The World Record History of Sly 2's Most Iconic Episode
The World Record History of Sly 2's Most Iconic Episode
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Part Selection:
0:00:00 Introduction + Sponsor
0:02:31 Part 1: A Tour Around Paris
0:05:55 Part 2: The Good Ol’ Days
0:09:20 Part 3: An Ice Cold Cube
0:14:35 Part 4: Menace From the North, Eh?
0:18:59 Part 5: Continential Clash
0:24:42 Part 6: Loading…
0:30:06 Part 7: En Halv Time
0:36:55 Part 8: The Korean Gold Rush
0:41:23 Part 9: The Calm
0:47:08 Part 10: The Storm
0:52:05 Part 11: The Hurricane
1:03:37 Part 12: TBA
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Content
6.56 -> Sly 2: Band of Thieves, is a PlayStation 2
classic. Released by Sucker Punch in 2004,
12.16 -> this beloved sequel took the platforming stealth
genre to the next level. With settings taking
16.64 -> place all over the world, memorable villains and
the ability to play as all 3 cooper gang members,
22.32 -> the game is held in high regard as one of the all
time greats for the console. With any great game,
28.16 -> people will eventually attempt to speedrun it, and
push the limits to see how fast it can be beaten.
32.96 -> In Sly 2, the history goes very deep for
all of the game's individual episodes,
37.52 -> and no episode is as optimized as the first one.
41.12 -> This is the World Record History of Sly 2’s most
iconic episode. Episode 1: The Black Chateau.
52.68 -> Psst..
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again for sponsoring, let's get to the video.
115.68 -> So.. Let’s get the obvious out of the way. If
you’ve played Sly 2 or watched anyone speedrun it,
120.96 -> you’ll know that the game is really really
long. Completing all 8 episodes in the game
125.52 -> in a single sitting can take up your entire
day, and thus, full-game speedrunning for Sly 2
131.28 -> wasn’t popular in the early days. Instead
people focused more on individual episode runs,
136.48 -> since the length was a lot more favorable.
So if one wanted to start out by speedrunning
140.88 -> Episode 1, where would they have
to start? Well.. Let’s take a look.
158.32 -> Sly 2’s gameplay is centered around completing
jobs, with markers scattered across the world
162.72 -> that starts each one, kinda like the
mission markers in GTA. The different
166.88 -> jobs are spread across several days, where
we eventually work our way to the operation.
171.2 -> In order to speedrun Sly 2 in the quickest
manner, the goal is to complete every job swiftly,
175.76 -> while minimizing time spent traveling to the next
one. And avoid guard detection while you’re at it.
181.04 -> So let’s take a look at the jobs for episode 1.
The start to each episode always takes the form
185.52 -> of a reconnaissance day, a day 0 of sorts. Day
0 only contains two jobs, Satellite Sabotage,
192.16 -> which involves activating 3 satellite’s around
the map, and breaking and entering, which has
196.48 -> us fight a bunch of rats in a wine cellar with
murray and take some photos. Day 1 starts with
201.76 -> Bug Dimitri’s Office, which has us carry a bugged
painting to swap it with Dimitri’s real painting,
206.96 -> so we can listen in on his conversations. Next up
is Follow Dimitri which is where we get our first
212.24 -> proper look at our episode 1 antagonist. Dimitri’s
been printing fake money using the clockwerk tail
229.2 -> feathers, which is our goal to steal at the
end of the episode. To get there we have to
233.44 -> tail him around in this job to see what he’s up
to, and as we learn.. he’s a bit of a character.
243.36 -> For the final job of Day 1 we have to go back to
the safe house to swap to Murray, for Waterpump
248.16 -> Destruction. A short and simple job where we
have to destroy the city’s main Waterpump,
252.16 -> by throwing guards into the machine. Day 2 starts
out with Murray once again. His job “Silence the
257.76 -> Alarms” has us destroy 3 alarms spread across
the map, by throwing whatever is around us into
262.64 -> them 3 times each. “Theater Pickpocketing”
has Sly go into the theater to steal 6 keys,
268.32 -> he then uses them to slow the fans down in the
room so he can reach the chandelier at the top,
272.48 -> where he uses a turret to disable some of the
security. “Moonlight Rendezvous” is basically just
277.36 -> an autoscroller where we follow neyla around the
map without falling too far behind, and lastly for
282.24 -> day 2 is Disco Demolitions, a bentley job where
we have to blow up 4 separate pillars to send the
287.2 -> giant disco ball to its demise. For the third and
final day, it’s time for the episode's conclusion,
293.6 -> Operation: Thunder Beak. This has the entire
cooper gang involved and starts out with
297.92 -> bentley and murray, where we have to access the
water tower by defeating some rats. Bentley gets
302.32 -> yeeted up there by Murray, and blows a hole to the
entrance. Once inside we turn 5 valves and this
307.76 -> shuts off the water fountain in the main area. A
guard has been sent out to get a repair truck, but
312.48 -> Sly steals the key and hands it off to the others.
Sly then climbs the giant peacock, to prepare to
317.84 -> catch the hook from the stolen truck. Guards then
start swarming the truck, and we have to defend
322.8 -> it, and defeat them all. Concluding the rat brawl,
the hook pulls down the giant peacock and it
327.92 -> smashes a hole in the fountain where we can access
the printing room. This is where we get to square
332.88 -> off against Dimitri, and it’s also where we get to
learn about his uhh.. interesting way of speaking.
349.04 -> Once the final hit has been dealt,
that would be time for Episode 1.
361.44 -> The earliest history of Sly 2 speedrunning
dates back to this SpeedDemosArchive thread
365.52 -> created in January 2008. Prominent runners at
the time like Mike Uyama, Trihex and RJWaters,
372 -> were showing interest in a full-game Sly 2
segmented run. Another pretty well known runner,
376.8 -> Samura1man, would post some small shortcuts and
episode times. All of these videos don’t exist
381.68 -> today but at the time we can see that Samu had
claimed a time of 00:32 minutes using the in-game
386.32 -> timer for Episode 1. The in-game episode timer for
Sly 2 is quite a bit faster than real time, and
392.16 -> wouldn’t really be used in the following years,
so.. not much to gather from this claim. Another
397.76 -> runner called cooopercrisp decided to take on the
task of completing a full-game segmented 100% run.
403.2 -> He did so, and it was submitted to SDA in 2012.
And just to show you that I wasn't bluffing
407.84 -> earlier when I said this game was long, Coooper's
run was done in 54 segments with his time of 6
414.32 -> hours, 38 minutes. I won’t be going very in-depth
on this run, since it’s a 100% run, and there were
420.24 -> practically no strat developments for episode 1.
Coooper played on the PS3 version of the game,
424.96 -> which saved time throughout, mainly due to
faster loading times. While not an extravagantly
429.68 -> mind-blowing run, it was nice to know that
people were interested in running the game.
435.44 -> The year 2012 also marked a significant
change for speedrunning as a whole.
439.36 -> SpeedDemosArchive was the primary website in the
mid 2000s for speedrun submissions and strategy
444.24 -> discussions through their forums, but times
were changing. Along comes SpeedRunsLive, where
449.52 -> speedrunning would see a big boost in activity.
The front page of SRL had a massive list of people
454.8 -> streaming runs of various games, which paved the
way for the twitch era. Amongst other things,
459.92 -> the success of GDQ events was putting speedrunning
more in the spotlight, and thanks to twitch’s easy
464.56 -> to use export feature, the scene would also
get a good amount of exposure on YouTube.
469.12 -> Communities for several games were starting
to form through SRL and Twitch. Eventually,
473.6 -> Skype calls would take place for racing, strat
hunting and just for hanging out with people you
478.16 -> had a common interest with. With this big shift
in the scene, the Sly community was taking form
483.44 -> and a small group of people had their sights
on speedrunning Sly 2. A glitch hunter named
488.08 -> Z would help the community with their endeavors.
Coopercrisp from the SDA days was still around.
