I'm planning to start speedrunning The Blue Marlin soon, and I just came across this post.

My general thinking is that since the JP version has different numbers and a slightly different strat, it should be a separate category. Putting them into the same category creates an unfair advantage to using the JP version since it's sort of like running a different game, since different numbers are involved.

Personally, I speedrun The 7th Saga a lot, and the JP version (Elnard) is much faster than the English version. Because of this, we created separate categories for the JP runs, to create fair competition.

Hopefully that helps!

It's been a while since this post was put up, but I just thought I'd answer the questions here from @Palmer.

#1: The versions are that are being run are the originals. So for The 7th Saga, it's NOT patched and is the original and hard 7th Saga. For the Elnard categories, that is the actual Japanese Elnard version.

#2: Yes, different people have tried different characters in the routings. I might mess with it more in the future, but generally people have found that Lux as the main for Any% seems to be the fastest. For No Tune-Up Glitch, Wilme seems the fastest, but there could be more options on the table, like using Lux or Lejes as the main character.

#3: I recently posted Zakky's guide that he wrote a few years ago for the Any% run. EricFaceplant and I have found some improvements to the methods in that guide, which I may update or create a new guide in the future on Any%. Another thing I've thought about is doing a guide for the No Tune-Up Glitch run as well. As of right now, the top 3 runs for both 7th Saga categories generally use the same route, but there are some variations between each of the runs (different towns at different levels, different methods of grinding, different methods of recruitments, etc). Watching them and seeing the strats used in those runs can give a good idea of the routings currently being used.

Hope that all helps answer the questions!

New discord link is next to the 7th Saga game picture at the top of this page.

This is SRC... SRC = speedrun.com

As a quick follow-up, the community confirmed that turbo is allowed. If manips start taking place with turbo, the rules may be reconsidered.

No problem. Feel free to post questions or DM me if you have any questions about the speedrun, routing, etc. There's a lot to the speedrun, so you're welcome to ask any questions about it.

It sounds like the community will be fine with submitting a speedrun in another language, as long as it's simply a language change and no other changes to the programming of the game. Please feel free to reach out with any additional questions. We look forward to seeing you speedrun 7th Saga!

Let me check with the others on this and get back with you.

Quick question. Is turbo allowed on the speedruns?

Thanks!

This should probably be updated to reflect that turbo is allowed now.