Speedrun
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Speedrunning is the practice of completing a game, or an objective within a game, as quickly as possible. Speedruns are often recorded or played live on the Internet, both for the purposes of verification and as entertainment for viewers.
Red and Blue are consistently popular, but many Pokémon games, including both core series and spin-off are speed games. Pokémon games are played at many speedrunning marathons and events, such as GDQ, as well as Pokémon game-specific events.
Compared to games in other genres typically played in speedruns, core series Pokémon games tend to have more variance throughout different attempts. This is in part due to the battle system's use of randomness to determine outcomes such as the amount of damage dealt by a move, whether or not a move inflicts a secondary effect, or whether or not a move is a critical hit. Because of this, speedrunning Pokémon games is often more demanding of the runner's risk management skills than speedrunning games in other genres, as the runner must be conscious of how variance can affect the current game state and must prepare alternatives in routing to account for contingencies.
Types/rulesets
In addition to choosing a game to play, speedrunners will choose a specific category or categories for their speedrun as defined by the speedrunning community. Categories may limit the strategies available to a speedrunner, which results in different strategies employed during speedruns in different categories. There may be many different categories of speedrun for a single game.
- Any%: Speedruns that attempt to finish the game without achieving optional objectives
- Glitchless: Speedruns that do not use glitches. Some speedruns that are not specified as glitchless may still disallow the use of certain glitches
- Manipless: Speedruns that do not use RNG manipulation
- RTA/TA: Real Time Attack, played without stopping, vs Time Attack, played in segments
- TAS: Tool Assisted Speedrun, uses software emulation and external tools to achieve a speedrun beyond human capabilities
- Alt main: Used in Pokémon for speedruns that play through the game with a less optimal Pokémon species or evolution line than those used typically used in the speedrun
- Category extensions: Speedruns that attempt to achieve specific optional objectives. In Pokémon, this could include an objective such as capturing certain Pokémon or defeating optional boss Trainers
Early history
In the English-speaking community, discussion of Pokémon speedrunning appears on the Twin Galaxies forums in early 2004.[1] The first recorded speedrun of a Pokémon game is a segmented run of Pokémon Red by 'Cygnus' in May of 2005, which was listed as 2:40 based on the in-game timer.[2] This was followed in August by a segmented speedrun of Pokémon Yellow by 'DTaeKim,' which got a time of 2:28.[3] Notably, this is the first recorded run to bypass ghost Marowak, as well as the first to use Nidoking as the main Pokémon. In October of 2005, a tool-assisted run of Pokémon Blue was uploaded by 'Titus,' who completed the game in 1:51 without taking damage by aggressively manipulating the RNG.[4] A segmented run of Pokémon Gold by 'Brown Bomber' was uploaded in February of 2006.[5] In July of 2007, 'Thomaz' uploaded a segmented run of Pokémon Blue that achieved a time of 1:26 through the use of various glitches, including the Pewter Gym skip glitch, Mew glitch, Experience underflow glitch, accessing Glitch City, and walking through walls.[6][7] The first recorded RTA run of a Pokémon game was done by 'Jacob91', who completed Pokémon Red in 2:39 in June of 2008.[8]
Common strategies
Speedrunners will meticulously plan their progression throughout the game, including both overworld movement and in-battle strategies, in a practice known as "routing."
- At the start of the game, speedrunners will usually set the game's text speed to high, the battle style to set, and turn animations off.
- Navigate overworld precisely, avoid talking to most NPCs and picking up most items except when necessary.
- Use one Pokémon found early in the game and concentrate Exp. on that Pokémon, sometimes pivot to legendary.
- Because optional Trainers are avoided, rely on battle items for boss fights.
- Avoid Pokémon Centers, use HP restoratives and carefully plan PP usage wrt PP restoratives.
- Defeat Pokémon with neutral effective moves where feasible to avoid SE/NVE text.
- Name commonly Pokémon one character nicknames to display less text
- Starter Pokémon rely on pinch abilities. Usually Water type so Torrent
References
- ↑ "Pokemon Speed Run", Twin Galaxies forum archives
- ↑ Speed Demos Archive - Old News, News from April through June, 2005.
- ↑ Speed Demos Archive - Old News, News from July through September, 2005.
- ↑ SGB Pokémon: Blue Version by Tilus in 1:51:06.50, TASVideos
- ↑ Speed Demos Archive - Old News, News from January through March, 2006.
- ↑ Pokemon Blue speedrun (old run), ThomazSDA on YouTube
- ↑ Speed Demos Archive - Old News, News from January through March, 2008.
- ↑ Speed Demos Archive - Old News, News from April through June, 2008.