ok so today i made an attempt of NG Agito. it went fairly badly(as expected), and then my controller died, so i didn't manage to finish, but there's something i noticed that makes the speedrun (in my opinion) significantly slower.

Namely, Iif I was to do a story mission and then repeat it from the title screen in Officer difficulty do you guys think it'd still be an "Agito" speedrun? this is pretty relevant because you don't get Shiva unless you do a certain mission on Officer difficulty. no higher, no lower. every mission played within the story would still, of course, be played on Agito. Shiva's ability to body everything on screen is pretty important in agito, more so than Cadet or officer, because relying solely on sights and Jack alone is pretty darn slow, not to mention Shiva is super fast anyway.

would really appreciate any input from you guys on this topic, since i plan on making another attempt soon, once i sort out my controller difficulties.

I would consider it not a viable option.

You call the run Agito which is a difficulty setting. You should not be allowed to change difficulty at all.

Everything available to you on that difficulty you can use for the run. Lowering or even raising the difficulty to get a summon in this case I would say is not allowed because technically it doesn't exist in that difficulty unless you are doing NG+.

If that makes sense. I would say no Shiva is not allowed on Agito.