[Former WR] Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty 100% in 29:38

Channel:

suibom

Subscribers:

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Published on January 6, 2019 11:12:10 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgAzODHDEGk

Game:

Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (2008)

Duration: 37:08

1,510 views

29

To Make The Darkness Divine.

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This time is good enough to warrant a history lesson, so get comfy and tuck yourself in while I try to tell the story what I've experienced when it comes to this category.

It wasn't until early 2014 that QfB 'began' as a speedgame, mainly from the interest of community members that were branching out from the more well known Ratchet games; clippy, RejectedLink, ohKae and Skritler, to name the main proponents of this movement. Routing for the category was fairly sudden and brief, seemingly reaching an optimised level very quickly; RejectedLink's first record of 1:07:12 was beaten the next day by ohKae with a 47:09, which then stood for 9 months.

Later in the year Skritler would get a 46:26, and then finally a 45:22 in July 2015. This run is notably *really* well performed, considering the route it had. The only major skip of the route was Hoolefar Island skip, skipping the entire turbine powering section of the game; the rest being minor skips and raw XP, bolt and movement management. The 45:22 would stand for 2 and a half years, until February 2018.

I joined the scene in late January looking to expand from ToD; messing around with a game in the same engine was up my alley, and I saw some untapped potential in the general route of the game. Building off Skrit's run, I made some minor route changes and achieved a 44:39 on the 8th of February.

The next day I discovered the second major skip - Darkwater Puzzle Skip - saving over 2 minutes on that split alone. Throughout the month I would work on optimising individual splits XP wise, create new movement for Lythoin and Ambush, and find consistent final phase one-cycle on Slag. The time was brought down to 38:54 by the end of the month; over 6 minutes improvement of WR in the space of 3 weeks.

In early March, fellow Future series runner Lexos beat my time with a 38:13, employing much better execution with a similar route. In June I returned to the game after some frustrations with Nexus, finding a 30 second cutscene skip, Slag related sequence breaks, and a general improvement in how I approached movement in the game. I achieved a 37:30 not long into the month, quickly followed by a 35:49. From there, I took a break from the game and focused on Nexus and ACiT until after the August relay.

Soon after the relay I was motivated with a renewed outlook on running and looked hard into more strats, paying off with the next major skip of the run - Morrow First Floor Skip - saving several minutes. Myself and isaki jointly worked on making the skip happen, turning one of the more frustrating parts of the run into a technical and rewarding out of bounds platforming section. That day I achieved a 34:20 with over a minute of timeloss - in September I cleaned up the run and revamped the XP route, finally getting a 32:24. At this point, I thought most of the potential had dried up; but at the same time, I knew there was at least one more big thing left in the tank.

Moving forward to November, I had a slight inkling that another major skip was possible; my suspicions were correct, and the final piece of the Morrow puzzle was put into place - Morrow Grindrail Skip. This saved a little over 30 seconds - at this point I really wanted to see how deep this rabbit hole goes, so after a little more XP route tweaking and heavy movement practice, I got a 31:07. This was the first run that actually felt representative of the effort that had been poured into the category over 2018. A 30:xx wasn't out of reach, but sub 30 unfortunately was. Even with an 8 second timesaver found less than a week later, I had no intention of going for a 30:xx without following up with a slam dunk 29:xx to close another chapter of this category's story.

As the ghost of ToD stabbed me in the back once in late November, it returned in December to shoot me in the face with something unorthodox - Weapon Upgrade Animation Skips. By pausing in the brief moment while the weapon ticks over a level in XP, it cancelled the usually unskippable upgrade animation. This saved nearly 5 seconds per weapon level and collectible upgrade, totaling over a minute of timesave in the category. Immediately, I set the goal of getting a 29 before February 2019.

And I suppose that brings us to the run you see right here. By no means perfect, but by all means something I can be proud of. I am thankful for Lexos and isaki's contributions to the run, for without them, this time wouldn't exist. 28 will happen eventually, but it's good to reflect on how far you've come at each milestone.

The power of introspection helps you be the best version of yourself.

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