Unless I'm mistaken, I believe this is the first sonic speed run ever on SDA! I know people have wanted one for some time now, so I finally decided to submit my run.

I did this run using my Game boy Advance SP, which was connected to my Nintendo Gamecube (GBP). I use the SP because I feel it's easier to Air dash, which is very useful in this run. I use it to change from ball form to running form without losing speed, and to gain speed (Neo Green Hill is a good example of this).

The run is single segment, done on the Normal Difficulty. Although anyone can watch it, I highly recommend you play the game first. A lot of people complained about how slow this game was, and it is, but I think you'll be in for a surprise to see how fast Sonic can really go!

You may have noticed that I start different levels at different times. This is because of all of the moving objects in a level. I find a good time to start the level, so that when I reach point A in X amount of time, the objects will be in a location that is to my advantage, or make my job easier. It was a pain in the butt to find a good time to start for the casino levels though.

You probably have other questions about the run such as why I took a hit here, or waited there, or sucked ass at the final boss. All of your answers can (hopefully) be found below in my level by level analysis of my run.

Enjoy!

Neo Green Hill Zone - Act 1
Time: 0:26:23
Comments: I ran through without any major problems, so that's good. The one thing I have against this portion of the run is how slow my beginning was. By using Air dash at the right moments, Sonic can travel extremely fast through the opening of this level! I didn't really manage to do that. Since this is the first level, I used to just restart the run over and over if I didn't get the beginning right, but it just got very annoying so I stopped. At least I got a huge time bonus :)

Neo Green Hill Zone - Act 2
Time: 0:46:97
Comments: Again, a nice run through the level. You may have noticed that I wait 1/2 a second 13 seconds into the run, this is to avoid running into the timed spikes that move in and out of the ground up ahead (you probably figured this anyway...). It's kind of cool how it looks like I'm going to run into them, but I don't! I had a good boss fight too. My only complaint is that I didn't Air dash into the second loop around 21 seconds. This can make sonic zoom through the next part of the level MUCH faster (similar to act 1's intro) and he can even go off-screen! It looks impressive, but doesn't save a lot of time and is hard to pull off (I'd attempt the trick at times, and Sonic would land at a strange angle on the curve of the loop, coming to a complete halt and just totally ruining the effect). Since this is single segment though, I guess it's not the end of the world.

Secret Base Zone - Act 1
Time: 0:41:62
Comments: This level is pretty easy to get through for the most part. I made a small dumb mistake though around 17 seconds but oh well...life goes on. SBZ1 is the only level where I actually find a use for Sonic's screwball attack (It seriously reminds me of Samus'). By pressing B twice, Sonic comes to a complete halt, but if you push A, he does a back flip/screwball sort of thing that sends him in the other direction. It prevents me from falling down and having to take the long intended route through the zipper line system (or whatever they call those crazy things nowadays).

Secret Base Zone - Act 2
Time: 1:13:67
Comments: No complains here! I got through the level without any tiny slips (just very very tiny ones that nobody cares about in Single Segment runs!) and had a good boss fight! I think at the time I did this run, I actually beat my personal record! I could be wrong though...

Casino Paradise Zone - Act 1
Time: 0:38:07
Comments: Ack, the dreaded Casino levels. Timed objects are everywhere in this level so normally, the player doesn't know what to expect. I have developed a route that allows me to pass through most of the obstacles with ease, but the problem is that if I make a mistake, then I'm more or less screwed since I have no idea where the timed objects may be (bumpers, enemies, spikes, etc). What would normally be a 1-2 second slip for most levels is actually more like a 15 - 20 second loss just trying to get through the newly placed obstacles. It'd be almost like going through a new level each time! Thankfully, I made it through the level without any slips, so I was fine! I even got my neat little trick at the beginning to work! So overall, a good run, though I forgot to Air dash off the top of the hill at the end.

