15 Years Later, a Player Has Proven They Hold the Oldest N64 Speedrun World Record

A beautiful story to tell your grandchildren.

Do you remember Wave Race 64 on the Nintendo 64? It’s a jet-ski racing game released in 1996 in Japan and 1997 in Europe, produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario. It features nine tracks where you aim to achieve the best times or perform the best tricks, and it includes ramps, dolphins, crystal-clear water like never before, and breathtaking animations for its time.

The battle of speedruns

Like any racing game, people competed to achieve the best times in Time Trial mode, especially on the first track, Sunny Beach, a relatively simple oval course. With the rise of speedrunning in the 2010s, the best times kept falling, and in 2014, a certain Shibbypod set a record at 1 minute 03 seconds 512 milliseconds, a record he would later improve to 1 minute 03 seconds 186 milliseconds three years later. Eight years have passed, and it remains unchanged; he still holds the record.

In 2015, on the speedrun.com website, a Japanese player by the name of misuken recorded a time of 1 minute 03 seconds 763 milliseconds on the same first track. Nothing too crazy so far, except that he dated his time to June 3, 1999, fifteen years before Shibbypod achieved his time of 1 minute 03 seconds 512 milliseconds.

The proof

During the pre-Internet era of the 1990s, there were plenty of players who lied about their personal records, which means that misuken and his third-best performance of all time couldn’t be taken at face value. It was 2015, and irrefutable proof was needed to validate this time. The Japanese player shared a photo from a Japanese video game magazine, Dengeki Nintendo, where his name was at the top of the leaderboard for this circuit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to convince the community. So, misuken went a step further and dug out a VHS cassette containing a video of his race on the Sunny Beach track.

In 2017, the moderation team at speedrun.com contacted misuken and validated his time. Unbeknownst to him, misuken had held the world record for the Sunny Beach race in the video game Wave Race 64 for over fifteen years, until Shibbypod achieved his time of 1 minute 03 seconds 512 milliseconds. If this anecdote is unusual, it’s also incredible because it makes him the player with the longest-standing record on a Nintendo 64 game level in Time Trial mode. So, misuken has made his mark in Nintendo history thanks to a VHS cassette. Remember to record your life; at worst, it will give you fond memories, and at best, it might make you a legend.

If you want to play Wave Race 64, the game is available on Nintendo Switch, but only for subscribers to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.