Overview

This is a TAS of the USA/Europe version of Pokémon Red, finishing with a in-game clock of 1:41. The emulator used for recording was VBA 1.7.2 (Nitsuja rev. 10), and the run itself was completed over the course of approximately one month. Throughout the run, only three pokémon are collected: Charmander, Gyarados, and a Pidgey.

Features

  • Aims for fastest time.
  • Takes no damage.
  • Manipulates luck.
  • Abuses programming errors in the game.
  • Ignores semi-important goals in the game.
  • No predefined saves.
  • Genre: RPG

Description

As with the previous movie, this submission is also aiming for the fastest time to become the Pokémon League Champion, and does so 15,632 frames faster than the last. In general, this new time can be attributed to several changes in tactic:
  • Using Gyarados instead of Mew.
  • Glitching the main battler earlier (in Mt. Moon instead of Cerulean).
  • Not catching Abra or Snorlax.
It's also worth noting that a level 7 Gyarados caught in the wild knows all the attacks he would learn up to level 42, including:
  • Bite
    • A mid-level normal attack.
  • Dragon Rage
    • Guaranteed 40 points of damage.
    • Most pokémon under level 20 have less than 40 hit points.
  • Hydro Pump
    • The most powerful water attack.
Having such a strong arsenal of attacks, Gyarados is able to power through the first part of the game effortlessly. Most of the saved time comes in the first half. The Elite Four is somewhat slower, however, because Gyarados does not know Pyshic or Dig to take out the Ghost pokémon.

Luck Manipulation

The majority of the manipulation in this game comes during battles. Manipulating critical hits, adjusting damage, manipulating misses, etc. I have tried my best to ensure that all delays are as short a possible, and watching full speed they are hardly to be noticed. I also had to manipulate three 1/256 misses this run: Lt. Surges Raichu, Lorelei's Lapras, and Gary's Blastoise in the very last battle. Other things were manipulated too, such as the location of the switches in Vermillion Gym, causing people to move, etc.

Glitch Abuse

The glitch I use to catch Gyarados is in principle the same one I used to catch Mew, only a change of setting. Instead of Teleporting from the Glitch Trainer, I use Escape Rope instead. Fighting the Lass is what triggers Gyarados when I return to the lower level. I also use the Poké Doll trick again.

Selected Notes

Start - Mt. Moon

  • I decided to rename Chamander this time. After the second battle, it had already paid for itself.
  • Saved a critical hit on the first trainer in Veridian Forest.
  • Saved a critical hit on Brock's Onix.
  • Picked up seven Escape Ropes. I would have gotten eight, but I didn't have enough money.
  • Saved a lot of time on the Youngster by having more Embers at my disposal.
  • Used the Poké Center, necessary for Gyarados glitching.
  • Time lost: 31 frames.

Mt. Moon - Cerulean

  • Avoided picking up TMs.
  • Rolled Gyarados with max stats.
  • Fought the Gym immediately, and learned Bubblebeam.
  • Saved at Poké Center (last time until Indigo Plateau).
  • Time lost: 3,411 frames.

Nugget Bridge - Celedon

  • Abra was not caught.
  • Mew is not glitched.
  • Minimized both 'Critical hit' and 'Super effective' messages through move choice.
  • Minimized switching between attacks.
  • Time gained: 19,002 frames.

Poké Tower - Safari Zone

  • Due to a lower special, I was unable to do Celedon Gym before Poké Tower. This means I lost four Ice Beams which weren't auto-healed in the tower. It turned out to be alright, though, because of the extra 5pp from Surf.
  • Time gained 2,226 frames.

