I'm moving to a new Twitch account as I no longer want to keep my current username and alias. As such I would like to request a name change to TheLonePolar (to match my new Twitch account). Thanks in advance.

I believe there's a slight issue with the Instawin code affecting Sky Balls Gem. It looks like this Gem can never use the force win function otherwise Player 4 will win (Rilla when playing as Tiny, Dingodile when playing as Kong). When you use force victory on the other 3 Ballistix immediately, Player 2 should be the one to win (either a scientist or bandicoot) but on Sky Balls it is always Player 4. I have tested this on emulator and witnessed it first on nattyone's stream, where the example can be found here: . I've waited for Player 4 (Rilla for me) to have less balls left than a CPU and forced victory, but Rilla still won despite losing to either Brio or Kong on goals. On Natty's stream perspective, Rilla gets knocked all the way down to 5 goals left when he has 7, Cortex has 7 and Kong is on 1. He forced victory and then Rilla wins despite being 2 goals down to both Natty and Cortex. I don't know if this issue is just when playing with Tiny or any character but it means that Sky Balls Gem has to be ruled out for the run if this issue is confirmed with all characters and all runners. I want to make people aware of this so they don't lose runs to Sky Balls because of this issue. I believe this is now making the gems completely set in stone with what is possible for Any% so Polar Panic will have to be done before any MM takes place.

It's probably not my place to say anything, as I've never ran this game (nor do I really intend to), but this looks like a mountain out of a mole hill to me. At the end of the day, Bash is a poorly programmed game that has next to nothing fast in NMM outside of Polar, Tank, Dash and Bash mini-games. All the Ballistix mini-games are painfully slow, the Pogo and Medieval mini-games are boring auto-scroll levels (aside from the gems) and the game just isn't fast for a speedrun. MM takes away a lot of the slowness (turning Pogo, Ring Ding and Dash levels into 35 second rounds) and chops off around an hour of the game. MM is removing a lot of the RNG and brutal CPU and turning the game into a speedgame. However, MM is removing a heck of lot of game/gameplay so technically you aren't "playing" the game, but you still need skill where you play mini-games (Pogo challenges become difficult, as do things like Toxic Dash Gem), the run is faster and more challenging in certain aspects, meaning mistakes in Polar, Pogo and Dash games are costly to the run (though lose less than failing Trophy rounds of Pogo in NMM). The only reason I have for arguing against the MM taking priority is that only NTSC-U can exploit this, but hardly anyone runs on PAL and J so that is a rather weak argument. I actually would like to see what 200% would look like and its length when using MM, and I think the game looks more entertaining when being glitched that much anyway, Melt Panic is a good example of that. Ultimately though Bash is just a silly meme game people run that is neither fast nor fun, and does it really matter whether NMM has priority when you consider the mediocrity of the game itself?

I've finally got around to posting this thread but about a week or 2 ago I thought about the idea of a new category, one that uses a radically different and unique route compared to the pre-existing categories. It would use the Cannons in World 3 and World 6, and would be longer than Any%, but shorter than Cannonless. The idea behind it is to encourage more people to pick up the game, as Any% can be pretty unforgiving due to how short the category is and how quickly runs can die. It will serve as an in-between category, serving as the middle ground of Any% and Cannonless.

I would hope for it to be a way to help people practice and prepare for Cannonless if they had considered doing it, but were put off by the length of going through all 8 Worlds. It would also be more forgiving than Any% as a speedrun, giving the player more levels and time to catch up to their PBs and whatnot. As for the actual rules behind it, all overworld shortcuts are allowed, but the player HAS to use the Cannons in World 3 and World 6, and no others. This would make the route something like W1>W2>W3>W6>W8. I was thinking of a name for the category and struggled to come up with anything fitting for it, so I settled for Any% (5 Worlds) since you are visiting 5 Worlds, but by skipping 3 Worlds and many levels it makes it an Any% style speedrun.

As a speedrun category, it would be significantly more enjoyable for those who dislike Cannonless, since it skips W4, W5 and W7, all of which have some pretty long, slow and boring levels. I for one would love to run something like this, and I know a few others who are interested in this category, but I wish for it to be made public and have its own leaderboard on here before trying runs out of it. I hope you guys consider this as a major category (it would certainly have more appeal than 100% does) and take time to decide whether this category would be viable or good enough for the community here. I look forward to hearing what you say.