Your submission notes mention manipulating RNG with the radio and "checking the NPCs". These are strategies employed in RTA runs because runners cannot directly see the RNG value in RAM; however, a TAS can. Are there faster ways to advance/manipulate the RNG you can use with a RAM watch?
I used the technique of checking NPC movement only for the first hour of the run until I get Raikou because I can't mess anything up until I get it, after that I'm free to do whatever I want because I have a strong Pokémon and just the right amount of Repels, and only manipulating RNG in certain spots where a regular speedrun wouldn't be able to (i.e. doing Opposite Directions with the bike in Ice Path 1F to manipulate the spinners at Blackthorn Gym and going through the grass in Route 27 to advance RNG and manipulate a spinner at Route 26).
I also had to do it this way because there's no good lua scripts for gen 4 games made for BizHawk, so even if my RNG value was something like 5D1EEBE8 (the value to get the Cyndaquil I want) at Address 1D15A8, I wouldn't know what should I do with it. However, when I redid my TAS, I took my RNG Value and injected it on DeSmuME while also using the Ultimate RNG LUA made by MKDasher to see the exact value, which allowed me to get a faster Radio Manip for Raikou.
Greetings. I decided to start another TAS for this category from scratch a couple of weeks ago, trying to make more optimizations and looking for more timesaves.
I ended up saving 2005 frames (33.514 seconds) so I wonder if that can be changed. Here's the movie file: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638647795283292125
Here's my encode, now with subtitles with commentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIs26boaXAA
Are there any plans to make a glitched version? That might be interesting.
Right now there are no plans, but it's not far of being considered. I'd gladly do it when I get in the mood.
My first TAS being three and a half hours long is kind of exhausting, to say something, haha.
Great job, I'm really happy someone finally made a full TAS of this game. I've been thinking about TASing it for a while and have thought a lot about whether raikou or gyarados would be faster in a TAS. Here's my list of pros for them in a TAS setting but I probably made some mistakes and overlooked some things as all my experience with this game is as a spectator
Gyarados pros
-level: you get a level 50 magikarp which you rare candy into a level 51 gyarados as opposed to a level 40 raikou. Higher level not only helps you OHKO more pokemon (and OHKO more pokemon without super-effective or crit text which saves time), it also means less level-up animations and less experience bar scrolling
-gyarados's attack stat is higher than raikou's special attack stat
-gyarados doesn't learn any moves by levelup after level 50, which saves time over raikou learning 4 moves after level 40
-gyarados has flail and with TAS control over battle RNG (which I admit is not much because of the changes made to battle RNG seed generation after diamond pearl but there's still some control) you can get yourself into flail 200
-gyarados doesn't need to voltorb flip (which was almost 3 minutes) for thunderbolt. Yes, voltorb flip gives you abra and dratini but you can catch an abra and sentret (and gyarados will learn waterfall) and it's still faster than voltorb flipping for 3 minutes. (On that note if you do decide to go with raikou I think it would be interesting to still skip voltorb flip and buy the thunder TM (you have to go to the department store for x-items anyways). Thunder has 5 less PP but skipping voltorb flip is a big timesave and thunder's extra power over thunderbolt might help. Also later on you have discharge to help you conserve thunder PP and earlier on you can OHKO most enemies with spark)
-you get surf right away to hit both enemies in double battles while raikou has to wait until level 57 for discharge
-waterfall can flinch
-one of gyarados's downsides in RTA is that the Red fight is slower but in a TAS setting you could get into pikachu's quick attack range (I believe it will prioritize that over using a super-effective move but I'm not sure, someone would have to test it). Have pikachu miss the range and you set up a great flail
Raikou pros
-you get raikou earlier than gyarados, but in a TAS this shouldn't be too big of a deal as there are many possible work-arounds for that section (the section between when the legendary beasts are released and when you get gyarados). You could use quilava and get some blaze crits, you could teach quilava fire blast if you go to the department store early, you could use Kenya. I've even considered catching raikou just for that section (and then using it for rock climb after catching gyarados even though that barely saves any time over catching the snorlax you're forced to encounter)
