It would not have been a front page article as I never wrote those unless someone else took it over and did the HTML formatting which I never learned how to do properly.

Most likely it would have been in the old console forum which comprised the older Nintendo platforms and others. And that's assuming I wrote one, but odds are that I did.

I sent a zip file of all my articles written to Brien KIng and Kelly Flewin...they would be the only ones who would have it in case it was not among those salvaged when Jace's team made some of the old forum threads available.

I browsed all relateable topics for all forum sections and used the search function, there is nothing.

The only other mentions are twice when Rodrigo bragged about it, a mention in a Mega Man topic and the Impossible Scores topic

Then maybe I did not write an accompanying article after all...hard to be sure after 14 years as I wrote so many(I even did one on a submission for "Adventures of Lolo" so I did not limit articles to premiere titles only).

Best then to pursue the hard-copy VHS tape and ask Jace/Dave where pursuit of re-acquisition of the tape cache has reached.

Almost 2 years ago, @Dave Hawksett posted about getting boxes of tapes and other TG material.
https://www.twingalaxies.com/dave-ha...axies-archives

Hopefully the tape for this speedrun is in the archive!

Originally Posted by starcrytas

Almost 2 years ago, @Dave Hawksett posted about getting boxes of tapes and other TG material.
https://www.twingalaxies.com/dave-ha...axies-archives

Hopefully the tape for this speedrun is in the archive!

Lol right at the top of the pile of tapes in the picture in that thread is TSA's cheated Zelda run.

Originally Posted by starcrytas

Almost 2 years ago, @Dave Hawksett posted about getting boxes of tapes and other TG material.
https://www.twingalaxies.com/dave-ha...axies-archives

Hopefully the tape for this speedrun is in the archive!

It would be great if the tape actually showed up but if it doesn't there is a tiny bit of empircal evidence that I think could be used. Although the general consensus is that this is an illegitimate run I think we must make every effort to come to a meaningful decision based on the little evidence that is available instead of crucifying the player. The only evidence thus far is the level 9 video. I have found an anomaly that appears to only be found in Rodrigo's run. Zelda speed runners and experts on the game understand the concept of item drops, kill counts, and enemy spawns. The general idea is that the game behaves in a certain way as far as item drops are concerned based on what type of enemy has been killed and the the total number of killed enemies assuming Link has not been damaged. Another interesting fact is that enemies will spawn in the same location as long as Link follows the same route from a new game file. What the enemies do after they spawn is based upon the frame Link enters the room in a dungeon or transitions to the next screen in the overworld. What is unique about Rodrigo's level 9 is that the enemies in the third room the zols (blobs), like-like's (pancakes), and bubbles are spawning in a location that is DIFFERENT from what is observed in all current speed runs as well as the current TAS (tool-assisted speedrun). I've examined every TAS going back to 2004 and nearly every speed run I could find dating back to Tom Votava's run in 2003. In all cases in the third room of level 9 the 2 zols spawn on Link's LEFT (in between the lava channels), the 2 like-like's spawn on Link's RIGHT (one slightly below and to the left of the other in between the lava channels), and finally one bubble spawns to the right of link in between the channels and the other bubble spawns above the top channel. In Rodrigo's run one zol spawns to the RIGHT of Link and the other one spawns ABOVE the lava channel at the top of the screen. Additionally, the like-like's spawn on Link's LEFT instead of the right. In human speedruns as well as the TAS there are really only two viable ways to get to level 9. Most human runs will do level 8 before 9 and then whistle to 1 and then walk to 9. The current TAS actually does level 6 last but uses the screen scroll glitch to help get to level 9 faster. Keep in mind that it would be unlikely a human would choose to do level 6 last since that would mean that level 8 would have to be done earlier in the run without the magical sword which is unlikely. So, I investigated both of these cases to see if I could reproduce the spawns that Rodrigo got in his run, I tried walking to level 9 after whistling to 1 and in all cases I got the same spawns in level 9 as the TAS and the human speedruns but was unable to reproduce Rodrigo's spawns. I also tried ridiculous things like blowing the whistle too many times unnecessarily, delaying a while to bomb into level 9, killing enemies unnecessarily on the way to 9, etc. etc. and nothing worked. The enemies in the third room always spawned in the same place different from Rodrigo's run and were not affected by anything done in the overworld. I also tested just walking from level 6 like in the TAS so see if a route change might affect the spawns in level 9. Sure enough it did not and I got the same spawns seen in the TAS and more importantly the TAS spawns in the third room of level 9 match the current human speed run spawns (which walk from 1 to 9 instead of 6) on examples from runners such as Lackattack24 and Darkwing Duck. So, in a nutshell it appears there is 1 run that does not obey this set of rules as Rodrigo's is the only run I've found that has this particular set of spawns. I can't really think of any other way to get to level 9 other than walking from 1 or 6 that would make sense from a speed run perspective. I've put a about 10-12 hours into this over the past several weeks but I would like to see what others come up with as maybe I missed something. Rodrigo seems like a competent player but something doesn't seem right with this run based on how the game is programmed so maybe he can come forward and explain why the spawns are in those locations. I have a few theories but I want to wait to see what others come up with before I do any more testing. I was planning on posting a few links so people can see what I mean but Rodrigo's level 9 video is already located in this thread and it's pretty easy to find a TAS or speedrun on youtube for comparison. Thanks to all who read this long post and take care.

As for the video itself... It may not even be from this run. It could just be some random video of the final dungeon for all we know.

My main reasons for not trusting these records is Rodrigo's general attitude and personality, with the combination of how much secrecy he has with his old and outdated runs, for no real reason. It is however nice to actual have some evidence to back up that this might not be a legit run.

Very nice research!

So I took a few minutes to look for myself, compare, and get screenshots to help understand.

This is the spawn for the third room in Rodrigo's Level 9:



And this is a picture from LackAttack's record run, which is the same enemy spawn formation used in every single sub-45 minute run I looked at:



The only cases in which I saw things were different were the two bottom runs on Speedrun.com, which had formations that matched neither one. I did check the third slowest, which matched this common spawn formation. The fourth slowest run also had this formation on the initial spawn, though it did not match after the runner died in level 9 and restarted.

So @mrturk is right - there is something with Rodrigo's level 9 that does not match what seems to be a very stable pattern in Zelda speedruns, which needs further investigation.

Has anybody ask Rodrigo Lopes just do another Legend of Zelda Fastest Completion [1st Quest] Speed Run for TGSAP on video for Twin Galaxy members to see and adjudicate. When he has time and whether he wants to do it or not. He still partakes in adjudicating and uploading video game submissions.

Seeing him do a new run won't change anything regarding this run, which is what matters.