Hey guys,

I'm new here, first time posting and first time breaking into this hobby. I apologize in advance for the profanity in the video but I had been doing about 6 hours of attempts at that point trying to get a solid run before 2020 and was just at a loss for what I was doing wrong.

The short version is I'm hitting 0:26 on my green hill zone 1 and I can see the record is currently at 0:24. Comparing my video to the videos for the tied records, I can't seem to figure out where I'm lacking. Any hints or ideas would be welcome.

this is my closest attempt so far:

Thanks and Happy New Year guys!

The biggest issue I see in your run is that you are activating the ground speed cap. Right after you launch out of the tube at the end of the level (around 27 seconds in your youtube video) you are most likely holding right. What this causes sonic to do is to revert back to his default running speed, and therefore lose all of the speed gained from the tube. So I recommend just keeping your hand off the dpad for a brief moment (or until the next jump you'll have to play with the timing) in order to finish the level more quickly. Hope this helps you and happy new year!

oooooh man ok I didn't even know that was a thing! I was wondering why mine just felt slower somehow even though I was mashing right haha. Thank you so much that helps a lot I hope!

I'll give a few pointers:

• Make sure to at least jump at the start because you'll accelerate to top speed from a standstill faster while in the air.
• If you're aiming for 0:24, you might want to use 3 jumps in the loop, because a 2 jump 0:24 is a handful of frames off perfect. It will do for 0:25 though.
• For 0:24, the latest time I've seen hit the checkpoint and still get the time is 0:14 and ~2 frames, so you'll want to make sure as you hit the checkpoint, it's just turned 0:14 a fraction of a second or earlier.
• Same for the first S-tunnel. If the clock passes 0:18 before you've entered it, it's not 0:24 pace. A high 0:17 might not either but that's a good marker.

Aside from that, your main cause of speed loss is the air speed cap, like above.

Thanks Daniel, your video was actually the one I had open on my laptop to try to emulate so I appreciate your input. I'll try to hone down my 2 jump loop with this advice first and switch to 3 if that's not enough.

The loop is actually something I have a lot of trouble with haha so getting that to 3 seems fairly intimidating. When I don't get days off for new years I typically am only making attempts on my lunch break at work, so it might be a while before I post again.

I'll get to working on this though and hopefully I can come back with some improvements in the next weeks, thanks again for the prompt and helpful replies!