No that's why the option is there. Everyone runs on Hard though cause Normal runs don't get recorded on the in-game leaderboard

Yeah much like the Sonic Unleashed counterparts of All Day and All Night Stages, you can do them in whatever order you see fit as long as you do them all :)

A lot of it is definitely experience, but depending on what you're having trouble with here's some small tips:

• Trouble getting on the first path without hitting the auto-run trigger? Try to find a visual cue in Sonic's animation after the homing attack to start boosting, I usually boost towards the end of the animation. How long you have to boost for depends on how early/late you start boosting, the later you start boosting the more you'll need to get to the path (too late results in a death of course)

• Trouble avoiding the final trigger that sends you into the ship? I usually stop boosting and hold backwards on the controller a bit before doing the big jump off the path. Not so much that you lose all your speed, but enough to make sure my momentum doesn't send me right into the trigger.

• Trouble landing on the final path? Make sure you're getting all the height out of your jump before double jumping and go all out with boosting. I use the vertical trail of rings in the distance as a visual cue.

• Don't fully understand the mechanics of it? http://www.speedrun.com/Sonic_Colors_Wii/guide/khlea

That's all I got tbh, it's one of those skips you have to get a good feel for and that's been a decently big reset point for a lot of runners. Only worth resetting over if you die though, optimal ship only takes like 20s.

Leaderboards for All Classis Stages and All Modern Stages have been approved. There's no distinction between skills/no skills for the time being, though that might change if needed.

Sorry for the (super) late anwser, but PC refers only to the actual PC version. Emulator is not allowed on either due to inaccuracies.

If there's existing runs and runners it would really help your pitch to name/link those y'know. Do so in the generations forums though, I think this thread is pretty much sorted now.

Forwarded the thread to the Sonic mod group, sorry for the delay. For more details on why this needs to be forwarded in the first place, see my post on your other thread.

As for Owen's suggestion, we already have http://www.soniccenter.org/ for that

Sonic Speedrunning Discord is the place to be https://discord.gg/XRsRwRU

I'm not a global Sonic mod or a mod of Generations specifically (just other 3d sonics), but yeah you need a proper anwser so I popped both this thread and the original thread in the Sonic moderation group as they seemed to have missed it/forgot about it. I also reminded Frokenok that he does in fact have a say in this too lol

As a heads up for the anwser though, this is how the Sonic mods tend to add leaderboards for non-standard categories (i.e. anything that isn't any% / in-game's definition of 100% / reach credits in x story): People are interested in a category -> people actually run the category -> people pitch the category to the mods -> if the category makes enough sense and there's enough interest, it gets added.

The more people running and the higher the quality of the runs, the more likely it'll get leaderboards. Thought process behind this is that we don't want to add empty leaderboards and that we don't want a big mess of several arbitrary categories that have like 1 or 2 poor runs on it just cause some guy wanted a world record. Remember, you can run something without it having a leaderboard, the leaderboard comes into exisiting once there's stuff worth tracking.

Gameboy Player is one of the main ways to play and record this on official hardware yes so go for it :) Most of the current runners either play on Gameboy Player, Wii U Virtual console or Nintendo DS

Then do it :3

Gonna go with no for now. Allowing any kind of modifications to the game is a slippery slope, even if they seem purely graphical

All Stories and All A Ranks (the "100%" category) have been "run" by a few people during specials and/or races, but for the time being we've decided against adding them as none of these were done with any notable amount of effort put in. If serious competition ever becomes a thing for these categories then they might be worth adding, but as it stands they would just be wasted space.

Personally I'm not holding my breath for anyone to run these seriously as most people cannot and do not care to run every story (and their extra missions), let alone at the same time, but who knows someone might take on this masochistic task :^)

Edited my first post to adjust donation goals and give estimates

The schedule still lists me as running Sonic Heroes on PC, but I'm running the Gamecube version.

Sonic Heroes: Last Story - Shows off the final story of the game, which is the final boss. Donation goal - Low / Medium range since it's early in the marathon. Time - 5 to 10 minutes

Dustforce DX: Custom map showcase - The game has a very active map making community so I want to show off some of the more creative maps. As of the DX update there is a community map pack intergrated into the game that I'll be picking from so it requires no set up whatsoever. Donation goal - Low / Medium range; It's later in the marathon, but it's not that popular of a game. Time - 5 to 10 minutes depending on how well the main run goes.

The time these donation incentives take are already integrated into the estimate of the run itself.

I recall reading that donation incentives are to be included in the estimates, which is why mine are as high as they are.

Sonic Heroes: The average run takes about 1:05 Real Time (the times on Speedrun.com are Game Time), because mistakes in this game can be very expensive. The Last Story donation incentive takes about 5-10 minutes, so taking safety into consideration I rounded it up to 1:15. Also the game is listed on the schedule as a PC game, but I am running the Gamecube version.

Dustforce DX: This game is very difficult by nature and timeloss tends to snowball pretty hard. I am however confident I can get under 50 minutes in a marathon environment. The remaining 5 minutes of the estimate were added for a Custom Map Showcase donation incentive.

Already talked a bit about this with Planks on twitter but for my own run I'm bringing my PAL Wii. I have it modded and set to NTSC which I'll be playing on. I'm also bringing an all-in-1 cable for my Wii so I have the option of Component, Composite and S-video (I'll also be lending this cable to my fellow Sonic runner Flying Fox for her run)

I am not able to bring my own PC

I mentioned this in the first round of cuts topic, but might as well post it here as well to make sure. The Sonic Heroes estimate can be lowered to 1:15. Dustforce DX is fine where it's at.

I'll be arriving on the 28th itself, so if at all possible I'd like my runs on any day but the first. If not, I'll just have to deal with it >w<

Paid through paypal, hopefully I got the amount right >_< the fees can be surprisingly confusing