Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/EarthBound.html
Earthbound (Any %) (Single Segment) [Glitchless]
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: I'm not reading all that, I just saw 3/3 accepts and mashed the button.
Congratulations to '__sdfg'!
Earthbound (Any %) (Single Segment) [Glitchless]
Verifier Responses
Quote from RaikouRider:
A/V looks fine and no cheating. The play quality overall in this run is really impressive. There are still plenty of areas where time can be saved, and there are plenty of small to medium-sized mistakes. In a four-hour run with this much RNG, though, mistakes and bad luck are to be expected. This is going to be a bit long, as I'm breaking the whole run down by section. Time losses specified are due to execution-based mistakes rather than luck.
Beginning of the game: RNG manipulation for Starman Junior was perfect.
Frank: Pretty rotten luck with the Frank/robot fights, but no hamburgers used in the end--that's the important part.
Giant Step: Those five ants on the third floor... wow. Grind to level 8 was slow, mainly due to rotten antoid luck. Wow, that cookie was the difference in the Titanic Ant fight. Should be a highlight of the run. No execution mistakes here--just rotten luck ruining a segment. But that's Earthbound.
Cops: Not being able to do double Rockin on Strong wasted quite a bit of time, and a misclick during this fight almost cost you the run, though it wound up not wasting any time. This is mainly due to having rotten luck in Giant Step rather than specifically rotten luck here.
Pencil Eraser: Wow, no spawns on the way to the pencil statue. Small mistake (~5s) on the way back to Twoson where you should have just reloaded the cave instead of trying to unload that enemy.
Carpainter/Paula: Journey to Happy Happy was well-executed despite the persistent spawns in a couple places. It's very easy to get pinned against a cliff and you did a wonderful job avoiding it. Carpainter fight was good, and you set up the deathwarp back to Twoson nicely.
Graveyard Ambush: Nice job dealing with the bad spawns in the graveyard. No time lost here despite that.
Winters Descent: Bubble Monkey ruins duck skip again. BibleThump Brickroad is all RNG anyway. Masterful stutter-stepping in the first Pond Cave room. Overall great Winters.
Tunnel Under Threed: Boogey Tent fight was fine--a character death is to be expected unless you get amazing BBR damage. Probably should not have taken that zombie/dog fight in the first room. Probably a 10 to 30 second mistake depending on luck in unloading enemies in that room.
Belch Base: That wasted Skip Sandwich cost probably 10 seconds of fast movement better used in other place. Overall solid Belch base.
Trip to Gold Mine: Wow, that encounter outside the Belch base could have been a disaster. Other than that, no problems here.
Gold Mine: Nice stutter step around the snake before the second mole. Spawns around the fourth mole were rough--you should have just taken the single ant fight since you had plenty of PP with Paula. Probably a 30 to 45 second loss there. This is one of the sections to look at if you want to improve this run.
Department Store: You should buy Ness's items last because it saves frames when loading his inventory every time. Not a huge deal, though--probably only a few seconds. Good department store fights--it's easy to lose the run here.
Moonside: THE GOOD SPAWN! Wow, nice recovery on the Mani Mani fight.
Rescue Paula: Monkey cave went well. Sentry Robot dodges in the Monotoli building were wonderful. Good segment marred by probably the worst Clumsy Robot luck I've ever seen--fifth try Paralysis combined with getting off four missiles (1/8 chance) is pretty rotten. Lost over a minute on this segment but none of it was your fault.
Rainy Circle: Little one-second mistake in examining the Sky Runner to take back to Winters--again, not a big deal. Good rocket damage luck on Shrooom! despite Jeff blowing away the rest of the party.
Summers/Poo Sequence: Grabbing that extra Brain Food Lunch wasted a few seconds, but definitely less than five.
Kraken: Shopping was a bit slow. Kraken sadly did not cooperate, requiring a trip to the hospital.
Pyramid: Sound decision making to take certain encounters, and a one-round Guardian General fight is a huge plus. Definitely should have reloaded the tile room rather than try to avoid the battle entirely. Forgetting that BFL recovers HP as well cost 3-4 seconds. Good encounter luck combined with sound decision made for a good segment--until you misclicked on Auto Fight in the last battle. Probably about 15 seconds lost in the pyramid overall.
Southern Scaraba: Good teleport to Dungeon Man. You didn't need to heal people after the coffee battle in Dungeon Man--that's 6-7 seconds gone. Small menuing derp at the end of Dungeon Man 1 cost 2-3 seconds. I don't think there was much that could be done about the double UFO encounter. Both Dungeon Man runs were ruined by coffee cups. Like you said, "Dungeon Man spilled coffee all over this run."
Deep Darkness: Were you distracted by your chat during the shopping here? You made a LOT of mistakes. What happened between those two bushes with those four wasted teleports? There's over a minute to save in here.
Stonehenge Descent: Fairly good descent to the base itself. No problem here.
Stonehenge: Ah, one of the biggest late run killers in the game. All green swirls in the tunnels (except the very first encounter) was wonderful. Starman Super Hall was tense but you didn't lose much time. Lots of spawns in the poorly lit hall. Single MBR DX fight topped off a wonderful Stonehenge!
