I was picking up a copy of this game and debating learning some of the speedruns. Although I personally do not use a turbo controller the rules do leave me a bit confused after reading them.

"Japanese Version: Turbo is allowed because Jap leader boards allow it English version Turbo is banned"

Japanese text in RPGs historically has already been faster than English text, which brings me to the point of this post. Why is turbo banned on the English version? Wouldn't the English players already be at a disadvantage, then allowing turbo for JP runners only creating an even larger gap between the two versions putting anyone that wanted to run in English at a permanent disadvantage? Or is there some exploit/glitch that is in the English versions that I do not know about? After speedrunning other RPG like earthbound, they have the JP and English versions separated due to differences like this.

Again, sorry for the lengthy post out of nowhere, I just feel like to be competitive in this game with the current rule set and board set up you'd be forced into buying a JP 90k PS2 and a JP copy of the game no?

We plan on doing separations between Japanese and English eventually, so haven't got around to it yet mainly because our boards aren't really big enough to the point where that would be an issue but its been brought up more lately so we will do it as soon as possible after we discuss and come up with something on discord. So All I can say is be patient or wait until we actually go around to doing it I mean you can still submit your time, like you can still gun for the best English time though so that shouldn't stop you we will updated it and post about it when we get around to it.

Word, that's really exciting to hear, I've been watching some runs and trying to pick up some of the tech before my copy gets here! EDIT: Thank you for such a speedy response! Look forward to seeing you around!

cool more runners are always welcome we are a pretty chill community and if you want you can join our discord for a faster update or if you have questions about certain things https://discordapp.com/invite/0r3v9MbsukXBM2E8

To add on to what HD said: the Japanese community around the game has had rules and traditions in place for over 15 years that we want to respect (e.g. different timing methods). As of right now, our community is small enough that we can do our own thing without treading over the Japanese community.

About the turbo thing: it's allowed on the Japanese leaderboards, has been for over a decade, but almost nobody uses it since it's too hard to switch between turbo and normal speed.

About the competition thing: if you wanted to compete at a top level right now, you would either need to buy a JP disc and a JP 70k PS2 (70k is more reliable than most other models) or a PSP/PSVita/PSTV and the JP PSArchives version of the game along with creating a JP PSN account (PSP is faster than PS2 due to loads).

I agree with HD; we do need a separation at some point since there is a big enough difference between the US and JP versions to warrant one (the US version is upwards of 2 minutes slower than JP in Blue's Story due to slower text speeds). It's a pretty complex situation since there's two very different cultures rubbing together right now.