10 Video Game Speed-Run Achievements Only Hardcore Players Will Unlock
9. Speed Run - Braid
The Achievement: "Complete a full speed run of the entire game, beating the challenge time."
Jonathan Blow's masterful puzzle-platformer Braid can be easily beaten within four or five hours, but this unforgivably brutal speedrun achievement tasks you with plowing through it in just 45 minutes. Yup.
You need to actually beat the game first to unlock the speedrun mode, and given that you'll need an intimate knowledge of Braid inside and out to get anywhere close to 45 minutes, that makes total sense.
The primary obstacle here is the game's timey-wimey puzzles, which can easily tie you in knots if you're not paying attention, and doing them under such strict time constraints is extremely stressful.
You also have to remember that the epilogue sequence lasts around four minutes and can't be skipped or speeded up in any way. Incredibly, there are a select few who have managed to beat Braid in less than 25 minutes, the absolute mad-folk.