Lumine Hall: A bit of rotten luck with despawns caused the one fight in the underground section. I don't think this was execution-based, but it could be. 3 MBR fight with Specter is one of the risks of getting Rabbit's Foot after the boss fight.
Fourside Sewers: Nice stutter step at the start to dodge that rat. The enemies around here have a huge aggro radius, and you dealt with it well.
Pink Cloud Cave: Bad luck but no execution problems here.
Fire Spring: Ugh, that Chomposaur spawn on the way to Fire Spring was ugly. Those two high-spawn small caves were both great--getting the ambush in the second room takes a split second reaction. I'd say you got away with murder on that back attack right before the big room, and during the Diamond Dog fight. This segment was defined by mistakes you got away with.
Sanctuary Cleanup: No problems here at all execution-wise, though a bit of rotten luck in Milky Well.
Magicant: Not equipping Rabbit's Foot on Ness for this segment is really gutsy--you should have taken the time to move it over. This cost you pretty close to two minutes--easily your worst segment. You got away with murder on just being able to finish the run at all. Nice job making Krakens work. Three-bag fight helped stop the bleeding.
Zexonyte: Some of the teleports and decision-making could have been a bit better on the way to the meteorite. No fights is still fine. Probably no more than a few seconds lost.
Cave of the Past: So this is the legendary Cave of the Past that all the Earthbound runners speak of. Going four spawn areas with no spawns and only two total battles in the first area is insanely good luck alone, not to mention running first try from all but one battle on the first try. I don't think anyone is ever going to have a better Cave to the Past than this.
Giygas: Menu work in Giygas 1 was a little off--were you nervous? Two rocket fight is what you want there. Giygas 2 was perfect. 1-solidify Giygas 3, so average luck there.
Decision: ACCEPT
Despite all the mistakes toward the end of the run, the beginning of it was excellent, and it's a spectacle to watch with all the incredible luck saving it from death on multiple occasions. This is a badly-needed update to the Earthbound speedrun page on SDA.
If you want to watch this run, I highly recommend watching the version with __sdfg's live commentary, located here: http://www.twitch.tv/uusdfg/c/3638072
Congratulations on the run, __sdfg!
Beginning of the game: RNG manipulation for Starman Junior was perfect.
Frank: Pretty rotten luck with the Frank/robot fights, but no hamburgers used in the end--that's the important part.
Giant Step: Those five ants on the third floor... wow. Grind to level 8 was slow, mainly due to rotten antoid luck. Wow, that cookie was the difference in the Titanic Ant fight. Should be a highlight of the run. No execution mistakes here--just rotten luck ruining a segment. But that's Earthbound.
Cops: Not being able to do double Rockin on Strong wasted quite a bit of time, and a misclick during this fight almost cost you the run, though it wound up not wasting any time. This is mainly due to having rotten luck in Giant Step rather than specifically rotten luck here.
Pencil Eraser: Wow, no spawns on the way to the pencil statue. Small mistake (~5s) on the way back to Twoson where you should have just reloaded the cave instead of trying to unload that enemy.
Carpainter/Paula: Journey to Happy Happy was well-executed despite the persistent spawns in a couple places. It's very easy to get pinned against a cliff and you did a wonderful job avoiding it. Carpainter fight was good, and you set up the deathwarp back to Twoson nicely.
Graveyard Ambush: Nice job dealing with the bad spawns in the graveyard. No time lost here despite that.
Winters Descent: Bubble Monkey ruins duck skip again. BibleThump Brickroad is all RNG anyway. Masterful stutter-stepping in the first Pond Cave room. Overall great Winters.
Tunnel Under Threed: Boogey Tent fight was fine--a character death is to be expected unless you get amazing BBR damage. Probably should not have taken that zombie/dog fight in the first room. Probably a 10 to 30 second mistake depending on luck in unloading enemies in that room.
Belch Base: That wasted Skip Sandwich cost probably 10 seconds of fast movement better used in other place. Overall solid Belch base.
Trip to Gold Mine: Wow, that encounter outside the Belch base could have been a disaster. Other than that, no problems here.
Gold Mine: Nice stutter step around the snake before the second mole. Spawns around the fourth mole were rough--you should have just taken the single ant fight since you had plenty of PP with Paula. Probably a 30 to 45 second loss there. This is one of the sections to look at if you want to improve this run.
Department Store: You should buy Ness's items last because it saves frames when loading his inventory every time. Not a huge deal, though--probably only a few seconds. Good department store fights--it's easy to lose the run here.
Moonside: THE GOOD SPAWN! Wow, nice recovery on the Mani Mani fight.
Rescue Paula: Monkey cave went well. Sentry Robot dodges in the Monotoli building were wonderful. Good segment marred by probably the worst Clumsy Robot luck I've ever seen--fifth try Paralysis combined with getting off four missiles (1/8 chance) is pretty rotten. Lost over a minute on this segment but none of it was your fault.
Rainy Circle: Little one-second mistake in examining the Sky Runner to take back to Winters--again, not a big deal. Good rocket damage luck on Shrooom! despite Jeff blowing away the rest of the party.
