For roughly 3 years of my life in college… after class, I’d go to the local arcade, spend $1, play roughly ~1 hour of the game… beat my old high score and go home. I did look up world-records and I’m a nobody on the world-record list, but I was #1 through #50 on that machine on the high score list, no one else at that arcade could even take out my #50 score.
SNES – Super Mario World. I got to the point of ~12 minute speedrun, also no where near record-breaking world record or anything, but I’d like to think I’m better at that game than most people. Before college, my routine when I got home was to speedrun the game and beat it within ~15 minutes.
Factorio is probably the “long running game” that I put a lot of effort into.
The only games I ever reached “advanced/expert” level in were BlazBlue, Puyo Puyo, and Tetris. I wish I had the guts to actually go to a major tournament for Blazblue (the most popular of the three games I reached expert status into…). I’d expect that I probably was strong enough to qualify for Evo but I wouldn’t expect to be in the top 32 even… just barely a qualifier. I was a regular training partner / punching bag for a few top-of-the-USA players on my friends list. I would lose 80%+ of the time but I was strong enough to occasionally eek out a victory vs top-level play (though you’re never quite sure if the expert is feeling bad and letting me win, lol). I did play at some local tournaments though and knew I was near top of my state/local neighborhood at least. So I think I qualify for the expert ranking, though there is a huge tier of difference between “top of USA” and “top of local tournament”.
EDIT: In terms of USA players, I’d regularly qualify for Puyo Puyo and/or Tetris tournaments. But I’m not top10 or anything crazy. Of course, USA-play is much weaker than overseas players. I’m not that good with regards to speed, only ~1 minute 40-line clear, but I think my downstacking and opening-theory is stronger than most people in Tetris and I can regularly beat faster players than me. Note that Puyo Puyo Tetris is a relatively slow Tetris game so top-tier PPT players are only ~40-seconds 40-line clear in this game, there’s a lot more focus on downstacking efficiently since line clears are so slow.
I can sometimes 14-chain in solitaire Puyo / training mode, though my style is mostly harassment / beginning to screenwatch at the midgame for Puyo. Again, expert level in USA, but only maybe “advanced” as far as Japanese players go. I’m relatively bad at chaining but I think my midgame is good enough to qualify me for the expert level. I never outchain players of equal ranking to me, but instead perform crushing power-2 or other harassments while they’re vulnerable on the 2nd level.
I also tried to reach advanced levels in Starcraft: BW and Age of Empires 2, but alas, I’m not that good at RTS. I’d say the games are still close to my heart due to the many hours / months / years of practice I put in, but I’m a nobody in these games.