so I guess I am the only one who is going to be upset if SM screws over final rush? If he finds this ridiculous time cut and it is allowed, I am putting down the controller and I am out of SA2B competition. Forever. Why? Because.. What's next.. city escape in 40 seconds cause you can fall to the goal ring? Is that even fun? Does it prove a damn thing about ones ability? Sooner or later SM is going to ruin all the sonic levels just as he had done so with the hunting ones. Walker stages.. well he has only ruined eternal engine, thankfully the rest are left alone. But it is just a matter of time until every level can be beaten 3 times faster than it should be only due to a senseless glitch that KILLS the competition and fun of the stage.
Look at SADX, quite a few of the sonic levels are stupid. Final egg doesn't even need rankings cause a sucky player can beat it in 30 seconds with the DC trick, and a good player could get 2:00 something with no ridiculous stage killing glitches and be ranked really low. You may as well eliminate that level altogether, it fails to prove who is the best which is the point of a chart.
Small shortcuts and glitches are okay, going through the wall in hidden base is fine cause it is just a few seconds of a time saver, it does not totally kill the sense of playing the level. Or Green Forest, Brian's new trick is challenging to pull off, and cuts off just 8 seconds. It does not completely destroy the whole entire level. Shortcuts, specifically glitch shortcuts that take out over 40% of the level are just getting all too common in sonic games, and it is killing the fun! Look at Sonic 1, almost every level has had its record cut in half during the past year. I suck at 2D, but I had fun with the game. All the glitch stage killing tricks come in, I haven't even cared enough to bother with them. I will probably never play that game again thanks to that, way to draw in competition!
Before someone says that I am just mad about losing my FR record, I really don't care about not having the record cause I am happy with the 2:07 that I pushed myself to the limit to achieve a nearly flawless time. What I am mad about is, how this will totally destroy the level and levels in the future that SM breaks, and more personally, my and FR7's fun little competition. We had a dream of someday breaking 2:00, the fun way, slowly and surely working our way down finding this and finding that. SM however is just going to come in and find a way to cut out two-thirds of the level and ruin our competitive fun just cause he has to go for the big, ridiculous shortcuts that don't really belong in competition.
One last thing.. yes, it is absolutely amazing that he can study a level so well that he can cut it in half or more, its cool, interesting, and amazing. sure. I am not bashing him for being so intelligent. I am just saying that they need to be kept out of the real competition! When something destroys the fun and challenge of a level, you are going to upset people like me who do not desire to simply go through a wall and fall to the goal ring or something similar. If need be why not make a glitch/super shortcut division for these tricks, that way everybody can play the level the way they want. And I don't mean freestyle, I mean on the main charts that way you still get points for your crazy tricks. Instead we are forced to use amazing, however competitively BORING tricks to beat the level, or else we won't be worth a damn on the charts. Hardly fair...
In summary, shortcuts are cool, glitchy super cuts SUCK!