Challenge Pokemon Speedrun / Tool-Assisted Speedrun Discussion Thread

[Tobes]

First off, let's get this out of the way immediately: Do not discuss the ROMs themselves. This thread is solely for discussion about TASes, the methods used, the game's RNG, route-planning, etc., etc.

A tool-assisted speedrun is a playthrough of a game that aims to beat it as perfectly as possible. They are separate from speed-runs in that speed-runs are attempted in real-time, without any external aid. TAses are not meant to showcase skill (though it does require its own unique form of skill), but are instead meant to show a game beaten as completely as possible.

http://tasvideos.org/1840M.html
This TAS is of Pokemon Blue. There's a catch though: All Pokemon are captured. This TAS displays quite a few glitches (notably Trainer-Fly, aka The Mew Glitch, and Missingno.). The TAS displays an excellent level of RNG abuse and route-planning.

http://tasvideos.org/1828M.html
This one is of Pokemon Ruby, completed as quickly as possible. And boy, will some of the RNG abuse here will make your head spin. The game is solo'ed with a Swellow. Even Steven is beaten with it. The RNG abuse in this run is absolutely absurd.

So, feel free to discuss TAS's and regular speed runs, and share the ones you find entertaining or exceptionally well-made. And please don't turn this into a debate about the lack of merit of TASes or anything like that, I really don't want to see it.

 

[Unbreakable]

Soloing Steven with a Swellow. Absolutely mind-boggling. (Screencap is of his skarmory biting the dust...I can only imagine RNG abuse was to get something like HP Fire.)

I've taken a whack at speed-running a couple of times. First time, I had no clue what I was doing and actually did the trick house for the extra levels. Still cleared Emerald in a little under 15 hours. Then I wised up, planned a route to some extent, picked the girl and beat Ruby in 8:32:18.

But I knew I could do better. I knew there was room to improve on running Hoenn (I recommend picking the guy because "Brendan" is a lot longer than "May"), so despite having six silver symbols on the emerald and a personal best 33 win streak on the tower (ONE AWAY FROM ANABEL), I restarted recently and managed a 7:22:38 clear. Overleveling Swampert throughout the game and going out of my way to snag the Return TM for coverage was what enabled me to make the final push past Wallace, though I have to say that Wattson and Norman were gigantic pains in the ass due to being underleveled (though the tate&liza fight went a lot smoother than I expected due to Surf's mechanics in gen 3 having it not hit the user's partner). I also had to take pains to avoid battling aroma ladies. :/

And yes, all of this was on my GBA SP with no externals.

 

[thelaytonmobile]

Pokemon Diamond TAS with tweaking and Kaphotics' Pokemon White TAS with battle RNG manipulation.

Also don't forget the ones on Tasvideos that glitch the game to death and beat it in a minute or so.

 

[Skyshayde]

I wanted to do one, could never figure out. I suck at rng'ing

 

[Tobes]

Soloing Steven with a Swellow. Absolutely mind-boggling. (Screencap is of his skarmory biting the dust...I can only imagine RNG abuse was to get something like HP Fire.)

Swellow did not use Hidden Power. It killed Skarmory with physical moves. Definitely worth watching, especially considering some of the more ridiculous RNG schenanigans (such as maniuplating a 1/1000 King's Rock Pickup from Zigzagoon).

Pokemon Diamond TAS with tweaking and Kaphotics' Pokemon White TAS with battle RNG manipulation.

Also don't forget the ones on Tasvideos that glitch the game to death and beat it in a minute or so.

I quite enjoyed the manipulation of Piplup's Torrent in the Diamond TAS. Things like that are what make watching them worthwile for me.

 

[Layell]

I have always been a fan of speedruns, I have yet to see that many tool assisted ones, and the few speedruns I have seen are interesting but not exactly practical for beating the game as fast as you can (all that luck even without tool assists)

For anyone with five minutes here is an epic speedrun of Pokemon Green

I have also been interested in maybe running Colosseum or XD, has anyone seen any runs of those two games, of all the pokemon games those two are probably the least up to luck and could be very interesting with the 2on2 aspect of the game.

 

[Nix_Hex]

I've never done a TAS but from my understanding, they're not supposed to beat the games quickly in real time. The recording features on most emulators don't show where the player repeatedly goes back to the last save state, it just continues where it left off so the end result is a perfect run.

 

[Tobes]

That, pretty much. TASes are not meant to be practical. They're meant to show the game pushed to its absolute limits, for the sake of entertainment. The runs are done in pieces, especially when there are difficult-to-manipulate portions.