493.12 -> Mikl, primarily a sly 1 runner, was interested
in optimizing and racing Sly 2. And, GameCuber,
498.72 -> who i’ll get to in a bit. Cooper had tried
doing some episode 1 runs around this time.
503.52 -> These times don’t have surviving video but
he did post his splits on the SDA forums for
507.68 -> the world to see. A 39:36 on christmas eve
2013. A 39:11 In march of 2014, and a 38:28
516.08 -> the very next day. The lack of video wouldn’t be
too big of an issue, as only half a year later,
521.92 -> GameCuber would be the first person who
would give episode 1 the love it deserved.
525.92 -> In august of 2014, Cuber would absolutely
smash Cooper’s run, when he got this time.
566.64 -> Throughout pretty much every single job, Cuber
had some kind of optimization or new strategy
571.68 -> over the intended way. On satellite sabotage,
Cuber realized the activation hitbox for the
576.32 -> satellites are insanely big, and thus you can
press circle on them way earlier than you think.
581.76 -> On Breaking & Entering, Cuber lets
Murray do most of the work with the rats,
585.28 -> as he kills them in 2 hits rather than Sly's 4
hits. After each day in the episode, a slideshow
590.64 -> cutscene plays where Bentley briefs the gang about
the next set of jobs that need to be completed.
595.28 -> Cuber skips all three of these by quitting
out to the PS3 menu and relaunching the game,
599.92 -> saving him massive amounts of time. He utilized
a shortcut on Bug Dimitri’s Office that was found
604.64 -> by Samura1man in 2008, where you can reach this
rope from the lamp, skipping a decent chunk of
609.52 -> platforming and getting you to the ventilation
shaft earlier. Instead of walking back all the
614 -> way from Dimitri’s Office to the next job,
Cuber goes into the pause menu to load his
618.48 -> file. 4 Seconds later, and the game spawns him
in the safehouse, skipping the travel entirely.
623.76 -> This would also be done after the completion
of two other jobs - Follow Dimitri and Theater
628.16 -> Pickpocketing. On Silence the Alarms, Cuber made
an observation as he approached the second alarm.
634.56 -> “Only two briefcases, looks like i gotta
use guard! It’s gonna be you, douchebag.”
648.32 -> The amount of briefcases that spawn in this area
seemingly random. A maximum of 4 briefcases can
654 -> spawn, but in the worst case scenario you can
end up with 0. Forcing you to use the guards,
658.96 -> or this newspaper box located all the way in the
back. Murray walks a lot slower when he carries
664 -> stuff over his head, so you do need some good luck
here to get a fast time. On the operation, Cuber
669.12 -> had a handful of new tricks up his sleeve. After
getting tossed up to the water tower by Murray,
673.6 -> he tanks a bomb hit to avoid having to get thrown
up to the tower a second time. When stealing the
678.24 -> key to the repair truck, he does a stealth slam
combo on the first rat to instantly take him down,
683.36 -> and then runs back to the rooftop and knocks
the second rat off the building which instantly
687.68 -> kills him too. Now his alert level completely
disappears and he can jump down and steal the key.
693.68 -> Oh and when you have to climb the
giant peacock? Cuber does this.
704.08 -> "We did it." The community coined this.. “Cock
strats.” Because you climb the peacock and stuff..
712 -> You know? Moving on, there’s a spot on this pipe
where the game takes over and climbs all the way
717.92 -> to the beak on it’s own, but if you hit the
trigger without being attached to the pipe,
721.68 -> the game will launch Sly to that position.
Cuber’s strategy for fighting the rats is to
726 -> hit them as quickly as possible once
their invincibility period runs out,
729.76 -> fairly straight forward stuff. Cuber
took the Dimitri fight a little bit safe,
733.92 -> as he wanted to close out a new world record,
and so he did with 33:25 on August 27th 2014.
740.96 -> In the following weeks Cuber would improve
his time, and cement his status as the best
745.28 -> Episode 1 player. On September 1st
2014, Cuber would improve to a 33:12,
751.44 -> then to 32:46 on September 8th, refining
his movement and overall gameplay.
756.96 -> Z, Coopercrisp and mikl had been helping Cuber
out from the sidelines by finding new strategies
761.36 -> along the way. Cuber would use the new stuff
to knock his time down by another 10 seconds,
766.24 -> 2 days after his 32:46, to 32:36. The
first new trick that was incorporated
773.68 -> was discovered by Z and coopercrisp and was..
a pretty big one. Guard Spawn Manipulation.
782.56 -> By turning the camera in specific directions as
you’re roaming the map you can prevent guards
786.4 -> from spawning in your way. The majority of
the time the camera has to be backwards,
790.32 -> which means you need to know the level layout
pretty well. This trick is very useful on Bug
794.72 -> Dimitri’s Office, since if you get hit by any
of the guards with the painting on your back
798.32 -> you instantly fail the job. The way Cuber enters
Theater Pickpocketing in this run is also faster,
803.92 -> as discovered by Z - the job trigger
extends out below the balcony,
807.76 -> allowing you to hit it from underneath. Inside
the job, there’s also a couple of things to note.
812.72 -> First, Cuber gets a faster cutscene at the
start of the job that saves about 1.5 seconds.
817.6 -> When you first go through the door, the game will
take control over Sly and will walk him forward to
821.84 -> a predetermined location. Kinda like the peacock
climbing in the operation. The cutscene trigger
826.88 -> is located around here, and sometimes Sly will
walk all the way from the door to the trigger,
832.4 -> but sometimes he stops a little short, thus
not watching the cutscene as early as possible.
837.52 -> Mikl found a tiny optimization for getting the
first key faster. Instead of hopping along the
842.08 -> seam on the left like before, you can rush to
the first table and quickly crawl under it to
846.56 -> lose detection. And finally, Cuber would reach the
4th key quicker by doing a set of tricky jumps.
854.8 -> In the meantime, Coopercrisp wanted to get back in
shape and set a good time with the new strategies.
859.52 -> He would snag the world record by 4 seconds with a
32:32 on November 30th 2014, unfortunately again,
866.08 -> no video. This record would stand going into 2015,
where we would see a big shift in the Sly 2 scene.
881.2 -> Up until this point, the north americans,
Cuber and Coopercrisp were the ones to sit
885.76 -> atop the throne for episode 1. But
now, all eyes turned to Scandinavia,
890.72 -> as a Norwegian runner would have a meteoric rise
to the top, and this guy was ahead of the pack.
913.52 -> Gnist would become one of the most important
runners for Sly speedrunning at the time
917.04 -> and came out swinging hard. While his first
episode 1 time was a 36:51, 4 minutes behind
922.96 -> Cuber and Coopercrisp, it only took him a week and
a half to take the world record to European soil,
927.92 -> with 32:19. This run was mind blowing for the
community, as it came with a plethora of new
933.52 -> strats.. and also.. movement tech. The first
advanced movement technique that Gnist was
939.12 -> using was the Square Boost. By running forward
and pressing X and Square at the same time,
943.52 -> Sly will lunge forward with his aerial attack.
Movement speed in the air is significantly slower
947.92 -> than on the ground, but this technique allows
you to preserve your grounded speed into a jump,
952.32 -> saving tiny bits of time throughout the episode.
Another technique Gnist was taking advantage of
957.12 -> is the glitch high jump. When you hold
down square after swinging your cane,
961.04 -> Sly will charge up this spinning attack. If
you try to charge this attack while in mid air,
965.44 -> you can achieve a grounded standpoint that you
can jump off of, essentially allowing you to
969.36 -> triple jump. Sly 2 now had horizontal movement
tech in the form of Square Boosting, and vertical
975.36 -> movement tech in form of glitched high jumping,
allowing the game to be pushed to new heights..
980.16 -> and lengths. As for strats, Gnist performed
an absolutely ridiculous trick in Breaking
985.2 -> and Entering known as a table clip. By using the
charge attack once again and interrupting it with
990.16 -> entering a crawlspace, Sly will clip into table
for a brief moment. Once inside the table you
995.52 -> have.. a ton of speed and you can clip through
the gates on the other side, but you need to
999.76 -> be careful to cancel this speed at a very precise
moment, or the game will launch you out of bounds.
