2022 Claude Speedrun / Misc Stuff Review + 2023 Thoughts

Happy 2023! This pastebin will just cover 2022 speedrun accomplishments + thoughts, some 2023 plans, as well as miscellaneous streaming thoughts + other stuff. I'll do a review of all the games I played casually separately (after going through them on stream), since games like Mario Pinball Land obviously need a lot of attention...

== 2022 Speedruns ==

Glover (Any%)
7:19 -> 6:58 (January 5th)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1254573286

I was actually surprised when I was checking my spreadsheets and saw this was my first PB of the year. If you're unfamiliar, this is the hyper glitched category where you fight one boss and then Game Over 5 times to beat the game, all to the soothing sounds of absolutely no music at all (because the glitch kills it).

I learned this category at the end of 2021, and then finished it up at the very beginning of 2022. It's definitely a meme run, but it was fun to pretend to run Glover for a little bit. From what I remember, I timed a strategy improvement (taking one of the deaths in the boss fight while waiting on a cycle), and I remember it being faster - but I don't have the Glover prowess to know for sure if it was worth doing.

FUTURE STATUS: I got a new N64 adapter after my old one broke, so I can actually practice this game again. But, I'd probably learn a category with a bit more substance (like All Bosses) rather than do this one again. And if I do, it definitely won't happen any time soon.

***

Donald Land (Any%)
N/A -> 00:17:58 (February 4th)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1287706766

The 12 Hour Challenge #14 game. This is a classic Donkey oldboi game, and last year I decided to finally bite the bullet and learn it, hoping not to struggle too hard with the game's impossible movement tech. To be honest, it ended up not being that bad to learn - while I definitely didn't do any of the real strats, just getting through the game reasonably fast (and keeping Burgerless for a few levels) was absolutely doable in a 12 hour span. And while I couldn't reliably get the Ocean World wrong warp (which is ironic, since I was the one who found the setup back in the day...), I still feel pretty accomplished with what I achieved in my one day of playing the game.

FUTURE STATUS: Pretty keen to get back to this, actually. As far as I'm aware, no one has found a setup for the Oasis World wrong warp, so I definitely want to give that a shot. I recently obtained a real cart of it too, for a truly legitimate Donald experience.

***

Glover Remastered (Any%)
N/A -> ~8 minutes (never bothered retiming) (April 21st)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1468214274

After wasting money on this legendary kusoge, I wanted to see if the Any% route from the N64 version worked. Despite being "rebuilt from the ground up", it actually did work - and it even had music! Also, it's definitely faster - thanks VCheater. idk if anyone else has ever wanted to do an Any% run on the remastered version, but yea it's possible. Let my tape guide you to unparalleled greatness.

FUTURE STATUS: lmao

***

Mole Mania
N/A -> 00:12:28 (April 22nd)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1468216250

I played this game casually after my obsession with the moles reached a critical breaking point, and saw that it had a pretty short Any% run. So, why not learn it?

This game might get my vote for "Best time relative to amount of effort put in" - I watched a few tapes, learned the one frame trick to go to the final area, did like 3 runs, and honestly got a pretty insane time (not really but it felt like it). An important lesson in surpassing your fears and overcoming obstacles, no matter how mole-related they may be.

FUTURE STATUS: I don't think I will ever speedrun this game again. PB is just too maxed.

***

Super Marisa World (All Exits)
1:54:05 -> 1:19:45 (April 28th) (Yes, both of those times are accurate)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1470143966

Safe to say if you checked out my stream at any point from mid January to April, you probably saw this game at least once. Super Marisa World has been one of my favorite platformers since I first played it back in the early 2010s, and I've always put off speedrunning it "for real" because I knew there'd be a lot of effort involved. The Any% exits had been routed by various peeps back in the day, but there were like 50+ Exits I basically had to figure out from scratch. And, while I did my best to put together a decent route for Scrubathon back in the day, I knew there was a lot more work that had to be done at some point. I did run the game for a little bit in 2018, but it was just to get the insane sub 2 and then peace out.

