Kid me didn't like this Normal Game Mode compared to Super Bomberman 1 with the scrolling stages and lack of co-op. Except by starting with Password 1111 of course. Is that not a category because no one has submitted a run for it, versus any other reason?

Bomb range is 1 if you start from Normal Mode but it's 2 if you start from Password. Works with all releases. Faster to enter hitting down since the numbers go from 0 to 7.

I don't think a superior starting strategy should be banned just because no one did it yet. Then the time lost from entering 5555 has to be made up. Or would this go in a separate category that plays slightly easier?

Super Bomberman 2 specifically does not allow starting from Password but that game with 1111 starts with max bombs, range, heart bomb and glove. Using 4361 to start does not give any advantage. Range is still 1.

I wanted to practice making a gif so we are:

Turns out 20 of the stages have a secret item that awards points - or a random power-up from the Question Mark - by meeting a special condition. Would such a category exist if someone submitted a run? I think reassurance would be motivational.

I like how the cake on 6-3 requires hitting yourself or the other player with a punched bombed and awards 10 MILLION points. Source is from LIJI who posted how to get them in 2013 and made a video:

The Question Mark awards Red Bomb the first time and Bonus Time the second. 100% category especially could take the gamble on (1-5) for early Red Bomb from (3-1) or Golden Flame Radius aka Full Fire from (3-3), else settle for Roller Skates or Flame Range. 1 in 24 odds on each and 3 minutes for each attempt. I love it. LIJI's post says rolling Exit, Skull or another Question Mark awards an extra life instead.

In typical GameFAQs fashion, cheat is posted without credit. There was a source given for cheats in the early 2000s.

I tested that GBC fixed the water can infinite egg glitch but it's otherwise the same game right? Shouldn't the forums be combined and the leaderboard if GBC had any runs? The 3 mods there also mod here so seems straight forward to me. Can create a new no glitch category if such a run ever appears to keep GBC viable.

What's funny is I loaded a GBC save state into GB. Advanced from late Spring right to Grandfather's Year 1 eval that I passed with almost nothing. Super Sickle and Super Hoe appeared without waiting out the necessary time, 2 chicks and the horse grew up and I went from 0 to 345 hay.

On real cart in the late 90s I failed the Year 1 GB eval. Maybe that's impossible on GBC but Any% requires Year 2 completion so no issue.

Easy to see the ordering is alphabetical in a popular game with no way to change other than altering the titles. This is obviously undesirable and even in obscure The Last Blade on NGPC the first guide is the least important. I shouldn't have to change the title to make it last.

I don't think a mod tool to allow custom ordering would be very difficult to code. Could go all out and instead make ordering based on a popularity system. I can't tell the views of the guides I wrote or if they're helpful or not.

On submitted platforms, I don't see an option for:

• NEOGEO MINI
• MVS Mini Home Arcade
• MVSX Arcade
• NEOGEO Arcade Stick Pro

All contain The Last Blade 2. They should be added as official releases. Some differences in display settings and the Arcade Stick Pro that I own lacks a built-in LCD screen. Internet tells me the NEOGEO MINI uses an Actions Single Core ATM7013 1.0-1.2 GHz CPU with 1 GB DDR3 RAM. The expensive MVSX Arcade is ARM Quad Core Cortex A7, 1 GHz with 256 MB DDR3 RAM. Arcade Stick Pro has Actions Quad Core ATM7031H 1.3 GHz with 256 GB DDR3 RAM. I guess the 1 GB RAM was overkill.

The loading times might vary a bit then. I think excessive to list them all as separate platforms. I'd go with "Neo Geo Mini" as the platform since it came first and ask to describe which one is being used in the submission like you do for emulators.

I seem to play obscure games that are expensive in console form but have official digital releases on a Nintendo VC or PC. If instead all you've played the game on is an inaccurate unofficial emulator, should you be judging all platforms? Is the situation game and community dependent? I'd like there to be at least one mod who owns the release I'm speedrunning on so that they're familiar with the load times and could reproduce a glitch to determine if the platform has too much of a glitch advantage or is the result of cheating.

