So, I suck at Sonic Unleashed HD...

This game is so hard but so rewarding to speed run in.  I can't say that I take the game too seriously (though I am currently aiming for 100% achievements for the challenge - Werehog speed run challenges x3?) but speed running this game to it's limit is really hard - harder than Generations, though at times it is generally faster than Generations.  There are soooooooooooo many things to take advantage of to keep Sonic going fast in Unleashed and so many... variables.

So, Arid Sands Act 1 is probably the stage I run through the most.  Why is that?  A long time ago, when I first started paying attention to speed runs in this game, Kakipi1000's Arid Sands Act 1-2 run was, and still is my favorite stage to see Sonic tear through.  I didn't have that DLC level at the time, so I focused on the original act which for the most part was just as nice.

The level itself when speed running, doesn't require a lot of drifting, but what caught my eye was how cool it is to hop->stomp->slide over speed boosters and after forever and a day I finally got it down.  Performing it isn't hard, just getting the timing down for the jumps at speeds excelling the speed cap is ridiculous and I managed to pull it off 4 times in a row.  Then there's the side-step area where Sonic has to dodge walls, pillars and people by jumping over them, sliding under them (not people, lol) and side stepping.  Lastly, the next quick slide area where there are pillars and rocks falling around where you have to get through ASAP or risk getting squashed. Doing boosted quick slide steps there is just awesome to watch.

1:57:01 is a pretty good time.  My previous time was 2:05 something for the longest and tonight I was just fooling around.  Not too long ago, I played around with the 2nd level skip shortcut by doing a 3D->2D glitch after the sidestep area I was idolizing at the end of the previous paragraph and I finally understand the success and fails around it (it was actually pretty fun seeing what you can do in 3D there, though it isn't much).  By accident tonight, I found myself pulling it off during a casual speed run and I saw that I was way ahead of my record, but I made so many mistakes in the end, by the time I got to the goal ring, I was still at 2:05 LOL.  I had beaten my old record by less than half a second... so then I got serious and got a 1:57.  I'm going to try working on the 1st level shortcut next time now that I've got the 2nd one down.

1st level shortcut: @0:45
2nd level shortcut: @1:04

I doubt I'll break into 1:40s in this stage, but time will tell!  I think there might be some more tricks in Kakipi's full Unleashed speed run.  Hmmm....