After beating bathroom I had this happen. I reset and I think that is what ruined my cart. It still has a green screen when I turn it on. If this happens to anyone try shutting it off, but looks like I'm gonna have to buy a new cart.

I don't think the skin affect the runs. I was just able to re-create Aceroni's 1:02 Attack with Sarge. I also recreated my own spy blue 0:47, and managed to get a 2:43 with sarge on riff, almost matching my 2:42 with Plastro. The hit boxes may make a tiny difference, but from my experience playing the game I've only been back boosted once ever, usually when hit with a bullet it just causes you to keep running in the same direction and typically doesn't slow you down, but where it may make a difference if it even does is jumping over things without grabbing since Plastro is the shortest character. Also the fact that the codes are available to anyone and really easy to use. It's up to you if you want to reinstate the times, but 1:02 attack isn't easily recreate-able, and finishing riff mission alone sucks even though I believe the time can be pushed down another 8 seconds if played perfectly.

I originally timed IL's this way because the games default setting is normal, but I don't see why there couldn't be a table for all difficulties just a game like golden eye has. There is enough differences between the difficulties to merit it. For now I have been running on easy though since that is what everyone else is doing.

After playing it again I'm not exactly sure what caused the prolonged death animation, kinda wish I was recording so I could guess, maybe I ended up hitting the eye extra times or something on it's way down.

Maybe it's because i was shooting in the air, but it prolonged the animation after the robot had already hit the ground but there was like an animation with the monster moving back and forth.

Not sure if this was already known to some, but I noticed that moving around and or shooting after defeating the boss at the end of 3-4 actually makes his death animation longer. Just thought I'd share so people don't end up losing time over it.

I've been messing around with the 2nd fat kid on 1-1. As of right now I have two theories as to how to manipulate fat kids to give you specific upgrades. It is either based on what animation you are doing going into the screen, or your position when the screen shifts. I'll probably upload an example later on or stream.

As a side note I will actually begin to start attempts this time around after I grind IL's and try to find more starts like these that could help improve the run.

I plan to stream attempts in the near future. Just been busy with finals and other vices. I feel like a lot of the new optimizations and starts are pretty self explanatory. One of the most interesting things I've found in terms of easy mode is you can do damage too fast to the point of causing bosses to give you extra cycles. Also the fact that you can eat the pudding monster in 1-2 to make the right go faster, and go inside of the bosses in 1-5 and 2-6 to do full damage without taking damage and make the fights go faster.

Did my first off stream run and got 59:57. I've only extensively routed out the first world. Getting past the 1-5 life menu at about 18:26. I'm probably gonna stream attempts once I better route out world 3. 3-4 and 3-5 is where I believe I can save the most time.