Summers/Poo Sequence: Grabbing that extra Brain Food Lunch wasted a few seconds, but definitely less than five.
Kraken: Shopping was a bit slow. Kraken sadly did not cooperate, requiring a trip to the hospital.
Pyramid: Sound decision making to take certain encounters, and a one-round Guardian General fight is a huge plus. Definitely should have reloaded the tile room rather than try to avoid the battle entirely. Forgetting that BFL recovers HP as well cost 3-4 seconds. Good encounter luck combined with sound decision made for a good segment--until you misclicked on Auto Fight in the last battle. Probably about 15 seconds lost in the pyramid overall.
Southern Scaraba: Good teleport to Dungeon Man. You didn't need to heal people after the coffee battle in Dungeon Man--that's 6-7 seconds gone. Small menuing derp at the end of Dungeon Man 1 cost 2-3 seconds. I don't think there was much that could be done about the double UFO encounter. Both Dungeon Man runs were ruined by coffee cups. Like you said, "Dungeon Man spilled coffee all over this run."
Deep Darkness: Were you distracted by your chat during the shopping here? You made a LOT of mistakes. What happened between those two bushes with those four wasted teleports? There's over a minute to save in here.
Stonehenge Descent: Fairly good descent to the base itself. No problem here.
Stonehenge: Ah, one of the biggest late run killers in the game. All green swirls in the tunnels (except the very first encounter) was wonderful. Starman Super Hall was tense but you didn't lose much time. Lots of spawns in the poorly lit hall. Single MBR DX fight topped off a wonderful Stonehenge!
Lumine Hall: A bit of rotten luck with despawns caused the one fight in the underground section. I don't think this was execution-based, but it could be. 3 MBR fight with Specter is one of the risks of getting Rabbit's Foot after the boss fight.
Fourside Sewers: Nice stutter step at the start to dodge that rat. The enemies around here have a huge aggro radius, and you dealt with it well.
Pink Cloud Cave: Bad luck but no execution problems here.
Fire Spring: Ugh, that Chomposaur spawn on the way to Fire Spring was ugly. Those two high-spawn small caves were both great--getting the ambush in the second room takes a split second reaction. I'd say you got away with murder on that back attack right before the big room, and during the Diamond Dog fight. This segment was defined by mistakes you got away with.
Sanctuary Cleanup: No problems here at all execution-wise, though a bit of rotten luck in Milky Well.
Magicant: Not equipping Rabbit's Foot on Ness for this segment is really gutsy--you should have taken the time to move it over. This cost you pretty close to two minutes--easily your worst segment. You got away with murder on just being able to finish the run at all. Nice job making Krakens work. Three-bag fight helped stop the bleeding.
Zexonyte: Some of the teleports and decision-making could have been a bit better on the way to the meteorite. No fights is still fine. Probably no more than a few seconds lost.
Cave of the Past: So this is the legendary Cave of the Past that all the Earthbound runners speak of. Going four spawn areas with no spawns and only two total battles in the first area is insanely good luck alone, not to mention running first try from all but one battle on the first try. I don't think anyone is ever going to have a better Cave to the Past than this.
Giygas: Menu work in Giygas 1 was a little off--were you nervous? Two rocket fight is what you want there. Giygas 2 was perfect. 1-solidify Giygas 3, so average luck there.
Decision: ACCEPT
Despite all the mistakes toward the end of the run, the beginning of it was excellent, and it's a spectacle to watch with all the incredible luck saving it from death on multiple occasions. This is a badly-needed update to the Earthbound speedrun page on SDA.
If you want to watch this run, I highly recommend watching the version with __sdfg's live commentary, located here: http://www.twitch.tv/uusdfg/c/3638072
Congratulations on the run, __sdfg!
Quote:
Not a whole lot to say about this improvement run; it's good and definitely enough so to be accepted. The encounter/battle luck is up and down at times, but that's basically unavoidable in this game and it tends toward the good for most of the hardest sections. There are genuine improvements to the current segmented route too, e.g. in the pyramid. Sound's good, video's good, no-cheating's also good. Always nice to see people caring about this game 
Even if it's only Starbucks.
Quote from andyperfect:
I will be outlining my thoughts throughout my review as sort of a stream-of-consciousness type thing. If you want my final thoughts on the run, skip to the bottom.
Starman:
Naming characters 1 character a piece saves a ton of time throughout the entirety of the run. Solid RNG manipulation up to Starman Junior to guarantee no fights up to the meteorite and a fast two cycle starman junior. This requires lots of practice to get right consistently and it varies from player to player as naming choices at the beginning of the game influence RNG, so it shows the runner has routed this out himself. Sub 7:20 Starman Junior time is extremely impressive in a single segment run as it shows a that a LOT of practice went in beforehand to get the RNG route down.
Frankystein:
No spawns heading down to Onett. Always a plus. Quick menuing in the drugstore. Unlucky spawns going down to the arcade but dealt with it well by going around the hospital. Excellent set of fights before Frank. Very little damage taken from the pogo punks (which can be run enders). I like the use of the bread roll during the Frankystein fight to heal just enough hp to stay safe (>35 or so hp) rather than using a full lifeup.
