I don't really want to start adding challenge runs to the leaderboard because

• they would have the exact same objectives as other main categories, just with a kind of arbitrary restriction¤
• if we add one, people will probably request other challenges to be added in the future, and we already have enough categories that nobody runs

¤plus, it's a lot easier for these challenge categories to change their definitions than the main categories, like if someone were to find a way to reduce the number of Pikmin needed to beat the game.

You didn't wait long enough after throwing the Pikmin into the poison. The scale rising animation completed before the cutscene even started.

For future reference, you might want to join the Pikmin speedrunning Discord for questions and help from the community: https://discord.gg/kcrZ4mP

We have decided to remove the requirement to complete all levels in order. That rule didn't make any sense and nobody knows why it existed in the first place.

There's no reason to split a category (or add a variable) because a trick is hard and saves a lot of time. I'm strongly opposed to splitting categories (or adding variables) in almost any circumstance because you should do whatever is fastest, and if you don't want to, then you're not going to have a good time. Side note: If a community is heavily split (like SMG1 with 1P and 2P), they have a very large tendency to just disregard the fact that they're variables and treat them like categories anyway.

Disregarding opinions, let's look at what is changed in Pay off Debt:

Day 1, 2, HoB, WFG, Early Blues, SH, BK (end day), SCX, FC (end day), CoS, GK without Early Blues becomes Day 1, 2, HoB, WFG (end day), CoS, GK (end day), SH, BK (end day), SCX, FC

So, you end the day one more time (roughly one minute), grow some yellow Pikmin while you're in Perplexing Pool (it takes Ghostly one minute) and have to break down an electric gate (probably takes another minute to walk over there). Also, you're allowed to do other things while the gate is being broken down, like get the above ground treasures like you would after Snagret Hole in the Early Blues route. Also, Perplexing Pool in one day is utterly irrelevant in Pay off Debt since blue Pikmin are not needed (and in fact aren't even used in the world record).

It's a bit tricky to time how much Early Blues saves, but I can assure you the trick does not single-handedly save 12 minutes. You can't just subtract HSS's run from Ghostly's run, since the rest of the run is pretty much just getting good luck. It's especially a bad idea to do this, since Ghostly's run has a few issues that would be important to fix in a no Early Blues run:

• He knocks down the poison wall guarding the yellow Pikmin instead of just doing this:
• He stood around and watched the electric gate break instead of getting some of the above ground treasures

The only category that benefits the most from this skip (besides blue onion lol) is All Treasures, for which I can understand the desire, as Rush Boots and 1-day Perplexing Pool are very beneficial. But the category is mostly inactive and time variations in All Treasures are so extreme that it makes me a bit hesitant to even consider it, especially considering Ghostly has the record by 16 minutes. We don't have any legitimate evidence aside from speculation that Early Blues saves an extreme amount of time in this category anyway.

All things considered, it's ridiculous that the reason for this split is "it saves time and I can't do it". I'm not trying to undermine the difficulty of learning Early Blues (believe me, I've been there and it wasn't fun), but you're eventually going to learn Early Blues, right? I hope? It's not like the Pikmin 2 community is just bustling with runners. The usefulness of the category will eventually subside because you'll all be running with Early Blues at some point, I'd like to think. It just seems like promoting slowness when you could be spending the time practicing the trick. Hopefully you understand where I'm coming from.

If you're still interested in this after 4.5 months (whoops), let me know. I'd have to think it through because slapping a 1P/2P variable on the leaderboard could be less than great. I'll talk it over with other people in the community if there is any amount of support for it.

Hey - if you'd like to learn Pay off Debt, which is essentially the any% for this game, I wrote up a Pastebin a while ago that describes the world record route: http://pastebin.com/63YNN9u6

However, with a game like Pikmin, I'd recommend following along with the WR run as well, since it can get kind of confusing to explain exactly what to do with no visuals.

It's important to note that if you do learn the WR route that you'll probably hit a wall at Early Blues (about 25% into the run), which everyone who has ever run this game has had trouble with. If you just want to complete a run without Early Blues, Ghostly's PB is currently the fastest run without Early Blues, so I'd recommend taking the route from him.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask, but that should get you started for now!