Mt. Battle 100 Trainers - Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness @Danielsbigfish

Danielsbigfish Four hours. 100 trainers. One man. This is the story of his journey to conquer Mt. Battle.

What an experience this was! Took a while to work up the courage and energy to attempt this. Very long and tedious, but it's worth it. It just makes the final battle that much more intense when you know that if you lose you just wasted 4 hours. And man, I couldn't have asked for a better ending. 3:48:45 for that battle. Literally down to the last turn; if I hadn't revived Starmie I would have lost. I really thought Flygon could tank a dragon claw from Latias, but I revived Starmie just in case, because I knew Latias couldn't kill two Pokemon in one turn and Starmie would be faster. Boy, am I glad I did that. When I saw Flygon fall to that dragon claw, my heart skipped a beat. (Edit: didn't think about the calm mind at the time, explains a lot, yikes)

I wasn't too worried for most of this run, especially when I was easily dealing with the trainers in areas 7-9, but when I got to area 10, I lost a lot of my confidence. Fights felt a lot closer. Didn't help that I was getting crit left and right near the end. After trainer 99, more than 3 and a half hours in, I was scared, and for good reason apparently, considering that ending. Not sure if the "safety" save actually works on Mt. Battle or if the game knows and prevents you from cheating the system, probably would've restarted from the beginning again if I died anyway. But I clutched it out. Love this game, glad to have completed everything I was interested in. Great soundtrack, too. Really glad that the main boss theme is one of my favorite themes, otherwise it wouldn't be hype to hear it once again in the finale.

And yeah I picked Chikorita, it needs love too! It was my first starter, so I have a soft spot for it.

Stepped away at roughly 3:04:50, hence the pause.

Special shoutouts to trainers 90 (I didn't even know the AI would switch in this game...) and 98 (explosion Shiftry kills itself just to deny me the experience). Douchebags.

Final note: yes, I'm aware that I sent in Ampharos against my own earthquake at one point like an idiot, along with some other dumb mistakes throughout. Just slipped my mind that I used earthquake. I'm not perfect haha.

Final final note because I forgot: interesting that certain doors are still open if you were training on Mt. Battle previously without leaving the area, didn't know that was the case. Anyway, that's why certain doors are open later on in the run, because I was grinding for exp. in areas 5-7 before this.

updated 6 years ago

Mt. Battle 100 Trainers - Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness

Danielsbigfish 2020-02-14 | Four hours. 100 trainers. One man. This is the story of his journey to conquer Mt. Battle.

What an experience this was! Took a while to work up the courage and energy to attempt this. Very long and tedious, but it's worth it. It just makes the final battle that much more intense when you know that if you lose you just wasted 4 hours. And man, I couldn't have asked for a better ending. 3:48:45 for that battle. Literally down to the last turn; if I hadn't revived Starmie I would have lost. I really thought Flygon could tank a dragon claw from Latias, but I revived Starmie just in case, because I knew Latias couldn't kill two Pokemon in one turn and Starmie would be faster. Boy, am I glad I did that. When I saw Flygon fall to that dragon claw, my heart skipped a beat. (Edit: didn't think about the calm mind at the time, explains a lot, yikes)

I wasn't too worried for most of this run, especially when I was easily dealing with the trainers in areas 7-9, but when I got to area 10, I lost a lot of my confidence. Fights felt a lot closer. Didn't help that I was getting crit left and right near the end. After trainer 99, more than 3 and a half hours in, I was scared, and for good reason apparently, considering that ending. Not sure if the "safety" save actually works on Mt. Battle or if the game knows and prevents you from cheating the system, probably would've restarted from the beginning again if I died anyway. But I clutched it out. Love this game, glad to have completed everything I was interested in. Great soundtrack, too. Really glad that the main boss theme is one of my favorite themes, otherwise it wouldn't be hype to hear it once again in the finale.

And yeah I picked Chikorita, it needs love too! It was my first starter, so I have a soft spot for it.

Stepped away at roughly 3:04:50, hence the pause.

Special shoutouts to trainers 90 (I didn't even know the AI would switch in this game...) and 98 (explosion Shiftry kills itself just to deny me the experience). Douchebags.

Final note: yes, I'm aware that I sent in Ampharos against my own earthquake at one point like an idiot, along with some other dumb mistakes throughout. Just slipped my mind that I used earthquake. I'm not perfect haha.

Final final note because I forgot: interesting that certain doors are still open if you were training on Mt. Battle previously without leaving the area, didn't know that was the case. Anyway, that's why certain doors are open later on in the run, because I was grinding for exp. in areas 5-7 before this.

Porcelain by link: 42.258 Fail

Danielsbigfish 2025-05-27 | My goal for a while has been to get top 10 on a tech track. In the end I got 11th here, 0.002 behind 9th. Two minutes after the leaderboards closed I got this run that put me 9th, hence why this is a fail.

Still happy with this, at least I proved that with some dedication I can get it, even if I technically missed my leaderboard goal by 2 minutes.

My thoughts on this track are that it's pretty nice except for the last section, and I think my run reflects that pretty well, I had a pretty shaky end. Still a pretty good run for me overall. Really enjoy playing tech, just not as good at it as I want to be.

Tantrum by xPPHx: 43.941

Danielsbigfish 2024-05-14 | TOTD May 12, 2024

Pretty sick track, one of my favorites. No track is perfect, though. If I have a main criticism, it would be the uphill at around 0:18 . There's a weird thing going on where depending on the jump before, you can gear up if you sd for too much speed for some reason; feels kinda random.

I'd rate the run around 8/10 by my quality standards (if we pretend noslides aren't a thing). Mostly pretty solid. Two main mistakes here, the first being a weird line going too wide after the jump at 0:20 , maybe steered into it too late. Maybe going wide is fine for the speed, though. Other mistake is the section at 0:32 ; pretty bad line with too much penalty grass and got air time on the bump; cost a lot of time actually. Besides that, a few slightly nonoptimal lines but mostly above average. Definitely lost a fair bit to Ricso5 in the end, but it was one of the best ends I got.

