2017 Speedyear

2017 was an up and down speedyear for me. Had extended periods where I was far more inactive, as I spent 6 of the 12 months in Germany, and especially during the first trip, had very little time to spend on speedrunning. With that being said, knocked out a couple of my very favourite projects, and with that chapter of my life behind me now, 2018 looks open for even more projects.

Here are my PB's from 2017, listed in chronological order:

Knuckles Chaotix
Beat the Game in 45:12
Damn, I could've sworn this was at least 2 years ago. Testament to my memory. Anyway this was a really fun project to work on. There's almost no real runs of this beforehand, and I had never run this game in like any capacity really at all (looked at some ILs literally over a decade ago, but nothing serious). So routing a platformer that's as zany as this one while still having a base that I'm familiar with was a lot of fun. Used Charmy throughout the game to keep my sanity, I've gotta say though, I honestly believe a fully optimised run of this game using a real tag team throughout the entire game would be one of if not the craziest runs ever. But honestly, I don't think anyone will ever do that.

Pokemon Stadium
Gym Leader Castle Round 2 in 2:55:22
Complete the Game in 20:09:49
The first of these runs was really just practice and tightening the route for the latter. That run is fairly mediocre and can be beaten by a lot, something I'm sure I'll do at some point when I need a less energetic side game to work on. The Complete Game run however was really, really solid. Put a lot of work into rerouting and got good enough luck in the run to save 7 hours over my previous PB, something that won't ever happen again. Can obviously be improved, if you had an optimised 20 hour run you would be a god, but I'm really satisfied with my run here.

Sonic Advance
Amy in 16:12
Advance switched timing to Real Time without Bonuses, and so I went to improve my Amy run, because it would be pretty easy. Old runs using IGT would delay the start on a bunch of levels to move universal objects where you wanted, so there was some free time save here and there. The run was pretty good, but it got atrocious luck on the final boss (I also played bad and almost died). I'll probably return to this at some point, along with the other characters in this game, when I feel like improving my times a bit more.

Sonic Triple Trouble
Sonic in 21:18
Having done Tails in this game, was really just a matter of time before I moved onto Sonic. Is a really fun game, this run was pretty good. In the solid realm of "yeah this is beatable, but I don't care unless it gets some competition" ala I would return to beat someone if I thought I could, but otherwise I'm happy with this.

(3 month gap where I didn't get anything in Germany...)

Pokemon Red
Any% Glitchless in 1:51:18
I got the itch to return to this, just to get a pretty easy PB given I hadn't run this in 3 years and lots more tricks had been added, with RNG Manip and what have you. What struck me the most though is how unoptimised the route still was, even after it had been grinded out for ages the route didn't feel improved at all. So I took to that and felt like I made some improvements there, got Exarion talking and thinking about it a lot more and came up with a bunch of different options. Ran with the more outlandish one rather than the better one (iceless), but I got a PB I was happy with, just because the end time was still 1:51. I can't care about the grind in a game like this, so I'd rather have the time that gives me more joy. I felt like I'd given everything I had to this game, but I got to give just a bit more this year, with that routing and mapping out some extended manip stuff, so that was nice. But I'm definitely done giving now, lol.

Sonic Spinball (SMS/GG)
Beat the Game in 15:51
My old shitty PB got beaten here, so I decided to actually put a lot of work into this game. Came up with a huge amount of setups and found both my old PB and the new record fairly easy to demolish. Was a nice time for the amount of effort I spent running it, but the controls in this game are so slippery when you don't have some setups it is near impossible to get what you want. In the same realm as the run above.

Sonic the Fighters
Bean in 4'27"79
And as always, someone comes along and knocks off one of my Fighters PBs. And I come back to beat it back. Was fair enough, my old Bean PB was by far my worst, and it's now over a minute better. But Bean is my least favourite character. As is always with Fighters, all these times can and will be beaten, but even more than being in the same bracket as I've just mentioned, with this game I find it fun to leave them open to be beatable on purpose, because then I get that fun motivation to come back. I've had like, 5 different people come in and beat one character at some stage, it'll be fun to see who is next.

Super Smash Bros Brawl.
Boss Battles Solo in 0:44:30 (IGT) 3:05 (RT)
Once again my time got beaten here, I was surprised it took this long. Given the popularity of the Smash series, I always expect someone actually good to post a time to the src leaderboards and crush me. But I came back and beat the time posted, with a far better run than I had before. I could still squeeze more time out of this one, but I already know when someone actually good comes along I'll be out of my depth.

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
Any% in 1:27:00
This was a fun new project, continuing my efforts to branch out a lot. I actually played this game casually when I was in Germany, and really enjoyed it, having played Dual Strike a bit when I was much younger. Put in some work and improved the route significantly. Since then, krazyd4n has come along and improved it even more, which is really cool to see. I like when my runs inspire other people to do the same, and get even better results than me. Was a fun project though, hopefully I can find more new games like this that are just as rewarding.

