This run had no StatID during verification. HQ is fine.

Special thanks and no thanks to MURPHAGATOR for sending me this... thing in the hallowed Poverty Exchange. It started out pretty awful, but turned out to not be too bad in the end. I clocked this run in at 25:46 RTA timing, so it should be 4-5 seconds faster by SDA timing. The run is completed on Easy difficulty, since all of the other difficulties have ridiculous enemy placement and it's just not fun to run when you constantly have 2-3 pterosaurs chasing you.

There are very few technical tricks in this run. Doing well comes down to good routing and some very necessary contingency plans. Plenty of stuff can go wrong, and the best routes rely on some fairly precise movements. The general stage strategies change depending on whether or not there is a boss. Thus for stages 1-4, it's a rush to the finish. Stages 5-10 I need to adjust the route to pick up at least 4 flame powerups so I can kill the boss in a reasonable amount of time. Against most bosses it's the difference of entire minutes, so it's well worth it.

Stage Summaries:
Stage 1: Very straightforward. There are a couple of places that can make the difference of a couple tenths of a second, such as jumping over the large dino head at the end, but it's very inconsistent.

Stage 2: There are a bunch of shortcuts here that speed things up significantly. This is one of the few stages where I try to manage how many roar powerups I get, since I need exactly 3 to kill a frog towards the end of the level. Any more and it takes longer, any less and it won't do enough damage. I can damage boost on the frog and skip roaring completely, but it's actually very difficult to position it so you don't land on the instant-kill spikes on either side, so I opt for the roar at the cost of a couple tenths of a second.

Stage 3: A lot of subtle boosts and bounces in this stage that can make a big difference. A lot of runs also end here due to the random movements of the amoeba enemies or me just missing a bounce. There's a trick that can be done with the tubes that allows you to jump out of them without losing momentum but it requires entering them while in a standing animation and has only a 2-frame window. It would save about 1.5 seconds, but meeting both conditions is pretty tough.

Stage 4: You climb the bones. The wind always occurs at set time intervals, but it comes at a place that is somewhat unhelpful. It also makes it so that there's very little time variation to the stage, since it helps me if I'm behind and hurts a little if I'm ahead. In any case, this is the last of the "race to the finish" stages.

Stage 5: Ugh. The first boss stage, and also a really messy stage to traverse. The anemone plants are instant kill and will only *sometimes* fall back if you bubble them, so this stage as a whole is a major run killer. As far as specific tricks go, it is possible to skip all makeout fish in this level, but the one towards the end above the anemone is very difficult to dodge and I've only done it a handful of times. The boss gave me a worse-than-average pattern and spent a good chunk of time invincible, so overall this stage is a little weak. Not enough to kill the run though.

Stage 6: From here on, we revisit each of the locales in reverse order! Yay. So that means more death anemones and makeout fish. I need to manage my roar power so that I have 4 or 5 roar by the time I get to the boss. There are some minor shortcuts, but most of this stage just comes down to remembering where you are and getting the timing right to avoid the anemones. I forget where I'm going at one point, but it doesn't cost more than a second or two. I'm fairly proud of my strategy for the boss; it's somewhat consistent, looks awesome, and is the fastest way to leave the level as well. Overall a good stage.

Stage 7: This stage goes much higher again, but I don't need to pick up flame powerups since they won't help me on the boss. The left path at the beginning is faster overall, but both of them even out due to the wind effects. Using a roar to kill the bone guy and the bird is time-consuming, but helps out since the skeleton will bounce around on the exact places I need to jump and tend to knock me off. At the very top, I wait for a short while because it is not possible to make that jump while the wind is blowing. To get to that point before the wind blows would take some great luck and a very smooth earlier part of the stage. I knew it wasn't good enough, so I just waited it out. The boss here takes 1 damage for every frame a bone is connecting with his head. The number and frequency of gold bone spawns is completely random; thus this boss is often a run killer. Ideally he would be one-cycled, but I've only ever done it once. I reset if it goes to the third cycle.

Stage 8: Much longer and far more dangerous than its earlier equivalent. This is the one stage I opt to get only 3 flame powerups, as the two other powerups in the stage are 25+ seconds out of the way for only 15 seconds saved. There's also huge variation on this stage depending on whether or not I hit the bubble elevators or not. I hit one in the middle, but am forced to wait later on, which costs quite a bit of time. I had a chance to still make the other elevator quickly, but the tubes have a bit of gravity at the entrance and it messed up my jumping ability. The rest of the stage goes reasonably, although I had to wait an extra cycle in the "bubble pit". The boss fight was somewhat poor. Overall, this stage turned out about average.

Stage 9: Very dangerous. There's a particular route I need to take and a lot of blind jumps to make, along with several flames that I don't get second chances at. No mishaps through the first section other than taking a few more hits than necessary. The other critical part to this stage are some deceivingly tight jumps in the later half, with the downard slopes at the ends of the platforms. If I step a bit too far, Rex goes into his sliding animation and your jump inputs will likely get eaten and you will fall off and waste a bunch of time. In the final vine part it's possible to set it up so you grab the vines lower, but I didn't want to risk it since missing is instant death. My boss strategy here is pretty consistent, although I missed out on an initial hit that would have sped things up slightly. The spawn patterns are predetermined, so I can always get that initial roar off to do some big damage.

Stage 10: The stage itself isn't bad, but the flames are in odd places and it's easy to forget the right place to stop to pick them up. Also, the pterosaurs wreak havoc on most sections of this stage, so some parts can be harder than they should be. The blind jumps in the middle of the stage aren't as bad as they seem, but occasionally that pterosaur can ruin everything. Some minor losses throughout the stage from unoptimized movement, but it only accounts for a couple seconds overall. The boss gave me a fairly good pattern, although it's a little dangerous since I take a lot of damage.

There you have it. Still not a perfect run, but I made it through the most important parts reasonably well. With this route another 30-45 seconds can be saved, but that requires hitting every trick and perfect luck throughout. It's possible, but would take a very long time to pull off, and I'm not really sure this game deserves it. The biggest points to save time are hitting the elevators right in Stage 8 and getting to the Stage 7 boss before the second wind. As far as new stuff to look into, there's the possibility of rerouting some of the stages or some secret flame powerups that I don't know about, but otherwise I don't see how much more can be done.

This run has come a long way, and I'm happy with where ended up. I don't plan on revisiting it without the discovery of some major new tricks or glitches, but there's always that possibility. Until then, this game is going in a box.

~Omnigamer