Hey, I've been learning this speedrun and found theres not much in terms of tutorials or explanation of strats. Was curious if I'm missing a video out there that can be helpful in some spots. For example, I can't figure out what the bird manip is in the first level, some people seems to pause for a short time then always end up on the left side. I cannot quite figure out how to do that consistently, so any advice on that spot (and a few others) would be greatly appreciated.

Hey, I've been routing and trying to learn the Low% J run, and have a question about grabbing 1ups. It doesn't say anything explicitly in the rules if they are allowed or not (does a 1up count as a 100% health pick up?), so I wanted to check to see if they were allowed for low%. I don't care if they are or aren't I just want to know before I start making runs because: (1) there is one spot in 7-2B that is hard to avoid getting one while slashing an enemy, and (2) there are several in easy to get places along the route, which can save the need for a potential game over screen (I suck so I die enough for game overs when I don't pick up extra lives). I've read some previous posts and I know this category is quite controversial, so I just want to know what the general feeling about 1-ups are to help plan my routing. I know it doesn't matter, but in NG1 and NG2 the rules also do not say anything explicitly about grabbing 1ups, so this may be a question specifically for NG3 low%, or all three NG's.

Hey, I have a question about doing a CV1 damageless run. I hadn't seen the category, so I started to route one out, but someone told me there is a ROM hack that is one hit knock out that essentially is damageless. I still want to do a damageless run, but dont want to do it on a rom hack, just on the vanilla game. So my question is if I want to do damageless can this only be done on the rom hack, or would it be possible to make it its own category under the main game and not using the rom hack?

Curious if anyone would be interested in doing some Kabuki races in the coming weeks/months? There was a lot of success with the recent Ninja Gaiden races to bring attention to the game and speedrun, and I think that would be a good way to show more people how awesome this game is. Obviously it would be Any%, and I would be happy to arrange/commentate/etc. for the tourney. Just want to see if anyone else would be interested.

Hey, Im just learning this game, and realized there are lots of powerups that arent needed for fast times, but would be fun to collect for a 100% run. My first question, is wondering if this cateogry has been discussed before and would any one else be interested in it? My second question is , is there any guide for where all the items are? I first started routing it and getting every treasure chest (maybe treasure chest%), but then found out there are hidden items. What would 100% include, all pipe/forks, heart drops, etc.? I haven't found any resources that have the locations of hidden items listed, but I'm happy to route this out myself and share the findings with everyone here. Excited to hear anyones thoughts, this game is awesome!