The Switch 2 has a very slim line-up of first-party launch titles, with only two new releases —Mario Kart Worldand Welcome Tour. One is a game, the other… well,our Editor-in-Chief put it best: “It’s like someone has gamified a HR presentation on a new in-house word processor.”
It’s hard to imagine sitting through it once, learning such interesting tidbits as the console having cooling vents on (get this!) both sides, let alone repeat ‘playthroughs’. Yet somehow, it has a fledgling speedrunning community trying to shave down the world record for a few different categories. Stamp Rally is simple: you walk around the console and its peripherals, taking note of every feature, while 100 Medals is more involved, sprinkling in a few lacklustre minigames.
That’s what 360Chrism has been pouring hours into for the last few days, streaming their attempts on Twitch. So far, they’ve collected every single stamp in Welcome Tour in just28 minutes and 38 seconds, and100 medals in 59 minutes and 52 seconds, fast becoming the face of the Welcome Tour speedrunning community. But there are plenty of others quietly chipping away at the world record.
Welcome Tour’s Stamp Rally WR Has Nearly Been Cut In Half Already
The speedrunning scene for Welcome Tourcropped up almost immediatelyafter it and the Switch 2 launched, with the first recorded time for Stamp Rally being submitted by WitherMin. They got every stamp in 40 minutes and 5 seconds. A day later, SAS_rta managed to shave off just over 12 minutes, clocking in at 27 minutes and 41 seconds. Today, though, we have an impressive new world record thanks to tatsu_ya, who nearly halved WitherMin’s original time.
tatsu_ya
25m 55s
26m 06s
tcbtrio
26m 13s
27m 41s
28m 15s
ro_money
32m 35s
WitherMin
40m 05s
However, when it comes to the 100 Medals category, there’s only one entry so far — 360Chrism. Speedrunners are more focused on setting world records for each individual minigame than hoarding stamps, but there’s not much room left for improvement. WaferCaken, among others, managed to complete Find The Strongest Rumble: Along a Line in 1 millisecond, and Along Two Axes in 3 milliseconds.
Maybe they’ve had their fill and will get stuck into 100 Medals now, helping shave that time down, but there are plenty of other minigames either without entries or that could almost certainly be improved upon, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
It’s not a scam, the game is really good… especially for speedrunning.
Welcome Tour is hardly what you’d think of as speedrunning material, but I have to admit, it’s fun to see the community make something out of this $10 instruction manual.I’m still not entirely convinced that it’s a fun way to spend your time, but I’m oddly fascinated to see how speedrunners will optimise 100 Medals and All Stamps, and what glitches, if any, crop up.
