Movie attributes

  • Aims for fastest completion of the game
  • Corrupts save data
  • Manipulates luck?
  • Heavy glitch abuse
  • Colors a dinosaur the world

Emulator

Visual Boy Advance re-recording v22

Comments

This movie is an improvement of 6.32 seconds over my previous attempt. The only time-saver, which caused other minor changes, is the discovery of a new trick regarding warps.
For those who aren't familiar with this or the previous runs, it abuses the strongest bug in Pokémon Yellow, the inventory glitch, which allows the player to become "god" in the game, since it gives the possibility of overwriting important memory addresses, causing all sorts of strange things, such as walking through walls, changing palettes and, more important, warping to the Hall of Fame to trigger the end.
I start by corrupting the save data by resetting at the earliest frame that doesn't destroy the file, this overwrites the party counter, making the game believe you have 255 pokemon, after that, the 2nd pokemon is switched with the tenth to overwrite the items counter. With this, you have permission to access with your inventory important addresses in SRAM, by switching/tossing items you are able to change their contents and completely destroy the game. Switching items is mandatory for overwriting odd addresses, while even ones can also be changed by modifying item quantity through tossing. Getting to the Hall of Fame is done by setting the warp destination to 0x76 (118 in decimals), the ID of the Hall of Fame.
The improvement to my previous run is finding another address to warp. Mat warps (those that take you out of a building) are located much closer to the inventory than stair/door warps, although abusing this trick requires walking down to the 1st floor of your house, the time wasted by scrolling through the previous glitched list of items is so big that this ended up saving a reasonable amount of time. Obviously, this new trick changed other things with the route. First, the new address is 0xD364, which is even, so there's no need to manipulate the trainer ID lower byte to be 118 to match the Hall of Fame map, throwing away 138 items will easily do the job. It'd be faster to switch an item with quantity 118 into the slot, but doing this is impossible, because the game will set the quantity back to 99. Second, the Hall of Fame is now loaded faster, because its glitched graphics are gone.
Other TAS aspects consist of alternating A/Start at the intro to save frames, switching the 2nd pokemon instead of the first because it saves 2 frames, not walking more than 3 steps after corrupting the save because it causes time-wasting poison animation, exiting the house by walking down to the mat, which gets faster screen transitions, naming the rival BLUE, which is faster despite getting slow-to-scroll items in the inventory and ending the last OAK dialog with B-A-B, this causes the box to close one frame sooner, but it only matters for in-game time, because the input has already ended when time is saved. Another interesting question is that, although the Trainer ID is now useless for warping, it still needs to be manipulated so that it generates items that can be scrolled faster. Luckily though, this can be done without wasting a single frame on the title screen, so it's doubtful if this run really manipulates luck anymore (the irony is that it was one of the first movies to be severely brute forced).

What is left

As the time approaches optimality, my imagination for tricks approaches zero. Despite menu scrolling still being slow, the address used here is one of the first that can make major difference if switched, the time it takes to go to another room and use another warp will be greater than the time saved with less scrolling. My RAM map is almost complete, I've tracked warp coordinates, that could improve the movie by setting a warp closer to ASH, but it seems they are loaded alongside the map, changing the coordinates will only make the warp disappear. There are no improvements I can think of right now, but the same was also true for the movie this run obsoletes xD

Special Thanks

I'd like to thank the whole Pokémon TASing community in general, this run is far from being the work of one person. When the first RBY run that lasted roughly 110 minutes was submitted, no one could think the games could be beat in less than 2 minutes. Thanks a lot for your help in breaking this game and making it the most contested RPG in TAS history.

Flygon: Added YouTube module.
Nach: Now that was unexpected. Nice improvement. Accepting.
Flygon: Processing.

Active player (369)
Joined: 6/5/2006
Posts: 188
Location: Malmö, Sweden
I love how the Podédex Rating seems like some epic plot twist or something because of the music. Is that a glitch or does it do that in the actual game? Doesn't really seem fitting. "Your rating is: TM8 ajs9fpo TM8 alahslfal ROCKET alshlaghl error" "dundunDUN"
Even the best player is limited by the speed of his fingers, or his mind's ability to control them. But what happens when speed is not a factor, when theory becomes reality?
Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Any improvement on a run such as this deserves a yes vote. You took a broken game... and broke it some more!
samurai goroh wrote:
You said it Professor Oak: "POKéMON LEAGUE champions are honored for their exploits here!" Yes vote
That Oak quote should definitely be the screenshot for this run!
Joined: 10/14/2010
Posts: 27
Location: California
Excellent improvement, and I actually like that the Hall of Fame is less glitched.

