FinlandThis is honestly one of the only good ways to speedrun this game. It's actually something I did on All Night when the game was relatively new, didn't highlight the stream though. If this does get added I'd argue that support modifiers, other than the one that only increases money gains, should be banned. Challenge modifiers should be fine.
Other potential category could be all black medals.
As you may know the leaderboard was frozen for quite a while since the existing runs didn't technically fit within the established category. Because of this story mode all chapters has been changed to just story mode where the goal is to reach the credits starting from chapter 0 (so playing through chapters 0-7 entirely). The credits are not included in the timing anymore either.
PSX version not being available officially on said platform is already a problem and in my opinion the English patch shouldn't be allowed either. That being said you should still try running the game with your setup if you're actually interested in running it, don't let a leaderboard entry be the deciding factor.
The issue with just playing the songs back to back is there is absolutely no possibility of any time losses and gains except maybe about a minute's worth of menuing since the actual ranking of the song doesn't matter. Also if your game loads slower than the other runner's (PS4 differences and PS Vita / PS4 obviously) and you'd lose pretty much instantly no matter what. All of the run submissions on the board would just be whatever the songs total to, about 1:40 iirc.
Similar things can be said about the story mode as well.
Add a requirement like King Crazy all of the songs and you'd actually get something which actually requires playing the game decently and would actually lead to some significant variance on the board, at least until the point of King Crazy all of them first try. Would obviously be more interesting on higher difficulties.
There's a link to the SMT/Persona speedrunning Discord in the Megami Tensei series page.
As for the definition would absolutely require full compendium, all requests and completion of the Vision Quest. If there is some equipment that cannot be sold and carries to NG+ would probably require them as well. MC's level and money do carry over but requiring max money would be a weird requirement. I'd also heavily argue that it should done on either normal or maniac so that the fights would require at least some strategy.
Obviously you aren't required to run the game with skill change manipulations. From my understanding you're running any%, so skill changes don't even save as much time as they would in Hard, Golden End. My any% run for example doesn't do any manipulations whatsoever. Belac's run is also manipulation free.
Skills are divided into different ranks and skills can only change to skills within the same rank. Megido is a rank 3 skill so only rank 3 skills can change into it. Early on the most convenient skills that can turn into Megido are Me Patra and Dekaja.
Consistent skill changes do work on both Vita and PC but with PC you might have to look for a setup yourself since load times affect rng. Some other things that advance rng are the falling stars in the title screen, the top right spinning circle in the velvet room, the particles around the social link bonus exp text and whether or not the main character is moving or not (running pauses rng).
Hard to exactly pinpoint where things are going wrong without knowing what you're doing but yes, consistent changes do work.
Since there's another any% run done now I can add it a miscellaneous category once I've eventually gone through the run. I've done a run a couple years back but didn't add the category since no one really cared about it. The timing would end on ng+ save to stay consistent with the other categories. Note that currently the default timing method for PC runs of the game is loadless so as it stands any run done with a load remover would automatically "beat" this run, even if the run was slower in real time compared to yours, unless manually sorted with loads included.
I'd recommend joining the SMT/Persona speedrunning Discord where most of the talk regarding the game takes place, also has much more resources available than this site, such as a WIP load remover. At least I think it's still WIP. Check the Megami Tensei series page for an invite link.
Alright, just wanted to make sure you knew what's going on with the board. If you're interested in running the game and the community in general there's a discord link in the Megami Tensei series page.
Apparently the load remover has some issues so I would definitely advise on waiting. Unless you want to run for the fun of it then go for it. Even without the load remover the run can be submitted but any run with a load remover would automatically beat it.
I'm not sure in what state the load remover is at the moment so just keep that in mind PC runs will likely end up using time without loads as the main timing method, at least I think but I'm not 100% sure what the community has decided on that. So might want to wait until the load remover is ready and available if submitting only one run is your goal here.
It's the same emulator on a different platform so I guess it's allowed. Same rules obviously still apply, so no closing the game during the run, no emulator's reset function, no save states, no speed ups etc.
A friendly reminder you can run the game anyway you want, a leaderboard doesn't have to dictate how you play the game. If emulator is all you got and you're interested in trying the run then go for it. Unless your entire goal is to literally just have an entry on the leaderboard then you should do it on console following the rules.
The game has whopping one run from more than 3 years ago, I think any activity whatsoever for the game would be good. If you're interested in running the game just run it the way you want and the rest can be figured out after that.
Watching runs, experimenting yourself, asking questions. Your questions might get answers faster in Discord if you happen to use it. Invite link https://discord.gg/DJYHxAy
Stuff posted here earlier is an older route, here's the newer stuff (my own notes so they leave out lots of details)
Slime: https://pastebin.com/dazChv1M Pixie: https://pastebin.com/ufCUh2Bm
Recommended way to record the game is a PSTV, hdmi splitter that removes hdcp and a hdmi capture card. Other option is a Vita which has a capture card installed.
