Thanks to a program shared to us by one of our community members (shoutouts to daft7), we're now able to consistently time runs without loads, thus evening up the playing field between the OG Xbox, the Xbox One, and the Series X/S!

The program to do so can be found here: https://github.com/nickbrick/SpeedrunLoadRemover

At the moment, if you would like times submitted loadlessly, you will need to either upload vods on Youtube (so I or another mod can download it and mark down the loadless time) or take your own recording and time it yourself (if so, include a link to the picture in your submission). If you're not able to do either, feel free to have your time with loads marked as a loadless time; some time soon I'll try to figure out how to download vods from whatever source.

For the time being, all current PBs have been converted to loadless times (where possible); obsolete runs would be a lot of effort that might not be worth it in my opinion.

I think the question was already answered on the discord, but just in case anyone comes by and wants to know for themselves, you should be good with a 3rd party XB1 controller just as you would be if you played on the original XBox!

I've wanted to speedrun this for a long time, to the point of routing it a bunch while the semester was still going

Got tips for someone starting out?~

Okay, so records will be kept using in-game time from now on. I've edited the existing times in the IL leaderboards to reflect this.

For anyone who wishes to submit, the only proof we need is a screenshot/photo of both the time and the stage name (though we def prefer video footage~)

Currently discussing w Blinx 2 dudes to make it consistent across both games, will get back to you once we figure that out (right now I think it's leaning more towards in-game time)

I don't think we're limiting any emulators, so whichever one you wanna use should be fine. Just note that I don't think that the Platinum Hits version of the game can be emulated right now, and since the PH version was never released in Europe it might be a bit more difficult to get your hands on it

Hello~

In general the things that help a ton in running this game:

-There's two different versions of the game that exist: the black label version and the platinum hits version. Platinum Hits makes most monsters a lot easier to take out by reducing the number of hits a lot of them need (in levels 4-7) so the PH version is generally the most recommended (the game is still very possible in the original game, and if you don't have/cant get the PH version there's still a lot of value in learning the black label version, esp since I'm p confident that it's possible to at least get second place in any% with it

-Controllers are important! A lot of the harder jumps in the game are much easier done with a 3rd party controller due to a weird quirk that lets you run a lil faster w them. It's still possible to run the game w.o it but would require more practice with more precise jumps if you're going with that (jumps @ 2-3 and 3-3 for example)

-Crystal and gold management are probably some of the most important things; when routing, figure out how much gold you need for each level and when you'd make trips to the shop, since those take up time as well

-FF helps take a free hit from enemies/hazards, so doing it on reaction can be a live saver in a pinch

-Super bombs are super incredible and make some really tough levels (8-3 especially) a lot easier and more fun, so practice aim w that ( the levels off the top of my head that are best w super bombs are 5-2, 8-3, and personally, 6-2). Check out Commander_Ducky's run especially for figuring out where/when to shoot the bombs on 5-2 and 8-3

-The level 5 boss and level 8 boss are way easier with rewinds b.c rewinds get rid of the little junk balls

That's everything that comes to mind immediately, if you have any more question feel free to ask here or on the discord! And sorry about responding so late w. this~

Since there aren't any rules about it, what's the policy about submitting non-WR runs without video to the boards? Right now my recording setup is out of order and the parts to repair it haven't come in yet, so I was wondering if I got a new PB while practicing, would the run be accepted? WR runs I'd imagine would have to be recorded, so that's not really a concern on my mind.

No problem, it's something that's never really been brought up, so there's never really been a need for any sort of clarification. It can be changed too if others think it would lead to more accurate times

Hmm

The only situation in which those 3 seconds would really affect the game is if you shot a bomb at the Chronohorn and you were in its blast radius. Seeing as the hit on the Chronohorn is the last action necessary to complete the game, and because it's much easier to stop the timer after getting the last hit over the true last moment of the game, I personally think it would be fine to keep it as it is. In those few, probably very rare situations that bombs are used at the end and the timer is stopped before the player recognizes, I think it'd be fine to keep the run but adjust the final time afterwards to be accurate after the misclick.

If I recall correctly, I remember reading somewhere that Blinx 2 was fully compatible with the 360

IIRC, S+ is only determined by the time it takes to get to the end, so especially in speedrunning, I tend to get a lot of S+ ranks just through optimizing.

As for the grind, I think that the best place to do it is Kerogon 2, since it gives you the pauses you need and generally takes about 1 minute 30 seconds per playthrough for ~1100 G. On the flipside though, you would need to fight the guy for at least an hour and a half to get the money you need, so it still ends up taking a long time.

Discord Server: https://discordapp.com/invite/e3jPvqY

I should be on often since I frequently check Discord for Smash things and it's no trouble for me to pop into this server

So I've noticed that there hasn't been any other times besides mine being uploaded to the site, and though I enjoy saying "I got world record!" every time I PB, it's a little uninteresting with competition, so I'm interested in seeing some feedback on a couple ideas.

