Submission #7397: DJ Incendration's GB Pocket Monsters: Red Version in 01:06.60

Pocket Monsters: Red version is the Japanese version of Pokémon: Red Version. It has many glitches that the English versions don't have, most of which involve pressing the Select button.

This submission beats ThunderAxe31's submission. I am unsure by how much, since emulation has improved a lot since that point, making it seem slower. This TAS gets a working TID while only losing one frame. to an optimal new game press. This run requires a specific name, which is the same as ThunderAxe31's name (same version of the game).

The game still freezes after the credits, but we've seen things like that here. In my opinion, the game freezing after the ending is somewhat comparable to only being able to select "new game" after the ending, as seen here: https://tasvideos.org/7054S.

Thanks to UnopenedClosure for helping to bot out the TID. Also, thanks to ThunderAxe31 for the previous submission. I am blind, so I had to use his to find the best inputs to get to each name.

Samsara: It's April 10th, I should probably claim this for judging.

Samsara: This one required a bit of work to figure out and is going to need a good explanation, since this decision is going to sound like we're going against previous precedents. The problem here is with the ending of the run, compared to the methodology of how it's attained.

While this isn't directly stated in our rules, we've historically preferred that TASes provide more legitimate or "complete" ending sequences, but take note of the word preferred there. It is not required for the ending to be unscathed, but it is preferred. In practice, what this preference means is that, assuming two runs are executed in otherwise identical ways, we will prefer the one that has the more legitimate ending sequence even if it takes some extra time to do so. As a quick example of this, I'll bring up the recent judgement of Final Fantasy Legend 2. That TAS aimed for a more complete ending than what's normally achieved in that category: RTA runs and previous TASes of that category have ended by simply printing the "THE END" graphic on screen, while the submission decided to play out the ending in full, costing some time. I fully agree with this acceptance. It's not just a stylistic choice, it's also for the benefit of legitimacy, as a complete ending is essentially bulletproof in that regard.

This preference does also apply to runs like [4594] Linux Iconoclasts by Serena in 22:47.36, but sort of in the opposite way. Because that is the first run we've received for that category (pure any%, for those unfamiliar), we have no reason to turn it away for the broken ending. An identically-executed run that sacrifices a small amount of time to fix the ending would likely obsolete that one, though as of the time of this judgement, the only way of fixing the ending in Iconoclasts requires a 5-10 minute detour over to sections that are otherwise skipped. In that regard, we would not obsolete that run with a fixed ending run, as the routes and methodologies are not directly comparable.

So where does that leave this run? It leaves this run in an awkward spot where it essentially has the same methodology as [4329] GB Pokémon: Red Version "save glitch" by MrWint, Alyosha & CasualPokePlayer in 01:15.62, but the ending ends up more broken here. The preference, to us, works both ways: We prefer slightly longer runs that achieve more legitimate endings, but in doing so it means we gravitate away from slightly shorter runs that achieve less legitimate endings, and this is a slightly shorter run that achieves a less legitimate ending. The methodology of this run and the publication are effectively the same, but the published run goes out of its way to jump to the right routine to properly complete the game. I'm told this is also done in [4460] GB Pokémon: Red Version "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" by luckytyphlosion & CasualPokePlayer in 11:18.97, but I don't understand the technical details enough to be able to explain it further than what I've already said.

I'm fine accepting this to Playground, though. It may be slightly less legitimate, but it's not completely illegitimate.