Giant's Step:
Plays risky by not purchasing additional hamburgers before Giant's step, but it pays off immensely in tons of time saved. I question getting the skip sandwich here as I don't believe it saves any time, but it does make future areas possibly a little safer in dodging enemies by moving a little quicker. Runner's preference really. Excellent stutter stepping to encounter some slugs (for the big exp) and avoiding the rowdy mouse. After struggling for a little bit to find slugs to grind on, there's some crazy good luck in finding four slug packs very quickly on the bottom level. The runner avoided the pack of two enemies on the top level of giant's step before moving on to to the butterfly. I believe it might be faster to just take the slug+antoid fight here rather than looking for slugs here, but good luck in finding slugs before this so greatly makes up for it, it's really not of a big deal at all. Timed the level up to 8 perfectly to cooincide with the fight right before Titanic Ant. Perhaps an unnecessary food item use right before the last hit on Titanic Ant, but I don't blame the runner. If I were in the same position, I would have done the exact same thing to stay alive in case of a miss. High damage rolls with PSI Rockin made for a quick fight, though.
Chief Strong:
Really good food/PSI management during these fights to stay alive. The police can be nasty here as there's a delicate balance of when to heal and when to play risky and keep it going without healing. Runner managed HP very well. I like the transition to auto attack during the chief strong fight when all PSI and hamburgers are gone to keep the fight moving quickly.
Erase Pencil:
Great spawns heading down to Twoson (see zero). Going for the half Vogler of course by setting the death point in the dept. store for a future death warp. Thank you Pop_em for the half Vogler. Just a side note, really good inventory management and health/PP management so far in the run. I haven't seen the runner open the menu to double check items a single time. Shows a solid knowledge at all times of what he has. Amazing spawns going to and from the pencil for the first time. Really good despawning as well. Runner goes pretty much the perfect distance off screen to despawn enemies, not going too far which would waste time. Weird Graphical glitch at 32:25. Problem in the encoding? Not sure what went wrong there. Good spawns once again heading back to the pencil.
Paula Joins:
Had some trouble in the middle and end of Peaceful Rest Valley despawning some enemies, but that's nothing on the runner. Just lousy luck. Runner handled despawning very well. I hate it when the snakes in this tunnel to Happy Happy Village fight you, only to die immediately. Solid menuing in the drugstore. Buying two croissants might not have been necessary, but it's easy to call this out after the fact. Buying two croissants just makes things safer (in case you get a nasty crow that steals one during the required fight outside of Paula's jail) and takes very little time. Unlucky fight in the cultist house with the call for help, but the runner handled it well. Great job setting up Ness's hp low during the Carpainter fight in preparation for a quick death warp.
Begin Runaway Five Performance:
Unlucky guts save during the deathwarp fight. Another side note. I have no idea how on earth you keep the character names "I", "l", "i", and "." separate. I feel like that's a feat in and of itself. Dodged the picture going into the theater.
Reach Threed:
I love this split. Runner walked well and mashed L and A really well here.
Begin Winters:
Excellent graveyard movement to avoid fights.
Cross with Tessie:
Beside an accidental talk to nothing, great movement and menuing in the dorms. Walking on the south side of the easternmost tent is impressive. It's a very precise move that saves ~1 second over going around the north side. One pixel to far to the south and you get a picture taken. Impressive that the runner pulled it off. I'm personally too nervous to do it in any run.
Jeff Joins:
Bubble monkey screws up the duck dodge yet again. Missed the protoplasm dodge here. Looks like the runner was trying to ghost past and almost made it. I like the idea behind it. Fantastic despawns and stutter steps to avoid fights in the cave. Some unlucky spawns in the first section of the three part cave, but the runner dealt with them extremely well.
Defeat Tent:
Unfortunate Paula death during Boogey Tent fight. Not a big deal due to the hospital being literally right where you need to walk.
Reach Saturn Valley:
Good graveyard spawns. Runner showed knowledge of the aggro area of the trash can ghosts by sneaking by them. Unlucky set of spawns in the Threed tunnel (especially the 2 ghost+zombie fight), but the runner handled all the fights very well. Fantastic fight with the mini barf. Runner showed knowledge of its hp by defending with both Ness and Paula third round and only using the bottle rocket from Jeff for the kill.
Belch
Unlucky set of despawns on the return trip with the second roach. Got caught between two groups of enemies right before the waterfall, but it was a nie use of the skip sandwich to keep the "badness" to a minimum. Waiting behind the waterfall went really well. Nice job pulling the foppies to the right to ghost past the slimy little pile both times. No problems at the Belch fight.
Reach Fourside:
Oh my, awfully unlucky fight leaving grapefruit falls, but got an incredibly lucky run to balance out the bad luck. That fight could have easily ended the run. For some reason, I never thought of entering the shack and sleeping before talking to Geraldo. It does make sense though and saves walking time.
Moles defeated:
I actually like not having Ness lifeup anybody during the Freeze Beta + Big Bottle Rocket kills. Saves a little bit of menuing time and there's really no risk of death during those particular fights (unless of course you get the ridiculous one in a thousand roll and the Big Bottle Rocket misses completely). Really nice spawns heading up to the second mole. Excellent stutter step to avoid that snake. Nice job pulling the third mole down to prevent enemies from spawning to the south. Very unlucky spawns at the southwestern bend before the fourth mole. That last duck before the fifth mole -- what on earth? It couldn't make up its mind about whether to run or attack.
