In this game, there's actually an ending if you beat all of the courses in the last plane. The only thing is, to get the ending, the game has to consider the courses as being beaten, which doesn't happen until you get to the ranking screen of that specific course. I'm wondering if I should require the all courses and last plane categories to get the ending. Additionally, There is a screen with a password for the next plane at the end of the other planes, and those could be considered as "endings", and those are achieved under the same conditions, so maybe those should be required too. What do y'all think?

You mean the credits screen that pops up? I don't think so. Almost all games that I know of with speedruns don't actually count the credits as part of the run, even if there is input afterwards (which is true in the case of On the Ball as there is a high score input screen after the credits).

Probably the most popular game similar to On the Ball, Super Monkey Ball, is a good example of this. Speedruns end at the last goal for each category, ignoring the credits (which allow for user input) and the following high score input screen that comes afterwards. If you need further examples, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario World end at beating Bowser instead of the ending credits. The list goes on.

I also don't think that the endings for individual planes need to be counted as again, for almost all categories I've seen speedrun for any game, it ends at beating the last level of the category rather than going through ending cutscenes. To be honest, this'll be easier from a timing perspective too, as it is much easier to pinpoint when the player reaches the final goal rather than the exact moment the password screen fades in.

I'm not saying that the credits possibly should be part of the timing. The problem is, the way the rules are now, after beating all the courses of the last plane in a speedrun, you won't actually get the ending, because the game doesn't consider the courses to be beaten, because you reset too early. I'm thinking that maybe the rules for last plane and all courses should require you to meet the criteria to get the ending, which they currently don't with the current rules.

ending should not be necessary, even if the game doesn't know all the levels got beaten, we know. So it's GG on last goal

yeah, I agree; in that case, I'll change the all courses rules to just simply require you to reach the goal on every level

Actually, after discussion, the rules have been changed to not allow resetting on all courses, or the individual planes.