It'sa me, Kaizo Mario!

[MCBanjoMike]

So after hemming and hawing about it (and letting my thumb rest) for a few days, I decided to dive back into Quickie World 2. I actually stumbled across a streamer I’d never heard of who was playing the game, Taterholic, and watching her learn it really reminded me how much I enjoyed it the first time. As a bonus, she’s only been learning Kaizo for about two months, so she’s barely ahead of us. Anyway, I fired up a new game and I managed to clear both exits on the Chris G Spot in an hour and five minutes. Not exactly world record pace, but it’s a big improvement over my first run! I’ll be happy if I can finish the rest in another hour, though Wedding Nails might have something to say about that. My ultimate goal is to complete the 100% route in under an hour, which might be doable 3-4 runs from now? For the time being, it’s nice to see how far I’ve come since my first attempt. Even Push It to the Limit only took about 5 minutes to clear, and this time I did the upwards shell kick properly! And the bouncing bone in the first castle just ain’t a problem any more, man.

UPDATE: Made it to Yoshi’s castle in 1:40. With five difficult exits left, I’d say sub 2 hours is looking unlikely, but I’m still pretty satisfied with the improvement over my initial playthrough. I’ll probably run the game another 3-4 times to see how quickly my time comes down; if sub 1 hour is looking possible then I’ll probably record a video for submission!

 

[lincolnic]

Nice going on the time improvement! I'd definitely like to see your speedrun submission if you get to that point. Also thanks for recommending Taterholic, I hadn't heard of her either. I watched a bit of her VOD from Friday (I saw you in the chat!) and it was pretty refreshing to see someone on roughly the same level as us. I'll have to remember her next time I'm looking for kaizo content!

I definitely want to go back to Quickie World 2 at some point, but I'm still craving novelty so I started Super Ryu World (the first one) yesterday. I think it's a good next step! It feels pretty doable so far, I got to the midway of the third level in about an hour, but it's definitely a step up in difficulty from QW. The level I'm on now in particular has some pretty gnarly sections, but I'm enjoying it. Nothing feels impossible, though it's definitely been an adjustment to get used to longer level sections after QW's...well, quickness. Checkpoints feel a lot more meaningful when there's more than a screen or two between them. In any case, I'd definitely recommend this one if you're looking for a new hack to start.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Well, my hopes for a two-hour run went out the window at Yoshi’s castle, where I wasted a solid half-hour mostly trying to remember how to do one part of the bullet escort section. Funnily enough, after that everything was smooth sailing, even Wedding Nails folded like a house of cards before me. So my final time was about 2:40, but I’m convinced I can do a lot better than that, and soon. I even downloaded LiveSplit so I can start keeping track of my, uh, splits. What am I becoming?

I’ll keep an eye on Super Ryu World, and I’ll probably try Akogare again, too. But I think I’ll stick with Quickie 2 for as long as I keep seeing improvements. The better I get, the less time it takes to run it again!

 

[lincolnic]

You're becoming a speedrunner, apparently. I look forward to donating during your next GDQ run.

I beat another two exits in Ryu World relatively quickly tonight, and I think I'm gonna finish this one and then pick up Akogare again. I'm currently up to the second castle, which has three rooms, but no checkpoints in between them, so you've got to do the whole thing in one go. I only played it for a few minutes before calling it a night. Again, nothing seems impossible so far, it's just a lot of platforming to do at once! Should make more progress tomorrow.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Oh my god, I DESTROYED my second run time on my third attempt. I annihilated it! Future historians will wonder if there even was a second run time. I went from 2 hours 40 minutes down to 1:16. That’s technically enough to get me on the leaderboard, and not even it last place! It’s second-to-last place, but hey, that’s not last. Now that sub-one-hour seems imminent, I may start recording and/or streaming attempts. I don’t want to submit a 59:xx if I can do better within a few days, so I’ll see where I plateau before officially declaring myself to the world as a speed runner.

I had a bit of time after that and I didn’t want to start Quickie 2 yet again today, so I played through the first two exits in Akogare in about an hour. It’s tough! The second level was really frustrating at first, but I wound up enjoying the back half quite a lot once I figured out what to do. The bit with the three super koopas and the flying platform was really fun. The longer segments are going to take some getting used to, but there’s nothing for it, even Valdio isn’t making levels that short these days. Will download Ryu 1 & 2 and maybe give those a shot between QW2 attempts, too.