Dept. Store Spook:
I really liked this runaway five show. Good menuing sequence to buy all the rockets and bombs. Nice dodge on the second floor. Department store is one of the worst areas in the entire game, but it went pretty darn well. Perfect one cycle spook fight.
Defeat Mani Mani:
Another side note. Very quick button mashing through text throughout the entire run so far. Got the cafe enemy skip which is always nice. Skipped the unibrow dude's text by walking around the trigger zone. Also skipped the secret herb present here which was surprising. Unlucky bottle rocket and bomb damage on Mani Mani, but the smash hit came in to save the day. Very solid Moonside here.
Learn Teleport:
Perfect path throughout the monkey cave. Go away dad, I'm trying to speedrun this game. Skipped the mole playing rough right before learning teleport with some more great stutter steps.
Paula Rejoins:
Skipped all the sentry robots with a skip sandwich and really nice movement. I don't think I've ever seen paralysis fail so many times on clumsy robot. Some nice HP management kept the fight going, though.
Shroom!:
lousy luck on Shroom with Jeff firing the Big Bottle rocket twice at party members.
Poo Joins:
Nice teleport to avoid enemies in Summers. No hitches in Dalaam.
Kraken:
Nice mummy fight in the museum as well as avoiding the second mummy. Bought surprisingly few skip sandwiches but it looks like it paid off in the rest of the run. Unlucky first round fire breath from the Kraken, but runner pulled it off.
Pyramid:
Got the photo skip heading into the pyramid. Nice dodging some of the hieroglyph enemies using the skip sandwiches. A slight mistake in the pyramid going for the switch when there were enemies nearby. Not a huge time sink, but it would have saved time to just despawn the enemies closest to the door. Good use of paralysis and hypnosis to quickly run from fights. It's not necessary to force a fight after dropping down the last hole in the pyramid. If you have good spawns and a sandwich eaten, you can just walk straight right and the hieroglyphs won't make it to you.
South Scaraba:
Crazy risky present dodge at the very beginning of dungeon man, impressively pulled off. A few other unlucky fights in this area. An unlucky UFO fight in the desert with dungeon man, but whenever there isn't a full wipe there, I consider that a success. This area is just awful. An unnecessary back attack wasted a little bit of time here. Fortunately, the revitalizer up ahead brings everyone back so it's not too bad.
Deep Darkness:
A little rough on the menuing to purchase all the weapons from the secret arms dealer. A rough section when the runner has an enemy approaching and is trying to teleport through some bushes. Has about 5-8 failed teleports trying to get away. Ultimately does but it was rough. The rest of Deep Darkness was just fine.
Stonehenge Base:
Good teleport dodge in southern winters just after the pencil. Excellent job despawning enemies up until the last purple area. Really nice job getting the surprise attacks on starmen in the last purple area. Some great luck mixed with great technique made for a very, very fast and impressive stonehenge base. If I had to teach someone how to run stonehenge base, I would point to this run and say, "do this". It really was executed flawlessly.
Lumine Hall:
Correctly talked to Dr. Andonuts since his text is shorter than Apple Kid's text. Nicely executed Lumine Hall. Amazing area right before Electrospecter getting into only one fight, that being a surprise attack. Now that I think about it more, I really like the idea of getting the rabbit's foot after the electrospecter fight and using a super bomb from Paula to compensate for the low speed.
Plague Rat:
Correctly tried to sneak past the museum lady rather than talking to her to buy tickets. Sneaking past has less text and is therefore faster. Nicely done through the sewer avoiding nearly all fights. Plague Rat fight done quick with the Rabbit's Foot and a Multi Bottle Rocket. good teleport immediately after leaving the museum to avoid the photo.
Pink Cloud:
Good spawns, Good runs, quick Thunder & Storm fight. Nothing much else to say about this area.
Fire Spring:
Unfortunate fight with a Chomposaur here, but it did no damage to the party, so not a big deal. Great spawns here and a great surprise attack in the second tunnel. Some really good runs in these fights as well. The fact that the first and third connecting tunnels were empty first try is baffling. Incredibly good RNG here. Unlucky Jeff death during diamond dog, but the runner quickly adapted and finished off the fight impressively quick.
Lilliput Steps:
Correctly got the exit mouse beforehand as it is faster to get the exit mouse and warp out than to just walk in and out. No problems here.
Milky Well:
Nice picture dodge next to the pink healing lake. I kind of like the idea of using starstorm on these enemies. Slower than running, but the odds are not in your favor to run first round on these fights. Probably saves time in the end. Lots of fights in this area. There was one (the second fight in the first tunnel) that the runner initiated when all enemies were running that was unnecessary.
Magicant:
Very nice loaded dice dodges with the skip sandwich. Unlucky back attack against the molecules. But they're molecules. They don't do anything anyways. Got all thee Kraken dodges which is always a huge plus. Ness's Nightmare was flawless with three bags of dragonite. It's always scary when you have to start digging into your super bombs to finish it off.
