My only experience is with the Spectrum version and iirc the game automatically ends if you beat level 20 - i.e. there is an ending.

Regardless, I'm deliberately not setting any win conditions for individual games here - if nobody's ran the game by the time I get round to it then I'll do a deep dive on what the rules should be when setting up that page.

Also sorry for the late reply - SRC decided not to notify me.

It definitely should - I've added it to the list.

You don't need to worry about anything like that, a rejected run isn't an accusation of cheating of any kind, it's just "this doesn't meet the verification standards".

I've taken a second look at the video and it's fine, I think YouTube was just glitching out (possibly still processing?) so I've approved it. Sorry for rejecting it the first time - it looked as though it was a bad video but it wasn't.

I've also added "Remove All Objects" as a category (you'll have to resubmit your run to that too). Note that you didn't need to submit your previous run as a leaderboard submission, you could just post it here (or even just upload it as I subscribed to your YouTube), I'd just like to know that people are attempting it before adding it as a category because it's a long and difficult task.

It looks to be a valid Remove All Objects run too, I didn't see anything missed.

(1) doesn't ensure you use every useful object at all. Even in my All Eggs route I'm not using the mushroom trowel, the garlic, the hard hat, or the magnet; and the amulet skip can also be done in All Eggs which skips a bunch more items.

"Remove All Objects" works as it includes: a. collecting all eggs in order to remove them b. using items like the bird seed to remove birds etc. c. using every item in at least some capacity to remove them (for things like the bird seed this will require either leaving it in the path of the last bird or dropping it on the skeleton)

The only potential ambiguity is whether the bridge or the plank that breaks count as objects... but given you need to get rid of both in order to remove other objects it doesn't matter either way.

I'm definitely against "100%" as a name, as the game doesn't have any counters to tell you your progression. The closest thing is the score and if we use that then we circle back to the issue of either "why doesn't visiting rooms count as progression when the game gives you points for it?" or "how is this different from a score attack run?"

"Remove All Objects" seems to be the best option to me as it fully and unambiguously describes the rules in those three words with minimum need for arbitrary distinctions.

Destroy/Remove All Objects works as a category, much simpler and less arbitrary definition. If you upload a run I'll add a category for it.

Requesting a new category is done just as you've done here - making a forum post about it. You can always join the Specrunning Discord at http://discord.gg/daHENpd to discuss things further as well.

As far as a 100% category, the issue I have with it is that it's quite arbitrary and leads to lots of ifs and buts. For example, does dropping an item on the skeleton under the bridge count as an item use? The game seems to think it does. If yes, should it be required to do that for the magnet, helmet, insecticide, garlic, bird seed, and amulet?

What about visiting rooms? Should they be included in 100%? (I'm mainly thinking about the room underneath the magnet, which never needs to be visited, but there are also out-of-bounds rooms which may or may not count.)

And when all of these are done, how does this differ from a score attack run? We keep high score leaderboards separately as SRC doesn't support them.

Hi sorok,

As far as I know the birds are entirely RNG, they don't seem to respond at all to player movement.

If you ask on the Speedtrum Specrunning Discord (discord.gg/daHENpd) there are a few people who know the series inside and out and you might be able to get a better answer there.

Well, at least now we know what it takes to actually get staff to respond to something.

So we're keeping the blatant privacy violations, then?

The "games followed" section feels incredibly stalkerish. What purpose does showing how many times I've viewed a certain game page serve? Scrap it or add an option to make it private.

Hi there,

Would it be possible to have the ZX Spectrum Next added as a platform? (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum_Next for details)

It has additional capabilities to the standard ZX Spectrum, but also timing differences when running backwards compatible games that mean it's not reasonable to treat it as identical for speedrunning purposes.

Thanks in advance.

Well, it's better than a "100%" run at least...

The intervening days can't simply be passed by failing the stealth section over and over - skipping too many days will result in missing tapes, and you'll have to wait for them to cycle round again (which is an extra 15 minutes if you realise before you exit the stealth section, or about 7 hours if you don't). Once you complete the stealth section you can't use it to skip days anymore.

