So, lately I've been feeling like I might want to try a 117% run of this game again sometime, however, last time I tried to, this happened:

Is it a known glitch that the game can freeze there and something I should keep in mind to prevent it from happening, or is it more likely a problem with my disk in which case I would have to try to get another one? To be clear, I don't have a consistent problem with the game freezing there, I've done runs of other categories where I got through that level just fine, and a casual 117% playthrough where it didn't happen, it just happened that one time.

I think I might understand how the level leaderboards work now. I guess if I have questions on how the rules work for certain things I'll just ask then.

So, when it comes to full completion on worlds, is there anything particular to know about what's allowed? I mean, obviously you can't have any blue coins going in because that wouldn't work, but does it matter whether you've finished the shines in the level and are getting them again or if you're going into the level completely fresh for the first time?

Can a mod look over the level leaderboards and make sure the rules on them are correct? Seems like levels that have an in-game timer accept times based on that, but that's not what the rules say. Just as an example, there's the Gelato Beach Shine 5 with Piantissimo, and the rules state:

"Timing starts from the fade-in AFTER the opening cutscene, right before you gain control of Mario, and ends when Mario touches the shine. "

But the times on the leaderboard for that shine just use the in-game timer, which starts when the race starts and end upon touching the flag, so I assume there are probably inconsistencies like that on the Leaderboard for other individual shines as well.

Emulators have been banned for years, it's only USB loading that was banned recently, which would still require a capture card.

I would agree with removing the USB loader times, and I wasn't even greatly in favor of banning USB loader in the first place. The main reason I believe they should be removed is because keeping them up there went against a precedent that was already set not too long before the USB loader ban.

When Neogamma was banned as a loader, the only runner who was known to use it on his runs had his times ripped off the leaderboards, just like that. It was allowed when he ran it, and nobody even let him into the discussion on whether the loader should have been allowed or not. It was just straight up unfair to remove his times like that, and to let USB loader times stand after that was banned afterwards would just seem like a slap in the face if it were me...

Just got around to watching that timing highlight, and yeah, it's not really an accurate timing since it doesn't include how when you save warp you need to pick up fire again on the way to Van Gore, so it is slightly slower than that would indicate. This isn't really a point for or against allowing it, it's just something worth noting for people not really aware on how it works.

Editing for clarification: I guess I shouldn't say you have to pick up fire again, technically you do have the option not to, but if you skip it you lose time later from missing out on flashlight and vacuum skips, as well as making the last triple on Van Gore a lot more difficult to do.

Yeah, I don't know how abusing Straw Polls works, but I do remember the first time I made a poll for my stream, it got like 80 votes on the same option even though that stream only had like 3-4 unique viewers over the course of the whole thing.

So the main reason the rule existed was because the community decided to keep it that way a while ago. The community has changed a lot since then (I mean, I wasn't around back then, but I figure that must have at least been several years ago) and now it seems like the vast majority are in favor of changing the rule, so even with the arguments presented for the save warp ban, I still think it makes more sense for it to be lifted.

Technically by the old definition, pearl duplication would be legal in max% as well, but since it's not even a misc category anymore there's not really anything to worry about there.

Also worth noting that pearl duplication doesn't work in PAL.

I'm obviously for the save warp (I mean, my PB even uses it, and yeah, the timesave is about 10 seconds, varying slightly based on menuing speed and time to grab fire again), everything's pretty much been covered so I don't need to go into why. I mean, it would be obvious enough anyway.

You can still run the game on emulator, nobody will or can stop you. The times just won't be accepted to the leaderboards, which really shouldn't even matter anyway. There are runners who run on emulator and have fun with it, not being able to submit to a leaderboard doesn't effect how much fun it could be. Personally I would probably run on emulator if I could actually get it to work as well as the actual game does. I still run the game from time to time and I haven't submitted to the leaderboards since last year. Really, as far as these leaderboards go, on the main category alone, at least 4 of the actual top 10 aren't even on there anymore, if they don't care, you shouldn't either.

Here's a somewhat relevant tweet to the situation: https://twitter.com/allspeedrunners/status/670438410759356416

I've seen some methods for supposedly fully resetting the game so all the text is the same as it would be on your first time playing, which I guess is what you're supposed to do for speedruns. Is there a quick way of checking if it worked so you know the runs would be completely valid?

I think just knowing it worked once would be good enough overall, so I just finished a run, are there certain points in the Genocide route you should check on the text to make sure it all checks out? I did two runs, I know my first wouldn't have counted because I didn't do anything to reset all the information, and it was clearly obvious at the unskippable text at the end. But my second run I think that ending text was the same as the first time I did Genocide, the text at the end seemed about 20 seconds+ shorter than it was on my first run. Is that all the text you would need to confirm the reset worked? Or are there other points in the game to check, with differing text that makes a significant time difference?

Yeah, you can skip from the Tea Room to the Balcony with a glitch pretty similar to that, I've never heard of it the way you've described it, but if you just catch a ghost with the right timing on the switch, you can instead of going down to the table, go through the room's ceiling to the balcony. But I'm pretty sure you would need to do it with the Boo, since otherwise you'd be missing the ice medal, which leaves about no room for error since you get one attempt at it, and if it isn't frame-perfect, it's close. It would also qualify as out of bounds and thus be useless in any run. I guess technically you could get more than one attempt at it if you forced other boos into that room, but that would obviously take a lot of time.

Go in top left corner. Face left. Hold R. While holding R, tilt the C stick down slightly (aiming the vacuum up), keep R held until the poster is off.

More of a tutorial than a tip, but it's really simple once you get it. I've never missed it by following that. The only way you can screw it up is if you aren't properly facing left, or if you aim the vacuum too high, but the angle is extremely forgiving, so that should pretty much never happen.

Almost a 4 week late reply because there's no notification system if people respond to forum messages. But no, Expert on PAL is nowhere near the same as Expert on NTSC. Every difficulty on PAL is much harder. Beginner PAL is about the same as Normal NTSC, Normal PAL is about the same, or a bit harder than Expert NTSC, and Expert PAL has nothing else to compare to, it's just absolute hell, any damage taken is basically a dead run.

A lot of games do have glitchless categories, and when I was starting out with this game, I wanted this to be one of them, but after spending some time on the game, I can see why this would be one of those games where a glitchless category just doesn't work. It's just too broken of a game overall, there are so many glitches, where would you even draw the line? It would be impossible for the whole community to come to an agreement on which things are actually glitches and which are just difficult tricks, and which things would invalidate a run as glitchless.

I did an essentially glitchless 100 Egg run, but even without trying for glitches there were a few times I was accidentally launched a bit in some direction because of a glitch, none of them were intentional and they didn't give me any advantage, but they're still glitches, so would you have a run be considered invalid because of them?

I am still kind of curious how fast the top runners would be able to do games like these without glitch abuse, but it's just one of those things that will probably never be answered.

Should the rules to that category be changed to specifically allow emulator savestates to be used? I've tried playing that difficulty now, and I don't see it being reasonable for a human to be able to finish a run on this level fairly.

I feel like it should be either that or just getting rid of it, and re-adding it if someone ever does finish a run of it, which is nearly impossible, but I guess in theory it could be done.

Is that why I can't find any option to submit a run for this game? And do the categories have to be made by a mod? Because I see no option to do that either.