Hey everyone, I want to start running this game this week, doing a preliminary run in each of the categories. I just have one question about the "Maximum Levels" category. Because the current TAS does not visit dead-end Elsewhere levels, that has been the rule that stands on the category for the moment. I just know that the definition of this category is not fully agreed upon, so I wanted to take a poll of who thinks what levels should be included.

State whether you think dead-end Elsewhere levels should be included or not and state your reasons.

I vote that the category should include dead-end elsewheres, otherwise the Maximum number of levels technically is not visited. The amount of time spent repeating things is only about three minutes or less, so it's not like it's that big a deal. It's not even like Ghosts n' Goblins, where the entire game must be beaten twice in order to complete a speedrun of it.

TASes often bend the rules to put entertainment value before strict run criteria, the repetition being why the existing TAS for this game decided to omit such levels. The Ghosts n' Goblins TAS doesn't even beat the game because it omits the second half, which would be identical to the first half of the game.

In other words, I don't think TASes should be used as precedence for what goes on in RTA runs. If that "Maximum Levels" TAS didn't exist, I think dead-end Elsewheres would without question be included in the level count. So with my opinion, 91 out of 103 levels are visited, compared to 85 of the 103. Since almost 6% more of the game is shown, this clearly defines the Maximum Levels category better.