I've been talking to the Gotcha force Discord communities and after the help from Glass_Knuckle in order to create a code to quickly beat levels, I've found the most optimized route. This removes a few levels mentioned in the current route on the speedrun.com page, so it may be worth updating:

Note: A "chapter" is defined by the splash screen that plays with the triumphant music

CHAPTER 1

-Do all levels EXCEPT for "Defeat the flying death force" & "Training with Kakeru & Mana" (Those appear after defeating both "Death the Death Force unit!" levels at the top left of the map

-Do not fight Sho

The Flame Dragon boss level activates after doing all other levels. -Beat the Flame Dragon mission

CHAPTER 2

-Defeat the death force bodyguards (left of the map) -Select the same level that appears over it and instantly quit out (Fighting Orochi)

-Beat all missions that appear all over town

-Once new missions appear, beat all missions EXCEPT for the "Defeat the Death Force unit!" that appears on the same spot after beating the "Watch out! Demon Samurai" level and also do not beat the "Defeat the Death Force unit!" that appears on the same spot after beating the training with Kakeru & Usagi (Only appears if you do that level early)

-After that, defeat Orochi and then defeat the Dark Knight level that appears on the same spot after

CHAPTER 3

-Do all missions EXCEPT the two "Defeat the Death Force unit!" missions in the top left of the map (Little Hill & Serenity Street)

-You have to do the bottom "Defeat the Death Force unit!" mission when it appears as it reveals the Usagi ICBM tank level

-Once finishing Kotaro's Crash Course part 3, the next phase will be enabled. the Sho vs Orochi phase

-Beat Orochi & Tama, but instantly quit out the battle of battling Sho & Yuji

-Quit out of Sho & Yugi's battle again

-Do all missions that are in black or orange on the world map

-Do the showdown with the hero borgs

-Once you get the first death crystal, do the mission with Kakeru

-Co-operate with Sho to defeat Orochi again

-Beat Dragon's Den (top), Cockroach Parade (Mana), Knight Borg unit, Tank Borg unit, Death Force special unit (red level)

-Beat the Tsutomu level that appears after beating the Death Force special unit level

-Fight Sho and win

-Fight the deadly UFOs at the top of the map

-Beat the level that appears on the same spot "The Decisive Battle! Defeat the Cosmic Dragon!"

CHAPTER 4

-Beat all missions that appear all over town

-Beat all missions that don't have a partner associated with them EXCEPT FOR Showdown Hero Borgs, the 2nd Defeat the Machine Borgs in the Safaritown Market Place (The non-dark/shadow one) and defeat the death force. Those three levels are optional

-Beat the Cyber Death Dragon when it appears at the top of the map

CHAPTER 5

-Beat the Galactic Emperor

-Win

Saves a couple of minutes compared to the previous route mentioned and used on the Speedrun.com page. Extensive testing has been done to ensure every mission mentioned is mandatory

Recently beat my 5th run of Gotcha Force, going straight onto my 6th when I noticed something interesting. I was basically soft-locked out of the first level due to it ending in a loss as soon as the first level had begun:

(Ignore the texture changes. I have done zero modding and simply used Dolphin's built-in texture editing which I had used for 3 runs in a row now)

A few interesting points: -My GF energy was at 0 as seen with no green bar at the start of the fight -One of the Beta Death Borg units had a massive red shadow over it in the fight preview screen, unlike the others whereas usually, they all have a small shadow -Kou has a victory pose despite losing and saying a losing line -Closing the stats do not make you go back to the board. You are stuck until the timer that automatically brings you back finishes. -You do not win the fight

This softlocked my game as I could not beat the first mission.

Attempted fixes: -I tried not saving and restarting my emulator, which did not fix it. It was a true overwritten softlock. -I tried editing my forces before going in to only have G red/Neo-G red and also no forces, this made no difference -I tried beating a Special level from a previous run (including the tutorial level) and then going back, making no difference -I beat the Galactic emperor on Special mode, did not fix the issue

One thing I kept noticing was one of the Death Borg Beta's having a larger red shadow in the fight preview than the others. I checked, it's not supposed to have this. I thought it would have been the shadow used for the galactic emperor, but that uses a small one. I had beaten the galactic emperor and had gone straight onto run 6 so I thought that may have been it. Although, I noticed I have the same shadow but in green for my forces. The big red one looked like something you would use in Versus.

The Solution: -Boot versus, 1v1 with a CPU, Default settings, and picked any force, I set them to a custom force which was nothing but Death Force for fun. I went on the exact same level as the one the tutorial is in (Little Hill) and beat them. After going back into my save, it was fixed.

Although this does not have any benefit for speedrunning, I'm quite curious as to what could have caused this. I simply beat the normal levels, beat back the cyber dragon, and then beat the galactic emperor. I beat half the game in one sitting without touching other parts of the game I went straight back to playthrough 6 on "Continue". I can't tell if this is an emulator glitch or not, as it persisted after reloading the emulator and with and without saving. The only fix was to play a Versus match first. If I could reactivate this bug and make it so the enemy has 0 GF energy, that would be game-breaking for speedrunners

With Deep Dives being such a core part of the endgame, it would be nice to be able to speedrun a deep dive/elite deep dive category. Separated into mission time and real time just like the other categories. For the real time, pausing the timer as to prevent any advantages with a good PC and continuing as soon as you regain control of your dwarf. I think it could make for a really interesting category

I've noticed emulators aren't allowed for runs of this game, and I'm not sure why. I know for RTA runs an emulator can reduce crashes when performing the 20th Force Glitch, but I was hoping to do some Glitchless runs of the game. I was hoping to start speedrunning my favourite game but am unable to have them uploaded. Could someone enlighten me as to why emulator is banned? Is there some other technicalities I'm unaware of that emulator has an advantage over?