UPDATE: I moved my setup to the office, where I can record videos. Even though I use a wired controller there, I think my computer monitor or capture card adds more lag than when I play on my living room TV. It’s not insurmountable, though, and I somehow found the time to play the game two more times today, improving my time on each attempt! My fourth attempt was 1 hour 5 minutes, but my last was 53:52, under an hour! I’m going to play it a few more times before I submit a run, since I’m pretty sure I can do better. But I’m quite happy with the improvements I’ve seen since yesterday!

 

[lincolnic]

Damn dude, get it! You're making me want to go back to QW2 myself. Yeah, Akogare is definitely a step up in difficulty, but I have a feeling it'll be a big step up for our kaizo skills as well. Ryu World is getting progressively harder, too. I didn't have a ton of time to play today, but I did get through that castle and played the level after for a few minutes. Died within sight of the checkpoint. I'm expecting a bit of downtime during the workday tomorrow so I'll hopefully get some more exits in then.

At the end of Valdio's QW2 playthrough video, he mentions the possibility of a QW3 -- I really hope he makes it. He hasn't done anything since QW2, right?

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I think he's open to making another Quickie World someday, but based on some recent tweets I don't think he's working on it now. That's OK, not like there's any shortage of other hacks to play in the meantime! Speaking of which, I've found our next one:

 

[lincolnic]

Goddamn, that shell juggle into the midair spring jump at 0:20 is nuts. I mean, that whole thing is nuts, but midairs are so hard.

Got another three exits into Ryu World, but decided to take a break when I started to get tired. The game is still doable but definitely getting harder. There's one level in particular called Jank Heaven that has a bunch of shells hitting on/off switches trying to drop the level out from under you, and once you learn to navigate that, they throw disco shells into the mix. Luckily, there's a relatively easy level right after, so you get a minute to breathe. That level (Yoshi Gardens) is one of the rare kaizo stages where you can actually pause to think about your next move in a couple of spots, which feels like a real luxury.

I've only got six exits left (I think, not sure if that's just for Any%), so hopefully I'll wrap this one in another couple of sessions.

 

[Kirin]

Jesus Christ.

 

[lincolnic]

I haven't really been in the right mindset for kaizo lately, I've only sat down twice with Ryu World since my last post and only gotten through one exit each time. Thursday afternoon I got through a very precise ice physics level that should've had a midway, but didn't. And today I spent an hour getting through the next level, which involves the jankiness of sideways springs. Aguni (the creator of the hack) seems to like putting the hardest part of the level right before the checkpoint, which can get a little frustrating. Now I'm up to a P-switch level with some extremely tight timing. The level itself is fun, but I was pretty fried from the previous one so I only spent about 10 minutes before stopping for the day.

Earlier tonight I found Shovda's spreadsheet of hacks she's played, with difficulty ratings and some explanatory notes for each one. (Also links to her playthrough videos for them, if she has one.) After I eventually get through Ryu World and Akogare, I'll probably be looking through this for my next recommendations. She specifically recommends a few to follow up the QW hacks with, which is relevant to our conversation from before! Check it out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...KzsBoPHhLXPVN-Z3D8t_0dq_tw/edit#gid=600359150

How's your QW2 time coming, Mike?

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Well, it's uh, kinda stuck. I had an incredible run of improvements, my first playthroughs brought my time from ~10 hours to 2:30, to 1:15, then 1:05, then 55:00 (twice) and finally to 47:30. That's pretty good! But I haven't been able to improve on that time significantly in my last couple of sessions, which is disheartening. I had one run where I beat it by literally HALF A SECOND, which honestly feels worse than just completely biffing it. I know in my heart that sub-40 is possible for me, but it will require me to play consistently in a way that I haven't managed yet. Looking at the sum of my best segments, it's a low, low 27 minutes! But every time I play, there are 2-3 levels where I get into a rut and end up burning a few extra minutes each. Spaceballs is the biggest culprit, but Take 5, the first castle and the level with the on/off blocks are also repeat offenders. I don't have any real experience speedrunning a game, and keeping your cool when you make a series of mistakes is something I haven't really mastered yet. I'll give it a few more tries, but if I can't make a decent improvement over the next couple days then I'll probably put it down for a while and play something else. I'm still pretty motivated to play kaizo - to the point where I just bought a used CRT computer monitor expressly to use for that purpose! But it would probably do me some good to play something else, like Super Ryu World or Akogare. Still thinking I'll make the leap to Invictus before long, or at least spend a few evenings seriously trying to make progress in it. But first I'm going to try my damndest to at least get a sub-40 in Quickie 2 within the next 3-4 days.

