ESA 2016 subs

ESA 2016 Submissions by MLSTRM

Game: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
-Category: Any%
-Estimate: 3:20
-Region: USA/NTSC
-Platform: Wii
-Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8-i1fjID4
-Comments: Metroid Prime 3 is the last in the trilogy of the prime games, and the only one to be exclusively on the wii. While the game itself is more story-driven than the previous 2, the run still has its fair share of tricks and techniques. In the last couple of years the route has changed quite a bit, with 2 more major upgrades being skipped, a couple more out of bounds tricks added, and general optimisation improved, however the majority of these changes come in the second half of the run, with the earlier sections being the same as it was 2 years ago. It's also possible that by the event I will be proficient in a trick that lets us skip a fair portion of the earlier game and shortens the run by about 10 minutes. My current PB is a 3:17, but that can come down to around 3:10 pretty easily with some practice on the out of bounds tricks that were recently added to the route.

-Category: 100%
-Estimate: 4:20
-Region: USA/NTSC
-Platform: Wii
-Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mrMdVu-NgU
-Comments: While Any% has skipped some more stuff in the last couple of years, 100% has instead gone through a pretty thorugh restructuring, with more things being done out of order and generally having the route flow better overall with less backtracking for items. The main change comes from being able to obtain spider ball early, which really smooths out cleanup for a large portion of the run, as well as collecting the major upgrades on Pirate Homeworld out of order, which makes for a really interesting route on that planet. Obviously this run is significantly longer than Any%, but we're still working on the route, so things might drop a little more before the event. My current PB is a 4:20, but I'm confident I can bring my time down to around the 4 hour mark before the event.


Game: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue
Category: Any%
Estimate: 1:45
Region: USA/NTSC
Platform: GCN
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIh4Qg2Hj3c
Comments: Bush Rescue is the sequel to the first Ty game, although it actually takes a very different approach. Instead of being strictly a collectathon, the game is more of a mission based adventure platformer, with the hub world being traveled around in by car, and different areas along the way having tasks for Ty to complete, or hidden treasures to find. The run itself takes place over 4 "cycles", where you always start in the initial area, and then make your way out into the larger world to complete a set number of missions before defeating a boss. The run itself contains the same kind of optimisation you would find in the original game, and although the physics are a little different, there are still some cool little tricks we can abuse momentum for. My PB is a fairly unoptimised 1:52:42, and I'm certain I can get it down to around a 1:40 before the event with some practice.


Game: Xenoblade Chronicles
Category: RTA Race
Estimate: 7:00
Region: EUR/PAL
Platform: Wii U VC
Video: twitch.tv/mlstrm/v/9865647
Comments: Xenoblade Chronicles is Monolith Soft's enormous JRPG for the Wii. The game itself is very well known and received, and as a speedrun there's plenty of interesting things, however it does contain around 45 minutes of farming about 2/3 of the way through. Tricks in this run vary from Damage boosting over a ledge to get to a high level very early into the run, to various platforming skips to get through areas faster, to a despawn trick that is used to farm much faster than would normally be possible. I'm offering this up as a race with legrandgrand, as we think that the slight variations in strats that we do, along with the likelyhood that we won't be perfectly aligned throughout the run, would make thigs more interesting to watch, and mean that there is almost always something going on for one player. My current PB is a 7:11, but I have not managed to do many runs, I would work to get under 6:30 or so before the event if accepted. The Estimate is somewhat high, but there are a few major RNG factors in the run, and while SS attempts can reset, that's not such a possibility in a marathon. Luckily with the Wii U VC, making safety saves and reloading them where needed is much faster than on the original Wii release.


Game: Tales of Zestiria
Category: NG Any%
Estimate: 7:00
Region: EUR/PAL
Platform: PC
Video: http://www.twitch.tv/mlstrm/v/44829802
Comments: Tales of Zestiria is the newest main title in the "Tales of" series, with the gameplay being similar to Tales of Graces, along with a fusion system, that allows 1 human and 1 seraphim character to merge together and perform strong elemental attacks. The run itself is pretty fast paced, with only a couple of places with large amounts of story triggers, and the vast majority of cutscenes being skippable. Battles are all rather tight, since we're underlevelled and under-equipped for the main part of the game, so combat is mostly exciting to watch, and when it isn't, it's usually because we're using a loop on the enemy to attempt to stop them from attacking us. I currently have only completed one run, with a time of 8:13, but I will be working on this game to get my time down to around 6:30 at least.


Game: Strider (2014)
-Category: Any%
-Estimate: 0:45
-Region: EUR/PAL
-Platform: PC
-Video: http://www.twitch.tv/mlstrm/v/47970644
-Comments: Strider (2014) is a metroidvania remake of the original Strider for NES. Gameplay is very fast paced, with lots of movement tech, various skips, fast and technical boss strats, and several OoB skips. Any% is the shortest category for the game, and probably the most trick-dense, with a several skips to get various items early, or skip entire sections all together. Possible Handcam incentive (or just do it anyway) since I run this game with Fightstick and Keyboard, so control wise there's some pretty interesting things going on throughout the run. My PB is currently a 0:46 but I've only recently picked this game up, and I'm certain I can get down under 40 minutes before the event, and 0:45 should be a safe estimate

-Category: All Bosses
-Estimate: 1:15
-Region: EUR/PAL
-Platform: PC
-Video: http://www.twitch.tv/mlstrm/v/46822782
-Comments: All bosses is the medium category for Strider, with Every enemy that has a health bar being defeated, in addition to the main any% structure. Several more skips are used in this category to speed up movement or skip barriers that obstruct our way to some fights, and we do everything pretty far from the intended order. My PB currently is a 1:18, and the fastest time is just over an hour, but this is a very new category, and as such the route isn't fully optimised as yet.

-Category: 100%
-Estimate: 2:00
-Region: EUR/PAL
-Platform: PC
-Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBtOQpchRuY
-Comments: The longest category for Strider, in which we obtain all 211 items scattered across the game world. This run focuses much more heavily on movement optimisation than skips, however there are still several items grabbed out of order in interesting ways, and several OoB sections. Also the majority of fights end up being done faster than in other categories, since we gain several offensive upgrades that let us really crash through a lot of enemies. I don't have a real time to show for this category yet, since my only attempt to date didn't actually get 100%, but timewise I'm just over 2 hours. I can definitely bring it under estimate with more practice. The video I have linked is the current record for the category.