1004.88 -> If done successfully, you can skip the entire
cutscene with Murray, and save about 25 seconds.
1010 -> The table clip had been known about for at least
a year, but nobody was daring enough to put it
1013.92 -> in a run until Gnist. The trick is notoriously
inconsistent, and would cause plenty of resets
1020 -> early on, but 25 seconds was way too good to pass
up. Gnist had a comparison against coopercrisps
1026.72 -> 32:32, and you can see that he gains massive
time over him after completing the job. On Bug
1032.24 -> Dimitri’s Office, Gnist used the glitch high jump
to his advantage, cutting the corner even sharper
1036.72 -> to the ventilation shaft, saving another 4 and
a half. He maintains the lead through the run,
1041.76 -> all the way up until Silence the Alarms, where
he tragically only gets a single briefcase spawn,
1047.36 -> which costs him half his lead. Gnist also
gained about 2 seconds on disco demolitions by
1052 -> hitting the bomb on the final pillar, skipping
the necessary wait for the detonation.
1056.48 -> Gnists run was good, but he was definitely
carried by a game breaking new strategy,
1061.44 -> and so.. he wanted to prove that it wasn’t
a fluke. He would set a 32:09 11 days later,
1067.04 -> and in March the 32 minute
barrier would be shattered.
1074.88 -> "Nice.. nice nice. Okay. I'm gonna
retime that last split because..
1083.36 -> i split late i think." This run only really had
1 new notable strat. That being this vent clip
1090.64 -> at the end of Breaking and Entering, that
saves a couple of seconds. Besides that,
1094.4 -> this run was really solid. The square boosts
were looking crispier, the briefcases were on
1098.88 -> his side this time, and a good Dimitri fight
to close it out. The community around this
1103.44 -> time was still relatively small with only 14
submitted runs to the episode 1 leaderboards.
1107.92 -> Gnist would start streaming his runs a lot more
often, bringing in a small loyal fanbase for Sly.
1113.2 -> At the end of the month, March 30th, Gnist would
squeeze out another 3 second record, to 31:40.
1126.8 -> "Pfft. *laughs.* That was a late split but-."
One of the people that was watching this run
1131.2 -> was Cuber who was inspired
to get back to the game.
1134.24 -> Just to see if he still had it
in him to reclaim the title.
1146.32 -> Cuber had improved his Personal Best to a 32:08,
but wanted to push into that 31 territory.
1152.08 -> He learned the table clip, all the small
new optimizations, and all the new movement
1156.56 -> tech, and now he was hot on Gnists heels. He had a
run on April 19th that was 16 seconds behind Gnist
1163.36 -> going into Dimtri. It seemed like a lost cause,
perhaps good enough for a new personal best,
1169.2 -> but not quite good enough for the record,
regardless.. Cuber gave it everything he had.
1193.12 -> A 31:40. A World Record tie to the
second. A rare sight to behold.
1200.88 -> "My heart hurts *sigh of relief.*" Cuber had
proven to the world, but most importantly,
1209.84 -> to himself that he could still play at
the top level, even if it seemed like
1214.16 -> Gnist was becoming harder and harder to reach.
And that statement could not be more true.
1219.36 -> Gnist was in the lab trying to find more ways to
save time for Episode 1. We’re entering the stage
1224.4 -> where tiny tiny optimizations start to matter. 1
second here, 2 seconds there, will add up over the
1230.08 -> course of the run. All the jobs in the episode are
fairly simple and straightforward, and serve to
1235.04 -> show you the ropes of the game. With simplicity,
comes extreme optimization. And optimizations are
1241.52 -> exactly what Gnist would implement. He would post
a run a mere 2 days after Cuber tied his record,
1247.44 -> and already within the first few seconds
of the run, a new strat would be unearthed,
1252.16 -> and this one wasn’t 1-2 seconds. The
Satellite Sabotage Cutscene Skip.
1260.56 -> When you begin the run, Sly will
climb to the rooftop automatically,
1263.92 -> as seen in previous instances. Right before
he pulls out the binocucom, you have a 1 frame
1268.96 -> window to press start to pause the game.
Since Sly 2 runs at 60 frames per second,
1273.84 -> that’s a sixtieth of a second you have to
press a single button, however there was
1278 -> a workaround to make this consistent. All you
have to do is follow the great words of Melee
1282.56 -> commentator homemadewaffles. "UNPLUG THE
CONTROLLER DAWG, UNPLUG THE CONTROLLER!"
1289.52 -> Yes, that is the strat, unplugging
the charger cord from your controller,
1293.68 -> will pause the game on the first frame
possible. Unplugging it right when Sly
1297.76 -> latches off the pipe makes the controller
reestablish wireless connection to the PS3
1302.4 -> at the perfect moment for you to gain control
in the pause menu. Now you can quit out to the
1306.8 -> episode menu, and re-enter, and the cutscene
will be skipped. A tad controversial perhaps,
1311.6 -> but we’ll take the 12 seconds. Besides this
massive save, Gnist would also table clip
1316.32 -> through the second laser barrier in Breaking and
Entering, which skips crawling under the table.
1320.56 -> A tiny shortcut was found by using this window’s
flower bed combined with a glitch high jump,
1325.04 -> to reach the window earlier for Bug Dimitri’s
Office, and a closer rooftop was used to take
1330.08 -> care of the rats when getting the repair truck
key in the operation. Cuber’s method of running
1334.32 -> all the way back was pretty slow, but much safer
as you knock the rat off of a higher rooftop,
1339.52 -> guaranteeing an instant kill. Gnist’s method,
while faster, requires more finesse to get right.
1345.36 -> Gnist had actually been using this strat since
his first world record for episode 1 months back,
1350.16 -> but this was the first time he nailed it to
perfection. Now, it was just about closing it out.
1360.32 -> "Ayy, i did it! My sum of best
is now sub 31 by far, Kappa uhm."
1367.68 -> "It can still be a lot faster
though, like, i still lost
1371.92 -> almost 10 seconds to cuber on the last
split. So that can still be improved."
1379.84 -> Despite getting a best segment on the
operation, Gnist still lost 10 seconds to
1384.4 -> Cuber. This was largely due to Cuber’s better
execution in the boss fight against Dimitri,
1389.36 -> but it’s not as simple as it
looks. Allow me to break it down.
1397.6 -> You'll always start the fight at the opposite end
from Dimitri, where he will shoot a laser attack
1402 -> with his ring. You’re normally supposed to take
cover when he shoots this until his ring jams,
1407.04 -> but he’ll also stop using this attack if you
close the gap. Once you’re up close you need
1411.44 -> to hit Dimitri 4 times for the first knockdown, 4
times again for the second one, and after doing it
1416.72 -> a third time, he will teleport. The teleporting
was a bit of a mystery back in the early days
1422.64 -> but it was slowly figured out around this time in
April 2015. The fight arena is separated into 4
1428 -> quadrants. Dimitri will always teleport diagonally
across from the quadrant that Sly is standing in,
1433.28 -> so if you wanna fight him well - You can knock
him down, then get as close to the center of the
1437.44 -> arena while still standing inside the same
quadrant. Then run to the opposite one once
1442.08 -> Dimitri has teleported. While both Gnist and
Cuber had a stranglehold over this strategy,
1447.04 -> Cuber would typically pull better times,
brilliantly showcased in his 31:13, which
1452.16 -> was set the very next day after Gnist’s new time.
A gold split to close, and a new world record.
1457.84 -> "Woo woo.
1466.88 -> 31:13 boys."
1470.8 -> "Thank you Gnisten"
"Ahhh i get to move on, i'm so happy!
1478.16 -> I'm so ****ing happy. Holy ****
1497.84 -> For the first time in the twitch era, Sly
2 Episode 1 would remain dormant. Cuber’s
1503.76 -> 31:13 would stay on top for half a year. A great
statement for the final record of the games early
1509.6 -> champion. Cuber would still root for future record
holders, and stick around in the community to
1514.24 -> race and do some occasional runs, but this
would be the last time he was in first place.
