Preceding New Game manipulation and setup has already been discussed a fair bit with respect to NG+, where we (Ria and I) have pretty much decided not to do it just because it's kind of gross.

However, it is easy to imagine a scenario in which one could use 4 incense at a normal time in an any% run, have a good amount of juice remaining, and then game over to a boss (Songi 3, Juggercort, etc.). If the runner had unlimited stamina and felt the desire, they could go right ahead and start another run, without having cleared the remaining incense from memory. Would this invalidate the run? It doesn't technically break the rule forbidding the loading of pre-made save files, but it would definitely affect the run in a way that encroaches upon the spirit of the rules.

With that in mind, should formal any% run submissions begin with a hard reset included in the VOD? Or should it just be a thing where if you see "Incense has lost its effectiveness" pop up in Rim Elm, the run gets bopped?

This is almost the same issue as Legaia 2 would face. In Legaia 2 you can die on purpose before starting a NEW GAME so that you skip the random encounter before the first ant pack which is almost impossible if not impossible to avoid from a hard reset.

On top of that. The memory card is being read while booting up the game also affects the chance of Lyps showing up in the run (Legaia 2). So that is an issue I was mentioning in the forum section of Legaia 2 as well.

Pre-game manipulation is often times allowed in English games, but in Japanese versions they are included in the time since you start timer from Power On (which means pre-game manipulation will be included in the time, but not NG+ stuff obviously. Only things that can be done without pre-made saves).

It would mean New Game+ if you activate Incense before a run since normally people won't have that possibility. Even if you don't have incense active you will change the encounter seed to sometimes better and sometimes worse which also changes how you will encounter enemies. With a Hard Reset this would also be removed.

If you want the most fair competitive environment you also don't have the memory card inserted until you have pressed new game, but that might be over-kill. ;) At least in Legaia 2 it matters.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the video has to start from a hard reset of the console.

I would definitely say that NG runs definitely need to start from a hard reset of the console on the video.

NG+ is a bit trickier. I guess there's nothing against the rules against pre-run manipulation / setup, but I've not been doing so for purposes of well, it just feels wrong to me.