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Overview

This movie quickly completes Pokemon Green - the original japanese version before being updated and transformed into Pokemon Blue, before being ported to the US and other regions. To accomplish this short time, serious errors which are fixed in later versions are used. This is ~31 seconds faster than AKA's previous submission. This movie only works on VBA Rerecording v20.

Features

  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Abuses programming errors in the game.
  • Genre: RPG

Explanation

Some time ago, a video was posted on youtube showing a glitch used to warp between arbitrary points of the game. Since then, the technique has been refined many times, resulting in a much shorter (and more confusing) route. This movie uses the most recently discovered route, which is slightly faster than FractalFusion's last attempt by a small number of frames.

The Glitch

The warping is at first enabled by attempting to switch Oak's Parcel with a Pokemon in your line-up; this is the part that is fixed in later versions. This step junks the display screen but enables you to finish the battle (a later discovery showed that running away is also possible). As a side-effect, it also changes the pokemon into a Level 1 Charizard. :)
After this, the world map data is slightly messed up - Professor Oak appears in his starting location for the 'walking into grass' event, but the event does not trigger. Random tiles change type, lose or gain walkable-status, etc. A strange coincedence of this effect allows the 'destination' value for doors in the area to be overwritten by the step-counter, allowing over 9000 different warping possibilities.
This movie first warps to the 'secret house', enters a door that usually does not exist, walks through the guard station, and then proceeds to the department store in Celadon, finally warping to the very end room where Pokemon data is added to the Hall of Fame. Note that this room is very, very messed up (I call it Ninetown) - thankfully the cutscene still plays properly.

Luck

Apart from the game-breaking glitch described above, this movie uses a significant amount of luck manipulation:
  • Starting Bulbasaur's defense rolled as low as possible
  • Three critical hits (two of which are max-damage) taken
For example, a max-damage critical hit has about 1/2000 the chance of happening, but my opponent must also choose to use Scratch, reducing this by half again. 13 frames in total are lost to manipulate luck in this movie.

Possible Improvements

Barring any changes to the warping route, the main area to be improved is the first pokemon battle - ideally my Bulbasaur should miss both of its attacks, saving around 200 frames. However, I have not yet had this occur. :) If I can achieve this, I will resubmit.
Enjoy!
Edit: primo has managed to beat this movie, and I'm no closer to, so no reason keeping it around. Cancelled.


