Hey all, I am a casual Herc’s Adventure player and have an interesting story to tell and question to ask.

I play a co-op playthrough with my brother every few years or so, and our last one had a very interesting occurrence. We can’t remember the exact chain of events, but somehow we were able to duplicate “Io the cow” thus allowing us to receive 2 Hera keys in Elis. I remember we delivered the first cow in some strange way, and were then able to trigger Hera’s initial dialogue rather than her usual “get outta here” dialogue. Upon returning to Sparta, io the cow was back in her cage ready to be brought to Elis for a second time. Delivery of the second cow yielded another Hera key.

Recently during a new playthrough we have attempted this again, but with no success. Hera simply accepts the first cow regardless of how we deliver, and never gives the initial quest giving dialogue.

There are lots of variables to consider in the order of operations; whether we talked to Hera BEFORE the first trip to Sparta, whether we officially delivered the first cow or simply left it on the ground during the first trip, whether console differences could have caused a “bug” (original instance may have been on ps2 90k w/ FDS active; currently testing on ps1 original)

My question is this: if collecting 2 Hera keys in Elis can be consistent, could it be useful for the speedrun? What are Hera keys useful for, and would a second trip from Sparta to Elis be faster than another method of acquiring one?

Im interested in speedrunning this game, but after having taken a look at the hardware requirements i have a question on what is allowed.

I currently only own a North American SNES and the original GBP. I could run on this hardware and simply convert my times, but i may prefer to play on the more accepted SGB2.

My question is this: if i "mod" my NA SNES to work with the SGB2 by removing the cartridge slot tabs from the console, will my runs be disqualified for use of "modded" hardware?