(oh god, SRC has put a character limit on posts, and I just crossed it... and my message wasn't that large... help)

Now for side topics :

Although the MEXA emulator is quite different to the other emulators we’re been using for Klonoa (a window comprised of multiple smaller windows), you’d still only need to show the game screen for the run to be valid. To get the game and to set it up, please check out @inconsistent’s guide.

As far as I know, and according to inconsistent, this is the only emulator who's able to run the game for now : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giOneeHSBd0

In the future, J2ME Loader may be able to run the game after it develops SoftBank support (which is what this demo runs on). To be exact, the JL-Mod (a fork of this first one) also allows emulation of the game… but we’re not going to allow it in all likelihood, as this video illustrates perfectly why :

Even then, these two would be Android phone only. I guess we’ll have to investigate how the J2ME Loader one works before allowing it to be used for the leaderboard, once it comes. But as it is PC, the MEXA emulator still seems like the obvious choice here.

There lastly is MahoLator, a Windows emulator of the game. Once it has SoftBank support, it may also be used.

It’s also important to clarify that the game does have a widescreen “version”. I’ll be honest, I have no idea how these things work at all or how they're categorized. The fact is, we can currently run the game through the MEXA emulator, and it does so in widescreen mode. I’m not able to tell if the program has a settings where you can change that, I haven't heard of anything of the like anywhere at least. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but as of right now, that’s what we know we have for sure. (This is how the game normally looks like : )

I am also wondering about the potential gameplay/ run difference of playing on either modes. It probably won’t matter for this demo, but I feel like it has a high chance of impacting the full game. But, no point speculating until we get our hands on it.

Given this emulator key layout is all over the place and the program doesn’t allow rebinds, I think it’d be only fair to allow input binders. Like reWASD.

I also need to change the name of the overall leaderboard. “930” is the name of one of the phone that supports the game, but there would be others… so it’s not truly indicative.

At first, I was leaning towards changing it to “java”, since it’s technically what it runs on. And I thought, there would be little risk of a new Klonoa game dropping out that’s also being on a java based platform.

But I grew okay with using “i-appli”, since that is the service you'd get the game from.

We may still colloquially use java to easily refer to it (like in the Discord), but I think this would be an optimal name now. Again though, that's just this post's take.

As usual, if there are no replies, I’ll add all of this next week.

With the dump of the demo of the Japanese exclusive phone port of Door to Phantomile (https://twitter.com/RockmanCosmo/status/1775894870093353178), our dreams of playing this awesome game has suddenly become tangible ! Huge thanks and congrats for this breakthrough to these computer gentlemen ! Also huge thanks to the geniuses responsible for programming these emulators. It’s scary how easy it is for our brain to completely forget about the existence of these formidable souls.

To learn more about the port itself : https://lostmediawiki.com/Klonoa:Door_to_Phantomile(lost_mobile_port_of_PlayStation_2.5D_platformer;_2008)#Gallery

To make running the demo possible, and to anticipate a future dump of the full game (assuming it does… god, that would be one of the biggest Klonoa gaming piece of news ever), here’s to this leaderboard.

And as for its first category, it shall be on the demo (what do we prefer, between calling it demo or trial ???). Here’s how it could look like :

Run would be timed RTA (given it’s so short, we would most likely time it in milliseconds). To make things simple for now, and because the demo is bare-bones for other goals (you don’t have 1-2, and they scrapped even the second half of 1-1 ! And Rongo-Lango only takes 2 hits), let’s only focus on any% for now.

As for the run timing points :

• beginning point : knowing that you have to go through a bunch of menus, including saying “no” (”いいえ”) at one of them to disable tutorials which would otherwise slow us down, I suggest that we start once 1-1 has actually loaded. So, upon seeing the stage view, like in PS1 DtP.

There’s technically nothing wrong with choosing to start the run once you’re past the title screen instead. I’m not a huge fan of it myself, because I’d rather not want to deal with clearing all the various pre-game screens everytime I do a run. Especially because you have to use your mouse to click on a button that’s unbindable to skip them. It’s not really part of the gameplay. And it’s a demo, so menus are even more irrelevant. But that's just me.

• ending point : upon the screen turning white by delivering the final blow ? Or, upon the end "push any key" message ? Ehh, I think it’s slightly better to do it as the boss is defeated. Again, it’s a demo, and this is more like a IL type beat category. Better have it end when the objective is accomplished than to delay it. Again though, my take.

(to be clear, it's as soon as the screen starts getting white. Not once it fully is.)

Hey guys, like usual, this will be the official leaderboard discussion thread.

Hey guys. Because people are showing interest to it, I think it might finally be time to start discussing about a 100% category(ies).