Really it comes down to:
TAS: "Perfect", but not "Real
and
Speedrun: "Real", but not "Perfect"

Each has their merits and their own drawbacks. I personally enjoy TASes more because I enjoy the tricks that people pull with them that normally can't be performed (see: 0% Metroid Fusion Speedrun, which has a margin of error of roughly 7 frames at one crucial juncture that has prevented anyone from ever pulling off the run in real-time), but Speedruns undoubtedly require more "true" skill. It's sort of a comparison between apples and oranges.

 

[Unbreakable]

Lmao, "takes damage to save time." IMO, that's only applicable to games that have Mercy Invincibility (normally these fall under platformers). Also, haha, that luck manip to make the ralts go down. XD

Tobes, just watched the whole run. Holy shit, getting quick claw to fire that consistently. I know swellow is fast, but he sure as hell ain't THAT fast.

 

[Kaphotics]

Been awhile since I did anything semi-serious TAS related for B/W; since I only beat the main storyline in my run I still could beat the improved E4.. why not?

I've figured out a little bit more of the move-choosing logic the game uses and its strategy. It always prefers to Fake Out if it has it, then hit you with the highest damage move (usually STAB).
Only when you are low does it try to "finish you off", and the move choice is pretty random. Just one battle took a lot of planning!

gonna keep going at this over the next week; recorded the one battle I've done (probably the most crucial)

[youtube]axyw2fFcuvE[/youtube]

battle RNG so stronk

 

[Glen]

that ruby tas was really entertaining, it's just perfect how guts/facade/paralysis/quick claw work together

 

[bearsfan092]

Kaph, that drapion ending is amazing.

 

[Death Phenomeno]

For anyone with five minutes here is an epic speedrun of Pokemon Green

From the very same site: Pokémon Yellow in 0:00

 

[Kaphotics]

just finished planning and a dry-semiTAS of the elite four for when I do record it, and I beat the E4 for a second time I'll have no mistakes. gonna be so much hax considering I'm down 10 levels on them! no class tomorrow so that's when I should upload the remaining part

was fun doing it

final team when entered in Hall of Fame

got 3:34 as the total to HoF time on this dry run, with TAS it'll probably be around 3:32

edit: I let the game idle a lot so the final time ended up being 3:19:53 when I did it with precision

 

[Kaphotics]

Improved on the segment and finished my TAS so that it would also have a Hall of Fame cleared time. This video goes with the rest of my White TAS, as part 2 -- it only contains the Elite Four clear portion while part 1 contains the main storyline clear (in 181:56)

[youtube]VYuin_q-C4Q[/youtube]

total time:
199 minutes, 53 seconds ;)

notes

The E4 is the hardest AI you will face. If they can't KO you, they will either try to do the most damage or try to status you if they don't have a good attacking pool. By taking damage to trigger the AI into thinking it can finish you off (it chooses any move that can do so) the outcome can be manipulated by them missing their killing blows! For priority users (mach & bullet punch), HP had to be high enough such that the priority move would not KO, but another move could.

When the game saves it is taken a little bit after the HoF entry, so I found the appropriate memory positions to help deduce what time I was entered in the machine at (I assumed it was when my trainer sprite appeared. It could be the moment the overworld faded out; I just didn't know when to say "ok i'm in").

 

[noobcubed]

This one will blow your mind: a real-time speedrun of Pokemon Gold in one hour and twenty-two minutes. (He's playing on an emulator but in real time so I don't know if this counts as an official world record, however, nothing that he does would be impossible on a Game Boy Colour).

Wersterlobe uses a frame-specific save-and-reset glitch which allows him to do two things: distort the map to massively sequence-break the game, and end all battles immediately after they start (the so-called instant victory glitch). The first fifty minutes or so are normal gameplay, but after that all game logic more-or-less disappears. The colour pallette also becomes hilariously broken, much to wersterlobe's amusement.

For reference, the previous record was 3:24. The tool-assisted record is still a pathetic-looking 2:57. I wouldn't really recommend watching the TAS, it does pretty much the same thing as the Ruby TAS except instead of abusing Swellow / Quick Claw / Guts / Facade it abuses Graveler / Quick Claw / Rollout / Magnitude. The game is much longer and a lack of running shoes and a mach bike really slows down the boring overworld movement. Still, I guess you might get something out of seeing Red soloed with a massively under-levelled Graveler.

However, a TAS with the new route would be AWESOME, and could probably go under one hour. A game as awesome as the gen II Pokemon game deserves an interesting TAS.

 

[noobcubed]

At last the glitched Gold route has been TASed! (And I was right, it was under one hour.)

Also interesting is a Fire Red TAS that regularly manipulates Clefable's Metronome to produce exactly the attack required: