2017-12-25

2017 retrospective

===Kirby & The Amazing Mirror===
any% - 28:06->27:57
100% - 1:20:53->1:10:42

On literally New Year's Eve 2016, I tied the record with 28:06 (though my time was a few frames slower). For the new year, I switched over to 100% and ran that for almost two months, and along the way, I found some nice route changes, saving probably around 35-40 seconds. Incidentally, these route changes enabled the more aesthetically pleasing route, which I got to show off at a few marathons. In April, I ran any% for around two weeks and got two new PBs, culminating in a 27.

===Kirby: Squeak Squad===
100% - 1:09:48

Admittedly, my initial interest in 100% was because the record wasn't as optimized as that of any% (there was a death that cost over a minute). After I started running the category and getting sub-1:20s, cabbage picked up the game again, and we were able to push the game down to a low 1:11 in about a month. Later on, we had a few more new ideas and I was able to get the 1:09 on a very lucky run. It's a little hard for me to watch my PB because of all the minor mistakes, but I don't really plan on improving my time given all the RNG and my frustration with the game's mechanics.

I think it's easy to get the impression that 100% routing hinges on random or ?-bubble mixes. Hopefully my no-mix route guide (to be finished soon(tm)) will suggest otherwise.

===Kirby's Adventure===
any% NMG - 44:26

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, ending up with a time that's faster than the WR at the time I started (44:38). The w5 museum route is one of my favorite speedstrat discoveries, and I'm happy to have contributed to a game with such a long and rich history (in speedrunning terms).

===Yono and the Celestial Elephants===
any% - 8:24
any% no EQD - 20:27
Max Health - 57:17

Upon seeing the trailer I had a feeling I'd run this game. After doing what was then any% and casual Max Health for around two weeks, I found "Early Queen's Dungeons," which cuts out pretty much almost all of the game.

===Noobow===
Beat the Game - 33:12

I've watched Sickynar run this game on a few occasions, and a random conversation I had with him at SGDQ caused me to test stuff out on emulator. Besides improved puzzle solutions, the most important thing I found was that nearly every input in the game (the only exception is the password screen) can be buffered. Sicky went on to get a 32, ultimately improving on his old record by nearly a minute.

===Kirby's Star Stacker===
Round Clear (Normal) - 2:22->2:07
Round Clear (Hard)   - 13:05->11:06

"There is no way in heaven the 2:19 can be beaten." After FFRPro21 got 2:18 with superior movement, I tied it by copying his movement. I was at Calithon when I randomly noticed that there was a faster solution for Stage 2 (which has no RNG). After a few iterations of finding new solutions (including what I thought at the time was a "perfect luck" 2:10), I got a 2:07. In the end, only stages 1 and 7 remained untouched.

At some point I also got 11:06 on Hard difficulty, which was a record for just a few hours, heh.

===Kirby's Dream Land 2===
Best Ending - 47:34->44:48
100% - 53:33->51:47

SGDQ was coming up, so I wanted to improve my times. Pro-tip: holding Start removes the blinding pink background on Dream Collection.

===Kirby's Pinball Land===
Beat the Game - 6:52

Took me about two weeks of trying on and off to actually beat the game without savestates. Since I have pretty much no intuition for this game, I ended up cheesing as much as I could, and my final time was just the second time I beat the game.

===Kirby's Block Ball==
any% - 1:15:44->49:55

Needing a handheld game to play on vacation (and a desire to not be last on the leaderboards), I picked this game up again, and got plenty of practice trying to fill up the scoreboards (actual speedstrat). I decided to stop at the arbitrary but nice-looking sub-50 mark.

===Kirby's Super Star Stacker===
Round Clear (Normal) - 3:28

I found a new strat on Stage 6 that allowed me to get 3:47 fairly quickly, which would've tied the record at the time but crazeyawesome got 3:30 less than an hour before me. In September I randomly had the thought to grind out that category, eventually getting my current time after being stuck on 3:31 for awhile.

===Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble===
any% - 16:42

An... experience. I stopped once I got a "deathless" run, doing safe strats the whole way through.

===Kirby: Triple Deluxe===
Dededetour - 1:03:04

Really I just did some attempts to throw out a fifth game for SGDQ selections. Unsurprisingly it didn't get in.

===Mickey's Ultimate Challenge (SNES)===
"challenging" - 16:31

First saw this game when eBloodyCandy did some "cake" difficulty runs. I like these traditional puzzles, even though this game is RNG hell (looking at you, Donald), and while my time could be improved by other tools, e.g., a notepad for memory-based minigames, it was more fun to play this unassisted.

===Goof Troop===
Max - 25:55-24:51
Goofy - 27:06-25:42

The usual "get-new-pbs-whenever-there's-an-upcoming-marathon" routine.

===Kirby's Dream Course===
Normal RTA - 39:06

A work in progress.