Whew, should've known that that ridiculous time was through the usage of a link cable to trade high level Pokemon over.. now it definitely makes sense. XD
I also spent some more time looking at the 1 hour 59 minute Japanese run, to hope to learn something new and find ways to improve my current run. And, sure enough, he's done some.. interesting tactical changes, some I like (and are kicking myself in the foot for not realizing myself), and others I don't really see the point of, at least not in the context of a speedrun.
The general route he took appears to be primarily the same as the one I took through my run through Pokemon Blue, with the exception of not sequence breaking and doing Silph Co Tower/Saffron Gym before Pokemon Mansion/Cinnabar Gym.. no surprises there. He also went and beat the Cerulean Gym before even heading up through the Nugget Bridge Gauntlet.. a very interesting time to do it, that's for sure.
However, the movesets he used were vastly different.. he made much greater usage of TMs than even I did. Here's the moves he used on Squirtle through his run:
- Tackle (start)
- Tail Whip (start)
- Bubble (lv8)
- Water Gun (lv15)
- Mega Punch (picked up in Mt. Moon, replaces Tackle) <- I cannot believe I overlooked this; an 80 power Normal move this early in the game!? This will save massive amounts of time on the Nugget Bridge gauntlet, and is probably worth redoing the run just by itself
- Bubblebeam (Won from beating Misty, replaces Bubble)
- Dig (Won from Rocket who stole it, replaces Tail Whip)
- Body Slam (Found on SS Anne, replaces Mega Punch) <- Huh!?!! Okay, maybe this makes sense from a real time timeattack perspective, since it has "perfect" accuracy compared to Mega Punch's 85%, but is definitely not worth it in a TAS (only 5 more power, and has 5 less PP)
- Ice Beam (picked up in Celadon City, replaces Water Gun)
- Surf (picked up in Safari Zone, replaces Bubblebeam)
- Earthquake (picked up in Silph Co. Tower, replaces Dig) <- Already decided it's not worth it, and there goes your quick escape out of dungeons too (no, I'm not buying Escape Ropes)
- Blizzard (picked up in Pokemon Mansion, replaces Ice Beam) <- Hmm.. very doubtful this is worth it. Might merit some research, however.
- Strength (picked up in Fuchsia City, replaces Body Slam) <- Instead of me, who uses the HM right away, he waits until just before the final dungeon to use it. Definitely not a good idea to wait, though, if I don't bother with Body Slam
- Fissure (won from Giovanni, replaces Earthquake) <- This is really the one decision that has bothered me about my run before I ran into this walkthrough, I'll definitely have to test it out.
This probably is enough to get me to do the run over again.. if I do, I'll start back up on it shortly (which likely means I'm going to leave FF4 to someone who better knows what they're doing).. I might want to do a bit more investigation into this guy's strategy before I officially start again, though.
