Or rather all others got nerfed. I was routing for higher Opinion Leader levels and noticed something: 53done's OP levels up in the Usar fight. This is impossible in English SNES unless you also kill a Wizard. Japanese TASer vibtration uses Lans in the Warren Fight and his OP still levels up against Usar.

I figured out why. In the original Super Famicom release, EXP gain is calculated as if the enemy is 2 levels higher than in all other releases: English SNES, both PSX, Saturn and Super Famicom Nintendo Power.

The implication for speedrunning is your characters get an automatic level up if the enemy is 4 levels higher in original Super Famicom, whereas it's 6 in the rest. Tarot kill EXP for OP is also not nerfed in the original.

You might like to know that the original Super Famicom has boosted enemy unit counts on all but 4 stages, making it badly designed since a causal playthrough will power level.

I played ran original Super Famicom through Island Avalon to confirm the leveling. Here's the breakdown for any% with identical routing:

I hijacked Dragondarch's formatting. Level in the box is level after the battle ends if the character survives. Gryphon also benefits. Can live or die in Usar fight, doesn't matter. Will gain 1 level for surviving Gilbert or Sirius and 2 if it survives both. In all other releases, Gryphon only gains 1 level if it survives both Gilbert and Sirius.

Is a faster Warren's Castle clear and a 1-2 level advantage significant enough to put original Super Famicom in its own category?

I'm not sure. There was always going to be a best version to run, Japanese text was always faster and Dragon's Haven/Heaven is unaffected. Game is much more popular in Japan and is very playable in Japanese.

But yeah, Tarot cards are more powerful, damage dealt is ticked up and damage taken is ticked down. Extra AGI on Tristan/Debonair is nice. I have no evidence of any change in damage formulas.

So I guess the ALI + CHAR mechanic in the original was not intended to work like this. I mean that if you wanted to NOT tank your ALI you had to let your strongest guy sit out from a lot of fight to not overlevel them. This was annoying because you had to sit out a lot of fight especially for named characters and mages (ofc I am not talking about speedruns here just casual play)

Realistically, you could also cut out the extra level gained from the undead unit in Shangrila. 18 is more than enough for Diablo.

So I guess the ALI + CHAR mechanic in the original was not intended to work like this.

Good call out. I completely overlooked the ALI + CHAR system being made for boosted EXP and unit counts. My biggest frustration in full campaign was trying to get sub-50 ALI to make Ninjas. Had to make a Fighter-Cleric-Gryphon in back death squad then spend forever hunting level 1 Pumpkins.

18 is more than enough, thank you. No undead level boosting in exchange for learning Japanese Tarot names.