Felt like doing something new. A few months back I -finally- found some decent maps of this game, so I thought I'd give it a go. Hoo boy, what a trip... So, there's two "main" methods you can use to go fast in this game. You see both in this run, albeit the first very briefly. This first is only seen in the introduction. And I'll be honest, I don't do this very fast. The reason: It's bloody hard. Basically, use two "power" characters (e.g. anyone not Charmy. When Vector is optimal, the heaviest of the lot, varies a bit). Then pretty much all speed, whether it be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, or otherwise, is based off the principle of picking up your partner character, throwing them, then using the hold function to fling you in a direction, picking them up again as your sprites overlap once again, and then repeating the process over and over. For reference of how fast you can do this: The current IL record in introduction is over 30 seconds faster than what I got in this run. And it was set in 2007, when standards were much lower. And it uses pretty much the same route. If you want a really good example of what this looks like for the whole game, search up the TAS run of this game. It also uses a bunch of zips and clips in several levels that are not really feasible in real time too. The second method, is to pick Charmy as your main character and fucking fly everywhere. This is slightly slower in every stage when playing like a god, but only by little. And it's...actually doable. So so much easier. So that's what I do. I honestly would pay money to see someone beat this time using the former method the whole game, because it's crazy insane to play like that. I choose Mighty as my partner because he is fast, and therefore gives the greatest pull speed as he runs ahead and tugs me on. I got absolutely trolled at the start of this run trying to pick him, those swaps are random... Anyway, this game is a lot of fun. The reason there's no splits and just a timer is because the level selection is not always the same. It's not "random", you can time it, but there's not much point doing that. It would matter in some cases, this game actually has time of day in it as well, which effects some of the stages. The level designs stay the same, but objects change, meaning breakable floors and such might appears at some times and not others, and monitors also hold different power ups (Getting Grow boxes for example, the one that makes you big, helps you go much faster.) I do bother to time this with pauses however, for the Metal Sonic fight at the end, as missing costs far too much time there. Another trick in this game, that might not seem obvious, is the "negative ring" trick. Basically, you can call your partner back to where you are, at the cost of 10 rings. You can also do this even with less than 10 rings, and go into negative rings. This functions just like 0, you hit and you're dead, except it actually has a use for speedrunning as well. If you finish a level with negative rings, the bonuses stop counting after 1 frame, as it reads a negative value for rings + positive for time bonus, and then thinks well that's 0 so that's the end. So it's optimal to do that in every level, except introduction, where you just want to have less than 50 (the game does not progress until you get in the special stage if 50+). However this trick does not work, if you get a "secret bonus". This bonus is basically for stepping into secret areas in levels. Since you'd then get 2 positives running, the bonuses will keep counting. Finding out what triggers the secret bonuses was...ok I'll be honest, I still don't really know exactly what does it. I have some rough areas that I avoided on purpose as they seemed to trigger it, but there's no real good documentation on this at all. I tried to create routes through every level that wouldn't trigger one, but sometimes it would just happen. Happened once in this run, in Botantic Base 2. You only have to have 0 anytime before the bonuses start, rather than the stage ending, a lot of the time I use recall right near the end to push me under 0. Using it during stages is a speed tactic as well, a lot of the time, generally when on flat ground, it's better to have Mighty active, because his pull makes me go much faster than Charmy would alone. However sometimes, generally when moving vertically, his pull actually slows me down, so often the call is to allow the freedom for me to move aerially how I want. Partner control is one of the main aspect of going fast in this game, and keeping track of two characters at high speed is part of what makes going fast in this game so...chaotic. This was really fun to route and play. This was my first deathless run, it could be a bit better, but I had more fun routing this out, coming up with strategies and learning the mechanics than with optimising the game, so I probably won't improve this. Hope you enjoy.
Visibility: 2560
Duration: 48m 56s
Rating: 54