Thanks for the link to Shovda's spreadsheet! I've been consulting Dode's kaizothon document, which is very useful, but because of his whole situation I feel a little weird about it. I mean, I'm not supporting him directly by reading a Google doc, but still. He's been out of the spotlight for a few weeks at this point, not streaming at all and no posting on Twitter. I honestly hope he'll take a step back and try to really understand what people were mad about, because in his public apologies it has really seemed like he knew he was in trouble but didn't really understand why. I don't think the guy is irredeemable, but if he digs his heels in and entrenches with the "sensitive liberal snowflakes" crowd then I think we'll have to give up on him. Lots of the bigger kaizo streamers have come out with better, clearer messages in support of the trans community, so hopefully that will help put Dode on the right track, but people do stupid stuff when they think they're being attacked on the internet.

 

[lincolnic]

Spaceballs is the biggest culprit, but Take 5, the first castle and the level with the on/off blocks are also repeat offenders.

Take 5 isn't a very fun level, and it doesn't help that it's so early in the game. I can very easily imagine getting stuck there! Anyway, you've still made some great strides in improving your time, so don't let it get you down. At this point it seems clear that you just need more experience, and that's just gonna come the more you play.

If you want to take a break though, you should pick up Super Ryu World. I think at this point it's safe to say you're a better player than me, and I bet you'd make quick work of it.

Have you noticed any improvements re: lag with the CRT? I'm not gonna buy one myself, but I'm still curious about it.

Yeah, the whole Dode thing still feels pretty bad. I don't have a Twitter account, but I did spend a little time trying to sort through some conversations for more info. I saw one screenshot he posted in his Discord where he said he was taking a break from the internet, possibly forever. I also saw some screenshots of him saying some fairly shitty things (I think you referenced those as well in your original post). From what I was able to gather from other kaizo players, it sounds like the ones who were really good friends with him (Barb, GPB, GlitchCat, amongst others) spoke to him privately and he still didn't really get it. I would love if he was able to sort himself out and really learn something from all this, but at the moment it doesn't look good. I guess we'll have to see what happens if/when he comes back.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

If you want to take a break though, you should pick up Super Ryu World. I think at this point it's safe to say you're a better player than me, and I bet you'd make quick work of it.

I'm not sure why you'd say that, I think you cleared the star road in Quickie 1 faster than I did. And since then I've just been playing the same game over and over again, rather than learning new stuff, so it's possible you're better than me now. But not at Quickie World 2! I just notched a new PB at 38:45, almost 9 minutes faster than the time I had been stuck at for the last few days. I honestly don't know if I'll be able to improve that time significantly right now, since my playing isn't consistent enough. I'll give it another 2-3 goes to see if it budges, but barring any changes I'll move onto something new. Might just try Ryu World, since I didn't fall in love with Akogare when I tried it.

Have you noticed any improvements re: lag with the CRT? I'm not gonna buy one myself, but I'm still curious about it.

I'm not playing on the CRT yet, because I don't have the hardware I need to plug either my Super Nt or MiSTer into it right now. I think I'm going to order the IO board for the MiSTer, because it's a lot less expensive than the Analogue DAC and it will work with more game systems. But it'll probably take a good 3 weeks for it to arrive, since it'll have to cross the border into Canada. In the meantime, I've been playing with my Super Nt plugged into my computer monitor so I can capture footage for my eventual speedrun submission. And either my computer monitor or my capture card is a little laggy, because the game feels snappier when I play it on my HDTV in the living room (even using a wireless controller!). I'm hopeful that there will be a noticeable difference with the CRT, but we'll see in a few weeks.

 

[lincolnic]

Congrats on the PB! I'm super impressed at how far you've come in such a short timespan.

