So, I don't know if anyone has attempted this, but I decided to take a stab at Pac-Land PRO (a "hard mode" version of Pac-Land only available on the TG-16 version) today, and I was able to successfully complete some 4-trip runs. So far, this 15:07 is my best result:

I reach Pac-Land PRO by entering the "options menu" code at the beginning, thus avoiding the need to use a save state or spend a half hour beating the normal game. I don't give myself extra lives or skip any levels, of course.

Some of the levels are very difficult (10, 12, and 13 come to mind as especially tough) and others are basically the same as on normal difficulty (14 is pretty much identical). My first attempts were up around 18-19 minutes, I was able to get it down to 15:07 over the course of a single day. I'm sure with some time & effort, this could be reduced quite a bit further.

I don't expect to have an 8-trip time for this any time soon. Trip 5 is tougher, but I can get through it. Trip 6 is where I start to seriously question my life decisions.

Here's another Pac PRO video. The 4-trip run isn't as good here, but I provide some commentary and also go into trips 5-8 afterward:

I did complete the first 6 trips. It took over 40 minutes, but with what I learned about Round 21, a few minutes can be taken off that easily:

So there may also be a 6-trips run of PRO if anyone is interested in that. Trips 7 and 8 don't seem to be realistically beatable for a human, though some of the individual levels are. I was able to beat 28, and I can confirm 30 is also beatable. 25 is the worst, I can't even imagine a possible strategy for that one.

I'm sorry I totally missed this post a month ago!

I'm all about adding a pro 4 trip board. As you've learned, later trips are just absolutely absurd and shouldn't be attempted by humans.

I have a pretty old run of this (my hair was a color!!) as well to submit if we start this board and honestly its a great way to give our community something new to poke at with tons of room for improvement.

Nice! I've attempted this a handful of times since, and haven't come even close to that 15:07 that I did back then, but I'm sure I could do better if I was putting serious effort in, which a leaderboard might motivate me to do.

Yeah I've tried a bunch of times to do better than my 14:45 and honestly it just felt like a fluke that I ever got a time that low. It was literally my first run ever of the category.

Let's see what we can do about adding this - worst case it's just us going back and forth - and that's a great thing.

I've gone ahead and added this as a category!

A new exciting brutally difficult chapter of speedrunning awaits!