The era of the Giants (2026-02-17) |
At the start of 2026, I was considering which times could be possible. I decided that Redrock 0:58, Haunted 0:36 and Barn Burner 0:22 might be some of the final records that could be set in the end-game of the Bullseye Races.
My grind started with Haunted Hallow Race. The movement in the original 0:37 wasn't too clean, and I was somewhat confident that 0:36 would come without any new innovations. A few runs were achieved that I thought had some high potential to break the barrier, but the lowest I could push the level was retimed to 37.23. After almost giving up on the record, I thought of an idea that seemed so obvibous in hindsight. Could skipping the load zone to the Sid's Haunted House unload the models in the lobby area to possibly save time?
And there it is! With this innovation, I knew that 0:36 would be easily attainable. I chose to use the Ghost Bullseye skin for this run mainly because I've never used it in a WR before, and it looks cool. (Even though I think it might cause lag at times.)
Haunted Hallow Race 0:36 was acheived on 2026-01-09. The run was retimed to 36.95.
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Redrock was iffy. I knew getting a 0:59 with just the "one car" strat was already pretty tight. The other addition was using a second car to stall an auto sprint saving upto 0.5s at the first ring. This strat is pretty much why 0:58 was dismissed due to it having a very low success rate, and also likely requiring a near-perfect run afterwards.
Once again, I got to thinking. Could there be a missing strat to save a bit more time, even if the car stall strat is also needed.
The realization set in, that the ceiling clip should be easier if Bullseye's bitbox was bigger... with Giant Bullseye. But even if it is faster, the rest of the level would be awkward to maneuver through with the much larger hitbox.
The realization set in, that the ceiling clip should be easier if Bullseye's bitbox was bigger... with Giant Bullseye. But even if it is faster, the rest of the level would be awkward to maneuver through with the much larger hitbox.
Turns out it is faster. The ceiling clip with Giant Bullseye saves 1s thanks to the larger hitbox clipping through the top easier, meaning that the car can be setup closer to the ring directly above it. Only one car was needed to attain this time, but that bump at 0:39 in the video shows that 0:58 is not too top tier. I paused the game right before the final time because I honestly didn't think it would be 0:58. (Buzz was also used for the first time in a WR here.)
Redrock Ring Race 0:58 was acheived on 2026-01-25. The run was retimed to 58.98.
*Feeling inpired with the ideas of Giant Bullseye, I tested some ideas on the level that I've been most hesitant to return to, Canyon Race. When I got 0:52 back in 2021-07-18, I was sure that it was the strongest record of them all. The run needed very clean movement, a difficult "box jump", one car setup to skip the pillars section, and the greatest turn around segment I've ever done. The run was reitmed to a 52.93 @ 30 fps.
A big part of me did not want to even try with Giant Bullseye on level just to preserve the legend of the original 0:52. But still, I believe that speed is the ultimate goal, despite how it is attained.
I realized that Giant Bullseye can skip the motion of turning around to jump onto the boxes altogether. If a car is setup right next to the final checkpoint before the skip, it can be used to land on top much quicker than before. At first, I played a test run with the strategy that was retimed to a 53.61. Still having an elitist view of the Giant strats, I again dismissed the level for a while.
As mentioned with the Redrock situation, the Giant hitbox almost always causes issues with bumping on walls, or getting stopped on steep inclines. I was able to somewhat work around this on Canyon by doing delayed jumps and whatnot. I returned with a three hour session streamed on 2026-02-15, where a 0:52 was easily achieved. It's hard to see such a high regarded record become a simple one, but that's speedrunning.
And then, after 16 more 0:52s in that same session, I'm left to wonder if 0:51 could be a reality. So far, the fastest 0:52 I've gotten was retimed to 52.50 and I don't think it's doable without something new.
*As for Barn Burner, 0:22 could only be possible on PC / Wii due to the level layout being different on nex-gen versions. I don't have a PC copy myself and the Wii's peripherals seem to be less than ideal to realistically achieve a 0:22. (I spent a session grinding for it on Wii but gave up quickly.)
Puxel64 has gotten close to the time with a retimed 23.17 @ 30 fps. We'll see what happens in the future!