's Pokémon Sapphire in 1:36:44. It is 12:32 faster than
the published run, due to strategy changes and better precision.
This run is updated from a previous run. To see the changes starting with the last Pokemon of the fourth last battle, start from this savestate:
This run uses VBA rerecording 19.2, with real-time clock and Flash 128K. It has been reported (at least for the published run) to work on the following ROMs:
If you feel like, put it on 200% speed.
- Uses no predefined saves
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Manipulates luck
As far as I know, there are no programming errors apart from direct hardware/memory manipulation.
About the game and the run
Pokémon Sapphire is a turn-based move game where stats (Level, HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Special Attack, Special Defense), types, and type class (physical, special) are important. There are many items, such as TMs and HMs to teach moves, event-specific items, held items that influence battle (e.g. an item that gives you a chance to strike first even if slower), and the bike. Some of these items are necessary to complete the game.
These are the main differences of Sapphire/Ruby compared to Gold/Silver:
- Pokémon now have Pokémon abilities. These abilities vary widely. For example:
- 1.5x boost on Water/Fire/Grass moves when at 1/3 of max HP or lower.
- 1/16 max HP damage on an opponent who hits with a contact move.
- Prevention of stat reduction by opponent.
- Immunity to Ground attacks/paralysis/sleep/confusion/attract/freeze/critical hits.
- Chance for status effect or condition on an opponent who hits with a contact move.
- Lowering of opponent's Attack when user enters battle.
- Constant rain/sun when user enters battle.
- Pokémon have Pokémon natures. A nature either has no effect, or raises one stat by 10% while lowering another by 10%.
- There are now 6 IVs (formerly, DVs), one for each: HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Special Attack, Special Defense. Each IV goes from 0 to 31. The higher, the better.
- You get the running shoes very early, which lets you run as fast as you can bike in earlier games; however, trainers that look around will look in your general direction if you run near them.
- The bike goes twice as fast and has start-up acceleration delay.
- Messages waste about 1.5 seconds, regardless of whether it is a critical hit, missed attack, SE/NVE, status effect/condition, and others, which is much longer than in earlier games. Also, on fast text speed, these messages cannot be advanced by your control, which makes sub-fast text speed essential.
Why is there gender? I don't know, because in this run, gender is pointless. Same for shiny Pokémon. It could be argued that gender is useful in that it allows an opposing Pokémon of the opposite gender to use the useless move Attract, when it would not otherwise.
Also, I heard of something called PokéRUS, which speeds up EV training. For the purposes of this run, I do not consider it to exist.
The differences between Sapphire and Ruby are much greater than those for the first two prototypes of the first two generations of games. In Sapphire, you fight against Team Aqua, and in Ruby, you fight against Team Magma. Team Aqua is distinguished by the Water/Dark Pokémon Carvanha/Sharpedo, while Team Magma uses the Fire/Ground Pokémon Numel/Camerupt. Both have advantages and disadvantages; Carvanha/Sharpedo has low defensive stats compared to Numel/Camerupt, and is not as likely to cause SE/NVE messages, but has no double-weakness to Water (or anything) and has the aforementioned contact-move counter-damage ability, which may cause an extra message that wastes 1.5 seconds.
The other difference is the legendary, the Water Pokémon Kyogre in Sapphire and the Ground Pokémon Groudon in Ruby. Both have the constant weather-effect abilities listed above. Kyogre is more useful as it learns the Waterfall HM and has high Special Attack for its weather effect. Unfortunately for both legendaries, the weather effect causes extra messages.
Pokémon Emerald, on the other hand, is a mixture of Sapphire and Ruby in that you get to fight both Team Magma and Team Aqua in the same game. Also, double battles are often forced in this game, usually if you get two trainers to gang up on you. Why can't you pair up with someone? Well, you can in that game, but only on one occasion. The final champion in Emerald is a former gym leader in Ruby/Sapphire. Finally, you can get the legendary Rayquaza, but it requires a diversion from the normal route that takes time.
