Kind of a continuation of this thread, I did a little bit of testing via TASing one match with Akuma vs Yun in arcade mode. I could've just tested with 2P but it makes more sense to me to test it against the CPU to see whether it's possible/worth it to optimize a run without a Perfect.

So is it worth it?

I ended the first round with a Perfect, and wrote down how many frames that took (when the screen fades to black. This takes into account the time the game takes to switch to the second BGM).

Then I reloaded a save state shortly before ending the round, baited/hoped Yun would hit me with a light punch or kick (it was S.LK in this case), and ended the round. It was faster by 61 frames.

In the second round, got a Perfect, reloaded, then found the time to get hit by 2 chained S.LPs, and it was faster by 69 frames (hayooo!).

So this is just a little over 2 seconds of time saved in one match. Projecting it to a full run (without Q), it could potentially save around 22 seconds, assuming I take 1-2 light punch/hits before ending the round. As long as it doesn't interfere with dealing damage to the CPU, it's absolutely worth it!

So it may be possible to end the game with Makoto, Alex, and maybe even Akuma, in under 7 minutes! It's all theoretical, of course, so we'll see.

EDIT: After doing a more optimized TAS I no longer believe it's possible to go sub 7 (with Akuma).

Thanks! This is great information!

We do this a lot in Mortal Kombat as well where taking a hit to avoid Flawless victory is worth roughly 1-2 seconds per round and it all really adds up in the end. Finding a consistent way to route taking a hit would be very valuable! Assuming you can do it without spending more time in the process

Very interesting information to know about! Thanks for the info dump!