Meteorite:
Nice job avoiding all the fights with the teleports.
Giygas:
I'll just say this about the Cave to the Past. It was the most magical thing I have ever seen. Seriously. No spawns at all around the first or second bend. The RNG in this area was absolutely incredible. From the time that the runner was movable as a robot until entering Giygas' area was 1 minute and 50 seconds. Seriously. Less than two minutes. That is absolutely insane. I can't say enough about that. The luck in that one area makes me weep happiness. A 1:50 will never again be done in a single segment run, and maybe not even in a multi-segment run. I can't stress enough how good that Cave to the Past was. Very fast Phase 1 of the Giygas fight. Use of Starstorm Omega in phase two was excellent as well. In essence, everything in Cave to the Past and in the giygas fight was essentially perfect. You couldn't have asked for a better executed run with better luck. This was it. Stop looking for it. This was the one.
Final Thoughts:
This run had some rough patches and some amazing areas. It's an RPG though. In a single segment run, it is unreasonable to expect great areas throughout the entire run. Instead, I'm looking for some great areas, and well executed strategies when the luck doesn't roll well. This run features both of what I'm looking for. Dungeon Man and southern Scaraba desert were weak. Deep Darkness was quite rough as well. But the really good areas easily make up for them. Winters with Jeff was really nice. The time between Onett and Erasing the Pencil statue were fantastic. Stonehenge was absolutely solid. As I mentioned before, Stonehenge base can be very tricky and intimidating for new runners to the category. Cave to the Past made me weep for joy. There should be no doubt about the acceptance of this run.
In essence, this is a single segment glitchless run that is faster than the currently posted multi-segment run of essentially the same category. Tons of new strategies are exhibited that are executed very well. There is no cheating detected in this run. I watched hp levels and inventory usage and never detected anything out of the ordinary. Audio and video quality is very acceptable and high quality.
Timing was also accurate. I ran my own timer against the run and found the times to match that of what the runner claimed. This is a clear decision for me.
ACCEPT
Congratulations on the great run, __sdfg.
Starman:
Naming characters 1 character a piece saves a ton of time throughout the entirety of the run. Solid RNG manipulation up to Starman Junior to guarantee no fights up to the meteorite and a fast two cycle starman junior. This requires lots of practice to get right consistently and it varies from player to player as naming choices at the beginning of the game influence RNG, so it shows the runner has routed this out himself. Sub 7:20 Starman Junior time is extremely impressive in a single segment run as it shows a that a LOT of practice went in beforehand to get the RNG route down.
Frankystein:
No spawns heading down to Onett. Always a plus. Quick menuing in the drugstore. Unlucky spawns going down to the arcade but dealt with it well by going around the hospital. Excellent set of fights before Frank. Very little damage taken from the pogo punks (which can be run enders). I like the use of the bread roll during the Frankystein fight to heal just enough hp to stay safe (>35 or so hp) rather than using a full lifeup.
Giant's Step:
Plays risky by not purchasing additional hamburgers before Giant's step, but it pays off immensely in tons of time saved. I question getting the skip sandwich here as I don't believe it saves any time, but it does make future areas possibly a little safer in dodging enemies by moving a little quicker. Runner's preference really. Excellent stutter stepping to encounter some slugs (for the big exp) and avoiding the rowdy mouse. After struggling for a little bit to find slugs to grind on, there's some crazy good luck in finding four slug packs very quickly on the bottom level. The runner avoided the pack of two enemies on the top level of giant's step before moving on to to the butterfly. I believe it might be faster to just take the slug+antoid fight here rather than looking for slugs here, but good luck in finding slugs before this so greatly makes up for it, it's really not of a big deal at all. Timed the level up to 8 perfectly to cooincide with the fight right before Titanic Ant. Perhaps an unnecessary food item use right before the last hit on Titanic Ant, but I don't blame the runner. If I were in the same position, I would have done the exact same thing to stay alive in case of a miss. High damage rolls with PSI Rockin made for a quick fight, though.
Chief Strong:
Really good food/PSI management during these fights to stay alive. The police can be nasty here as there's a delicate balance of when to heal and when to play risky and keep it going without healing. Runner managed HP very well. I like the transition to auto attack during the chief strong fight when all PSI and hamburgers are gone to keep the fight moving quickly.
Erase Pencil:
Great spawns heading down to Twoson (see zero). Going for the half Vogler of course by setting the death point in the dept. store for a future death warp. Thank you Pop_em for the half Vogler. Just a side note, really good inventory management and health/PP management so far in the run. I haven't seen the runner open the menu to double check items a single time. Shows a solid knowledge at all times of what he has. Amazing spawns going to and from the pencil for the first time. Really good despawning as well. Runner goes pretty much the perfect distance off screen to despawn enemies, not going too far which would waste time. Weird Graphical glitch at 32:25. Problem in the encoding? Not sure what went wrong there. Good spawns once again heading back to the pencil.
