I am happy to report that I am officially a mod for this game now. All pending runs have now been verified. I will do my best to check and verify runs on a weekly basis (2 weeks tops). Thank you to Dragondarch for adding me!

FOLLOW UP: I have reached out to the 3 remaining mods currently listed and followed up once again with SRC staff. Hoping for a resolution soon.

For the record, I did reach out to SRC to request to be a mod, but they said no and that I need to contact current mods of the game, none of which who are currently active or as far as I know submitted runs, besides Dittohunter. That's where we are with it.

I'm sorry for dragging my feet on this. IRL always comes first, but yes this needs to get worked out. Do the others who are listed as mods see these posts? If so, I am able and ready to be added as a mod. If not, I will reach out directly to them, though I can't be sure if they will see it. Are there runs currently waiting to be reviewed?

Hello, so I'm presuming you modded the PS1 Classic Mini, then? I don't see how that would be an issue, it would just be an emulator submission then, right? That's what I would think, but I am also not a mod and don't want to speak for them.

Hi! I had a thought and wanted to see what y'all think: With the recent distinction between JP and US runs on the leaderboard, do you think we should add to the rules that the title screen must be shown before the run begins so that we can verify the version?

I agree. We can revisit that if more runners come along. Thanks for doing this!

There is a great resource from The Cutting Room Floor that talks about all the differences between the different versions, including things that pertain to the run.

Here is a link to the page: https://tcrf.net/Castlevania_Chronicles

While I did discover many of these things on my own, this stuff has been known about for awhile, I believe. It certainly helps me to describe things way better than I was before! Others can still provide even greater insight than what I will attempt to do now. (Watch Strizer86's recently completed TAS of JP Original Mode. It's fantastic!)

EDIT: Link to Strizer86's JP Original TAS:

As you can read from the page, there are many different ways to play this game. The fastest way to play it is on an original Japanese release of the game (i.e. a physical JP copy or an ISO file of a physical JP release, which is what I currently use in my submissions for this game with Bizhawk. I do hope to get a physical JP copy one day!).

THE 2 BIGGEST REASONS WHY ORGINAL JP RELEASE IS FASTEST In Physical and Digital JP (i.e. PSN versions) releases of the game, the hitbox of the cross and dagger are larger than in International releases, which allows you to begin damaging and juggling the Stage 3 boss immediately when it appears. In International versions, however, you have to wait until the Ice Mage does its first attack and teleports, since the subweapons don't reach his first spawn point.

Also, in Stage 4 for Orginal JP releases, Medusa does not have proper I-Frames, which allows you to spam triple crosses and whips for a quick kill. In International releases AS WELL AS, unfortunately, JP Digital releases of the game, Medusa gets I-Frames after 2 hits, so you cannot perform the quick kill on those versions. This makes the optimal approach for stages 3 and 4 to have triple cross for the Ice Mage in Stage 3, and take it into Medusa for Stage 4, IF you are playing the Orginal JP release of the game.

Also, load times are slightly faster on Original JP releases compared to International and JP Digital releases.

It makes sense to split US and JP because we now know that JP is faster. Also, original JP releases, outside of using emulator, are not as accessible as some other versions of the game. However, we may also have to make considerations for the other dynamics at play here. If we did split it up, the categories that I would suggest are as follows:

US / EU Version (Physical/Digital Copies or Emulation) (Reason: Can't do certain strats that you can do in JP) JP Digital (PSN Releases, etc.) (Reason: Bigger subweapon hitboxes used for Stage 3 Boss) JP Physical (Physical Copies/Emulation of Phys. Copies) (Reason: Bigger subweapon Hitboxes & Medusa QK) (I would call it JP Original Release, but wouldn't want to get that confused with Original Mode.)

Does anyone know of any other differences that would make the EU version distinguishable enough for its own category? I'd love to hear from others who run the game too. Maybe I missed something in the page I provided above? Thanks for broaching the subject Lunatix. Although the community for this game is fairly small, I believe the topic is worth discussing.