While we recently talked to AlexDest about his Ripto’s Rage speedruns, there is another speedrunner who has been doing incredible work with the classic series. Meet Chris LeBlanc, also known as ChrisLBC, who runs many games, but recently got an excellent time on Spyro 337% which is all three games at maxed out percentages. This sort of marathon stream puts all of the skills from each game into one continuous run. Wanting to learn more about running this classic series, we reached out to LeBlanc for an interview.
We first asked LeBlanc to tell us his story on how he got into gaming, streaming, and speedrunning. At the time, he stumbled onto speedrunning due to a recommendation while viewing Twitch.
“I used to play Starcraft 2 very actively and when I was watching Twitch back in 2012, they used to have recommended channels in the sidebar when you were watching. I noticed that CosmoWright had 4000 viewers playing Wind Waker and I was really surprised.”
“So I checked out the channel and found the run really entertaining, because it was the first I heard about speedrunning. Through that channel I found speedrunslive.com where I began to start watching various streams of various speedruns along with watching a bunch of archived videos from past GDQ events.”
Starting with a monumental Game Boy game, LeBlanc found speedrunning games live to be a ton of fun. “I found a rather particular speedrun of Pokemon Yellow glitched where you use trainer fly and all sorts of bugs to end up getting a max level Mew and I picked up that speedrun just to see if I enjoyed it. Turns out it was super fun and it was the first time I gave streaming a try which was also a blast to do.”
“One day browsing SRL I saw Beuchiism doing Spyro the Dragon 120% and I just knew right then and there that Spryo was the game I wanted to play. Spyro was a childhood favorite of mine; we had a PS1 when I was just a little toddler.”
Much like AlexDest’s tale, LeBlanc’s earliest attempts at Spyro were through an emulator. “So I immediately went to download an emulator to start playing the game, since I didn't have the old disc or a PS1 or PS2 to play it on, and started getting into speedrunning it. One thing led to another and I would spend sometimes 10+ hour days just running and streaming Spyro for the following years. Even 5 years later I still continue to play and improve at my original speedgame.”
While all three Spyro games are mostly similar, there are some tricks that are utilized a little differently from title to title. We asked LeBlanc which game of the three was the easiest for him to learn.
“I found Spyro 1 the easiest to learn. There are not many tricks or difficult skips that are needed to speedrun them. They are just heavily movement based categories so a player at any skill level can pick them up and run them without any difficulties.”
Watching other players pick up whole trilogies, eventually led to running the Spyro trilogy as a single run. “I decided to run all three, because I noticed that while I was grinding Spyro 1, there was a group of people that were doing trifectas (completion of all 3 games back to back) and I really wanted to join those trifectas since they looked like a bunch of fun. It took a while, but I've now become quite adept at all three games, holding the WR for Trifecta at this time (Spyro 1 120%, Spyro 2 100%, and Spyro 3 117% back to back).”
Differences and similarities play together, creating something unique for LeBlanc to master. “I think that all three games offered a different experience, different playstyles for each game and it's quite enjoyable to play all three of them.”
Of course, since LeBlanc is completing each game, there are some things that have to picked up in each title. “There are percentage counters in each of the games, Spyro 1 you need all dragons, gems, and eggs. Spyro 2 you need all orbs, talismans, and gems. Spyro 3 you need all Eggs and Gems.”
With some 100% runs, sometimes the player will have to double back to grab a missed item. It’s not ideal for a world record, but sometimes it’s better to finish out the run, rather than reset after several hours already spent. We asked LeBlanc how much cleanup comes into play with his runs.
“I try to play consistent in that I play a little safer than some players when it comes to gem collection. I might get slightly closer to gems to collect them rather that trying to be the furthest possible away and just barely collecting them. Reason for that is you can start losing plenty of time just doubling back to collect gems you barely missed and it kinda sucks turning around in Spyro. But even then, there's always the odd time you just want to be optimal and it backfires.”
Once reaching a certain level of skill as a speedrunner, it is sometimes important to play the game on a particular console or using a certain type of screen to minimize input lag or slower loading times.
“I play on a PS2 with a CRT TV. I prefer PS2 because the PSTV has input delay and with Spyro being an extremely movement based game, having the least amount of input delay is the best. Another reason is that there's a specific trick in 117% called Agent Spyro where there's a 100% consistent method of doing it by unplugging the controller which you can't do on PSTV.”
Like many of the runners we’ve talked to, learning a speedrun can do wonders for confidence levels. LeBlanc also mentioned how his skills in other games kind of transfers over.
“I'd say it helps with precise buttons presses and being more optimal at some other video games I play, not so much application to anything beyond video gaming. One thing it has done though is definitely boosted my confidence. Being able to play in front of the 100k+ viewer audience at GDQ multiple times and still performing extremely well has helped me a lot.”
“I wouldn't necessarily say it's speedrunning, but moreso streaming that has helped me grow as an individual. I've become much more sociable, I'm able to talk to people a lot easier now. I feel like it has given me more confidence in my speech and noticed it at my work as a programmer. I'm able to talk with other coworkers more comfortably and I speak more fluently in general. You could say this gives me an edge over others in the field, because programmers tend to be rather quiet and difficult to talk to at times. Being a rather successful streamer has put me into the position where I feel more confident going into job interviews, because I have that edge of being able to talk very well.”
Who knew that ramming small critters and saving baby dragons could do such great things for a person?
Find ChrisLBC streaming on Twitch. He will also be showcasing Spyro the Dragon Any% at Summer Games Done Quick this year.
