Arid Sands Act 1 - y u so fun?

sobatsuyu100 seems to now have the fastest, non-glitched/level skip run of this stage now.  He sure does make his runs look so efficient.  By efficient I mean, he will not use boost if it's not going to help him go faster.  A REALLY good example would be his Windmill Isle Act 2 run.  As far as Arid Sands 1, it's nice that he uses the E3 version of "His World".  Have to admit, it took a while for that song to catch me and I think as a theme for Sonic, it tops my previous favorite, "It Doesn't Matter", from SA1.  Though, my favorite version of His World will forever be the Zebrahead version.  Rock music really suits Sonic's character... or maybe just the sound of the electric guitar.

So, after deciding whether I should try and break my Speed Highway 2 time tonight or play some Unleashed... I decided to go for Unleashed and what a frustrating night it was - and yes, I can proudly laugh at it now.  Lately I've been focused on my beloved Jungle Joyride 1-2, but it was going so bad, I decided to take on Arid Sands 1.  After  looking at sobatsuyu's run, I realized that I could do a few things to clean up my run.  I have been playing the first 3D and 2D sections a LOT better lately and by the time I reached the end of the second 2D section, I realized that I was consistently cutting my time down by 2 seconds.  Every second counts!!!!  sobatsuyu's run in the third 2D section helped me out as well by using that speed booster more efficiently (though by accident, I found my own way to use it).  That was pretty much it, but...

omg, not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES, I missed the goal ring and each time I missed it, I was substantially faster than my last recorded run.  The first two misses, I ran back to back.  As infuriating as it seems, it wasn't as infuriating as the certain execution errors I was making, but it just made me more determined to pull it off and in the end...

It was faster than my fuck ups. :3

Well, in a few weeks, hopefully I'll have less fuck ups because I'll have a shiny, plastic, new DVR to record my runs and of course post them.  I could record from some HD handycamcorder thing, but... no.  With Unleashed?!  This game is really starting to win me over... I really hate to say it, but it is.  I hated it the first time I played it through because it didn't make sense to me (and in many ways, it still doesn't!)  But that's probably why I'm so inclined to understand it.  Once you get it and you pull off that as-perfect-as-you-can-get speed run, as punishing as the game can be, it's soooooooooooo rewarding when you get the most out of it.  It's been like an hour since I've did this speed run and I can still sense the adrenaline in my head, the glee of all the speed cap breaking stunts I pulled off to get a sub 2 minute run.  Also, I'm starting to notice how pretty the game is.  No, this game deserves to be captured properly in HD straight from the console.

Funny thing is... Arid Sands is the only stage I've really focused on.  Dragon Road Act 1 was the second stage I took seriously and there were some glitches in the stage (good ones, actually) that occur in 3D (similar to the super speed glitch) that I do not understand and since it occurs randomly, I gave it a rest.  If/When I do figure out how those ridiculous jumps in 3D work... oh man... I will do my best to break the hell out of that stage.

No, I don't want to compare it to Generations.  I'm beat.

However, I do want to give an honorable mention to the player KYUURI999 for speed running the Werehog.  One thing I will say about the Werehog gameplay in Unleashed HD - is that the DLC stages aren't half bad.  Not really a fan of that gameplay (though I'm gonna have to bend over and put up with it if it means 100% achievements for the game) but it's not entirely terrible... just 90% terrible... huehuehuehue.

URL since blogger can't find it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW-kjWmNtDQ&feature=plcp

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....

Dude...

So apparently, Kakipi1000 has posted his 101st video.  ... well, what happened to the 100th?

But before I get to that, I want to post a video by the youtube user, Craigolette.

And I'm definitely referring to his Arid Sands 1-2 run which is the second speed run in this video.  First of all, props to him for actually doing this hellish level while taking full advantage of the shortcut.  There were a few mistakes, but at least he didn't run into the spikes on the last side-step section.  Too awesome.

As for Kakipi... dude... did you just... SPEED RUN ALL OF UNLEASHED?  Talk about unexpected.  Yeah, it's no secret that he prefers this game over Generations, but wow.  He did it in 3 hours.  When I first played Unleashed, it took me... half that time, just to get beyond Crimson Carnival and that's just one stage lol.  Well, there's no questioning his love for this game, whereas mine for it... is clearly half-hearted. :)