I think a lot more is possible, like .7 at least, but it kinda seems like the noslide greats couldn't be bothered with this one or something. Considering Ricso5's run stood for like 17 hours, you'd think the run was just strong enough to dissuade anyone else from contesting, but my pace was consistently a car length ahead at 12 seconds in. Probably just saw no reason to improve if no one was contesting it, and I got lucky and capitalized on that.

my first ever ranked chess game (for you to laugh at if you want)

Danielsbigfish 2023-11-18 | For reference, I know the basics and a few strategic concepts, and I've watched a fair few games on the web, but this is the first real game that I've played (except against family that know even less). Needless to say, pretty sloppy game, but somehow a nice comeback/win nonetheless.

My analysis:

In general, I'd say I'm playing too slow, but I think as a beginner I should be taking the time to think it through anyway, so no big deal.

1:12 Move 5: I didn't realize the queen could take. Taking with the pawn instead was a pretty bad call and just hurts my pawn structure and castle potential. Pretty bold move to say the least. Ironically one of my fastest moves is one where I should've stopped to think.

2:18 Move 7: Blocked the queen bishop checkmate with my own bishop. Pretty bad move, they can just take and I can't take back with the pawn because it's pinned. Qe2 doesn't lose a piece. At least I had the awareness to block the checkmate. Opponent didn't take anyway, bizarre move from them.

4:09 Advancing the knight, seeing potential to fork the king and rook, which ended up paying off. Probably better to just play the knight to the center before the fork. Opponent opts to capture a pawn after this exchange instead of my bishop that is threatened for some reason?

5:10 Accidental discovered check, would've been sick if I meant to do it. Pretty straightforward from here since the opponent doesn't block with the bishop. Knight forces the king into the corner, then just queen bishop laser beam for the checkmate. Opponent has to block with their bishop but doesn't.

sapristi by keszkia - 41.184

Danielsbigfish 2023-09-24 | Was looking through old TOTDs and this one from July 26, 2021 looked like it could be fun even though leaderboards are closed. After some hunting, I thought I could take the old WR from deska (41.188), and I managed to get this after a while. Deska dropped the gear at 0:27 , that alone was a big difference maker.

This run is all over the place. Not the best first 20 seconds, I definitely had better starts but this one was still reasonable. Nice jump angle at 0:22 . Kept the gear after in the wall, really important. For the jump at 0:29, I unfortunately got too high of a jump and went too far right, so I had to correct the lines way too much for the next turn. Lost the most time to deska here. In my previous pb, I actually gained on deska in this section, so that's really disappointing. Since that put me behind, I ended up full risking the end and I got it super sick to snipe.

Overall 8.5/10 run. It's always disappointing when you get something sick in your old pb and it's so much worse in your new pb, but now I have a nice end at least.

As for thoughts on the track, it's pretty nice, one of my new favorites. Not the biggest fan of the jumps, those are hard for me to judge. Gear management is mostly fun but really hard here. Gear at 5 seconds in is pretty challenging, 0:15 is a hard spot to get both the gear and the correct downhill line. Gear at 0:27 is very precise, almost felt random to me.

Plastic Ride! by caPu_TM: 43.787

Danielsbigfish 2023-08-21 | TOTD August 17, 2023

My fifth top 10, at 9th place. Definitely the strangest top 10 I've gotten.

This track is weird, not sure if I'd call it good or not. It drives mostly well, but the start is kind of hard and has a strange trick, and the no-steer looping felt very random and I didn't like it. It was pretty fun other than that.

Execution wise, I'm very happy with the run. I'd give it a 9/10 by my standards. The loop didn't go nearly as well as in my previous pb unfortunately, but I don't know if that's my fault or not. Like I said, it felt pretty random.

werster stream archive 2022 12 5 (Part 0/2)

Danielsbigfish 2023-05-27 | This is 12 hours from one of werster's Pokémon Stadium 2 runs that was lost because of Twitch export issues due to the length of the VOD. I happened to snag the VOD before it was lost because I like these long Stadium runs. This is the first of two parts (I called this Part 0/2 for consistency because the second part is titled Part 1/2). The rest of the stream can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=SCDvCIMMX18

While trimming this video to fit within YouTube's limit of 12 hours, roughly 2 seconds between these two videos got cut, during which absolutely nothing of interest happens. Nonetheless, if you absolutely MUST satisfy your curiosity, here's a link to those missing seconds: youtube.com/watch?v=byZHOLWDrHU

All of this is werster's content which I uploaded with permission for archiving purposes. You can find his channel here: youtube.com/@Werster

A07-Race PB - 26.31

Danielsbigfish 2023-05-19 | Solid time for me, big improvement from my previous pb of 26.38. I would like to get .2x at some point though.

Definitely some sloppiness in this run to be found regardless. Low speed out of the first drift and panicked a bit at the end so not the best line. Pretty good line through the dropdown release turn though, that's probably the best I've ever gotten that.

Niepodlegli (ft. mime) by deska._.: 46.415

Danielsbigfish 2022-11-11 | TOTD November 10, 2022.

Very good but difficult and at times frustrating plastic track. The learning process is a bit of a pain but I liked it after that. A bit strange that it becomes wet plastic at the end though, I don't mind it but the style changes quite a bit there.

This run placed me 5th in the world. I have very mixed feelings about my performance on this track. The result was good, but a better result was possible for sure, and I even think world record wasn't out of the question if luck allowed for it. Bittersweet, but I think the result is respectable at least, the third top 10 for my résumé.

I'd probably rate this run a 7/10 in terms of quality, which might seem harsh considering I got top 5 but ranking be damned, that doesn't mean my run didn't have problems. The transition at around 0:23 was atrocious with the airtime, I don't even want to think about how much time I lost there. That dropped the run at least a solid point by itself, but otherwise I think the run is pretty good.

Garden Snake by Evo.XLRB: 45.482

Danielsbigfish 2022-10-11 | TOTD June 4, 2022. POV run is 45.482 (9th world in final rankings), the other run is a 45.458 that I drove after the leaderboards closed (8th world).

This is probably my favorite track out of all the TOTDs that I've played so far, track is very flowy and I loved it. Granted I am a fan of grass, but I still haven't found another grass map that I found as satisfying to play. Can be a bit of a start simulator though, and there's one gear that killed many of my runs, but no map is perfect.

This was my first top 10 result that I got (clutched in the last 5 minutes of hunting), so very happy with the result here in terms of position. That said, while I'd say the runs are good for me in terms of quality, I'm still not entirely satisfied with them. Both took some wrong or less than optimal lines in different areas. I'd say maybe 8.5/10 by my standards? Pretty strong but with some obvious errors, would be very hard to improve but possible. I'd like to revisit this at some point.