So, imagine my surprise / elation when I saw our boy Darko "Bible Buffet"_RTA routing it in early Jan. While I definitely didn't do a great job of advertising the game, I truly thought no one else would ever play All Exits with a timer in my lifetime. What followed were massive, MASSIVE improvements to basically every Exit, including the introduction of new skips, glitches, RNG manips, etc. - you name, it was found (outside of ACE). There were even two TASers that did work on the game, pushing our knowledge of the game even further. This all culminated in the game being faster than Super Mario World 96 Exit (something I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams), and finally confirmed something I always knew deep in my heart all these years - that Super Marisa World is a damn good speedgame.

FUTURE STATUS: The 1:18 is possible for sure (my PB has a death and a really bad Yukari stage), but it's a little grindy. Right now though, I have a pretty large interest in 100% (which Darko has also routed out, although obviously in a category that complex, it's harder to optimize it all). If you're unaware, to get 100% in Super Marisa World, you have to get not only every star in the stage, but you also can't die - so it's very easy to lose 4+ minutes due to having to restart the entire level. 100% shows off basically every aspect of the game, and is kind of the final frontier of Marisa speedrunning - so I'd definitely love to give that a shot this year (after a LOT of practice...).

***

Kick Master (First Quest)
10:46 -> 10:39 (May 13th)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1483464654
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFrE8ofZQXw

After 4 months of Marisa, it was time for something a bit less intense. I ran this game + category in 2021 as well, and decided to give it another go this year for the :3X. My 2021 PB had a very lucky beginning in terms of EXP drops, so it seemed very daunting to try and beat it - but when I returned, I found a bunch more RNG manips to make the early game way, way less luck dependent. So, once I figured all that out, it became pretty straight forward, and I PB'd in about a week thanks to cleaner execution.

FUTURE STATUS: pikapikapikachuuuu of Big 20 fame actually picked this game up shortly after I was finished with it, and found a few more improvements to the game (as well as pushing the time down a bit more). Since the game no longer has an absurd lotto grind in the early game, I'm a lot more willing to return to this game whenever I want another short NES game to grind. At the moment though, I think I'd rather return to Sword Master than Kick Master (since it's been longer since I've done the former).

***

Final Fantasy Tactics (NA No Math Skill)
4:20:36 -> 4:13:37 (August 2nd)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1550919974

With Marisa done and the short Kick Master break finished, we all knew what it was time for. Although this is the category I'm probably most associated with (since it's the one I always offer for GDQ), I actually haven't given it a serious grind since I got my old PB in 2017. I did return to it in 2019 to prepare for the Limit Break run, but I basically only did no resets back then (since there's a lot of dumb scenarios you need to be familiar with in that game when you can't just reset them away).

When I came back to this category, my main goal was to rework the EXP route around using Draw Out at Outside Riovanes, instead of the triple Meteor strat I used in the marathon run. I did this because I didn't like some of the worst case scenarios associated with triple Meteor, and also the extra EXP you get from this fight made a few other fights a bit more straightforward. It ended up not being that big a difference in the long run, but I figured I'd mention it since that was the original goal.

I ended up routing / doing runs for about 2 months. I incorporated some things from SweetCherryBoyJP's notes from long ago (early Feather Boots!), and some were brand new (conditionally skipping a class change based on the secondary generic's Squire JP), but overall I would say the route was ~90% the same as when I did my 2019 marathon run (and about ~80% the same as my 2017 PB). So, why did I save so much time?

Simply put, it was - BY FAR - the luckiest I have ever gotten in any category of any speedrun I have ever done. First, let me talk about the early game (the first half hour, which dictates a large component of the final time). There's basically 5 things that need to go right - you need 1) A fast Orbonne, 2) A fast Gariland fight, 3) Ramza to have good starting stats (this is pseudo-manipped, but even with perfect execution it will vary due to lag frames / PS1 games being dumb), 4) A good starting Gariland generic (ideally Female) to make Mandalia not take forever, and 5) A fast Soldier Office hire, ideally with 67+ Faith generics with high starting Chemist JP. After doing runs for 2 months, I got maybe four or five "3/5s" and maybe one or two "4/5s". My PB was the very first one to go 5/5 - in fact, I had the actual perfect seed for Ramza's starting stats, on top of everything else. To get a start like this, it's easily like 30+ hours of just grinding the first half hour, hoping to get lucky.