Fuschia Gym - Indigo Plateau

  • Bite was, as speculated, not strong enough to do Fuschia Gym immediately. The was unfortunate, because I didn't want to teach Strength without Surf, and I wanted / needed Hydro Pump for the Gym. I attempted doing the office building first, but to no success. Although I was able to get through alright, I used all of my Hydro Pumps doing so, which defeats the whole point. So, I did in fact end up having to teach Strength without Surf. To mitigate the loss a bit, I switched the Surf HM up to the top while learning Strength. This had a nice side effect. Namely, that I was able to do Blaine before Sabrina without losing menu time, because the item menu cursor was up near the top when I needed to Escape Rope out of the Mansion.
  • Time lost: 483 frames.

Lorelei

  • Jynx got an extra attack.
  • More critical hits needed.
  • Time lost: 256 frames.

Bruno

  • One extra attack for the Machamp.
  • Time lost: 274 frames.

Agatha

  • Three extra attacks needed, one for each Ghost.
  • Time lost: 1,034 frames.

Lance

  • Dragonite got an extra attack.
  • Time lost: 230 frames.

Gary

  • Pidgeot got an extra attack.
  • One less attack needed for Arcanine.
  • Time gained: 108 frames.

primorial#soup: In the description text, it should probably be noted that this run breaks sequence twice. Once by using the Poké Doll trick to skip the Game Corner completely, and once by swimming to Cinnibar from Pallet Town instead of going through Seafoam Islands. Both previously published runs do both of these as well.

Bisqwit: Accepting for being an improvement to the previous version. However, I think I'll keep the torrent of the previous movie around too, because the Mew version is still very interesting.