I'm not sure why you'd say that, I think you cleared the star road in Quickie 1 faster than I did. And since then I've just been playing the same game over and over again, rather than learning new stuff, so it's possible you're better than me now.

My thinking was that since you've been honing your skills in Quickie World, you probably have a better handle on kaizo movement in general than I do. I might have seen more setups and done some things that you haven't tried yet, but you'd probably be able to clear them in less time than it took me. I guess it's pretty interesting thinking about depth of experience vs. breadth. And I'm also feeling a little down on my skills in general -- I spent almost an hour just getting to the checkpoint in that P-switch level tonight. I know all progress is good progress, but I felt like I shouldn't have taken so long. Probably could have finished the level, but I was a little tilted and needed to stop there.

 

[lincolnic]

Finished the P-switch level today, the back half took me over an hour. Three exits to go! Next up is a skytree, which...yeah, it's gonna take a while. I played for a couple of minutes and it was clear that this one'll need some work.

I gotta admit, I didn't expect this to become a hack where individual levels required multiple sittings. I'm sure that's mostly due to me not being a great kaizo player, but at least I'm putting in the practice.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Well, it's not the first time you've had to spend multiple hours on a single level (Sawrfing), and I bet it won't be the last! How many exits are there in Super Ryu World?

I was too tired to kaizo last night, but I might take another stab at Quickie 2 tonight. I'm getting to be more eager to move on, but I should at least see if there are any easy gains left to make before I put it down. I'd hate to think I would be giving up on an easy 35 or even 33...

 

[lincolnic]

14 exits, I think? It's not particularly lengthy, but the difficulty curve is a lot higher than the hacks we've played to date. (I still think you should play it next! Just be aware that it gets tough.)

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Speaking of hacks I haven't tried, I watched the first of Juzcook's videos on Peachy Moat World and it looks so good. I almost want to stop watching this video series and try it for myself but a) it looks pretty tough and b) I really enjoyed watching Juz's video, which is very well-edited. The hack seems incredibly creative, though; there's a level where you are constantly using pipes to zip back and forth that struck me as particularly cool.

The other new hack that people have been playing a lot on Twitch lately is Let's Give Up by BeeKaay. It's entirely cape-based and it looks hard as hell. There aren't a ton of videos of it on YouTube, so I just grabbed one at random and I can't vouch for it, but:

 

[lincolnic]

Holy crap, that is the craziest cape hack I've ever seen. Goddamn. I just...yeah. Cape stuff is so hard to do, I'm honestly not sure I'd ever be able to play a hack like that.

Also, I totally mentioned Peachy Moat World on the previous page!

I actually was meaning to ask you if you'd seen Peachy Moat World yet -- I've only seen maybe half of it (Grand Poo Bear has released two Youtube videos over the past two weeks or so, I expect he'll wrap it up soon) and from what I can see, it looks really hard. At the end of the second video he says it's maybe a little harder than Invictus, so make of it what you will. Has some very cool level designs for sure, though.

I've been watching GPB's videos (he's up to three so far) and so far what I said before still stands. It's got some really great level designs, and then one god-awful castle that I expect Juz will have some fun shouting at. Definitely one I'd like to play eventually, if I ever get good enough.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

All right, I played QW2 one more time and wound up 10 seconds over my PB, despite being ahead by 5 minutes going into Yoshi's Castle. So I took that as a sign that it was time to move on and fired up Ryu World. I played through 2.5 levels in about 40 minutes and I was having enough fun that I went to bed late, so that's a good sign. The first level is pretty straightforward, but it does feel like a small step up in difficulty from the hacks I have been playing so far. The custom graphics are nice, but there were times when I had trouble reading them on the fly - particularly the not-black munchers, which I landed on quite a few times thinking they were safe ground. The second level was a fun riff on the classic kaizo P-switch switch palace (PSSP?) but I wasn't quite sure how to deal with the cats at the end. I was afraid to spin jump on them because I didn't want to hurt the kitties. I stopped for the night after getting the halfway in the bio lab because I was having a lot of trouble with the section after the pipe - seems like that's exactly where you stopped on your first try, too! Anyway, it's nice to play something new. I'm sure I'll come back to Quickie 2 between hacks, or when I get frustrated with a level, but for now I think it's time to change things up. Depending on how Ryu World goes, I might finish that and then give Take It Easy World a try before jumping into Invictus. Fun times ahead!

