No problem whatsoever. :)

It's up to ALAKTORN to decide now, but I'd be glad to volunteer for moderation, once my run gets validated, of course.

Ah, Ronin mode ! x) I went for it only once, to get the Steam achievement. Sounds fun, I might give it a try someday. I'll be making a pause for the moment, though, waiting for somebody to beat me, and hopefully for the community to grow larger ! I posted in the game's forum on Steam, encouraging people to try the speedrun, we'll see if more people are interested eventually. ^^

Edit : And yeah, I made a username change request. Mentioning in case anyone would be confused about that.

Hello. Can you please change my name to Groove_Wizard ? I'm about to make my first submission, and I feel like it's time to go for a more appropriate nickname.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks a lot for the info. I'll probably submit a time soon, since I now have a 23:13 PB with 22 seconds lost in RNG and terrible mashing only. I'll have a close look to time lost in displaying achievements when I do, to be able to tell you if I beat you or not.

Phew ! I just scored a 23:27, with a death in it that cost me 24 seconds, and so without using the controller exploit (which meant a 5-cycle tanuki and a damn slow 5-cycle Yurei). Now the tryhard can begin !

Not playing external music feels obvious to me, but are there any precautions I should take for my submissions to be considered as valid ? Like increasing the mic volume so you can clearly hear me mash or anything ?

Yeah, sorry, I edited the 10k thing.

Thanks again for suggesting OBS Studio. I was having trouble with FFsplit, so I tried it out, and it's working just fine !

" If my time is ever beaten I might come back, I don’t know." I'll be working on beating your time then ! I was able to record a 25:02 this evening, and I'll probably start submitting times once I stop listening to music while playing. I'll probably change for a more appropriate nickname too. x) Wish me luck !

Yeah, after further training, I noticed I was wrong about minion spawns. I actually forgot to edit my post about that (I use post editing too much anyway !).

Thanks for pointing the rock thing out, I was just assuming about that, since I never played the basic version. So you simply got good RNG there ?

I can't answer your question about the deflected shurikens. I recall you being already dubious about that on another thread, regarding a very fast dragon kill. I just don't mash fast enough for the moment, and haven't taken time to test this out for the moment. I will, if you wish me to. It's only a matter of a minute anyway.

Edit : Actually, I thought about something that might make IL runs more interesting. Every time you hit a multiple of 1k points, your health bar refills, which doesn't happen in Challenges mode, since you start off with 0 points. Maybe there's something to explore there.

By the way, thanks for still being active on the forum after 2 years ! Are you still running the game sometimes ?

I just noticed other small differences in level 14, between the two versions. There are enemy cycles in the basic version that are slightly early, and others that are slightly late, compared to the DX version. In the DX version, you can't skip the first harquebus guy by jumping over him, you have to kill him because he starts firing late compared to what I've seen in your run. The first Kunoichi (which has a Hayate swap-color sprite in the basic version) in the last screen before the boss spawns earlier in the DX version too.

Once again though, those are really minor details. Please don't think I'm being picky to invalidate your run or something. Just pointing out the differences I've been able to spot so far, out of mere curiosity.

I've been testing out FFsplit for video recording, and it's really easy to use ! I struggled a little in the beginning, but I'm quite satisfied with it. Already working on individual level awesome strats. ^^

Just watched your run. Very impressive ! :o And I felt so sorry for you at 12:38.

I noticed a few minor differences between the two versions. In the section where there are blocks falling from the ceiling in level 6, it felt like your blocks were always the same distance from one another, while in DX, they are RNG-related (it's either this distance, or a larger distance, kind of hard to predict in time). I guess this makes the DX version easier, but more frustrating when it comes to speedrunning, cause of aggressive strats often leading to death.

I also noticed the circular saws on the ground (first screen of level 10) don't have the exact same cycle on both versions. I just practiced that part for a good 20 minutes, and I can at best get hit by the first one, to skip the second correctly, while making the exact same moves, you were able to jump past the first one with still a little room for error. Really small detail though. PMniac was quite slow on that part, maybe because he lost too much time getting past the very first monkey.

Besides that, the DX version features achievements that display after each level and make you lose a bit of time. You always get the "Speed runner" one, and sometimes the "Perfect" one for beating a stage without getting hit, which you can't skip. I didn't check precisely how much time you lose because of that in a whole run, but I'm pretty sure it's about 10 to 15 seconds.

Finally, it seems to me that the minions in Monban fights spawn a lot faster than in the DX version !

Anyway, the biggest difference between the two versions (speedrun-wise) is clearly the achievement thing, and I agree that your record features even better execution than the WR on DX, and is the one to watch for runners of either version. ^^

Thanks for the advice by the way, i'll check on OBS Studio !

To answer your question, you do have the possibility of picking a specific stage in the DX version. :)

I've been practicing again for the past few days, and I actually stumbled upon interesting things. There's a pixel-perfect jump at the very beginning of level 3, that is not used in PMniac's WR, and that can earn you approximately half a second. And there actually is a ridiculously hard fast strat towards the end of level 6, that consists of taking advantage of invulnerability frames in the second room where blocks fall from the ceiling, to walk on the deadly spikes and avoid killing or going through the annoying hat-guy.

Still not sure that would be enough to legitimate having another category, involving concrete leaderboards and competition. However, it would be interesting to compile all of the fastest strats and record optimal individual level times once, for people who'd want to give the speedrun a try ! Like, just for the record, because no WR is absolutely perfect, and PMniac probably knew of a few things that he didn't pull off in his record and are thus not seeable in it. I'm not sure there's room for that on Speedrun.com, but creating a Youtube vid and referring it in submissions would be a great idea imo.

Edit : Or we could write a guide, and post the link in it. I'm not familiar at all with video recording, but if eventually I manage to do a better time, I might work on that.

Hi there !

To be honest, I don't think so. To my knowledge, there aren't any fast strats that are so risky you wouldn't use them in a complete run (except the fact that sometimes you get ejected faster and over a bigger distance after getting hit, which I guess is a pixel or frame-perfect damage boost). I might be wrong though, as my PB is just a weak 23m25s IGT, and I've still never watched a complete run.

If there were, that would be a good reason to have individual levels or multi-segmented runs, because you'd see different things in there. At least I think that's what having several categories mostly is for.

Plus the levels in this game are very short, and unless you make a really big mistake, or suffer from boss RNG, the gap between one's successive tries on a given level is generally very tight. I don't think individual level times would be spectacular or fast enough to justify having a specific category. Or at least having people specifically interested in it, rather than complete runs.

I'm not an expert though. Those are just my two cents on the subject. One of the runners will probably be able to answer that more accurately.

Edit : Actually, I seem to remember you can actually gain a tiny bit of time by dodging between the projectiles fired by some of the Tengus in levels 7 and 8, instead of simply jumping over them.

Re-edit : I finally watched PMniac's record, and he does that tengu thing on level 8. Sorry about being so approximative in the first place.