1. Allow any run with any time be submitted so long as either the splits or a video are uploaded. If the splits are WR worthy, then I'll look them over to make sure they're legit, but otherwise, everything should be fine.

2. Create a new category and separate the Platinum Hits version (normal any%) from the original game (Original any%, maybe?) or something of the nature to make the game more accessible to PAL players or those who can't easily gain access to a Platinum Hits copy of the game.

The first idea is mostly something I'm throwing out so people know that you don't need to record anything to submit a time, the second idea is mostly what I wanna know people's opinions about.

So now that I've gotten sub-1:50, I'm gonna take a short break from Blinx in favor of learning Blinx 2 (now that I have that with me). Before I do that though, I'm going to try to write a guide for the game so that it's easier for anyone to get into speedrunning the game. I'm going to go over every major level in detail, as well as talk about every smaller level a little, but since I've never written a guide, I don't know what I should focus on or what people want out of the guide.

So... what do you want? I'm already going to have sections involving gold management, time control management, tricks, and levels, but is there anything in specific that people might want me to go over?

http://www.speedrun.com/blinx2

Shoutouts to Gyro for getting an initial run in for Blinx 2!

Any% is playing through game normally, Unlocked% is where you play through all the levels in order after having completed the game, and All Medals is collecting every medal in the single player campaign! (co-op medals not required)

K, after a bit more testing in Round 1-1, here is the average time:

Only walking: ~45 seconds Only running: ~33 seconds Random combination (how I've played normally): ~39 seconds

So assuming that, every stage not in Everwinter can realistically be cut down by an average of ~3/4ths of it's normal time by optimizing this in a way so that you move the camera in a way that makes diagonal straight.

So after a couple of failed runs of the game tonight, I went to find some ways I can save time. To my surprise, I found out that there is a distinct speed difference depending on if the control stick is diagonal or not (diagonal being much faster).

So this has the potential to save a ton of time because it consistently works in every level except Everwinter (I think, b/c ice physics) and, just by eyeing it, it seems like he increases about 1.5x in speed. Could someone who is looking to run Blinx 2 see if this faster running is in that game as well?

Here's a compilation of things that save time in a speedrun. If you have your own that you know of and I didn't cover, go ahead and post below!

-Trash Jumping (I dunno, it's easier to give it a name because of how much it's used): Using pieces of trash to jump to ledges you can't normally reach (examples: Time Square 2, Forgotten City 1, Deja Vu Canals 3 Backup Strat)

-FF Cancel & FF Invincibility Abuse: Intentionally damaging yourself at any time during a Fast Forward to either prevent the time control from ending (ex. Hourglass Caves 1) or to use the invincibility frames gotten from it to pass an area more quickly (ex. Forge of Hours 1 & 3)

-Start Gate Jump: Using the high jump from the start of a level to reach an otherwise inaccessible part of the area (ex. Deja Vu Canals 3, Forge of Hours 3)

-Long-range Bombing: Using bombs or super bombs to take out enemies from far away, usually because that part of the stage was skipped (ex. Deja Vu Canals 3, Forgotten City 1, Forge of Hours 3, maybe Temple of Lost Time 2 if I can experiment a bit more with it)

-Trash Stacking: This explains it better than I could: Most high ledges only need one tall piece of small trash, but it's helpful in Forgotten City 1

-Wall Clipping: Using a piece of trash (usually a furnace or something else that takes up a weird amount of space) to push yourself through a wall (ex. Hourglass Caves 3). In order to push yourself through a wall, you need to be in a place where the game can't move you anywhere else, so generally something like a corner. I've yet to do this in a run, though I'm working on getting the clip consistent in HC3 so that I can skip the whole record sequence and save a good amount of time there. WARNING: The game treats all out of bounds areas as an endless pit, which means that, if any clips are done incorrectly, Blinx will lose one of his retries and waste about 5-10 seconds recovering.

-After you pay for something, it saves a few frames to hit B and skip to the exit button rather than scrolling down to it, just because skipping to the exit is faster than the normal scroll speed.

And there's one last thing I found in Deja Vu Canals 3 (lots of stuff going on in that level, it seems). If you fall from the ledge with the two yellow Chrono Blobs into the top of the door below, you can go behind it and skip needing to press 2 buttons. However, it's impractical in a full game run because you skip a Spiker and two Octoballoons and you would need to buy extra bombs in the Deja Vu store. It can be done, but with how important money is early on in order to get the Sweeper to hold 10 pieces of trash. I'd imagine it's very good in IL runs though when you can get a super bomb to take care of those enemies pretty easily.

Just curious, what's the difference between NG+ and normal? I didn't even know there was a NG+