 

[lincolnic]

I wasn't quite sure how to deal with the cats at the end. I was afraid to spin jump on them because I didn't want to hurt the kitties.

Fun fact: they'll kill you if you touch them! I learned that the hard way the first time I made it into the pipe. I'm not sure if you can spin jump on them or not, maybe they're reskinned Spinies.

And yeah, you and I stopped at the same point in our first plays. I'm glad you're liking it so far! I think it gets progressively harder with each level, especially after the bio lab, so I'm really curious to hear if you feel the same way. Still, shouldn't be anything you can't handle. Keep me posted on how it's going!

 

[lincolnic]

I made some good progress in Ryu World today! Two more exits are done, and now I'm at the final level. The skytree took about an hour and a half, and even though it was a grind, I actually really enjoyed it. The second half of the level starts off a little jank, but I thought the first half was pretty fun once I got the hang of it.

After that work, the penultimate level -- an Ultra Star -- went down in 20 minutes flat. I don't know if it was because of all the quick platforming I had to do in the skytree or what, but it really wasn't that bad at all! And there's no checkpoint, so it was very satisfying to clear. I spent a few minutes in the last level too, and it doesn't seem too bad either, outside of one weird jump I haven't really figured out yet. I'm expecting to wrap this one up tomorrow.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Nice work! I decided to stream some Ryu World tonight myself, managed to clear 4 (or 3.5) exits in about an hour and a half. I had to replay the first part of biolab, but the back half went down easier than I thought it would. The mole level was tricky, but kinda cool, and the castle was quite fun overall. Then I got stuck on the ghost house for a bit, but I finally managed to clear it. The next level involves a lot of auto-switching blocks and seems like it might be a little janky? I had fun playing it for 5 minutes but I need to go to bed now...

 

[lincolnic]

Nice work to you too! Jank Heaven, the level you're on now, is the halfway point of the game. The level after, Yoshi Gardens, is relatively easy, but after that is where the difficulty starts to pick up. Or at least it was for me!

I did indeed finish Ryu World today. The last level was a relatively easy 30-40 minutes of tricky-but-fair platforming. I have to say, I feel like the last three exits were definitely easier than the three that came before them...not that I'm upset about it. For the most part I really enjoyed the hack.

I picked up Akogare again after, and cleared another three exits (opening the way to the yellow switch palace in the process). This is absolutely the hack to play if you need to learn how to do/improve your regrabs, they're everywhere. Having said that, I'm not yet enjoying it as much as the others we've played. I'm gonna stick with it because I've seen some later levels and they look more fun (the secret exit to the yellow switch palace was also pretty fun), but the level where I got stuck last time especially felt kinda joyless. I did have one pretty funny moment next level -- after spending about 40 minutes getting to the checkpoint, I cleared the rest of the level with only three deaths. Felt great!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I sunk a bunch of time into Ryu World today and I think you’re spot on when it comes to the difficulty curve. Jank Heaven wasn’t too hard and the Yoshi level took maybe a half hour to clear. Then I hit the icy ghost house and the level with all the flying spinies and those took me a solid hour each. Didn’t love the ghost level, but I though the spiny one was pretty fun. Next up is the airship, but I only spent a few minutes on it before stopping for the night. I’ve actually been playing this hack mostly on stream, I’m hoping that I’ll eventually get to chat with some people in the kaizo community if I keep it up. Not a lot of folks in the chat just yet though.

I’m not super motivated to return to Akogare right now, I feel like I have the fundamentals of regrabs down and there’s no shortage of places to practice them in most hacks. I think it’s also really long? Probably gonna try Take it Easy World after Ryu.

 

[lincolnic]

Then I hit the icy ghost house and the level with all the flying spinies and those took me a solid hour each. Didn’t love the ghost level, but I though the spiny one was pretty fun.

Yeah, sounds like your experience is matching mine so far. The icy ghost house absolutely needed a checkpoint and I can't understand why there isn't one. Sure, it's on the shorter side, but it's so unforgiving. There's even a perfect spot for it on the high platform right before the section where you get on Yoshi. Oh well.

Next up is the airship, but I only spent a few minutes on it before stopping for the night.

