Speedrunning Goals for 2018

Speedrunning Goals for 2018
[Updated 29 Nov 2017]

A bit early to be writing this yet, but it's worth doing since I'll be fairly busy from now until the end of the year. Also think it's worth being explicit with myself about these goals so that I can actually meet them, rather than the alternative, which is relatively aimless play and dilly-dallying improvement for the bulk of my career. This will hopefully keep me on track so that I keep my eyes on the prize and don't drift to other games that I don't ultimately really plan on running, or won't have time to.

1. Sub-2 in Sapphire

This goes without saying, although I haven't been very committed to it for a long time. I want under 2 hours with all the current major (feasible) manips--Mudkip 148, Wingull, and Kyogre with yoloball. This will probably wait until the New Year proper, since it will require significant and consistent practice combined with long grinding streams.

2. Sub-3:20 in Gold

Given the great improvement in a lot of the times on the leaderboard, and the fact that my PB is also quite outdated, I'd like to go for this after Sapphire. I'm not sure how low I'd ultimately like to go--3:18 would be nice, but if I got 3:19 I'd probably stop in favor of some other goals.

3. Sub-4 in Harvest Moon GB (Ranch Master)

This is my current rough estimate for a "good" first time. Depending on how the routing ends up looking, I might grind this category for a bit, but probably not long, as the main trick is extremely monotonous and hard on the hands in terms of mashing.

4. Complete a run of every individual ending, as well as an All Endings run of Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland

Depending on what the eventual competition looks like, and how much of an RNG grind each ending turns out to be, I'd like to go for record in several of the solo endings. All Endings has yet to be routed or completed by anyone in the community, and given StH's particular well-suitedness to speedrunning (for a Harvest Moon game), I think I'd like to take it as my contribution to what has become a really neat, burgeoning speedcommunity, since a lot of the other classic titles have a lot of good players working on them already.

I may add to this list a bit here and there, but it's not likely I will have a lot of extra time to do much else. I want to keep focused on these four goals alone for at least the first half of the year, and if by summer I've achieved what I wanted and still have some time to spare, I might think about another Pokemon or Harvest Moon title, or possibly another series altogether if it's accessible enough. Crystal would be nice to get a good time in, but I don't really want to make it a priority unless some form of Entei manip happens.