Player (20)
Joined: 10/14/2005
Posts: 317
The applicable time interval includes flying to Viridian, biking to the old man, talking to the old man, flying back to Cinnabar, then using surf. One minute seems about right.
Skilled player (1090)
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I wondering if it would be worth it. He'd first need to gain a minute back and then add to that to obsolete the movie. On the one hand one could argue that it is too late in the game to be using that glitch to any great effect, on the other however you could say that he has the entire movie in which to gain a minute.
Joined: 4/11/2006
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I think this game TAS can be impruved on and on, with different stragies, pathes, glitches etc, but it takes very many time to record movie to gain just few seconds, so... I am wondering, if it's worth it? I still like Mew run much more ^^
Mitjitsu
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A move that makes the oposing pokemon flinch would always be a nice time saver, but the problem with catching unnatrually high pokemon is that there level return to 100 as soon as they level up, although that isn't a big deal and also they refuse to obey you and often do random moves so the luck manipulation for higher that badge pokemon + move + critcical hit + oponent miss would be trully insane For the fastest run you certainly need to glitch a pokemon but was Gyarados trully the best one to glitch, maybe Mewtwo would be a better choice if you had ice beam, psychic, thunderbolt, X move although. To be a just a little off topic the best moveset for Mewtwo in normal play is probally Red/Blue = Psychic, Amnesia , Ice beam , Recover Gold/Silver = Psychic, Submission, Ice beam , Recover Amnesia is overly powerful in Red/Blue becuase if its used twice, then not even Alakazam can withstand 2 psychic blasts. Its useless in Gold/Silver because it raises Speacial Defence and not Speacial attack, plus Dark pokemon cause a lot of trouble, but when you have submission, then its bye bye Tyranitar, and Ice can hold its own against other Darks. The only pokemon Mewtwo can't beat in Gold Silver is Heracross, Tentacruel and Corsola.
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Mukki wrote:
2) I can say right now Fissure is a bad idea. It has a PP of 5.
You only need 3 or 4. I should mention that since Fissure is Ground, "it's super effective" appears when used on the ghosts. Similarly, nothing that Snorlax can have is normal-effective against Onix. Are there any other Pokemon that can be glitched this way and have similarly short cries? Finally, I suggest that, instead of starting with Charmander, start with Squirtle and catch Spearow. If you can get Spearow to gain exp. against Brock, you can use Spearow against the Bug and Grass Pokemon. That also leaves open slots for Surf and Fly.
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That is an interesting theory, but it definitely needs tested. Catching Spearow is off track. Now obviously the time lost in the battle will be regained by not catching the Pidgey, it needs to be tested if the travelling distance can be regained.
Post subject: Glitching items
Chamale
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I've given a lot of thought to glitching past obstacles. I had the idea of using "Glitch City" to move to the door of Indigo Plateau, but I ended up in... glitch city. I considered using some sort of glitch similar to the glitch used to get gyarados in the run, if there is a glitch for items, for Poke Flute, but sadly the hex is 49. The pokemon with that hex is Moltres, and the attack with that hex is leech seed! One can only be caught at the Elite Four, the other can only be learned by Bulbasaur and Exeggcute. Anyway, I can't know that there is a glitch. I'll check later if Gyarados ever gets a special of 73 in the run.
Joined: 5/15/2006
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Mukki wrote:
Catching Spearow is off track.
Maybe I didnt understand what you were trying to say but...Spearow can be catched in Route 22! (Which is closeby Viridian) That is...there is absolutely no problem at all in catching a Spearow
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That is what i was trying to say and that is off track. The time from route 22 and back again has to be measured to see if that time is regained by catching a spearow.
Mitjitsu
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I have to admit I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to skip the badge check people on the way to Indigo Plateau, but you need strength for the boulder's. It doesn't matter too much about having low level pokemon for that section but you should be able to catch one in a random encounter and then just teach it a few TM's so you can beat the elite four + Gary.
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There probably is a way. I know that the boundaries are skipable in many places in the game due to the surf glitch, i just haven't found a way to apply it.
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Joined: 1/15/2006
