I am looking into running the game and trying to route it but it's starting to get pretty tedious and I would like some help. If anyone has already made a route or is also interested in running this game then contact me on discord.

I am making an attempt at routing it but I left my TAS unfinished but I guess my route up to this point is optimized I timed travels between missions and duration necessary to complete them to compare each of them but right after that I haven't figured which NPCs are the fastest to go for, for shure Knuckles is next because of Polastraits mini-game requiering him making me only missing one crystal to fight Metal Sonic I think the Maskass to the left of Knuckles is a good option it's fast and near but I still have my minimap notes of missing NPCs up to this, here's what I came up with :

and the mini maps : https://imgur.com/a/uid8KRj

When done with Knuckles and the crystals to bypass Metal Sonic I believe Sparkleton missions are not worth it since they take forever to finish that's why I got Tails to unlock more of Frostown if needed on another note Amy needs to join the team since she will unlock Big's Spark Luge in Polastraits needed to face Yoshi who is necessary for his mini-game and Birdo in Cubyrinth she also unlock one worthwile mission if you do her mini-game in Frostown as well. After getting 3 more crystals which have yet to be determined we face Dry Bowser and go for Polastraits, immediatly uppon landing there you need to collect the Spark Luge I talked about before deal with Yoshi and find 2 more crystals TBD (on the way maybe), fight King Boo and move toward Cream to get the Fighter's Stick you can now face Blaze & Silver for them to be in your party members, still 2 crystals left TBD (inbtw) once done fighting Eggman-Nega leave for Cubyrinth.

Now I have yet to figure out the rest of the game since I forgot most of it and what happens next, I guess I have to document myself and pick it up again at some point don't know when tho ! Also there is the Completion Ticket that can come handy against few bosses who knows.