Hey, I figured I'd dump some of the information I've been researching here regarding opening the menu while walking (sometimes called "encounter skipping", but i prefer "menu stepping" because it has some other cool benefits besides avoiding encounters). It's possible none of this is new info, but since nobody is using it in runs yet, I figured I'd put it somewhere anyways.

First, let's go over the obvious: Menu stepping is when you open and close the menu while walking. This has two main benefits. First of all, it will avoid any encounters. Second of all, if done correctly, it will avoid incrementing the step counter. If you're unaware, the step counter is an internal value that determines your chance of getting an encounter. The simple explanation is that the more you walk, the higher your chance of getting an encounter becomes. Hidapipes slow this counter down by half (or 1/3rd, if in the Jet Scooter), and menu stepping stops it entirely. Finally, it lets you move and open the menu at the same time, saving a few frames each time you need to access the menu.

There are basically two types of menu steps, slow and fast. Fast is when the menu opens as soon as you press C, and slow is when the menu doesn't open until the party comes to a stop. The camera position is the determining factor; if the camera needs to scroll, you'll get a slow menu step. Otherwise it'll be a fast one.

This distinction is important, slow menu stepping is slow. It basically gets you the equivalent of a slightly below-average walk most of the time. Fast menu steps, on the other hand, can be just as fast as normal walking. In other words, if you pay careful attention to the camera positioning, you can take advantage of fast menu stepping to get several steps in with 0 encounter chance and keep your step counter from going up, at absolutely no time cost. It's not a huge game-changer or anything in terms of encounter luck, but it helps.

Here's a quick cheat sheet to help you in terms of camera positioning. From the default camera positioning after most encounter and map transitions, you're free to menu step this many times in each direction: Up: 4 Down: 1 Left: 5 Right: 4

In addition, here are the maximum steps you can get in a row if you scroll the camera all the way to one side Up/down: 5 Left/right: 9

Finally, here's a video of it in action so you can get an idea of the rhythm you need to use to menu step optimally. My timing in this video isn't perfect, but it should get the idea across.

Hope this is helpful!

I will say as an update to the Easy Mode release for the Genesis/Mega Drive Mini 2 that encounter-skipping is a lot harder due to the faster walking speed.