Ceramic Terrace by sophie.ice: 46.600

Danielsbigfish 2022-09-29 | TOTD June 10, 2022

My best ever TOTD ranking with 4th in the world, clutched out in the last 10 minutes ;D

I really liked this track for the most part, very good flow. I didn't really understand how to drive the banked bobsleigh-esque corners though, keeps it out of the running for my absolute favorite.

Run is a 9/10 for me, one of my runs that I'm most satisfied with, possibly even the best. Not a very good last bobsleigh, really good everything else. Would be extremely difficult for me to ever beat this run.

Evanescet by BlueSqu1d: 33.665 (Trackmania)

Danielsbigfish 2022-08-22 | Map link: https://trackmania.exchange/maps/72588/evanescet

Found this map through some random video and gave it a look out of curiosity. Very fun, one of my new favorite tracks (save for some minor complaints, like the sausage jump at the start, but every map has something like that), thought I'd throw this out there.

Run itself is decent for me but also kind of unsatisfying and painful. Got some airtime on the slope at 0:12 , which is a pretty minor time loss, but also extremely dumb and easily avoidable time loss that should never happen and I hate myself for it. The rest of the run was decent I think, drift at 0:25 was one of my better ones, and that's a really make or break point in the run. Other drift was solid as well and also reasonable end, not great but good enough considering how many failed attempts I had. Overall 6/10 run, 8/10 if I didn't get the disgusting airtime.

Trackmania Turbo 186: 1:28.486 (STM)

Danielsbigfish 2022-01-29 | Pretty happy with this run, I never thought I'd get close to contesting this STM when I was originally playing through the game. Still clearly improvable though. Not really sure what the proper line is through the sand after the cargo ship, but it was definitely awkward in this run, and the turn through the water near the end wasn't nearly aggressive enough.

Played with a keyboard just because that's what I felt like using. If you're wondering about the sporadic left/right presses on the helicopter drop, I got into the habit of spamming directions there just to express myself a bit during the run, since it doesn't cost time and going through the drop a thousand times is boring.

Trackmania Turbo 030: 1:06.80 STM

Danielsbigfish 2021-12-18 | One of the runs I got on my new controller. One of the easier STMs to get if you know how to get the speed boosts, nothing special.

FAQ:

Q: What's your progress on Super Solo?
A: I currently have 19 STMs. Here's a list of the STMs that I know I've gotten:

003, 004, 005, 007, 008, 010, 013, 022, 023, 024, 030, 032, 035, 041, 046, 047, 075, 105, 181

Q: Are you going for the 200?
A: I'm not nearly good enough to get all of them (especially Valley). Just going for the ones that I think are reasonable.

Q: Danielsbigfish you are slow pls quit!
A: wow D:

Trackmania Turbo 005: 1:13.80 STM

Danielsbigfish 2021-12-10 | Keyboard run, but for some reason the visualizer only showed steering inputs in controller mode. Probably has something to do with some controller drivers I had installed previously; had to uninstall to be able to use a proper controller, hence why I was using keyboard in the first place.

This map was actually pretty enjoyable to learn with keyboard, was fun going for STM.

Valley D02 Hunt w/ PB

Danielsbigfish 2021-12-06 | was listening to Joseph Anderson's Super Mario Odyssey video in the background

StarStadium C3: 33.42 Official

Danielsbigfish 2021-10-02 | Not that official mode really means a lot in United, but I set a goal to get into top 10 world and got this, so I'll take it. Beat out Demon :3 but of course he really has 33.21, so I'm only ahead in official, but it's something I guess.

Not really a fantastic run, ending isn't on point. My pb is 33.39 with a really big landing bug at the end, so my times on here could use some work.

Trackmania Canyon C10: 2:02.305

Danielsbigfish 2021-09-21 | 9WR

Star Valley C12: 36.210

Danielsbigfish 2021-09-13 | Comparison is with Hetna's 36.338, former wr.

If I had to guess, I'm going to lose this battle eventually, but here's at least a nice run I was able to put together. My old time got broken, so I hunted for a while and got a 36.303, but I wasn't that happy with it so I kept hunting. Eventually, I had an epiphany about the grass/field turn at about 12 seconds, and I got a nice run through.

That being said, I'm still losing plenty of time in the uphill drifts, so I don't know how dedicated I am to keeping up with Hetna on this one. I'm just contesting it while I can.

Star Valley C12: 36.373 (Trackmania 2)

Danielsbigfish 2021-09-12 | Actually my second wr on this track. Long story short, GravelGuy had wr with 36.624, then I got a .58, then Hetna broke that with .531, and then I came back and got this (-0.158). So this is wr as of 9/12/21. Also my only ever Valley map where I've been in first place, so that's cool. Not that it's a highly contested map, though.

I'd say this is a pretty good run overall. Happy with the start, I was actually ahead of GravelGuy like 15 seconds in, which is nice. My old pb wasn't even close, even Hetna's start is slower. Nice speed out of the turn through the field at about 12 seconds, that's probably where I gained the most time. Uphill drift at about 24 seconds in is probably where I did the worst, Hetna's is significantly better. Lastly, the ending was fine I guess. Sadly, the ending in my old pb was way better and this run isn't nearly as flashy in that regard, but the start makes up for it I guess. Plus GravelGuy's ending is some hot trash, and Hetna's is just alright, so it didn't have to be perfect anyway.

I also think maybe there's a bit of room for improvement by getting more of the booster before the loop? No one else even slows down to get the booster, but I think it's faster if done properly.

Based Werster - You Answered The Question Incorrectly

Danielsbigfish 2021-08-13 | I own absolutely nothing, please support werster and his content. From this video: youtube.com/watch?v=SaK91pxnhPY

VOD (for as long as it's still up): twitch.tv/videos/1077778871

For context, I've included the original chat on Twitch, but the question werster was responding to was, "May I ask, what is the best way to stream DS games?" Two people answered that emulator was, and this is the aftermath of that.

