It doesn't look like this game is too active but I figured it's worth a shot asking.

I love this game and wanted to take a shot at running it. I'm just wondering if there are any significant differences between emulation and playing it on PS2. I saw that the timing is real-time, so I'm assuming PS2 would probably be slower. I also know that emulation has that weird environment pop-in issue on the sides of the screen. Are there any other differences or problems to know about?

Thanks in advance.

From what I know there isn't any info on the subject. Any information on it is welcome if you are able to study the difference in load times. I personally don't have a PS2 compare times.

From experience years ago with the PS2, I haven't noticed anything different other than the environment rendering that you mentioned.

For now, unless this game gets significantly more popular, there isn't much of a reason to split the platforms into different categories. So feel free to run on whatever you wish if you do give it a go.

Good luck

Hi both.

Multiple things that are probably worth talking about.

1. If you look at the time of the first dive on uokashi´s run, who is running original hardware with a jp version of the game. The load time is ~10seconds. This is reduced to ~7 seconds on the current version of the pcsx2 emulator (tested with a 3 different cpus without much variance) or to ~8 seconds in the nightly version of pcsx2, which fixes most/all of the graphical bugs. These load differences add up and are difficult to control, so I would suggest just running the most official up-to-date version of pcsx2 for the time being.

2. Another large issue is turbo buttons, which are trivial to detect with an emulator with an overlay, but virtually impossible on original hardware (unless video footage of the controller is provided). If you look at uokashi's run, there are multiple sections where they skip text much faster than what me or Metbul can do and I am pretty sure that I can't physically mash X and triangle any faster (see 2:09 on uokashi's run as an example). This leads me to believe that they used a turbo button mapped to triangle at certain spots.

Taken both points into account and trying to establish the best environment for some friendly competition I think there are three valid options:

1 - Stipulate emulator as the platform of choice. Do not allow turbo and require a controller overlay for validation. (Easier to implement and true to original intent)

2 - Stipulate emulator as the platform of choice. Allow turbo. (maximise run speed, avoid carpal tunnel from too much mashing)

3 - Allow only original hardware. Require video footage of controller (maximise fidelity).

Given the size of the speedrun scene for this game. I think "1" is the best option. What do you two think?

After talking with uokashi I take back the turbo button comment. Apparently, circle buttom + right-stick causes the massive speed up that they got in their run.

I don't see any reason to ban either platform. If it is known that emulator has faster load times, then that is the preferred platform to make serious attempts.

Just moving the right stick in a circle will skip text very fast (with X needed to select the text choices). I think we still ban turbo, since it isn't a native feature with the system, but it shouldn't be that much of a problem (and will be easier to detect) considering the right stick discovery.

If the other runners agree, we could mandate some kind of controller button overlay to be visible on future runs to show proof of no turbo. What does everyone else think?

Happy with that!

The controller overlay can be easily displayed on an emulator, but in the case of PS2, it is a burden on the runner because it requires electronic work or a camera to capture the hand, which may be necessary in the future, but I think it is too early to apply it as a rule yet.

We won't make it a mandatory rule for now. But we can say that the run will be verified quicker with some kind of controller overlay