First off I'd like to say this is my first speedrun attempt to be up for submission anywhere for publication and I was nervous to do so. I've been coming to SDA for quite a while now and went through and looked at a lot of speedruns through my time being there and grew to learn and appreciate this practice more and more. I come from The Sonic Center which most people know as THE place for serious Sonic speedrunning and that's the very place where my skills kept growing to where I am now.

Sonic Heroes...is something I can't stand anymore. This came about when I would speedrun this game and got better and better and unfortunately, that's where every problem occurs. This game is bad, I mean REALLY bad. This game is littered with glitches and bugs that can stop you in your tracks and make anyone cautious to even attempt a run like this. Finishing is a chore and luck is an absolute must in this game. Something WILL go wrong everytime you decide to give this game a go for whatever reason. This isn't normal and it makes Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) look decent, which isn't easy :(

Now I put in the category for "Real-Time" for one reason, the Team Blast. This is a mechanic in the game that allows you to clear out normal enemies in one attack or to heavily damage a boss. Thing is, you have to sit through an animation before you can control your team once again. There is a way to abuse this with a glitch found years ago called "Team Blast Glitch" or "TBG". It basically allows all teams to fill up their Team Blast meter to full at a faster pace than normal. Normally, you'd have to get rings, kill enemies, or find a Team Blast capsule to fill it up all the way. With the glitch however, you'd just have to do this 3 times in a row and it fills up much much faster...unless you just so happen to be near a capsule, then that is faster. I know the glitch is allowed, but the thing is, if I were to abuse this glitch, the run would be much longer than it is. It's not apparent with Team Sonic and Chaotix, but even with them, you'd be abusing this on bosses and such and that would get quite boring. Team Dark and Rose gets a larger benefit. Team Dark can stop the timer for 10 sec with each use essentially meaning they can keep using it over and over during the frozen time state to get extremely low times. Team Rose on the other hand gains abilities and powerups with each use, but the most useful is speed shoes.

Ok now that that is settled, on to the run itself.

Sorry about choosing new game here :(

• Seaside Hill: (2:52:18) Went pretty well for the most part. Although it does feature something which I hate about this game. Having a team based game is fine, having your teammates not available isn't. This can happen due to a number of reasons this game throws at you and about 40% of the time, you'd have no clue that one of your partners were gone or dead (yes dead, as in their pic in the HUD will be crossed off and to get them back you'd have to use a Team Blast, find them at a checkpoint, or progress until they return). Something I really don't see what purpose it does to the game and really just makes to harder on you to have to not let one of your partners even get hit. About 50 sec into the stage (to the in-stage timer), that issue comes up. I need a rocket accel (having both teammates launch me for a bigger boost of speed), but they are nowhere near me. This isn't fun and can happen even if both partners are right behind you. Please see what anyone who has played this a lot has to put up with. At 2 mins, I get into the cannon in the Flight formation, when I get to the top it isn't so smooth. It's a glitch with the cannons if you go in them while still stuck in another formation...which is stupid as you should be able to smoothly switch regardless. It's like Sonic Team didn't realize Sonic is fast. On the bobsleds, you'll see me hug the corners. This actually saves time. Jumping doesn't hurt you in any way...unless you hit something while doing it. Near the end, I jump through the blowhole of the whale island area. It's not so smooth of an entry, but I get in there.

• Ocean Palace: (2:52:23) At about 1:23, you hit this ramp and fly off onto the turtles in the distance. There's a bug which happens sometimes where you will hit the ramp and fly straight into the air. This has happened quite a bit to me, luckily it didn't happen this time. At 1:31, here's where I'd use a Team Blast to get them out of the way and continue in the cannon. Thing is, Team Sonic's Team Blast lasts about 7-8 seconds doing the animation. If I can kill a set of enemies faster than said animation, then I skip using it. This is real-time afterall. During the Rock Chase, which is clearly a heads up to SA1 and SA2's chase sequences, this is fucked up. I'm not going faster because I'm unable to, I'm not because the fucking rock will randomly decide to go faster than it should just to keep nipping at your heels...except they didn't bother to test that it will fuck you over going around the loop killing you, while hitting the ramp killing you, or even flying through the air...killing you. Other than that, this went ok too.

• Egg Hawk: (0:25:19) Let's get one thing straight, boss fights in this game is luck filled! I do ok against this shit though. Hitting the head directly will cause the most damage...too bad aiming sucks and not to mention making sure Sonic or Tails doesn't get hit by stray fire causing Fire Dunk to whiff.

• Grand Metropolis: (2:45:53) At about 1:00, I whiff the light dash there. Also I hop a bit before each one because quite frankly, they fucking failed at designing them. I couldn't tell you how many times I've died because of the bullshit that are those trails due to them being set in the air. Luckily these aren't. I also can't go through the large doors I open up until they are fully opened, otherwise there's an invisible wall preventing entry.

• Power Plant: (4:30:79) FUCKING AWESOME! You'll see why. I almost died though, but no time loss. At 0:32 however, I needed Tails at lvl 2 and he didn't get his first power core from the 5th robot I killed. So that gimped me a bit for time.

• Team Battle 1-Rose: (0:20:78) Team Shit if you ask me (No offense to PM888 and his run which I hope he gets up at some point). I get Amy and Cream to fall off fast and as usual Big is a giant douche and refuses to leave.

