If you look at the board at the time of this post, you'll notice my run is the only 1CC. I want to explain why this is a completely different category from a credit-fed run, and why 1CC is the actual any%.

Like many arcade games, this one has something called "rank" that scales the difficulty in-game based on your performance. As you complete levels without dying, your rank increases. More enemies appear, their AI becomes more aggressive, and bosses have their max health.

However if you die, the rank drops. Fewer enemies appear, they become less aggressive, and boss health drops. The effects of this are so significant that a credit-fed run can save minutes over my current 1CC time. That makes comparing the 2 fairly impossible.

So what does it mean to credit feed? It's when you insert a whole mess of coins into the game because you want to finish it without game over. The reason this is not the true any% is because it's not a legitimate way of completing the game.

The default life count is 2, so normally if you die twice you game over and cannot complete the game. Imagine running an old console game and using a code to give yourself 99 lives because you can't beat the game otherwise, and in doing so those extra lives let you arbitrarily beat the game minutes faster.

That being said, a lot of people just want to do casual runs and not really learn the 1CC (it's very demanding). That's why I think Credit Feeding should be its own category. Going back to what I said about rank, 1CC and credit feeding are way too different and showing both on the same category is confusing and gives people a false representation of what speed running the game should look like.

I am not familiar with the rank mechanic for Turtles in Time, but I agree with HDL that these should be separate categories if enemies/bosses act differently if you die many times and that could let you beat the game much faster (I would also think if you did a 1 CC run and could take an intentional death somewhere to make the boss easier, than that would be aimed for in a speedrun).

It seems like most people play by adding credits at the beginning, so I think that will probably be the run that gets the most submissions and is still a legitimate way to beat the game in my opinion. I don't know enough about this game or arcade runs, so we will see what the other runners think as far as separating and renaming the categories and adding rules that make it clear what is allowed for each type of run.

In arcade culture, credit feeding is never considered legitimate under any circumstances, and it's really only a factor for speed running due to emulation removing the need to spend actual money. That most people would run that category doesn't make it the de facto "any%" or the default way of running the game, it just makes it the easiest and most likely. Beating the game without losing to begin with is still the proper way of finishing, regardless of difficulty curve. I don't mind if people run the game that way, just don't call it "any%" or pretend that it's the default way of running the game.

I understand these points make the game unappealing for potential new runners, but that's kind of besides the point. Being unable to complete the game's actual any% does not offer justification for changing what any% is. This holds true for most arcade games, by the way, as they were designed to be highly difficult for the majority of players given the industry's business model at the time.

Hey, it doesn't seem like anyone else has thoughts on this, so I would just give it another week or two to see if anyone else posts their opinion and then go ahead and make the separate categories.