Mnichu Lagoon Adventures A09: 23.101

Danielsbigfish 2021-08-12 | WR as of 8/11/2021

Not a widely contested map, but still happy to get a wr, and taking one from 2 AZ ZyGoTo isn't that easy. Also pretty pleased with this because I sort of found a cut myself, and it wasn't used in the old wr (23.182 I think). The first cut through the trees is pretty simple and obvious, but the second tight cut through the trees 6 seconds in is stupid precise and annoying. If you get it right, it ends up making quite a bit of difference, as you can tell.

I didn't race against anyone else's ghost when I hunted this, so I thought maybe the other top times also went for it, but when I looked at their replays I found that none of them used that cut haha. That being said, I think it's very possible that others already knew about this (especially considering there are probably other maps with very similar cuts) and just didn't go for it because it's a bitch to actually do. Either way, I'm just happy that my run is unique and not just copying someone else's homework.

Still easy room for improvement though. Sadly, not racing against the previous wr came back to bite me a little, and I never found out that you could diag jump at the start to get more speed. Really simple time save that I wish I knew about before sinking like an hour into this, but now I don't want to play this map anymore haha. I imagine this won't last that long, considering the previous wr holder was hunting maps like a week ago, but at least I made my contribution while I could.

Trackmania Stadium A05: 51.805

Danielsbigfish 2021-07-05 | ...

MXLC: Cathay by Talkie in 40.502 (Trackmania Lagoon)

Danielsbigfish 2021-06-20 | This is a pretty good run for me considering the difficulty of the map; when I first started playing this map, I didn't think I would ever get a run through with no wall touches. Feels good to have improved enough to finish runs. Still kind of a sloppy run that I'm not that satisfied with, though. The freewheel near the end felt pretty disgusting; something to work on for next run.

Stadium A05: 51.852 w/ Inputs

Danielsbigfish 2021-06-08 | Wanted to upload this at first to demonstrate my technique, but admittedly I found this a bit strange when I saw the output. My control stick tapping seems a lot more aggressive and less smooth than in all the other legit replays I've seen. Not sure if it's my sensitivity settings or what. I use a switch pro controller for reference.

Edit: Yeah so I've looked at some of my other replay inputs; I think my sensitivity is just really high. In particular, my 24.00 on a01 race stood out. I really wanted to see what my s4d was like on that run, and the inputs seem reasonable on the slide. However, my angle is really shaky and inconsistent, probably because I couldn't hold a precise angle because any slight movements result in way bigger steering changes than they should. No wonder it's so hard for me to get a successful speedslide on that level, even if I hunt for hours haha. Kinda makes me want to change my sensitivity settings, but:

1. I don't know how, at least in TMUF.
2. I've been playing on these settings for like 3-4 years? I'm so used to these settings that it would be really hard to adapt I think. Maybe I should just stick with my current style.

TMNF D04 Race: 46.10 w/ Inputs

Danielsbigfish 2021-06-08 | mostly a test to see how this works

TMNF B04 Acrobatic: 12.53

Danielsbigfish 2021-05-28 | -0.06 on old pb haha, tried for quite a while to get the lucky speed boost and this just kinda happened. Pretty nice luck. Execution, on the other hand, was a bit shaky. Wallride didn't feel so clean on this run, perhaps because I was nervous of screwing up after the boost.

Not on the competitive patch, I play the steam release of United Forever so idk how that would work. Not really at the top level anyway so I figure it doesn't matter too much. I have a lot of tmnf/tm2 runs that I thought about uploading but never got around to, and now with all the recent drama I'm not sure how to feel about uploading pbs anymore. I'm kinda sad over all that honestly, but I guess it is what it is.

LSD: Dream Emulator Speedrun: 4:20:21 (365 Days)

Danielsbigfish 2021-05-27 | EPILEPSY WARNING

ResidentSleeper

Nothing to take too seriously, not really a fast run anyway. I'm also wondering how I managed to get a 57 minute 100 days run before, I didn't even come close to that in this run, but this will suffice I guess, I'm out of practice anyway. It seems like the other runs I looked at had the game running in a higher framerate, not sure what the proper settings are for speedrunning, so maybe I lost a lot of time for no reason. Oh well.

Played on DuckStation emulator. Not sure what official speedrunning rules allow, but I don't plan on submitting this to leaderboards anyway, just for fun. I didn't mess around with emulator settings much at all, just to set up controls I think.

Some good luck, some bad luck. I've noticed that sometimes you just end up in a loop where you get the elephant pit level over and over again, happened at certain points, which is lucky when it does. Also had some strings of horrendous spawns as well. Not sure how to avoid the weird 12+ minute time loss that I got after day 323, that just seems to happen at random. I thought that was a glitch the first time it happened to me a while back (this actually kept me from running this category years ago, but I ultimately decided to just roll with whatever happens. It's such a luck-based game anyway). I forgot most of my old strats, so I just developed new ones as I went.

Stadium A05: 51.852

Danielsbigfish 2020-09-21 | 1217700 SP, 18th in the world

Goal was to pass Spam on the leaderboard, and I did, barely (he has 51.855). So I'm happy about that. I feel like this was a pretty sloppy run though to be honest haha, also the ending gave me a heart attack.

Battle Arcade Full Attempt, No Commentary (Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver)

Danielsbigfish 2020-09-06 | When I was looking for footage of just battle frontier facility runs on youtube, I couldn't really find much that didn't have commentary (aside from just the battles against the brains), so I figured I'd give it a go. I'm not exactly a professional competitive battler, I'm sure you can notice, but it's something. Some background noise, maybe. Just 2 hours of the battle arcade, 63 streak.

Arcade Star Dahlia battles at 34:20 and 1:28:25 . I wouldn't really call either of them interesting battles, though, especially the second one.

Played on emulator. Team is just something I threw together in pkhex. I go for a middle ground between useful pokes and pokes I like, hence why Latias and not Latios. Latias is cuter :D

Surely not a perfect team, though. Something I didn't notice when I put these three together is that they're all special attackers. That's obviously bad for Blissey, but also something I learned in my first arcade attempt is that you can get choice items, and choice band is just awful (which is how my first run died). Very situational though, plus you're bound to run into something stupid from the game boards eventually anyway.

Let's just not talk about Skuntank... Don't understand how that's dark type, but Purugly and Gliscor aren't.

