Apologies for the blur at 23:36, had to remove something from the video.

"The world record was initially traded back and forth between japanese runners Osaka, Ramada and *S H I V E R I N G E R O T I C K I N G B A N A N A"*

“Osaka, Ramada, and Shivering Erotic King Banana.” One of these are not like the others

_"Shivering Erotic King Banana."_ He said that so calmly, I almost didn't question it.

I love hearing “considered one of the best speedruns ever” and having half an hour left in the video.

“Japanese man absolutely dominates the art of quickly playing a game about ninjas for seven years until a mustachioed cowboy shows him THE FASTEST HAND IN THE WEST”

“Shivering Erotic King Banana” Alright so we’re just not talking about that?

Arcus seems like the embodiment of the phrase "Be rootin, be tootin, by god be shootin, but most importantly be kind"

"Beating Ninja gaiden in under 14 minutes was still a great achievement." Beating this game once in your lifetime is quite an achievement already !

An American cowboy beats the world record in a Japanese game about being a ninja. It’s almost poetry

The only reason Ohon's time got beaten was because he didn't grow a moustache and start wearing a cowboy hat.

Arcus is like the bob ross of speedrunning, he's just quietly narrating what's happening and the atmosphere is really chill

17:53 This is the biggest middle finger in speed running history second only to the guy who decided to save the animals in Metroid.

*Arcus barely loses a 1/27,000 run to minor tail RNG after spending literal years in the attempt* Arcus: darn.

Love how the entire character development of Arcus over the past 10 years was just he grew a mustache and wore a cowboy hat

"just a little spin slash there" "jump then slice, just jump then slice" - cowboy speedrunning bob ross

Can we just appreciate that Arcus is the nicest guy you’ve ever met, in addition to having the most patience of anyone you’ve ever met, in addition to having the most fortitude of anyone you’ve ever met?

"He grew a mustache and started wearing a cowboy hat." Well, this is the most important information in this whole video. It sounds, as if would be a natural evolution of a gamer mastering Ninja Gaiden.

So what you're telling me is, Arcus became the ultimate cowboy ninja.

*Reality of Speedrunning* : *Today* : A person who spent his whole life over 50 years playing and shaving micro seconds off of his speedrun announces his retirement because of age related issues. *Tomorrow* : New skip found that shaves off 50 seconds.

I really love that cheaters remain unnamed and uncredited. We don’t give cheaters attention around here

I love how any enemy that throws projectiles in an arc in a 2d platformer is automatically Hammer Brothers.

Arcus is so hilarious, after watching this I went to his Twitter and he's posting speedruns of him making a burrito, his fastest time was 13 seconds lmao

Ohon the absolute legend. "Oh yeah I can see how there's some doubt that I pulled this off. How about I prove it by switching to official hardware and completely pulverizing my own record?"

Big shoutout to ohon: His 11:48 is 8 years old but this is still good enough for the 6th best time. Amazing and the other runners can use the improved fight strats already.

Rest of the world: "You used an emulator, you could be cheating!" Ohon: "Thou dare challenge ME, mortal?"

Ohan: 11.56 US: He could be cheating with that emulator he’s using. Ohan: Fine I’ll use console. Ohan: *11.48*

Fun fact: Since the NES runs at around 60.098 FPS, Arcus's two 11:40.00 times would be exactly 42069 frames long

40,000 attempts at one game is beyond inconceivable, he definitely has dreams about flippin' and floppin', fallin' and droppin'

For staying so composed, never swearing or raising his voice when achieving absolutely earth shattering records, and sporting such a fine mustache, this guy truly is the Ned Flanders of speedrunning.

"Defeating Ninja Gaiden under 14 min was a great achievement." LOL Defeating Ninja Gaiden in itself is a great achievement.

In March, TheRetroRunner reduced Ninja Gaiden to a whopping 11:35.433, with Arcus streaming WR attempts as recently as May 2nd - his current PB is an 11:37.384. Amazing stuff!

This one made me cry. 34,000 attempts, all while maintaining one hell of an attitude on camera. Incredible. That level of dedication is pure inspiration.

Ohon: "Oh you want me to do it on a real console? Sure let me just..." *Ultra Instinct activated*

Summoning Salt didn't even bring up Arcus's greatest achievement: his WR in burrito meatless%

there's something endearing about a dude in a cowboy hat with a mustache streaming video games

3 years later, Arcus is in second place with an 11:34:817 A new guy named TheRetroRunner has an 11:32:183

"He grew a moustache, and started wearing a cowboy hat."

>japanese player ohon gets 11:56 time on emulator >western community: "he must have cheated!" >ohon plays an actual console and gets 11:48 time instead you fools! the emu wasn't for cheating. the emu was to restraint his power!

speed runner mentality: "finally got it... 11:40..." "..." *literally 1 second later* "I wonder if that could be 11:39"

I love how he says in most of his vids: “the run was optimized to the max,” and there’s a full 25 mins left. I’m always really interested in learning what else is done to cut time

I know it’s been said before but it’s staggering how this man can make a 30-60 minute documentary about one game and make the ENTIRE thing intriguing. Props to you my man. Good shit.