Luck manipulation is a huge factor in this game. It affects damage variation, critical hits, first-turn attack, hit accuracy if not 100%, the Magnitude attack, opponents' attacks (to some degree), opposing trainers' Pokémon order (to some degree), out-of-battle encounters, random trainers' looking direction, random walking people's movement, wild Pokémon's IVs, catching wild Pokémon, and others. Some opposing strategies can be luck-manipulated but opponents will play weaknesses when they can. In an opponent's Pokémon order, the first Pokémon is always fixed.
I use mid text speed. This allows control on text speed, making luck-manipulation easier. Text can always be scrolled the fastest by autofiring A and L (if L=A) in alternation.
See
Pokémon Tricks for more information.
Pokémon caught and used
Mudkip/Marshtomp/Swampert is used in almost all of this run. Mudkip is Water-typed but its evolutions are Water/Ground. Water/Ground is not weak to anything but Grass, to which it is double-weak. Because of this, Grass Pokémon are often sent out second as a priority (the first is fixed). Since Mudkip and evolutions are better used as a physical attacker, I choose the Naughty nature (+Attack, -SpDef) and its IVs happen to be very good as well.
Mudkip has the Torrent ability, which allows a 1.5x boost for Water moves if its HP is at 1/3 or lower. Quick Claw is the item that gives a slower Pokémon a chance to attack first. It is the most valuable item in this run for good reason, and it comes very early. Mudkip is also the HM Strength user.
Zigzagoon is the HM Rock Smash slave. It also has the Pickup ability, which can "pick up a random item after a battle". Ultra Ball is obtained for Kyogre. How to use Pickup ability: Zigzagoon has a chance of magically gaining a held item if it does not already hold an item. This happens automatically.
Wingull is the HM Fly slave, which transports the player between towns already visited.
Castform is given after rescuing the Weather Institute. It serves only as a Solrock/Lunatone punching bag.
Kyogre is the legendary of this game, and the HM Waterfall user. I give it the Quiet nature (+SpAtk, -Speed) and its SpAtk IV must be very good, since its SpAtk is 168. Kyogre has the Drizzle ability, which causes it to rain. That's an automatic 1.5x boost on Water moves. Kyogre dominates almost everything in the game, but it needs Thunder to fight other Water types well. The rain effect also costs time on every turn.
Moves used in battle
A quick review of move and damage mechanics:
Each Pokémon can only possess 4 moves. New moves must replace old ones.
Each move has a limited number of PP. If PP runs out, it can't be used until PP is restored. Each use of a move costs 1 PP. Rollout is slightly different (see below).
An attack has damage variation ranging from 217/255 times max damage to max damage (in other words, R/255 times max damage, where R is a random number between 217 and 255). Since the game uses integer division, max damage occurs rarely (only if R is 255). Any move that is the same type as a Pokémon's type gets a 1.5x bonus.
Some held items give moves of a type a 1.1x bonus (I decided it's not worth it).
Type matchups:
super effective = 2x damage
not very effective = 0.5x damage
can't hit = 0 damage
If defending Pokémon has two types, match up each one separately and multiply together. Critical hit is slightly less than 2x (it's not a multiplier) if stats are not modified. If stats are modified, the modifications are ignored if it does better damage! So if an opposing Pokémon drops attacker's Attack and/or raises its own Defense, and nothing else, it will be ignored in a critical hit.
Physical-typed moves use Attack/Defense stats. Special-typed moves use SpAtk/SpDef stats.
Physical types: Normal, Fighting, Flying, Poison, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, Steel Special types: Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Psychic, Ice, Dragon, Dark.
Type Chart:
http://www.serebii.net/games/type.shtml
Damage formula: { [ ( 0.4 * L + 2 ) * A * P / ( 50 * D ) ] + 2 } * X
where L is Level, A is Attack/SpAtk, P is attack power, D is Defense/SpDef, and X is a combination of all relevant multipliers. In a critical hit, L is doubled. All division and fractional multiplication operate on integers (hence, truncation). The multipliers in X operate one-by-one on the number inside the brackets, not themselves first.
