Hey everyone!

Since I recently came back to speedrunning it fairly recently came to my attention about the version differences of the US and J versions and now I'm wondering why aren't we running the J version for WR attempts since it's easier to get runs going thanks to the health refills?

Running the fastest region version between US and J is normal so I guess my question is: how do people feel about merging the boards to just 1 any% board instead?

In my opinion it should stay like it is for following reasons:

• There are enough differences between J and US besides just health refill like change of some level structure , especially e.g. in 2-2, where you don't have to boost from spikes anymore. Other significant alterations are no magic pixel for 2-3 boss fight, which makes it longer in J version and paddles shoot bullets lower not allowing for 3-1 boost or forcing additional boost in 5-1 on conveyor belt instead of just walking below it.

• Historical reason also has meaningful part to it (where it has reasonable grounds for seperation with enough mentioned differences ofc), where some people were competing and putting a lot of effort into one version (here just US) throughout years. Greater example of this is Contra, where there is actually almost no gameplay differences for J and US and it's mostly about faster level transition, however too many people devoted too much time and effort into US version to merge it with faster J at this point in Contra

Additionally, in the end, very probably, J version is slower on optimal level than US due to mentioned 2-3 boss, 3-1 and 5-1 boosts and there is nothing to make up for those time losses besides fraction of a second saved on not doing boosts in 2-2, just it is def easier to finish run in J especially for newcomers.

To sum up, for me, there are enough differences between J and US to keep it as separate. I agree, that if it was only about health refill, we could think about merging them, since in perfect scenario you don't have to restrain from any tricks in US with enough HP left, so having more HP would just make life easier without grinding for RNG, which constantly kills you. However, there are sufficient other gameplay changes to leave it the current way.

Second quesion may arise, that is :"which category should be main one then?". We should also keep it, since as mentioned, US is rather faster category than J (even that it is harder) , so it should stay as main one. Besides, US is much more popular category, but I wouldn't put it as substantial reason due to the fact , that it has naturally more players being first category.

Thanks for the answer Hirexen :) Didn't realize J version had those time losses and that US is fastest due to that. No need to change anything then :)