Yeah I am aware that you can leave and continue the run but it's still time loss, I guess. I am pretty sure it's nothing to do with the hand. It seems to completely go under on my video and others on YouTube. Either way it would be interesting to find out.

I recently came across a glitch that happens totally randomly. At the start of Hour/Chapter IX, there is a random (but low) chance that you will start as Kei instead of Rei and also spawn in the beginning area of the game (where you start as Rei in Hour I.)

If you go to the double doors (near the trees) you will get soft locked in that area and there is no way to leave. I haven't had this glitch since but there could be something to this. Maybe a possible way to skip a Hour/Chapter.

I have no idea what causes the glitch to happen but it can happen on all platforms (PSN/PS2) and on every region of the game (NTSC/NTSC-J/PAL.)

Here is a video of when I came across the glitch and there are many other videos on YouTube of the same thing.

It would be beneficial to know how it is triggered. So we can either try to perform the glitch (if the glitch actually amounts to anything) or so we can avoid it happening during a run.

Yes it is. The game doesn't count load times towards the IGT. The only reason the HD version is faster than SD, is because you can skip the credits. Which is like 5 minutes of time save. So playing the Xbox 360 HD Remaster on Xbox one is just as competitive.

I think the leaderboards are fine as they are. If you want to get a competitive time then you need to run the fastest version imo.

I have a console run to submit and was wondering if console could be separated from Emu? Just because emu has an unfair advantage due to load times.

It will speed up load times, but the IGT doesn't count load times. So it will only make a difference to RTA.