(Full post split in two separate post because of src text limit. Part 2)

• Switch differences

This one is quite shocking… but the way the Switch is set-up (in handheld or docked mode) would also seem to impact the game.

Neil has tested both configurations on Ghadius, and confirmed that the enemies in phase 2 could take different directions.

(Neil also felt that there were some IGT running differences between docked and handheld, but I tested this and couldn’t find a difference : )

• Still yet more Ghadius fight shenanigans

There’s been some extra weirdness about the second phase of this fight again.

But the first big piece of news about Ghadius is that Neil did find a top level strat for the second phase that matches the speed of the original PC exclusive strat while being available on the previously disadvantaged platforms.

Along with it he also figured out the broad requirements for these fights to happen :

° Old strat (more specifically a failed attempt of it where one of the trails went up instead of down at the very end, because of the platform being something other than PC) :

You need PC with Vsync off OR have the game screen be at a 16:10 ratio while in fullscreen to ensure this enemy pattern happens.

° New strat :

This is possible and afaik the only possible strat on console. On PC, you need to turn Vsync on. Or have a different screen ratio or not be in fullscreen.

Neil attempts to provide an explanation for the fullscreen requirement, saying that “it's weird. my guess is that playing in windowed mode introduces a bit of lag that can impact the angle at which the dark moos bounce off of the wheel. playing a game in full screen typically puts its processes at higher priority (which reduces the chance of this lag)”

By the end however, he stresses that «"every ghadius is personalized". So it's a matter of analyzing second phase behavior on your own to determine which of the different observed sets are present in your game.»

• Another potential game version difference

Outside of ISJ, we are 99% confident we know of a second way to determine the version of KPRS in-game. When pausing the game, the capitalization of the « How to play » option can be different. It’s in full caps for v1.0.0, whereas the v1.0.1 has normalized writing : https://imgur.com/a/HmrkUDK

Oh, lastly, Neil has argued about shortening the names of the father categories of the leaderboard. Namely by removing the “Klonoa” name. The reason being that the name of KPRS categories were unreasonably long, sometimes to the point where they couldn’t be displayed properly on LiveSplit. Indeed, when you want to show the category you’re playing on the window of the program, it’s forced to first indicate the father category “Klonoa:Door to Phantomile” before listing the actual category specification you’re playing.

Although I believe we would need a bit more discussion when it comes to change/shortening the entire name of the father categories, I agreed that the word “Klonoa” could be removed safely without much impact on the overall outlook of the leaderboard and categories, for the sake of better LiveSplit display. (and if you’re wondering, it doesn’t affect the way the autosplitter works).

The change was proposed on the discord server in august of this year, and the few people who replied were okay with it so we pushed it.

Thanks to Neil again for his work and his tremendous help.

(Full post split in two separate post because of src text limit. Part 1)

This update post was overdue.

New post, new strats, new technique with crazy potential... and more unfortunate news about the fundamental balance between consoles.

@NeilLegend has been fervently glitchhunting, and it definitely payed out :

• 4-2 wind hop trick

See this video for an explanation of the trick (). Compare the same thing on PC ()

So as you can see, for the wind hop to work, you need to stay on the final wind current for a short period of time. But to gain the necessary height to clear the jump, you can normally count on the wind currents to propel you very high during that period.

But as seen in the console clip, the currents there give nowhere as much height as on PC, making the trick impossible. Doesn’t work on PS5 and Switch.

This is a top level strat that only saves a couple seconds over normal play, and on certain categories.

• Huge new IGT abuse technique

Alternatively :

This is a pretty wild find. Tetons are supposed to pop off automatically, but they just don’t if you keep pausing and unpausing perfectly ?? When doing so, a single game frame elapses, in which the Teton continues to rise up without bursting.

Doing this in 1-1 to immediately climb onto the Lephise statue hill (that you can easily reach in support mode speedruns) saves 7 seconds, and could potentially save more if you also use it on the last screen of Balue’s Tower (if you’re wondering, Tetons also become resistant to ceilings in this one-frame game state)

This is a really unique trick that also makes you wonder what else can be tampered with by pausing this way. And speaking off, that video was done in real-time, without the use of TAS. It’s even an actual IL submission (or at least until he removed it as there was no consensus about the legality of this trick). What gives ?

Well… you’re probably guessed it now. It’s no coincidence. There a human way to pause this well.

If you hold escape after quitting the pause menu, the game will buffer it upon returning into the game. A truly broken tool here.

...Except it’s only available on the PC version. The controls are programmed differently. Ba-dum-tss.

This behavior is also possible on Wii, however it can't be used for anything meaningful. This is mainly because you can't pause-buffer in that game, as the game has a delay before you’re allowed to pause again.

On the other hand this behavior isn’t possible with PR2 either.

Anyways… would this be allowed outside of IGT abuse? Pretty clearly not, as using this pause-buffering technique to achieve anything takes several minutes. You can see it for yourself with the presented video. Not speedrun-spirit friendly. But it's a very welcome addition to IGT abuse.

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

Doc (all-in-one) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PGUBrJu45W5Hrf-TI3zSyKPAErhigVyPnoj4B8926zU/edit?usp=sharing

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

Doc (all-in-one) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J-dLeF5Ocr480PdhwgTy8tZavSstuCs-SMB-V9pAI7Y/edit?usp=sharing

Good catch. I forgot he ran this game.

I've been able to retrieve a link to the youtube side of the video, which is unlisted currently. And through the audit log (and more ways), I can confirm that the video was verified on this leaderboard. So even though the submission is gone, it can still safely be reinstated as an official record. Currently updating the page. (done)

You should probably still keep on his VOD just in case, but it's up to you.

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

Doc (all-in-one) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hDTpQmlLJ-1CxtxvUjYi_bmxvHG56kW6GurYcq7w7jU/edit?usp=sharing

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

Doc (all-in-one) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lLGfotT7pde0IaZNH1A4zg4qPzU3A5LuB-fch6TYGiQ/edit?usp=sharing

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

Doc (all-in-one) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OFI4PfPayHW7Ypd_igAVEq2MLfj2nYr2jvZLEZHlGzc/edit?usp=sharing

And he never came back...

Updated with the retrieval of some of Danzaiver's old speedruns !

No reactions to my post. Maybe the people are in a silent acceptance of these change ideas… but I just finished putting in place.

DCT ILs !

Some unforeseen situations I had to adapt to :

• I forgot “bosses” had timers too. So they just behave like ILs. (Race stages are perhaps a better name ?)

• The Garlen fight doesn’t have any vision clear message. I guess we'll time the end point of the fight the same way we do it in any%.

• Additionally, this fight doesn't award you any rank. So, no need to worry about no damage. And this is true for All S Ranks speedruns too !

• I've noticed some naming inconsistencies, or dubious naming choices in the EoD board (which can most likely be credited to me).

For instance, the EoD board has the main stages called “X-X” instead of “Vision X-X”. Even though the latter is the one to show up in-game.

The extra stages are called "EX-X" on the world map, or Vision EX-X" in-stage... and yet, we decided to call them "extra X"

For the sake of relative naming consistency, I used the same logic for the DCT names.

It's not a big issue, but it's kind of irksome. I won't change anything like this without your clear consent.

Hey. Let's start talking about DCT ILs. (People have been mainly asking about extra ILs, but I figured we can add the normal ones as well in one swift sweep).

For the general IL board structure, we'll take direct inspiration from EoD. But we also have to adapt to the new categories of this game.

Without further ado, here's what I devised :

• Any% level category.

I opted to not include the variant where you collect the sun stone, because, it doesn’t have a full-game speedrun counterpart. That and it feels rather unfulfilling. Wouldn’t be difficult to add in, in case you guys disagree.

• 100% level category, comprised of three run types :

° S rank

° 100% (with damage)

° 100% w/ the sun stone.

