Hi, I'm considering attempting a speedrun of this game in the future! I'm very familiar with it having played through it many times, and with a little practice I might be able to make a time that's at least not completely embarrassing.

I noticed that the rules don't state that the run has to be glitchless, even though it looks like the world record run is. Many years ago, I recall finding an out-of-bounds glitch in Jade Fields--but I haven't played in a long time, and I currently don't have access to my Wii to make attempts to recreate it, so unfortunately I can't provide instructions on how to do it right now.

It got me thinking, though--if a runner were to successfully get out of bounds, would it be possible to get to the loading zone leading to Lonesome Park without needing to be able to push the rock, thus tricking the game into thinking you're on the mission to find Bartholomew near the end of the game? Or would Bartholomew be counted the same as quest-specific items and NPCs and not spawn at all?

I'd test on an emulator with cheats or something, but it looks like nobody's torn the game apart and made any kind of moon jump or something that I would use to make sure I wouldn't be wasting my time trying to glitch my way in legitimately. I assume you guys know more than I do, since I haven't played in years and I haven't done all the math, but I think it might save well over an hour if it does work. Do you think it's worth testing?