Toxic Caves
Improved superspin at the start, and then useful glitch to get into the upper pinball chambers without the need to drain the slime. Now for the biggest improvement of the run, utilizing some weird bouncing glitch to gain access to the boss chamber without the need to collect any emeralds. Since I enter different the strategy had to be altered slightly. Firstly I don’t go to the top using the warp chamber, I have to flip Sonic up there, and secondly the timing of the warp chamber above me was not in my favour at this earlier moment in time. I had to avoid it grasping Sonic for one of the bounces, slowing it down a little.
One minute saved here, largest contribution.
Bonus Levels
Faster suicides on all of them
Lava Powerhouse
I found a way to ricochet sonic just after bouncing off the cork, few frames saved there. The steam vent immediately after took only 7 puffs rather than 8 to get Sonic to the top.
When entering the next pinball chamber, the bounce off the robot took less time.
Repeating the process for the second cork was a lot harder on this side, couldnt quite get it as efficient for both attempts. Then again, even the regular method took longer to do on this side than the other; so it's probably not an exact mirrored image.
Boss taken down faster, couple of seconds saved on this level
The Machine
The parts I did faster on this level dont actually matter, since I've got to wait for the blasted mechanism to finish rotating anyway
Showdown
Such a shame, I wanted this to be so much faster. I discovered a nice little trick to get an emerald early, but doing it this way actally stopped me from using a passage. The path leading to the emerald on the left is still blocked off by a clucker, who wont move until you bust all the blocks. But since I just grabbed that emerald anyway, why would I want to do that? Looks like I have to go back to the main chamber and then all the way round again. What's even more annoying about him is that he's also blocking off the fastest overhead route! The new route it still faster though, and once I get this emerald and slide down to the pinball area; I'm faced with the exact same problem again. He's blocking the intended exit, so I had to find another way out. Still works out to be faster than the original method, but by only a small margin I'm afraid.
Faster method to chaos emerald #4, standard route to 5, and then a faster way up onto the ship.
Final improvement here, an earlier end to frame input.
