Hey, I finally completed a movie! While it's not quite what some of you may be expecting, I hope you'll enjoy this effort nonetheless.
This movie is a TAS of the English version of Pokemon Blue, done in Super Gameboy mode. The game is completed in 1 hour 50 minutes according to the in-game clock, which at the time of submission is 50 minutes faster than the Pokemon Red run available on Speed Demos Archive. It was completed using Visualboy Advance 1.7.2 (Nitsuja rev. 9), over the course of over 5 months, with 2 complete runthroughs of the game completed (the first being done with Pocket Monsters Green (J)).
In Japan, this game is known as Pocket Monsters Green; Japanese Red and Green are what became Red and Blue to the rest of the world. Japanese Blue has not been released commercially outside of Japan.
The movie features the following:
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Takes no damage (and thus, doesn't die)
  • Abuses programming errors in the game
  • Ignores semi-important goals in the game
For those of you unfamiliar with the storyline behind Pokemon, you play a nameless novice trainer who aspires to become the greatest Pokemon trainer of all time. After choosing one of three starter Pokemon, you set out to collect all eight Gym Badges and defeat the Elite Four to become the Pokemon League Champion, all while filling up your Pokedex with information on all sorts of rare critters and catching and assembling teams of powerful Pokemon to help you on your journey..
...except that this particular trainer is in a bit of a hurry, and thus has no need for such silly things as Pokedexes and large collections of Pokemon. He instead muscles through (almost) the entire game using a single Pokemon - his starter, Squirtle.
So how does this trainer manage to accomplish all this in under 2 hours? Luck manipulation. The early GB Pokemon series features the greatest opportunity for massive luck manipulation abuse this side of Dragon Warrior. Nearly everything in this game is tied to an easily abusable random number generator, including but not limited to: When random encounters occur (and against which Pokemon), how much damage an attack deals, how accurate an attack is, if an attack is a critical hit, if additional effects tied to attacks occur, what attacks an opponent uses against you.. just about everything save for the stats a Pokemon gains when it levels up (which is determined by a specific and known formula). This fact is abused to its' fullest extent in this movie, allowing me to avoid battles, critical hit with attacks, and control/avoid enemy attacks at will.
As a nice side effect, I wind up taking no damage and am hit with no harmful attack from any enemy throughout the entire run. There are a few instances where I have to resolve an attack which supposedly has "perfect" accuracy, but there is no attack with perfect accuracy (see below).
This game pushes the primitive Gameboy's hardware to the limit. As a result, the game lags, and very badly at times. Scrolling through the game's menus was a royal pain at times (I take careful measures to attempt to reduce the amount of time I spend scrolling through menus), and inexplicably the game may lag during regular movements in certain points in the game. If you find odd pauses in movement in places, especially in areas where I cannot get into random battles, this is the game's lag at work. I unfortunately know no way around this.
As for route planning, the game is fairly linear, with very little chance to deviate off the main path. It's also well programmed in order you to at least nudge you toward beating all the Gyms in chronological order, if not outright forcing you. However, I do a sequence break by completing Cinnabar Gym (#7) before completing Saffron Gym (#6), allowing me to build up some levels defeating required Pokemon which are weak to my Squirtle's attacks before dealing with the more neutral Pokemon in Silph Co. Tower and Saffron Gym.
I obtain only 5 Pokemon throughout the entire game: Squirtle, Abra (for Teleport), Bellsprout (to teach it Cut), Doduo (to teach it Fly), and Onix (for Fissure). Squirtle is used as my only battle Pokemon throughout almost the entire game, while the others are utility Pokemon used either to pass through necessary obstacles in the game or are major timesavers which allow me to go between places more quickly. Onix is the exception to this - the Elite Four's Lorelei uses primarily Water/Ice Pokemon, which I cannot defeat easily with Squirtle/Blastoise. Thus, I instead caught an Onix in Victory Road, taught it Fissure, and used it against Lorelei's Pokemon to defeat them. Fissure, however, only has a chance to work if the Pokemon using it is faster than the target being Fissured - this is remedied by purchasing a pair of X Speeds in the Celadon City dept. store and using them during the battle to make Onix faster than its' opponents.
There are also several noticeable glitches/oversights I abuse in the game, as follows:
  • Every offensive attack, no matter how accurate it may be, has a 1/256 (~0.4%) chance of missing. Yes, this includes Swift, the infamous attack which "never misses". I use this fact to maintain the no damage run, as avoiding every attack but four doesn't really look all that good.. also, chances are all four of these attack avoidals may save time anyways due to the length of time it takes for the screen to shake and the HP bar to slowly decrease.
