PS1 Speedrun Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force in 14:11 (Hound Dog Easy difficulty).
17Timing starts when I selected my character Hound Dog (first full black frame) to the first frame of STAGE CLEAR at end of round 6.
I was playing various versions of a series that were only released in Japan called Mad Stalker, I got into playing it after watching John Linneman's (dark1x) top 10 games in 2020 from DigitalFoundry. He mentioned a Sega Mega Drive version of Mad Stalker which was a newly released game for the system at the time.
I'm into my retro games/beat em ups and decided to give it a shot.
The music for the Sega Mega Drive release is top notch, and good Mega Drive music usually means it's going to be an amazing game.
Then I looked up on other versions and tried them out on my MisterFPGA including NEC PC Engine CD which has redbook audio and extra playable characters for single player.
Then I saw the Playstation 1 version which is more of a remake than a typical port, yes a remake roughly 3 years after its original release back in the early/mid 1990s.
The performance on real PS1 hardware was choppy when it handles explosions. I decided to check it out through "official" emulated releases like PSP Go/PS Vita and the lag/slowdown reduction is insanely notable, this is beyond the usual N64 games on Wii Virtual Console lag reduction, you were saving minutes in a game that's roughly 18-25 minutes long.
I know there is a saying about playing on authentic hardware but after playing this on PS1 emulation via PSP/PSVita, it's hard to go back.
The run itself is okay, the RNG is more unpredictable and frantic than other beat em ups I've played including Streets of Rage 4 and Young Souls. The enemies can block too and there isn't many options to beat block.
The game has a weird combo scaling mechanic too where the first hit deals big damage, sometimes it's faster to not attack for a couple of seconds to reset the scaling so that the next hit is fresh 100% raw, you'll see this against the generator like machine part-way through stage 6 after the boss rush segment.
It's currently faster than the times on Speedrun dot com but they're using original hardware with has the slowdown issue.
SDA style timing (first control to first frame of STAGE CLEAR text): 14:04