In the overlapping worlds of tool assisted speedruns and live runs, The8bitbeast has built a reputation as one of the clearest examples of a modern hybrid runner. An Australian player based in South Australia, he is introduced on community profiles as a TASer, speedrunner and glitch hunter who specializes in Nintendo 64, Sega Master System and PlayStation titles.
Across hundreds of leaderboard entries and a long list of published tool assisted speedruns, he has done three things at once. He has helped document the limits of older console games through TASVideos publications, pushed those same games in real time on Speedrun.com, and then turned around to explain his work through commentary videos, tutorials and podcasts. In the process he has become one of the recognizable names in both the Banjo community and the broader TAS scene.
Origins in TASing and Glitch Hunting
The8bitbeast’s public trail in the tool assisted community begins with his profile on TASVideos, which lists him as joining the site in late 2015 and identifies him as an Australian player using he and him pronouns.
From the start he gravitated toward platforms that reward deep mechanical understanding. Forum discussions and publication notes repeatedly associate him with Sega Master System titles, classic 16 bit games and PlayStation platformers, especially games where small routing differences or glitch exploitation can shave off large chunks of time.
On his streaming profile he describes himself in simple terms as a TASer, speedrunner and glitch hunter whose main playgrounds are Nintendo 64, Master System and PS1. This three part description is a fair summary of the roles he has carried in the community: building tool assisted movies, translating discoveries into human playable routes, and deliberately searching for ways to break games open.
Building a TASVideos Portfolio
Over the years The8bitbeast has assembled a varied portfolio of published TAS runs. Many of them sit in the kind of territory that defines TASVideos as an archive of the strange edges of console libraries rather than a simple list of famous games.
He is credited on multiple Sega Master System projects, including a movie of Sonic Blast that improves an earlier publication by sixteen seconds through better routing and the exploitation of small bugs. He has also contributed to a movie of Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension on Master System, where a game end glitch allows the game to be beaten in little more than twenty seconds of active gameplay.
Other projects extend beyond Sega. He worked on a tool assisted run of Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man on Atari 2600, collaborating with ShesChardcore to improve his own earlier publication by nearly five seconds through a more efficient final boss fight. In the Metroidvania space he produced a run of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys that uses a glitch to maximize the player’s stats and rush to the end of the game, a clear example of TAS logic applied to an action RPG.
His catalog also includes tool assisted runs of NES Metroid, which are presented with commentary and explanation, and a string of Master System and Genesis titles that make heavy use of intentional damage and other optimizations.
Beyond the runs themselves, The8bitbeast became one of the more visible teachers in the TAS community. On the official TASVideos YouTube channel he starred in a series of TAS Tutorial videos that walk viewers through subjects such as optimizing menu navigation and other in game details that matter deeply for tool assisted work. These tutorials turned his own practice into a kind of public curriculum for new TAS authors.
Crossing Over to Real Time Speedrunning
Even as he built up his TAS catalog, The8bitbeast maintained an active presence on Speedrun.com. By early 2026 his Speedrun.com profile listed 147 runs across dozens of games, with more than 140 of those being full game runs.
The profile shows just how wide his range is. He has recorded times in early workhorse games like Crash Bandicoot and Donkey Kong 64, but the real center of gravity is in two areas. The first is the Banjo family of games on Nintendo 64, including the original Banjo-Kazooie, its category extensions and later hacks like The Legend of Banjo-Kazooie: Jiggies of Time. The second is a deep catalog of Sega Master System and other retro console games.
Within Banjo his numbers are especially striking. Speedrun.com lists more than sixty runs in the main game and over thirty more in Banjo-Kazooie category extensions, including multiple first place times in Save Tooty, All Cheato Visits and other specialized categories. These are not isolated submissions. They represent years of iteration across Xbox and Nintendo 64 versions, structured category work, and close collaboration with other Banjo runners.
At the same time he has played an active role in Master System and 8 bit games on the real time side as well. He has posted top times or near top times in Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Master System, Zillion, Taz Mania, multiple Alex Kidd titles and a long list of other obscure or nostalgic releases, often taking first place in categories that reward careful routing of small, fast games.
This combination of TAS authorship and real time records allows him to occupy a rare niche. He is both a record chaser and one of the people who creates the routes and glitches that others chase.
Banjo-Kazooie Breakthroughs and the Forty Minute Wall
Among all of his games, Banjo-Kazooie has become the title most closely associated with The8bitbeast in the public speedrunning record. For years his work on the game has been visible across platforms, categories and formats.
One of the most widely shared examples is a world record Banjo-Kazooie Any percent run that completed the game in just over an hour, captured in a showcase video that highlighted his movement, routing choices and use of glitches. The run did not exist in isolation. It was part of a wave of discoveries that reshaped what was possible in the game, especially on the Xbox Live Arcade version.
A Reddit thread discussing a later 40 minute 29 second Any percent run credits an excellent explanation video by The8bitbeast for making sense of those discoveries. In very short form, a new way of teleporting out of levels on the Xbox version was found. Unlike a normal exit, this teleport did not reset the note counter for the level. If the player then entered a different level, the notes they had already collected were double counted toward both levels at once. This allowed a completely new route that skipped significant sections of the game and slashed the Any percent time by more than sixteen minutes.
