Any suggestions on how to approach this leaderboard? The NES and Famicom versions are identical in gameplay but the Famicom version runs 1:18 faster due to less cutscene time. I'd hate to break the game into two separate categories since the gameplay is identical but I might have to do that. Listing the NES version as "time with loads" and the Famicom version as "time without loads" seems misleading and could be confusing to all but the few active runners of this game. I'm willing to listen to any and all suggestions before I edit the game on here.

Just a heads up, english version and jpn version do have gameplay differences. The pattern on the stringray in level 8 is different between the two, and (I think) faster on jpn.

Yeah I probably should have mentioned that. You're right, the pattern is different for the stingray. I kill the stingray in 4 cycles on both versions and while I've never actually taken the time to time my fight in both versions, I think it's virtually identical. I'm glad you mentioned that though. I'll try and time them both later on tonight.

Whether or not the slightly different stingray fight is worth making two separate categories I suppose is debatable. As I said before, I'm open to any and all suggestions concerning this game. Thank-you for your response. :)

EDIT: So I went ahead and timed my stingray fight from my English run and my Japanese run. I timed from when the room is first visible (since it fades black between the spike room and the stingray room) and stopped the timer at loss of character control. The first time I timed, I got 19.7 for BOTH versions. The second time I timed, I got 19.8 English and 19.4 Japanese.

I didn't bother to time it a third time because as you can see from the results, it's not particularly important. Granted, the way that you kill the stingray is going to have an effect on your time (obviously) but by killing him in 4 cycles in either version, the timing should be identical down to the second. Because I never advocate simply taking someone's word for it, I encourage others to test it for themselves and make sure that they get similar results. I hope this clarifies it.

Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly how different the two were (been >1year), I just wanted it brought to your attention in case you didn't know.

So Becored found a way to kill the stingray roughly 2 seconds faster on the Japanese version, making it so that the Japanese version has an advantage of roughly 1:20. Since I don't have an exact time difference, I don't think I'm going to be able to consolidate the two versions into one category. Ideally, I would love to have just one table that lists someone's English time, the equivalent Japanese time (or the other way around, depending on which version your PB is on), and which version you used. I don't think I'm going to be able to do so now unless anyone has any ideas. Thoughts?

Here's a link to Becored's video: