Guinness World Record: Donkey Kong 64 holds the record for most collectibles in a video game (originally stated as 3821, later corrected to 4841).
Completion Time: Game can be beaten in 26 minutes despite its long content and final boss fight.
Minimum Collectibles Required: 1927 collectibles (banana fairies and rainbow coins are optional).
Speedrun Strategy
Tool-Assisted Speedrun (TAS): Utilizes glitches and game mechanics to achieve fastest completion time.
Story Skip: Activating this option skips long plot cutscenes and enables faster gameplay.
Key Glitches and Techniques
Phasewalking
Definition: A trick allowing DK to walk through walls by manipulating the facing angle.
Mechanism: When exiting first-person view, the camera bug increases the facing angle, allowing collision detection to behave incorrectly.
Execution: By alternating joystick inputs, DK can maintain the phase angle and walk through walls.
Swimming Underwater
Trick: Initiating an underwater swim without completing dive training by using first-person view to exploit momentum.
Phasewalk Access: Allows access to loading zones typically only reachable by Tiny Kong.
Moonkicks
Usage: A kick executed after an aerial attack that allows for reduced gravity, enabling higher jumps to reach certain areas.
Circumstances: Needs specific environmental conditions to be effective.
Void Warps and Tag Barrel Storage
Void Warp: Clips out of bounds; game respawns DK at the start of the level, often saving time.
Tag Barrel Storage: Allows DK to control his movement while the tag barrel is activated, enabling fast travel within levels.
Gameplay Mechanics
Stored Position Manipulation: By tagging outside of a barrel's range, DK's stored position is set to zero, drastically affecting movement calculations.
Out of Bounds Movement: Exploiting the absence of ground updates allows DK to navigate freely in areas not intended for normal gameplay.
Collecting Fairies and Unlocking Moves
Fairy Pictures: Required to unlock game features; must be taken while skipping cutscenes to save time.
Rambi Crate: Requires the use of Rambi to collect colored bananas needed for speedrun completion.
Final Boss and Game Completion
Boss Fight Strategy: Utilizing advanced movement techniques to manipulate boss behavior and reduce lag.
Key Turn-In: Only keys 3 and 8 are checked by the game to trigger the final boss fight.
Final Time: TAS completes the game in 26 minutes and 46 seconds, real-time record stands at 24:51.
Differences Between TAS and Real-Time Speedruns
Timing Methods: TAS timing starts from console power-on to the final input, while real-time runs start from the A press in the menu.
Mystery Menu Access: Real-time runs assume unlocked features, while TAS runs must collect them from a clean state.
Conclusion
Donkey Kong 64 showcases intricate game mechanics and glitches that can drastically reduce completion time through tool-assisted methods.
The presented speedrun strategy emphasizes mastery of game physics and exploitative techniques.