Although the main reason we’ve been waiting on adding it for so long was simply due to lack of player activity, it also proved to be a challenge to define this game’s 100% category, because of the existence of this reverse mode and its tokens. And for a long time, it was thought that two categories would be needed to cover this game’s 100% aspect.

But after some investigation, it turns out we only really need one category. And the breakthough was that the game actually keeps your dreamstone score regardless of the version of the stage you play. You don’t need to go for 150 dreamstones twice for each stage.

You do still need to beat them and acquire their tokens, which isn’t a short task given you have to rebeat the bosses as well. But it’s a lot more bearable than having to do two whole hundos.

It’s still a long category, so in the future, I wouldn’t be surprised if we still were to create a “main game only 100%” category, mimicking the runs that can be done with a lot of the other Klonoa games.

But, at long last, let’s get into creating this category. As usual, I’ll be providing a baseline for us to potentially tweak based on your opinion, or new relevant game information. Just so we’re on the same page.

Here we go :

You must beat the game both in normal and reverse mode. You must also complete the extra stage, get at least 150 dreamstones per stage (only once per stage, in either mode), and finally get all tokens. The stage order for reverse mode is yours to choose.

The run would be timed RTA. It would begin on a new save-file, sharing the same beginning point as any% :

“Timing starts on the first frame that the player selects "yes", after creating their save-file. When this happens, the "no" button appears as if it was selected, before falling down.”

Now the end point of the run is interesting. One of the requirement for unlocking extra stage and reverse mode is beating Nahatomb. So, you can only go for reverse mode related objectives after first properly beating the game. But this would imply that the run would just end after beating the last stage containing the last token (doesn’t have to be 6-2).

And, it would be fair to end the run on that. After all, all of the stages are already unlocked in reverse mode by default, such that they don’t have to be beaten. And the only concrete incentive to enter those stages is to get their tokens, nothing more.

But what would arguably be just as fair, is to require the player to beat Nahatomb in reverse mode after gathering the tokens.

It would give closure to the run, but not only that, think about it : by this point, we’ll have already beaten every single boss reversed, except this one. And even though reverse mode by itself doesn’t have much value or reason to be played other than those brutal tokens... the game still sort of implies there is a challenge here : beating the stages in reverse. I’m personally leaning towards this run plan.

And last but not least, it makes timing the end of the run super easy :

“Timing ends when the last health bar of the reversed version of the final boss turns red. If you can, record up to the following cutscene.”

A couple extra points of note :

• Reverse mode doesn’t include the extra stage. It’s simply not accessible in that mode. Go ask the developers why.

• Just like any%, we would maintain a split between console, and emulator/USB runs.

I believe that’s everything, please correct me if I'm wrong.

If there’s too little feedback or replies, I’ll have the category be added in a week from now.

Hey. Someone has recently done a run on PS2 emulation with Namcollection, so we figured it was a good time to make an update post about the legality of PS2 emulation in general.

The run :

Overall, me and amoser are still deeming unfavorable the use of PS2 emulation as a playing setup for speedruns of this game. It is a concern of loading-times and emulation quality.

We have looked at the footage of this run. Overall, outside of a couple visual glitches that are imperceptible but for the experienced, the game looked perfectly stable and consistent.

There is, however, a big but. While the loading-times of room-to-room transitions do look consistent, those met during the save screen, or the pre-boss waiting segments are, for an unexplained reason, significantly slower than on a real setup. It’s not just that they take longer to load, but the game animations seem slowed down as well. So much that it’s even slower than 50 Hz gameplay ! This is definitely not normal.

As a recall, while we do allow emulation, we require for it to always be slower than the fastest current and official setup of the game, which is a real PS2 + Namcollection disc. This is to stay within the realm of real, achievable gameplay.

Applying this fact to this run, it looks like this emulated gameplay is fine, since it technically is slower. However, we do not find this conclusive, as we have no guarantee that the results would be the same between everyone’s vastly different computers specs. Not just that, but this loading-time bug could end up being fixed in the future, and make this emulation fast again. With a real risk of it taking over the real deal.

Let it be said : PS2 has advanced tremendously, and it’s quite impressive that it’s able to emulate the game this well now. But it still has some ways to go to match the degree of perfection and stability PS1 emulation has. This said, PS2 emulation can definitely be used with DtP for speedrunning practice, or even to do research on.

The vods of the relay race are here ! -

@4d9r Why wouldn't I delete spam

Until now, there wasn't any precedence here on emulator runs done with USB loader such as OPL.

