AKA more detailed rules, or explanations for why they are the way they are. This is a wall of text. You have been warned.

Game Rules (AKA Main Rules)

1. For PC runs, you MUST use the provided load remover by Livesplit. An FPS counter must also be visible to ensure that the game is running at 60 FPS. Steam's in-game FPS counter, RTSS via MSI Afterburner, or other FPS counters are acceptable as long as they are actively measuring the game's frame rate.

PC runs require a load remover for one very simple fact; no two PCs are 100% alike unless spec'd as such. Any one PC can be faster or slower. A load remover attempts to equalize them. 60 FPS is also chosen for the cap because RGG has repeatedly proven unable to A: Allow lower end hardware to hit the next cap, which is 120, and B: NOT tie everything to the frame rate, breaking the game and occasionally, the balance of the game. In LAD:I's case, Gunman shoots faster at 120 FPS, and they had to fix the Heat drain issue as it depleted much faster at said frame rate. Unlimited makes the game go off the rails and would again be a matter of which PC can run the game at 1000 FPS, so a cap of 60 was the best option.

2. For console runs, you MUST submit your time ONLY under "time with loads". You may NOT use the game's in-game timer, it is not reliable.

Relatively self-explanatory. IGT has historically been inaccurate relative to real time, and while it does largely ignore the load times, it can still be manipulated very easily just by save/loading until you get the perfect run; measuring console runs in real-time makes more sense.

3. The timer must be on screen at all times and not obscure important HUD elements (i.e. health bars).

By extension, this also means the HUD elements must be turned on. If they are off, we wouldn't be able to tell if you, say, hacked in infinite health or just -slightly- increased your damage.

4. All runs require game audio.

This is just an integrity check. We can be lenient and still verify a run with poor audio quality, but if it's obvious that it's spliced, we can't help you there.

5. Failure to comply with any of the above rules will result in your run being rejected.

Well... it should. But I'm personally lenient with mistimed runs, so I'd be willing to let them slide the first time around. It does suck that most RGG games are really long to speedrun and having 4 hours go down the drain because you didn't split correctly is even worse.

6. The accessibility options are allowed to be used.

There is no reason for us to gatekeep anyone that wants to enjoy the game the way they want to (aside from complying with the speedrun rules, of course). The accessibility options are also beneficial, and they're, well, accessible for everyone. It'd be extremely difficult to moderate them, let alone enforce a ban on them, so turn on as many as you want.

General Category Rules

No segmented runs.

All runs must be done in one sitting. We don't encourage breaks even for these long RGG runs because break time can give you a lot more time (sometimes too much time) to think over your next strats. Part of the skill in speedrunning is putting all of your ideas together and adapting on the fly if something goes wrong. But if you give yourself infinite prep time, you could theoretically spin up the perfect run, or make the VOD utterly unwatchable.

Time starts upon clearing the autosave window that appears AFTER selecting "yes" or "no". Time ends on clearing the results screen after final boss's defeat.

The reason time ends on clearing the results screen after the boss and NOT on the final hit is that the game does not get to the end until the cutscene plays. The results screen clear is also a more consistent end point; for example, if you knew exactly what the damage is for any given heat action, you could just press time on the triangle press. But you might also be 1 pixel off, making that run invalid. If you just split where the game can play the final cutscenes, there's no fuss about it.

DLC (including Ishin! difficulty and the free cards) is not allowed.

For the categories that exclude DLC, the cards aren't necessarily that good, but the weapons probably are. We don't think it would be a good idea to make the category pay-to-win, and while Ishin! difficulty is kinda the opposite to that idea, it is still a fairly controversial addition to the remake. Why is the hardest difficulty be locked behind a paywall? It really shouldn't. But it is technically allowed in NG+, which I'll leave for now. It doesn't seem like switching to it would affect anything in any way, but for parity's sake, there is no Ishin! difficulty category for NG+ yet.

Mods on PC are not allowed.

This is listed under the category rules and not the game rules because I am genuinely invested in game mods. I am not opposed to opening categories for them in the future. They introduce fresh ways to play the games we know and love. That being said, they should not be allowed in the main categories, and will never be.