1519.44 -> His work here was done. We thank you Cuber.
The 31:13.. was gonna fall eventually,
1526.88 -> and the person to beat it is
someone i’ve mentioned before. Mikl.
1532.4 -> "For the love of god don't hit
me. Oh this is so dangerous. ****.
1540.4 -> "AHH WTF"
1543.52 -> Coming hot off of his any% record in Sly 1,
1546.08 -> Mikl wanted to see if he could
end the dry streak on Episode 1,
1549.36 -> he had the speed, he had the pace, and surely
enough, he would get it, by a mere two seconds.
1558.64 -> "Nope."
"I got it."
1562.4 -> "I'm so.. so sorry cuber."
1566.08 -> Your first instinct might be that he’s apologizing
to Cuber for ending his record's long streak,
1570.96 -> but there’s a little more to it.. It’s not a
PlayStation speedrunning video, if we don’t
1576.48 -> talk about loading times. Playing with a physical
disc of the Sly collection is slower than having
1587.04 -> the game downloaded on your PS3, so a digital
release is always used. The different PS3 models
1592.96 -> vary heavily on the reset times after each day in
the episode. The oldest models of PlayStation 3’s,
1598.08 -> being the fat A through K models, are the
fastest, which is strange to say the least - you
1603.52 -> would think that the newer models with stronger
hardware are better suited for running, but the
1607.76 -> fat L through Q models are slower, the slim models
are even slower, and the super slim models are
1613.76 -> horrendously slow. Finally there is some variation
in loading times depending on the hard disk drive
1618.72 -> you have in your PS3. The standard one always
has 5400 Revolutions per minute, or RPM. Mikl had
1625.28 -> replaced his standard Hard disk drive with a newer
one for storage reasons, but this one had an RPM
1630.16 -> of 7200, which caused him to save 2-3 seconds on
Cuber and Gnist on every quitout to the PS3 menu.
1636.4 -> To equalize the playing field from here on out,
it made much more sense to just ditch Hard Disk
1641.04 -> Drives altogether and upgrade to Solid State
Drives. PS3s can’t read or write more than 300
1646.88 -> megabytes per second from any drive, so even the
cheapest SSDs, at 30$ or so, wouldn’t be faster
1652.96 -> than a more expensive one. This would become the
new standard, so runs never had to come down to
1657.76 -> faster loads ever again. However, at the time,
Cuber’s run had better execution over Mikl’s,
1664.16 -> and they both knew it. Mikl’s run was still the
record, but SSDs opened up the door for way lower
1670.16 -> to be possible, as it saved about 23 seconds for
episode 1. Who was gonna take advantage of that?
1677.92 -> When the world needed him the most. Gnist came.
back. With an SSD at his disposal, he was ready
1683.84 -> to leap far ahead of the competition. He had
already proven himself as a force to be reckoned
1688.16 -> with in Sly 2, and for the next year of the games
history, no man could touch the norwegian slayer.
1740.24 -> With his 30:25 set on November 27th 2015,
Gnist had officially swept the entire episode
1746.24 -> leaderboard for Sly 2. There's no rule
stating that you can't set an individual
1750.64 -> episode record in a full game run. And Gnist
was such a monster, he would do exactly that.
1779.6 -> 30:12. An absolute takeover of the game.
SSD only saved around 23 seconds, yet Gnist
1786.64 -> had bettered his play so much throughout the
months, that he shaved off a whole minute.
1790.96 -> Despite being so close to breaking the 30
minute barrier. Gnist was satisfied with
1794.96 -> how far he had pushed the game. And who
could blame him? He had firmly cemented
1799.6 -> his position at the top of the leaderboard.
He had everything. What more could he want?
1814.08 -> Well.. One thing is getting the lead. Another
is maintaining it, and you may notice that a
1819.12 -> new player already has a 30 of his own. This is
Alekhine, and throughout 2016, he was comfortably
1825.36 -> sitting behind Gnist, in second place. A Norwegian
rival, hungry to take the number one spot for
1830.88 -> himself. Towards the end of 2016, Alek wanted to
make a push for the full game any% record, as it
1836.8 -> was starting to be viewed with more prestige over
episode times. But he had a way to go if he wanted
1842.32 -> to get there, and decided instead to improve
all of his episode times for practice. Alek is
1847.6 -> a former runescape skiller, he is no stranger to
relentless grinding for hours on end. The word
1853.12 -> goes that Alek would enter the double digits some
days during his most motivated times. He is Sly
1858.4 -> 2’s first proper, grind monkey.. if you can put
it that way. Shown here in his natural habitat.
1869.04 -> To achieve 1st place in the full-game, Alek wanted
to get the world record or at least get very close
1874.08 -> to it, in every single episode. What better way
than to start from the beginning, and Alek was set
1879.76 -> on the grand prize. Sub 30 in episode 1. Gnist had
a couple of new strategies showcased in his 30:12,
1887.36 -> and a sub 30 was proven to be barely possible
with a very clean run. The first strat takes
1892.96 -> place in Waterpump Destruction, where using
the invincibility frames from the laser,
1896.88 -> enables you to punch out the second
alarm, rather than tossing items at it.
1900.8 -> A nifty little barrier skip allows for a few
seconds of time save in Disco Demolitions,
1905.2 -> and finally a faster and more consistent strat
for the truck key was discovered in the operation.
1910.48 -> By destroying this bench near the
fountain, you alert the 2 rats that
1913.76 -> are tailing behind the truck guard. As they
leave their position to check on the noise,
1917.68 -> you can quickly run to the left to avoid
detection and steal the key very quickly.
1926.08 -> Alek had improved his 30:45 to a 30:18
and was now so tantalizingly close to both
1932.64 -> Gnist, and the sub 30. On November
13th, 2016 Alek was on the run.
1953.36 -> He hit all 3 table clips in Breaking and Entering,
he got 3 briefcases on Silence the Alarms, a 4
1960.16 -> second gold split in theater pickpocketing, it was
all just looking a little too good to be true. In
1966.48 -> the operation, Alek nailed the guard lure for the
truck key, hit the cock strats, and had a great
1972.08 -> fight against the rats. He was 20 seconds ahead
of Gnist going into Dimitri. This run was so good,
1978.72 -> there was even a little bit of room to spare.
The nerves were getting to Alek, and it showed
1983.68 -> in his fight against Dimitri. It was shaky,
he was making mistakes. It was gonna be close.
2016.8 -> There it was. 29:59. Alek had pulled through
and achieved the sub 30 by the skin of his
2024.4 -> teeth. It took a lot of effort from many of the
game's glitch hunters and community members,
2028.88 -> but Episode 1 could now be beaten in under
half an hour, all in the name of Norway.
2043.36 -> Alek would go on to chase down great times in
the other episodes as well. He got the record in
2047.68 -> Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 4, and eventually
was only missing Episode 6 for the sweep,
2054.4 -> which he would get during a full-game
run in february. As a fun sidenote,
2058.4 -> Gnist would take back the episode 6 record the
very next day, meaning that Alek only had the
2063.2 -> Episode sweep for 24 hours. Regardless though,
Alek was more focused on any%, and treated the
2068.64 -> episode records as more of necessary practice
for full-game. Once he began his full-game grind,
2073.6 -> he would add another improvement to
Episode 1 during one of his attempts,
2077.04 -> with 29:50. Gnist didn’t have much time to play
in the winter season due to exams. But in March he
2084.32 -> was ready to come back to reclaim the records that
Alek had taken over the months. And what’s more,
2089.36 -> he had finally obtained the optimal fat ps3 setup,
now putting him on the same playing field as Alek.
2095.28 -> On March 10th, he set a new record of 29:44 for
Episode 1. This run had two new small strategy
2101.92 -> innovations. Z had figured out that the first
cutscene on Disco Demolitions could be skipped
2106.96 -> by getting knocked into the cutscene trigger by
whacking your own bomb and dying on the way in.