I downloaded the VOD with TwitchDownloaderGUI since it freezes up on Twitch at 2:48.48 VOD timing and 2:41.06 in speedrun timing. Already had audio/video desync by that time.

From viewing the downloaded VOD (5.88 GB), here's what happens:

1. At 49:06 VOD timing and 47:24 speedrun timing, there's an audio glitch and video is frozen for 5 seconds. You see the speedrun timer jump from 47:25 to about 47:30. Video then lags behind audio for about 5 seconds from this point onward. Very jarring to me at least.
2. If you skip to 2:40:00 VOD timing and 2:37 speedrun timing, we're at the end of the 2nd battle of the semifinals. You see KEI's winning attack. Seems strange to block at all and waste time, but regardless, the music shuts off while sounds effects remain.
3. The 2nd trip to the semifinals begins at 2:42:42 VOD timing and 2:41:00 speedrun timing. Sound is completely muted by 2:42:51 VOD timing and 2:41.09 speedrun timing where the VOD freezes again. Speedrun timer jumps to about 2:41:14 for another 5 missing seconds.
4. Semifinals against KEI, COMET, NISHI and the finals against SHIN are played completely muted.

I didn't watch the whole 4 hours so there could be other video freezes. Just given the last 4 and arguably hardest battles are all muted, I think that's enough reason to reject the run. Had to be self-verified given it was the first submitted speedrun.

I didn't realize for a long time but you can view someone's profile then right there on the side are games followed with the number of visits to each game's page. I think there's a justification for site admins to see that or maybe be public if you mod the game. Inactive mod on top of few visits probably isn't what the community needs.

Else it's super creepy / stalker-y and I think we are all entitled to a basic level of privacy. Just seeing the games followed is one thing and helps build community and see what you have in common. Leave it at that.

90s kid Yu Yu Hakusho fan here, didn't know this game existed. Got a Japanese PS2 already.

Well, I wanted to watch what's out there and I can't hear anything in @DBcade's submissions. How can you verify it's not spliced or otherwise cheated if you can't hear anything? I'm not accusing him in the slightest, I just think there should be minimum standards for the video. Then people are less inclined to gain an unfair advantage and, to an outsider like me, the community looks better.

I wrote a strategy ideas thread in a forum post. No replies but the several hundred views were motivational. I subsequently went on to write more guides.

Anyway, the views column disappeared in 2022 or 2023. Can admins bring it back, at least for our own threads?

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.

I'll wait a little longer for comments on the start of run thread before making rules changes and retiming. If you want to retime your own runs, go for it.

Before retiming, I have to wonder, what about the end of the run? As in, what does "final hit" mean?

• @Dragondarch ends at start of the death sound playing.
• @Krayzar ends very slightly earlier than the sound starting.
• @bizarreluck ends at start of death sound, however the rest of the Hermit animation continues to play. This saves 4 seconds.
• @Spockrocket on Ianuki ends after the final hit lands, before the feedback damage or death sound. This saves 1-2 seconds.

Everyone timed with the final rule correctly but in interpretations that were fastest. I realize it's hilarious to be all legalese here over a few seconds. Issue is 1-4 seconds is significant in a 1 stage map. I don't like the idea of an attack being better if it's the final hit either.

My proposal and open to other proposals: "final hit" means start of death sound and completion of attack animation. As in, if Chariot/Devil/Hermit is used, card has to finish animating.

If you time with damage number disappearing instead of death sound starting or however Krayzar did it, that's fine. Maybe a runner here one day is deaf or hard of hearing.

On a fresh game you have no cards. CesarD's and BOSSCAT's runs use no cards. Meanwhile, FelipeNascimento83's runs on easy and normal use attack up and defense up cards, which is fair to say a huge advantage. Using previous saved game data is normally not allowed in speedruns either.

