Although his star has fallen somewhat over the years, the blue blur has been a key character in the gaming industry since the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991. The following year, the sequel was released, which has gone down as one of the best video games of the 90s. Given that the games are famous for allowing players to go fast, it's not surprising that people are wont to speedrun it, and a new world record has just been set, which has apparently taken three decades.

A few days ago, user eandis99 uploaded a video to YouTube in which they managed to beat the previous record for speedrunning the original Sonic the Hedgehog, with a time of 8:55. This seems to represent the first time someone has managed to finish the classic Genesis game in less than nine minutes. A post on Reddit says that no one else has managed to do this in 30 years. While this latest record has not yet been added to Speedrun.com, at the time of writing, the other attempts on the site do indeed show that all other runs have taken nine minutes or more.

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This latest run is an impressive display of sheer skill, which also makes use of some in-game bugs. It should be pointed out that the final time recorded does not take into account elapsed seconds and minutes during non gameplay sections, such as loading screens or the end of each level. The community is very much alive and well in this day and age, and there are a ton of games that are ripe for speedrunning for anyone who's interested in making an attempt. It does require a lot of time and patience, but it is possible to set a new world record.

These days, Sonic is associated less and less with highly praised entries in the franchise. However, with Sonic Frontiers currently in development, as well as the release of the recent Sonic 2 movie, it's evident that Sonic is continuing to stay in the limelight, though the original Sonic the Hedgehog entries from way back will always be considered classics.

The fact that people are still speedrunning the games shows that Sonic is still a beloved Sega character, who, at one point, was pretty much on the same level as Mario in terms of being a video game icon. While eandis99 believes that getting below 8:55 is unlikely to happen unless a new strategy is discovered, it will be interesting to see if anyone can beat the game any quicker.

Sonic the Hedgehog was released for Sega Genesis in 1991.

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Source: Reddit