Here's footage of someone (@2003041) using it on a real PS2 (USA version of the game) :

By the eye, it looks like the pre-boss loading-times, as well as world map next stage loads time are slower than a real PS2 with the Namcollection disc (the fastest known setup). It might even be slower than the fastest known emulators. Either way, on their own, runs of the game on such a setup would be allowed.

On the other hand, the game appeared to be quite unstable on their end. Random crashes (https:// www.twitch.tv/videos/2078451032?t=2h17m41s), cutscenes glitches (https:// www.twitch.tv/videos/2078451032?t=3h35m3s), bugs (Most sound effects are being instantly cancelled during the Rongo-Lango boss fight : https:// www.twitch.tv/videos/2078451032?t=0h34m40s)... it's impossible to say if these are consistent to this running method, but the question can be asked nonetheless.

In the end, we would ulltimately need more experiments with this game setup style to conclude anything.

What if Namcollection was emulated instead ? What about a Backwards Compatible PS3 and Namcollection ? These are valid questions to be had.

Added 100% category.

Quick clarification post about something that was brought up recently :

There should be nothing wrong with assigning the cutscene skip action and the cutscene fastforward action within the use of a single button, in order to make these actions slightly more comfortable to use.

Okay, it's been 3 days. We're gonna change the end point of all dreamstones to that of :

"

• Timing ends on the frame that the "vision clear" text has reached its final position on the screen, after completing the last remaining extra stage.

"

Which is the exact same to that of the all stages category.

It may be good practice to show the cutscene of the final unlockable artwork, as well as the dreamstone/stats on each stage on the world map. But it's nowhere necessary for run verification.

A new and huge trick for the game has been found, and it may impact the leaderboard :

The video (courtesy of Tompa - and NOT Tomba) explains most of what there is to know about it, but I’ll still summarize it here very quickly.

Right before any stage / boss ends and loads out, if you pause at a very specific frame, and choose to return to the map screen, the "instance" will be considered beaten and you will instantly warp to the map. As in, you fully skip the stat screen, artwork unlock screen, and stage unlock animation in the world map. Saving tremendous time across the run if you do it everywhere you can. And dreamstones are saved.

However, and as you may have guessed, this trick compromises the timing definition of the all dreamstones category. As the end of which is timed upon the first frame of the cutscene of the final unlockable artwork gets played : https: //youtu.be/f4krtF8dA6k?t=11804

Although it would be a crazy unlikely scenario, this trick could accidentally be used to entirely skip over the end point of the run. And honestly, I’m wondering if it’s even reasonable that I’m bothering about this.

But, if we were to change this end point, then perhaps a working replacement could simply be to push the end of the run to the first frame of the world map displaying, after getting out of the last extra stage. A "flash" white frame, as such : https: //youtu.be/f4krtF8dA6k?t=11810

Or, just like in all stages, make it so we end the run when the "vision clear" text reaches its final position. Which would make for more consistent rules. https: //youtu.be/f4krtF8dA6k?t=11798

Thankfully, no runs have been submitted for this category, so we can change anything we want about it at will.

I'm still not sure if it's worth doing anything about it, as you'd have to either be trolling, or be dumbfoundedly unfortunate to have it happen. But if people are fine with the move, we may changing it to either of these (I personally favor the second option)

A bit of sour news for the game.

It turns out that despite our attempt at balancing the platforms thanks to IGT timing, there can still be noticeable differences between them.

Well, we technically already knew this, with the element of lag. Less powerful consoles simply have a worse framerate that’s affecting the gameplay, and sometimes even the game’s physics (DtP). But this at most had a slim effect on runs, it’s not a very telling advantage (not mentioning frame loss, and the bother of playing a slower game).

There’s also PC having access to a way to bind the support move to the same keyboard runners play on. But for this, it’s generally assumed that you can get about the same level of proficiency with that move as you can with two controllers. You press one button at most every couple seconds.

So while these platform differences are there, they’re arguably unclear and unimportant.

Well, a new difference got found, and it’s the biggest one yet.

Ghadius is a peculiar boss fight in its Wii and KPRS iteration. Contrary to his PS1 counterpart, it seems like the entire fight is predetermined. Phase 1 enemy spawns, phase 2 trail directions… it’s all the same everytime you play the boss, RNG seems inexistent. This allows the boss to be quickly beatable consistently.

Well, it’s not exactly perfectly consistent. On Wii, there’s apparently two different outcomes for the direction of one specific enemy trail, late into phase 2. Which has a crucial effect on your ability of being able to beat him quickly. But this game is off-topic.

