I've retimed this run to 16:55 since I was a little late hitting the last split after the final boss.

This run isn't particularly well-optimized, with quite a few admittedly mostly minor mistakes littered throughout it, but still beat the previous world record by a little over 8 minutes and actually beats the TAS that I found on a few rounds. I believe that this can potentially be improved by another minute or two, but I'm unlikely to bother with further attempts unless somebody beats my time. This seems like it would be a fun speed game if not for the final boss battle, which as far as I can tell is random or at least not easily manipulable and so I imagine would be incredibly annoying for anybody trying to seriously optimize a run of this.

Anyway, I guess this is mostly just a proof of concept of the route that I came up with through the game and a free WR for now but maybe it will actually inspire somebody else to take things further. =3

Played on a model 1 US Sega Master System with a US game cartridge and a 6-button Sega Genesis controller (because the Sega Master System control pad was really getting on my nerves for this game during practice sessions.)