Also idk if Thomas route after windmill falls down is faster, or Ray's faster.

I forgot to respond to this, Thomas is much faster in chapter V overall.

It just came to me that in level runs you can carry weapons over from previous missions, therefore if you get better guns, you'll have an advantage.

I don't think there's a good way to standardize weapons for each level other than all rusty. I think the universal rule could be that you're allowed to play any previous level and acquire weapons of your choice for the level you're running. Either that or all rusty.

Well.. they do haha. They do more damage, so you get more one-shot kills, they have a faster rate of fire and probably most importantly, they reload much faster, so having them is a clear advantage. It's not like they'll save you a whole minute or allow for strats impossible without them, but do speed it up a little.

However I think they might as well be allowed as long as there is a resource that will unlock them. I really think we should discuss and make more clarification in the rules. @bazookapat what do you think?

Nice find! Might be worth exploring a bit, but ultimately I think this won't amount to any progress as even if you did get past the barrier somehow, you still wouldn't activate the objective. I'll have a look in ChromED. Thanks!

This should be a 11:39. You lose control of Ray when you reach the horses. Very nice run!

Imho even by the old rules you stop the timer when you reach the horses and the scene of you riding starts playing, that's when you lose control of the character. This is an outdated run now, I beat it by a lot, I'll delete it.

Sub 12 is done

Yeah, it's not an optimal run. When I'm beaten, I'll run it again :D

• in full game run, I'll use Thomas for this chapter anyway and that run I believe is pretty solid

Yes! I'll run the whole level shortly and I can also make a commented video on how to perform those skips.

Hi!

Nice to see this exists, but if you check my run of this chapter on Ray, you can see that you can just ride around the buildings, trigger and complete the shootout AND blow the window open with dynamite before Thomas even arrives. I'd recommend waiting a bit before you blow it open as Thomas won't go for the front door and will just straight enter through the hole instead.

However none of this matters in the full game run as Thomas is 2 minutes faster and arguably easier in this chapter haha

I just tried it and figured it out. If you're ahead far enough, you can consistently skip the first dialogue with William if you shoot the enemies on the roof only after you climbed the wooden construction. This way the dialogue with William doesn't trigger and Thomas will just continue climbing.

Similarly to this, you can also skip the dialogue with William near the snipers. If you leave some enemies alive, Thomas will continue fighting them and you'll be able to reach the objective before the snipers, teleporting Thomas to you and not triggering the dialogue with William. This will require some more precise timings, but I'll test it and figure it out.

Thanks for this run and your discoveries, it's actually huge and we can work to make it a consistent time save! Great job!!

How did you skip it at about 2 minutes into the run, though? If you don't mind sharing.

This actually is very impresssive. With better shooting it can still be done faster, I believe, but the fact that you managed to skip the dialog with William and rubberband Thomas to you, bypassing the lengthy wait, is huge and if examined closely, it might be applicable to other chapters as well. Great job!!

Clarify, if it's after the shot immeditely, or if he falls down and screen fades in to the cutscene

As soon as you shoot him, you don't give any input to the game beyond that point anwyay

Starting the timer is clear, but in order to have a better understanding on when to stop the timer, I think it would be good to have the rules revolve around the last action done by a player. I have the following propositions:

• Chapter I - activate the dynamite switch
• Chapter II - kill the last enemy in the docks - confirmed by Ray's voiceline "We did it!"
• Chapter III - up for discussion, but I think the start of the cutscene is a good point to stop
• Chapter IV - camera lockout
• Chapter V - defeat Devlin's bodyguard in a duel
• Chapter VI - activate "Head to the meeting with Mendoza"
• Chapter VII - cutscene of the brothers and Barnsby riding horses begins playing
• Chapter VIII - reach the hideout
• Chapter XI - screen fades to black
• Chapter X - screen fades to black
• Chapter XI - cutscene of going down the waterfall starts playing
• Chapter XII - dynamite detonates
• Chapter XIII - bell falls
• Chapter XIV Thomas - defeat the bandit in a duel Ray - reach the objective at end of the tunnel
• Chapter XV - defeat Barnsby in a duel

I plan on doing just that! But I need to do it when I have time to sit playing the game for the whole day. I already did a segmented run beating the WR by about 25 minutes, it's really important to test it chapter by chapter, the WR is Ray only, but in some chapters Thomas is significantly faster. Thanks! This game sucks to speedrun IMHO due to your brother stalling you, but it makes for an interesting challenge to make him progress as fast as possible. I speedrun this game because it's my favorite game of all time, it has a big place in my heart and I want my name associated with it in some way!

I have a 12:18 pending run in Chapter I. I saw there was a run with golden rangers approved, so if they're allowed (they might as well be since we can upload a save game with them unlocked), I can probably do a sub 12.

Dynamite is an interesting idea, I'm not sure how consistent that will be, though. The first checkpoint where your brother TPs to you, as far as I'm aware, is the one where you first meet Devlin in the saloon. I actually took advantage of this one in my pending run of Chapter V, feel free to check that one out. For the full game run it's pretty much irrelevant, though, as Thomas is faster than Ray in this mission. I'll upload a run on Thomas shortly.

I tested it for a bit, with a little lineup it can be done even faster than on your video. You can drop all the way down without taking any damage. However, as I expected, your progress gets stalled by your brother and his endless battle with the enemies up there. From below it's much harder to dispatch of them quickly and even if you hit the checkpoint, your brother will make no progress. I'll give it some more testing time when I have the time for it myself, if there's any way to rubberband your brother, it will be a nice time save. Have a good day!

Hey! Nice finds, however the one in chapter V will definitely be slower as you ideally want to kill all the enemies before your brother starts shooting at them as that will stall his progress in walking towards the town. Mayyyybe you can snipe them all out as Thomas and then take this route but I still think the benefits are minimal at best.