Super Sky Fortress? If that's the P-switch level, that's the one that took me 2 hours to clear. Hope it's kinder to you!

Where do you stream? I'm not really a Twitch person but I'll try and stop by if I can.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Super Sky Fortress? If that's the P-switch level, that's the one that took me 2 hours to clear. Hope it's kinder to you!

Where do you stream? I'm not really a Twitch person but I'll try and stop by if I can.

Guess I'd better prepare myself mentally. I played it for a short while and made it to the second P-switch once - so far it seems like a fun level, at least. As for streaming, I've started doing that at twitch.tv/mcbanjomike. I've been doing regular Wednesday streams on YouTube with some other TT people for a long time, but I wanted a place where I could just do kaizo as often as I wanted. I've had one random kaizo player drop into my stream for a bit, hopefully that's the sort of thing that will happen more if I keep it up. Only started a few days ago and I don't have a regular schedule, but it tends to be from 10-11 PM when I do it. Feel free to stop by!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Ooh, you weren't kidding about that airship level. I spent an hour on it last night getting to the halfway point, then I spent about 10 minutes on the second half before I needed to stop for the night. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any way to save my checkpoint progress, so I'll have to do the first half again next time I play. I even tried clearing the first level of the hack again, hoping it would bring up the save dialogue, but no such luck. I think newer hacks are getting better on that front, offering the ability to save anywhere on the world map by pressing select. No matter, it's a tough level but it's also pretty fun and I don't think it will take me too long to get back to where I was. I really liked what I saw of the second half, especially the bit where you stomp a turtle to eject it through some red blocks, do a shell jump with its shell to get over the barrier and then land on the turtle to complete the maneuver. It's so disrespectful to that poor koopa! This hack really does feel like the next small step up in difficulty over the Baby Kaizos and Quickies of the world, so thanks for suggesting it. It's also a little more trolly than Valdio's stuff, there are more nasty surprises at the end of levels. I couldn't help but laugh when I got killed by the wall of bullets at the end of Super Maryu Maker.

 

[lincolnic]

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any way to save my checkpoint progress, so I'll have to do the first half again next time I play.

Wait, what? That's not how it worked for me, though to be fair I'm playing via emulation. But if I get the checkpoint, even when I exit the level by accident (which I've occasionally done from the Retry box), when I go back into the level it starts me at that checkpoint again. Maybe it behaves differently on actual hardware for some reason.

In any case, glad you're enjoying it. I thought you would! And yeah, definitely more trolls than the other hacks we've played so far. Once you hit that kaizo block before the first pipe in the bio lab, and then have to swerve in midair coming out of the pipe to actually get the checkpoint, you get a real "oh, it's gonna be like that" vibe. Akogare has some nasty end-of-level trolls, too, though so far none that I haven't been able to get around.

Speaking of Akogare, I'm another few exits into that one, and I still find the level design a little hit-or-miss. Some levels are really fun, like the first switch palace. I'd actually recommend you do play that one at some point, it's a really satisfying clear when you get the timing down. Yesterday I did an ice level which I also found surprisingly enjoyable. But there are other levels that are just kind of...there. Not a whole lot to mention about them. I think it was the creator's first hack, and in those spots it shows. I'm gonna be pretty busy with work this week and next week, so not sure how much progress I'll be able to make. Hopefully at least one exit a day, as long as I'm not too tired by the end of the workday.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Wait, what? That's not how it worked for me, though to be fair I'm playing via emulation. But if I get the checkpoint, even when I exit the level by accident (which I've occasionally done from the Retry box), when I go back into the level it starts me at that checkpoint again. Maybe it behaves differently on actual hardware for some reason.

I can quit the level and come back to it without losing the checkpoint, but when I turn off the console it goes away. Are you using save states to store your progress between sessions, or loading the ROM up and starting from the title screen each time?

I'm gonna be pretty busy with work this week and next week, so not sure how much progress I'll be able to make. Hopefully at least one exit a day, as long as I'm not too tired by the end of the workday.

Man, I've gotta get me a job where I can play kaizo. Best I can do is watch some on YouTube when things are slow.

By the way, I've gotta say I'm impressed by how closely our times seem to be aligning on Ryu World. Feels like I'm almost always within about 10 minutes of the times you told me, I can practically use your run as a template.