I love this game and am working hard on optimizing the run. That said, It's somewhat demoralizing knowing I have next to no chance to challenge the world record without buying a copy of the NTSC-U game ($50+ for disc only, $100+ for complete) or a PSTV and a copy of the game.

With that in mind, my initial suggestion would be a simple category split between native disc speed and copies of the game played via PS2/PS3/Vita/PSTV with FDS enabled. I'd be putting runs in both categories eventually, so if we can't make it happen for whatever reason, I won't be totally gutted.

I just want to compete on the merits of speed as opposed to hardware!

FYI - I need to do more testing, but my rough estimates put loading speeds in native at ~30% slower per load.

This is a conversation that comes up in a lot of playstation speedrun leaderboards. Everyone would like to be on equal footing with the other people in their category, so when loadtimes or framerates between systems are the reality people often bring up the possibility of category splits or the addition of subcategories. The problem for doing this for Shadow Tower is two-fold.

There would be dependencies between consoles and console revisions in the FDS and standard disc speed categories. PSP, PS2, and Vita systems all load at different speeds, thus warranting each console their own subcategory. In the standard disc speed category you would not only need a subcategory for each console, but also console revision. For example, a launch PS2 fat loads games slower than a PS2 slim SCPH-9000x with the latest bios and drivers. Secondly, the leaderboard is so small right now that splitting any% RTA into two or more categories and deviating from the PS1 community norm would make the leaderboard appear to be even smaller.

In other discussions, a major argument for keeping it all on one leaderboard is that there is already a platform filter that takes care of the problem. Anyone running PS1, PS3 (PS3 actually doesn't have FDS as an option), or PS1 emulator would be using standard disc speed, and other platforms would most likely using FDS if it didn't crash the game. Using the filter would then essentially give you an accurate leaderboard for FDS or standard speeds without splitting a single category with the same core gameplay and objective into separate subcategories, therefore giving a single overall view with the option to limit out times on faster systems.

Meauxdal and I had a conversation about this and this is what we decided on for now. We will be adding an optional section for loadless times (could be replaced with IGT after more research) to give more accurate comparisons between inter-console runs. The criteria for these loadless times is the same as the RTA timing used, but just with the screens that have "Now Loading" subtracted from the overall time of the run. This would keep Shadow Tower in line with the timing conventions of most PS1 leaderboards for the primary measurement, but also give a secondary time for more sorting if people wish to use it. The mindset for making it optional is so people can submit runs as they improve without having to calculate the loadless times for every submission, and then when they get a run they are happy with, they can add it to their submission if they so choose.

The problem is not just loads, games actually do run at different speeds on PSP/PSTV sometimes depending on a bunch of stupid arcane factors that aren't well understood and vary drastically from game to game. Run some tests and compare some footage, you might be surprised, you might not be.

I have no stake in this discussion whatsoever, I just thought you ought to know.

I realized it would not be sufficient to only count the screens that specifically say "Loading", as these are not particularly common; most of the loads in the game are done without this screen, not to mention the slower menu navigation which would be almost impossible to meaningfully equalize even given unlimited resources. The specific circumstances of this game make direct comparison very difficult.

I am planning to run this game for PS2 now that I have the slow loads WR. If I were to submit a run for this, would it just overwrite my current run? Loadless simply will not work for this game as far as I can tell.

We haven't had a chance to get In-Game Time from a PSTV or PS2 yet, but it looks to be about 20-50 seconds shorter than the RTA, rounded down on Beetle PSX.

Alright, we'll remove the loadless option and replace it with an option for IGT to be checked after the kill on the last boss for the sake of caparison between platforms. Being that this would make loadless redundant, and I agree that timing out the slower menuing for removal would be nearly impossible, it is being removed. I've disabled overriding runs from other platforms, so a run from a PS1 and a PSTV from a single runner would both appear on the leaderboard.

Fast Disc Speed seems to hardly do anything at all for the PS2 version. This tracks with what I've heard about running the King's Field games on a PS2 with FDS, which I believe share an engine with this game. Once I'm done with this version, I might see about picking up a PSTV for that crazy fast loading.