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I had actually considered redoing this run myself, but I haven't had a lot of free time as of late. I don't think that there's any problem with naming the hero 'EEE'. I had been considering using the name 'I', because it flows well in the dialogue; 'I defeated so-and-so', etc. For choosing a rival name, I would probably use pokémon blue, and choose the name 'ASH'. It's around 65 frames slower than using a one character name, but still 77 frames faster than what I did, which I think is a reasonable stylistic choice. Don't forget that you can exit the name screens with the start button (for pokémon as well). Further analysis. Also note the bit about switching attacks. I also made a route mistake just before Bill's. The Hiker with four pokémon is avoidable, and you can fight the Jr. Trainer above him instead which only has two. This will also give you two extra Bubblebeams to work with, which means you can avoid using Hydro Pump for the rival's Pigeotto on SS Anne (Hydro Pump has an 'no-animation animation' which is 55 frames slower than most other attacks, so it's best to avoid using it). How 'difficult' a pokémon is to catch is independent of their level. I know from experience that a Snorlax can be caught with just a plain poké ball. When will you be catching Snorlax exactly? There are a few sections that you could probably avoid doing with Gyarados, and then do later with Snorlax. Celedon Gym comes to mind, and of course the Silphco. Building. A L132 Snorlax should have an openning moveset of Body Slam, Harden, Double-Edge, and Hyper Beam. Harden is worthless, and Double-Edge can't be used if you intend to do a no damage run. For a third attack, Rock Slide might be a good choice, mainly for the ghosts. It's a normal attack (as opposed to special), which means it will utilize Snorlax's high attack, and it won't produce a 'super effective' message as Earthquake or Psychic would. The fourth attack could be Surf or Ice Beam. I think the Veridian Gym will require one of the two. Surf seems like a better choice, because it's just as powerful, and it has more PP. I like the idea, and I think it could be a good run. Good Luck :)
print reduce(lambda x,p:p/2*x/p+2*10**1000,range(6643,1,-2))
Chamale
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Catching the Spearow at some point is definitely NOT off track, at one point in the run it is necessary to go through an area where you can catch Spearow to avoid a trainer. The thing is, you need to go off to catch Spearow AT A DECENT TIME. Catch it where it's not off track, you need to go a fair bit off track. Not too much, though: The time spent is only 25 seconds, tops (As I measure most things, I whipped out my gameboy and did it). Keep in mind you negate catching Spearow by not catching Pidgey later. The point of catching Spearow is to start with Squirtle to beat the gym faster. On the current run, the actual fighting part of the gym leader battle is 1 minute (from selecting attack to Onix goes down). Squirtle needs a very quick win against the gym leader to make it worth it. Quickly whipping out my Red, I found a squirtle, critical hitless, could beat brock in 35 seconds - barely compensating for the spearow. However, careful analysis says that with TAS, this could be shortened at LEAST ten seconds, thanks to critical hits. So squirtle/spearow really is the way to go, provided some minor errand running along the way doesn't hamper it. One issue I thought of is the issue of cries (As you should know, I give these a lot of thought). Spearow has a cry of .9 seconds, whereas Charmander has .75 seconds. The cry of charmander comes up 10 times, costing 1.5 seconds or so. I think this is offset completely by 5 seconds of evolving on Charmander's part. This also can be said to offset the extra time at Pokemon centers, and I still come out ahead maybe a second or two. So, that's 25 seconds lost to catching, 35 gained to gym, maybe a liiiiitttle gained to not evolving, and a liiiiitttle lost to grabbing Squirtle in the lab. 10 seconds better. But, if Spearow was at level 14 when Gyarados was caught, then it would save the time of replacing Fly. If Spearow did hit level 15, then it would not be worth getting Spearow and Squirtle. However, if Spearow somehow skipped level 9 without being at that level, it would save more time, but I doubt it would work. Anyways: Spearow would need less than 3375 EXP. At level 16, Charmander has no more than 3120 EXP, so it's possible for Spearow to not have fury attack. But the other issue is skipping Leer. Pulling this off would save 8 seconds in teaching Cut, and maybe 2 in teaching Leer. Unfortunately... it's impossible. So scratch skipping Leer. I found that to learn Bubble Squirtle would need to go through a bug catcher battle without Spearow. But in any case, Charmander does not do these first battles with the help of Ember, so Spearow would be at least as fast. To get Squirtle to level 8 (Bubble), 113 extra EXP are needed. One unavoidable battle grants 132 EXP, so this would be the one used. By the way, this is all talk and no rock for me because my emulator doesn't work!! Please read my thread in the VBA forum - no one has answered yet.
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primorial#soup wrote:
How 'difficult' a pokémon is to catch is independent of their level. I know from experience that a Snorlax can be caught with just a plain poké ball.
Which only happens if the game doesn't spit out "You missed!", which tends to happen with glitched L100+ Pokemon. Also someone should check whether the Escape Rope point can be set by accessing the PC.
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How about Bulbasaur? Vine Whip is super effective against Misty's Gym as well
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FractalFusion wrote:
Also someone should check whether the Escape Rope point can be set by accessing the PC.
That's new!
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
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1ntru wrote:
How about Bulbasaur? Vine Whip is super effective against Misty's Gym as well
Bulbasaur only learns Vine Whip at L13. Leech Seed is nothing. Also, watch the run. A glitched Gyarados beats all.