-I assume going to the lake of rage after Chuck rather than before (which you would do if you wanted gyarados as early as possible) saves some time because the RTA manipped route does that
-higher speed (but not by much because gyarados is a higher level and IIRC for most of the game your enemies don't outspeed you anyways because their levels are so low until Red). This could also be offset with quick claw but if you're using abra to teleport to violet city after whitney then getting quick claw is a small detour and you might even have to fight an extra trainer or something. But quick clawing red's pikachu with gyarados could be really good
-synergy with choice specs
-thunderbolt (or thunder) has a higher base power than waterfall
-don't have to watch magikarp evolve into gyarados and you aren't forced to get at least one rare candy for that evolution
-pressure text is slightly faster than intimidate text and raikou's cry length is ever so slightly faster than gyarados's from some rough testing
Voltorb Flip is the reason I don't go shopping at the Goldenrod Department Store as soon as I get there on my first trip, I need Dratini for the Double Battle at Route 37 because the Clefable and Wigglytuff are all Level 16 and they don't have that much HP, so Dragon Rage is really strong in this context, and I doubt Sentret (and even worse, Abra) will help me with that fight. Catching Wild Pokémon is also slower, so I can't just look for both of those Pokémon just like that, the only Pokémon I catch as a Wild Encounter is Raikou, and I can't lose any "tiles" on my way to manipulate Raikou's stats when I get to Burned Tower B1F, or else the TAS just doesn't work.
Because this is glitchless, Thunderbolt has more value because it has better accuracy and more PP, which you are already supposed to manage carefully in the first place since this is a longer TAS, and I also can't detour to pick some PP Ups. Thunder has more value in any% (which I don't know if I will make a TAS of) because you'll face some of the thougher trainers, including Red, at a much lower level and you have to RNG Manip to hit it every single time.
Gyarados has other problems, too. First, you can get a level 50 Magikarp at Route 43 via Surfing, which is very late into an RTA run (the Johto section, at least), so you would have to do Whitney and Morty with Quilava and/or Kenya, and evolving the latter is slow. I use Raikou so I can take on Chuck, so I can unlock the ability to Fly to previous locations, which will let me go back to Olivine City after I defeat Pryce, so I can cure Amphy to finally challenge Jasmine. Speaking of her, Steelix's resistance to Shadow Ball (in Gen 4) let's me 2HKO it without forcing Steelix to eat the Sitrus Berry it is holding, because that takes time. In this context, dealing a super-effective Water-type attack is no different because it will get me the additional text anyway, and although I haven't done the damage calculation, if Steelix doesn't die and it is below half HP, it will eat the Sitrus Berry that I'm trying to avoid. TLDR Raikou is faster because it allows me to backtrack faster.
Getting Discharge at level 57 is no problem because there's only one other mandatory Double Battle at Route 25, which is in Kanto.
If Gyarados is slower, Waterfall's flinch doesn't get much value. Raikou outspeeds everything in the game, including Red's Pikachu by one point, which has a much bigger level advantage.
Maybe if this was 2011 then Gyarados would be the ideal option, but the years have been passing and there's better knowledge for speedrunning this game, and hopefully TASing after having made my own recording.
Is there a reason (luck manipulation? avoiding the "is this what you were expecting" cutscene?) to uncover the "1" tiles when playing Voltorb Flip? If I remember correctly, the victory condition is to uncover all the 2s and 3s.
Voltorb Flip uses Secondary RNG, which is mostly static throughout the run and only advances if certain escenarios are occurring on the overworld, such the rain at Route 33.
Most flips in Voltorb Flip advance the Secondary RNG by 1, but if you choose a panel that has no bomb on either it's row or column, it won't advance at all. I do Voltorb Flip the exact way everytime to get the amount of coins I need in the lowest amount of rounds possible. If I only go for 2s and 3s, I will get different boards.
I tried going with that in my earlier attempts of TASing this game and it ended up being worse.