First, some context: I recently became interested in speedrunning R&C after watching a video about its world record history. That was where I found about the PAL PSN version being used with an SSD as the optimal way to play and began figuring out how to get all that set up. I live in the US and tried to take advantage of the PS3 being region-free by setting up a PAL (specifically UK) PSN account and installing an SSD.

I was most of the way there, but then hit a snag; I can't add any funds to the account. The problem is all my payment methods (Paypal, credit/debit card, etc.) are all tied my region and I couldn't get anything to work. I couldn't even get a GBP PSN card code because my Amazon account isn't in the UK. So it's looking doubtful I can get the PAL PSN version.

Okay, with all that said, I go back to the question posed in the title: Would it still be worth it to try to learn the speedrun for R&C, even without the optimal version? WR wouldn't be a thing for me, but I never had any illusions of getting that anyway.