It’s possible that the 100% category for some stages out there may lead to look exactly like S rank ILs. If this happens, S rank submissions are to be favored.

The last one seems boring, as you’re mostly only switching strategies for one section (if the strategy even changes at all). But it does technically have a full-game run counterpart : all stages. I wouldn’t add it personally, but again, it’s your call. Also easy to add.

Just like in EoD, DCT has autoscroller stages. And we’ve confirmed via testing that out of the five (which are located on the X-7 stages this time), 1-7, 3-7 and 4-7 can be matched to the TAS without much effort and difficulty. Even when you pick up everything. This is because the screen scrolls slowly in those stages, so if you’re not too slow, you can catch up to it before the loading-zone gets accessible.

As such, these stages don’t have much speedrunning value, so I really think we shouldn’t bother with them. Much like EoD, we would still add these levels in, for a consistent IL board look, but submissions of them would be prohibited.

On the other hand, 2-7 and 5-7 are different by that they scroll up. You can’t buffer anything unless you play frame-perfectly (or even more precisely). It at least makes tying the max time a difficult but meaningful endeavor.

We’re also gonna reuse the EoD system when it comes to managing the extra ILs who happen to have a in-game timer. Those are extra 1, 3 and 5 (the rest are puzzle levels).

RTA will be the main metric (just like anything else), while IGT will be filled within the submission form via variables. There, you input the time and here we go.

For IGT, pausing would be banned, except for edge cases (stuff like accidentally pausing, for very briefs periods, during non-gameplay sections to give an example). But remember, you can still submit runs even with compromizing amounts of pausing in it. The IGT counterpart will be omitted, but the run will still be timed as RTA, as this is perfectly fine. Such that the time-attack spirit is kept alive. Oh and because the IGT times may be unreadable as more runs are being submitted, one trick is to filter the runs, in which you'll see the IGT variables people have submitted... and be able to find the fastest one (you can try this out on the EoD board). Absolutely wonderful.

Obviously, some categories might be unusable for certain levels. Garlen is the biggest example, as only any% suits him. You unfortunately can't make it clean, without making the back end extremely complicated and honestly miserable to use. With src anyways, simplicity is best.

So, tell me what you think. (I tried to cover everything but this was posted in a hurry, so sorry for the mistakes.)

It should be no surprise, anything related to the ProjectEris / autobleem for the PS Classic Mini should be allowed.

The official product already was using the standalone PCSX ReARMed emulator(*). And by using these projects, you get access to retroarch and its cores (if for some reason you don't use the base one)

(*) about it, I do note that we have yet to see full-run gameplay of it. It's to be left unspecified until one such submission emerges, or someone tests it out. Here's what amoser has to say about it :

So despite not having any familiarity with the PSX Classic, I have messed with PCSX ReARMed a bit. To my knowledge, its main benefit is its high performance on ARM-based CPUs. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to have much going for it. I'd say it's probably fine, but it's not generally considered especially accurate, and it struggled with some of the common graphical glitches (like the light shafts in 2-1 not rendering properly) for longer than most other emulators did, even though it seems like some of the issues might be fixed in the current release.

In the end, we don't have to delete the levels. So I kept them, and instead simply changed their name to reflect the fact that submissions aren’t allowed for them (+ small rules update). At least it keeps the IL board clear, and old runs aren't being deleted.

Case closed.

Hey. Umm... this is awkward.

In the ILs of this game, we happened to include the autoscroller stages (X-6, of which there are five)... but these are in reality very bare-bones for speedrunning.

We need to distinguish between two autoscroller stage types : right or upwards scrolling.

This first kind of stage (1-6, 3-6, 4-6) is subject to a massive issue : it’s possible to match the TAS time, even when collecting everything. And perhaps… too “’possible”.

The fastest way to clear these levels is to enter the room transitions / cannon at the earliest point possible… which is made easy by the slow autoscrolling you can catch up with.