But, that's not really what made the run insane. It's the fact that *every* *single* *fight* ended up being just *so* *damn* *GOOD*! This category has a general plan for every fight that usually ends up going okay, with some ~20 second losses and usually a big ~1 min blowup somewhere from some niche scenario that's too slow to plan around. But in my PB, none of that happened - every single fight actually went the way it was supposed to, with no hilarious time losses anywhere. I essentially took the best start I'd ever had, was lucky enough to avoid every single instance of a ~5 - 10% slow thing happening per fight, and somehow didn't dik choke it.

Speaking of which, the actual execution of the menus in the run was pretty bad by my standards - I probably lost about 2 seconds per meaningful menu (prob 40+ seconds across the entire run) just because I wanted to be absolutely certain I wasn't making a mistake that would cost me everything. And to be honest, I don't regret it - because if I had somehow lost a run like that, it actually would have scarred me for life. Yes it's just speedrunning, but man oh man I absolutely did not want to blow a run that good. And I didn't! So, happy ending :)

FUTURE STATUS: People who watched the run were quick to point out "Oh but you got 7 encounters, easy time save by just having the same run and getting like 2 - 3 or something" - LMAO!!! The fact that I *only* got 7 (which is still pretty decent luck, honestly) on a run like that only adds to its absurdity. I don't know how many routing improvements are left in the category, but JP & myself are kind of dry on ideas. With the FFT Remaster hopefully on the horizon, I think the current plan is to get one last hyper degen time in NA Any% (Math Skill) this year and maybe call it good on PSX Disc for a bit. Or I could learn the Glitchless categories...? My heart wouldn't be too into those though, since I haven't contributed anything to the Glitchless routes (although maybe I could find stuff?). I'd kind of rather wait for the Remaster anyways, since presumably that will be glitchless by default (or at the very least, no JP Scroll / Item Duplication). Either way, no worries - I'll always find some FFT-related speedrun thing to do :3

One more thing - I filled out the AGDQ 2023 feedback form to ask why this game keeps getting rejected, and asked if there was anything I could do to fix it. They replied and essentially told me that it will never get in, citing something about how the game has too many cutscenes(?). So, while I'll still keep submitting the game just for fun, it will almost certainly never be in a GDQ. :(

***

Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chosensha (Any% Forte)
N/A -> 29:38 (on emulator), 46:20 (on an actual Wonderswan) (August 5th)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1553837253

Wow, you made it this far into the pastebin! Will try and keep it more brief from here on out, now that the two big games are out of the way.

This was the 12 Hour Challenge #15 game. This one was kind of a blowup - the entire point was to run the game on actual hardware (yes, I went out of my way to buy a Wonderswan, a copy of the game, and even a better webcam) but god damn it still looked so bad. If I stream this game again on real hardware, I'm definitely going to order the backlit mod for it so you can see anything at all...

As for the run itself, it was pretty cool. I've always been a big fan of this game, and I always said I would run it one day - so a 12 Hour Challenge seemed like a good opportunity. I found a ton of routing improvements compared to the one tape I could find (mostly involving going through more walls with Komuso Man's weapon), but it can still be improved a ton. Still, an overall fun experience when I wasn't struggling with tech issues.

FUTURE STATUS: If I can stream the game on real hardware and have it not look terrible, I'd be willing to play it again. Sure, I could just do emu - but where's the fun in that?

***

Super Touhou RPG (NG+ Normal Standard FPS)
2:15:27-> 1:58:24 (September 23rd)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1601231746

After FFT was done, I ended up moving at the end of August - so while I was still getting all my console stuff setup, I decided to declare it Super Touhou RPG September!