  • Using the Pokedoll item automatically ends any wild battle in which you can catch a Pokemon. I purchase one of these items in the Celadon City dept. store to pass through the Marowak "ghost" battle in Pokemon Tower without spending the 7-8 minutes required to obtain the Silph Scope from Team Rocket.
  • Similarly, I run away from the Snorlax blocking the route to Cycling Road to remove it from my path quickly.
  • Usage of the Selfdestruct attack automatically causes the Pokemon who initiated the attack to faint, even if it misses. I manage to Dig out of the way of the Weezing who uses this attack in Fuchsia Gym, to get the pesky Pokemon out of the way faster. ^^
I'm sure there will be a limitless amount of questions concerning little minute details of the game - most of them should be answered if you look at this game's thread on this site's message boards, located here. If not, post here or there and I'll be happy to answer them for you.
Is this movie perfect, though? I'm sure it's not, especially with new routes to old games formerly thought impossible being revealed daily. However, I've done my best to make sure that, with the possible exception of better luck with the RNG or a totally new route, that this is as close to perfect as it gets at this point in time. There are other possible (but very small) shortcuts, but those I found appeared to have too much risk attached to them with too little reward (with most being so small they'll almost immediately be eaten up in luck manipulation), and I think I'll leave it to someone with far more free time on their hands than I do to investigate more in depth which ones actually do save time and which are wastes of time.
Last but not least, I'd like to thank the following people for making this run possible: The speed run FAQ on GameFAQs for laying the groundwork for the run - much of the route for this run was inspired by the route this FAQ's author used; Azure Heights Pokemon Laboratory and serebii.net - large Pokemon fansites which have supplied the information necessary to complete the run and plan out improved routes for the run; the authors of the console speedruns on SDA for further route planning and comparison; everyone who posted in the Pokemon R/B thread on this site's message boards, for their invaluable help and tips (you know who you all are), and of course, everyone who has supported this run in various ways.
And with that, enjoy!

Bisqwit: Queuing for processing.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #858: Tilus's SGB Pokemon: Blue Version in 1:51:06.50
Emulator Coder
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 453
Location: Norway
Jeez that was a long movie... Almsot wish I knew the game good enough to really have an idea of what went on ;)
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I liked when you got to completely skip over stuff, like the Marowak and Snorlax battles. "Got away safely!" How? Climbed over him? Wished him out of existence? It's too bad that the game doesn't look completable within a "90-minute blitz" without some huge new sequence break.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 5/27/2005
Posts: 465
Location: Turku, Finland
Wow, a definite YES vote from me! I was truely entertained of the way you solved Cerualean and Vermilion Cities. That was something I definitely didn't expect. I Also liked the way you used Teleport (& Dig) so much in other places as well. It was also fun to se how little you used the services of Pokemon Center. :) But there are also few complaints/questions I'd like to bring out to open. First: I think you shouldn't have caught Onxi and just simply teach Fissure to Blastoise (Over Dig). Although the PPs of Fissure are quite low (5) so that might be the reason why you didn't. Second: Are you absolutely sure that catching Abra is faster than walking down from Bill's house? Since you don't need Abra's teleport after that because your Wartortle knows Dig. Anyways, you gotta give a hand to Tilus for having the energy of doing no-damage run. I definitely couldn't have done that my self. Not to mention all the trouble he must have gone through palning the fastest routes.
Which run should I encode next? :)
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Maza: 1) I don't teach Fissure to Blastoise, as to learn it I'd have to overwrite something irreplaceable and vital to the run (Ice Beam or Dig). You can't overwrite moves learned by HM, otherwise I'd definitely have done that. 2) Regardless of whether it saves time after Bill's house or not, I actually use Teleport twice more to get back to Cerulean from Vermilion, saving anywhere between 45 seconds to a minute each time. So yes, it was definitely worth it.
Joined: 5/27/2005
Posts: 465
Location: Turku, Finland
Tilus wrote:
2) Regardless of whether it saves time after Bill's house or not, I actually use Teleport twice more to get back to Cerulean from Vermilion, saving anywhere between 45 seconds to a minute each time. So yes, it was definitely worth it.
Oh, yeah. You can't do those with Dig could you.
Tilus wrote:
1) I don't teach Fissure to Blastoise, as to learn it I'd have to overwrite something irreplaceable and vital to the run (Ice Beam or Dig). You can't overwrite moves learned by HM, otherwise I'd definitely have done that.
Why is Dig irreplaceable? Is it because Fissure has 5 PP and Dig 10? Both of them are ground type attack so that can't be it. And btw, why Blue? Is there some specific reason for this or did you just choose one?
