(Link to video)

Introduction

This is a follow-up to my previous submission with an updated route, which seems different enough to me to create a new submission.

Clefable Skip

The most significant difference from the previous route is skipping Clefable entirely, and instead using Squirtle until Tauros is caught. Thanks to gifvex for proposing to look into this option more; I thought I ruled this out as being slower while working on the previous submission, but I clearly miscalculated.
A pure Squirtle route loses most of the time during the final stretches of the game, as Blastoise's move set and stats cannot keep up with the end-game fights. However, when optimizing Squirtle to only be used until the Safari Zone, a lot of the slow parts can be cut out. It still can't complete that stretch of the game as efficiently as Clefable, but fast enough that it outweighs catching a Clefairy for it.
This run saves 15 seconds compared to the previous submission and 67 seconds compared to the currently published run, entering the Hall of Fame with an 1:26 IGT after the previous run was so tantalizingly close to that minute barrier.

Other route updates

Version

This run does not dependent on any version specifics and uses Pokémon Blue instead of Red purely for variety, and because it allowed me to re-use the start of my previous pure Squirtle TAS. The submitted Red TAS is not re-usable since Squirtle's DVs are not sufficient to complete the expanded required fights efficiently.

Paras

The Paras in Mt. Moon is caught directly in front of the TM Mega Punch, in order to perform a Jingle Skip when collecting it, saving a bit more than a second. Thanks to TiKevin83 for proposing this optimization.

Route 25

This TAS still prefers the slower top Hiker to the bottom one, but for different reasons: where in the previous TAS it aligned Clefable's level ups better to save time with redbar, here it aligns the level-ups in a way so that Wartortle learns Bite at L24 before Bill. Learning a move cancels Instant Text, so you want it to happen in a convenient location. Top Hiker also allows access to the hidden Elixer which is used to fill Wartortle's PP for Bubblebeam and Bite.

Underground Tunnel

Collecting the hidden Full Restore is no longer necessary, as TM Thunderbolt from Surge will go unused now to fill its spot.

Route 6

The Jr.Trainers can now be fought in the faster order since it doesn't affect the level-up alignment for Wartortle.

Vermilion City

The fight against the Rival's Ivysaur takes an additional turn due to Wartortle's lower stats, but it is somewhat mitigated by Bite's ability to cause the enemy to flinch.
Surge's Raichu also takes an additional turn and is faster, so Bubblebeam is used to lower its Speed instead.

Rock Tunnel

The Slowpokes are the worst match-up for Wartortle as they are bulky and resistant to Water-type attacks. Again, Bite helps keeps the time loss manageable.

Route 8

A full-game Squirtle route would fight the Gambler instead of the Lass for the extra EXP, but Wartortle will be retired in this route before that becomes an issue, so fighting the Lass is faster.

Celadon City

This is where the majority of the time is being saved compared to a pure Squirtle route: There is no need to buy Mega Kick or Ice Beam to prepare Wartortle for the late game.

Pokémon Tower

Wartortle's performance is already visibly declining in the Rival and Rocket fights, requiring multiple extra turns, again mitigated using Bite.
Unlike for Clefable, it's faster for Wartortle to damage back into redbar after the heal pad, since it needs only 3 turns to do so.

Conclusion

As if to prove its point, my previous submission trying to shake up the Gen 1 routing and invite more experimentation for faster strategies turned out to be improvable significantly by a different route before even being published. And while this route is somewhat less exciting than the Clefable version, it still proves the point well that some creative thinking can lead to new breakthroughs.

Memory: Claiming for judging
Memory: Optimization seems good, there's one potentially viable improvement that was pointed out but it's only one second and would require redoing the whole run.
The difference of routes was a fresh take on glitchless Pokemon, and the audience really enjoyed it as a result.
Accepting to Moons as an improvement to [4163] GB Pokémon: Blue Version by TiKevin83 in 1:29:35.61.
Spikestuff: Blue.

