#Introduction: Thanks everyone for participating in the discussions over this last week! Pretty much all of the discussion has taken place on the Discord server, with my coming here to post my longform rambles. This post regards a vote on allowing/disallowing save states for emulator runners to skip the game's 3-minute intro.

Save states are an emulator-only feature which has historically been allowed to be used by emulator runners to skip past the intro of the game, allowing them to retry attempts much quicker. It's something that was "accidentally" allowed as runs were verified with save states being used without their prevention being enforced.

#Against using save states:

• It's making use of a feature not available to console runners to gain an advantage, even if the advantage is not considered to be a part of the run. This could be considered by many as the textbook definition of a "cheat".

• It makes running the game easier, which incentivizes people to perform their runs on emulator instead of console.

• Because PS2 emulation is laughably inaccurate, it has been allowed as a compromise. Many PS2 games do not allow emulators whatsoever, but because the barrier of entry is especially quite high for players outside of the Americas and Asia on console for this game, we have historically allowed emulator in order to maintain an active playerbase. Console should be promoted as the preferred way to run, and emulator runners should not be using their position to gain an advantage.

• Also related to making running the game easier, emulator runners through having a shorter "reset time" can hold their runs to a higher standard than console runners without feeling as much of an effect. Emulator runners can reset to a crappy Weevil fight, for example, without too much trouble.

• It opens up potential for RNG manipulations that would be much easier to pull off on emulator than on console. This is something which not a lot of research has gone into, but if there were to be a seed that you could hit that, given good execution from the start of the run onwards, gave you Dimensionhole in your first hand for every fight that exists only after having the console powered on for 10 hours, emulator runners could theoretically be able to pull this run off without having to wait for any time at all.

• I cannot think of a single other game that allows the usage of emulator-exclusive features to gain an advantage inside or outside of the run.

After reading these points you've probably come to the conclusion that I am incredibly biased and that I should have left the writing of this message to someone else. You're right, and I want to be transparent about that.

#In favour of keeping save states:

• It makes the game much more accessible. There's no doubt in my mind that a lot of runners come to try out the game, realise that they have to skip through a 5 minute intro on every single attempt, and quickly give up.

• It will be more difficult in the future for emulator runners to beat their own times, which could lead to them having a hard time comparing against themselves when they are forced to hold themselves to a lower standard for runs than before.

There are some games that have worse intros, and different communities have different ways of dealing with them. We've discussed over the last week a compromise - starting from continue - which was voted against. So I'm putting this to you all now as the final point of contention in our newly drafted ruleset.

The vote will take place in the Discord, so make sure you're there. You can make your voice heard here if you wish, though, and I'll consider it when counting the votes if you are explicit about your wishes and you don't want to join the Discord.

The community has voted in favour of banning save states and the game rules have been updated. Please familiarise yourselves with them!