If you own a GameCube / Wii (and possibly an Xbox), you could do Digimon World 4. Easy WR; currently, there are no submited runs, though I itend to change that in June / July. Strat is basically the same as solo, but with a little less RNG.

PS2 is also doable, but the loading times are much bigger.

https://www.speedrun.com/diwo4

If you are up to it, fell free to ask me if you need anything.

How do I know if the game runs at 60 or 30 (without anyone telling me, that is)?

Thing is, I'll have to get 2 frame perfect tricks in a row (you can check it out here: https://www.speedrun.com/diwo4/thread/bschv/1#vsymq).

Any tips as to how I should practice getting that, or should I rather just pray till it eventually happens?

As anyone playing this game knows, you can't double jump...

... or at least that's what the developers thought!

After seeing video proof of it happening, which you can check here (jump to 1:55): I decided to investigate. And after fiddling with the TAS for a while, I finnaly figured this out.

The basic idea is simple: jump, trigger the auto-block while mid air (which relies on your speed stat and RNG) and then you can jump again.

With that trick in your arsenal, you can enter Machine Pit via the Barbarian Cave / Undead Yard sidequest (available as early as NumeNume River) and use the double jump to access the levers needed to unlock the dungeons, as well being able to reach the compiler ship area. This allows you to skip Venon Jungle and Dry Land entirely! It's a 1:30h time save, maybe even as far as being 2h!

Sounds cool, right?

However, actually pulling it of ain't easy! I've given you the basic idea for noobs, but there's more to it than that. Turns out you have to:

1- Jump exactly 1 frame before getting hit. If you jump earlier, it won't work. If you jump late, you get hit. So right off the bat, we're already trying to perform a frame perfect trick 2- Have the RNG be in your favor to trigger the auto-block. The higher your Speed stat, the better. In the context of a speedrun, it'll happen rather frequently, I'd say once every 3~5 hits. 3- And we're not done yet! After getting both of the above, you have to jump again on the 18th frame after the auto-block goes off. Another way of saying is jumping 8 frames after the red guard dissapears (10 frames after the auto-block). Jumping early isn't a problem, as your controls are locked. However, jump too late and the trick won't work.

Here's the trick in action:

That's the explanation behind the history and mechanics of the trick... but if you want to actually pull it off, there's a couple of things to do to help you out: 0- Jump on 1 enemy at a time. Multiple enemies on screen just mess with you, it's better to kill everyone on sight and leave a single foe alive. 1- Calibrate your timing for the initial jump. You're supposed to spend only a single frame in the air before getting hit, so take a close look to when you get hit to calibrate your attempts: if most of the time you are getting hit while already in the air, it's because you're jumping too early; if most of the time you are getting hit while still on the ground, it's because you are jumping too late. So constantly delay / antecipate your jumps to try and strike a balance between both. Personally, I tend to favor the ground (late) side, it's easier to jump too early than it is to jump late. But that's just my taste. 2- As soon as you jump, move the analog in the direction you want to go. It's amazing how often you 2x Jump just to miss the platforms because of a lack of range, if you don't change directions quick enough. So to avoid that, move the analog as soon as possible so your character does the same. And as a bonus, that movement can sometimes prevent you from getting hit altogether, in cases you jump too early, so it also speeds up attempts by a bit. 3- For that half second after your first jump, try to mash as fast as you can. Personally, I do a 3 press burst, but you can do it however you want; at any rate, the faster you can press, the higher your chance to hit the right frame. However, don't overdo it, or you'll get tired rather quickly, so try to find a "setup" you feel confortable with. 4- If you're doing it for a while and failing, STOP. Just stop, take a deep breath, release the controller, maybe even shake your hands violently to "erase the muscle memmory", reposition yourself on the chair and just try fresh. I know it sounds like a lot, but it only really takes 2~3 seconds to do all of that, so do it. And don't think of that time as being idling or wasteful, think of it as a time investment / setup to help you nail the trick: this will help relieve hand stress and make it easier to succeed, as well as having the placebo effect of "I'm doing something to improve, now it WILL work" to keep morale high, so shia la beuf it and keep going. 5- Practice. It'll suck in the beginning, we all had our 30min DoubleJump split. But as you do more and more attempts, you'll eventually get the hang of it, and for as awful as a double frame perfect trick with an unfavourable RNG roll might sound, it's really not as bad to perform.

And those are the things I do to help me perform the Double Jump.

Well, I thought it was the exact opposite, seeing as there are games that specifically mention "No turbo" in the rules, such as Megaman X, with all other in the series making no mention to it at all.

But okay, I guess I'll just learn how to mash for a few hours without killing my fingers :)

You can play on PS2 Emu. Although you can't submit it as WR, as you save over 30min just because of the faster load times, it's still allowed for the sake of testing and practicing, so you can at least get a grasp of the game.

As far as region differences, I don't have a clue. I only own an US PS2, and in fact, that's the only version I've played. MAYBE the Jap version is faster, the GameCube could be better, perhaps I should find an Xbox to run this game...... but unfortunatelly, US PS2 is all I have right now, at least for the sake of oficial runs done on console.

But hey, maybe I can get someone that does own such hardware to test that for me, and perhaps help growing the DW4 community.

Oh, right, about estimate. It's not on my channel anymore (dat 14day max...), but the last time I tryed a run, I died just before entering Lucemon's Dungeon at around... 4h 30min? Or was it 5h already.... I can't remember. Still, I'd expect 6h as a "first" WR, with 5h as an optimized run.

I say that because on that particular run: 1- Grind Section 1 was trash; 2- Failed the numenume skip; 3-forgot to buy itens for the grind section 2 (don't worry, I put it into the notes already); 4- I screwed up the switch puzzle in vennon jungle.

And last, I'm yet to find a way to consistently trigger the the double jump glitch, which would allow me to skip Dry Land and Venon Jungle entirely, so.......

From what I've gathered (so I'm not 100% sure on that), you can just go all out, grind lvl 999 full DATA purple equips on normal mode and just plow through your first Hard mode playthrough. Naturally, you can use the basic evolutions you could get via normal mode only.

Which, let's be honest, would be stupid. Seems like a troll category just for the sake of having it. Considering that there isn't even a run for regular mode (yet, I'm working on it), I'd say that one should be removed. But it's not my decision, so...

^Title.

It would help ease the pain on mashing the X button over and over and over again. I'm ready to do runs now, and I really don't want them to go invalid because of the controller.

Title. Is there any particular reason for that?