Stadium A05: 51.908 (1M SP)

Danielsbigfish 2020-08-25 | 20th in the world, 1091365 SP

:D

Trackmania Turbo 181: 1:04.16 STM

Danielsbigfish 2020-07-28 | This is one of the easier stms to get, or so I've heard, but getting stm on a 1 minute long challenging lagoon map isn't something I ever expected to do, so I'm pretty happy. Couple of awkward sections, that garbage at 0:46 was sloppy as hell, but it is what it is.

I did this with a gamecube controller because uplay won't let me use my controller of choice anymore (which is the switch pro controller if you're curious, it's just what I have lying around). I've used my gamecube controller to play melee for like 3 years, so the thumbstick is loose af and doing precise movement with it is stupid. Fortunately, this map doesn't require much of that, but there are a lot of others that do, and I don't play turbo a lot anymore because of this. I can do it, but it's more of a struggle and not as fun.

My old pb was also stm (like 1:04.18 or something), which is what I was gonna upload, but the game didn't let me save the replay, because sometimes this game just does that to me. It's like this game doesn't want me to play it. But I'm no quitter, so I had to sit here for like 30 mins to get another solid run to showcase. ffs

I was listening to werster's all gold symbols pokemon emerald speedrun in the background, so that's what any talking or background noise you hear is.

Horror Place Escape 100%: 1:22 (IGT)

Horror Place Escape Speedrun: 0:57 (IGT)

Danielsbigfish 2020-07-13 | Disclaimer: If you play this yourself, don't click replay at the end unless you want a potential virus. Felt it was important to make that very clear right off the bat.

Context: youtube.com/watch?v=W2B-iyZkDYs

Just a quick thing. Suppose I could also go for a 100% with the gems, but you don't need them to beat the game, so cba getting them lmao. Sorry for the weird line on the left side of the screen, bad cropping job in OBS.

I don't really like this game haha

100% speedrun with the gems if you care: youtube.com/watch?v=1AkKPCzN0bw

Precision Title Pack B05: 55.293 (Former WR)

Danielsbigfish 2020-06-07 | Edit: I have since broken this with like a 55.221 or something.

Previous WR: 55.323 by Flechetas (+0.030)
Worth a ~WHOPPING~ 1600 SP (maybe 1700 now?)

I mean, I don't know how much I can say this is an accomplishment considering 17 people total have played this map, but a WR is a WR I guess. At least I can say I did something better than anyone else has, at least for some time (unless someone has beaten this on a server or something). World record has always been the dream, and I got one. A really worthless one, but one nonetheless :D

As for the run itself, there's a lot wrong with it (especially if you compare it with the old WR, it's easy to notice). However, there's a lot wrong with Flechetas' run as well, so it evens out :P I'd say overall, his run is better quality than mine, which is no shocker I guess. He actually gains time over me in most places (save for one questionable turn...).

I think that the real difference maker is the approach to the left hander at the end of each lap. He takes it a lot more flat, I took the outside banked section of the turn, and it just gives me so much more speed. Guess my tiny bit of knowledge in dirt multilaps paid off after all. If HE had known how to take the turn before me, I feel pretty confident that I would've never yoinked this one. Wouldn't be surprised if this got destroyed at some point now that I've showcased that. But hey, I didn't even know that the old record didn't use that, I was racing against the gold medal lmao. I just found my own strats for this level by playing it. Another reason to be happy with the run I guess :D

Although I don't think I could ever match the other parts of Flechetas' run because I'm just not that consistent, I could definitely beat this. I've had a run that was on -0.2 pace compared to this run that I couldn't put together, so definitely beatable, even for me. But if someone like RotakeR tackled this (or even Flechetas if he used the knowledge), I think that like mid-54 would be on the table monkaS

Anyway, I consider this an accomplishment, at least I brought something new to the table, I think. That's something I'd always wanted, if nothing else. Maybe not a completely original idea, but I maybe brought it to this level. Didn't copy this off of anyone else :P Feels like some weight off my chest, feel like I can have a more relaxed experience with the game now.

Edit: I've seen it spelled "Flechetas" and "Felchetas," I can't tell what way to spell it. Tried my best ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A01 Race PB: 24.00 (comparison to old pb)

Danielsbigfish 2020-05-18 | The other run that isn't POV is my previous PB of 24.08

I'd been racking my brain over this speedslide for a while, feels nice to actually pull it off in a run for the first time :D Significant improvement over my old pb, as you can see.

Kind of a funny run, because my plan has been to just take a safe pb and not go for the speedslide whenever I ended up significantly ahead of my old one, since I had never done the speedslide correctly. Seeing as I was a full car length ahead, this run shouldn't have really happened. I guess in the moment, I just went for it? I suppose I thought I was lined up well, and I was frustrated that I hadn't ever gotten it, and just did it on a whim, and it paid off somehow.

I really wish it was .01 faster :P but I'm still pretty happy. First speedslide pb after a long time trying to figure it out. Used one of trabadia's runs where it showed his controller inputs as a guide to see what I could fix.

Lagoon D05: 2:01.728

Danielsbigfish 2020-05-16 | Worth about 39k SP and 8th in the world.

I gave some thoughts about this run and my D06 run in the description of this video: youtu.be/F07iUkHirSw

Basically, I'm happy with the time and the 8th in the world, but not proud of this run because it's pretty much just a copy of mime's line. I've found kind of a new way to judge whether I can feel "proud" of a run, and that's to ask myself, "could I have gotten this time after learning the map without using a ghost as a guide?" The answer on A15 is definitely yes, since I got those times with no ghost. I think the answer on D06 is yes, and that's why I feel better about it now. On this level, I think the answer is a big ol' nope! The wallbang booster trick I could probably get, but those long wood drifts? I wouldn't be able to get solid speed out of those without the ghost showing me where to go. I'd probably be in the 2:03 or high 2:02 range.