TASVideoAgent
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Spikestuff
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Oh yes, Wint's on a roll. Shotgun for pubs.
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Yes vote! Is Paras still faster than Sandshrew? I know that Sandshrew has a faster cry, for a faster E4 deposit, but I don't know.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
Post subject: R.I.P. Clefable (May 30th, 2021-June 6th, 2021)
GamesFan2000
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Good afternoon, fellow tool-assisted Pokemon trainers. I'm GamesFan2000, a trainer with absolutely squat in terms of notability. It's with heavy hearts that today we mourn the death of the Squirtle-Clefable-Tauros route. Eight days after it revolutionized the Red/Blue TAS meta forever, it has been mercifully put down in favor of the Wartortle-Tauros route. So swift was Clefable's demise that the previous submission wasn't even claimed by a judge. It's sad that the TAS that broke all of our preconceptions about the Gen 1 meta will never claim its rightful place as a published run on this website, but the beat goes on, and this TAS is a worthy successor. A heartbreaking but nonetheless deserved yes vote.
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Why didn't you go for the crit on Brock's Geodude? Also, the description of this movie says that Charmander may be better. Is that incorrect?
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"
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Crit on Brock's Geodude doesn't kill (has been that way in the previous TASes too)
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Also, the description of this movie says that Charmander may be better. Is that incorrect?
That isn't really correct for here. Perhaps in that movie where they don't need to worry about a Surf mon due to their main having Surf, and without any consideration towards red bar, and only considering until past Route 3, that would be faster. But for here Squirtle is still faster (and even more so since it is used past Route 3, where Charmander starts to fall very behind due to a far worse moveset).
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I figured Charmander would be slower, since he hasn't been used in glitchless runs.
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Leaving animations on until after Weedle and using L5 Rattata for redbar saves a second for the cost of 18 xp. It still gives L10 for Onix but I didn't play past that, so I dunno if it affects something later. https://streamable.com/8rmltk
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Console Verification! Link to video
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Have you already tried the jingle skip applied on the Elixier in Route 25? Even though it would require to be spotted by the hiker, it may still save some frames.
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"
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Have you already tried the jingle skip applied on the Elixier in Route 25? Even though it would require to be spotted by the hiker, it may still save some frames.
The jingle skip does not work for that item. 2 steps is too far for jingle skips to work.
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Screenshot suggestion:
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
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I was wondering about something, since I saw something that was discussing move animations (with the battle animation on) and I remembered that Tauros uses Stomp. How much faster is Stomp with battle animation on compared to when battle animation is off?
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MrWint, are you planning on looking into some of the improvements suggested or should I move ahead with judgment?
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
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Only looked into the possible improvements briefly. gifvex's suggestion to use L5 Rattata and delaying turning the animation off does save time, ~1-2 seconds. It changes two levelup timings, but not for the worse. It does require a full rewrite of the TAS though because Squirtle's DVs are not sufficient for that route change. I don't plan to incorporate it in this submission. The problem with using Stomp with animations on is that it is actually only used sporadically, and enabling and disabling animations costs time, and the remaining moves, especially Blizzard and Horn Drill, are much slower with animations on, so I don't see a way how this can be used to save time. I didn't measure it but since Stomp uses the fast shake animation (since it has a flinch side effect), I'm not even convinced it is faster with animations on to begin with. For the jingle skip CasualPokePlayer is right, it doesn't work when the item is two steps away, the music starts too quickly.
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MrWint wrote:
I'm not even convinced it is faster with animations on to begin with.
gifvex actually measured that out (for another RTA category, unrelated to this submission), and Stomp is 11 frames faster with animations on instead of off. Of course, I doubt this changes anything, given factors you laid out along with 10 frame timeloss for each Tauros send out with animations on.
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CasualPokePlayer wrote:
MrWint wrote:
I'm not even convinced it is faster with animations on to begin with.
gifvex actually measured that out (for another RTA category, unrelated to this submission), and Stomp is 11 frames faster with animations on instead of off. Of course, I doubt this changes anything, given factors you laid out along with 10 frame timeloss for each Tauros send out with animations on.
Don't know if it is related to what you said, but I first found out because of this video: Link to video where it was discussed that Stomp is the fastest move in the game with animations on, and in fact much of this run was done with animations on. So I was wondering how much faster it was with animations on instead of off. Thanks for the information. I did eventually (like three weeks ago) come to the feeling that it was slower anyway to implement in the any% (since very few battles are actually all-Stomp battles) and the 2 or so seconds it takes to switch options twice. But I didn't bother updating my post because it appeared (until two days ago) everyone lost interest in posting here.
Post subject: Movie published
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4502] GB Pokémon: Blue Version by MrWint in 1:28:28.80
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Was watching the run and had a few questions: Would it save time to enter the Lavender Town Poké thing and use an Escape Rope after learning Fly? I assume that if it does it’s so little it’s not worth using it over some other location. In the Safari Zone did you exit the house before using the Escape Rope because it wouldn’t let you inside? Is that some special house or what? Also noticed at Sabrina you had to be on a teleport tile to Escape Rope but after Blaine you could just go… how does that work?
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ALAKTORN wrote:
Was watching the run and had a few questions: Would it save time to enter the Lavender Town Poké thing and use an Escape Rope after learning Fly? I assume that if it does it’s so little it’s not worth using it over some other location. In the Safari Zone did you exit the house before using the Escape Rope because it wouldn’t let you inside? Is that some special house or what? Also noticed at Sabrina you had to be on a teleport tile to Escape Rope but after Blaine you could just go… how does that work?
1. You have to actually heal at the Center for the Escape Rope location to update so no. 2. Safari Zone let's you rope, inside the house doesn't, ask Gamefreak why they designed it that way. 3. Escape Roping on the Teleport tile isn't required for roping out of the gym, but it's faster as it skips the Escape Rope animation.
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Would it have been faster to get Bike Voucher before teaching Cut so that Instant Text is effective during that dialog until the Yes/No option?
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Fortranm wrote:
Would it have been faster to get Bike Voucher before teaching Cut so that Instant Text is effective during that dialog until the Yes/No option?
You can't Escape Rope out of Surge's gym, you still have to go to the nearest place which can Escape Rope, which ends up being the Fan Club you get the Voucher from. You end up going a lot of extra movement for just a tiny amount of extra IT use.
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Grogir discovered a 2 frame timesave that applies to this TAS: Link to video It's faster to not walk all the way to the end of the SS Anne when encountering boat rival due to a turn frame, the turn frame happens due to a reset of the behavior when the rival (or any trainer's) walk animation happens after the battle.
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I have a question. The TAS catches Pidgey before entering Mt Moon. Wouldn't it be slightly faster to catch a HM02 Fly slave just before obtaining HM02? I think the grass patches on the way to HM02 hut has Spearow/Doduo who can learn Fly. I think this would save time in Pokecenter (with 1 less Pokemon, the ball healing animation is shorter).