Submission Text Full Submission Page

Goals

This TAS completes the Mini-Game Champion game mode as fast as possible on Hard difficulty on the default 7-coin length. The difficulty makes little difference to the length, as the AIs are beaten as quickly as possible.

Mini-Game Choices

There are twelve mini-games in Pokémon Stadium 2. Seven of them are timed and require at least a minute to complete. Tumbling Togepi and Rampage Rollout are races, but they are not complete until the 4th-place AI has finished the race, so they would take about 25 and 50 seconds respectively. The three fastest mini-games are Pichu's Power Plant, Topsy-Turvy, and Barrier Ball, which can be played in any order. This run plays them in order from shortest to longest.

Luck Manipulation

The die will always be rolled by the player in last place, or any player with the lowest number of coins. For the first round, the player rolls the die. It is luck-manipulated to quickly land on 4 (sometimes the die bounces around before settling). For the first game, it's ideal to win just 2 coins, then 3 in the second game, then 2 to become the champion. If a player leads by at least 3 coins, the game enters a "catchup" mode where there is only a 1 in 6 chance of getting a game worth 2 coins, making it harder to luck-manipulate. The cursor starts by default on Pichu's Power Plant, so it's fastest to choose that for the first game.
Whenever the AI has a choice of mini-game, or the random function selects a mini-game, it will choose a game that hasn't been played yet. After Pichu's Power Plant, luck is manipulated so that the next game will be Topsy-Turvy. Then, the next game is Barrier Ball.

Pichu's Power Plant

This game is trivial in a TAS. I press A or B 15 times per second while holding the appropriate direction button.

Topsy-Turvy

This game has a 60-second timer, but ends immediately if a player has eliminated five opponents. As there are three opponents, I eliminate two of them as quickly as possible, then eliminate the third, then eliminate the original two opponents again as soon as they have respawned.

Barrier Ball

This is the most complicated of the mini-games. The objective is to score five goals as quickly as possible. Balls spawn at random intervals. Multiple balls can be in play. If no balls are in play because they've all been scored, a new ball spawns immediately. The location and timing of the first two balls are predetermined before the die roll and can't be easily manipulated - the second ball in this run spawns faster than average, making it possible to score two goals in the first seven seconds. The next three balls are luck-manipulated to move towards the player, and the player immediately scores. Final input is an "A" press required to exit the "1P Wins" screen. The game displays a congratulatory animation with the three Pokémon used during this championship: Pichu, Hitmontop, and Mr. Mime.

Time Stamps

Because the mini-games are conquered so quickly, this run spends more time rolling dice than actually playing. Actual gameplay in the temporary encode is 0:38-0:45, 1:23-1:36, and 2:06-2:26.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15561
Location: 127.0.0.1
Experienced player (689)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1794
Location: Brasil
the only way pichu hitmontop and mime get spotlight in TAS lol tbf mr. mime does have its record with glitched runs in FRLG but so far no TAS...
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4036
Really nice to see a Pokémon Stadium 2 TAS, even if it's a minigame mode. It was a fun watch, thanks Chamale!
Chamale
He/Him
Player (182)
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1355
Location: Canada
CoolKirby wrote:
Really nice to see a Pokémon Stadium 2 TAS, even if it's a minigame mode. It was a fun watch, thanks Chamale!
Thank you! I suspect a TAS of the battle modes would have the same problem that Pokémon Stadium 1 has - it's too repetitive. The ideal strategy would be repeatedly using Fissure and Horn Drill with Nidoking and Diglett. For the easier battles, it's a matter of figuring out which moves have the shortest animations, and using one of those.
OceanBagel
He/Him
Player (193)
Joined: 8/18/2020
Posts: 27
This was a lot of fun to watch! It was interesting that the fact that each minigame is different was a result of the way the game works, because it might have been a bit boring to have the same minigame three times in a row.
Chamale
He/Him
Player (182)
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1355
Location: Canada
Coincidentally, Werster just achieved a new world record in Pokémon Stadium 2 for completing the entire game, at 16 hours and 16 minutes. A TAS could probably shave at least 3 hours off that time, so it would be a miserable 13 hours of nonstop critical hits. And it wouldn't even be the longest Pokémon TAS on this site. Link to video

1731606940