Almost finished it ! Tips for Speedruns ?

[Crôm]

As the title says, I have ALMOST finished Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. My 2 only remaining achievements are the Shovel Knight and Specter Knight speedruns.

So my question is, do you have any tips or tricks for the speedruns, please ? Thank you in advance.

[CapStee]

Watching speedruns on YT would probably be much more efficient than asking for tips here, tbh. But once you're done, you can join the completionist squad!

[Call Sign: Raven]

The best way to learn to speedrun is to watch others perform a speedrun and try to copy their route. Choose a category, too. Any%, which means you just beat the game as fast as you can, and 100%, which for this game means when you beat the game you reach 100% completion. There is also Low%, where you try to get the lowest possible % you can, and NG+, which is self explanatory. You can read the rules here:

https://www.speedrun.com/shovelknight#Any

I've never speedrun Shovel Knight, but I did speedruns of the Dark Souls trilogy for about 3-4 years. I've also done speedruns of a few NES and SNES games, as well as Bloodborne. I'm no master at the art, but I'll share what I learned.

1. Plan your route in advance. I like to have it written down next to me.

2. Focus on personal bests. This is the best way to grow, initially, and will give you a taste of whether or not you want to go for World Record times.

3. Get involved with the speedrunning community for the game you are working on. You might learn some tricks or glitches that help speed things up.

4. Don't reset a lot. It will just frustrate you. If you hit a setback, continue to play. Remember to take breaks. Speedrunning is very hard on your body, so make sure you get up and move around in between sessions.

5. Timers! Streaming Software! Video Capture! This website seems to have a good handle on all that, if you're interested:

http://www.speedrunslive.com/tools/

6. Sit in a posture that is relaxed, yet alert.

7. If you are getting tired, stop playing. You'll just keep getting worse and worse if you attempt to play while fatigued, and that will just frustrate you.

8. Have multiple save files at different points in the game so you can practice difficult areas.

9. Study videos of the top runners, but learn to play to your style. I used to frustrate myself in Dark Souls, because there's this certain trick you can do to skip a certain area that I could never pull off reliably. Instead of breaking my head trying to do that trick, I just incorporated the area into my speedrun. Sure, I get slower times as a result, but I don't go for world record runs so I don't fret.

10. Remember to play other games, casually. The biggest mistake I made when speedrunning Dark Souls was that I obsessed over it inititally, and it killed the fun. You will want to unwind, so have something in mind that will do that for you. Balance your speedrunning with a good diet and some exercise, as these will actually impact your performance, believe it or not!

Hope that stuff helps. Good luck, and keep it fun!