It suddenly dawned upon me that a no-running run of Siren would be so horrible it would drive anyone attempting it into madness.

Sure, there’s no traditional button for controlling running and walking in this game. The closest thing to it is the R2-button, which controls first-person view, during which you can only walk. Manageable, yes, even though a bit cumbersome. The FPV would be an interesting atmospheric trait, though.

The real nightmare begins when you step off the drawing board into the actual game itself. Can’t outrun anything. Absolute stealth would be necessary… and regardless you’d die at a couple of spots during the game, like at Risa’s Day 1 – 22:00 start and possibly during the transition between final bosses, when you are chased with a sword.

Ah, I’ve been caught with walk-run-itis. Maybe I need to process this, see what can be resolved and what not.

EDIT: interestingly, Risa’s D1 22:00 is doable! The door to storage is close enough for you to walk there, and after you get in, you can hide behind the door and ward off Mina this way. Haven’t found a solution for Kyoya’s D3 23:00, though.

So, another patch is finished. Let’s look into statistics and other odds & ends and revel in the filthy, victorious feeling a bit longer.

Longest run: the very first level of the game in which you can die, Mission 2 of it that is, taking over 47 seconds.

Shortest run: Yorito’s third-to-last level, “Joint Struggle”. About 2 seconds as a whole.

Character dying the most amount of times: Mamoru, 8 times. Not only he dies in each of his own levels, he gets to be guest killed at one of Yorito’s and Ikuko’s levels! Oh, and if you want to count it, he dies one additional time at pt. 3 because of a run attempt I re-did at pt. 4, and also because there’s two versions of his death in the hands of Yorito in the same vid.

Character dying the least amount of times: a tie between Kanae and Ikuko, both dying only once. Oh, and Ichifuji.

My favorite run: may be Yorito’s first level. It was one of the first ones I did, and I was so pleasantly surprised at the solution I wanted to try out the rest of the levels afterwards. Yorito’s second level is also fun thanks to the “nipple torture” and slight OOB moment!

Least favorite run: probably Mamoru’s second level (I dislike the ambience in general there), or pretty much any level in which I had to manipulate strangling and nothing too interesting could be achieved. (if only this game didn’t have such durable sidekicks…!)

Cheers.

+ changed layout to using plus-signs because it gives a more positive impression!

+ Finished Siren 2 HARD Time Trial mode! You will not have to beat Ichifuji’s secret level in order to get the bonus video, thus no video of it is included… Some of the runs could be improved, but right now I’m just happy I got this over with.

+ by accident found a glitched item from Kanae’s stage. Made a video of it too. EDIT: and of a behaviour glitch at Akiko’s second level.

+ I’m feeling tempted to do a God of War speedrun. Also, after I finish the glitch FAQ for good I will probably move on to do a God of War II glitch FAQ.

- Siren 2 deathruns have kicked off!

- Ristikiehtova released a compilation album with many rarities from the past. However, I feel inclined to warn you that it’s not an easy listen.

- New Kotinäky is coming along at a nice pace. About 18 minutes have already been made…

- I’m still waiting Ilja to get off his ass and upload Serpenthia’s “Of Descent and Betrayal” to Jamendo! It’s just a lot more convenient site than Mikseri.

So, now that the Siren deathrun challenge is finally over, I think it might be fun to share some thoughts I had while doing it.

A theme central to deathruns is PC suicide. One of the basic methods for quick game over is murdering your own sidekick. As a natural pacifist, I still wonder what got me into this thing. TBH, I did feel bad when shooting my sidekicks. I make wry jokes to make it through the cold nights!

My favorite type of runs were the ones that could in other contexts seem natural, albeit very strange deaths, such as Kei’s D3 12:00. Other than those I liked the levels where I had to use my creativity to get the fastest results, such as the three last Kei levels. Luck manipulating on levels like Kyoyo’s Yesterday or Tamon’s D2 18:00 was the worst stuff I had to do IMO, as it takes time and the end result is not that impressive in any case.

Now, some statistics follow.
Shortest run: A tie between Tamon’s Day 2 10:00 and Reiko’s Day 1 23:00, 00:01:24.
Longest run: Kyoya’s Day 1 08:00, 00:46:72.
Character dying the most amount of times: Yoriko, 5 times.
Character(s) dying the second most amount of times: A tie between Harumi, Risa, Tamon, Kei, Kyoya and Miyako, 3 times.
Character(s) dying the least amount of times: A tie between Akira, Reiko and Tomoko, 1 time.

A big part of me is wanting to at least attempt Siren 2 deathrunning, so I guess that’s what you will get at some point in the future. Anyone have any games to recommend? I just want to get some discussion started on this subject.

- Did a Metal Gear Solid 3 death run, as well as the next installation for Siren death runs. Only one more installation to go… EDIT: Here it is. Also did a small glitch vid about the spider enemies.

- I’ve been thinking of starting a Siren 2 death run series. But it seems less fun. To think of it, Siren 1 was the optimal game for deathrunning. My video series is almost like a tribute to its insane difficulty level. Not to mention several of the characters have funny as hell death animations, like Tamon…

- Musictrade is showing interest in Ristikiehtova. Hopefully we can co-operate at some point.

EDIT: Finished another Siren 2 speedrun. I’m really hoping to get this project over soon. The levels are getting more and more unfair.

I finished it a long time ago, but still, never linked to it from here. Well, here it is…

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/924179/53125

Version status: effectively complete, other than a couple of small things.

I get a convenient space to keep my videos in order and perchance a few new fans.

http://forbiddensirenfan.webs.com/speedruns.htm

Support them by joining the forums, f.e.

An interesting sub-genre of speedrunning is deathrunning. It hasn’t garnered much attention, possibly because of its more simplistic and brutal nature, but its results can at best circumstances be almost as interesting. A bad part is that in most games measuring time is not easy since you might only get to see your time whilst saving!

Objective: Lose the game as quickly as possible.

Different sub-categories may include “Takes damage to save time”, “Uses chasms to save time”, “Pacifist run”, etc. as in normal speedruns. Though “Uses death to save time” is a bit redundant mention.

A sadly inactive Forum exists dedicated to this matter. Come on! No one’s around any more?

During these few weeks I did a couple of deathruns. An ongoing series is for Forbidden Siren 1, where dying is really easy and, consequently, death runs really quick. See two parts of my progress here:

Part 1
Part 2

Also, as a more ambitious take-on, I deathrunned Silent Hill 3. It’s actually quite a difficult game to do a deathrun on, since it takes a lot of luck to get hit by the worst attacks and running is more difficult than it seems.

Here it is.

Any suggestions?

Here’s a playlist containing all the videos I’ve done:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FFC6F56829CA4337

NEWS: Now also strategically ordered at Forbidden Siren Fan.