I first routed this game in 2019 around when it came out, and since then, Auchgard has drastically improved the time, mostly via better execution of my strategies (the menus, rooms, fights, etc). When I came back, I decided to give the route another runthrough, and ended up finding quite a lot of stuff. I cut out a lot of excess Frog Gems, I optimized the EXP route, and I made a big change by using Reimu instead of Yukari in the mid-late game. This came about because one of Reimu's buyable weapons (the Lethal Purification Rod) ended up doing very good damage while having probably the fastest attack animation in the game, while doing comparable damage to Yukari's slower spell-based attacks. I combined this with buying the item that adds Berserk, and Reimu ended doing a lot of damage very quickly. Ultimately, I ended up improving my PB by about 17 minutes, and finally getting the prestigious sub 2.

FUTURE STATUS: With this game recently coming out on the Switch and getting an "E" rating, it's made me reconsider its marathon potential. I think I'll try submitting it to Limit Break this year, and seeing if they can get past some of the *big* issues with this game's art style. It's a very marathon-safe run, and it'd be pretty cool to show it off. But, it's no big deal if it doesn't happen. Might return to RTA of this in the future regardless, but probably not any time soon. Although, the developer has teased artwork for some new characters... an update would be pretty cool, if it's in the works :)

***

Super Touhou RPG (NG+ Normal Cheater FPS)
N/A -> 1:52:36 (September 28th)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1607418517

You press a button on your keyboard and the game runs at like 65 FPS instead of 60. That's it, that's the category. I guess it's cool to go fast, but imo it looks a little choppy. I actually don't know the real time differentials, if this run is better / worse than my 60 FPS PB, or what - but I did one run and it was okay I guess.

FUTURE STATUS: Probably just gonna stick to the standard FPS.

***

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Soma Glitchless)
00:33:38 -> 00:29:51 (October 21st)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1631074794

With the end of Super Touhou September comes Aria October! I picked this game up in October of 2021, and gradually improved the route I used until I was using a very safe version of the real route (Manticore). This time around, I decided to stick with that route, but really focus on optimizing all of the rooms for as much free time save as possible.

This ended up being a very straightforward grind, consisting of about a week and a half of practice and a week or so of runs. The most difficult part was figuring out why the Muramasa manip would sometimes not work, but JupiterClimb pointed out a safer method that hasn't failed me since. And while I did succeed in my goal of cleaning up all the rooms, my actual PB ended up being very sloppy in terms of movement - instead, it ended up being carried by putting any amount of effort into doing the Julius and Chaos fights correctly. Speaking of which, shoutouts to Darko for his pure Manticore strat on Julius - made things much more straightforward. Who needs the Kaladbolg when you have tons of MP restoral from doing an extra shopping trip?

FUTURE STATUS: Because it ended up being so easy to get sub 30, I will almost certainly go for a 28 in Aria October 2023. Will probably just end up doing the same strats and hopefully not screw up half the rooms this time.

***

The Mask (Any%)
N/A -> 7:21 (December 1st)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1668275069

This was a funny one. I learned this game for an impromptu 12 Hour Challenge, because I still wanted to speedrun something while playing Radiata Stories casually for Resonance of Fate November. It wasn't supposed to be anything serious, and I would just play it during the dead hours of Melty Mondays for some free PBs. After November was over though, I decided to do one big day of grinding (after doing one big day of science) and ended up getting a pretty nice time.

If you're unfamiliar with this game, I've always memed it as being the fastest game of all time. And while it's certainly fast, you do kind of spend a lot of time going through vents and fighting bosses... but still, it's a really cool run. It was actually ZAR of Goemon fame that tuned me into this game, and while he never found the time to speedrun it, I feel like I was able to carry on his spirit well enough in his stead. I also want to give a big shoutout to crypton for doing a lot of science on this game. He figured out how the quick kill on the Prison Guy worked (it's 1 frame, but you have a few chances at it), as well as the technical science behind the animation skip for the Level 2 boss. Clearly he knows what to devote his time towards.