Note that ignored modifications are important because Mightyena's ability lowers Attack of the Pokémon I use in battle.
Here is a review of the moves used:
Tackle is Mudkip's first move. 35 power, Normal type.
Water Gun is Mudkip's second move, learned at L10. 40 power, Water type. Essential for the first gym.
Rock Tomb is Mudkip's third move, learned by TM. 50 power, Rock type, lowers opponent's Speed. It is useful as a physical move, since it is normal effective against Grovyle (unlike Water Gun and Mud Shot) and is not a contact move, so it can be used for Carvanha. Unfortunately, it has a side-effect that is detrimental to this run.
Mud Shot is Mudkip's (-> Marshtomp's) fourth move, learned by evolution at L16. 60 power, Ground type, lowers opponents' Speed. Like Rock Tomb, but even better because of Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB), since Marshtomp is Ground type.
Strength is Marshtomp's fifth move, learned by HM. 80 power, Normal type. Similar to Mud Shot, but is a contact move and has no side-effect.
Facade is Marshtomp's sixth move, learned by TM. 70 power, Normal type, power doubles with status effect. With the paralyze effect, Marshtomp can OHKO a lot of opponents with this, and the paralyze effect is not detrimental here, unlike poison and burn.
Surf is Marshtomp's seventh move, learned by HM. 95 power, Water type. It is the special-typed attack that goes well with Facade.
Dive is Marshtomp's eighth move, learned by HM. 80 power, Water type. I only use it once for very little damage because otherwise I can't get a OHKO with Facade.
Hydro Pump is one of Kyogre's first moves. 120 power, Water type. Only 5 PP though.
Ice Beam is also one of Kyogre's first moves. 95 power, Ice type. Useful for dragons.
Waterfall is Kyogre's third move, learned by HM. 80 power, Water type. Support for the above two attacks.
There are other moves but I don't use them. Actually, I did select Castform and Wingull moves in battle but they never used them and I don't care what they are.
Items used
- Potion is used twice, once before Brawly and once before Flannery, both times to survive a hit.
- Super Potion is used three times, all before or during the battle with Norman, to survive hits from Slaking.
- X Special is used to power up Marshtomp's Special Attack enough to take down Norman's Pokémon.
- Escape Rope is used to exit caves quickly.
- Quick Claw is given to Mudkip, to give it a chance to attack first even when slower (possibly from being paralyzed). Also, Grass moves destroy Marshtomp/Swampert, so in some cases it must attack first.
- Bike makes the player go twice as fast outside, but has a start-up acceleration delay. The select button can be set to ride the bike.
- Ether is used to restore some Mud Shot PP.
- Max Ether is used to restore Facade PP.
Overworld strategy
- I avoid trainers if at all possible, except for a trainer near the beginning that I use to level up for Mudkip's Water Gun, which is essential for the first gym.
- The ! pops up over a trainer's head if I walk in front, so I go off my path for up to two steps to engage a trainer from the side or from behind if possible (and only if I can't avoid the trainer). With the bike, the maximum number of steps off the path increases to four.
- It is faster to go forward after entering a new area rather than turning.
- Some trainers look around randomly; these ones can be luck-manipulated. Some trainers rotate clockwise steadily. Occasionally, I have to stop briefly until they look away just before I cross in front of them. Note that this only applies to biking or walking. Running nearby a trainer will cause the trainer to look in the general direction of where my character is. Before I get the bike, I cannot run by such trainers. Instead, I run nearby to get them to look away from where I want to go, then walk by them.
- Because of the bike's strange acceleration/deceleration system, the best way to manipulate when riding the bike is to wait before going forward with the bike, or else bike over two extra tiles. Also, it is faster to run on 4 steps or less, but bike on more than 4 steps.