2016 speedyear

2016 was a fairly active year for me in speedrunning. I returned to a number of old projects, and I also picked up a lot of new ones. While I can't say any of these runs are really strong, I do feel as though this year played an important role in bringing a lot of my times closer to something I'm satisfied with, and to the point where revisiting the games one more time might just do the trick. Or not; I like to stay optimistic though.

I've outlined my PBs in 2016 below, listed in chronological order.

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Buster
Best Ending in 8:29
- I did this immediately following AGDQ 2016. There's still time I want to shave off here, and I really want to look into a better strat for the blind autoscroller climb in 3-2.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (US)
Any% in 8:28
- The SMB2U preparation and grind may have been the most fun I had with speedrunning this year. When I first learned this game after SGDQ2015 I really wanted to beat cak's time (8:32), but after getting sub 9 I decided to drop it to route Buster instead. ILM then came in and got 8:30 which kind of killed the magic for me, but before I knew it I was on a mission to improve that time even further. I kind of fell into old habits after getting 8:28 though; basically the excitement wore off and I wanted to move on to a different game. ILM has an 8:26 now and it's one hell of a run, and to be honest, I still feel some motivation left in me. I'm not sure when the time will come, or if it'll ever come, but who knows.

Mega Man X2
Any% in 33:20
- I was kind of forced into this game again due to a marathon run at AOD2016. I'm happy I went through with it though, because X2 is always really fun to run and getting out of the 33:3x range (which I left the game in for 2.5 years) felt kind of liberating. Unsurprisingly, my PB still sucks though. I even lose 8 or so seconds to Virus at the very end.

New Super Marisa Land
Any% in 11:44
- I honestly never expected to pick this up, it was completely by chance. I was going through a bunch of Touhou fangame speedruns and then remembered how dumb any% in this game was, and then rewatched Gamercal's 11:50. The run was a really good watch; I was actually surprised by just how clean it was, so I started looking into whether or not any improvements existed. The resulting 11:44 is decently clean, but there's still a good chunk of time left. I don't know if I want to return to this one though because of how stupid it is (dumb RNG level + 1 framer near the end), although if anyone ever finds a consistent setup for a floor clip early on then I'd consider it. I do want to note that, aside for Double Spoiler, NSML was probably the most frustrated I've been practicing anything this year thanks to 3-1 and the map warp.

Strider
Any% in 4:09
- This game is dumb and bad. I picked it up again with 2 goals in mind: sub 4:10 and nailing 2 of the 3 big tricks (Red Dragon 1 framer and scientist skip, with the first Australia zip omitted). I doubt I'll play this again outside of marathon prep, and even then I don't expect to ever return to serious PB attempts.

Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel
Any% (Freudia) in 31:59
- Over 3 years passed before I picked this up again earlier this year. For a long time I imagined beating Creed's 32:19 would be quite the grind, but a lot of new strats helped make sub 32 more than possible. I still want to bring this run down further, maybe mid 31:4x. Special thanks to Hakua and especially Sairaan here for the help.

Mountain of Faith
Lunatic (MarisaB) in 14:03
- This is a meme. I got bad luck during Source of Rains and I forgot to hold CTRL to fast forward text for a split second when starting the Hina fight. I think there was a small execution error with Nitori bombs as well, and if you want to go all out there's a better Sanae bomb route. This is a meme though, stop.

Rockman 4: Burst Chaser x Air Sliding
Any% in 27:44
- It took me 2 years but I finally went through with learning BCAS. This was my 2nd 12 hour challenge and, as I expected, it was a super fun game. I'm just not interested in returning to it yet, even though I'd love to run it seriously one day. And in the event I never come back to it, I'm at least pretty content with the fact that I got a 27 in just 12 hours of work. I even cut THE peterafro.

New Super Hook Girl
Extra in 5:05
- If SMB2U wasn't the most fun I had this year with speedrunning, then it was definitely Hook Girl. This one caught me completely by surprise. I recall watching Reflected blind this for a few minutes like half a year ago, but I didn't actually get interested in trying it out myself until I noticed Salzkorn and Shadax running it. It all happened really fast too; I blinded it at the very end of August, maybe 2 days later I reopened it to mess with tower 2 skip in stage 4 just to see how difficult it was (because I saw Salzkorn struggling with it in runs), and then the next day I was aiming for sub 30 in stage 1. It's honestly pretty crazy: after my blind playthrough I said I wouldn't speedrun the game, and 3 or so days later it become a serious contender for an AGDQ submission in my head. My PB here is decent but I really want sub 5, and now that I'm working on this game again I'm assuming it'll happen sometime soon. Not to mention, the year technically isn't over yet so I might be able to sneak it in this week?

Umihara Kawase
Any% in 2:07
- Another game I did out of marathon obligation, this time due to JRTA3. Special thanks to Megiddo for actually learning fast strats in fields 0, 1, and 11, thus giving me motivation to learn them properly. This game really owns, but I'm too lazy to figure stuff out for myself. I think I exhausted all my energy on that front with my initial routing of it pre-AGDQ2015 (PB at the time was 2:12). Shoutouts to Ajarmar, cfb, and Blechy as well... the JRTA3 race was something special.

Touhou 12.5 ~ Double Spoiler
Unlock Hatate in 29:28
- This was my first 12 hour challenge, and ever since that happened back in February, DS continued to follow me throughout the entire year. No matter what game I was playing, DS was lurking in the shadows as a side project of mine. I kept practicing it like that up until June or so when it started to receive more of a focus, and now it's down to 29:28. This has been a game with a lot of highs and lows for me, and every time I find myself absolutely hating it I always remember that there are qualities about it I really appreciate too. It's fairly unique as a speedrun, and there are many things I wanted to get out of it as both a speedrunner, and as a guy who really loves Touhou and used to play the games a ton many years ago. My intention is to continue playing this after AGDQ to get a 28 (my final goal time with my route/strats), and I'm hoping I can follow through on that.

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So, some potential 2017 goals of mine, although none of these are certain:
- Get a 28 in Double Spoiler, preferably deathless with no missed shots or very close to that.
- Some sort of "decent" sub 5 time in Hook Girl assuming it doesn't happen in the next few days (it won't).
- Return to at least two of the following: MMX2, MM5, SMB2U, SMRPG
- Improve RKSF to at least 31:4x
- Return to other random side projects that shouldn't take more than 3-4 weeks while still working on other stuff (e.g. Buster)
- Pick up a few new games as usual, but try to limit the number. I'd like to give Magical Pop'n a shot, and I think Mega Man 10 could be pretty cool too. If time permits or if I get consumed by my own curiosity, actually look into GCN titles like Twilight Princess or Prime.