ShinyZeni and the Incredible Reverse Boss Order Super Metroid Speedrun

Speedrunning is almost entirely synonymous with Super Metroid, a game hailed as near perfection on the Super Nintendo and a critical success that has been rarely emulated in the Metroid series. Speedrunning Super Metroid has been going on since the earliest days of sharing times online. Due to the nature of those runs, several categories have been developed to keep the game from becoming stagnant as only a few runners could meet the high bar.

This is how we get categories like Reverse Boss Order, where the player tackles the game’s four main bosses (Ridley, Kraid, Phantoon, and Draygon) in a non-traditional way.

After stumbling onto an incredible run by ShinyZeni, we had to reach out and see how the game ticks and what the story of the runner behind it was.

Chris “ShinyZeni” Tomkinson has been casually speedrunning Super Metroid for fifteen years or so, using the oldest methods of forum descriptions and poorly rendered videos to learn the techniques. “The first time I saw a speedrun of the game was back in 2003 on Speed Demos Archive. Back then the top runners were Smokey and RedScarlet, I believe. There wasn't much of a community back then, so learning the game involved being a part of the SDA/Metroid2002 message boards and just using video references as a guide.”

Zeni had put most of his years into learning the 100% run, grabbing all of the items in the game, but he eventually saw an RBO run by Straevaras at Games Done Quick 2016 and had to give it a try.

“Shortly after that my personal favorite runner, Zoasty, started doing WR attempts for the category, which got me further interested in it. Last year (~June 2017) I picked up Super Metroid to do a casual run of it. On a whim, I decided to stream on Twitch, where one of my friends came in and watched. He encouraged me to time myself, which later convinced me to re-integrate into the community and start really pursuing better times.”

“I was only running 100%, but had decided I was pretty interested in RBO as well at that point. So once I had reached a conservative personal goal for 100%, I started learning RBO. That was in September 2017.”

Since that moment, Zeni has been pushing down the RBO time, where he continues to make progress.

While this particular run is a bit of a frustration to Zeni due to it being so close to being sub 1 hour, he did pull off a triple frame perfect E-Tank collection that has a 50/50 chance that he was rather proud of.

Due to the lack of upgrades that a player would typically have, the RBO category can make for really challenging boss encounters and traversal through dangerous areas.

“It involves killing Ridley, then Draygon, then Phantoon, and then Kraid, before moving down to Tourian to finish the game,” explained Zeni. “This is rather difficult because the suit upgrades that would protect you from heat damage in Norfair (Varia Suit, or Gravity Suit) are locked behind bosses (Kraid, and Phantoon) and the suit upgrade that would allow you to move freely in water (the Gravity suit) is locked behind Phantoon.”

“In order to survive the path to Ridley, and the Ridley fight, you have to stock up on enough energy and other resources. To get through Maridia to fight Draygon, you have to do some pretty specific maneuvering since the water physics slow you down and make it difficult to move around.”

RBO is a category that hadn’t made much progress until recently. “The early days of RBO were very, very different than they are now, because runners hadn't optimized routes and strats to get through Norfair with less resources.”

Like with many other runners, we asked whether or not speedrunning affects Zeni’s life outside of gaming.

“I've found a lot more joy and happiness from speedrunning than I ever really anticipated.”

“I've made a lot of friends in the Super Metroid community and I get to spend some of the free time I have in my life doing something I love, so it's great.”

Of course, the idea of streaming can also be a big positive for speedrunners. “Speedrunning itself makes me happy, streaming helps me interact with awesome people I never would have known otherwise, and I do plan to go to AGDQ 2019 as long as I can get the funds together to make it happen. I'm going to be submitting my run, but even if they don't accept I still want to go.”

We then mentioned on how some players have noted confidence and multi-tasking skills increasing after learning a speedrun. “I could see there being some truth to that. I've always been pretty persistent at things in life, and I've known that I could do anything if I put my mind to it, but actually holding a World Record in one of the highest profile speedgames ever (in my opinion) is pretty surreal, even if it is a bit of a ‘backseat’ kind of category compared to Any% or 100%.

Even though, Zeni is a record-holder, life still has to go on in the day to day routine. “It is sometimes hard to find time to invest, since I have a full time job. I'm supposed to be doing full time school, and I have a wife and two kids, but sometimes I just have to squeeze it in where I can. Perhaps during regular "sleeping" hours and speedrunning in a serious way does take quite a large time investment, especially in a game like Super Metroid there's a lot to learn and even more to optimize.”

We then asked why Super Metroid continues to permeate speedrunning culture.

“The thing about Super Metroid is there is so much freedom in the game that there is always a way to do something better. Whether that’s freedom of movement, to improve on a room strat or freedom of exploration to approach game progression in a different way.”

“The simple fact that something like RBO is even possible without exploiting major glitches is a huge testament to how much freedom you have in the game.”

Of course the RBO speedrun is entirely devoid of glitches. “There are a couple of small required glitches to get through Maridia without the Gravity Suit, but other than that the entire route is achievable without having to break the game at all. There are some glitches performed in the name of going fast, but they aren’t required.”

“When you compare that to something like Donkey Kong Country RBO, which has mandatory memory corruption (or something along those lines) it’s pretty clear just how much more freedom there is in Super Metroid and that freedom allows anybody who picks it up to approach the game however they are most comfortable.”

“It was what allowed me to find nearly 2 minutes of time save over the previous WR before there was even a major route change that occurred and saved nearly another minute.”

Being that Zeni has been playing the game for many years, we asked him to recount his earliest memories with the game.

“Well considering that was a long long time ago it’s hard to remember, but, I remember a few things.”

“As a kid, I had a friend who was a few years older than me that got me into a few games, namely Super Metroid and Final Fantasy (IV, then VI). My first play through of Super Metroid was with this friend. I don’t remember a whole lot about general game progression, but I remember the golden statues and thinking that room was absolutely terrifying.”

“I also remember hunting for items with the x-ray visor; I think the last missile pack we found was the one under the old Mother Brain tank.”

Even at that age, Zeni found ways to beat Super Metroid quickly enough to see the other ending screens. “I remember after finishing, finding out that if you beat it fast enough you got different endings and thinking that under 3 hours IGT (I think that was one of the cutoffs) was so fast, but we worked at it and eventually got it.”

“I also remember figuring out shinesparks for the first time and thinking that was super cool. I didn’t have a chance to really discover and fall in love with the game for myself until a couple years later I think, but I also remember trying to perfect bomb jumps and use them to do some sequence breaking.”

Just when a speedgame seems to be tapped out, someone comes along to keep things going. From childhood to adulthood, Super Metroid has been a staple in Zeni’s life and it looks like that will continue for years to come.

Find ShinyZeni streaming on Twitch.

Featured image was created by Noe Leyva and was used with permission.