"Wanna see me get an 11:40 flat?" "Wanna see me do it again?"

Arcus is so wholesome. I feel better knowing he’s out there somewhere. He was carrying the entire team on his back for so long but never complained. What an absolute legend.

Update: On the 29th September, 2021, a player with the username TheRetroRunner beat Arcus's time. New WR is a 11.37.833

local man evolves into a cowboy just to beat a japanese player's world record

“Every now and then, a game will get a record that’s so good, people don’t even think it’s worth trying to beat it.” Checks time. 20 minutes left. I’m in for a treat.

Arcus ist just so wholesome, being so humble and at the same time confident about his skills in this game, gotta love em

ok summoning salt for real: how many takes was the "shivering erotic king banana" bit i need to know.

So let me get this straight: Ohon unknowingly had the WR for 4 years, had the run undermined due to the emulation he was using, and then responded by beating said WR by 8 seconds on the game's original console which was the best run for another 3 years? *FUCKING. LEGEND.*

I fucking love “Weeeellll he did it on an emulator he might have cheated” *shatters his own record on console shortly after* _“You were saying?”_

one o the things i find so fadcinating about these world record progression videos is that even the final record shown is never a "perfect" run of whatever route theyre using. Every time there's always a missed jump, or a slightly unoptimized boss fight, etc. The fact that even after so much optimization there's *always* a way for it be done better is so cool to me.

I'm no video game expert or even some "hardcore gamer" I just grew up on the classics and that's essentially what I still play. Most of my friends and friends of friends still play the all the new stuff that comes out. However, whenever I'm a part of a video game discussion with people and it comes up or I say, that I just simply beat NES original Ninja Gaiden...it's like instant cred. I love that.

24:40 "He developed an amazing calming presence. He grew a moustache and started wearing a cowboy hat"

Ohon: *holds world record for seven years* Arcus: "This town ain't big enough for the two of us, partner."

11:56- on an emulator "you might've cheated! use a native console!!" 11:48- on a native console oh _OKAY_

Hotarubi is like an early speedrunning polymath. The peak player in different games, genres, consoles, all at the same time.

"It didn't need the perfect run, it just needed the perfect ending" Then you hear Finally We're Landing

Abney: I put 26 thousand attempts into the weathertenko Arcus: *Pathetic*

This dude dedicated like 300 whole days of his life to this game. That's just unbelievable.

When you demand that the emulator WR holder should do a legit console run as proof - and then he dominates everybody even more than before.

Arcus somehow gives off the vibe of the ideal step father. I want him to call me “sport”

Yesterday, Arcus' 3 year old record was beaten with an 11:37. Holy cow.

As of august 2023, Arcus managed to get an 11m 34s 817ms run, but is no lonoger a record holder, that honor going to "TheRetroRunner" with 11m 32s 183ms which was obtained 22 days ago.

I have a weird feeling that “Shivering erotic king banana” will become a Summoning Salt inside joke going forward

“Hoo-Ah, made it Through-ah” is a daily thing I will quote

I'm watching this nearly a year later, doing a marathon of Summoning Salt Videos. I check the leaderboard for this game to see if Arcus had made it any lower. His record still stands as of now! However... he has a new competitor; TheRetroRunner, as seen at third place at the very end of the video, is now a mere _849 milliseconds_ behind the WR. Absolutely amazing.

“... a runner by the name of Arcus.“ Me: “I heard this name before.“ “He grew a mustache and started wearing a cowboy hat.“ Me: “Oh, that guy!“

I kept expecting to hear: "But then it turned out Ohon had a sub 11 run that the community didn't know about.."

I’m not a speedrunner, or even a gamer. I’m an older man who played these games as a kid and I haven’t played a video game in decades. I love the way these videos are structured and find them interesting. Well done sir.

I love a good pop-off but seeing arcus just go “ :) I did it! “ is really something else

I love how his second reaction after beating the world record by a whopping two seconds after having several less-than-a-second improvements is “I wonder if I can get that to a 39.” Just insane mentality. Speedrunners are nuts

Never thought the sentence “Arcus could potentially save 6 seconds” would turn me on but here we are

Hey salt. My cousin was dying of cancer a few months ago. I sent him this video in the hospital because I knew he loved NG. It was a great conversation. He passed unfortunately. Now my Dad is dying of cancer and this video keeps auto playing for me. Can’t help but think it’s my cousin sending it back to me. Love you dude

2 months ago arcus was beaten by TheRetroRunner with a 11m 37s 833ms. Mad respect.

Arcus: "Is that it?" Me: "Well the credits music is kicking in so probably"

"he's cheating by playing on an emulator" Ohon: "OH YEAH???"

I love this man's approach to cheaters. "This is the minimum context required to acknowledge that this person exists. However, they are ultimately inconsequential. Moving on." Real life has enough conflict. Games are friendly competitions. Cheating at a game just shows how insecure you are in real life.

