I wasn't going to bother doing this, in part because I'd decided a break from PSR was necessary for me before the clock struck midnight on New Year's Day, but given that I've just joined Speedpastes I figured why not do it for a bit of fun and to celebrate not needing Pastebin any longer! 2025 was my second-best year of PSR since I started, beaten only by 2024. Elite Four Round 2 was without a doubt the run of the year. Let's get straight into talking about the runs I did this year! (All times listed below are RTA) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Category: Diamond Any% Glitchless Date: 11th February 2025 Time: 3:40:11 Routed a new seed for this category from Oct 2024-Jan 2025. The Chimchar has better stats and is more consistent - having Hidden Power Grass 70 makes Roark's Cranidos a 12/16 range to 2HKO, and the route now fights an Onix instead of Geodude for experience, allowing Chimchar to evolve to Monferno for Galactic Double, and get level 17 for Pachirisu double. The manip path is also a good bit faster than the old seed. The run itself was amazing up until the Spear Pillar split, but atrocious after that. The RNG on the Spear Pillar split itself was appalling, and then I clicked Grass Knot on Aaron's Drapion which cost me the 3:39. I think the WR as of writing (3:38:52 by decsy) is still very beatable here, but whether I can be bothered playing this again is the bigger question at this point. I'm happy that this was the first run where I kept extended manip all the way to Lucky Egg, at least. To date I have had three runs that left Saturn 2 on pace for 3:38 or better, including this one. Between January and February I managed to lower the record from 3:41:33 to 3:40:11, in three PBs (other two were 3:41:05, 24th Jan, and 3:41:03, 6th Feb). I continued to grind regularly until about June hoping to get a great run in, but only had one more notable run after this one, which died to execution. I'm disappointed that I failed to get a better time than this before dropping the category, but happy with the routing/improvements in the Oct-Feb period. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Category: Gen 5 Battle Subway - Super Multi Train Date: 5th May 2025 Time (to 49 wins): 2:07:53 Streak PB: 78 Team: Latios/Scizor The only "canon" battle facility challenge in Gen 5 I hadn't beaten at this point. I had beaten the Super Multi Train with two connected DSes and a rain team, but not with the AI partner trainer, which is considerably harder due to random Pokemon and absolutely no guarantee of either quality or synergy! Latios and Scizor complement each other well, with Scizor switching in reliably, and Latios semi-reliably getting outspeed KOs on turn one. It only took me 23 attempts to get my goal of the Trophy (49 wins), and then I managed to go on to a streak of 78! I continued trying to improve my time, but it's so difficult to win making snap decisions in this challenge. I've given up on the speedrun, but I'd like to be the first to get a 100 win streak (the WR is 90 from 2011). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Category: Crystal Battle Tower Date: 22nd June 2025 Time: 1:46:53 (WR) I wanted to re-route/modernise this category with additional manips, and did some derusting on the old route to relearn stuff in preparation. This PB was the only run I completed last year, and it uses the old route! I still haven't made the new route. I got really lucky and managed to get this on my second day back, a nearly 14-minute improvement on my previous PB of 2:00:33 from 2022. It practically goes without saying that I played very cautiously in the Tower, and my Tower time itself was a bit worse than average, but the time entering the Tower was fantastic and I got the necessary luck to not lose. I want to make new manips for encounterless Route 31+32 as well as catch manip on Wobbuffet and Miltank to make the run more consistent before the Tower - with that I think I can get another few minutes off the time, and am definitely interested in returning to this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Category: Platinum Elite Four Round 2 Date: 17th November 2025 Time: 4:47:38 (WR) Earlier in 2025, Werster took the WR from me with a new route that uses Empoleon and Gyarados, and optimises the Pokedex completion quest in this category by getting many more Pokémon through the "chain manip" than any pre-2025 run ever did. We collaborated a decent amount on the routes/ideas before he started runs, and I had decided I wanted to try the same route concepts but with Infernape instead of Empoleon. The routing was very on-and-off and took me months as a result, but I got it done and completed a run and got record back! The run itself was good outside of three major timelosses: death to Pelipper in Wake's gym, death to Floatzel on the Wake fight, hit chain manip seed second try. With Round 2 being a very routing-orientated experience, I didn't feel bad about the timelosses. I like this category because it's great fun to show off the routing, and not be too insatiable or stuck-up about PB times. There are some more route improvements to come. I think it's better for Infernape to fight the trainer for Goldeen before Pastoria, and to do rain route before Pastoria Gym. This way, you get a (crucial) extra level for Wake and so Floatzel is guaranteed to both die, and not Aqua Jet. This is much more consistent, and on average breaks even timing-wise. I will change to this route when I return, and also it's hopefully possible to extend chain manip through the Distortion World after Medicham to save some backtracking and combine quest requirements (i.e. go to lab after Giratina and do Pal Park chain manip section together, and get Octillery as you're going to Sunyshore anyway). Infernape is marginally better than Empoleon for this run in my opinion, and a really optimised run of this with Infernape would be 4:44. I think my final goal will end up being 4:45, because I think I've got another grind in me for this category in the future.