What better way to celebrate another Awesome Games Done Quick than by remembering some of the most mind-blowing ways gamers have broken and obliterated some of the toughest games ever made, FromSoft’s Souls series?
The feats you’re about to witness likely cannot be replicated by most mortals, but they may just fill you with the determination you require to finally give that boss that made you rage quit last time another go.
Sekiro’s actual blind playthrough by Mitchriz
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is one of the most challenging games in the already highly difficult Souls series. For Mitchriz, however, it’s probably the easiest game in existence, given how he beat it — in two hours, no less — without even resorting to one of his five senses.
That’s right, Mitchriz beat the entire game with a blindfold on. He never took it off even once for any sort of between-levels or death reset. This is arguably the most impressive display of pure skill I have ever witnessed in a single-player game.
Elden Ring in less than 4 minutes
Elden Ring isn’t just a very challenging game, it’s also a tremendously huge one. Hell, even Elden Ring’s DLC is longer than most of the games out there. HYP3RSOMNIAC’s not too interested in sightseeing, though, as he holds the world record for the fastest Elden Ring speedrun ever. At the core of HYP3R’s strategy there’s a glitch known as “Zips”, which allows extremely skilled players to teleport to the very few actually essential places you need to reach to beat the game.
Watching this as a human being feels like what I imagine a snail in the world of DBZ must’ve felt when it saw Trunks killing Frieza.
Fun fact: Mitchriz, Sekiro’s legendary blind swordsman from above, holds the third place in this category. He was a mere 24 seconds slower than HYP3RSOMNIAC, but that’s like an age longer in this specific category. Think about that.
Beating Radahn without blocking, dodging, or healing flasks
Ok, this is not a speedrun per se, but most speedruns involve glitching of some sort, so I’m actually living up to the spirit of the event by cheating a bit.
Promise Consort Radahn, aka Prime Radahn, is one of the most challenging bosses in the history of the Souls series. He’s hard because even if you block and/or dodge all of his abilities, you might still run too low on stamina to get anything done before he restarts the charge. No biggie, said u/Recjawjind_fmfb, who made a character so goddamn hard it barely even cares about Radahn’s moves. This was especially impressive as it took place during Prime Radahn’s true prime era, as he ended up getting nerfed afterwards. So yeah, this is one you just cannot replicate, regardless of your skills.
Beating all bosses in one hit
The only thing cooler than killing a boss in one blow is killing the hardest of hard bosses in one blow. That’s what player Ainrun did. Above, you can see Ainrun donning the most lethal equipment and injecting himself with the most experimental and riskiest cocktail of buffs to deal 105k damage and basically pull a One Punch Man on Radahn, the hardest boss in the game. The others stood no chance.
The video above isn’t an entire speedrun, but it’s certainly the fastest way to defeat Radahn, so there’s that. So remember, next time you’re having trouble with a boss, just consider killing it in one hit.
Malenia on PS5 and PC at the same time… on a dance pad
Many claim Malenia to be the toughest challenge in Souls games history. Beating her is an achievement even if you’re a seasoned player. So, Twitch streamer MissMikkaa put it upon herself to beat two Malenias at the same time. You can totally just mod the game to spawn two bosses in the same game, but MissMikkaa thought that wouldn’t provide enough of a challenge yet, so she fought one Malenia on her PS5, and another one on her PC—at the same time. Since that still somehow wouldn’t prove enough of a challenge for MissMikkaa, the Malenia on PC was defeated through the use of dance — one of the toughest skills for a true gamer to master.
The guy who beat a Dark Souls world record and didn’t notice it
Just how naturally in tune with a game do you have to be to perform better at it than anyone before you and just not realize it? That’s the story of NaxHPL, who beat the original Dark Souls at just a little over 25 minutes, thought he’d had a crappy run, then only realized he’d broken the world record after the credits had rolled.
2 Players 1 Controller.. and a randomizer
The name “2 Players 1 Controller” is enough to instill uneasy feelings in anyone using the Internet. It’s probably because of all the deep-seated resentments we’ve all created by having to wait for our turn to play with our siblings, I’m sure. Still, even without the burden of memory, the idea of sharing one controller’s functionalities to beat a game in the Souls series is quite a daring one.
Better yet, that wasn’t even enough of a challenge for the Puppery and catalystz duo, as they ventured forth into the world of Elden Ring in randomizer mode, which means they could — and did — end up having to fight Malenia in places where they’d normally have another enemy waiting for them.
Twitch plays (and beats) Dark Souls
You think two people sharing a controller is tough?
If you’ve ever been on Twitch and dared to glance at what was going on in the chat, then congrats, you can boast about having survived gazing upon humankind at its most chaotic. Asking such a vicious mob to get organized to beat a game via written commands felt like the cruelest of jokes, but it ended up working out. It only took them 43 days, and a little over 900 deaths, so still a lot better than a lot of people out there.
Hardly the fastest run, and yet one of the most impressive video game accomplishments I’ve ever witnessed.
Beating Dark Souls with only the power of your voice
The original Dark Souls wasn’t originally as good on PC as it was on consoles, as it had some trouble adapting to a controller. No problem, said the heroic bearzly, as he mapped all actions not to buttons or keys, but rather to voice commands. Imagine how much of a hassle it must have been, or simply take a look at the clip above where he defeats Ornstein & Smough with the power of his words.
Beating Dark Souls 3 with a single button
Ok, beating Dark Souls with a single button doesn’t really seem possible, but it is. What’s impossible is beating Dark Souls with only one command. So, what did Rudeism do? He assigned all the different Dark Souls binds to Morse code, then used the one button to input the various commands via different Morse inputs. It sounds completely insane, extremely difficult, and it probably is. Regardless, it’s also very fun to watch and tell your friends about it. Understandably, they probably won’t even believe you.
Published: Jan 7, 2025 06:56 am