really cool to see the Maze Skip in Central Dynamo, which I had only heard of before then!
The Super Metroid Map Randomizer Race was also really cool to see, and gosh how close that race was! I loved the banter between the four runners; Andy, Oatsngoats, imyt, and Eddie, and it was really fun to see how cursed the randomizer seed was.
AGDQ 2025 might be over, but there is more to come! GDQ will host two other marathons soon, being Back to Black 2025 (February 6th – 10th) and Frost Fatales (March 9th – 16th). These marathons benefit Race Forward and National Women’s Law Center respectively!
The runners of AGDQ 2025 raised together a total of $2,556,305 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation! From the bottom of my heart, thank you for showing the beautiful art of speedrunning, and thanks for making this world a better place.
Written by: Irene