Off the bat, I'd like to point out that this run is also on YouTube With Audio Commentary if you prefer to watch this over there.

Into the thankyous...

The SDA Staff: Again, you wouldn't be on this page if it weren't for them. Thanks for maintaining a great site guys
5upamayne: Racing me at this game some, getting me re-inspired by finding an awesome skip an Ice Path.
The Metroidhunters Crew: For always being awesome.

And now let's discuss this run.

Opening: Frame 4 is required for the run, won't be sexy enough without it
Choosing 9:59am for the time is to simply make it one less digit than 10:00 when your mother calls out the time, without making it morning (this makes nurses says “good morning” when you heal”.

Name myself I as always, default everything except no DST for 3 saved frames. I check Totodiles stats straight away because it's a long time before I get a level, and I would get in less than half the attempts if I waited, and wouldn't have gotten a time this good until next year.

Attack: 12 (DV 5-14)
Defense: 11 (DV 0-5)
Special Attack: 10 (Special is one DV, I learn more from Special Defense)
Special Defense: 11 (DV 12-15)
Speed: 10 (DV 7-15)

As Special is by far the most important stat, I'm more than happy with this. Only decent attack will make no difference compared to perfect, and with my speed good it's impossible these stats could do the same as all 15s.

Egg Investigation: I always always always get 5 encounters before the rival fight. If I don't, my stats are either absolute garbage (had less than 5) or incredible (had more than 5). Let's look at those stats again:

Attack: 13 (DV 5-0)
Defense: 13 (DV 3-5)
Special Attack: 12 (DV 14-15)
Special Defense: 12 (DV 14-15)
Speed: 11 (DV 7-14)

Double 12s on special is the key, attack is fairly irrelevant.

Route 29: 2 here is average, and picking up Sentret is nice, always love the early Cut slave.

Route 30: Fucking encouters dude...

Route 31: It begins. The first spinner, Don. Pause strats used here, passed with no issue.

Violet City: Now this, this is why we use Totodile. Rage goes in so hard you don't need to grind, unlike with everything else. These all go alright. Deposit the Egg straight after getting it since it's quicker than watching it hatch. Use Double deposit strats to heal up Totodile as it's quicker than taking the centre.

Route 32: Walk above trainer to avoid less chance of encounters under the 3 step clause, where you will only get encounters after at least 3 steps.

Union Cave: First spinner here is pretty much a reset, killing Onix without Water Gun is nearly impossible, and even if it happens it takes forever. Also manage to get past Bill, the second spinner, which is the second hardest spinner to dodge in the game.

When you come out is Anthony, another spinner with a large chance to beat you if he catches you, so very important I miss him.

Slowpoke Well: Bitter Berry is key here and it goes straight away. This was harder than it needed to be because of that, but still went well

Azalea City: Battles went well (apart from being poisoned), and we skip another spinner, Benny. Bugsy went alright.

Azalea City: Rival fight was a pile of dicks, after turn 1 on Bayleef I thought I was set but...nope. This is arguably the worst fight in the game though, so any win is a win I guess

Ilex Forest: We pick up a few items as we are very strapped for cash, and the ever glorious Headbutt. In Goldenrod we pick up a lovely looking Bike, and head off to the gym

Goldenrod City: Whitney fight was nerve wrecking. Time to go shopping, as you can see money is quite tight due to the big mall being in the third gym town. Get everything I need though, and move on.

Route 35: Irwin and his Volorbs can kiss my ass

Route 37: This dude can actually wreck you if he hits with Hypnosis when you only have one item to heal sleep. All good.

Ecruteak City: Kimono girls first, this can be rough, especially Jolteon. Manage to hang in there, and end up with a very respectable moveset now which will be kept for a while.

Ecruteak Gym: All the battles here went really well, there is a lot of chance for Paralysis here, so only getting once with is straight cured with the berry is great.

Route 38: Dana can kiss my ASS!! This is the spinner I hit the least in the game and she's he me on both my record runs...fucking bitch. Anyway, you need to hit one extra trainer for experience anyway, but ideally I use Ernest...

Lighthouse: Everything was fine here, past Ernest on first pass. Get Rare Candy here because I need to evolve before Cianwood or get bodied.

Route 41: Got past Kaylee which is nice, she's an awful spinner to get hit by.

Cianwood City: Took a huge amount of damage before Chuck, who almost rolled a bullshit chance, but I ended up fine. Get Fly and Secretpotion, and head off to Mahogany as we can't OHKO Jasmine's pokemon right now.