By the way, if you aren't planning to use those Master Balls, may I grab a few?
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down
Jungon
He/Him
Player (40)
Joined: 4/2/2009
Posts: 376
Location: Porto Alegre - Brazil
Who could tell ... tossing master balls at home is a really fast way to go to the hall of fame =P Yes vote, of course
*Jungon*/*Johnnyz* smilie weirdo =P ^^ o.o @__@ +D
Joined: 7/16/2006
Posts: 635
An awesome improvement to an awesome run. How could I not vote yes?
Active player (422)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 329
Throwing away his master balls? I didn't realize becoming a eunuch was necessary to become a pokemon master. Now that sounds painful! Anyways "Yes" vote for the big improvement.
N._Harmonik
She/Her
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 502
Location: Canada
It almost boggles the mind that this game was released as it was. May someone please do a glitchless run now? I want to see Jessie and James' butts kicked on the small screen (Game Boy) instead of the medium screen (TV) and big screen (movie) for once.
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 570
Location: 33°07'41"S, 160°42'04"W
N. Harmonik wrote:
May someone please do a glitchless run now?
There is this obsoleted one.
Player (42)
Joined: 12/27/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Germany
I'll answer some posts here.
Mukki wrote:
Clever. I liked how counter-intuitive this seemed at first, but the less time required for the new byte change technique paid off better than I thought it would (well...not completely new, but this application could easily have been completely overlooked). Yes vote, of course.
The new warp also surprised me. At first, I only did a small test to see if it'd be faster. I almost fell off my chair when I saw I was seconds ahead.
Mothrayas wrote:
Love it. Pokémon RBY glitching will never get old to me. Yes vote, obviously. PS: How's the 100% run going?
Good progress is being made, thanks for asking! The biggest problem is the obscene amount of luck manipulation and the route complexity. I've lost my count of how many times Mukki and I had to redo stuff because of some significant improvements. At the moment, we're almost at Sabrina's battle.
Dragonfangs wrote:
I love how the Podédex Rating seems like some epic plot twist or something because of the music. Is that a glitch or does it do that in the actual game? Doesn't really seem fitting.
It's a glitch, I think the game reads garbage data as audio because there's no valid sound for pokedex completion after 151.
Dunnius wrote:
Throwing away his master balls? I didn't realize becoming a eunuch was necessary to become a pokemon master. Now that sounds painful!
N. Harmonik wrote:
May someone please do a glitchless run now? I want to see Jessie and James' butts kicked on the small screen (Game Boy) instead of the medium screen (TV) and big screen (movie) for once.
I understand why some people would like a glitchless run, but to me, it'd be taking out what made RBY TASing interesting. Long RPG runs aren't very popular here, and this broken one is almost star-worthy. If someone would run the game without bugs, it'd be better to do the FRLG remakes IMO. Noob Irdoh's link doesn't contain a glitchless run, Tilus's initial 1:51 run is usually considered glitchfree, despite using the Pokedoll trick, which I consider a programming error (I'm the minority in this matter though). There's also a more optimized glitchfree run of Red (J) by was0x that contains no speed/entertainment tradeoffs, which makes the movie a little hard to watch because of the near death noise (it also uses the pokedoll trick iirc). If you just want to see Jessie and James beaten, there's an old cancelled Yellow run by FractalFusion using the Lv.100 glitch, it's the most substantial completion of Yellow afaik.
GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
An improvement to an already awesome TAS is always welcome here! Yes vote!
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 157
Location: The Land Down Under
Literally made me laugh out loud when ash walked straight out of his door into the hall of fame. obvious yes vote.
Editor, Expert player (2310)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3854
Location: Germany
Glitcher
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Joined: 3/24/2007
Posts: 216
Location: London, U.K.
I've always found it more convenient for Professor Oak to build the Hall of Fame adjacent to Ash's house. Saves you having to go through that whole 'adventuring' malarkey.
Player (142)
Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686
p4wn3r wrote:
How come this guy's not in the Hall of Fame then? Anyway, great improvement (dude... Seconds?!) and the lack of graphical glitches made the run even more surreal to me. I vote for the tossing of the Master Balls as the screenshot.
Joined: 2/20/2010
Posts: 209
Location: I'm in space
Truly a great "Lowest Score" run. I vote yes on any submission that ends with "Rating: Error."
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14772
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1678] GBC Pokémon: Yellow Version "save glitch" by p4wn3r in 01:36.95
Joined: 7/29/2009
Posts: 55
I really like this run, but isn't there a Nintendo logo after a hard reset, which should add to the time (not that it matters because you can't beat it without a hard reset)?
MESHUGGAH
Other
Skilled player (1884)
Joined: 11/14/2009
Posts: 1349
Location: 𝔐𝔞𝔤𝑦𝔞𝔯
This run is amazing! I would advise to change "Heavy Luck Manipulation" to "Heavy Memory Manipulation". Should deserve a star for the technical part. I'm already trying to come up with a faster route without tossing items, it would be nice to contribute something to this site.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
GabCM
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Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
It's on ScrewAttack now! Let's hope it gets showcased! http://screwattack.com/videos/GBC-Pokemon-Yellow-in-013695-by-p4wn3r
Active player (410)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
First time watching a pokemon yellow run. There is one thing I say: "Wow, the game is not even played. " ^_^
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
Potato Stomper wrote:
I really like this run, but isn't there a Nintendo logo after a hard reset, which should add to the time (not that it matters because you can't beat it without a hard reset)?
There's only a Nintendo logo if the emulator has the Game Boy's BIOS loaded. I don't think TASes use the BIOS because it adds to the time (and possibly also because every BIOS is different, so the same BIOS would have to be distributed with every Game Boy submission; but I might be wrong about this). Also, nice job improving your earlier submission, p4wn3r!