2111.68 -> You would think this would save massive amounts
of time, as the cutscene is 22 seconds long,
2116.56 -> but you have to redo the first room again with the
lasers, reducing the time save to only 2 seconds.
2122.48 -> Sly 2 has long been plagued with unskippable
cutscenes throughout the game, so skips like
2127.04 -> these are very welcome additions to the run. The
other strat Gnist would incorporate in his run,
2132.24 -> is absolutely ridiculous, and would take place
outside of the window for Bug Dimitri’s Office.
2137.68 -> Gnist didn’t climb the pipe, he didn’t jump
off the window. No. Gnist went.. for the chair.
2163.76 -> Despite the chair jump, the
rest of the run was very solid,
2168.16 -> enough for a new record by 6 seconds,
that would last... for 9 months.
2176.72 -> For the rest of 2017, Episode 1 was left in the
dust. Alek had properly burnt himself out after
2183.2 -> spending hours every day playing any%. It’s not
easy to maintain motivation for a 5 hour long
2188.48 -> game. Gnist had shifted his focus to Sly 2 100% in
May of 2017, and then to Sly 3 any% in September.
2196.64 -> Towards the end of the year, we would see
some new faces get close to the Norwegians,
2201.12 -> but no new record. With how optimized Episode
1 was getting, no one was willing to make a
2206.48 -> push to lower the time. A new player had to
step up, or something new had to be found.
2223.44 -> To continue our story, I need to talk about
a certain someone. This guy right here. His
2229.68 -> name is Oggyerino, or Oggy, and he’s uhh.
sorta the class clown of the community..
2236.4 -> "Okay so it's here."
"It's like, you stand right here."
2239.04 -> "Or is it mayb-"
"*Infectous Laughter*"
2241.156 -> "OHH HO. HOHOHO. *Coughs*"
2258.88 -> Where do you think Oggy is from? ..Yeah, another
norwegian. Look at the leaderboards in November
2265.68 -> 2017, literally the entire top 7 runners are
norwegian or finnish. What is this? Some black
2272 -> metal fan gathering or something? Anyway, there
is actually a solid explanation as to why this is
2276.88 -> the case. For most smaller nations in Europe,
you would just have to play games in english,
2281.44 -> since translations were hard to come by. Sly 2 and
3 however came with a ton of languages. Not just
2287.2 -> your usual English, German, Spanish, and French.
Sly 2 also came with Danish, Swedish, Norwegian,
2293.84 -> Finnish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese.
For many of the Nordic countries, having games
2300.16 -> in our native tongues was extremely unusual. And
here comes a game as big as Sly 2 in 12 different
2306 -> languages, thanks for that Sucker Punch. It was
a big deal, and the games were extremely popular
2311.28 -> here for this reason. Oggy and a few other people
had been testing different languages in Sly 2 to
2315.76 -> see if it would make a difference in the run.
Some episodes in Sly 3 were faster in Dutch and
2320.48 -> Norwegian, so surely something had to be better
for Sly 2. After some testing, a few things were
2326.08 -> found out. The difference between every language
was basically negligible in comparison to english.
2331.2 -> But there was 1 exception. Oggy and another runner
Suappi are both collectors of various versions of
2336.56 -> the sly games. But there was one version that
eluded for quite some time. Korean. Obtaining a
2342.32 -> korean copy of Sly 2 wasn’t the easiest feat.
But Suappi managed to get his hands on one.
2347.84 -> The moment he slid the disc in, it was night
and day. The dialogue here is unreasonably fast.
2353.84 -> It seems that some of the cutscene footage is
shortened because the Korean dialogue is so fast
2359.2 -> that it wouldn’t match up with the length used for
english. After another runner, Remo, timed Korean
2364.4 -> over English for the whole game, it was proven
to be an astonishing 9 minutes faster for any%,
2369.92 -> one of these minutes being in Episode 1. Oggy was
able to crack the final piece of the puzzle, and
2374.8 -> figured out how to get a Korean Downloaded copy
of the game on PS3, and forwarded the information
2379.44 -> to the community. This would mark the beginning of
the Korean Gold Rush in Sly 2. A single discovery,
2385.04 -> so impactful, the records for all of the
games 8 individual episodes as well as any%,
2390.48 -> were now up for grabs. For episode 1, anybody
that was decently within range of Gnist before,
2396.24 -> now had a shot at getting an easy record.
And Oggy would get his 48 hours of fame,
2401.68 -> setting a new world record with Korean,
on December 22nd, 2017 with 29:22.
2408.32 -> Two days later on christmas eve, Mikl
was doing full-game runs with Korean,
2412.48 -> and just so happened to get one too, with 29:15.
2417.04 -> Remo, who was the big mastermind
behind timing the Korean dialogue,
2420.24 -> would get a gold rush World Record
of his own, by 1 second, 29:14.
2426.08 -> Within the span of less than a week, 3
different players had set 3 different records,
2431.04 -> it seemed like it was anybody’s game, but papa
Gnist had something else to say about it. Hah,
2436.88 -> those are some nice times boys, how about 28:33.
..Yea, everybody sorta saw this coming. When Gnist
2444.64 -> got a hold of Korean, it was game over. This time
came with only 1 new notable strat that Oggy used
2451.12 -> in his run. Sly 1 runner Zenthrow figured out
a double hit method for certain guards, which
2456.08 -> could be used for the rat fight in the operation.
After a regular square attack, the rats normally
2460.96 -> have to get up from the ground, but you can fit in
a triangle attack as the rats are getting back up,
2465.6 -> resulting in more damage per second. The only
downside is that if you miss the timing, you’ll
2470.24 -> get hit by the rat's kick on the way back up.
The next month, Gnist would be back with another
2474.88 -> improvement. Lowering the record by 4 seconds,
just by playing slightly better throughout.
2491.04 -> The overall mentality for Sly 2 runners entering
2018 was shifting away from the early days. Back
2496.8 -> when the community was smaller-scale in 2014,
the focus was more on episode runs. They were
2502.16 -> the perfect length to race and have fun with your
friends, and full-game runs were simply too long,
2507.36 -> over 6 hours. Now 4 years later, the full-game
record is close to breaking the 5 hour barrier.
2513.6 -> While still a long run, it could now
be justified to take it seriously,
2517.36 -> due to the growing popularity of twitch streaming.
Sitting in your room and doing a 5 hour long
2522 -> run by yourself, can be pretty mind numbing, but
now twitch chat is here to keep you company. It’s
2528.16 -> interesting to see this shift in viewpoints from
episode runs reigning supreme, and full-game runs
2533.04 -> being kind of irrelevant, to it now being
the other way around. Alek was sort of the
2537.44 -> first person to adopt this mentality, and others
would follow in his footsteps for a long time.
2543.04 -> As full-game runs became more relevant, it drew
in more viewership for Sly, and expanded the
2548 -> community a lot. The Episode 1 leaderboard now
had runs from 60 different people. A lot of this
2554.08 -> can be attributed to Gnist, for streaming the Sly
games consistently over the years. Many viewers
2558.88 -> find his stream.. comfy. He never rages, is
helpful if people have questions about the game,
2564.96 -> and is just a very wholesome person overall.
Oggy has on countless occasions snuggled up
2569.6 -> and fallen asleep to his stream. On top of
all of that, he’s definitely one of the most
2573.76 -> accomplished Sly runners ever. It was very tough
to take the record from Gnist, and when you did,
2579.68 -> he would always come back to reclaim it. The only
person who was seemingly in sight to compete for
2584.72 -> the episode 1 record was Remo, who was 24 seconds
behind Gnist. So far in this video, Remo has been
2590.96 -> portrayed as the guy who timed Korean for Sly
2 and got a free record with it. But in the
2596.4 -> background, this finnish juggernaut was absolutely
dominating Sly 3. Setting one world record after
2602.72 -> another. The games have some small differences but
the fundamentals remain the same. The saying goes,
2608.88 -> if you’re good at one, you’re probably gonna be
good at the other, and throughout January of 2018,
2614.08 -> Remo and Gnist would have a heated battle for
the Sly 2 any% record. No episode 1 records were
2619.52 -> set during the big showdown, besides the 28:29 by
Gnist. Remo took a break from speedrunning around
2625.28 -> mid 2018, so Gnist was once again left without
a competitor. The only records that would be
2630.88 -> set for the next while would be far apart from
one another, and would basically just happen
2635.28 -> when Gnist decided to derust for full-game.