Which run should I encode next? :)
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Yes, it's irreplaceable because after the battle with Lorelei, I have to use Dig later on in order to defeat Agatha's Pokemon. I guess that is solvable if you bring an Ether or two to refill Fissure, however you'd also have to figure out where the closest Ether to the path is (you can't just go into a store and buy one), scroll down the menus later on in order to use it, and since near the end I was running extremely tight on item storage (you only have space in your inventory for 20 items), I'd have to drop an item in order to be able to keep it. This looks like another one of those high potential risk, low potential reward things which I'll need to leave to someone with far more free time than me.. Also, why Blue? I did my test run with Japanese Green, and switched to Blue because it was the same game. In other words, I did it for no really important reason, and I'm sure I wouldn't be any faster or need to make any major changes if I switched over to Red.
Joined: 5/27/2005
Posts: 465
Location: Turku, Finland
So, which Pokemon next? G/S/C? ;) If you really were going to make G/S/C run I could help you a lot since I have just played through Crystal (almost 100%).
Which run should I encode next? :)
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
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Completing Pokemon Blue without taking damage. Awesome! :)
Joined: 4/21/2005
Posts: 32
Location: Georgia, USA
Great job. That's really all I can say, you totally nailed it :)
Editor, Active player (297)
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Not like I know much of the game, but why didn't you let Hydro Pump replace Ice Beam when you were fighting against Lance, but you chose to abandon the technique? It's more powerful...
Former player
Joined: 7/29/2005
Posts: 459
Location: Brazil
good planing, very well executed, gj^^
<small>My big signature was cleared by admin; i should read <a href="http://tasvideos.org/ForumRules.html">forum rules</a>. But... who does?</small>
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Bisqwit wrote:
Not like I know much of the game, but why didn't you let Hydro Pump replace Ice Beam when you were fighting against Lance, but you chose to abandon the technique? It's more powerful...
I wasn't sure either. Maybe it's that it takes slightly more time to learn the move than to abandon it and Tilus couldn't recoup the time.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
probably because it takes the same amount of hits the kill his pokemons with both spells and it's quicker to abandon it
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
I've never played this game, but my guess is that hydro pump is a water spell and ice beam is an ice spell, and he still needed both elements. As I recall ice beam was "super effective" against different monsters than the clearly water based techniques were.
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
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Oh, oh right. I forgot. I thought he could have replaced a water move, but that water move would be Surf, which you can't replace.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Nsm
Joined: 5/26/2004
Posts: 39
I have one question, but not about this movie Is possible get all 151 pokémon using glitches only in one version?
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I've heard it is, but I've never tried the glitches, so I can't be too sure.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Yes, I did continue to use Ice Beam even after I had the opportunity to pick up Hydro Pump, as it was super effective against Rival's Pidgeot and Venusaur, and allowed me to freeze both those Pokemon as well as Gyarados, whom you'll notice was quite a pain for me to deal with throughout the run. So, I can't overwrite Ice Beam with Hydro Pump. And yes, it's possible to pick up all 151 Pokemon on one version using glitches. (I'm not doing a run which picks up all the Pokemon, as it'd mostly be the same as the current run only with a bunch of Pokemon catches thrown in, and alot of time spent executing glitches to catch Pokemon not normally available on the cart..
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Right... Would a 151 Pokemon run have to beat the Pokemon League to be complete, or would there be some other goal, like getting the diploma (which is actually for 150 Pokemon from what I hear)?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Great movie. My only qualm is with the Gary/Rival fight. Why the animations? Do animations turn on automatically for this? If yes, consider this a yes vote. If no, well... it's still a yes vote.
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Editor, Expert player (2079)
Joined: 6/15/2005
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Zurreco wrote:
Great movie. My only qualm is with the Gary/Rival fight. Why the animations? Do animations turn on automatically for this? If yes, consider this a yes vote. If no, well... it's still a yes vote.
Yes, animations turn on for the last fight. It cannot be avoided. It is possible to get all 151 Pokemon, but whether such a run is interesting is another question. Technically, it is possible to get 151 Pokemon, a bunch of glitched Pokemon (called Missingno.), 127 of every item in your inventory, and a broken cartridge.
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Yeah, having to raise Pokemon that evolve by level-up would be a pain, so you would mostly just find the evolved forms, either in later areas or by a glitch. And would a 151 Pokemon run mean you have to have every species at once, or just have them all catalogued in the Pokedex? Would you need to have Professor Oak evaluate it? I'm really not sure.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 11/28/2004
Posts: 138
"Long" game done fast and accurate as far as i can see;). Yes vote from me.
The best time you have is the time you share with other people.
Joined: 8/7/2004
Posts: 51
I'd watch a run that gets Mew fastest, but all 151 is boring enough to play.
mew.