Once I find a link Symm I'll definitely hop in. After way too long the first guide is posted! The thought was to have it finished half a year ago with the current route's guide right behind it, but life happens. I don't plan to do any more changes to the posted guide relating to going faster but if while writing the current route's guide I word something better or design a better layout I will retroactively apply it to the "Megido" route. The guide I recently posted is the route used until Summer 2019 that utilizes megido as a main source of damage. After creating a map for the "Black Room" for Avidya World, I came to the conclusion that if I would just recreate the maps for the entire game I could avoid the lengthy explanations of "go from here to there". Got most of the information I need for the current route just need to put it to practice. More goodies to come.

Bottom of the leaderboards opinion incoming but I agree with W1ndows in they seem "...mostly just for fun and not for competition." With how the submissions work, one person could hold all "places" as long as they brought a different team which does seem a bit odd for a leaderboard. To counter myself real quick Resident Evil 5's co-op leaderboard works the same way, same person holds 1st & 3rd place with a different partner but in a game actually involving co-op not just passing a controller. I see the argument of "That's why it's in miscellaneous," but those categories are limiting the runners inside the game with mechanics not outside the game with more players. Just seems more like a fun ruleset for a marathon or fundraising event as opposed to something truly competitive.

Just want to double back and say this is not shots fired at the co-op runners, those are a fun watch and I enjoy all runs of FF8. Just giving an opinion for the discussion.

Hey all! I Haven't been active in a while so I hope everyone(old and new) is well and that whatever game you're currently running, your going fast! Long story short, life happened. That being said the itch to speedrun is growing and I'm starting to get back into the rhythm of things. One thing that I couldn't stop thinking about this past half year is the super fast runs from Tick_Show. Great work! Those runs helped an idea slowly grow. I plan on doing some research on the routes/changes compared to the next fastest run on all categories. A "How To Speedrun..." would then be created for SEBEC and SQQ using the best strategies the community has currently, starting with a google doc and matching video walkthrough. Then the idea began to snowball. Now the thought is to reproduce the same route on all versions for both SEBEC & SQQ and make time comparisons. The intent is to have multiple categories of statistics for all regions. The first being start to finish time, no modifications. The second being start to finish time, all battles excluded. The third being a potential time range of each major battle and perhaps the lesser fights as well due to the RNG of the game. More categories may come up during the process but these are the main goals for now. Basically I would like to make a TAS for SMT:Persona but I've yet to find any tools for PSP TAS creation. This would help show any text based time differences that may or may not be present, etc. Like I said, one idea led to another and here we are. All summed up, I've greatly enjoyed running this title and wanted an easy access for anyone interested in speedrunning it as well. Super side project so definitely won't be done anytime soon, but the ball has started rolling. I’ll keep everyone posted when healthy progress is made.