For the 12 Hour Speedrun Challenge (http://pastebin.com/1Ew9Rc1d) I wanted to try running this game. NG+ didn't seem too fun to me so I went with NG knowing it would be a massive task, but doable. And getting the 1st ending is indeed very doable. Probably about 6 hours long, maybe less when optimized. But then, after barely managing to beat Peace Walker using up all my supply MKs, things slowed down. A LOT. The more I looked into the requirements for true ending, the less reasonable it got.

Initially I thought it'd be fine to just build ZEKE and find Zadornov 7 times. Then I read somewhere that you need to have your intel at about level 40. Alright, seems doable. When that didn't work, I found out that you need your Support platform to be rank 2... How does one do that? Well FIRST you need to get Command Center to rank 5. That requires you to develop a lot of shit. As you're doing this, Kaz calls you to say that we need more GMP to build the platforms. So off to recruit more Combat soldiers. And it just keeps going and going, the requirements are crazy if you're rushing through the game initially. Thankfully there's a place where you can get a lot of Intel staff and some R&D in Extra Op 17. But getting combat staff seemed pretty difficult, so you'd have to spend a lot of time grinding.

Basically my question is: how would you guys feel about a NG Any% First Ending run. I really doubt anyone would be crazy enough to do a True Ending run (though I would love to see one).

This isn't necessarily about the 12 hour challenge, just in general I think it would be fun to run this game with a natural progression rather than wrecking everything instantly. But chapter 5 alone will take forever and has a ton of randomness to it.

Definitely. Go for it. Run the game in any way that's reasonable and there's a place for it here.

I've finished my 1st run of First Ending. Hoping to improve it soon but won't be able to play for a few days, so just gonna drop this here so people can use it as a reference

Could it be added to the leaderboards?