Post subject: Pokémon Pinball
Spacecow
He/Him
Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 247
Location: New Hampshire
I found this game underneath a big pile of junk recently and started playing it out of boredom. It really makes for a decent, fast-paced pinball game and I think it could make for a very interesting TAS if done properly, like the Arkanoid video. It's been years since I've even come close to doing well at it on my actual GBC, but I know that you can 'advance' through towns by catching pokemon or doing 'map moves.' I remember once I made it rather far down the line and ended up at a bonus game featuring Mewtwo, so that's something to strive for perhaps (since this game doesn't really have an end). Another thing this movie may try to accomplish is to catch Mew. I didn't actually know this was possible but according to DEngel's guide on GameFAQs:
Basically, in order to get Mew one must beat all 3 bonus rounds for the table that he/she is playing. Then they must beat those same 3 once again. Once this is accomplished, you should enter the "catch 'em" mode. With either the slot machine, or the "catch 'em" ramp. Now the pokemon that you are catching might be Mew. (Apparently there is a 1 in 12 chance of Mew being the pokemon that appears.) 150 pokemon are NOT needed in the pokedex to get Mew.
Mew might make a somewhat suitable replacement for the standard final boss... or not, I'm just throwing the idea out there if anyone is interested in doing this.
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
So you would spend all that time getting Mew, and then... you would die off?
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Spacecow
He/Him
Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 247
Location: New Hampshire
Zurreco wrote:
So you would spend all that time getting Mew, and then... you would die off?
I don't know, I was thinking it could just stop the movie input after Mew was caught. Since there's no real end I thought it might just continue on playing, like the Tetris movie.
Joined: 6/14/2004
Posts: 646
Well, you could always go for a max score run. Also, since there are two tables, you'd want to pick the one with the faster to beat special stage areas. I think this would be the blue table with the Meowth and Seel bonuses, because of the multipliers.
I like my "thank you"s in monetary form.
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
If you kill input after you get Mew, the ball would just sit in the launch thing for all eternity. And yes, Blue table has the faster bonus rounds, not to mention that you can manipulate ball launches to hit the Polywag and Diglett on the sides for map changes. With good timing, you can finish the Meowth stage in one good shot, and the Seel stage is a matter of rerecording. On the other hand, you would have to clear all of the Digletts and the Dugtrio for Red table, not to mention the Ghost bonus seems to take forever and a day to get through.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
billybobfred
Other
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 76
Is there a way to trigger a credit roll in this game? Because if there is, you could end it by doing that after catching Mew. But if not, well...
I'm just a spectator. There was a time when I tried to participate, but I'm really lazy, so. she/her/hers
Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 330
Location: B.C Canada
hee hee! I actually "caught" mew the right way on my gameboy once. It was on blue field since it's the easier field. I wonder if I'm the only one who bothered to catch em all in the game without cheating? I've never played it since. I actually really hate that game, but I really wanted to beat it. I never had any intention of catching mew. I just happened to have a really awesome game and got it. As for the run, It'd be cool, but I don't see how it could be done.
Joined: 6/6/2004
Posts: 223
Max score in this game is 9,999,999,999,999, which you won't reach in any reasonable amount of time even with the x10 field multiplier.
Editor, Expert player (2327)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3927
Location: Germany
So I'm not very interested in this game and didn't read messages here, but someone told me: "Can you TAS a Mew CATCH! sequence? Most people think it can't be caught and some think it requires 65,535 hits to make one letter pair. I've seen CA appear a bunch of times, but I've never seen the other letters appear." -- duffrageous Maybe someone knows about this or is willing to check?
Sanqui
Any
Player (26)
Joined: 4/25/2011
Posts: 33
A month ago, nineko posted two videos on Youtube proving that Mew cannot be caught in Pokémon Pinball. This got me curious, so I actually disassembled the hit routine and figured out what's going on. (I also commented this on the second video) At 8:40FB, which is a part of the Pokémon hit routine, you can see a check for Mew in place. Turns out, when you hit Mew, a counter at D5C5 gets incremented. And if that counter overflows? The hit gets regarded! That means that if you manage to hit Mew 256*4 times, you can actually catch it. With regular timing, you'd need to hit Mew over nine times per second. This is clearly impossible to achieve for a human, and probably out of TASing's scope, too. No catching Mew, I'm afraid!
ovo
Skilled player (1736)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
Sanky wrote:
With regular timing, you'd need to hit Mew over nine times per second. This is clearly impossible to achieve for a human, and probably out of TASing's scope, too. No catching Mew, I'm afraid!
Is it possible in a TAS to somehow shake the board to manipulate the ball to keep hitting mew?
Sanqui
Any
Player (26)
Joined: 4/25/2011
Posts: 33
jlun2 wrote:
Sanky wrote:
With regular timing, you'd need to hit Mew over nine times per second. This is clearly impossible to achieve for a human, and probably out of TASing's scope, too. No catching Mew, I'm afraid!
Is it possible in a TAS to somehow shake the board to manipulate the ball to keep hitting mew?
It's possible to keep the ball on top of the Mew, but I think the maximum hits you can achieve with this is one or two per second. However, I'm neither a TASer nor a frequent pinball player, so somebody may prove me wrong.
ovo
Player (16)
Joined: 7/3/2012
Posts: 35
It's curious that around the same time you were disassembling the game, I decided to look up Japanese sources to see if they had worked it out, and I found this page, which seems to have been written about 10 years ago. It also has an extensive address list and other miscellany, like the exact order of the slots. Regarding whether it's possible to hit Mew nine times a second, based on watching the available TASes it should be possible to reach six or more per second, but a lot more investigation would have to be done.
Player (16)
Joined: 7/3/2012
Posts: 35
151 Pokemon by EddieSRL, with tool-assistance. Note the attempted Mew catch at 2:07:52. Based on the score there were 679 Mew hits, of which 28 (?) were after time ran out, so that's about 6 hits per second, as I predicted. Link to video