Cassettes change in the shops every Saturday. Normally you wouldn't be able to access the first set of cassettes in the harbour, and would have to wait until January for it to cycle around again; but glitches let us speed that up a bit.

So we'll start by listing what's available and when:

Dec 03-05: Dobuita - Go Go, Flower Girl, Antiquity Tree, Linda Harbour - Hip de Hop, Like a Feeling, NaNa, Spider

Dec 06-12: Dobuita - Feel Tired Song, Hip de Hop, Like a Feeling, Heart Beats Harbour - Liquor, Destiny, Boz Nov, Strong

Dec 13-19: Dobuita - Dandy Old Man, Liquor, Destiny, Boz Nov Harbour - Flower Girl, Antiquity Tree, Be-Witch, Harbor Beats

Dec 20-26: Dobuita - Be-Witch, MJQ, Harbor Bar, NaNa Harbour - Feel Tired Song, Dandy Old Man, Harbor Bar, Glyfada

Dec 27-Jan 2: Dobuita - Spider, Glyfada, YADA, Yokosuka Blues Harbour - Go Go, Linda, YADA, Yokosuka Blues

To win in raffle: M.S. Shower Hang On Space Harrier Final Take Off

Found in Ryo's room: Shenmue Shenhua

The best way to show the problem with this run is to present what I believe to be the most optimal route:

Dec 3: Do any% speedrun route up to the harbour, do everything with Warehouse No. 8. Go to Harbor Lounge, buy Hip de Hop, Like a Feeling, NaNa, Spider. Try to enter Old Warehouse District, and then go back and trigger the sidequest with Hisaka; go to the back of Warehouse No. 17 and fail the QTE, skipping the rest of the day. (Total time so far: ~20 minutes. Money remaining: ~8780)

Dec 4: Go to Tomato Mart, buy Go Go, Flower Girl, Antiquity Tree, Linda. Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~50 minutes. Money remaining: ~5200)

Dec 5: Collect Shenmue and Shenhua from Ryo's room, the key from Iwao's room, and the flashlight from the cupboard; put the sword in the wall. Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~1:20. Money remaining: ~2820)

Dec 6: Go to Tomato Mart, buy Feel Tired Song, Heart Beats. Go to Harbor Lounge, buy Liquor, Destiny, Boz Nov, Strong. Bus spam until money nearly runs out (make sure you still have more than 320 yen left at Dobuita), repeatedly run home and then fast travel to Dobuita until 6:30pm. Sneak into Old Warehouse District. Fail until Dec 18, meet Master Chen. (Total time so far: ~2:10. Money remaining: ~2400)

Dec 19: Talk to Ine, talk to Fuku. Go to Tomato Mart, buy Dandy Old Man. Go to Bunkado Antiques, come home (fight Gui Zhang), talk to Ine. Go to the basement, get the Phoenix Mirror. Go to Harbor Lounge, buy Be-Witch, Harbor Beats. Go to Master Chen (phone on whichever side of the bus is better for time, I'd need to play through to find out which). (Total time so far: ~2:30. Money remaining: ~1680)

Dec 20: Talk to Fuku, go to Global Travel Agency, get flier, talk to Fuku, talk to Wang, go to Asia Travel Company. Go to Tomato Mart, buy MJQ, Harbor Bar. Use stair clip to get out of bounds and go to Harbor Lounge, buy Glyfada. Bus spam until 6:30pm, go to Asia Travel Company, go to sleep. (Total time so far: ~3:10. Money remaining: ~7720)

Dec 21: Go back inside and pick up your allowance, stair clip into Game YOU early, lose to Chai. (Total time so far: ~3:20. Money remaining: ~8220)

Dec 22: Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~3:50. Money remaining: ~5840)

Dec 23: Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~4:20. Money remaining: ~3460)

Dec 24: Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~4:50. Money remaining: ~1080)

Dec 25: Bus spam until money runs out at about 2pm, repeatedly run home and then fast travel to Dobuita until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~5:30. Money remaining: ~300)

Dec 26: Do one bus loop, repeatedly run home and then fast travel to Dobuita until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~6:20. Money remaining: ~480)

Dec 27: Go to Tomato Mart, buy YADA, Yokosuka Blues. Estimated run length: ~6:30

Note that this assumes you have the most amazing luck and manage to win all four of the raffle-only cassettes from the draws you get from buying other cassettes. In reality, with a ~1/32 chance of winning a cassette you can only expect to get one, in which case you'd have to spend one of the other days (Dec 24th would be best if you believe the "lucky days" are real - yet to confirm this myself though) buying chocolates at a total expected cost of ~12000 yen to get the remaining cassettes... which means you can't waste money on bus spam, instead having to take the slower option.