28:25 in July 2018, 28:22 in April 2019,
2642.96 -> 28:20 just hours later, and 28:11 2 days after
that. Besides better execution overall, the strats
2652.48 -> in this run were wildly different from before.
A small revolution was taking place for strat
2657.52 -> hunting, and a new strategy on Follow Dimitri, is
the first big eyecatcher. As Gnist would do this.
2672 -> He teleported across the map. Follow
Dimitri is more or less an autoscroller,
2678.72 -> where your only goal is not to get spotted
by anyone, but this time can be better
2682.8 -> spent. Gnist makes sure he doesn’t go too far
away from Dimitri’s radius to fail the job,
2687.68 -> but moves in a precise way in order to set up
a super jump. If you move around by jumping,
2692.8 -> and swinging the cane when you’re about to hit
the ground, a value that the game uses to keep
2696.72 -> track of your position is never updated, and
when you fall in water, or off a high area,
2701.76 -> the game will move you back to the last place
this value was written. Gnist purposefully sets
2706.4 -> his position next to this red car, and retains
this during the entirety of Follow Dimitri, taking
2711.6 -> advantage of breakable objects, including this
antenna, which also don’t update your position.
2716.48 -> He waits on this railing for the job to complete,
and then jumps into the water, which teleports him
2721.52 -> all the way back to the car. This allows him to
start Bug Dimitri's Office immediately after,
2726.48 -> effectively changing the route and swapping
the two jobs around entirely. In Breaking
2731.36 -> and Entering, Gnist uses double hits and specific
pathing to group the rats into the same location,
2736.4 -> allowing Murray to absolutely pulverize them, then
table clipping only seconds later. On Silence the
2742.56 -> Alarms, a huge discovery was made that eliminated
the painful randomness on the second alarm.
2747.92 -> It turns out that the briefcases don’t spawn
randomly, but spawn based on the camera,
2752.64 -> which means they can be manipulated, just like the
guards. All you have to do is make sure you’re not
2757.52 -> touching the camera running through this fountain
area, and that you’re running in a specific path.
2761.76 -> You’ll get 3 or 4 briefcases everytime. In Theater
Pickpocketing, Gnist went back to the old strat
2767.2 -> for the first key, since it was now faster with
another lure, by slamming this chair at the start.
2772.48 -> The amount of coins you have to dig for in order
to get the keys in this job is also random,
2777.2 -> and is timeloss that starts to matter with the run
now so optimized. With korean dialogue saving time
2782.96 -> all throughout the game, Gnist opted to not do the
Disco Demolitions cutscene skip, since it almost
2788 -> broke even with watching the cutscene. This run
also features by far the best Dimitri fight we’ve
2793.36 -> seen, spending as little time as possible not
doing damage. The 28:11 was an incredible run.
2800.08 -> Gnist had now been running Sly 2 for over 4 years,
and was still trying to push the boundaries.
2805.28 -> His records did come with some notable dead
periods in between, and his life as a whole
2809.68 -> was taking on more responsibilities, school being
the main time consumer. Despite all of that, a lot
2815.28 -> has happened in very little time. Sub 30 didn’t
even feel like it was achieved all that long ago,
2820.8 -> but now we’re closing in on Sub 28. The question
was, was it gonna be Gnist, or someone else?
2840.4 -> In the summer of 2019, Remo had come back from his
break, and this time, he was serious about Sly 2.
2847.36 -> Remo started out posting his first runs of Sly 3
in the summer of 2017, but over the years, would
2853.04 -> quickly gather a reputation for being meticulous.
If he finds a new strategy, he will test it.
2859.04 -> If a new route is brought to his attention,
he will time it, and if there’s records out
2863.44 -> there for the taking, he will take them. Remo is a
living Sly speedrunning library. You could ask him
2869.68 -> how much the fastest strat saves for a certain job
in.. i dunno.. episode 5, and you bet he’s got the
2875.52 -> answer. Not only that, he is also an incredibly
consistent runner, and gets results very fast.
2881.76 -> In june of 2019 Remo would absolutely demolish the
entire episode leaderboards for Sly 2 within the
2887.6 -> span of a few weeks, even faster than Alek back
in 2017. Remo really wanted to go for a feat that
2894.24 -> nobody had done before. The elusive 19 out of 19.
Meaning every episode record for any% and 100%,
2901.2 -> the full game record for any% and 100%, and a
miscellaneous category called any% with cheats.
2906.8 -> To be fair, he already had every 100% record
for every episode, so he wasn’t starting from 0,
2912.64 -> but still.. It’s difficult to describe
how quickly Remo got some of these times.
2917.68 -> Already halfway through the month he had 18
out of the 19 records and it’s no coincidence
2923.28 -> that he saved the most fitting for last.. and i
don’t think i have to tell you which one it is.
2931.52 -> Remo barely had any new strategies to use, for the
most part he just had to try to keep up with Gnist
2937.2 -> for 28 minutes. For the table clip in breaking
and entering, Remo got flung high up into the air,
2943.12 -> wasting around 5 seconds early on, but he
was confident the time could be saved later.
2947.6 -> After all, for the 19/19, Remo didn’t need the
run, he just needed a run. On Follow Dimitri,
2954.8 -> Remo didn’t get teleported as far as Gnist,
and had a horrible guard spawn as an even
2959.04 -> further punishment. Again getting hit with the
painting on your back, causes you to fail the job,
2964.32 -> but Remo managed to escape the jaws of death,
and nailed the chair jump right afterwards.
2970.24 -> At the end of moonlight rendezvous,
Remo was 11 seconds behind Gnist,
2974.32 -> so at this point, he had to pull all of his tricks
out the bag to save as much time as possible.
2979.36 -> A reverse order for the last 2 keys in Theater
Pickpocketing, the disco demolitions cutscene
2984.16 -> skip, and a much riskier water tower
in the operation. Entering Dimitri,
2989.6 -> Remo found himself at the complete opposite
end of where Alek was just 2.5 years prior.
2994.72 -> He had closed the gap to being only 3 seconds
behind Gnist, but he was going up against one of
2999.28 -> the best Dimitri fights in the world. But then..
something happened, a miracle had struck for Remo.
3034.32 -> In a stroke of luck, when it was least expected,
Dimitri had pushed Sly to the absolute perfect
3040.16 -> spot as he was teleporting. Closing out a new
world record for Remo of 28:08, and completing
3046.64 -> the full 19/19 sweep. Finland was now on top. Remo
was the king of Sly 3, and now was the king of Sly
3054.48 -> 2. Hands down, one of the greatest the series
has ever seen. Throughout this mid 2019 period,
3060.8 -> Remo seemed completely unstoppable. He was like a
train with no breaks, setting record after record.
3071.44 -> "4:58:34."
3074.96 -> The day the 28:08 was set, would also mark the day
of Gnist’s final time at the top for episode 1.
3081.68 -> He had done a lot for the community for the past
4 years, setting countless records in Sly 2 and 3,
3087.12 -> but life goes on. Having said that, you
never know when we might see him play again.
3092.4 -> It could happen, we’ll have to wait and see.
3095.6 -> Remo had taken the Sly scene by storm, and had
the stranglehold over two of the games. He was
3100.8 -> looking like the one to push for the sub 28, but
episode 1 was taking its toll. To put it blunt,
3107.36 -> nobody cared to push it down further with
how optimized it was. If you didn’t play
3112.16 -> within a few seconds of perfection, you would
have to start over. Your runs could die in so
3117.44 -> many different ways and no one was willing to
squeeze a lemon that seemingly had no juice left.