Casino Paradise Zone - Act 2
Time: 0:59:87
Comments: This level worries me a bit more then Act 1 because I haven't found a good way to get through the spinning platform area yet. Even though I got sidetracked a bit with the pinball flipper, I still made my way through alive, and rather quickly, so I'm fine with that. The very beginning also worries me. I have to do execute the route ASAP so that I can cross the gap at 4 seconds safely. The bumpers underneath the gap move up and down (and were moving up at the time) so it was a close call really. Had I hit the bumper, I would have lost my speed, and it wouldn't have looked very cool...but anyway. I messed up a bit at the red spring around 21 seconds; I just couldn't get on the damn thing! As for the boss fight, I've had better fights, but the fight is based on luck since he can pop out of any tube he wants. I've got patterns figured out though so I know what to do when he pops out of tube A or B or C. I'm sorry if it's irritating, but pausing really helps when fighting the boss. This is also my first hit in the game, but I get hit plenty of times later on, so it doesn't really matter. Besides, I got sub one minute!

Ice Mountain Zone - Act 1
Time: 0:53:83
Comments: IMZ1 is a tricky level because there are tons of little shortcuts that can be used to shave time, but are rather hard to pull off. The beginning route I take isn't really the fastest. It's just extremely hard and annoying as hell to pull off this 3 second time saver at the beginning though, so I just took the normal route. The speed shoes definitely help underwater, as I'm able to traverse it much faster. I messed up around 24 seconds, when coming down the slope and into the water. This part usually worries me anyway. Basically, I was supposed to hold back a bit, so that when I reached the bottom floor of the water, I'd hit the spring sticking out of the wall, not land on top of the spring and get hit by an enemy waiting in ambush. I guess I got a bit too nervous though and held back too much, causing me to completely stop. Ah well, I got through the rest of the level fine. There is one shortcut at the end that saves about a second, but it's very risky at the cost of a life, so I figured I'd play it safe.

Ice Mountain Zone - Act 2
Time: 1:31:35
Comments: Ok, so this is where my run starts turning from great, to ok. I didn't do a good spin dash at the beginning, so I had to do the little flip to make me stop, then spin dashed off of that. The rest of the run through the level was good, but not great. I messed up around the 13 - 18 second part a bit. It's too complicated and long to explain the whole thing, but I basically wasn't sure when I should spin dash through the shield (timed objects). I got through though. Now for the boss himself...ugh...I hate this boss. My 2nd least favorite boss in the game. Who's the first, you'll find out later! Anyway, what's annoying about this guy is that you never know where his icicles are going to fall down from. What's worse is that he might end up going away from the icicles he sent down, and unless I can manage a super spin dash jump fast enough to reach the other side, I won't be able to hit him. Actually, I got a good setup, but due to nervousness, I made some really dumb mistakes, like accidentally falling off the icicles...At least I made it through alive.

Angel Island Zone - Act 1
Time: 1:17:10
Comments: Well, I made a few dumb mistakes here, the first being around 9 seconds where I didn't roll under the enemy fast enough. Immediately following this mistake is another one around 13 seconds. I wanted to jump over the ramp and aim sonic to the right, landing him into the next passage. Instead, I accidentally jumped at a low angle and ended up hitting the edge of the ramp, sending me flying into a giant spike ball and landing into a pit of spikes. I got out just in the nick of time though. Except for a bad beginning, the rest of the run was pretty good.

Angel Island Zone - Act 2
Time: 1:32:12
Comments: Not much to comment about here. The hit around 16 seconds was intentional (obviously) as it allowed me to skip a small portion of the level (just a slightly longer way of getting up to where I went). I made a small mistake at 52 seconds. I wanted to jump straight up onto the platform and just spin dash right off of it (looks really cool) but I jumped a bit too late.... The boss fight went well, though I did take a hit. Also, I don't know why, but the capsule seems to come down later then the rest of the capsules...

Egg Rocket
Time: 0:10.83 + 0:56.48 + 0:57.83 + 1:08.77
Comments: This is it. The one level that really scares the crap out of me. Not because it's long, but because of the shortcut. There's a HUGE shortcut right at the beginning that shaves about...30 seconds! It's really hard to pull off, and you only get one shot. Unfortunately, I jumped too late and didn't make it so I had to take the longer way. If I ever do a future run of this game, I'll be sure to practice up on this shortcut so I can nail it. The run wasn't a totally failure though. In fact, besides the shortcut, and a few small slips, the run was a lot better then I thought it'd be.

