Sonic 1 Ring Attack - Star Light Zone 3 with 269 Rings (World Record)

Usually, I like to keep my time attacks separate from everything else in S1 by unlisting my ring/score attacks to avoid clutter, and also due to the fact that a lot of these ring/score records aren't particularly impressive in their own right. This is one of three ring attacks that are the exception to this rule, due to the history and difficulty in attaining them. Whereas most ring records are multi-tied to the tens or even hundreds, this one was untied, maxed in early 2009 and was held by a proven but relatively unknown player, who has since left the scene and the video of the method no longer exists. The problem with the level itself that normally stops a max completion is that there are one-way fans in pretty much every branching path, meaning that even if you optimised your route, you're probably going to be at least 3 rings short by the end. The record didn't get tied until SB737 matched it in early 2021 using a different fan skip to the one that was originally used. This uses an extremely-precise double jump off the ramp to skip the fan, and out of all the theorised tricks at the time, it seemed to be the easiest by far. Now it's no secret that I do not like Star Light 3: The wrap is godawful and the level is virtually impossible to speedrun effectively without piano rolling, but this was not a fun one to play. Had about three sessions playing this since SB737 set his and while this session only took 2 hours, everything fell to pieces during the sessions. That fan skip at the end is not easy, typically comes at the end of a ~7 minute run and the positioning is fickle enough that it can easily push you into the above platform when it feels like it, killing the run right there. That's not even getting into the fact that to even get a run started, you need to perform the level wrap of all things, which is probably overkill but still the easiest route! Nothing about the level is consistent, and this is the first fan skip I managed to get in all of that time, very frustrating level. Silver lining is that I managed to make the level a bit less obnoxious to play by using the full zip left from the staircase to give more time for ramp attempts, and completely omitting the routing designed for the previous awkward score attacks, since 0:29 was achieved back in September and I'd rather take my chances with that. Do mind out that the full zip left can sometimes clip you through the steep slope into the bottom route and kill the run, but the trade off was worth it in my opinion, because it's rare.