3133.2 -> Let’s rewind the tape a bit cause we have
been going for quite a while at this point.
3137.52 -> These were the top 10 players on the leaderboards
right when Gnist got his final record,
3142 -> I figured we should, you know, reflect. We got
Remo who was catching up quickly, we have Suappi,
3148.48 -> Mikl, Oggy, Alek. You know, the goon squad. But
we also have some new runners amongst the top.
3155.36 -> I wanna talk about this guy down here, tied for
10th place. Hekksu. With a 29:53. A sub 30 is
3164.16 -> certainly a respectable time, but something
definitely stands out with this run. You see,
3169.44 -> when you submit your time to the leaderboards, you
are required to put in your time, your hard drive,
3173.84 -> your starting gadgets, which is none for episode
1, your platform and version, and date. Hekksu’s
3180.56 -> 29:53 was done on English and he also wasn’t using
an SSD. If you do the math, his time with optimal
3188.08 -> hardware would be in the mid 28 minute range,
very clearly a top 3 player in terms of skill.
3193.76 -> He had been playing on and off since 2016 and
found various strategies throughout the game.
3198.8 -> The guard lure used in the operation was found
by him, and the crazy super jump chain on Follow
3203.6 -> Dimitri as well. Many community members
speculated about the potential of hekksu,
3208.4 -> he could definitely be a world record contender
if he acquired the right version of the game.
3212.8 -> But the man himself was a bit of a mystery. He
barely interacted at all with the community,
3218.48 -> and was just off doing his own thing.
If he was playing, you had no idea..
3224.08 -> you would just have to wait until he submitted
a run to see what kind of times he was getting.
3228.56 -> Hekksu became the talking point in the
community discord server. Just who the
3232.64 -> hell was this mysterious player? Has anyone
spoken to him before? What does he look like?
3238.96 -> “People just imagined him being
this super big brawly dude.
3247.12 -> I don’t know what it’s called
but it’s the brawly doge
3250.32 -> started popping up as a meme and we’re like,
that’s ****ing hekksu. That is hekksu.”
3256.8 -> Ok so if we take Oggy’s description to heart.
We have a big muscular dog, who plays with no
3262.8 -> help from the community and is one of the
players with the highest skill potential.
3267.28 -> Don’t give this guy Korean and SSD,
or he might just destroy your game.
3271.68 -> But that’s exactly what would happen. The
community was about to witness something
3276 -> legendary. The finnish hurricane had
arrived, let’s see what he could do.
3395.12 -> 27:34. Hekksu had pushed Episode 1 to a place
where it had never been before. Not only did
3402.24 -> he break into the 27 minute barrier on his
first world record, he continued to lower
3407.2 -> it when everyone else thought that there was no
more time to be saved. What an absolute beast.
3412.72 -> Hekksu had shaved off 20 seconds from
Remo’s record with nothing but better
3416.88 -> movement and execution, but his 27:34 did
have a completely new innovation. Gadgets.
3425.52 -> Something I've never brought up because it’s
simply never been relevant is the gadgets menu,
3429.84 -> which you can open by pressing select. New gadgets
are added into this menu with every episode,
3434.72 -> but you have to purchase them in the
safe house. In episode 1 there’s only 1
3438.8 -> gadget that each playable character can obtain.
Fists of Flame for Murray, Smoke Bomb for Sly,
3444.96 -> and Trigger Bomb for bentley. Hekksu had
discovered that the items in episode 1
3450.4 -> could help save a tiny amount of time in the
run, but where was he gonna get the coins?
3454.88 -> Hekksu spent his time wisely during the
autoscrollers jobs to farm 200 coins to buy the
3459.36 -> trigger bomb for Bentley, which saved a handful of
seconds in Disco Demolitions. The trigger bomb is
3464.56 -> a bomb you can manually detonate, but it will also
detonate if you leave a certain radius around it.
3469.76 -> So hekksu throws a trigger bomb on the first
pillar. He then makes his way to the second pillar
3474.16 -> and quickly drops a bomb as he leaves the radius
of the trigger bomb. This causes the cutscenes
3478.8 -> to overlap and play at the same time, saving time
over playing them individually. He then continues
3484.32 -> to do the same for the third and fourth one,
including a ballsy corner cut over the archway.
3490.4 -> Hekksu’s gameplay throughout this run is
also so unbelievably clean. A disgusting
3495.6 -> triple hit in breaking and entering from Murray,
perfect camera manipulation to get 4 briefcases
3501.2 -> and insane rat juggling in the
operation. All in the same run.
3506.72 -> This is perhaps where the record should
have stood. But a rule change was in
3510.24 -> the works for Sly 2. Full-game Sly 2 was being
revolutionized by the use of additional gadgets,
3516.64 -> such as Adrenaline Burst and Stealth
Slide, saving huge amounts of time in
3520.4 -> the later stages of the game. At this point,
episode runs were only allowed to start with
3524.96 -> the gadgets that were required to complete the
episode, which in the case of Episode 1 is none.
3531.04 -> Additional gadgets could be bought if the coins
were grinded mid-run, as Hekksu did in his 27:34.
3537.84 -> But in order to prevent episode runs -- especially
later in the game -- from being completely left
3542.32 -> behind in the midst of the gadget revolution, the
community was polled, and a decision was made.
3547.84 -> Additional gadgets were now allowed for
Sly 2 Episode runs. Runners could begin
3552.08 -> the run with any available gadgets that are
already unlocked by that point in the game.
3556.24 -> Which means that hekksu, had one last run to
do. On September 8th, 2020, the Sly community
3563.92 -> witnessed history, it was pure
beauty between a man and his game.
3568.16 -> From a strategy and gameplay point of view,
this is the peak. Hekksu would start the
3573.28 -> attempt that would go on to be the the most
well executed display for episode 1, here we go.
3584.4 -> First, Hekksu uses some advanced movement
tech throughout the rooftops of Paris.
3588.48 -> The charge attack's grounded speed is
slightly faster than normal running speed,
3592.56 -> and you can keep this speed by timing a square
boost right when the charge attack ends, saving
3597.44 -> tiny tiny amounts of time. Hekksu nails this
movement, and gets a gold split for the segment.
3603.44 -> After Follow Dimitri, Hekksu takes the super jump
chain one step further, and warps directly into
3609.36 -> the trigger for Bug Dimitri’s Office. He nails the
chair jump and goes for an absolutely insane jump
3615.44 -> to the ventilation shaft. Cuber, Coopercrisp and
Z had all tried for countless hours to get this
3620.48 -> jump to work a single time back in the day,
but now in 2020, hekksu does it effortlessly.
3633.04 -> He keeps up the pace, and gets 3
briefcases on Silence the Alarms
3636.96 -> with camera manipulation. With a 3
second lead, hekksu goes for a new
3641.28 -> 50/50 cutscene skip in theater pickpocketing. If
you remember from way back earlier in the video,
3646.24 -> Sly will sometimes walk forward all the way into
the cutscene, but sometimes he will stop short.
3651.52 -> For you to be able to skip this cutscene, you need
sly to stop short, which is about a 50% chance,
3657.68 -> adding a pretty big run killer towards the end of
episode 1. After getting lucky on the coinflip,
3663.12 -> Hekksu uses the newly acquired smoke bomb
to lure the flashlight guard to the door,
3667.92 -> where he then skips the cutscene by dying
as it’s playing, saving around 8 seconds.
3674.64 -> The first room in Disco Demolitions is
done faster than it’s ever done before.
3679.36 -> Hekksu damage boosts while disabling the first
laser barrier, then pulls a bomb and whacks
3684.32 -> it mid air, allowing it to roll forwards into
the second one. After quickscoping the guard,
3689.04 -> he perfectly times a jump into the second barrier
right as it goes down and pulls another bomb to
3695.04 -> die for the cutscene skip. I’m just gonna
let you see it one more time at full speed.