FUTURE STATUS: This game is really fast, and I unfortunately didn't get the Prison Guy Quick Kill in my PB (it saves like 4 - 5 seconds, which is big in a game that doesn't have much (any?) RNG), so that'd be a pretty substantial improvement. My PB had a really cooked final boss fight though, so might be tough to beat regardless. I really enjoy the music in the first & final levels of this game though, so I'll almost certainly run it again.

***

Donkey Kong Country 3 (Any%)
47:29 -> 47:29 but I was close tho ;)

My current project, to help build awareness for the GDQ race (featuring players much, much better than I am). Haven't actually PB'd yet, but we all know how the game goes. I've actually had a lot of fun learning all the new optimizations in the stages, and I've improved just about every meaningful IL since coming back. I think as long as I don't reset the early game too much, and don't obsess over Bleak, it should happen eventually. 47:1X would be nice, but doubt I'll have the motivation to go much lower.

FUTURE STATUS: If 1st / 2nd try Bleak happen often, I'll keep it going for a bit after the PB. Otherwise, nah.

===

And that was it for my speedruns for the year! Doesn't include stuff like DKL3 practice that never turned into runs, or the epic Spring Breeze RTA I did for KSS February.

== 2023 Main Speedrun Goals ==

Something I've realized over time (especially in the past two years) is that things change all the time, and it's really hard to predict what you'll have the motivation for - especially in a hobby like speedrunning. I've seen a lot of my friends step down from the hobby, or briefly come back and lose interest - so I'm just going to say, these are the 5 "big" things I'd like to get done this year, and hopefully I'll accomplish at least 3 of them. I'll just list these off in alphabetical order.

***

Final Fantasy Tactics (NA Any%)
Current PB: 03:56:13
Goal: 03:54:XX / 03:53:XX

As I mentioned above, NA No Math Skill is a bit too cooked, and I'm happy with my times in the Japanese categories. So, that just leaves this. This category is extremely easy for me to pick up and run, but it's also a huge time commitment to actually PB, in addition to being a lot more boring. Still, someone has to no-life grind the category, so it might as well be me. If I do this, expect long streams of me not being able to tell one run apart from another, as I mindlessly grind for a good Chapter 1 time, only to get a million encounters / worst comp enemies / spell misses in Chapters 2 - 4 anyways.

***

Kirby Super Star (100%, No Resets)
Current PB: 01:19:29
Goal: 01:14:59

Kirby was one of the many victims of Super Marisa World 2022 - which is a shame, because the learning was going pretty well. This is a pretty straight-forward goal as long as I learn all the rooms, but because I'm trying to do everything "correctly" from the get-go, it's also a big time investment. My Plasma controller ended up getting busted too, which didn't help matters much... but if I can find the time, I'd really like to get back to this.

***

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (100%)
Current PB: 01:55:54
Goal: 01:54:59

I didn't speedrun Goemon at all in 2022, and honestly it felt pretty good. The Any% grind in 2021 took a lot out of me, and I still consider this to be the most difficult game I speedrun. 100% is even more difficult than Any%, so I've been putting it off for awhile... but it might finally be time. ZAR came back to this category briefly, but unfortunately couldn't find the time to devote to it - understandably so, considering how much work it is. Because you go through a lot more rooms in 100%, the idea would be to pick up as much free time save as possible by optimizing the movement just a bit more... but ultimately, it's going to come down to hitting a billion 30 FPS 1-framers like always.

***

Super Marisa World (100%)
Current PB: N/A
Goal: idk but we'll aim for maybe like 7 disasters or less

I think I've talked enough about Super Marisa World for one pastebin, but yeah I currently have a lot of interest in 100% now that good strats have been figured out for every level. This will definitely be a "Go for one good run a day and try to finish it" type of game, with a lot of time mostly being devoted to practice. It's another big time commit game, but I did hear it was Super Marisa World 2023... :)

***

Sword Master (NA Any%)
Current PB: 00:05:57
Goal: 00:05:49

One of my favorite speedruns of all time, although it's getting pretty hecking optimized at this point. KHANanaphone, the person who has also run this game off-and-on for years, got a sick time last year - so I really want to investigate their PB and see if I can learn anything from it. But, despite being only 6 minutes long, this game is extremely RNG heavy, in addition to having to execute 1-frame taps consistently. All things considered, this might be the most difficult goal out of all the ones listed here - I'll definitely break the 1000 attempt barrier for the first time in any game if I decide to go through with it.

