While there are a handful of people that have ONLY run GoldenEye and Perfect Dark in here, there surely are many others that have speedran something before or after these games. I'd love to hear what you have ran or dabbled with running in the past. It would be cool to mention stuff that people aren't aware off. For example i'm sure everyone knows Clemens ran Super Metroid for a brief period, but maybe he tried something for about a week but wasn't too into it? That kind of stuff.
As for myself i will give you all a small list since i feel that some may view me as just somebody that runs Perfect Dark, Ratchet & Clank 1-4 and Jak 2/3.
ThaRixer's Top 10 Games Nobody Knows I've Ran10. Super Mario 64 - 16/70 StarPutting SM64 at Number 10 because i feel like everyone has done some 16 or 70 star runs. I played on VC in 2013 and raced on SRL very frequently. When i started speedrunning in 2012/2013 i wasn't good at all and didn't care about competition, i was simply in the moment having fun running the game. Put is so high on the list because i feel like everyone's dabbled with the game at some point. Here's my PB from May 2013
9. Mirror's Edge - Any% & ILsSome may know that i ran Mirror's Edge, some probably don't. I peaked in 2015 with 10th place in Any% which is pretty nice considering if you go to speedrun.com it is ranked as #72 under most submitted runs. So the game is optimized as hell. I got a few IL WR's including Burfield and Shard 2, as well as my magnum opus the IL WR for Chapter 9. My current any% PB rests at 21st place
8. Monster Racer - Any%A bit more of a recent meme pick. When i was in the UK i brought all my games with me and told my roommate that i hadn't played this game called Monster Racer since i was like 11 years old. So we popped it in, we find out it's a rare PAL only game and that there was only 1 run on speedrun.com. I booted up the game, did a runthrough of the game, some practice and snagged the WR
7. Final Fantasy VIII - Any% ConsoleSleeper pick here, but i had to do a run of my favourite final fantasy. The run was almost last on the leaderboards when i got it because it was so hard for me to remember everything. I never grew up playing the game, only got it after i saw people on SRL play it as a teenager. I did a full playthrough of it again in the UK with my roommate and it still holds up, i'm definitely gonna do another run of it at some point - My PB of this is only on twitch in two parts so i'll link part 1 if you wish https://www.twitch.tv/videos/48245119?t
6. Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Any% Beginner and Kingdom Hearts 2 BeginnerI guess now is a good time to say that recency bias was heavily favoured for me over nostalgia. I played Kingdom Hearts 1 a decent amount as a kid, but i never grinded it to the ground like some others. I never owned Kingdom Hearts 2 either, so i was just mesmerized when i saw streamers like Bl00dyBizkitz and Spikevegeta compete for the world record in Kingdom Hearts 2 Any% Beginner Mode. I didn't really care much for what i enjoyed a lot as a kid, i wanted new experiences and adventures. So i set out to learn a few games that i never grew up with. ALL the runs above are games i never grew up with except for monster racer. As for Kingdom Hearts, i ran KH2 first and got an okish time. When i moved to Kingdom Hearts 1 (aka KH 1.5 cause we were playing the port to PS3) i was the 5th person to get sub 3 hours and quit while on a good note. Here's my KH2 time from 2013, also on twitch https://www.twitch.tv/videos/45603891?t
5. VVVVVV 100%Yet another game i just got inspired to run because of recent inspiration. I watched FieryBlizzard master and perfect VVVVVV with extremely few deaths in 2012-2014 and thought it was really impressive. I played through the game and loved the retro feel and how every screen had a name. I had to pick up the game and do a run. This is another game i ran in 2013. I recently did a playthrough of the game and i can still beat it 100% in around an hour, such a fun game.
4. Serious Sam: Classics Revolution - First Encounter Any% Normal Co-opBefore i moved in with my roommate Cyprys to the UK in 2020, we were long time buddies despite us never running the same game for multiple years. We both had tried the Serious Sam games due to a steam sale and enjoyed it. We definitely did our playthroughs in different years but once a collection that was heavily modable called Serious Sam: Classics Revolution came out, we started doing runs with ammo, health and damage multipliers to fly through the game. Cyprys had tried doing it with another runner but he wasn't as dedicated, so i stepped in to fill the shoes. We did some great runs for the time, and found some pretty major improvements. It's actually some of the most fun i've had running anything ever.
3. Megaman Battle Network - Any%This one is so high on the list due to the story surrounding the entire thing. Around age 14 i remember feeling very separated from my school friends because working out, driving fast scooters and drinking was starting to become more popular than gaming, to keep me occupied at school i remember downloading a gameboy emulator on my HTC One and i downloaded a bunch of GBA games that i had never played before. I instantly fell in love with Megaman Battle Network 1, 2 and 3. I already liked megaman growing up playing the games on Wii VC, but playing an RPG with all the megaman stuff was sick. I remember the game being a NIGHTMARE to route since there was no runners for the game at the time. You needed to get 60 unique chips from getting good ranks on random encounter fights. You needed to have strong enough chips to beat the bosses. It was fucking brutal. I never completed a good run of the game because the 2nd to last boss MagicMan ABSOLUTELY destroyed me on a run with a 10 or 12 minute lead. I lost my entire lead to the boss and quit running the game for good. I at least inspired a runner to run the game called PrismaticBlack, who would go on to become the WR holder for a few years. I believe he went on to find full RNG manipulation for the game. Where you can save the game and restart the gameboy, to instantly have RNG be fully set. I have 0 video footage of me running the game. It's a shame it's all lost. I would have loved to see me play the game.
2. Vexx - Any%In the peak of everyone trying to be the PS2/Xbox/GCN mascots, Vexx was a game that didn't try too hard selling itself as THE mascot for the generation. It focuses on collecting hearts and has a character with a really good movement system. My friend Zeplins who ran Jak & Daxter with me in 2012, started running Vexx in 2013 and seeing how much fun he had i joined in on the fun. Finding a few strats and doing some runs. I only have surviving videos of some of the IL strats i found of the game, this was another scenario where i blew a 10 minute lead to the final boss of the game, who is insanely difficult. So i have no surviving PBs of me running the game, but here's a pretty major skip i found back in the day. Allows you to skip a long slide down a giant sink to get to the heart.
1. Undertale - Neutral EndingYup.. Undertale. In the games peak in early 2016. I had to see what the hype was about. As corny as the game may seem now, it was an incredible first experience. Playing it for the first time at 19 years of age was amazing. The humor was funny, dark and relatable, the fights were challenging and the story was captivating. I decided to run the game literally at the PERFECT golden age for the game. Someone just 1 month prior had found a glitch called the "punch card glitch." Which is a little note you can open and read. If you open and read this card as cutscenes and other stuff is happening, you can move during them and can for a super glitchy run with some incredible skips. The combat was fun, the mashing was SUPER addicting and satisfying to do, and the soundtrack was just great to play the game to. I ran the game for a month or so as my "side game" to Ratchet & Clank NG+. But even for a sidegame i did pretty damn well. I quickly rose through the ranks and finished my "career" of running the game in 4th place. 2 minutes behind the WR, where at the time a decent amount of my time loss was worse mashing due to not having run it as long as others. For as short as i ran it, it remains one of the least expected games that people know me for. Never once do people come into my chat asking me to run it again, and i think it's because it's the game nobody knew i ran.
Thanks for reading, you don't have to make a massive list like me, but let me know what you got!