werster's 2018 speedyear

2018 was an alright speed year for me. I pretty consistently got something every month, but not much more than that. Still got a fair amount done, added in some new games, and really enjoyed everything I worked on. 2019 looks good as well, I have a lot of games that I can see myself working on and getting good improvements in, as well as some new games lined up too.

Here are my PB's from 2018, listed in chronological order:

Pokemon Heart Gold
Any% in 1:59:29
Possibly my best run of the year right at the start. Spent a large amount of time re-routing this, and the results were fantastic. Managed to bring this time down by several minutes, which is a huge amount of a Pokemon game like this. Is always one of my favourite games to come back to, and getting it under 2 hours was a long term dream of mine, this one gave me a lot of joy

Sonic Jam (Game.Com)
Sonic 2 in 4:00
Sonic 3 in 8:59
Sonic & Knuckles in 10:00
Probably the memeiest run I have ever done. Sonic Game for the Game.Com is the worst Sonic Game I have ever played. It is appallingly bad. But I ran this game for Golden's 12 Hour Challenge, so  I could once again pick up a game and within 12 Hours get the record for it. It was a fun day.

Pocket Monsters Stadium
Poke Ball in 21:39
Great Ball in 26:42
Ultra Ball in 29:15
Master Ball in 27:42
L50 Cup in 30:05
All Cups in 1:56:54
Complete the Game in 2:38:30
I got into the final Stadium Game, the Japanese only release. Sometimes referred to as "Pokemon Stadium 0", the game overs a limited amount of Pokemon and less cups, but the general playstyle is very much the same. So as always, had a lot of fun routing out the battles and such. I very frustratingly never got a deathless complete game run, losing to the very last Pokemon because of a 1/256 miss. Genuinely one of the most bullshit things to happen to me.

Pokemon Pearl
Any% in 57:36
Went back to this as my time had gotten beaten. Really grinded it out as much as I could bear, and finally got it back. It's since been beaten again, but I don't think I'll ever come back. Because it's purely a grind, there's nothing new or interesting about it. I'm happy with this time here.

Pokemon Diamond
Any% Glitchless in 3:44:03
Pushed the limits of manip here a good deal, and was really happy I managed to get the record back here as a result. It's very tight at the top here now. When I got this time as well, it was the start of a few month period where I held the record for all Gen 4 games in all categories. I don't think this'll ever happen again, but I'm really happy I got to that point, given I think they are the best speedgames, the most creative, and ones I got into quite late in my journey.

Pokemon Stadium
Gym Leader Castle Round 1 - Japanese in 1:37:18
Amazing that I spent I think 2 days only doing runs of this? And it's my best GLC run in any game. Sad that it has like no competition so you can't tell! Got insanely lucky throughout this whole run bar like, 1 fight (The fucking Lad in the first gym of all things!)

Sonic Spinball
Beat the Game in 10:42
Max Jackpot Bonus in 29:28
Now this game, was really fucking fun. There was a few week period where it was insanely active. Before that though, there was a skip found in the Machine where you could get into the boss room, but it was random. And insanely rare. The game was short though, so whenever people would complain about it, I would just insist you should go for it. Without understanding it, I also insisted it should be consistent somehow, just control the things that matter. After weeks of people not going for it, I finally lost my patience and decided to pick up the game. I ended up finding a 100% consistent setup for that, along with a 100% consistent setup to skip the emeralds in the Machine too, as well as a really specific, but possible, setup for Toxic Caves skip too. The next few weeks were chaos as this was happening, and several runners were all churning out PBs left and right. I was more happy with my work on the game than my run itself, I managed to basically cut 50% of the time off myself. But Zaxon sits with the crown now, and I don't see myself taking it off him. I've still got Max Jackpot until he decides to play it though =)

Wario Land 3
Any% Glitchless in 1:17:08
I'd tried to run this game many times in the past, but I just HATE the walljumps in it. They just aren't fun to perform, and are so crucial. But when I went to the leaderboards and saw there was a glitchless category now, I knew I'd found something to go for. Was a really fun project. My time actually got beaten here like a week ago, so I'll probably be going back to this soon!

Sonic Pocket Adventure
Beat the Game in 11:49
This was so much fun to work on too. Really under appreciated and unexplored Sonic game. A game I hadn't touched at all before this year, and felt like I'd almost mastered by the end. Really enjoyed this, wish there were more games like this out there for me to jump on.