***

Hopefully I actually do some of these and don't just get distracted by other things again. Now for non-speedrun related stuff.

== Misc Stream Stuff ==

I've been streaming a lot more hours recently, and I don't really see that changing any time soon. Getting fiber Internet was a game changer for me - if you're in a position to do so, I *highly* recommend it. It's just so nice to never have to worry about the Internet going down at any point, and also being able to watch however many streams I want, for as long as I want, thanks to no data caps. Was also able to raise the bitrate on my stream, too :)

2023 will mark my 10th year of speedrunning. I plan on doing a big review of a bunch of stuff, but not sure exactly how / when I'll do it. First things first though, I want to finish my VOD catalog of all my highlights, so it's easy to actually watch everything I've done. Got to mid 2015 and stopped, but plan to pick it up again soon.

I really wanted to upload more of my PBs to Youtube with post-commentary (especially for lesser played games, like Marisa and Donkey Kong Land 2) but kept putting it off. Hoping I'll find more motivation to do that this year, so that people can get some value out of what I've learned when running those games.

I really need to upgrade my setup for streaming PC games... getting microstutters during Super Marisa World and Super Touhou RPG is pretty annoying, and I won't even be able to play Street Fighter 6 (and a ton of other things I'm sure) unless I upgrade to Windows 10. So, I'll definitely do that this year. Might try and upgrade the audio quality a bit as well.. it's okay right now I guess, but the Blue Yeti is such an outdated mic at this point.

RGB modding my NES would be cool. I'm satisfied with the picture quality on all the other systems I stream at the moment, so that's really the only console left for me to take care of.

Pretty happy with how my emote catalog on FFZ / BTTV has come along, other than no Goemon emotes because of The Great Goe Purge. Adding KoakumaYay last year was a big hit! Ultimate goal is to represent every playable character from Soku in emote form, and possibly have at least one emote rep from every "main" game I speedrun. Looks like all the kids are using 7tv these days, though... how many emotes is too many, I wonder?

blueayachan (Electra's bot) has become more powerful than we could have possibly imagined. It's kind of fun, but also kind of stupid. I don't think I can live without !dreamboumtweet though, and the picture commands are pretty fun. I think eventually I'll just get used to it.

== Fighting Game Stuff ==

I'm still bad :) Been a blast to stream other people's matches on Melty Mondays though, and I've been having a lot of fun playing random puzzle games on Fightcade with Darko. I've also been playing a lot of Hisoutensoku with Reyllyoc late into the night on Mondays, but who knows if I'll take the plunge to actually try and get better at the game. I will say it's the most fun I've had with a fighting game since first getting into OG Melt... but, knowing me, I'll just stagnate and never actually improve as a fight gamer.

== Real Life Stuff ==

Been at my new place for about 4 months now and still loving it. Drastic improvement over my old one, other than the neighbor's hype dog going insane outside my window sometimes. Because I live so close to a grocery store now, food hasn't been an issue at all - and I'm definitely nearing what I consider to be a "healthy" weight after spending basically my entire life being underweight. So, that's pretty cool.

========================

Alright, that's good enough. Obviously quite long, but I think I've covered everything note-worthy about 2022, and given some thoughts about what I want from 2023. All things considered, I actually consider 2022 to be my most successful year in speedrunning to date, simply because I finally got runs I'm happy with in two of my favorite games of all time (FFT & Super Marisa World). Everything else was just a bonus.

Again, expect the Casual Game / Kuso Review another time (probably next week). I played some wild stuff for sure...

Ganbare,

- Claude