Overall, kind of a cheap way to get into top 10 that I'm not that proud of, but it is what it is. Everyone else has the same tools available, I guess. At least I have other runs that I feel better about :P

Lagoon A15: 1:05.395 (6th in the world)

Danielsbigfish 2020-05-16 | Roughly 144k SP

Still kinda sloppy, but better boosts. Altered my line a little based on the WR, but since I got to 8th with my own strats I felt like I'd earned the right to learn a thing or two from someone else's run :P

I feel a little better about my D06 run now as well. Yeah, I took a lot of information from riolu's run, but I've taken into consideration with runs where I used someone else's ghost is whether or not I think I could pull off as good of a run as I have without having a ghost as a guide. I think I probably could pull off something similar on D06 even without a ghost now that I've learned it (I needed the ghost to learn it, but now I've got it and can do it on my own). It would be absolutely obnoxious, but I could do it. I still want to come up with some original fast ideas, but I guess I can say it's not nothing like I thought it was. It's an accomplishment I suppose :)

I'm referring to my thoughts I gave in the description of this video: youtu.be/F07iUkHirSw

Lagoon A15: 1:05.725 (8th in the world)

Danielsbigfish 2020-05-10 | 108,063 SP

Probably one of the runs that I feel the best about in this game, despite it not being the greatest quality run. It feels good to be able to say that, because after D06 I was really re-evaluating a lot of things.

I consider D06 to be my best quality (Lagoon) run, but shortly after I saw that riolu had commented on that video with some nice words, I really thought about things and I really started feeling down on myself and felt guilty in a way, because here I was passing that off as some nice accomplishment, but 90% of what I accomplished in that run was just done by copying what riolu did note for note (and doing literally everything worse while copying, btw). I applied a bit of my own knowledge to get the hill section more consistently fast than I was at first, but for the most part, totally unoriginal. I also got 8th in the world on D05 between that run and this one, and I didn't upload that because honestly, I wasn't too proud of that either because, despite it being pretty nice and clean, all I did was pretty much copy mime's line.

I came to this realization that I had nothing original to show for myself, and I wasn't too happy with myself. My best runs were kind of a sham, just a cheap ripoff of something that someone else had already done better. I had provided nothing new for the community. I hadn't gotten a world record, discovered any cuts or provided any knowledge, and my best runs were based on someone else's knowledge.

I think three of those things are still true. However, this run was done almost entirely with strats I figured out for myself (not discovered, but I learned it on my own instead of using someone's ghost). The only thing I really took from someone else was learning from Kazemede's run that you could get the magnet speed boost in lap 1, but I didn't really know HOW to get it. I was scratching my head over that for a while, but I figured out a line to get it on my own.

This is the first solid run I got that I felt like was actually my own run, in Lagoon at least. I think the quality of the run reflects that, as it's pretty sloppy, but it was enough to make that spicy world leaderboard. I still haven't really brought anything to the community, which I'm still self-conscious about, and this run is surely still worse in pretty much every way than what top players have done, but at least I got something nice playing my own way instead of someone else's. Can definitely save a lot of time though, maybe I will some time. Boost in lap 3 was kinda sloppy I think.

I can't really say I feel "fulfilled," though. I want to bring some innovation to the table, I want to provide something that's not already there. And, of course, getting a wr is the dream :P But, sadly, I think I might just suck too much for either to be a possibility. FeelsBadMan

Also, not even state record! :P Kazemede is nuts.

Cam 3 because cam 1 and 2 are terrible for this, plus it hides my bad lines better :P I like the skin though, so that's a shame.

(I edited this description a lot lmao)

Lagoon D06: 43.494 (3rd in the world)

Danielsbigfish 2020-05-05 | 78,667 SP lol

One of my most reasonable dreams in Trackmania has always been to get in the top 9 world rankings in at least one map, but everything was out of my skill range. But when I came across this level, I checked the rankings and I saw a pretty sizable gap between 1st (like mid 42) and 9th (roughly 44.03). I thought to myself, "yeah, I might be able to get myself in there somewhere." Still kind of a pipe dream, but I wanted to at least give it a shot.

So I set out to do exactly that, and after much learning, and... well, pretty much copying a lot of riolu's homework tbh, I got myself my first clean run, a nice 44.06 10th place run, which was pretty darn cool :D But I really wanted that 9th spot, because unless you're top 10 or you haven't played the level, you don't see 10th on the leaderboard, and I wanted to be able to flex that. After a while, I got myself a 44.026 or something, putting me in that spot, which was a happy moment. Still, I had failed a lot of runs on better pace, so I knew I could reasonably save time, and I figured whenever someone else got a top time, my time would be the first on the leaderboard to go since I was 9th :P So I put in a lot of practice to get a really solid run.

Finally, after some reworking, especially on the ending, I got this awesome run, and my rank shot up to 3rd! Which surprised me a little, because I knew Lumby was 2nd with like a 42.7, so I figured my ranking wouldn't be quite so good. I guess I shouldn't be too proud, since the gap between me and 2nd is pretty massive, but hey, bronze on a map is pretty nice, even if it's not the most hunted. Nice to be able to say that only riolu and Lumby are faster than me on this map right now :D

It is pretty funny looking at my run in comparison to the other top 10 times, and they all just pull away from me like a car length. They're all together, having a party, and I'm just chilling back there by myself :P It's like they're all telling me that they're out of my league. But hey, my recovery must've been pretty nice to come back and beat most of them. Maybe I'm not as good as them, but I was good enough to get something nice. I take what I can get lol

Also, despite all that, STILL 2nd in the US. But I got the national record on D08 I think, so there's that I guess lmao.

3 Million SP Celebration (A11 PB: 27.301)

Danielsbigfish 2020-04-28 | Figured I'd celebrate getting this by uploading the run that finally got me there since I'll probably not reach any other big milestones in this game :P

A while back, I reached roughly 2.97 million, but I never found the motivation to squeeze out another 30k in levels I didn't care for, so I let my SP decay. After bleeding over 100k points, I figured I'd missed my chance permanently. Also, some guy came in and started beating a lot of my state records, even pretty hard ones like B04 that I have over 100k SP on (shoutouts to potatolord2925), which hurt my motivation more than it ignited it lol. But after some casual level hunting, I gained a lot more points than I expected, and I deemed it possible, so I tried to learn some new strats on levels to finally push myself over that 3 mil mark.

This level was always a pain, but I really wanted to get that beginning nosedive right in a good run anyway, so I put in some practice and finally got a pretty awesome run - FOR ME -. Not even state record smh. But I'll take it.

Pretty safe to say that I'm done going for SP in this campaign. I guess it's an admission of defeat, but I'd consider it a declaration of personal victory. I remember when #1 in the state at the time (about 200k) was a pretty tall order for me. Same for 1 million, making the US leaderboard, 2 million. 5th in the US with 3,013,497 SP is a lot more than I ever thought I could do, and I can be happy about it. I'm sure I'll continue playing, but for fun and at my own pace. Right now, I'm having a lot more fun with Canyon and Valley (Lagoon, not so much...). I've improved a lot in Canyon particularly :D And I play Turbo some. There's a new Trackmania game coming out soon anyway :)

I'm probably gonna make myself a Trackmania specific channel, just because I'm sick of cluttering this one with these videos, but I do want to be able to upload them somewhere. I hope to make this one of the last videos of this type on my channel, if not the last.