And although having ILs that have confirmed “ceiling” times isn’t necessarily a problem, what’s the point of adding an IL for a stage that’s not only “solved”, but also not difficult to match in the slightest ?

I like to take the example of the Glass Joe fight IL from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. It’s a fight whose “ceiling” time was immediately found upon release. And recently, the moderators straight up removed the IL because matching the fastest time was incredibly easy literally anyone could do it, and way too many people submitted runs for it.

I know we’re not gonna get this kind of activity anytime soon. But still, let’s avoid the hassle altogether.

The second kind of stage (2-6, 5-6) are significantly harder to optimize.

While holding the right screen is very easy, catching up to vertical scrolling in an optimal fashion is a different story. You can’t catch up to it like you could when the screen was going right.

Rather, stepping on the path that leads to the loading-zone/cannon right as the screen allows you to is the goal. But not only would this require frame-perfect movement, as it turns out, these stages happen to be built in a way where you practically can’t reach them optimally to begin with.

As an exhibit, just look at the movement you need to do at the end of 5-6 for 100% : here

As you can see, despite the crazy movement, we're still very far from reaching the cannon early.

In this autoscroller type, these levels would be worthy of being ran. As even if the TAS time could get matched, it would be incredibly difficult. Matching these would be an actual mark of pride, as opposed to the right autoscrollers, which are a peace of cake in comparison.

So, I propose that we remove 1-6, 3-6 and 4-6; and keep 2-6 and 5-6.

As it turns out, there already is one run submitted for 1-6, by @Doomtune. He said he was fine with the run being removed if this decision gets through. So, yea.

Small (small ?) change post.

I’ve just done a small revamp of the way the ILs of extra 1 and 3 were handled. Originally, they had two categories depending on if you wanted to play RTA or IGT. But looking at the system back, I felt that it was extremely unneeded, as both categories basically amount to the same, and nobody is gonna play RTA just for that.

Instead, I made it so you can submit both the RTA (first) and IGT. The latter is a variable, and you write the time you got.

Because runs can and will become obsolete, if you want to see the fastest IGT time, go to the filters and see the shortest IGT time. Yea, it’s a bit stupid as well… but at least we cover both timing styles handily.

Oh, and don’t forget that pausing during gameplay (unless exceptions) will prohibit verification of your IGT time.

If that happens to you, select the “pause” variable. This is so that even if your run stops being eligible for IGT because of a pause, it can still be submitted for RTA.

It took me a while to retime the extra 1 runs, because they were under some weird inconsistent framerate of 46-47 frames per second.

The best way to record your run footage is if you strictly record at 60 fps (the native framerate). If you don’t, it can make the final time trickier to time, and might make your runs not exactly comparable to runs with different framerate (when you look at the millisecond count, the frame increments might not coincide).

It’s not so much of a deal that we should enforce 60 fps on runs. But it does mean that you probably don’t want to care too deeply about making one-frame improvements.

We should be doing the same pretty soon with the opening of DCT's extra ILs.

I was looking at the RTA rules the other day. I think we should remove the timing exceptions of Leptio and King of Sorrow.

For both fights, there are cutscenes, and you can move Klonoa before the IGT begins... so I find my argument about the contents happening before the fight not potentially impacting the IGT, a tad weak. Especially the fact that you can move.

This way, it's more consistent with the rest of the game, and it also makes more sense in general. RTA will always and systematically begin when the stage loads, including cutscenes.

I'll correct the RTA of the times involved, update the rules, and do a quick heads-up update to the posts that brought these changes in the first place (done)

Oh, and for the runs who don't show the prefight Leptio/King of Sorrow moments... we'll let them slide

News ! KPRS can now be purchased on the Epic store ! Woohoo!!!!

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/klonoa-phantasy-reverie-series?lang=en-US

What does this imply ? Well, I'll start with this lazily taken screenshot :

We're currently not sure about whether or not the autosplitter will work on there. Someone will have to try it out... at least for whoever has this port and decides to speedrun with it... when that'll happen...

