Under 100 Hours?

Around the time I began mastering the Pokémon main series games, which was during the third generation, I began to set a goal for myself, which was to finish the main storyline in less than 100 hours of play time. It was an achievable goal in many cases and also seemed to have gotten easier with each successive game. On the whole, this made for an interesting challenge with a time pressure, but it also allowed me to be somewhat lax while playing, in consideration of my game skills. Those skills can be said to have improved through this as well, at the very least slightly.

I should say that this challenge for myself is not strictly what is known as a "speedrun" - to play through a game as quickly a possible - though the way the challenge is, it does implicate a speedrun. More importantly, the challenge is purely a test of my abilities, not someone else's. I'm certain, because of my intuition and that a friend informed me as such, that someone else had performed better to fulfill the demands of the challenge than I have; the point is not to try to replicate exactly the feat of others, but to see if I can do it myself. And based on this, I can do it, just not as good as another person more skilled at the game.

In any case, this challenge did not detract from my effort to enjoy the game's main story and elements to the fullest. I purposefully did not skip sequences or battle animations, but I did set the text speed to "Fast" since I tend to read things quickly anyhow. The main story is a major part of the game's experience, as are elements such as battle animations; skipping them would make me feel like losing them, so I don't do it. Skipping a non-main story part of the game is permissible, but skipping a part of the main story itself is non-negotiable.

Will I attempt this challenge again? I surely have understood more about the main series than I did when I played these games with the challenge in place, so I could theoretically attempt the challenge and do better. At the moment, however, it's not a priority, as there are many new things in regard to Pokémon, and I'd rather explore, play through them all, and get a grip on their mastery. Mastering something to do with the old games is something that can wait, no matter how interesting the challenge may be.