I was looking at possibly picking this game up, (though using attempts on an emulator for now) So far I've been looking at this video for reference (see below) It provides some decent commentary, and is faster than the run on the leaderboard. feel free to check it out.

As for categories, I think it should boil down to Any%, and NG+. Just combine the Any% boards for ps2 and Xbox, but thats just my thought

I need to re-play this game casually, to remember everything. The only thing I DO remember, is Pig Josh being a pain in the ass. Hopefully I can learn how to run this game after a few playthroughs.

Hey all, good to see activity here. I just last night uploaded a new run. No commentary but I may do that later at some point. Better time with new strats and better video capture overall. -Narange (YouTube: MakingCables)

Good run

It slipped me to comment on the actual topic. Doh

Separating Xbox and PS2/4 makes sense. Xbox has a higher framerate and shorter loading times. Also some cutscenes are slightly different. However I'm making this comparison between Xbox and PS4. I've not played the PS2 version but I understand that the PS4 release is just a port of the PS2 version with higher resolution, so that's the extent of my insight.

As for categories:

1. New Game (using a fresh character profile) -- makes sense. Someone on YouTube actually did it already (not me, yet).

2. NG+ Normal -- the fastest since you have the unlockables, and is the most attractive category.

3. NG+ Very Hard -- On Very Hard, your allies take massive damage and so do you. Enemies are also more resilient. It's pretty frustrating and would only lead to runs that are slower and have more deaths. I've completed (not even speedrunning) the game on Very Hard without cheats and there were LOTS of restarts. NG+ Normal can already be pretty tough and inconsistent.

Is there a difference in Very Hard and Red Wood Revolver (as in enemies strength)? I have not played the game on those difficulties but the wiki says that the only difference is that you play as the training dummy.

Can't believe I forgot about Red Wood Revolver! There is a big difference: Manny Quinn's special attack is the lighting-self-on-fire instead of Dead Eye. So instead of being able to instantly reload, you can rush enemies and burn them. I haven't played too much on it (I am way too used to Dead Eye reloading) but maybe it would change the way you fight certain enemies. Also, a few cutscenes are missing from Red Wood because Rockstar didn't re-do them with Manny.

As for enemies' strength, I believe it's the same as Normal.