There is also the question of knowing the provided version of the game. Which is 99.9% likely to be v1.1... but that's left to be confirmed.

The achievements look like the same (didn't do a thorough comparison, but nothing special seems to be standing out).

If I have to guess, this new way to access the game won't really impact the way we handle things. It's a PC game, it has to respect FPS regulations and so forth.

But boy that sure is news.

Clarified the end run point writing as it ended up being misleading. Run doesn't end as the screen becomes fully white, but as soon as it begins being white.

Added @inconsistent as verifier.

Leaderboard update :

• About the KEmulator. Which I called wrong earlier, it’s called “KEmulator nnmod". It’s a modded version of the “KEmulator”, an old emulator from 2000s. Well, we’re gonna need to wait for updates, because it’s (c-l-e-a-r-l-y) not ready yet :

• Interesting info about the “MEXA emulator” (which should also be called this way, and not just “MEXA”. This term only refers to a set of APIs from SoftBank. This emulator, that they developed, is called after it).

It turns out there really was a keyboard access to the softkeys that skip cutscenes (the buttons next to the “clear” button). We don't need the mouse for them anymore. It’s F2 and F3 for the left and right button respectively.

Oh, and this should’ve been mentioned : there is a menu to remap keys. But it only allows you to rebind jump and shoot. So it still doesn't fix the issue of the directional keys being all over the place, requiring you to use a remapping software if you want to stay sane while playing this. Good news though, as it means we can duplicate these actions at least.

To access this menu, you first have to press the softkeys in order to open the option menu.

You go to “キー配置変更”(Change key mapping). You move the cursor with the arrow keys, and press enter (center phone button) to make the changes. Finally, you have to press the left softkey, (決定 on the bottom left of the screen) which saves the changes. The right softkey, which triggers “キーリセット» on the top left, will reset them.

• If you’re not having sound when playing the game, first make sure that it’s turned on at all, pressing the "*" button. If you’re still not having sound, there is one potential troubleshoot :

right click on the emulator, go into properties, enter the compatibility tab. You have to change compatibility mode to that of Windows XP.

Apparently, the audio DLL file is incorrectly programmed, and it fails with versions of Windows New Technology that are too high.

• (change done) Final development about the naming of this leaderboard. We’ll ultimately change it to "mobile version". It’s apparently a convention when it comes to that sort of thing, hence why "phone port" does a little less.

Everyone will know what it refers to, and won’t ever mistake it with a future Klonoa phone game release… because let’s not forget the game is still named « Door to Phantomile » (yes Balneor, trust me on this). Sorry for the ruckus everyone. It really shouldn't have dragged on for this long.

I'll also change the leaderboard link to it.

• I’ve since come to understand that there is a trend for these Japanese phone games to have many versions across many phone models. Not to mention taking emulators into account. It's a huge maze.

I realize that managing all these playing setups from a speedrunning standpoint is an unprecendented challenge for the Klonoa series. The only saving grace is that right now, we only have this one dump, on Parasonic phones originally(x). That means there is only one way to play this game right now. That’s easy enough to handle.

In order to make things easier to manage for the leaderboard in the long run, and to help with knowing what gameplay comes from what setup, I think we should enforce players to show their emulator in the footage video.

For the MEXA emulator, luckily, it’s very simple. Just capture the main emulator windows itself.

The other emulators are banned because of emulation quality. But if this were to change, the player would have to show clear footage of what emulator they’re using. This will be specified in the rules.

I was also considering making a distinction over emulator versions, but I think things would go way too out of hand if we did that.

Of course, if you’re playing a dump of the game no one has access to, the run can’t be verified until it’s publicly available to play on.

(x) not SoftBank, unlike what I previously said many times. SoftBank apparently only is the carrier. The phone itself has been manufactured by Panasonic. Yea it’s such a mess...)

That should be it to now. Changes.