TASVideoAgent
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Post subject: Re: #1635: Lag.Com's SGB Pocket Monsters - Green Version in
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NesVideoAgent wrote:
ideally my Bulbasaur should miss both of its attacks, saving around 200 frames. However, I have not yet had this occur. :)
My vote is Meh, unless the above is not possible to do. The reason being: Although the improvement is there, the run itself doesn't seem like it was very hard (disregarding the time spent exploring the glitch). I would like to see the Bulbasaur miss.
Player (73)
Joined: 12/20/2006
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Its 3 seconds and it might take more manipulation to get that to happen than the time it saves. It is much better than the other submissions for this game, and its actually a fast rpg run (i.e. i don't have to watch in 1,000% to not want to cry from boredom). I'll vote yes.
Chamale
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With the 1 1/2 hour+ Pokémon Red runs, every single one manipulates whenever necessary. At some points, it is necessary to manipulate things with a 1/256 chance, sometimes repeatedly. Luck-manipulation should be very tight. By the way, no. This would be more like a test run than anything.
Joined: 5/15/2006
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Chamale wrote:
With the 1 1/2 hour+ Pokémon Red runs, every single one manipulates whenever necessary. At some points, it is necessary to manipulate things with a 1/256 chance, sometimes repeatedly. Luck-manipulation should be very tight. By the way, no. This would be more like a test run than anything.
Exactly what I was thinking.
LagDotCom wrote:
...ideally my Bulbasaur should miss both of its attacks, saving around 200 frames.
Sorry, but all runs here are amazingly manipulated. Tacke isnt even 99.6% chance to hit. Sorry, but No vote as well.
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Finally a Pokémon-run of bearable length. Voting a lot of yes.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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I voted yes. Something to consider; if LagDotCom has been working on this run and has not been able to come up with his Bulbasaur missing both attacks, whats to say that its actually possible to be manipulated without actually losing time instead, or causing more luck problems later on which waste time? Of course if it turns out to be possible and is resubmitted, I'll vote yes on that also.
Chamale wrote:
This would be more like a test run than anything.
Your definition of a test run seems a bit off..
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About the luck - I started another TAS working off the DVs I already rolled, and my first critical hit. I've successfully made my first Tackle miss, but all the luck afterwards has been completely unusable. I've done over 6000 trials on this situation so far, and... no crits. Without automation, this is an incredibly tedious job. :) I fully admit this is not optimal, but I was advised to submit now and replace it later if a better result was obtained. If you feel this movie is not good enough to warrant publication now, then I would call that a fair reason to vote no.
Voted NO for NO reason
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LagDotCom wrote:
About the luck - I started another TAS working off the DVs I already rolled, and my first critical hit. I've successfully made my first Tackle miss, but all the luck afterwards has been completely unusable. I've done over 6000 trials on this situation so far, and... no crits. Without automation, this is an incredibly tedious job. :) I fully admit this is not optimal, but I was advised to submit now and replace it later if a better result was obtained. If you feel this movie is not good enough to warrant publication now, then I would call that a fair reason to vote no.
I find your route pretty impressive and it will probably be published real soon, since its so chin-dropping! What I am saying tho, is that Primo has manipulated a 1/256 chance to miss, while tackle is much easier to miss, so there is just something really close happening here. The reason why I am not voting Meh, is that you are so close to "optimal" (in quotes since it is what we think for now) that No!! It shouldn't be published! I am sure you will manipulate those misses in no time :)
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gocha: That was my reference. However, note that he uses GB rather than SGB. The rest of the time difference would be solved by manipulating the two misses.
Voted NO for NO reason
gocha
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LagDotCom wrote:
gocha: That was my reference. However, note that he uses GB rather than SGB. The rest of the time difference would be solved by manipulating the two misses.
Yes, I thought that after the post, and deleted my post... my bad.
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Meh. While there are other super-short-glitched runs, this short rpg run wasn't that great.
adelikat
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Cardboard wrote:
Finally a Pokémon-run of bearable length.
I enjoyed it too. Good luck manipulation, voting yes.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Editor, Expert player (2073)
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LagDotCom, have you tried making the HP as low as possible? I think I had 19 once. Also, if you have spare time, try a run using mid-speed text. It may (or may not) be better.
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FractalFusion wrote:
I think I had 19 once.
Primo also mentioned this, but this confuses me - HP has no DV in Pokemon Red/Blue/Green, right? So how would it vary? Of course, if I can manage to get 19hp and 9 Defense, then I can die in 2 max-damage crits and a max-damage normal hit, which is faster (not to mention less tedious to find). But it would mean I have to throw away the first max-damage crit I found. 8) Oh, and about the text: I did try that at first, but I came to the conclusion it was MUCH slower. Also I have to turn battle animation off anyway, so I don't see how it would gain me frames (though it does give more scope for manipulation, I guess).
Voted NO for NO reason
Chamale
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I believe fractal's point was simply manipulation scope. About HP DV: HP's "DV" is a function of all the other DVs. So if you roll really bad DVs overall for the Bulbasaur, it will have low DVs. I wonder, with DVs of all 0, would HP be 18 at first?
Joined: 3/7/2006
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Nah, HP can't possibly be 18, but 19 looks possible. Alright, I'll try that. If I don't get anything in 2 days, I'm... I'm... not going to be happy.
Voted NO for NO reason
Player (86)
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The glitch makes me want to make a new Pokemon song. "Pokemon, You gotta catch'em all You put him in a ball I dont understand this at all Pokemon"
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I couldn't find the ROM but I watched a similar movie on Youtube. I like the concept and voted yes. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=17vslU1wrk4
Player (88)
Joined: 1/15/2006
Posts: 333
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I've made a test run which finishes 165 frames faster than this submission. The main difference is the rival battle, which manipulates two max crits, a max normal, and two tackle misses. I was about 200 frames ahead, but for some reason I couldn't get the correct warp point as quickly as you did... it took me two extra steps (36 frames). Oddly enough, the first time I tried it, it actually took me four extra steps. By waiting a little bit in the Poké Mart in Veridian I was able to change this. Perhaps if one waited long enough, one could save even more time? I think it's worth testing.
print reduce(lambda x,p:p/2*x/p+2*10**1000,range(6643,1,-2))
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Damnit, I spent over 8 hours trying for a 7-crit+miss setup on my latest attempt, with no luck whatsoever. You may as well do a tiny bit more testing then submit. I should cancel this.
Voted NO for NO reason
Player (88)
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If I were to submit a run, I'd probably start fresh. The reason is that even if the door had worked two steps earlier, I would have been 8 frames from sub 4:25, which would be a shame, considering it's certainly possible. I also made a two frame mistake early on by turning off battle switching (force of habit, I guess), and I used a lot more frames for manipulation that I would have liked (21 total, compared to your 13 total). If you watch my battle frame by frame, perhaps you could pick up a few manipulation techniques, especially regarding the Tackle misses.
print reduce(lambda x,p:p/2*x/p+2*10**1000,range(6643,1,-2))
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