Speedrunning plans for June/July

Until I streamed a super-rusty NG+ run of the PC version of Symphonia earlier this week, I hadn't done any speedruns for pretty much the whole year. But that is going to change for a few projects over this "summer":

Pokemon Brown
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My run of the Pokemon Brown ROM hack has made it past the PSR2016 cuts with an estimate of 2:15, wiggle room up to 2:20 if there's a trainwreck (exact timeslot on the schedule TBD). This sounds all well and good for the time being since I have a pretty unoptimized 2:07 run, but unfortunately Squirtle stats are a really big problem for this game and 11/10/11 isn't exactly going to happen in a marathon.

This means that before the marathon I need to pick an approach from the following and route for it:
1) Take absolutely any Squirtle I get and make strats for 0/0/0 DVs (this could be a struggle, but is probably possible with some extra early grinding depending on exact stats)
2) Reset for a set of minimum stats that are relatively easy to get but still provide something of use for the run over flat 0s (probably one of high Speed [10] or Special [11] with non-basement-tier Attack [10+], which would be about 50/50 to get on each Squirtle)
3) Reset for a decent Squirtle for a while, but if it fails reload a premade save with an extremely good Squirtle so as to make up the time spent resetting [could be combined with 2) to some degree]

These are all basically a balance of how practical the run is to finish under estimate against how "authentic" it is, but I think I will be leaning towards option 3 as not delaying the marathon is very important. That said, if option 1 is at all practical I'll try it.

What to expect on stream: RTA runs using my preferred strategy from the above once I pick it and route for it. Probably not for a while.

Touhou Puppet Dance Performance ("Shard of Dreams" expansion)
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This was my most recent speedgame before my long hiatus, though I never released any public videos of runs for the expansion. But recently a few things have come up to make me want to run it again:

1) GreenMittenz has been talking about running the base game again, and running the expansion once the partial translation for the expansion is out.
2) Said partial translation is not far away - it'll translate menus, attacks, items, abilities etc to make the game a whole lot more accessible.
3) I found the twitter and Nico page of a Japanese runner who has done runs of the expansion using a completely different route to the one I made in January, so naturally I want to run tests to see if it's better! (current signs are promising, the main puppet they use is really really really OP and its pure power may well beat out Chen's versatility)

I need to spend time looking at the Japanese route as well as adjusting things for the latest patch, but things should be ready to go pretty quickly. Add the possibility of the new route to the fact that my runs in January were relatively unoptimized, and I should have some PBs going soon after starting runs.

What to expect on stream: Runs for normal ending (beat Makai 4) and true ending (beat GG&MG in Dream World) once I'm done with assessing the Japanese route. Probably second up after the below...

Tales of Symphonia (PC and maybe GC)
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PC New Game Plus definitely started out as a meme run when I did it earlier this week, but that was exacerbated by my sheer rust. Since then I've done a little practice/routing and want to try to improve the time at least once to around a 6:55.

As for Gamecube version runs, those would hinge on me buying the Japanese version and practicing Jay's New Game route for it. I'm not particularly interested in playing on the slower version for NG or improving my NG+ time at this point. The Japanese version isn't overly hard to get, but it will take a while to ship and I'll need to buy an extra memory card for it. This means it may be a while off still.

What to expect on stream: Another PC NG+ run relatively soon (early June), maybe GC-J NG runs in July.