It has come to the moderators attention that Moon_Lx's personal best(PB) of 19:46 in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix HD PS4 Level 1 Data Org RTA is spliced. Splicing is taken very seriously in speedrunning so we wanted to do an in depth investigation before taking any action.

The outstanding evidence and main focus will be inconsistencies in the 'Max Combo' displayed shown during limits in Moon_Lx’s PB of 19:46 (). To show the inconsistencies we will be comparing to CrispyMe’s PB of 19:54 (), and Ninten866’s PB of 20:54 ().

Things we know about 'Max Combo' -it is preserved through saves. -if a new 'Max Combo' is reached but then Sora dies and you use 'Continue', the 'Max Combo' will be reset to what it was before that encounter. -if a new ‘Max Combo’ is reached and Sora enters a loading zone/completes a boss fight, the new ‘Max Combo’ will be recorded into Jiminy’s Journal. The new ‘Max Combo’ replaces the previous ‘Max Combo’, and it will remain there until an even higher ‘Max Combo’ is attained.*

*Since Lvl 1 Data Org RTA is usually done with a high stock of megalixirs (usually 99), it is standard to NOT save the game after finishing a run to preserve megalixirs for future attempts. This means that any new ‘Max Combo’s’ attained will generally not carry over into a new run attempt.

The first thing we will look at is Duck Flare ‘Max Combo’ going into Demyx versus the previous fight: Moon_Lx end of Saix(this run uses a different route): Moon_Lx start of Demyx:

CrispyMe end of Zexion: CrispyMe start of Demyx:

Ninten866 end of Zexion: Ninten866 start of Demyx:

CrispyMe and Ninten866 show 200 and 224 on both ending Zexion and entering Demyx respectively. Moon_Lx, however, shows 189 leaving Saix but 313 entering Demyx. This is odd.

Let's take a closer look at the 'Max Combo' for Duck Flare at the end of the several fights and the start of Demyx for Moon_Lx: Duck Flare at the end of Saix: Duck Flare at the start of Demyx: Duck Flare at the start of Xaldin: Duck Flare at the start of Xigbar:

What we can see here is that for Saix, Xaldin and Xigbar the 'Max Combo' shows 189 at the end whereas Demyx shows 313 at the start of the fight. This is the big red flag that brings the validity of the run into question. There is no explanation for the ‘Max Combo’ to jump up at the start of Demyx and jump back down afterwards. Even though a new ‘Max Combo’ is not set within the fight with our current understanding it should still show 189 at the start of Demyx or 313 at the start of Xaldin.

We can also apply this to Comet: Comet during Marluxia: Comet at the end of Larxene: Comet during Demyx:

Marluxia and Larxene both end with a 'Max Combo' of 129 and Demyx starts with it at 202. Again, this does not make sense.

Now we will focus on Demyx. Using CrispyMe's PB video as a reference we can see how the 'Max Combo' for Duck Flare interacts with the Demyx fight: First Duck Flare at the start of 99 Water Clones: End of first Duck Flare during 99 Water Clones: Start of second Duck Flare: End of second Duck Flare:

At the start of 99 Water Clones CrispyMe's Duck Flare has a 'Max Combo' of 200. As the Duck Flare ends we see that 'Max Combo' is now 293. At the start of his next Duck Flare we see that 'Max Combo' is now 325. We currently do not have an explanation for this behavior but the assumption is that the game is still counting the Firaga hits while the limit is still active even though there are no more rockets(this behavior is consistent with what we see in Ninten866’s PB). What we are looking for however is that the 'Max Combo' ends with 325.

Again we can apply this to Comet: Start of Comet: End of Comet:

Comet 'Max Combo' changes from 199 to 204 during Demyx for CrispyMe.

If we take a look at Ninten866's PB: First Duck Flare at the start of 99 Water Clones: End of first Duck Flare during 99 Water Clones: Start of second Duck Flare: End of second Duck Flare:

Ninten866's Duck Flare 'Max Combo' starts at 224 then becomes 229 after the first Duck Flare. The second Duck Flare starts with 260 and ends with 287.

Start of Comet: End of Comet:

Ninten866's Comet 'Max Combo' does reach over 200 in alignment with CrispyMe's fight.