3712.96 -> For the fourth time in this video, a
new strat was discovered for getting the
3716.72 -> truck key in the operation, but the only
one mad enough to go for it.. is hekksu.
3729.76 -> All that to save 0.1 seconds.
3733.36 -> With one final showdown against Dimitri,
hekksu uses the smoke bomb to completely
3737.84 -> revolutionize the fight. When you hit guards while
undetected you will get an instant knockdown,
3743.2 -> but if you’re detected they will stay on their
feet. Hekksu realized that you can utilize the
3747.84 -> smoke bomb to be undetected by Dimitri and thus
get a free instant knockdown after just one hit.
3754.24 -> Hekksu prevents him from teleporting away
completely by cornering him with this strat.
3758.88 -> He tears through the entire
boss fight in mere seconds.
3769.04 -> 27:12. A record that stood. No.. A record that
is still standing over a year later. A masterful
3777.84 -> display from the game's best player. And as
expected, hekksu, soon after getting this run,
3784.64 -> slowly faded back into his mysterious ways, and
it would be a while until we heard from him again.
3790.16 -> According to Slygolds.com which is a website
that tracks all the best times for each job,
3795.12 -> you can see that the community’s best possible
episode 1 adds up to 27:01. If we take these
3801.12 -> numbers literally, hekksu is 11 seconds away from
perfection. In more realistic eyes though, a 26
3807.68 -> will definitely happen. Whether it’s Hekksu, Remo,
Gnist or maybe a new player. Only time will tell.
3831.76 -> Man. What a journey it has been for the Sly
community. It all started out with a bunch of
3836.72 -> passionate fans of the game on SpeedDemosArchive
in 2008, and throughout the years, the community
3842.24 -> has grown so much, and the time has fallen so
low. From Coopercrisps early runs, to Cuber’s love
3849.2 -> for the episode, to racing on SpeedRunsLive, to
Gnist taking over the game, to Alek’s sub 30, to
3856.16 -> Oggy’s laughter, to Remo’s 19/19, and to Hekksu’s
silent obliteration. From the bottom of my heart,
3864.24 -> thank you to all the runners, glitch hunters,
modders and casual players for keeping this game
3869.36 -> alive. And of course to viewers like yourself for
making it this far into the video. On the surface,
3876 -> this may just seem like the history of how episode
1’s record has been lowered over the years.
3880.56 -> But a true community has been built and grown
for these games, that consists of friendships,
3885.76 -> laughs, memes, sadness, and joy. With
121 runs on speedrun.com for episode 1,
3893.6 -> there is no better time than now to get into
speedrunning Sly 2. It’s as easy as putting on
3898.4 -> a timer and just playing as fast as you can. After
saying the word Episode 1, 42 times in this video,
3905.52 -> I'm starting to wanna try it too. The best thing
you can do to get into speedrunning any game out
3910.4 -> there, is to go to speedrun.com, search for
the game and join the community discord..
3915.84 -> There you will find people that are
willing to help you get started.
3919.28 -> As for the future of the game, Hekksu
hasn’t been very active as of late,
3923.36 -> and a few new players are catching up to him. His
any% record, is being pursued by 2 new players,
3929.28 -> Jake and Bvr, who are only behind by a few
minutes. Hekksu also had a stranglehold over
3934.72 -> all the episodes, but due to inactivity, Bvr and
Phobos have managed to snag a couple. However,
3941.04 -> Episode 1 is still firmly in Hekksu’s grasp,
with second place being Bvr 29 seconds behind.
3947.2 -> After all these years, we finally have a
player who cares about the full-game run,
3951.92 -> and the individual episodes, combining
the mindset from both new and old.
3956.72 -> There are a couple of Tool-Assisted strategies
and theories that have circulated for Episode 1,
3961.2 -> so let’s take a look at them
before closing things out.
3965.76 -> The first one is this possible sequence
break, uploaded by Gnist in 2017. Gnist
3970.96 -> uses the paraglider and the binocucom to clip out
of the final room during Breaking and Entering.
3975.84 -> You wouldn’t normally have the paraglider here
but let’s just pretend you can get out somehow.
3980.56 -> You can actually hurt Dimitri and knock him
down during this part, but.. the game crashes.
3986.4 -> Something in the game realises that you haven’t
fulfilled the prerequisites for this to happen,
3990.88 -> and it breaks the code. Essentially there are
flags that need to be hit in order to proceed
3995.76 -> to later parts of the game. For example, in
Breaking and Entering, you would think that
4000.08 -> the table clip can launch you high into the
air and you could skip to the end, but there’s
4005.12 -> a trigger you need to hit around the first
laser wall, otherwise the game won’t progress.
4010 -> These triggers are spread all throughout the
game, some smaller scale for individual jobs,
4014.88 -> and some larger scale for the whole episode, which
makes it harder to find major sequence breaks.
4020.4 -> Chaining Square Boosts on slopes can result in
some pretty ridiculous speeds, showcased here in
4025.6 -> a Tool-Assisted runthrough of Satellite Sabotage
by Hekksu. This is possible in a real time setting
4031.84 -> with some extreme precision, and could elevate the
game's movement to its highest echelon seen yet.
4038.56 -> And one final madlad strat that saves
around 10 seconds if done perfectly,
4043.28 -> is this Rat Fight Skip for the Operation uploaded
by Hekksu in 2019. It’s not in the best quality,
4049.44 -> and it’s pretty complicated but I'll try my best
to break it down. During the section where you’re
4054 -> supposed to climb the peacock, you can set up
a super jump chain from a standpoint on this
4058.16 -> pipe and carry it all the way over to the water.
In order for the game to save on memory, the game
4063.84 -> deloads some of the objects across the map, and by
falling into the water far enough away, Sly will
4069.28 -> respawn on the pipe and it’ll be deloaded. If Sly
or the camera leaves the radius of the standpoint
4076.72 -> a second time, it deloads the floor for the entire
map, giving the trick its name - fake floor. After
4083.28 -> climbing the peacock sign, the camera pans
over to Bentley and Murray stealing the truck,
4087.36 -> which is far enough away from the pipe to trigger
the fake floor. This causes both Sly and the
4092.72 -> Rats that spawn for the fight to fall through the
world, but you can just barely keep Sly alive with
4098.16 -> enough health. Getting every single rat to despawn
on the map is incredibly inconsistent, and also,
4104.8 -> Sly jumping far enough into the loading trigger
for the next part can take several attempts too,
4110.08 -> and is out of your control. Only a couple of
people have saved time with this strat, including
4115.52 -> Remo during an episode 1 attempt in june 2019.
Nobody has set a new record with this, but perhaps
4121.92 -> this is how we’ll see a 26 minute time happen.
All the power to anyone willing to take it there.
4141.6 -> The Sly Cooper series is something that
means a lot to some people around the world.
4146.56 -> Memories about the games from younger years are
left by some as mere relics of the past. But a
4152.56 -> strong community chose to take matters into their
own hands, and forge a path forward for a game
4158.08 -> they held extremely dear. Episode 1 has seen
revolutionary changes over the past 7 years.
4164.24 -> It all started as a straightforward tutorial
level, but passionate players from far and wide
4169.12 -> have turned it into something greater.
Movement tech, glitches and shortcuts,
4173.76 -> all contribute to elevating it into another
frontier. It’s Sly 2’s most iconic episode,
4179.68 -> but i think now, it’s safe to say that
it’s also Sly 2’s most competitive episode.
4184.96 -> No other category in the Sly series has the
size that Episode 1 continues to hold, and very
4191.04 -> few records have a bar that’s been set this high.
We’ve come a long way, but I believe there’s still
4198 -> more to go. For anyone daring to take the
time down further, good luck, and au revoir.
4241.6 -> Thanks for watching and a special thanks
to everyone who was just shown on screen
4245.04 -> in the credits, and a massive thanks to my
patrons for making videos like these possible.
4249.68 -> A behind the scenes interview with
Oggy is available for all 5$ backers.
4254.48 -> As always, take care, and have a good one.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVQvYKpFYY