God of War II any% NG+ RTA in

Here's my speedrun of God of War II's fastest possible category - Bonus Play, easy-mode, using bonus items. It's almost four minutes faster than Exe's previous WR 1:13:19.

I set out to make a run of this game since it had too many known improvements and no one else was running it seriously right now. So I went around the game, did a lot of groundwork, practiced and then started doing attempts. My original goal was to get sub 1:10, and it only took 29 attempts to get there, so I got it done relatively quickly.

This run still has many flaws, and the optimization could be taken even further. With less mistakes and more time saves you could lower the time to 1:08 for sure. But I'd hope some other, more dedicated runner would take it from here. My point was to just show the new route, break my personal goal and also annoy Exe by claiming his record for now.

---

There nowadays exist leaderboards for listing the fastest times in each God of War-games, so look here if you're interested:

https://www.speedrun.com/god_of_war

---

New speed tech:

AQ infinite jump is used to speed up jumps around the game.

I use controlled quick rolling as suggested by findlestick to steer Kratos around better.

I use s1 cancelling to speed Kratos' movement in places that are too cramped for rolling. This trick is still not used everywhere it would save time.

I hold block while leaping off some grapple points to have more speed for Kratos. Don't know if it is actually faster.

---

General notes:

I started this attempt the first thing in the morning, so you'll notice some drowsy playing and sloppiness here and there.

I put music fairly quiet since GoW 2 music tends to get monetized.

I used the swimming glitch routes from findle's segmented run, since they're safe enough to use even in a RTA.

---

Commentary:

start of the game probably has the most flaws. Worst thing was the slow rafters skip and some strange fumbling with almost every jump inside Colossus.

a subtle new timesave when leaving Colossus: with a correct setup you can roll off-camera at the start of the "weakened walk", saving at least 9 secs.

Typhon's Cavern was merely pretty good. Had some dumb time losses in there.

1st swimming glitch is not too bad with the new setup. However, it still took 3 tries to get it for some reason.

otherwise Temple of Lahkesis and Steeds went well.

used AQ IJ for 2nd swimming glitch since I strongly dislike the NG method of getting swimming here.

sadly, my 100% safe setup for the Atlas lava jump killed Kratos. It was definitely less safe than advertised.

at least I got other tricks right the first time in Atlas. The new long jumps before Ascension of Atlas are among my favorite new tricks in the route.

The Palace of the Fates is not bereft of occasional sloppiness either. Damn, is there no level in this run I can say I'm perfectly happy with?

I do a PR jump before 2nd Translator because a BH jump usually glitches out for me here.

fumbled at the vent puzzle skip and had to watch the boring cutscene. Fortunately this is not such a big time loss, but since it's a new skip in this route, it would've been nice to get it right.

devised a new fight strat against Kraken. It's one of the rare cases PR comes in handy in a fight.

The Temple of the Fates... again, pretty good. Some slowness.

did some small choking at endurance run. Did a too long high jump to skip first big wave and completely forgot buttons in the second big wave. But I got over it pretty quick.

after having a previous good run attempt end at Clotho skip, I played it 100% safe and used Amulet there.

Zeus fight went well, aside bad RNG in first part. Even got the last phase skip which isn't 100% reliable.

another small choke at final mirror jump, where I start doing a wrong high jump. But that's only a small time loss.

---

Thanks to Shenminiu, theenglishman, findlestick and Exe for their previous runs and innovations on GoW 2.

Ask if you have any questions.