The Mexican Runner, the absolute gaming legend, is working on his latest Cuphead challenge: The God Run!
The Mexican Runner, also known as TMR, is a speedrunner who usually plays retro games, particularly NES. At the time of this article, TMR holds 30 speedrun world records, with times on leaderboards of 40 different games. Despite his many speedrunning accomplishments, he’s most known for something else. He was also the first-ever player to complete the entire NES catalog. And he did it all live on Twitch, with most games being completed blind. Despite this being an insanely massive challenge to take on, it only took him 3 years. In just 3 years TMR completed all 714 officially licensed titles in a project he dubbed NESMania. You can find more details on this project, including TMR’s ratings of each game, on his website: themexicanrunner.com.
Getting back to his speedrunning accomplishments, TMR most notably holds several world records in Battletoads, Contra, and Cuphead. Solo world records in Battletoads include 100% at 28m 34s, Hitless at 30m 56s, and Warpless at 23m 42s. In Cuphead, TMR holds solo world records for Hater% in both Legacy (1h 03m 00s) and version 1.1 (1h 02m 04s), as well as for the All S+P category for Legacy (37m 16s). Legacy is the exact launch build as the original released version of Cuphead. It has no patches and no future support. It was released by StudioMDHR officially on Steam, for those who liked the early speedrun tech.
What is the Hater% Speedrun Category?
If you aren’t familiar with the Hater% category in Cuphead, it’s the game’s toughest speedrun category. This category was actually made by TMR. It was made in response to hater’s complaints about speedrunning in Cuphead.
The run starts with a clean file, and the runner needs to get a 200% completion with all S ranks on boss levels. This is the best ranking and is only available in expert mode. To do this, a player cannot take any damage, must get at least 3 parries, and has to beat bosses quickly. In run-and-gun levels, the player needs a P rank, which means he can take damage but can’t shoot enemies.
To make it even more challenging, the player has to do all of this while only using the basic weapon, a pea shooter, and they are not allowed to use upgrades or powers purchased from shops. Additionally, they need to collect all coins, buy all items, and beat all sub-bosses on King Dice. If the player takes any damage in a fight or fails to meet any of these requirements, they have to start the fight over from scratch.
TMR’s Latest Challenge — The God Run
While not a speedrun, the latest challenge TMR has taken on is to complete a God Run in Cuphead. This challenge has only been completed by one other player, a speedrunner known on Twitch as Sublime. To complete the God Run, TMR must beat not just each level without taking any damage at all, but the entire game — while otherwise following the same rules as Hater%.
Already holding world records in Hater% should help TMR to complete this challenge, but his speedrunning skills could actually be problematic at times where playing it safe to avoid damage would be advantageous. As a speedrunner, TMR has a tendency to play quickly and aggressively, so he may need to break this habit in certain parts of the game.
To see this and other incredible challenges live, check out The Mexican Runner on Twitch.
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