I noticed a bunch of timers began at different times, so to keep timing consistent I tested the loading screen time by counting frames with frame advance on emulator, and found that this game takes 2.90 seconds (174 frames) to load. As normal reference, Super Mario World takes 2.20 seconds (132 frames) to load. This difference is usually most affected by custom music but level edits have an impact as well. Hope this helps!
Darn, I was genuinely upset from expecting "New Speedrun Strat in YI4" to be an RTA Reznor Kill.
Anyway, if you're playing on emulator, make sure your key combo presses that aren't used often (such as whatever you use for run, up, and B ) aren't prevented by ghosting, which is purely a hardware thing that exists in most keyboards.
As mentioned before, 11-exit is far from dead, and TLD and authorblues more than clarified that.
Whether, as a beginner, you decide to pursue WR or not, what's wrong with popping in a game and seeing how fast you can beat it? That's how I got into speedrunning, and I'm sure that's how many of us here did as well. I did not know or care what the WR was when I started playing, and while I recognize WRs are a testament of hard individual work and community optimization, I don't view them as anything more than a nice model of a run to learn and improve on. Speedrun for your personal satisfaction. If that means chasing a WR or just completing a deathless or decent run, so be it.
Another pointless argument spewing more pointless babbling discussion for a result that, at best, will be equally as good as the existing conditions.
imo.