All staff upgrades/magic upgrades
All spellstones placed
All Krazoa Spirits placed
All Cheat Tokens deposited (Cheats are an incentive)
All Maps purchased.
All Shop Upgrades purchased

I know for a fact there are two text dialogues in Krystal's section that are shorter in JP. One helps make an enemy cycle easier and quicker. That's really all I notice though.

The TAS is using tricks that I have yet to use such as baby cloudrunner skip and Super Quake skip plus some tricks that I'll never use such as the queen earthwalker cutscene skip after portal opener. The Tas doesn't get as many mana plants throughout the run because of enemy manipulation. Also fire blaster aiming makes a huge difference in TAS. Yes, some item routing is different. Think about how long the game is and how much can be perfected verses my run.

The same person made a newer TAS of 4:08:01 that uses every trick known.

Personally, I don't think this game needs a full game tutorial or anything since learning off of a full run should be enough. It's very simplistic for speedrunning, but I've seen multiple people want help with this game. It would take time for me to think of how to go about it if I were to do a full tutorial. It would definitely be a multi video tutorial split into sections.
I'll consider it.

Moonjump%. Just saying...

Walled City 2 has to be registered or the game won't let us place either stone in regardless if the teeth are placed in or not.

In speedruns, the teeth are skipped entirely.
Playing the game normally, if both teeth are placed in the statues, the gate should open.

I've found multiple areas that have stored dialogue like that. I never knew about this one though. An old light foot village strat used a similar method like this and it would load the cutscene for it.
Ya, the game responds this way because it checks to see if you have what it's looking for (In this case: Tricky)
I'm guessing that any cutscene can behave this way if it's triggered while the player doesn't have something they should.
I've messed around with these cutscene behaviors for a while, but haven't been able to find anything.

With the help of free cam, I was able to activate the locked camera at a point where the entrance to the totem room wasn't loaded. I was then able to guide myself using free cam while the locked camera was active.
I was able to bypass the entrance fade in animation when I got closer to it. The door wasn't there, but there was still an invisible wall.

I've messed around with loading zones, but seems as though the door itself is part of the light foot village map and not detached loads such as the tall grass and boulders in most maps. What I did find was that the door's loading is identical to the spinning wheels in the sun/moon stone rooms. What happens is that it begins to fade in as you get closer to it and fades out as you get farther away. It is possible to see inside of the totem room through the entrance from the outside if you're in the right spot.
I tried using the stuck camera glitch to see if I could bypass the fade in. That didn't seem to work however.
Hopefully I get new ideas in the future.

Krazoa Spirit 3 Early is by far the best lead on anymore sequence breaks in the game. Only recently, I have found a form of clipping in this game using moonjump, making Krazoa Spirit 3 Early possible with moonjump. Clipping does exist, but hardly.
Krazoa Spirit 3 Early would skip the majority of CloudRunner Fortress, Ocean 1, and Light Foot Village. It would save somewhere around 50 minutes.
I really do want this theory to become a reality.

Ok, it's incredibly easy now. All I have to do is run into the left side of his head, causing the barrel to explode and damage me. Then I would let him swing me into the wall and kill me. I was assuming that I needed to have the cutscene fade in and then get the game over.
So, yes, this is RTA viable. I'm thinking about making a huge comparison video of all three walled city routes.
Excellent find!

Could you go into more detail on how you take damage exactly? Did you let his head fall onto the barrel? Did you wait until his head was on the ground and then throw it? What side of his head were you at? Does his head have to shove you against the wall for the final hit?
Also. I never knew Tricky blew fire if you hit him enough times. XD

The one I have is DOL 0-00

Hypothetically speaking, if cut scene skips were a regular thing, they would only be possible by interruption within the cutscene or the frame before the cutscene. Chances are they won't be RTA viable.

When I asked if you mistook the 3rd spellstone for the 1st, I meant the actual spellstone in your inventory. If you die during the Red Eye King and save at any point, you'll always be put back where the King Earth Walker is. During a speedrun, you still have the first spellstone with you and the symbol would be at the top of the screen whether you got the third stone or not. Did you happen to check if you had both volcano spellstones in your inventory?

If you did in fact get the third spellstone without watching the cutscenes, and if there were to be a set up that made it RTA viable, it still might not be used in RTA. This is because you would have to airswim around the map to get the superquake since you don't have ground quake to open the underground, then open the underground. Then you would have to airswim AGAIN to get to Red Eye King Early. Getting the super quake this way already seems longer or about the same as the cutscene lengths.

This isn't a conclusion. Just the first thing that came to mind.

And yes, I did know about taking control during the gas chamber gate cutscene. At times, I would forget about it and hold right on the control stick to ready the input for when the cutscene ends. I usually end up hanging off the platform near the ladder. I've also just fiddled with the control stick during it and often headed towards the sharpclaw panel.

One more thing, if you have cases for both SFA discs, does one of them have "Player's Choice" at the top while the other doesn't?

The only evidence I could find of there being two versions of the game was on a rom website that had versions 1.00 and 1.01. I don't think you're problem is the regional versions. The game was released in US, Japan, Europe, and Australia.
I use to think that the regional versions caused the different loading storage boxes. If both of the versions you have are NTSC with one having grey boxes and the other having colored boxes, then it's the update versions that determine the color of the boxes, and is most likely the reason why you couldn't get the Light Foot Village Gate to load on one disc.
When I regain control after Galdon, I can also control while the screen is still faded. I know where the Arwing is so I can trigger the Arwing cutscene right as the screen fades in.
That red eye king discover sounds VERY useful. Frankly, the new route I use that involves NOT opening the underground makes VERY little difference. Opening the underground BEFORE red eye king and then getting the effect you got would skip the red eye king death cutscene and the following cutscene, saving quite a bit of time since the first one is fairly long.
I tried messing around with Red eye and tried getting the same result you did. The only way I see it is that you let him fall onto the barrel while letting the explosion damage you as well (Full Heart). Then his head wacks you as it is moving around during the fade out (Half Heart) It is likely frame perfect. Either that or I have the whole idea wrong.
Just to be sure, you weren't mistaking the third spellstone for the first one?

Another person had the same problem with the Light Foot Village Gate. Sadly, I don't have an answer or have I found a cause to that problem. It's never happened to me once. I've tried messing around with it, but couldn't get the gate to load while the outside area of Light Foot Village is unloaded.
I'm very bad at calculating timesaves, but the route change you mentioned does seem promising. I'll look into that as well.
Lastly, I get the Superquake to activate by first setting it to Y. Then I go into the C stick menu and press A on FireBlaster. Finally, I press A and Y at the same time.
The reason that the superquake doesn't normally activate is because the game checks for ground quake when you get superquake.

Few things to mention:
moonstone early and sunstone early will NOT save time since it takes longer to get them using the methods shown in the videos. Even though getting them both this way gives us the option to skip super quake, it still isn't enough time to make up the time difference. The only viable trick that can be used is the alternate route to place sun and moon stone which is faster than opening the underground.
As for krazoa spirit 4: the same problem as krazoa spirit 3 would occur. Even if we cold get past the gate and into the shrine, after getting it, knowing the game, the gate would most likely still be closed. I'm not positive on this and therefore, I'll still be researching theories.
Honestly, I'm starting to turn over to portal opener early. Getting this early could skip part of cloudrunner fortress, ocean 1, light foot village, and krazoa spirit 3, assuming the game will pick up after the portal opener. It wouldn't skip cloudrunner fortress completely since we need sharpclaw disguise for a few things.

Super Quake can now be skipped 😃