This tells us a few major things. The current strategy used on Demyx can bring Duck Flare 'Max Combo' close to 300+ and Comet 'Max Combo' up to 200+. Since Demyx is last for CrispyMe and Ninten866 it would appear to be uncommon for Duck Flare and Comet to reach the 'Max Combo' seen during Demyx before fighting him. This is also supported by compiling all the limits used and the amount of hits acquired in each fight being nowhere close to 300 or 200 for Duck Flare and Comet respectively(data shown below). Seeing as how during Moon_Lx's Demyx fight his Duck Flare 'Max Combo' started at 313 and his Comet 'Max Combo' started at 202 and were not obtained during the fight, it is likely that the Demyx fight had already been completed then reattempted.

Compilation of Limit ‘Max Combo’ and # of Hits Recorded: "<Limit>: <'Max Combo' when the Limit is used the first time>, (<# of recorded hits by game>)"

Moon_Lx’s 19:46: Data Marluxia

• Comet: 129, (50) (44) Data Larxene
• Comet: 129, (119) Data Lexaeus
• Comet: 129, (47)
• Duck Flare: 189, (133) Data Saix
• Duck Flare: 189, (136) (142) (140) (140) (127) (61) Data Demyx
• Duck Flare: 313, (83) (122) (227) (304)
• Comet: 202, (187) Data Xaldin
• Duck Flare: 189, (144) (142) (142) (141) (137) (142) Data Xigbar
• Duck Flare: 189, (139) (142) (142) (140) (146) Data Vexen
• Duck Flare: 189, (58) Data Zexion
• Duck Flare: 189, (143) (131)

CrispyMe’s 19:54: Data Marluxia

• Comet: 199, (45) (44) Data Larxene
• Comet: 199, (88) Data Saix
• Duck Flare: 200, (138) (141) (140) (140) (139) (70) Data Lexaeus
• Comet: 199, (45)
• Duck Flare: 200, (116) Data Xaldin
• Duck Flare: 200, (147) (142) (145) (142) (144) (122) Data Xigbar
• Duck Flare: 200, (139) (143) (144) (142) (121) Data Vexen
• Duck Flare: 200, (49) Data Zexion
• Duck Flare: 200, (129) Data Demyx
• Duck Flare: 200, (84) (124) (293/325) (237)
• Comet: 199, (204)

Ninten866’s 20:54: Data Marluxia

• Comet: 71, (51) (37) Data Larxene
• Comet: 71, (157) Data Saix
• Duck Flare: 224, (139) (142) (142) (142) (135) (87) Data Lexaeus
• Comet: 157, (51) (44)
• Duck Flare: 224, (131) Data Xaldin
• Duck Flare: 224, (142) (26) (136) (144) (144) (142) (116) Data Xigbar
• Duck Flare: 224, (111) (141) (141) (142) (145) (15) Data Vexen
• Duck Flare: 224, (36) (1) Data Zexion
• Duck Flare: 224, (22) Data Demyx
• Duck Flare: 224, (97) (125) (229/260) (287)
• Comet: 157 , (203)

Just to reiterate, Moon_Lx’s ‘Max Combo’ at the start of Demyx shows 313 for Duck Flare and 202 for Comet which is inconsistent with previous and later fights. Since Ninten866 and CrispyMe do Demyx last we can only see that their ‘Max Combo’ at the start of Demyx is consistent with the previous fight. For transparency, CrispyMe made a video showing Saix -> Demyx -> Xaldin, What we see here is a contradiction in the behavior of ‘Max Combo’ in CrispyMe’s video and Moon_Lx’s 19:46. As we would expect, in CrispyMe’s video Duck Flare ‘Max Combo’ remains consistent at the end of Saix and the start of Demyx, as well as being consistent between the end of Demyx and the start of Xaldin.

Our only conclusion after all of this is that the Demyx fight in Moon_Lx’s 19:46 is spliced into the run.

Unfortunately while investigating this run we also looked into Moon_Lx’s other runs and have compelling evidence some of those may have been spliced as well. We will look into this further, but we wanted take action against this fairly clear case of splicing for this run. As such, we will be removing all of Moon_Lx’s current runs on speedrun.com for all versions of Kingdom Hearts II, as well as a permanent ban from future submissions of Kingdom Hearts II.

We reached out to Moon_Lx and he admitted to the splicing.

Obviously we, as moderators, did not do enough when originally verifying the run so we will be looking at different ways to ensure runs are not spliced. As such we may be updating the Data Org ruleset to reflect this. The run itself should be unaffected, but rules such as showing in game time before and after the run may be implemented(this is just an example and not a defacto way of preventing splicing).