On KPRS, it was thought that the boss fight behaved the exact same way perfectly consistently, no matter the difficulty (at least for full-game runs – ILs varies a bit). Alas, this is where this new info comes in. As just like in Wii, there is a very specific enemy trail in phase 2 that can bounce a different way. But unlike this being due to RNG, it seems to be entirely dependent on the platform you’re playing on...?

Take a look at the trail going towards the top left of the screen :

https:/ /youtu.be/q8NoEVA9qzs?t=2543

For instance, you can play on PC, and always have that enemy trail go down, which allows for a faster kill. But if you play on Switch or PS5, it’ll always go up, disallowing that time-save and losing roughly 7 seconds overall.

Note that this time-save is only relevant on easy, as Ghadius has 9 hit points instead of 10. A different strategy would need to be used for other difficulties.

Not all platforms have been tested, we’re not 100% sure if it’s exclusive to PC... either way, it’s an unmistakable gameplay difference disadvantageous to many platforms.

As regrettable as this is though, I would disagree with it threatening the health of the leaderboard.

Sure, a large amount of runs of the game are on easy standard, so they have to deal with this problematic Ghadius. But it’s not present anywhere else, neither in DtP’s other categories, and in the fundamentally different sequel. And with the fact that it only affects ~~7 seconds... It’s simply not worth it to introduce a platform split for these categories.

Not that it would be possible to add in the leaderboard anyways. It’s just all too rigid for it.

At least platform filtering is a thing if you’re genuinely bothered.

But yea, I felt it was important enough to mention here.

Thanks to @NeilLegend for the help with this, he was the first one who discovered it.

Somehow, the trophies textures were never added.

So far, we went with : Moon stone > Large dreamstone > Small dreamstone > Health pickup

We also have a extra life file we can choose from. Mentioning it just in case people suddenly collectively want something else.

It's not consistent with some of the other Klonoa games, but this design has the benefit of reflecting this game's individuality.

Updated and tweaked the system to now allow for checkpoint respawn based run starts.

When you enter a secret area, Klonoa can't move until the timer starts, which is about ~1.8 seconds. But when you respawn from the clock, you can start moving only ~0.8 seconds later. Additionally, the secret timer counts it as a valid attempt even when you start it by respawning from its checkpoint (after dying somewhere in the stage).

Now, the drawback to a checkpoint respawn is that you're teleported further to the left of the starting grounds, than you would entering the secret normally. And in most secrets, this is an obvious timeloss.

But some stages have enemy cycles in them. And you guessed it, some stages like 5-2 and 6-1 allow for faster cycles if you begin them from the checkpoint.

This said, it's still a bit unclear what approach is faster or if they balance out. But without knowing, this run type needs to be acknowledged. Thus, updating the system.

The other stages with enemy cycles are :

• 2-1, but it's very hard to tell if you can be faster with a clock respawn

• Same story with 4-1

• 5-1 is a bit different, when you enter the room by the portal, a Plown spawns in at the bottom. I'm not sure it still does if you further left after respawning from the checkpoint. If that's true, it means it will have a different position and trajectory compared to a normal entrance. But it's hard to see how this Plown could be useful, and the entire rest of the secret is frozen, so it might be an useless approach here.

Much like the enemy carry approach, we will enable this type of play with the remaining stages if proven relevant.

Added a information variable about whether or not you had an enemy when running the secrets. Additionally, if a given player plays both ways, then the board will display the two runs instead of hiding the slower one/showing only one. Updated the ILs rules for this.

It's set up that way because it's currently too unpopulated and minor to be worth sub-categories. But we may change it to that, in the future, without pain.

The stages that are relevant with this are 1-2, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2, 5-1 and 6-1. Beware that for some, you need to use glitches or clever movement to access their secrets with an enemy.

It's actually not guaranteed that carrying an enemy for all of the possible stage would prove useful. It's hard to see why it wouldn't, but if it is proven to clearly not be useful in the slightest, then we may argue for removing the variable for the given stage.

Likewise, if a previously impossible stage becomes possible, we would simply add it to the lot.

This leaderboard didn't have any way of knowing if a run was 50 or 60 Hz (which we have for DtP and L'sV), so I added an information variable for it.

There are no 50 Hz runs currently.

[Edit, one day later] Maybe 50 Hz speed runs simply aren't a thing with this game ?? I couldn't find any videos of it.

Well, @amoser comments :

"This is a completely uninformed guess, but perhaps because the game was actively developed for release in Europe (with English voice acting and everything), the physics/gameplay are adjusted in the PAL version so that everything still lines up with the 60 Hz version despite actually running at 50 FPS? That sort of thing isn't unheard of, and this is very late PS1 game, so it wouldn't be that surprising."

