(Link to video)
Submission Text Full Submission Page

Target categories

  • Major skip glitch
  • Final boss skip glitch
  • Uses a game restart sequence
  • Heavy glitch abuse
  • Corrupts save data
  • Corrupts memory
  • Heavy luck manipulation
  • Genre: RPG

About the run

This run is based on the video by YouTube channel ChickasaurusGL which shows a faster way to enter Hall of Fame in the Japanese version of Gen I Pokémon games.

About the game choice

I chose Pocket Monsters: Red (r0) because all other games avaible for the glitch are significantly slower for the task, except for the v1.0 of Red version, which was only 1 frame slower.

About the glitch

The glitch involves the use of the first byte of the Trainer ID and the Trainer Name bytes, which are necessary to trigger the call to the function that triggers Hall of Fame. In order to do so, some luck manipulation was necessary. Then, the SRAM was corrupted by turning off the game, which allowed to access the Pokémon list, in which some entries are swapped in order to manipulate the game memory. The result was accessing Hall of Fame without having to also use the glitch on the item list.

Additional note

Due to the controversy recently emerged, I request the judge to wait to have an answer from FractalFusion, who is the original discoverer of the glitch exploited in this run.

Noxxa: Replaced submission file with a 24-frame improvement.
GoddessMaria: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: I decided to cancel this submission because the credits are not executed perfectly since the game freezes at "THE END" screen and doesn't save the progress. From my research, it looks like it is possible to fix this, but I'm unable to do so with my current knowledge. Also, the v1.0 of the game can be beaten faster by using the same glitch, without taking in account the above-mentioned problem.

Judge, Skilled player (1274)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1645
Location: Italy
Thanks for the explaination. I wonder if it's possible to trigger the full version of the credits faster than the current publication. I'm probably not able to do this, so I hope you or another TASer will do it, just for record keeping. By the way, I managed to improve the movie you posted by 3 frames: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/35720561741541073
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Editor, Skilled player (1936)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3239
Great, you managed to improve it! I knew there had to be a mistake somewhere. :) I'm trying to see if something like "8F" (8th floor) glitch can be used to improve the TAS. Might take some time to work out.
Judge, Skilled player (1274)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1645
Location: Italy
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
I just discovered how to prevent the graphical glitch to "THE END" screen, tough the game will still freeze: instead of swapping Pokémon 7 with 8, swap 6 with 8. But as I said, this only corrects the graphical part of the problem; the game will still freeze and not save the progress.
I was wrong about this. What made it change was not the different Pokémon swap, but the different amount of time taken in order to close the menu. I'm doing some experiments, and looks like for every frame you close the menu later, a different script is triggered after the credits. I already got some very interesting results, like getting the game softresetted or getting teleported to a glitched location. This may even bring a way to mimic the correct credits end perfectly! Edit: this is the most interesting one I've encountered so far. It happens if you close the menu 3 frames later in FractalFusion's movie file: Edit 2: it looks like the game executes the next commands found in the WRAM after finishing the credits.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
TASVideosGrue
They/Them
Joined: 10/1/2008
Posts: 2728
Location: The dark corners of the TASVideos server
om, nom, nom... 'twas dry
Skilled player (1703)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4952
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
I just discovered how to prevent the graphical glitch to "THE END" screen, tough the game will still freeze: instead of swapping Pokémon 7 with 8, swap 6 with 8. But as I said, this only corrects the graphical part of the problem; the game will still freeze and not save the progress.
I was wrong about this. What made it change was not the different Pokémon swap, but the different amount of time taken in order to close the menu. I'm doing some experiments, and looks like for every frame you close the menu later, a different script is triggered after the credits. I already got some very interesting results, like getting the game softresetted or getting teleported to a glitched location. This may even bring a way to mimic the correct credits end perfectly! Edit: this is the most interesting one I've encountered so far. It happens if you close the menu 3 frames later in FractalFusion's movie file: http://i.imgur.com/ggPIEMD.png Edit 2: it looks like the game executes the next commands found in the WRAM after finishing the credits.
Given that you cancelled it, I suppose this means you failed to find a way to make the post-game contents work properly?
Judge, Skilled player (1274)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1645
Location: Italy
jlun2 wrote:
Given that you cancelled it, I suppose this means you failed to find a way to make the post-game contents work properly?
Yes. I need to study the game code seriously before being able to make it. Also, I've come to the conclusion that the resulting movie would be noticeably different from the one in this submission, so it's the case to cancel and start over from scratch.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"