This movie beats Pokémon: SoulSilver Version without using any glitches. There was no complete TAS of this game due to how difficult it is to do so, and I wanted to be the first one to achieve that.
Time Comparison
This movie beats the current RTA WR of the same category by 9 minutes and 34.4 seconds (TAS vs RTA timing), or 9 minutes and 10.9 seconds with RTA timing (ends when screen fades to black after Red disappears from the overworld).
Version Choice
I don't catch Lugia for this run, the reason I pick SoulSilver is different.
After clearing Dragon's Den and coming back to New Bark Town, I must go to the Ecruteak Dance Theater (AKA the Kimono House) to fight the Kimono Girls so I can prove myself. After defeating them, I go to look for the box art legendary of game version I am playing. In HeartGold, you go through Bell Tower to find Ho-Oh, which is really close to the Kimono House, but the problem is that you can only walk while inside Bell Tower, and it has lots of floors, and you also need more repels to be able to advance, which takes time. In SoulSilver, I Fly to Cianwood City and Surf to get to Whirl Islands, but I can actually use the bike while inside of the Whirl Island caves to get to Lugia much faster, and I don't use extra repels. This is ~20 seconds faster.
Cyndaquil and Quilava will let me go through the early game until I catch Raikou. It's really useful for Sprout Tower and Azalea Gym, and I also use it to teach it Cut. This Cyndaquil has a Rash Nature (+SpA, -SpD) and the following IVs: 4 HP, 23 Atk, 21 Def, 28 SpA, 5 SpD and 31 Spe.
Dratini is obtained at Goldenrod Game Corner, and I use it to teach it the water-related HMs in the game, as well a forced Double Battle against some Beauty-class trainers right before getting to Ecruteak City for the first time.
Abra is also obtained at Goldenrod Game Corner, and I only use it to teleport back to Violet City after defeating Whitney, otherwise I'd have to go through Route 35.
Spearow (named Kenya) is used to teach it Fly after we get the Storm Badge at Cianwood Gym. It also serves as a sacrifice during the Rival 3 battle at Burned Tower.
Raikou is the only Pokémon I use after I catch it. as it steamrolls every trainer we fight after that point. Doing RNG manipulation for this Raikou was difficult, because after we get the bike at Goldenrod, I must do careful movement in order to manipulate the RNG where I want it to be, and I do this by crossing many different loadlines in specific ways, checking NPC movement, and waiting a bit after the Beauty trainers in Route 37. Before I free the Legendary Beasts, I must do something called Radio Manip to manipulate Raikou's stats, and by exiting and re-entering Ecruteak City I manipulate Raikou's location until it is at Route 37 where I catch it. This Raikou has a Mild Nature (+SpA, -Def) and the following IVs: 27 HP, 30 Atk, 21 Def, 28 SpA, 26 SpD and 24 Spe. The Speed is enough to outspeed everything in the game, including Red's Pikachu, and it also gives me a safer Red fight.
About Luck
All of the random events in the game are determined with your game seed. This seed is determined by the date and time of the system's clock, and it uses the next formula:
RNG Seed = XXYYZZZZ = 100A0D2A
XX = Day * Month * Minutes + Seconds
e.g Jan 1st 2096, game booted at 10:08:07, started at 10:09:06 after Oak intro.
1 * 1 + 9 + 6 = 16
Convert to Hex = 10
YY = Hour
10 in Hex = 0A
ZZZZ = Frame Count + Last 2 Digits of the year
3274 frames + 96 = 3370
3370 in Hex = 0D2A
This seed helps me getting the Cyndaquil and Raikou I use for this run, as well as getting Pokérus, winning the lottery at Goldenrod so I can get a Master Ball for Raikou, and avoiding wild encounters until I get to Goldenrod.
In Pokémon HGSS, the outcome of the battles will always be determined when the screen fades to black. It also uses the same RNG formula as before, but because there are lag frames every other frame, I can only look for different battles every 2 frames to manipulate for high damage rolls or critical hits. Even though you can't manipulate the battles like you can do in other games such as Pokémon Emerald, you can pick different kinds of moves in order to manipulate the RNG mid-battle, this can be a non-100 accurate move, a move that can deal a status condition, a non-damaging move, a move with priority, etc. I do this to manipulate some of the fights in my favor. For example, I use Leer on Rival 1 to manipulate a critical hit so I can end the fight in 3 turns. This also means that I can only hit odd or even seeds.
Micro-optimizations
You can bump into characters or objects while you're standing still to save 4 frames everytime you do this on the overworld. During the early game, I sometimes don't do this because I need the RNG to be the same until I catch Raikou. An example of this is at Slowpoke Well, I intentionally avoid bumping at the third Team Rocket Grunt so I can check the NPC movement at Azalea.
You can also press the D-Pad on the next direction you want to go after talking to someone. It saves an additional 2 frames over the bumping method.
Potential Improvements
Getting a better Blue fight. The ideal scenario would be that his Exeggutor never picked Trick Room and always missed either Hypnosis or Leaf Storm, but after manually testing many different seeds I couldn't get it to happen. This is really difficult because even though you can theoretically get this ideal fight, it's not worth it if you have to wait for so long before starting the battle, and healing with lots of HP missing is really slow, and I really have to do it for the Red fight.
Special Thanks
MKDasher and GoddessMaria for being great Gen 3 TASers and for serving as inspiration.
im a blisy for their Gen 4 manip videos
PulseEffects for his HGSS videos
Werster for being a legendary Pokémon speedrunner and also serving as an inspiration. This entire route is the same as his.
There's clearly a lot of careful planning and RNG manipulation done throughout to keep things moving along swiftly. The submission notes definitely confirmed that for some of the minor parts I didn't get from just watching the input file. Definitely an good watch for those with some knowledge of Pokémon under the hood and the absurd odds that would be needed to pull all of this off. Nice work!
Also I found it funny that the dramatic Lugia cutscene plays is immediately followed by turning 360 degrees and walking away from the encounter.
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Welcome PoltArtGeist! I don't know squat about HGSS but I can tell how much saving 9 minutes over RTA means in a Pokemon speedrun, especially one with this kind of RNG mechanics. Can't wait to watch it in full.
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.
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.
legendary, i loved the dragon rage usage and coin case as well
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto.
TAS i'm interested:
Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS?
i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
While verified your TAS, I noticed you pass dialogs by meshing A and l buttons rapidly, not by pressing A only at required times. I thought it was an optimization gap, but then I found that either of this buttons lets you proceed to the next line. Can't say for any other places, but overall it looks good.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Joined: 8/18/2011
Posts: 15
Location: Vancouver, BC
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
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.
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.
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.
yeah sure i can only imagine how tiresome, i just want to say i'm also in the hopes for glitched TAS of this game.
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto.
TAS i'm interested:
Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS?
i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
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
Joined: 10/1/2013
Posts: 100
Location: My Basement
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?
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.