Road to HQ: Past Benjamin with ease, distract a Red Gyarados with a stuffed toy, and watch Lance body some lowly people straight to the HQ

Team Rocket HQ: Everything here is pretty underleveled, but this is actually where that great Special starts to shine, gets a lot of OHKOs in here I wouldn't otherwise get. In particular the last 4 battles in here would not go so smoothly without these great stats.

Mahogany Gym: By FAR my least favourite spinner in the game. Boarder Douglas. You can't even see this guy, no idea where he's at, and still have to get past him twice, with turning. You have about 0 chance of not fighting this dumbass, on a good run anyway. And he spams protect, I mean it doesn't get any worse.

Lighthouse: Passed Ernest on second pass, making hitting Dana no time lost at all.

Olivine Gym: And now because she's so late, Jasmine is reduced to a joke.

Radio Tower 1: Stats again make a difference here, blitz through this.

Underground: I have spent hours hoping there is a better combination to these switches, but there just isn't sucks that you have to fight everyone here, but at least there aren't any spinners. Battles all go great.

Radio Tower 2: Lovely battles here again, blitz through this.

Route 44: Poliwag is a required catch here. Shows up at 90%, 10% is Poliwhirl. Best place without a doubt to catch a Whirlpool/Waterfall slave. Just one issue, unless he's level 26+, you can't weaken him, and he's also an asshole at showing up. If you watched any of my runs, you'd know this is actually a high reset point for me, this catch sucks ass. Made it look like a joke though.

Ice Path: YO YO YO shoutouts to mah boi 5upamayne for the jumping off the ledge strats 2/3rds of a second saved right there YEAAA BUDDY!!! By far the most technically demanding part of the run, as you can actually move after pushing Strength boulders in this game as long as it's not in the direction of the way you pushed it, making the puzzle room here quite hard to do perfectly. I do fairly well.

Blackthorn City: Everything went nice here, nothing outstanding but nothing to complain about.

Route 27: Free heal here is much quicker than a centre, so it's advisable to take this. FUCKING JOOOOOYCCCCEEEE

Victory Road: Best Victory Road ever, no bloody Strength boulders!! Just the best TM ever. Hold on on that for now though, since we still want Bite for the next fight.

Elite Four: All the of these battles went pretty much perfect. The Karen fight especially was god tier, that Umbreon can fuck your shit up so much you literally have to Struggle to win

Johto Split: 2:39, my equal best. A really great start, honestly. Now into Kanto...

SS Aqua: There is literally nothing to comment on here this is just a cool place with cool music.

Road to Rock Tunnel: So, because Gold's Route 9 has 4 trainers you have to fight it's actually faster to go through Rock Tunnel. In the Dark. Twice. This was by far the hardest part of the hard movement wise.

Rock Tunnel 1: Really solid. Really, really solid. With the machine Part flagged, we head off to Cerulean.

Nugget Bridge: All these fights are a joke. With Misty flagged and now fightable, we set off to restore the generator. Which means...

Rock Tunnel 2: No walls in room 1 or 2? I don't even plan for shit that sexy. Overall easiest the best Rock Tunnel I've done.

Celadon Gym: Blitz through here, obtain Ninth Badge easily

Cycling Road: My strats for Joel, this spinner, is to just take my hands off the controller and whatever happens, happens.

Fuschia Gym: Joke of a gym, too ez.

Vermillion Gym: This all goes nice. No need for Snorlax, straight to the next gym

Pewter Gym: Omastar didn't protect, very nice

Cinnibar Gym: lol...

Cerulean Gym: This goes really well, Lapras had no right to get bodied like that, damage range ftw.

Saffron Gym: Last two spinners in the game, never seen grannies move that fast before. Sabrina herself was alright

Viridian Gym: This place is actually a bit challenging, but this fight goes alright. I decide not to heal after this, just had a feeling that I'd be fine.

Mt Silver: Floor 1 is in the dark, which isn't the easiest thing in the world. Hit a few walls on purpose here to understand where I am, and do fairly well considering the conditions.

Red: And after being overleveled the whole game, I'm suddenly faced with 6 pokemon all several levels above me. I need to get off 3 X Attacks and an X Speed to win this fight cleanly, and the quickest way to do that is to freeze Venusaur. If this fight goes wrong, you will lose 4 minutes on it alone, and it has a ~73% chance of going wrong.

Final thoughts: This run can be improved, but it's so hard to motivate myself to beat a run based on the last fight giving me that 27% chance. This game is so much harder in practice than in theory, I keep thinking that a good time should be easy, but it's ridiculously hard. Only hit 2 extra spinners, really nice damage ranges at good points. This run was really good, and it'll take a lot of resets to beat.

Thanks everyone for watching, reading, and listening! Hope to see you again on another pokemon speedrun ^_^