This is a concern I've had for a while, but it doesn't really have a simple solution. I'm supportive of emulators being used for ILs, with the exception of those that use death abuse; after respawning, the timer always starts later on emulator than on console (ranging between a few frames to several tenths of a second), essentially meaning that """faster""" times are achievable on emulator (and, furthermore, that you could theoretically make it impossible for a console player to even compete in, say, 2-3). The problem I see is that creating a rule specifically against death abuse on emulator is a little complicated, because death abuse gets added to new levels every so often (8-4 just last week and 8-7 in the future, for example), and it also restricts competition on the side of the emulator player, in that they can't do the optimal routes for a decent portion of the levels.

TLDR I'm not saying emulator needs to be banned at all (at least I hope I'm not), I'm just bringing up a concern I've had for a long time that could cause problems if nothing is done.

A lot of people in the community these days already know, but I don't exactly have the best load times. I started out running this game on my Wii U (~2014) with my really old disc (~2010); in October I then bought a Wii (age unknown) and most recently in January I bought a new disc (unused). None of these three setups gave me good load times (evidenced by playing 7-7; the loads are slow enough that the level has always started on the wrong cycle for me).

While it has been suggested to me that the problem may also come from my Wii's disc drive being in bad condition, I'm looking into alternative solutions. As much as I'd hate buying the game yet again, would the Wii U VC version get past the problem and give me sufficient load times (so as to not only be able to run 7-7 ILs but also save a minute or two in any%)?

I do full-game runs and generally play this game a lot, but I've recently been turning to ILs and seeing what I can do there (mainly to improve my full-game runs). Considering the times I've seen even for the simplest race, AL Car (low 54 on SRC but I've seen a 53 on Cyberscore), I'm curious as to how these were even attained as I've only managed a high 56 myself. Naturally it's a huge pain to record DS gameplay (and nobody even plays this game so this won't be seen) but it'd be so useful to just... see what I'm doing wrong. If any of the top IL time holders are reading this, is there anything in particular you did for your runs?

Should I be submitting my times as WiiUVC even if I play Wii U with disc? I've submitted all of my times as Wii so far but there are plenty of differences between Wii and Wii U.

Have any glitches been discovered that make Any% faster than 100% (provided balloon touch challenges are played flawlessly)?