Trackmania Turbo 200th Trackmaster (#107)

Danielsbigfish 2020-04-05 | Figured I'd upload the whole hunt because why not, it's not too long :P And you get to see me crash into the helicopter at the start like an idiot because I forgot how to play this map, so that's cool.

Not a very hard trackmaster to get. I tried to get the hardest ones out of the way first. Thought I'd save a Lagoon map for last because I think the environment is pretty. Happy to have Super Solo unlocked. I don't have any plans whatsoever to spend too much time in that, but I have managed to grab myself a couple of STMs (3, 4, 8, and 32), so that's something. I'm just gonna play whatever's fun.

Shoutouts to the hardest trackmasters:

-Almost all of the Valley Black tracks, especially 175 and 180, maybe 178 a little bit as well. 177 was pretty easy though.
-161, 169, 170
-186, 190 (had a surprisingly easy time with Lagoon Black otherwise)
-196
-The other hard tracks before the Black Series that I've repressed from my memory :P

Turbo #180 Trackmaster: 1:52.07

Danielsbigfish 2020-03-28 | I don't know what kind of trauma the person who mapped these valley dirt maps experienced in his/her life, but it must not have been good!

On the positive side of things I guess, this ~ONLY~ took like 2-3 hours to get. I looked up some other runs and found a guy that said it took him over 10 hours. I can see why! And that guy took about as long as I did to get the gold, so that wasn't encouraging.

This map gave me the unique experience of not even being able to get past the very first jump for like 30 minutes, and probably at least an hour total before I could get it "consistently" (and by consistently, I mean I can get it like 1 in 5 times or so). Thankfully, that was actually the biggest hurdle in this level. The other hard part is the narrow section at 0:35, and no amount of learning made that consistent, you just pray and hope you stay straight and don't flip over (almost happened in this run). Practice helped me get centered for the jump more often, but it's still just random. You get past it when the game feels like you should.

Everything else is miles easier than these two parts, but also hard enough that it can end a run. Even when you're past the "hard" parts, you can't feel safe. Ever.

This run was absolutely HORRENDOUS. Mistakes everywhere, really stupid and avoidable wall touches (ones at 0:57 and 1:41 were excusable, 0:59 has no excuse at all), nothing went well in this run (except the u-turn at 1:23, that was pretty good). I had plenty of better runs that died. Maybe I'll beat it someday, maybe I won't touch this one ever again because it's a basement-tier level, but I got what I came for.

I don't think this level is as annoying as 175 personally, mostly because this level is only 2 minutes as opposed to 3 1/2. It's harder in terms of level design, but the hardest parts are at the beginning, and once you're past it, you're past it. You don't have to do it 3 times in a row. On the other hand, though, the trackmaster time on this one is stupid hard, I think it's 1'52"148. When I looked up the trackmaster time for this one, I was dumbfounded. Then again, I made a lot of mistakes on this run and still got it, so I guess I can see why it is what it is. Still nuts, though.

Still have 7 more valley black maps to go (got 175 and 180 out of the way first). I don't even want to think about it.

Turbo #175 Trackmaster: 3:34.52

Danielsbigfish 2020-03-27 | Tried with the quality, rendering wasn't an option for me. Mostly uploading this for myself to log a milestone, so no big deal to me.

Conquered a big personal demon here in my quest to get all 200 trackmasters! Being more than 170 levels into Trackmania Turbo, I've seen a lot. I've seen fun maps, and I've seen the stupidest maps ever (mostly the latter), but having a map give me an existential crisis? That was a new experience for me.

Since the blue and red series, I've been pretty confident that I was going to get every trackmaster. Maybe not fast, but eventually I would get it. This map really made me question all of that when I played it for the first time. I'd seen this map before and wasn't terribly shook, expecting it to just be a bit harder than any other valley multilap than I've already played, but then I actually played it, and I really questioned whether I had wasted all of my other time in this game just to get stuck here. But I got it! Not the greatest run, but I'll take a trackmaster. If I can get this one, SURELY I can get any of them if I set my mind to it... Right?

This level requires STUPID precision, you can't even be slightly off in places. Getting 3 laps without a major mistake is an infuriating task. Fortunately, I don't think this one even took me 3 hours (which it definitely could've taken that long), it hasn't even been the longest grind (I have 180 and that took longer, also a stupid map), but this might be the most insane level I've played in the game. I can't believe what they expect from you on this one. If I finish this game and this map isn't in the top 3 stupidest maps in the game, then we have failed as a species.

Thankfully this is the only map that's made me feel this way so far (180 was close, but not quite). Lagoon black better not change that when I get to it...

TL;DR I fuckin hate video games...

Trackmania Stadium A13: 25.655 (320k SP)

Danielsbigfish 2020-03-26 | Very happy with this. Though I know the run could definitely be better, I'm happy to be #1 on the USA leaderboard for a map that isn't dirt. Feel like I've proven myself in a new way, I guess. But I knew I could get this one when I "accidentally" got a 25.665 a while back when the best US/North American time was 25.661 by... fantom? Turbo fantom? Whatever his tag is (he's tied with Recks). Took a while to shave off that little bit of time, but I finally got it. 43rd in the world I think.

Pretty mediocre start, but I got the ramp clip trick, helped me save enough time. Had a hard time with that on keyboard as well, but I was stubborn to prove I didn't need a controller, and it was harder to do the zigzag start with controller anyway, so it might have actually helped not doing that.

Anyway, satisfied. My main project right now is getting all the trackmasters in Turbo, this was mostly just a little side project. Needed a break and I wanted this bad. Progress in Turbo is coming along, just got the trackmaster on 175, which was a huge personal demon :D

Clutch Battle vs. Mt. Btlmaster Battlus - Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness

Danielsbigfish 2020-02-14 | From this run: youtube.com/watch?v=tZXLIlpN-eE

Scariest battle I've probably ever had, and I've been playing Pokemon since I was like 6. It's mostly because this was at the end of an almost 4 hour Mt. Battle run that started from the beginning.