Cosmic Angel
Time: 1:32:28
Comments: This is where my run starts turning from ok into crap. I managed to get through the level fine (except when I got hit by the spike of course). The boss...well...I just hate this boss. He can be fairly easy, supposing you don't slip up. He moves back and forth on the set track, and you can only get him once on each trip (a trip is just going either way). You have to wait for him to start going in the next direction before you can turn him upside down and hit him. As you can see, I goofed up pretty badly with the boss...but I made it through. This is only the beginning of my really bad boss fights (thank God that it's near the end of my run).

X-Zone
Time: 1:31:48
Comments: Ok, so the first two bosses, I didn't have a problem with. I kind of took my time with the second one though, because I didn't want to make any dumb mistakes. My problem is with the third and final boss in X-Zone. THIS is my least favorite boss. He's easy to beat when, but only if you don't care that you beat the level in 2+ minutes. The problem with this guy is that he never does what you want him to do. You can get all 8 hits on him in a row, but he needs to use his claw attack. The claw attack is the only attack that makes Eggman vulnerable to your attacks for a long period of time. The other two only last about one second (allowing for two hits, max). So once Eggman pulls out his claw, you simply jump on top of him and bounce on him 8 times in a row. This would be much simpler to do if you could actually trigger Eggman to do this! The thing is, you can't. So you're probably wondering why I'm consistently running into him, taking numerous hits. When you're hit, you flash and become invincible for a very short period of time (2-3 seconds). This is useful because while you're invincible, you can get past Eggman, and easily jump on top of him. The problem is that he needs to be doing the claw attack for this to work. So my strategy is to basically stay close to Eggman while being invincible...sort of. I keep on doing this until he pulls out the claw. Unfortunately, he didn't do it until the very last hit (cheap bastard). I got my ass kicked by this guy...but I lived. It's very common for me to accidentally die (run out of invincibility time without any rings while overlapping Eggman's machine sprite). I really don't know how else to explain this (as I'm just bad at explaining stuff). But long story short, this guy sucks and it's this stupid boss that's costing me a 30 second difference on my run. I think you'll have more fun laughing at my failed attempts then trying to just enjoy the speed run.

Moon Zone
Time: 0:42:62
Comments: Ok, a few things about this. First of all, my speed run is over. The supersonic fight isn't supposed to count towards my total time. Basically, once you collect all 7 chaos emeralds, you unlock this super secret little boss fight. But once you unlock it, you always go to it if you start from any level before X-zone (regardless of whether you collected all 7 chaos emeralds in your current run or not). So basically, I didn't collect all the chaos emeralds in this run, but because I have done so in the past, it automatically stays unlocked and just sends me off to the fight anyways. As I said, this doesn't count towards my total time, and I couldn't be happier because this has got to be the worst supersonic fight I have ever had! It's horrible, awful, and icky! I guess I was just really nervous, even if it didn't count as my total time. I didn't think my run could get much worse then X-Zone, but boy was I wrong! Have fun laughing at me getting OWNED by Eggman in his cruddy plastic space suit.

Total Time: 16:18.50
Comments: Overall, for a single segment run, this is pretty good. The run can be greatly improved as you can see. Egg Rocket and X-zone (if done right) can shave well over a minute! I'm willing to be that a near perfect single segment run (meaning no major mistakes) could sub 15 minutes! But that'll have to wait for another time

I do plan on updating this run. I definitely want to. In my future run though, there won't be a supersonic fight. My game data was erased unfortunately :(

Some people have also asked me if I ever plan on doing a 100% run where I collect all 7 chaos emeralds. Right now, I really don't have an answer. I would like to, but a lot of things would change. There are 4 playable characters, and when it comes to locating the special springs the easiest and fastest, well...it varies from character to character. A lot of research would have to be put to find out who the best character would be to do this run with (I'm guessing either knuckles or Tails right now, maybe sonic, definitely not Amy).

Anyway, I guess it's time to wrap things up. If there were any questions that weren't answered, or you'd just like to talk about the run (comments, suggestions) then just AIM GCNDAN20735

I'd just like to thank you for taking the time to read my notes, and for watching my run. I hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as I enjoyed making it!