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personally i see no better option than a glitched gyarados. I only think it loses time towards the end of the game when its speed means it always gets second turn. If it could be first then a lot of time could be saved...
Chamale
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I've tried many things for glitching past obtacles. Glitch city seems like a possibility, but it's so time-consuming it might not be worth it anyway. I've tried using glitch city almost everywhere I can think of, but I can't find anywhere it's useful. If I can't find anything to glitch past, I'm thinking I could only beat this run by 45 seconds. Tops. By the way, using PC does not set the escape rope/teleport point. In regards to the issue of Spearow, I had another interesting idea. What if Spearow was caught at a low level and kept there, to be taught fly and cut? It wastes no time going off track, and saves time later from teaching Charmander Cut. Time saved would be about 6 seconds. The other method, I.E. using Spearow as a bug-type destroyer, saves about 10 seconds, making it more "worth it". Combining them is useless, because the extra catch costs 25 seconds. Keeping Spearow below level 9 seems interesting, but in reality is useless because it will be worthless in a fight. I think Spearow is definitely better than Pidgey in any case, but I question using it as a Charmander sub. To keep him below level 9, Spearow would need to get just 222 EXP between Brock and Gyarados. The first battle crosses this limit. Spearow would never be terribly efficient compared to Squirtle anyway. After Pewter City, Squirtle would be double Spearow's level. Final conclusion: Start with Charmander, but use Spearow as the cut slave instead of Charmander. This saves a whole six seconds in the run.
Post subject: Re: Glitching past obstacles
Editor, Skilled player (1938)
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Chamale wrote:
By the way, using PC does not set the escape rope/teleport point.
Did you try everything, such as accessing Bill's PC and storing a Pokemon? I know that it works in Gold/Silver.
Post subject: RE: Fractal Fusion
Chamale
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Accessing Bill's PC and storing a pokemon takes longer than simply healing. But it's moot because it doesn't work. Nor does storing an item. Edit: Oooh, here's a thought: Taking the name "ACE". It wastes no time at all on the run, allows glitching of a level 130 Snorlax (He'll just go to 100 anyway), and flows much better than "EEE defeated Youngster". I still think I should name the rival "A" for the significant time saved.
Post subject: Re: RE: Fractal Fusion
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Chamale wrote:
Oooh, here's a thought: Taking the name "ACE". It wastes no time at all on the run, allows glitching of a level 130 Snorlax (He'll just go to 100 anyway), and flows much better than "EEE defeated Youngster".
This should actually be two frames faster than 'EEE':
'EEE': > > > >A A AS
'ACE':  A> >A> >AS
Why two and not three? For some reason when selecting the letter A as the very first character, you have wait one frame longer than you do to move the cursor. Optimal names would be 'BCE', 'BDE', or 'CDE', which all save one frame over 'ACE'. There's still a few things about using a Spearow which confuse me. When passing through Veridian, you won't have any Poké Balls. This means that you will have to stop at the Poké Mart first, and then go over to Rt. 22 to catch him, and then get back onto course. This seems like it would add a lot more than 25 seconds, as you proposed. Also, you proposed keeping the Spearow at a low level to learn Cut and Fly... but Spearow can't learn Cut. Trading for a Farfetch'd would also be a much slower choice. And also, since this is one of your main tactics, Pidgey has the fastest call of any other pokémon. About Squirtle. In addition to fighting the unavoidable Bug Catcher in Veridian Forest, Squirtle will also need to fight a random encounter, because he's about 8-9 Exp. Points short of leveling. See Tilus' original Pokémon Blue Movie or even my 151 WIP for details. Also, I don't think you'll save as much time in the Gym as you think; Critcal hits are very broken at low levels. Without critical hits, Squirtle can 2-hit KO both the Geodude and the Onix. With critical hits, Squirtle can 2-hit KO both the Geodude and the Onix... and waste about 80 frames from message box text. Just some things to think about.
print reduce(lambda x,p:p/2*x/p+2*10**1000,range(6643,1,-2))
Mitjitsu
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I'm just wondering if you're allowed to go to the cable club and trade pokemon, or is that an illegal strategy.
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With whom would you trade? Another empty save file? Although maybe you could have 2 or 3 parallel games going and have some fun collecting different Pokeymon in each.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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I've had this thought. The VBA rerecording doesn't have a recordable link feature. I first of all thought to trade pokemon with HMs to skip massive portions of the game, but you can't trade a pokemon with cut (there is some stipulation i cant quite recall) so i remember, i'm not sure about the others. I also thought to trade over an immensley high level pokemon to blast through the game, but then again ^^^ no recordable link function. If it was possible perhaps a high level pokemon with all HMs bar flash learned could be traded; there must be a point in the game where cut becomes allowed and if the rule is not the same for fly, surf and strength then a lot could potentially be skipped.