Absolutely insane battle, despite not really having a lot of stupid battle luck like freezes and crits. Maybe slightly useful flinch on Dusclops, and an untimely crit against Ninetales (probably would've lived?), but overall pretty tame. However, the lead luck might have been real. Him leading Dusclops so I could get rid of that imprison threat early was potentially huge.

Every bit of luck mattered, this battle literally came down to the last turn. I thought Flygon could tank a Dragon Claw from Latias, not thinking about calm mind (I did know ice beam wouldn't kill Latias, I was only thinking about the sp. def. boost, not sp. atk. Went for it anyway), but I revived Starmie for safety, thankfully. 200 IQ.

Looking back, this battle was even closer to a loss than I initially thought. If at 8:45, Latias had targeted Flygon instead of Starmie, I would have lost with the play I made. Not my best play in hindsight. I was scared of it having ice beam as well (it doesn't, but I didn't know that, Latios does have it), so no good excuse, despite the dragon claw damage catching me off-guard. Could have used waterfall on Metagross and dragonbreath on Latias. That way, if Latias targets Starmie, I just win. If it targets Flygon, at least I live and have a chance to figure something out. A better play would've been to waterfall Metagross and revive either Ninetales (because it's fast), Espeon (pretty fast and has bite), or Breloom (priority move). Even reviving Ampharos would've been fine, despite it being too slow to outspeed Latias (though it had quick claw, I guess). This would've guaranteed a 2v1, which would have guaranteed a win.

All that being said, I'm glad that none of that is what happened instead of this because this was hype as hell. Besides, I didn't know the team perfectly, so I can't blame myself too much for not knowing what to do in these scenarios. I made some good plays too, like light screen with Ampharos which ended up saving Breloom. Didn't think light screen mattered in the fight, but I was wondering how Breloom survived Latios' psychic at the time, and now I know. Got a revive off with that. Lost a damage turn with Ampharos to get it off, but I don't think it mattered too much, Ampharos wasn't great for this battle, with 3 earthquake boys and all.

Anyways, incredible battle, one of the only exciting battles of the whole run. This battle convinced me that it was all worth it, if I wasn't convinced before.

TM2 Stadium B05: 1:37.931 (448k SP) | Facepalm Run

Danielsbigfish 2020-02-11 | Good thing my PBs autosave, because I forgot to save the replay like an idiot.

Back to back PBs on my 2 best stages! Another second barrier as well, sub-1:38! This one took like 30 minutes maybe, way less than A05. Unlike A05 though, this one...hurts.

99% of this run was great. Get to the middle of lap 3, run is going great, just over 6 seconds ahead of author medal, best pace I've ever been on. I get another good wallbang, and I'm pumped. This is the God run. But I'm also feeling the nerves. And that ending, I just...no! That's not okay! How much time did I lose on that? That's just how it goes, failing the last turn. Absolutely. Classic.

Honestly, though, still a hype run. First 1:37 in North America is cool! 29th in the world. Probably not done with this level, though, haven't reached my peak. Think I can get mid 1:37. Any further is probably out of my skill range.

Also, definitely my best keyboard run ever. Trying to maintain my skill with both haha.

TM2 Stadium B06: 30.508 (109k SP)

Danielsbigfish 2020-02-11 | Apparently my last 2 videos have quality problems? Which is disappointing, because I was so happy with that A05 Run :( and it's not even my fault, I checked the actual video files and the quality is fine, problem is on YouTube's end. It was my first time using their new upload tool, so I guess it's because of that. So yeah, thanks a lot YT. At least the run was good. I'm mostly just uploading these as a chronicle of my achievements anyway, it's not like many people watch these. Glad for anyone that enjoys these, though. Anyway, uploading this before I drop below 100k SP, same as C04. Anything above 100k is good enough to upload, I suppose.

Another pretty good run on a super obnoxious level to do fast. The only really troublesome part is the precise turns followed by the drift at 0:16, but that one part is SO difficult by itself that it sucks out a lot of the enjoyment. It's also maybe a 20% chance at best to get a good roof hit and good landing assuming you have enough speed. That would be fine if the part before wasn't so stupidly precise. Very satisfying to get right, though. Small release mid-run, kinda safe, but overall good. 2nd in the US is ok! :D

TM2 Stadium A05: 51.987 (740k SP) | The Sub 52

Danielsbigfish 2020-02-10 | I halfheartedly set a long term goal for myself a while back to get sub-52 on this map, but I wasn't really sure if I could ever do it or how I could do it. I didn't know how to save the time. But, my knowledge improved, I did a lot of runs, and after a handful of 52.0xx times, I achieved my goal, also beating out CarlJr (52.002) and Raistlin (51.998) for the #1 spot in North America (also 26th in the world). I also surpassed rexine for 6th place in overall SP rankings in the US (336 in the world). Guess that time spent into being decent at this one level really paid off, even if I'm just a one, maybe two map specialist.

I suppose I'll never be as good as any of those people at Trackmania. I played in step 1 of the Open Grand League and got dead last in my silver match. My consistency isn't there. But at least I can bust out some good campaign runs that I can be happy with and be proud of. Even if 26th in the world isn't good by many people's standards, it does put a smile on my face.

As for the run itself, it was really good by my standards, with no real mistakes, except for the very last turn where I lost a lot of speed, classic. Fortunately, that's the best place for that to happen. Other than that, I am satisfied with this run.

Honestly, with me being pretty ecstatic after reaching my biggest long-term goal in this game, I might be done playing this map to improve. I guess my only goal left would be to break 1 million SP on it, but I don't think it's worth it. This run is optimized enough by my standards that trying to pb from here would be a massive hassle and not really fun. There is always a time to call it quits, and this might be it for me on this map. That said, it's been a journey, and I learned a lot. It's been fun.

Side note: 0:45 - big monkaS right there...

TM2 Stadium C04: 44.835 (100k SP)

Danielsbigfish 2020-02-10 | Figured I'd upload this before I drop below 100k. I think I had 104k or so when I got this? Not sure exactly, but it was more. At least 102k.

Pretty solid run. Hard level to get right, that dirt chicane near the beginning is really obnoxious, but got it together eventually. Don't really know how to properly jump the dirt at 0:12, but it's no big deal to me.