Wario Land II
Main Story Glitchless in 35:03
I don't like Main Story that much, but with these categories split into glitchless as well, I figured i may as well have a dip at this, since I didn't have a time for it. Was fun, but I think you'll see me doing the other categories here in the future, but probably still focusing on glitchless again.

Sonic CD
All Good Futures in 13:55:42
Man, routing this was super enjoyable too. In the same vein as SPA, this category specifically felt really unexplored, and this game is honestly like a goldmine for strats. It's brilliant. Even since this run there's been significant improvements, could definitely see myself coming back here.

Pokemon Platinum
Any% in 2:45:43
If Heart Gold wasn't the run of the year, this one probably was. One of the most creative routes I've ever come up with, and it still makes me smile and laugh whenever I say it out loud now. Catching 2 Tentacruels, and maining them both. Faster. Unreal. The run is also incredibly hard execution wise, so it's very very satisfying for me to complete a run here. This time was good without being perfect, I could see myself coming back when this gets beaten, but not before then.

Pokemon Platinum
Elite Four Round 2 in 4:59:18
Got the sub 5 here with some more creative routing and rough execution, once again pushing the boundaries with chain manip this time. I had better runs than this one that died to some hard bs, so I can definitely see myself coming back here at some point.

Pokemon Adventures Red Chapter
Any% Glitchless in 3:57:12
This run won't show up on my speedrun profile, given it's just a romhack, but I figured I'd give it a go here. A game I learnt specifically for the Pokemon Speedrun Marathon, and has a huge amount of fun with. The run is far from optimised given I only ever did 2 runs (1 practice, and the marathon run), but I still really enjoyed running and routing a Pokemon game from absolute scratch again. Haven't done that in a long, long time.

Octopath Traveler
Ophilia in 54:44
Cyrus in 52:32
Alfyn in 53:57
Olberic in 1:07:35
Probably the biggest deviation for me in terms of speedgames this year. It's not like a turn based RPG is exactly outside of my wheelhouse, but the game is *new*. And I've never ever run a new game before. And I never thought I would, there's just so much going against running a new game for me. That just goes to show how much I love this game. It's absolutely fucking amazing, and I just wanted to spend more time playing it. The creative process was really really fun too, was a great challenge and a rewarding one coming up with the strats here. Had a lot of fun with this.

Pokemon Stadium 2
Gym Leader Castle Round 1 in 2:09:09
This is a story that honestly should go down in history, but not many people will be able to truly appreciate it. But Zewing and I were both grinding this game out, hoping to get a new PB, because we both knew the time could go down lower. Both of us kept trying to improve the route as well, but neither of us could think of anything that worked. Then one day I finally had a new idea that worked, and worked so well, was both faster and safer. And I shit you not, as I was writing the idea into my notes, I got a message from Zewing. He'd just had the *exact* same idea. Years after working on the game, we both had the exact same idea, at almost the exact same time.
Weeks later, I would finally get a PB, and a several minute improvement to the record. Finally, after a long grind I'd broken through. Before that run had even finished, Zewing had started his run that would also beat the record. So after all the grinding, we ended up PBing at almost exactly the same time. His again, slightly after mine, but slightly better. Our times within 1 turn of each other. Ridiculous stuff.

Sonic 2 2013
Sonic in 17:01
Tails in 17:09
Knuckles in 19:39
Came back here once I finally figured out a setup for 3 button spindashes (Thanks Raikou!!). The game is super fun, and again, because it's less explored then I get to be more creative and come up with new stuff. And I loved that. Can definitely see myself coming back here, especially for Sonic, at some stage. The other two probably only if they get beaten, but Knuckles is not fun in this game.

Pokemon Stadium 2
Complete Round 1 in 7:44:58
Complete the Game in 19:34:28
The last game of the year, Complete the Game is my favourite, and the best category in all the Stadium games. I put a lot of work into rerouting all the battles in this game, and was really happy with my results. Even with a run that could've had better luck, I ended up saving over an hour here. It took a more more effort this time to PB though, usually it'd just be one run and I'd have a fat PB, but this time it took quite a few weeks, which given the length of the run, took a fair bit out of me. Will be hard to improve from this point too but...you can definitely see me coming back one day...

Anyway, that was 2018. Did a fair few more runs than I thought I did, I guess on account of doing more games where I did more than 1 category. Hopefully 2019 can be just as productive, if not more!