The end result is a run that is longer than any%, in which the vast majority of the run is spent running backwards and forwards.

I mean, you're free to run it if you want...

It's not written in the rules, but I agree - generally speaking on any game or run that uses a save file, that save file has to be able to be obtained legitimately (even if it wasn't actually done so). If you were to legitimately complete the game to get a NG+ file, you'd already have earned some Achievements (as some are unavoidable); as a result, it's impossible to do an All Achievements run after earning a legitimate NG+ save file, so All Achievements should be NG-only.

I'll add it to the rules.

Some more somewhat major changes since my last post:

I added a "Patch" variable - this is because the Re-release is still receiving patches; these patches can enable or prevent some glitches, and more notably enable or prevent some cutscenes from being skipped. Having subcategories for every patched version of the game would be ludicrous, not to mention pointless, so we're still keeping all Re-release runs in the same subcategory (as the versions have no significant effect on the run).

We now have a Bad Ending category for Shenmue I, and an All Achievements category for both games. Since the All Achievements category is valid only for the Re-release, I've also gone ahead and made the subcategories specific to each individual run category.

I removed Duck% - nobody knows what it is, and it's been replaced with a more clearly defined and less arbitrary Duck Racing.

At some point we'll work on load times and how to deal with them - this is still something being debated with no concrete solution. (Also when I add a time without loads column speedrun.com assumes all the runs belong in that column and I have to change them all manually...)

Some more somewhat major changes since my last post:

I added a "Patch" variable - this is because the Re-release is still receiving patches; these patches can enable or prevent some glitches, and more notably enable or prevent some cutscenes from being skipped. Having subcategories for every patched version of the game would be ludicrous, not to mention pointless, so we're still keeping all Re-release runs in the same subcategory (as the versions have no significant effect on the run).

We now have a Bad Ending category for Shenmue I, and an All Achievements category for both games. Since the All Achievements category is valid only for the Re-release, I've also gone ahead and made the subcategories specific to each individual run category.

At some point we'll work on load times and how to deal with them - this is still something being debated with no concrete solution. (Also when I add a time without loads column speedrun.com assumes all the runs belong in that column and I have to change them all manually...)

When should timing end? Is it on putting the Phoenix Mirror in the pedestal as normal, or is it on the Achievement/Trophy actually appearing?

For the PS4 version, is it required to also wait for the Platinum trophy to appear?

For now, I'll assume we're waiting until the final Achievement/Trophy (not counting Platinum) appears before ending the timer.

A separate leaderboard as in a separate game page? That's almost definitely not going to happen.

It's already a separate leaderboard otherwise.

From what I've seen of the load remover (at least in Odyssic's Shenmue II runs) it misses a lot of the actual loading and catches only a small amount of it. Unless there's something else I don't know about.

As I mentioned before, the PC and modern console versions are otherwise exactly the same run - it doesn't make sense to have two separate leaderboards that differ just by timing method.

Not only that, but should an effective console load remover come about, the previously split categories would then have to be recombined - which then leaves the question of why bother splitting them in the first place?

What would make more sense to me (while still keeping your general idea) would be to keep the leaderboards on an RTA basis, add an optional LRT column that PC runs can use (and compare, using the filter option if necessary); once we have a console load remover, make LRT mandatory and use ranking based on LRT.

The problem with using a load time remover on PC (note that we don't yet even have a consistent load time remover) and not on consoles is that it means we have to split up PC and console versions; we're already splitting up the categories enough already, and that's because these different versions of the game require different routes.

To get the fastest time on the PC version of the game, you take exactly the same route as you would in the Xbox One version of the game, and exactly the same route as you would in the PS4 version of the game. It makes no sense to divide them from a speedrun perspective.