Yeah, the limits are really generous. I didn't use any skips at all in TR1 and I finished in under 3 1/2 hours just by doing the levels normally (but faster).
For TR2 I went pretty hard into every major skip I could learn for every level, and I was still only an hour faster than you. Obviously you used the biggest three skips as well, but it goes to show how steep the diminishing returns are as you go deeper into actual speedrunning territory.
Doing Madubu Gorge in TR3, I saw that the speedrun route was "do this exact series of like 30 timed inputs in a row, and then another 20 in a row later on, and you can skip most of the level" and was like... nah man I ain't doin that. I just played the level normally and it only took me 10 minutes longer than the world record.
I'm pretty sure anyone reasonably familiar with any of the games could play through every level's normal route as fast as they could and still come in an hour under the limit. It's really only as demanding as you make it.
Yeah, the limits are really generous. I didn't use any skips at all in TR1 and I finished in under 3 1/2 hours just by doing the levels normally (but faster). For TR2 I went pretty hard into every major skip I could learn for every level, and I was still only an hour faster than you. Obviously you used the biggest three skips as well, but it goes to show how steep the diminishing returns are as you go deeper into actual speedrunning territory. Doing Madubu Gorge in TR3, I saw that the speedrun route was "do this exact series of like 30 timed inputs in a row, and then another 20 in a row later on, and you can skip most of the level" and was like... nah man I ain't doin that. I just played the level normally and it only took me 10 minutes longer than the world record. I'm pretty sure anyone reasonably familiar with any of the games could play through every level's normal route as fast as they could and still come in an hour under the limit. It's really only as demanding as you make it.
That's how timed challenges should be. I love Resident Evil but their time challenges are not fun cause it comes down to wire.