Pokemon White 2
Challenge Mode in 3:18:37
This game is odd for me Pokemon wise, I always seem to be able to improve but never satisfied, whereas all my other Pokemon runs I seem to just reset endlessly and then finish one run and I'm happy with the result. PB'ed here twice this year and still wasn't happy. Was one of the games that fell away after my DS capture went off, but now that I've got a new one, is definitely on my radar for the future. Still wasn't a bad run, and was a good improvement, but I def want this one to be better.

Knuckles in Sonic 2
Beat the Game in 14:40
Absolute run of the year. Run of my speedcareer tbh, this is the best speedrun I've ever done execution wise without a doubt. I spent a fair amount of time on this this year, and the results payed off. I wanted a time under 15 minutes, and after choking away at least 3 runs that should've been assured to get it, I ended up finishing a run that was by far better than all of them. Really happy with this run. But the funny thing is, as satisfied as I am now, standards always increase, and years down the road, I'll probably end up thinking I want to beat this. But it won't be as soon as next year, that's for sure.

Pokemon Emerald
All Gold Symbols (Glitchless) in 19:04:14
If the previous run was the best run I've ever done execution wise, this is probably the best run I've ever done routing wise. Spent so much time on this project throughout the years, and my idea on what to do with it changed a bunch too, as new glitches and new possibilities for how expansive it could be arose. I thought about doing 4 Star with glitches, but it became far too boring and too unaligned with what I was trying to accomplish. Getting all gold symbols like this, glitchless, was a ridiculous task for anyone. Over years it was an incredible challenge, I wanted to condense all that down into one run. And this run did just that. And it was glorious. Less about the time and more about the feat, as an accomplishment this gave me a lot of joy.

Warioware: Twisted
Any% in 28:23
Not much to say here, another of my old times that got beaten, so I returned and beat it back, and could be beaten again (and probably will be), and then I'll return and beat it back again. Happens a lot when you run a lot of games that you care about.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl
Any% in 58:22
Ugh, this one is annoying to look at. Spent a lot of time re-routing this to get extended manip implemented into the run, and it worked a treat. I was really happy with it, and went to get a good time. This was the best PB I managed, and it's all because my DS broke down with running this game, and would start dropping inputs (B, so I would stop running and mess up RNG Manip), making it impossible to continue running. Now that I have a new DS Capture this is definitely one I want to return to, but the motivation isn't as strong now as that initial push after the routing rush is gone. But I can't leave this as my PB, gotta improve it.

Mario Tennis (GBC)
Singles in 1:45:08
Doubles in 1:29:17
This game has got a lot of work from a number of runners over the past couple years. Great for me to see, as this was a game I kinda picked up on a whim 2 years ago. Taps into that feeling before I mentioned, seeing other runners get inspired and do better than you is a great feeling. But I felt I had more to contribute here, and I was right. Got these times down even more with some better and more optimised strats. My Singles time has since been beaten, and I feel like I could squeeze out a bit more, so don't be surprised if I work on this more next year, cause this game is fun.

Pokemon Red/Blue
No Save Corruption in 11:58
This was really funny, I just wanted a mediocre PB with the new route for this category and ended up getting the best time. Since been beaten, but for such a short and luck-optimised run, was funny to me that I held it at all. Won't be returning to this one ever without a new design, and hopefully this is exhausted of those by now.

Sonic 2 2013 Remake
Sonic in 18:20
This was one of the most fun projects this year. This game was already on my list of games to look into potentially running, and then I came into an opportunity to work in partnership with Amazon by..running the game. Was amazing, and I loved it. Game was really refreshing to run too, had a lot of fun and I'll definitely be back. I'd like to get this under 18 minutes, and work on the other characters too. Was a personally highlight for me.

Pokemon Stadium 2
Gym Leader Castle Round 2 in 2:38:08
Went back to work on optimising this, as after getting back from Germany the second time, I wanted to work on something easy while I routed some bigger projects. Found it so hard to get a run going, as this category is brutal, but when I finally did it was a really good one, and managed to PB by a huge 16 minutes. Really happy with this, and while this could be improved by a fair bit with a flawless run, that's just never gonna happen. So happy with this one for a long time I reckon

Sonic 2 Master System
Best Ending in 12:47
This was an interesting one, I agreed to run this game as a Classic Sonic Relay Race we did on speedgaming, having not run it for 3 years. I derusted the day of my run, did the race, and was on record pace until I died to the final boss. So I knew after that I couldn't leave my PB the way it was, and ended up with this run that was really nice. To give you an idea, I PB'ed by 24 seconds, and there were a total of about 9 seconds of execution errors throughout the run. But the thing is, my play didn't really feel any better. I just naturally got better at the game after 3 years of experience running other games. And that's a really nice feeling, and knowing that happens is why I always know no matter how good a time or a run I get, after some years I could look back and go hang on, I'm better than that now, that is definitely beatable. But I'm happy with this run, was another good one.

So, a couple of very good highlights in there, and still a decent amount of PBs given my restraints. Hopefully 2018 should see even more, as it looks right now I'll have the most time I've ever had to pour into speedrunning. You never know what'll happen throughout a year though, but as it looks now, should be a good one. Obviously starting off with Heart Gold right now, and we'll see where it goes from there.