Yeah, I think the categories should be separated.

I don't understand why they're not, because running the Japanese allows for death abuse since you can set your lives at the start and a totally different route that can't exist on the US version. That alone should separate them, and that's not even including if there's differences (like between enemy numbers and stuff) as I don't know yet - only started running it yesterday.

Also, I'd really encourage maybe some new rules to be written to simplify confusion.

- SDA timing (time starts on control of the turtle and ends when you lose control of the turtle).
- That any% easy and any% normal are two different categories (since currently normal % is default and easy% is tucked away under misc).
- Whether or not adjusting stock in different categories is okay, etc.

I tried out two runs yesterday and was legitimately confused about what the difference between the US and Japanese version were, if the default categories difficulty was easy or normal, and whether or not setting lives to 7 was considered okay, etc. My two cents anyway.

i agree with both of you 100% on all arguments brought.
I second (or third) your motion!

Hey, I am not too familiar with the differences between US and JP, but your idea seems like a good one. I am fine with you being a mod for the game as well, but I would hold off with any changes until talking to omqwat since he has been running the game forever and knows all the differences between US/JP.

I agree with you, something should be done.

Hey all, I didn't notice this topic here. I'm actually fairly active on this site but never check the forums.

There are only two differences that I'm aware of between the US and JP versions of this game: the options menu and lag. JP has slightly less lag, so much less that I assume most wouldn't notice. The options menu lets you set your lives whereas a cheat code is needed to access a similar menu in the US version.

I initially ran the US version, but changed to JP after I noticed that it had the options menu. Optimally speaking, both versions use the exact same route in single player, you just get more padding in JP. I got a 36:38 on the US version and basically all of the time that has been taken off from that has been optimizing gameplay, not from the added lives.

I don't think Easy should be the main category. It doesn't actually achieve a credits roll and would necessitate a cheat code for people running the US version to run.

I'm not a fan of 2 Player A/B splitting into their own categories. The difference is very small (friendly fire on or off). I suppose it is a distinction nonetheless.

All that said, I'm open to separating the categories into JP and US. I almost did this when I initially switched versions but didn't want to fracture the already-tiny leaderboard. I'm open to discussion on any of the other things, or anything else pertaining to this game. I can also do a re-write on the rules for clarity as requested.

I hope this clears some stuff up. There were no other active runners when I started running this game so I just went with what I thought made sense. Apologies for any confusion and for not seeing this for a while. I'll keep an eye on this topic. It's really cool to see other people running this game.