Key Points
- The Wind Waker is a popular game for speedruns due to its linear story and numerous glitches.
- Early speedruns of the game took around eight hours, but MrAlberto completed it in just over 45 minutes.
- Innovative techniques and glitches, such as infinite jumping and fast-swim, have significantly reduced speedrun times.
Speedruns are a unique form of video game entertainment that has truly surged in the age of streaming. But not all games are created equal, and speedruns truly excel where there is strong competition.
One of the most popular games to speedrun over the last two decades was The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and nobody did it better than MrAlberto.
The Wind Waker always brought fierce players, from early speedrunners like Jiano to more recent competitors like Narcissa and Demon. While not the most popular game, The Wind Waker has remained special to speedrunners because there are so many glitches.
MrAlberto’s speedrun takes advantage of the glitches found by these longtime speedrunners and perfects them like never seen before.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a masterfully crafted game that received a lot of questionable publicity at its launch. The game came out back in 2003 and was the first Zelda game for the GameCube.
Since then, the game has gained a large following of fans, despite its initially rocky start. Most of the early complaints about the game centered around the fact that it was a departure from its predecessors.
The art style differs dramatically from Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. We also meet a young Link for the first time. The game starts out on the small Outset Island where Link lives with his sister, Aryll.
- Set in an era after the events in The Ocarina Of Time
- Link's sister Aryll has been taken by a monstrous bird
- As you face monsters and try to think your way around obstacles, you'll earn the Wind Waker -- a special conductor's baton that controls the winds
- Incredible new combat engine
- Addictive mini-games and side quests
In the first part of the game, a giant bird drops a pirate named Tetra onto the island and abducts Aryll. From there, Link begins his quest to save his sister and ends up having to defeat Ganon.
Once you get past the opening portion, much of the game takes place on the water. Link sails in a boat known as the King of Red Lions, with the help of the Wind Waker to control the wind. Ganon eventually appears and seeks to obtain all of the Triforce pieces. Throughout the game are plenty of places to explore and bosses to defeat.
The Wind Waker Speedruns
The Wind Waker has a pretty linear story, which makes it a great game to speedrun. However, some of the dungeons and places to explore do get a little confusing. To make matters worse, The Wind Waker is a relatively long game that can be a bit arduous to speedrun. Many of the early speedruns of the game were in the range of eight hours.
It took about ten years for someone to finally get down to six hours. Now, keep in mind the game came out in the early days of the internet, and there weren’t massive repositories of gamers trying to speedrun. Therefore, the only way to get better at a game was by playing it a lot and scouring forums for tips from fellow speedrunners.
One of the most well-known tricks to these insanely fast speedruns was infinite jumping. However, players must also use the Tingle Tuner, which is the Game Boy Advance with a Link cable, for it to work successfully. There are also other glitches that cut down dramatically on having to collect all of the Triforce pieces.
This brings us to the fast-swim glitches that allow Link to navigate the vast open waters in a fraction of the time. Previously, Link needed to collect special forest water and then wait twenty minutes.
Now, players could jump across the world with ease. Additionally, new glitches were found where players could skip through areas that were previously blocked off until the end of the game.
MrAlberto
The long history of Wind Waker speedruns brings us to one of the most recent and most impressive. MrAlberto may not be the most well-known speedrunner, but he did manage to complete the game in just over 45 minutes. If you’ve kept up so far, you know that is an insane drop from the early speedruns of eight hours.
Similarly, if you’ve played through The Wind Waker, then you know how tedious the beginning is. Speedrunners had to complete all of this as fast as possible until they got the Wind Waker for glitches to work. But MrAlberto employed a newer technique, where you could use super swim without collecting the Wind Waker.
However, getting this insane time is only possible because of a glitch that lets Link get past the barrier at Ganon’s castle. The castle is protected by two barriers that keep players from trying to defeat Ganon too early.
MrAlberto manages to pull off these insane feats in record-breaking time. Plus, he adds fun commentary that makes this video a blast to watch.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Tinxi/Shutterstock.com.