Absolutely love these videos! Just rewatched this one for the 3rd time and it never gets old. Summoning Salt might just be a UKposts genius

I was not mentally prepared at 1:20 to hear a grown man said "Shivering Erotic King Banana" in the most non-chalant and serious tone.

the thing i respect most about Summonginsalt is that he can say anything with a straight voice. even something as ridiculous as "shivering erotic king banana" he brushes off as if nothing was wrong.

The new WR is held by TheRetroRunner with a staggering 11:34.184 a full .9 seconds faster than arcus’s 11:35.883

This is one of the handful of games that I had as a kid. Never beat it and there was no internet to reach out to for help. Glad to see some of these classics in the spotlight.

I love how you say Shivering Erotic King Banana so seriously It's like in the Melee documentary when they introduce Dr Peepee for the first time

I love how the top speedrunner of this game blows all of the other runners out of the water, and he is a mustache growing, cowboy hat wearing guy who loves to make bzzt and klonk sound effects

I love when salt goes “and this run was without a doubt the best run possible” meanwhile over half the video is left

Guy. Your narrative and editing is so f'ing amazing. I didn't even know speed run documentaries were a thing and could be so amazing. Keep it up!

Ninjas: Hee yaw Arcus: Yee haw

No one: Arcus: To master the ninja, I must become the cowboy

Dude, your storytelling is next level. I never thought I'd be eagerly watching videos about speed running, but you make the whole journey so freaking interesting and captivating.

This is one of my fav vids on the channel, Arcus is such a legend. Thanks for all the hard work you put into these they always turn out amazing

I watched through this secretly wishing for an ending where somebody discovered a link to a video on a Japanese BBS server where somebody in 1998 got 11:30 while eating sushi and tending their tamagotchi.

what is so beautiful about these videos, is the way the mechanics are explained, and its sort of like an interesting lecture/lesson, and then boom. it becomes all about the people. i sit here so invested at these total strangers, and feel so emotionally attached to the struggle to improve on times. The writing and editing achieves this so well, Well done man. i have also eaten 4g of shrooms before writing this, so it may make no sense. thanks for the content anyway. keep it up

This is my favorite video ever on the tube. One of the first games I ever owned and could never beat. The strategy explainations are so intriguing and this was my intro to the amazing Arcus!!

From fastest man to beat Ninja Gaiden to fastest man to make a Burrito Arcus truly has come far...

I have seen the question of "why didn't they use Jaquio's middle platform earlier?" pop up a few times and agree that the middle platform seems like the obvious speedy choice, so I will attempt to give a good textual explanation of what took us so long. There might be some false assumptions and misrememberings here, but I'll do my best to send my mind back to the meta of the time: People had certainly thought about using the middle platform for a quicker kill, but there just didn't seem to be a way to get it to work out. The timing of Jaquio's movement and fireballs is very restrictive. There aren't a lot of ways to get onto the middle platform and stay there while maintaining constant offense. When you're out in the open the fireballs WILL hit you unless you're deliberately dealing with them. Ryu's movement is restricted further by the fact that you cannot move left/right while slash canceling. Even if there was a way to stay up there, some of the time gained from the advantageous offensive position would have to be spent defensively to avoid getting hit. The traditional 2 round strat is very difficult, but very simple. Left/right movement is nearly nonexistent. The fireball timing just kinda works out in your favor. It is almost entirely dependent on your slash cancel mashing ability. A really good mash pretty much requires an abnormal controller grip where you are pressing Down and B with the same hand. People were not experienced with being simultaneously ready to move and ready to mash. So: Efforts to develop a working middle platform solution seemed to be pointing towards MAYBE a *slightly* faster (~0.3 seconds?) kill that was much more complicated and awkward than the traditional strat. If there were other people that had worked through this problem up to this vague point, my guess is that they figured any potential solution would be impractical. Jaquio was already hard enough. That was how I personally felt until I made a breakthrough. The true breakthrough of the "Plate Kill" was pushing the movement far enough to fit in a 3rd offensive jump while Jaquio was still on the left side. The rest just kinda falls into place out of necessity. At this point the fireball NEEDS to be dealt with. The positioning on the far right side of the platform lures the trouble fireball into Ryu's standing slash range and leaves you enough time to turn around for the 4th offensive jump. Then you hopefully finish him off with the next jump. The whole thing barely holds together. There is just enough time to link each action into the next, and each action is absolutely necessary. I think that's as good of an explanation I can provide to the question of "why didn't they use the middle platform earlier?" It's not that we hadn't thought to use it. We just didn't know how. Hope that helps!

Arcus' demeanor and humility makes him instantly likable. This man is awesome in every way

Update for anyone wondering about the current record: a runner named TheRetroRunner has with 11:36.834, beating Arcus’ time by over a second

I come back to this video every couple months without even thinking about it. Definitely tied as my favorite video by summoning salt along with the Matt Turk video. Arcus is God.

Ok, that was great, and I have a massive amount of respect for Arcus, staying so calm and collected during all of those attempts...like, the man is joking, and being nice, and just seems like a great guy, all while beating impossible times...truly amazing. Anyways, I love these videos, and I look forwards to seeing what you cover next!