Basically, the main category should be no cards. Fine to have a separate category that allows them. There is some strategy of which 2 of the 4 cards to apply and cards make the game easier/more accessible.

Strange me looking at just about every RPG being run in Japanese for less time lost to text and seeing it banned here. I could understand banning the original Japanese release on the left and allowing the Japanese International edition on the right.

The changes in the English NTSC and PAL releases were somewhat significant with new cut scenes and famously added Ruby and Emerald weapon. The later International release does have them and presumably is in line with the Western changes:

If you separate the languages and have them compete independently from each other, then I think that's fairly uncontroversial and doesn't bar anyone who may only own the game in Japanese from being able to submit a run at all.

I hope this isn't an obvious question. What I can find after digging around is:

the Usamune Practice Rom will not work with your Everdrive/ED64 and on Gameshark you are limited to only 13 lines of code, which means you will be unable to use most practice codes.

dagoth | everdrive

Is that it? The Expansion Pack has no direct impact on Super Mario 64? I thought maybe, possibly, it would have faster read/write than the bundled RAM.

Recommended changes

• I think the explanation of why to buy an OEM Expansion Pack should be in alaris' linked N64 Buyer's Guide in Resources.

N64 Setup Guide for SM64 - Google Docs under alaris' link in Resources:

• The guide must be years old because it's recommending buying a Sony PVM/BVM. A 20" mono PVM that does RGB runs well over $1000 USD today and a BVM is looking like $2000 + has no audio inputs. Let's not recommend pro monitors anymore! Sad seeing people show off their 9" pro Sony monitors on Reddit that have lower TVL than consumer 15" sets that get dumped on the curb. Further, JVC, Ikegami and others made nice pro CRT monitors that go for less.
• The guide has an AmaRecTV setup versus OBS and gives AmaRecTV more weight. Years ago I could understand but I think I can say without controversy that there is no reason to use AmarecTV over OBS today, unless you have a very specific reason. Like you want to capture off of Windows XP. The guide even links's EvilAsh25's updated streaming guide that states to use OBS instead of AmRec. EvilAsh25 Streaming Setup Guide - Google Docs

Powering through the game has entertainment value but why is there no timing on the first run to completion? With infinite time, can stat item boost a full team, get all the endgame spells and equipment and Ogre Blade abuse for optimal skillsets. That's fine but a timing price has to be paid.

Chrono Trigger has no NG+ only leaderboard, Chrono Cross times all 3 runs for all characters. Is there any precedent to not count the first run?

I think it's further unfitting that secretbunnyninja has two NG+ runs on the same leaderboard.

Given the time required, I can understand allowing at least 1 break of any length with no time penalty so long as the run is continued without using a splice or segment. As in, if you're streaming, keep the stream going.

Hori made SNES/SFC controllers ostensibly for fighting games with the L and R buttons on the main pad versus the top left and right corners. Without considering the turbo ability, can you play faster with that change?

Not limited to SNES, plenty of USB adapters that work with SNES controllers on PC.

Edit for image: https://imgur.com/a/KpNyf5p

I have the Windows 95 version where I can sell a Guard Tower or Advanced Guard Tower, hit S to stop it, get my credits back and keep the Minigunners. Easy to spam infinite. IGN cheat list says SAMs and Obelisks work for NOD.

Is this a "major glitch" that would need to be its own category or is this the version we should all be running? I see popular games like Donkey Kong Country where the most beneficially glitched version is the only one used.

Finally, would running on DOSBox be considered an official emulator? I have the C&C games bundle as well but Tiberian Dawn is very crash prone. Glitch also patched.

Can you recommend a good adapter to use my PS2 controller on PC? Idea is to practice on emulator where I can view memory and test for glitches.

I see 2 products on Amazon that come with 2x controller inputs for under $11. I just don't know anything about their reliability or polling lag.