Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a semi-open world game akin to Monster Hunter with plenty of side quests and 'dex entries to fill out, but on average, it takes around 20-25 hours to beat. Speedrunners aren't average folk, though. One has managed to shave that time down to five hours, eight minutes, and 39 seconds.

And what's more, the speedrun time is rapidly dropping. Four days ago, the same runner - eddaket - beat the game in six hours, 29 minutes, and 11 seconds. Yesterday, that was beaten by GoodGameJosh who got the time down to five hours, 58 minutes, and 43 seconds. But eddaket's new time as of 12 hours ago brings us even closer to sub-five.

Arceus has only been out for a week, and we're already edging toward a time of sub-five. And with the record being held in the Any% category - meaning glitches are on the table - that could easily be brought down further as players find new and inventive ways to break Arceus' systems, uncovering unintentional shortcuts. There haven't been many glitchless runs yet, but players are still digging into Arceus' underbelly to find unique ways to push its design to the limits. You can watch eddaket's entire run below.

"[This is a] pretty good run where everything sorta worked out," eddaket wrote in the video's description. "We can definitely get sub-five with this route, but I have a few tweaks I need to make before we get there. Definitely enjoying this run right now!"

Only a month prior - in December - Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl also launched, and they too have some impressive speedrun times. As of last week, Buster_poke got the Any% record down to 14 minutes and 31 seconds. Arceus could be on a similar trajectory as that time only took a few weeks to reach, but these games will no doubt be fodder for speedrunners in years to come.

Maybe one day, and maybe one day soon, we'll see Arceus reach similarly impressive scores.

Posted: Feb 06, 2022 9:12 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/pokemon-legends-arceus-speedrun-five-hours/