Was doing research into this game for a TAS and so I was looking into the movement tech that the record's description claims to exist. Here's what I found:

Skull kid has no momentum, he moves 11 units in one frame when you start moving, 5.5 units per frame while holding the button down and instantly comes to a stop when the button is released. This means that stutter-stepping like the record does should at best come out even to holding a direction.

Here's a comparison video:

I made all the videos re-sync on elevators, as well as the first table you cut down and the final cutscene at the end of the game. My observations here are as follows:

• the record cuts things down at the same speed as TAS and 2nd place, the elevators and final cutscene also take equally as long

• the record moves significantly faster, being able to outrun TAS in level 1 and catch up in level 2 despite slower fights

The record holder never seems to have answered what's up with the lowered saturation of the game, but I think given the different visuals and difference in movement speed, but not animation speed it's fair to say that the WR video likely wasn't sped up, but rather played on a faster version of the game unintentionally.

Nice work! I was wondering how he did it so quickly :D Time to find a faster version and take the lead back :D

Nice ! So, I'm not that used to speedruns, the only game I run is this one, so what should we do from now on? Look for the same version that the first place runner used, as Elficek suggested? In this case, shouldn't the record holder himself demonstrate whether it is still possible to have access to this version, if it really is another? The guy vanished and the difference to second place is more or less 8 seconds, I just sent a time very close to second and third but in this version that everyone plays it doesn't seem possible to take 8 seconds using his technique, this discourages me from making more attempts and it can happen to others too.

Sorry for the late response, if you have such doubts and you agree, it is up to me to remove the wryi. Feel free to message me if you have any complaints :)

Holy shit i knew there was something wrong with the ex record i tried for hours to recreate what he did