https://www.speedrun.com/sinjid_shadow_of_the_warrior/runs/y8k3llxy

SizoQ has a spicy new glitched Sinjid run which uses some unothodox strategies to run faster. It's a very impressive run, but some of the tricks utilized might be brushing up against the rules, so we figured we should have a talk about it.

The most important trick in question here is that SizoQ switches from one enemy to the next right after killing them, which fulfills the rule requirement of "An opponent is only considered defeated once dead". But because SizoQ does this, they never ends up actually marking the opponent as "defeated" in the game engine itself. The downside with this is that the portals won't be marked as being fully completed/defeated, and the player can't exit the Shadow Temple to trigger the credit screen.

So the question is, is this a problem? I honestly could go either way on this: On one hand, opponents and monsters are being defeated, which is the actual challenging content that we speedrunners are competing against. On the other hand, the game/savefile itself will not consider the game beaten, as the portals are still undefeated and the credit screen cannot be triggered. Does it qualify as a 100% runthough of the game?

Please share your viewpoints here!

Hi!

I just submitted a run using a bunch of glitches, and I think it would be a good idea to have a community talk about the rules. :)

First of all, I suggest the rules should be updated to include an explanation for when you should start the timer. I realized I started mine earlier than everybody else, when I pressed "Start Game" while the other runs appears to start when they pick their character class. I'm fine with the character class being the timer start, but it should be documented in the rules.

For the glitches, there are a whole bunch you can do. Here is a shorthand list of things you can do with glitches:

1. Repick your class four times to combo them together and get all 4 starting skills.

2. Fast-travel to different rooms without walking.

3. Repeat Mendo's Ring quest for infinite skill points.

4. Clear battles without fighting the enemy.

5. Morph an enemy into another enemy for an easier/harder battle.

6. Jump straight to the credit screen after dying

My overall opinion is that glitches that allow you to skip or otherwise change battles should be disallowed (glitch 4, 5, and 6) because you have essentially not 100%'ed the game if you haven't actually fought. To my mind 100% means winning every battle in the game, so if you have simply skipped past them you haven't actually done them. There is also the practical aspect that there isn't much of a speedrun left if you can just start and prematurely skip past all 35 battles in the game, there is not really any gameplay left at that point.

I would argue that 1, 2 and 3 should be allowed for the normal 100% category, and if there is demand, a separate "Glitchless" category should be made. That's the standard setup for most games on speedrun.com and I think Sinjid should follow this norm.

I also noticed that there is no any% category, but there are some youtube videos of people doing any% runs, so maybe we should add this category?

Hope to see more interest in this game!