Hello fellow speedrunners, i've added a Misc. category on the board.
Shiva have been created with a specific set of rules to respect in order to run him.
Also Roo has been added to the category for being a secondary character.
I'm glad to see Shiva has finally been added. I just think the Shiva rules should state that the player must not attack any enemies until Shiva is selected, and part of the speedrun is how quickly you can switch to Shiva. Because the player must not attack enemies at that point, the player is forced to switch to Shiva as soon as possible and cannot continue the run without him from any later point in Stage 2.
Using the grenade is helpful for losing one of your lives, but it's not going to use a continue right away. I just didn't think that part was very clear, so I thought I'd explain it.
Any chance we get Shiva / Ash with Game Genie?
Also, I don't understand why you have to play Shiva right away at the start of lvl 2. Why not allow people to find the fastest way of using the continue? Maybe it's faster, overall, to kill yourself in a different section or level.
Why have a Shiva category if you're just going to skip over parts of the game without him despite being unlocked already? The point is to use him as soon as possible after he is unlocked. However, there is one thing I have been thinking about regarding rules. Should we start the timer when the player selects Shiva instead involve Stage 1 and losing all lives?
If it's not more difficult to verify runs from Stage 2, perhaps the player don't have to worry about being fast in Stage 1 and learning a whole other character for it just to do a Shiva speedrun. The player should still be forced to avoid attacking enemies in Stage 2 until Shiva is unlocked so that the game won't progress until the character is active, but at least the timer can start when Shiva is actually being played. Probably the best way to start the timer is either as soon as Shiva is selected or he respawns and lands on the ground.
Otherwise, we just decide to allow Game-Genie/Pro Action Replay codes at the very least, but the player must show that he/she is only using codes to play as Shiva or Ash from the start of the game. If it's not too hard to prove, perhaps we can just do it this way. By allowing this method, we can also have Ash speedruns.
On a side note, I don't think Roo should be placed under Miscellaneous because he is playable from the start from a legitimate, in-game code. This is just a minor thing because we still have the category, but only now it's listed as Miscellaneous.