Furthermore (https://www.speedrun.com/klonoabv/runs/y6r43e6y) :

"The youtube video is at 60 FPS, and if you frame-by-frame it in sections where there's constant movement, there's a doubled frame (usually) exactly every 6 frames. Meaning we're getting 5 actual frames for every 6 frames displayed at 60 FPS, or 50 frames per second. So since it doesn't at any point actually run slower from a gameplay standpoint (I didn't actually confirm this, but it sounds like balneor did*), the 50/60 Hz difference doesn't seem like it's relevant at all. So in short, the PAL version does run natively at 50 Hz, but the game logic is sped up so that it doesn't (barring any subtleties that have yet to be discovered) affect the speedrun in any meaningful way."

(* I did and it checks up)

It's fair to say that Hz for this game won't have as much of an impact like it has on the original DtP and L'sV.

(originally posted on the 17th of February 2022)

A couple precisions about the high limit of the usable emulator disk speed. Use these as reference for this specific post : (1) (2)

With the assistance of amoser and Ettie, we made some tests about speeds higher than 4x, to see if they can be used while still being slower than the fastest console counterpart, PS2 + FDS (PS3 is slower).

What we didn't expect to find, and that definitely slew things us down a little bit was a previously unnoticed emulation inconsistency during the character loading-screen of a match. Normally, when the loading-screen appears, the loading text is supposed to flicker slowly, and there is a fade-down at the end, transitioning to the match. But on certain emulators (ePSXe, Duckstation, psx/psxfin are generally concerned as far as we know), this is not the case. The loading text will freeze, and there are no fade-down animation, it instantly cuts to the match. Ultimately though it doesn't bother us very much for what we were trying to do.

Now, as emulators are generally infinitely slower than PS2 FDS (see (1)), there shouldn't be problems allowing them. But this isn't about them.

Anything up to 4x works fine and is slower than FDS (both emulators are basically equal on this). But as seen in (2), when it comes to 6x, both emus go faster than it. Therefore, we can't allow them to be used. (The emu stutter at the end of the Retro clip doesn't happen on lower speeds*, probably unimportant)

This doesn't change anything about the rules or what's currently in place.

Some minor questions about the emulation inconsistency remain to be unanswered. We do not know if it happens on an actual PS1, and inexplicably, why it's also apparently a thing on PS3 (see Haru's obsoleted run). If this first wonder is actually real, it would prove that this emulation error isn't one, shockingly enough.

(originally posted on the 14th of February 2022, @RayUziCrow and @Ettie hearted it)

Read the Duckstation / Retroarch through Beetle core emulator disk speed discussion thread, and amoser's guide for setting up those emulators for further information about them that are pertaining to this thread. https://www.speedrun.com/klonoa1/thread/tndcp https://www.speedrun.com/klonoa1/guide/hjy9m

Much like DtP, this game's loads are also affected by PS2's Fast Disk Speed setting, as well as these two emulators's enhanced disk speed. And given submitted runs of this game have already made use of them, I found it necessary to begin tracking them using variables. It simply is for the clarity of information.

This thread and change are mostly justified by the following : while we don't have exact numbers for all of those cases, Ettie has noticed some significant advantages with them - by the order of at least a second per loading-screens - enough to justify tracking those thing seriously.

Rest assured, this decision doesn't change anything about how the game is ran or timed. I was originally going to push this without the community's opinion, cause I had thought this wasn't relevant enough that it would require it. But I still brought it up on the server while writing this, and the reception doesn't seem bad so it's probably fine. And reverting the changes would only take mere seconds anyways.

Only new thing is that - in the case you play on those emulators, or PS2 - you are now strongly encouraged to show trace of this setting somewhere in the footage of your run... but it's in no way mandatory, as people may forget about it (this case has happened with DtP). Rejecting runs solely because they don't show it feels very wrong imo. I don't think we are any worthy of being this strict with moderation when our community is nowhere near big or professional to justify it.

Following this opening post, I will make the technical changes, then add its rules in the main panel section, and finally update some of the current runs with these.

One day this board might also see character variables. Looking forward to it.

[Edit : I should mention that FDS loads are faster than the emulation disk speed enhancements, and that going any higher than the allowed amounts ("2x (Quad Speed)" for duckstation, "4x" for retroarch/beetle]) result in crashes (courtesy of Ettie). So, no issues there.]

[Edit 2, 15 february 2022 : updated most of the runs !]

With the new src update, it seems impossible to change the name of threads anymore. I would have repurposed one of the threads for this one, but I can't.

So, I've decided to delete one of them while pasting its messages here ("Adding a disk speed variable to help distinguish KBV runs" one specifically, since it doesn't have any user messages other than my own). These are the first two replies.