Paula Joins:
Had some trouble in the middle and end of Peaceful Rest Valley despawning some enemies, but that's nothing on the runner. Just lousy luck. Runner handled despawning very well. I hate it when the snakes in this tunnel to Happy Happy Village fight you, only to die immediately. Solid menuing in the drugstore. Buying two croissants might not have been necessary, but it's easy to call this out after the fact. Buying two croissants just makes things safer (in case you get a nasty crow that steals one during the required fight outside of Paula's jail) and takes very little time. Unlucky fight in the cultist house with the call for help, but the runner handled it well. Great job setting up Ness's hp low during the Carpainter fight in preparation for a quick death warp.
Begin Runaway Five Performance:
Unlucky guts save during the deathwarp fight. Another side note. I have no idea how on earth you keep the character names "I", "l", "i", and "." separate. I feel like that's a feat in and of itself. Dodged the picture going into the theater.
Reach Threed:
I love this split. Runner walked well and mashed L and A really well here.
Begin Winters:
Excellent graveyard movement to avoid fights.
Cross with Tessie:
Beside an accidental talk to nothing, great movement and menuing in the dorms. Walking on the south side of the easternmost tent is impressive. It's a very precise move that saves ~1 second over going around the north side. One pixel to far to the south and you get a picture taken. Impressive that the runner pulled it off. I'm personally too nervous to do it in any run.
Jeff Joins:
Bubble monkey screws up the duck dodge yet again. Missed the protoplasm dodge here. Looks like the runner was trying to ghost past and almost made it. I like the idea behind it. Fantastic despawns and stutter steps to avoid fights in the cave. Some unlucky spawns in the first section of the three part cave, but the runner dealt with them extremely well.
Defeat Tent:
Unfortunate Paula death during Boogey Tent fight. Not a big deal due to the hospital being literally right where you need to walk.
Reach Saturn Valley:
Good graveyard spawns. Runner showed knowledge of the aggro area of the trash can ghosts by sneaking by them. Unlucky set of spawns in the Threed tunnel (especially the 2 ghost+zombie fight), but the runner handled all the fights very well. Fantastic fight with the mini barf. Runner showed knowledge of its hp by defending with both Ness and Paula third round and only using the bottle rocket from Jeff for the kill.
Belch
Unlucky set of despawns on the return trip with the second roach. Got caught between two groups of enemies right before the waterfall, but it was a nie use of the skip sandwich to keep the "badness" to a minimum. Waiting behind the waterfall went really well. Nice job pulling the foppies to the right to ghost past the slimy little pile both times. No problems at the Belch fight.
Reach Fourside:
Oh my, awfully unlucky fight leaving grapefruit falls, but got an incredibly lucky run to balance out the bad luck. That fight could have easily ended the run. For some reason, I never thought of entering the shack and sleeping before talking to Geraldo. It does make sense though and saves walking time.
Moles defeated:
I actually like not having Ness lifeup anybody during the Freeze Beta + Big Bottle Rocket kills. Saves a little bit of menuing time and there's really no risk of death during those particular fights (unless of course you get the ridiculous one in a thousand roll and the Big Bottle Rocket misses completely). Really nice spawns heading up to the second mole. Excellent stutter step to avoid that snake. Nice job pulling the third mole down to prevent enemies from spawning to the south. Very unlucky spawns at the southwestern bend before the fourth mole. That last duck before the fifth mole -- what on earth? It couldn't make up its mind about whether to run or attack.
Dept. Store Spook:
I really liked this runaway five show. Good menuing sequence to buy all the rockets and bombs. Nice dodge on the second floor. Department store is one of the worst areas in the entire game, but it went pretty darn well. Perfect one cycle spook fight.
Defeat Mani Mani:
Another side note. Very quick button mashing through text throughout the entire run so far. Got the cafe enemy skip which is always nice. Skipped the unibrow dude's text by walking around the trigger zone. Also skipped the secret herb present here which was surprising. Unlucky bottle rocket and bomb damage on Mani Mani, but the smash hit came in to save the day. Very solid Moonside here.
Learn Teleport:
Perfect path throughout the monkey cave. Go away dad, I'm trying to speedrun this game. Skipped the mole playing rough right before learning teleport with some more great stutter steps.
Paula Rejoins:
Skipped all the sentry robots with a skip sandwich and really nice movement. I don't think I've ever seen paralysis fail so many times on clumsy robot. Some nice HP management kept the fight going, though.
Shroom!:
lousy luck on Shroom with Jeff firing the Big Bottle rocket twice at party members.
Poo Joins:
Nice teleport to avoid enemies in Summers. No hitches in Dalaam.
Kraken:
Nice mummy fight in the museum as well as avoiding the second mummy. Bought surprisingly few skip sandwiches but it looks like it paid off in the rest of the run. Unlucky first round fire breath from the Kraken, but runner pulled it off.
Pyramid:
Got the photo skip heading into the pyramid. Nice dodging some of the hieroglyph enemies using the skip sandwiches. A slight mistake in the pyramid going for the switch when there were enemies nearby. Not a huge time sink, but it would have saved time to just despawn the enemies closest to the door. Good use of paralysis and hypnosis to quickly run from fights. It's not necessary to force a fight after dropping down the last hole in the pyramid. If you have good spawns and a sandwich eaten, you can just walk straight right and the hieroglyphs won't make it to you.
