Any% in 4:39

 www.twitch.tv/videos/225606410

Any% - Normal in 5:19:18 by TheVelocirapture - 103rd place

Metroid Prime any% completed in 4:39. The item route used in this run could use a little bit of optimization, but I firmly believe that it is better than the standard 32% item route.

The first major optimization comes the moment you land on Tallon IV. Normally, when you first start the game you are supposed make a large detour to collect the Space Jump Boots. By forgoing the Space Jump Boots, we can save loads of time.

The second major timesave in this particular route is the decision to avoid getting the Charge Beam. The Charge beam is really far out of the way, and by not having to get it we can get much farther ahead. This has a slight consequence of making some of the bosses slightly harder, but overall makes the route significantly better.

The next thing to mention is this item route does not pick up the Speedbooster. The standard any% route requires you to go get Speedbooster before getting Wave Beam and this is really slow. By not having to go out of our way to go get this useless item, we can get Wave Beam immediately upon entering Phendrana. In this particular run I ended up going into the Pirate Fortress anyway, so it didn't save that much time, but it has the potential to save much much more.

There are some other minor optimizations as well, like forgoing picking up any item expansions. The item collection cutscene takes about 5 seconds and so by not collecting any of them we can save about a minute of time.

The only ways I can think of to improve this item route would be to change the time where you pick up some of the Artifacts. The Artifact of Strength, Chozo, and Elder are not collected at the most opportune times, but that's minor. I strongly believe that this particular item route or a minor variation of it is superior to the standard any% item route.