Hydlide is quite an easy game normally. It has a Save feature, which can be used anywhere without a limit. Not only can it be used for saving, loading a save also resets enemy locations. You can use this to save quite often and reload to dodge any and all unwanted enemy encounters. They're even better than emulator savestates. I'm wondering, especially with this game's unfortunate reputation, if anyone has completed the game without a single use of the Save functon. Playing the game like this would turn a mildly irritating breeze of a game into a permadeath gauntlet where the stake are high and every inch of progress is monumental. I imagine speedruns would be longer and more improvable. Are there any pre-existing runs of this? Should this be a new category?

That is an interesting concept, but ultimately the ideal for that category would be the same as an ideal any%. My TAS uses 1 save/load to RNG manipulate the key and fairy 1 in the best position to save time, but a speedrun doesn't have that level of manipulation. Now an idea to keep the categories separate would be to add a rule saying no early eel grind.