• Casino Park: (2:11:51) This and the stage after are fucking retarded. Whoever designed the controls for this game and how you control your characters on the huge tables should be castrated...and lit on fire. It's really impossible to get a good grip on where you want to go as randomness can kick in at any given point and you could lose all momemtum. I think the biggest offender, if one of your teammates dying on you because of these tables. Next would be if you are off the table and one of your teammates isn't with you, chances are, they are someplace else entirely on the table still or one of the areas below them. This wouldn't be so bad if they went to where you are when switched, but no they don't, YOU go to wherever THEY are at the time and wait long enough and you'll warp to them despite being someplace else entirely. Pretty fucked up Sonic Team >:( at 1:08, Tails is all fucked up here. The damn prompt to let you know you can press B to perform a certain action (in this case, to grab a switch), is screwed up, and not to mention I'm missing someone. WHEN WILL SONIC TEAM LEARN TO NOT MAP 1000 ACTIONS TO ONE BUTTON EVERY DAMN GAME! At 1:42...yeah. B being for the Light Dash when near ANY ring and right there I need to slide (which is also B) to go under the lasers. This works with Team Sonic only. I had a hard time anyway for whatever stupid reason, but this is a glitch I'm using so eh. I guess you can't get hit or fuck up in anyway before attempting this as I go under them without any trouble any other time.

• Bingo Highway: (3:25:13) This went pretty wel...no wait...what the fuck at 2:36? Seriously, what...the...fuck?! I shouldn't be so pissed, but it's shit like that that makes me want to incinerate my game disc.

• Robot Carnival: (1:39:66) This is pure luck due to your need to get certain power cores for certain teammates to speed through this. This went quite well.

• Rail Canyon: (2:54:81) I fuck up some...nothing too bad though.

• Bullet Station: (4:04:63) Funny how it's initials are BS...which can also stand for Bull Shit. This stage sucks so bad. This didn't go too bad but 2 times you have to enter a large cannon that will launch you across the stage. Problem being that you need everyone to get in the damn things so it can load up. With that said, someone, and I mean "TAILS THE DOUCHE" has to fuck runs up for me by deciding to disappear completely. When that happens, the cannon doesn't load for a long ass time. At the 2nd cannon, it wasn't as long as it should be so thank God for that.

• Egg Albatross: (1:07:18) More shitty than Egg Hawk, this is an upgrade. It's the same damn boss but strapped to a blimp and shit. The fastest way at killing it I try to perform, but fail hard. This should have been done in about 30-40 sec, but no. I go backwards to make it follow me and stay on the stretch on platform there.

• Frog Forest: (2:41:21) I'm scared of this place. Every loop is a potential death trap. I have been killed by every loop this stage has. Overall, this went pretty well excluding my flubs.

• Lost Jungle: (3:02:46) At 1:47, I got scared so I jumped a little late and fell off the flower and almost fell to my death. This part scares me though because after I land, I need to go through the laser grid. I use a Team Blast which wastes 8 sec, but I have a clear way to get through the lasers. That shortcut saves a lot of time.

• Team Battle 2-Dark: (8:11) FINALLY!

• Hang Castle: (3:12:11) I was actually anticipating the game kills in during the intro run...it has happened. At 0:34, I do a phasing glitch to get through the door without having to trigger the switch to open it. It saves 13-15 sec, but I mess it up by not having everyone together sooner. I get through, but hey, even if I did have both mates with me helping from the start it's all luck. At 2:08, I skip heading to the bottom of the tower by dashing into the window there which is convienently placed I might add.

• Mystic Mansion: (4:04:18) There's a laser skip early on I could use, but it's too damn unreliable so I don't even try. At 1:14, I mistakenly press B and did a Blue Tornado :( At 3:06, you don't have to activate all of the switches there. The path of rings is already halfway complete, you just use the switches to make another line of rings and connect the two (Team Sonic/Rose only). 3:15 scares me, but I make it.

• Robot Storm: (2:43:63) Just like Robot Carnival...except longer. I goofed at 1:46, but really, does it have to take that long for everyone to wake the fuck up?

• Egg Fleet: (4:55:53) This can be pretty straight forward...or not. I did ok here. At 2:55, I miss getting up on the bigger fan there. For some reason after that, floating on the other fans was going slower than usual.

• Final Fortress: (3:47:59) At 0:13, that's a really hard jump to make. At 0:48, I can jump off the poles early, but I'm not risking it at this point. At 2:43, I'm trying to do an extended flight jump, but no success as it's faster than taking to pole. On the last set of rails, I refuse to jump off early on any of them at this point. Was pretty good.

• Egg Emperor: (1:50:00) King Ass Hole here. There's a strat to take this bastard out in around 20 sec, but I fuck it up and decide to get him at the rest area. Now normally at the rest area, I don't take too long to kill him with Tails at lvl 2, but for some fucked up reason (which this game needs to do on a daily basis), the fucking thundershoots refused to stay on him. I could have abused the TBG right then, but really, I didn't expect for that shit to keep happening. Whatever, I was done and didn't care.

That's it then and I hope you like it. Maybe another run in the future, most likely not though >_>

I'd like to thank the following:

• The Sonic Center
• eredani (who I try to surpass every day in Sonic Heroes competition)
• DarkSpinesSonic (a really good Sonic player who I've grabbed a couple of tips from)
• mike89 (he's just awesome)
• JoshiG4/Hondaman1989 (for his youtube vids which have helped with some useful shortcuts)
• SpeedDemosArchive
• Saestrol (for his motivation and help)
• All of the people at Youtube for watching my practice runs

If I've forgotten anyone, sorry :(