Apasher's tired thoughts on version differences for Zelda 64

As it seems, I tend to be very two-sided about version differences and how leaderboards should handle them. I thought I would write this to potentially clear things up.

First of all, I would like to start off by saying... play on whatever you want. If you're serious enough to get the lowest time possible, then play on the fastest version. If you prefer better gameplay, then play on the version that gives you better control of your character, or what has a more interesting route/tricks. If you're not willing to spend money on another version of a game just to save time or showcase better gameplay, then play on what you have access to. It's that simple.

HOWEVER... I don't agree with the way some communities (particularly the Zelda64 community) handles these version differences. Runs on all versions are shown under one leaderboard by default. I don't like that. I feel like it makes the leaderboards look like a complete mess, but that's just a minor issue. My main problem is since all versions are grouped into one leaderboard, people will compare times on versions that will always be different from each other no matter what the time differences are. Routes change, which leads to having to re-time lag and load times.

By the way, I'm talking about platform differences, not regional differences. The difference between the two is the time difference from regional differences are consistent. You can easily time the difference between a cutscene on english and a cutscene in japanese. You can easily time the difference between an NTSC-U specific route and an NTSC-J specific route. You CANNOT accurately time the difference between N64 lag and VC lag because they are not always consistent. Times on one emulated version of a game will ALWAYS be different from a time on, not only another emulated version of a game, but on original hardware as well, ESPECIALLY for N64 games because the game doesn't behave the same way on them. This is why I've always hated seeing faster load times and less lag as "time savers." N64 emulation, as of now, has not reached to the point where emulation is accurate (and efficient for CPUs), so all N64 emulators are inaccurate. What annoys me is that the Zelda64 community is too blind to recognize this because they can't see past the fact that VC and GCN are official releases when they are also inaccurately emulated versions of the game. While it's a perfectly fine reason against banning it, it's a terrible reason to compare VC/GCN times to each other + N64 when they AREN'T COMPARABLE. There are even glitches that only work on emulated platforms because of inaccuracies, putting N64/iQue into an unfair disadvantage. Because of this, people would feel forced to play on a slower route, or play on a version they aren't used to... just to abuse an emulator inaccuracy to save time.

Before you call me stupid: yes... VC is in fact an emulator, and the GCN version of OoT and MM are also emulated. If they weren't... either the Wii and GameCube would have N64 hardware, or the game itself would have code that GameCube and Wii hardware could read (which it doesn't.) The console EMULATES N64 hardware so the games could run.

I was never an advocate for banning PJ64 1.6/1.7 because it's proven to be slower than VC, and I strongly disagree with banning official releases because it hurts community growth... but at least don't let all platforms be comparable when they aren't. This is why I've wanted the leaderboards to be seperated by platform, and have the region be filterable data. Even though ZSR already has a filter, it doesn't bring enough attention, which is why I advocate for full seperation by platform.