South Scaraba:
Crazy risky present dodge at the very beginning of dungeon man, impressively pulled off. A few other unlucky fights in this area. An unlucky UFO fight in the desert with dungeon man, but whenever there isn't a full wipe there, I consider that a success. This area is just awful. An unnecessary back attack wasted a little bit of time here. Fortunately, the revitalizer up ahead brings everyone back so it's not too bad.
Deep Darkness:
A little rough on the menuing to purchase all the weapons from the secret arms dealer. A rough section when the runner has an enemy approaching and is trying to teleport through some bushes. Has about 5-8 failed teleports trying to get away. Ultimately does but it was rough. The rest of Deep Darkness was just fine.
Stonehenge Base:
Good teleport dodge in southern winters just after the pencil. Excellent job despawning enemies up until the last purple area. Really nice job getting the surprise attacks on starmen in the last purple area. Some great luck mixed with great technique made for a very, very fast and impressive stonehenge base. If I had to teach someone how to run stonehenge base, I would point to this run and say, "do this". It really was executed flawlessly.
Lumine Hall:
Correctly talked to Dr. Andonuts since his text is shorter than Apple Kid's text. Nicely executed Lumine Hall. Amazing area right before Electrospecter getting into only one fight, that being a surprise attack. Now that I think about it more, I really like the idea of getting the rabbit's foot after the electrospecter fight and using a super bomb from Paula to compensate for the low speed.
Plague Rat:
Correctly tried to sneak past the museum lady rather than talking to her to buy tickets. Sneaking past has less text and is therefore faster. Nicely done through the sewer avoiding nearly all fights. Plague Rat fight done quick with the Rabbit's Foot and a Multi Bottle Rocket. good teleport immediately after leaving the museum to avoid the photo.
Pink Cloud:
Good spawns, Good runs, quick Thunder & Storm fight. Nothing much else to say about this area.
Fire Spring:
Unfortunate fight with a Chomposaur here, but it did no damage to the party, so not a big deal. Great spawns here and a great surprise attack in the second tunnel. Some really good runs in these fights as well. The fact that the first and third connecting tunnels were empty first try is baffling. Incredibly good RNG here. Unlucky Jeff death during diamond dog, but the runner quickly adapted and finished off the fight impressively quick.
Lilliput Steps:
Correctly got the exit mouse beforehand as it is faster to get the exit mouse and warp out than to just walk in and out. No problems here.
Milky Well:
Nice picture dodge next to the pink healing lake. I kind of like the idea of using starstorm on these enemies. Slower than running, but the odds are not in your favor to run first round on these fights. Probably saves time in the end. Lots of fights in this area. There was one (the second fight in the first tunnel) that the runner initiated when all enemies were running that was unnecessary.
Magicant:
Very nice loaded dice dodges with the skip sandwich. Unlucky back attack against the molecules. But they're molecules. They don't do anything anyways. Got all thee Kraken dodges which is always a huge plus. Ness's Nightmare was flawless with three bags of dragonite. It's always scary when you have to start digging into your super bombs to finish it off.
Meteorite:
Nice job avoiding all the fights with the teleports.
Giygas:
I'll just say this about the Cave to the Past. It was the most magical thing I have ever seen. Seriously. No spawns at all around the first or second bend. The RNG in this area was absolutely incredible. From the time that the runner was movable as a robot until entering Giygas' area was 1 minute and 50 seconds. Seriously. Less than two minutes. That is absolutely insane. I can't say enough about that. The luck in that one area makes me weep happiness. A 1:50 will never again be done in a single segment run, and maybe not even in a multi-segment run. I can't stress enough how good that Cave to the Past was. Very fast Phase 1 of the Giygas fight. Use of Starstorm Omega in phase two was excellent as well. In essence, everything in Cave to the Past and in the giygas fight was essentially perfect. You couldn't have asked for a better executed run with better luck. This was it. Stop looking for it. This was the one.
Final Thoughts:
This run had some rough patches and some amazing areas. It's an RPG though. In a single segment run, it is unreasonable to expect great areas throughout the entire run. Instead, I'm looking for some great areas, and well executed strategies when the luck doesn't roll well. This run features both of what I'm looking for. Dungeon Man and southern Scaraba desert were weak. Deep Darkness was quite rough as well. But the really good areas easily make up for them. Winters with Jeff was really nice. The time between Onett and Erasing the Pencil statue were fantastic. Stonehenge was absolutely solid. As I mentioned before, Stonehenge base can be very tricky and intimidating for new runners to the category. Cave to the Past made me weep for joy. There should be no doubt about the acceptance of this run.
In essence, this is a single segment glitchless run that is faster than the currently posted multi-segment run of essentially the same category. Tons of new strategies are exhibited that are executed very well. There is no cheating detected in this run. I watched hp levels and inventory usage and never detected anything out of the ordinary. Audio and video quality is very acceptable and high quality.
Timing was also accurate. I ran my own timer against the run and found the times to match that of what the runner claimed. This is a clear decision for me.
ACCEPT
Congratulations on the great run, __sdfg.
Decision: Accept
Reason: I'm not reading all that, I just saw 3/3 accepts and mashed the button.
Congratulations to '__sdfg'!
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