What's the plans for categories now that the PC release is out

I don't think it's fair to group this with existing versions of the game because of how much faster this version is

I just started playing the PC version and I was thinking that it DEFINITELY needs a new category. But it requires some thinking because of what would be allowed and what not. Like insta level weapons, should that be for a different category, or just make one where everything is allowed and one where is not? And what about the difficulties? I'll see if I can discuss this with Flameberger.

I'm personally of the opinion that PC should have its own category, one with turbo/skips, and another with turbo/skips/max exp, then subdivided each by difficulty and if possible by "gamemode" (origina, standard, freedom, whatever, there are four). This is a lot of permutations though, so sounds a bit complex.

I'm currently going through a few playthroughs at the moment

But my thoughts were likely something along these lines

Easy - Standard (Boosts enabled)

Normal - Original (Boosts disabled)

Hard - Original (Boosts disabled)

Nightmare - Highlevel (Boosts disabled?) (Need to see if this is possible still, might need boosts with the enemy damage output in chapter 2)

Maybe a Normal / Hard with Standard? My idea was going up in difficulty in one aspect should stay high in difficulty.

With the difficulty selection being incredibly variable, locking down on some aspects seems to be smarter than creating a bunch of potentially dead categories. Although I'm not sure how one would handle NG+ selections as well. There's just a lot of room for variance here.

But that's just my opinion

Alternatively categories could be created on a request basis past this if someone has a use-case

Then I guess there is speed-up / skip that's new. I'd put that as a topic just related to the PC release and allow usage, as skip effectively just invokes 5x and removes the need to repeatedly mash dialogue boxes (actually it's a bit faster from the looks of it)

Yeah, I'm a bit worried about creating a bunch of categories that will be completely empty.

My idea was starting with just normal original boosts enabled (or disabled, I haven't fully decided what I like best yet, I'm doing my playthrough with boosts, it's just much nicer than mindlessly repeating the same attacks in practice over and over again), and then if there are people actually submitting runs for other possible permutation of difficulty/mode/boost, then I would start looking into creating more/all possibilties.

FWIW, the GBA already had a "skip" dialogue too that did basically the same it does now, but it didn't have the battle skip. I personally think both the skip and fast forward are intrinsically part of the remaster and it really doesn't hinder the gameplay in any way except making it smoother (and faster). You can still make decisions with the same ease as before once it gets to your turn.

I was for two weeks on vacation, so I'm still in chapter... 5, I think. Once I finish and gather my thoughts I will discuss it with Flameberger, but yeah, these are my thoughts so far.

P.S.: I'm actually more in favor of making boost the "default/first" category because this game already has A LOT of RNG. I kinda feel like it's already complicated to end runs with the way you get exp normally (sure you can do practice but meh). Also it would allow to create new routes, maybe with leveling more items so you get better stats to also diminish some more extra rng with misses, etc. But yeah, I'm still thinking about it.

Personally I do like the game in its original state, boosts feel a bit more like a modifier so personal opinion wouldn't be having it as the primary Most likely just normal - original as that aligns closest with the other releases of the game.

But that's just my opinion. Definitely planning to run, but first kind of want to understand what categories are going to be around before committing to anything

Noticed I titled this as PC release,

But technically there is the mobile / switch versions available to Japanese audiences as well

Any chance to add a leaderboard for Normal - Original for the new release in the meantime?

As right now there is no support on the leaderboard, and this should align with the other releases.

I wanted to share a run done on the Switch version by a Japanese runner, the game is very fast now.