The new Pokémon Switch remakes of Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond have been out a while now - here’s our review of the latter, if you missed it - and fans of all things pocket monster-y are gradually making their way through the fancied-up adventures, peeking and poking and scrapping around the Sinnoh region, and having a generally lovely time.
And then, there are speedrunners. They don’t stop to take in the sights, to smell the Floettes or stroke the, um, furry Pokémon pals they’ve imprisoned in all those tiny blinking orbs. Oh no. These players are only here for one thing: to break these gosh darn games apart and ‘beat’ them in the shortest time possible. And that’s exactly what one such speedrunner, Werster, has achieved, setting (what we’re pretty sure is) a new any% world record in the process.
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Having just got their best time down to a very impressive 33 minutes on November 29, today (November 30) saw Werster go faster still, clocking in at under 30 minutes from the game’s start to its finish. And the player even admits that they “choked” on this run, having been on course for a 28-minute run. So we don’t expect this finish of 29:46 to stay a record for very long.
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Check out Werster’s sub-30-minute run of Pokémon: Shining Pearl below.
Shout out to some of the comments here, which are full of disbelief. “A lot of Pokemon speedruns are pretty normal,” reads one, before adding: “This, however, I don't even know what is happening a lot of the time.” Just go with the flow, friend. Another, simply: “I’m f*cking speechless.” Fair play, Werster, and we can’t wait to see you go even faster, like, by this time tomorrow, probably.
Featured Image Credit: Nintendo, The Pokémon Company