These findings were not just curiosities. They fed directly into the construction of new routes and categories and set a precedent for how closely Banjo runners would need to study each platform and version for differences.
Beyond Any percent he also poured effort into side categories. On Save Tooty, a variant that focuses on beating the game while using the file that begins just outside the starting house, he set multiple world record times. Archive entries and YouTube uploads document achievements such as a 36 minute 49 second Save Tooty run and later improvements into the low thirties.
Taken together, these runs and discoveries helped define an entire era of Banjo speedrunning. They also showed how a player deeply immersed in TAS work could take the same mindset into real time runs on both original hardware and modern ports.
Master System and Retro Library Specialist
If Banjo-Kazooie is one pole of The8bitbeast’s work, the other is a long chain of smaller, tightly optimized games. Speedrun.com lists his name next to Sega Master System titles such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Astérix, Taz Mania, Zillion, Lord of the Sword, Golden Axe Warrior and many others, often with first place times.
In Sonic the Hedgehog on Master System, for example, he has recorded runs in categories such as Beat the Game and All Emeralds, with times in the mid to high teens and positions near the top of the leaderboard. On Game Gear he has similar work in Sonic Blast, a title that also appears in his TAS portfolio, which shows how he frequently attacks the same game from both tool assisted and real time angles.
Many of these games are not widely known outside of retro enthusiast circles. Titles like The Lawnmower Man, Devious Dungeon, Macbat 64 and Basic Math for Atari 2600 do not attract large player bases, but they reward route creation and refinement. Speedrun.com lists him with first place or near first place times in all of those, including multiple records in Devious Dungeon and a set of extremely short, optimized times in Basic Math’s arithmetic modes.
This pattern echoes his TAS work. Whether he is creating a tool assisted movie or a live run, he consistently gravitates toward games where the fun lies in pushing the engine harder than its creators ever expected.
Teaching, Commentary and Community Work
Beyond the scoreboard, one of the most important parts of The8bitbeast’s legacy is as a teacher and communicator.
As noted earlier, his TAS Tutorial series on the TASVideos YouTube channel breaks down topics like menu optimization and input planning in a way that invites viewers into the process of making and improving tool assisted movies. He also produces his own commentary rich TAS and speedrun videos, such as narrated versions of NES Metroid and Master System titles that combine technical detail with accessible explanation.
In the 2010s he cohosted the Tool Assisted Podcast, a community project remembered on later TASVideos forum threads as one of the early attempts to highlight notable TAS runs and interview authors in a conversational format. This work helped put voices and personalities to what could otherwise have been a very text heavy site.
More recently he has experimented with other forms of educational content. In early 2023 he announced on social media that he had started a YouTube channel reviewing games from a speedrunner’s perspective, with each video beginning as a casual review and then shifting into an analysis of how the game’s mechanics and structure affect its viability as a speedrun.
Taken as a whole, his public posts, tutorials and reviews form a record of someone constantly trying to make the technical side of speedrunning more understandable to a wider audience.
Marathons, TASBot and Public Showcases
Like many long time speedrunners, The8bitbeast has also stepped into marathon spaces.
In 2020 he appeared on the schedule for the PAX Online Aus Speedrun Marathon, racing Banjo-Kazooie Any percent against fellow runner Azmi in an event organized under the AusSpeedruns banner. The race put his Banjo skills in front of a convention audience and demonstrated how the categories and routes he had helped shape could be turned into a watchable show for newcomers.
On the tool assisted side, he has collaborated with the TASBot exhibition group run by dwangoAC. One showcase video credits him for helping send TASBot into Fantasy Zone, an example of how his technical work behind the scenes contributed to some of the most visible public demonstrations of TAS technology.
These appearances reinforce the broader pattern in his career. He is not only interested in perfecting times, but also in finding ways to present those efforts to audiences who may never open an emulator or read a TAS submission text.
Reputation and Legacy
Within TASVideos, forum users have described The8bitbeast as one of the standout Sega specialists, with at least one thread referring to him as a Sega TASer of 2022 while praising his work on nostalgic titles like Madagascar and others. On Speedrun.com he is the kind of name that appears repeatedly if you scroll through Banjo-Kazooie or the Master System section, attached to both long standing records and a high volume of category runs.
His legacy is not built on a single iconic world record or one hyper popular game. Instead it rests on three intertwined threads.
First, he has been a prolific glitch hunter and TAS author across a wide range of consoles, contributing movies that redefine what completion looks like for both mainstream and obscure games. Second, he has been one of the core architects of modern Banjo speedrunning, particularly in the Xbox era of Any percent and the Save Tooty and category extension scenes. Third, he has consistently taken the time to explain his work through tutorials, commentary, podcasts and reviews, lowering the barrier for new runners and TAS authors to join the hobby.
For a Speedrun Legacy Profile, that combination is what matters most. The8bitbeast stands as a bridge figure between TAS and real time, between highly technical glitch hunting and friendly on camera explanation, and between the small communities around Master System curiosities and the larger worlds of Banjo runners and marathon audiences. His story shows how one player with a taste for odd games and precise inputs can leave marks on multiple corners of speedrunning history at once.