So, I recreated the method by which the top times were achieved, and the clock is physically running faster in the games of the top times. While my emulators seem to run at about 61.5 seconds per minute, the top times have gotten it to slightly less, about 61 seconds. I've tested the clock in three different environments: outside, the ultra modern house, and the old house (where I originally did my run). I ran a whole stream of the various ways to run, including a potential time save, in the later ones.

I realized how the clocks differ, when I hit play on both the WR video, as well as my video, while the same amount of time is left on both in-game clocks. (Link to Test 1 - Old House: ). In my video, at 6:45 into it, the in-game timer shows 14:00 left, while the Livesplit timer is up to 6:13.14 (or about that). The WR run gets to 14:00 left when the Livesplit timer is at 6:09.88 (or similar). So, the final run should be 3.5 seconds behind or so. When both runs reach the 10:00 left mark, the WR time is at 10:13.17, but my timer is at 10:17.17. So, over those 4 in-game minutes, about 0.5 seconds were gained. When both runs reach the 5:00 minute mark, the WR run is at 15:16.77, my run is at 15:22.61, almost 6 seconds behind. At 1:00 minute remaining, the WR timer is at 19:19.33, while my timer is at 19:26.03. Over the course of 13 minutes, I went from 3.5 seconds behind, to nearly 7. This gain of 0.5 seconds per minute could be worth as much as 10 seconds over the course of a run. I turned off the in-game audio because I thought that perhaps the sound was making it run slower, but I also considered that "The Old House" might just make the clock run slower, but it didn't. I set everything back to normal, and tried testing by recreating the WR in "The Modern House".

Since I explained everything in the previous paragraph, I'm just gonna focus on the highlights here. (Link to Test 2 - Modern House: ) I click "yes" to enter the modern house before 6 seconds, and the modern house is loaded, before 9 seconds. There is 19:57 on the in-game timer. The speedrun opts to take a few more seconds outside, and they go into the house at around 9 seconds, with 19:53 left on the in-game timer. So, with 19 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 1:06.71, and the WR is at 1:06.29, about a half a second ahead of me. With 15 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 5:11.01, and the WR is at 5:09.44. With 10 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 10:16.07, while the WR is at 10:13.01. With 5 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 15:21.22, while the WR is at 15:16.64. With 1 minute left on the in-game timer, I'm at 19:25.10, while the WR is at 19:19.61. I was literally 0.5 behind the WR when I stopped touching the controller, and I lost time in a run where you don't move. I had one more test to check.

For my final check, I did one more run, with a 125% overclock. (Link to Test 3 - Overclock: ) So, with 19 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 1:04.87, and the WR is at 1:06.29. With 15 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 5:04.72, and the WR is at 5:09.44. With 10 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 10:08.82, while the WR is at 10:13.01. With 5 minutes left on the in-game timer, I'm at 15:09.64, while the WR is at 15:16.64. With 1 minute left on the in-game timer, I'm at 19:10.27, while the WR is at 19:19.61. So, at 125% overclock, I go from being behind 5 seconds, to being ahead by 9 seconds.

I don't think anyone's overclocking or speeding up something intentionally, but perhaps the issue is the emulator. I've used both MegaDrive and PicoDrive, but both seem to yield the same results. I'm confident that my method might save as much as a second, but can't be sure if the clock timers aren't in sync. I guess I could run the emulator at like, 102% overclock, but that doesn't seem fair, or right. I'd much rather be in agreement about which emulator to use, in order to ensure everything is by the book.

Sorry for the rant, but I only realized this issue after a handful of the updated runs weren't able to beat my previous WR time, in spite of it being a seemingly quicker method. I'm not sure if I can install Genesis Plus GX, but it might be the only emulator available to some.

However people wanna proceed, works for me. I just wanna make sure I'm doing everything as intended before I try to run the game again.

Hmm that's interesting, I was under the assumption that it was the new path with the modern house that was saving the time and not the emulators but this make sense. I used genesis plus gx through retroarch with my run and looking back at my first run I'm pretty sure I used a different emulator at the time.

I'm not super familiar with speedrunning genesis games and if there are any general rules with this sort of thing, I've tried looking around to see if there are any agreed upon emulator rules but it seems like it's case by case. I would be curious to see what the time would be on real hardware, I don't have something setup for that but I could get something together if needed.

I also think it would be good for us to agree on one emulator to use. I would be fine either way, I'm just not 100% sure what is best practice. I made a forum post in the general speedrunning forum to see if anyone else had any advice for this situation but if I don't get a response or anything concrete, I might try first getting a real hardware setup and see what would be the most accurate.

I'm also open to what others opinions are on this as well, if other past people that have run the game want to give their thoughts on the matter I'm open to if there's a general consensus of how people would want to handle this.

Thank you for letting me know! I also have Retroarch, so I'll run the same emulator and hopefully that shores up the issue!

Side note: my strategy to save a second is to wait until the bandits enter one of the houses before you do, to skip having to see the trap menu. I'm gonna attempt to run that later on tonight over at twitch.tv/willwagnermusic if you wanna stop by.

Okay, I just realized that I started with PicoDrive, and already had Genesis Plus X installed. I switched to that emulator at 1:26:40 of this video. (Link: ) You can see me adjust the screen size, but OBS wasn't immediately showing the window after I switched, so I didn't notice the change at first. It's more evident when I switch back to PicoDrive after having the same issue. At 3:16:40, I go into the game menu again, and at 3:17:42 it shows that the emulator being used was Genesis Plus X. I'm unsure what settings I need to change.