Heart Gold FAQ

      Pokemon Heart Gold FAQ

Q: What are you playing on, it is emulator?
A: No, I'm playing on a DS (phat) with a capture board installed allowing my to record game footage

Q: Why do you choose Cyndaquil?
A: Because the Cyndaquil evolution family is the best for the speedrun, without it, my time would not be nearly as fast.

Q: Why do you keep resetting and changing the time?
A: I need to use a specific time in order to use RNG manipulation, so I set the clock in such a way that I can use it.
 The timer counts down to when I need to reset for the correct second.

Q: What is RNG?
A: Random Number Generator, the thing that determines everything random within the game, such as stats, encounters and pokerus.

Q: What is RNG Manipulation?
A: RNG manipulation is used in this speedrun, which involves resetting on a specific second starting from a specific time, and hitting the correct frame for the correct seed after resetting. This allows for manipulating of the wild encounters, Cyndaquils starting stats and pokerus.

Q: What causes the resets?
A: I missed the trainer ID. The one I am trying to hit is 18406. If I don't get it I know I incorrectly RNG Manipulated so I reset.

Q: Why is your movement so strange at the start of the run?
A: Because you can't get the best possible results off the bat. The movement that I do is designed specifically to manipulate the RNG (from NPCs movement around me, and the like) so that I get my great Cyndaquil, only 3 encounters to Falkner (2 of which I want), and Pokerus from the Rival Fight.

Q: Why don't you check Cyndaquils stats? What are Cyndaquils stats like?
A: Cyndaquils starting stats are the same every time RNG manipulation is used, and also quite decent using RNG manipulaton, but not perfect. The reason for this is because there are a limited amount of seeds you can rng manipulate for, as you also have to manipulate getting Pokerus. The Cyndaquils IVs are 28 HP, 29 Att, 28 Def, 30 SPAtk, 25 SPDef, 31 Speed with a Naive Nature

Q: So you manipulate Pokerus off the Rival Fight. Isn't that incredibly OP?
A: Actually, it doesn't make as much difference as you might think. Because EVs don't make that much of a difference at early levels, the stats are only different by 1 or 2 at say level 25, and you do cap out to get all 510 EVs during the run (I forget where, around Clair maybe??) so the difference lategame isn't substantial. But it still does make a difference for some key fights, perhaps most notably it allows you to outspeed Morty's Gengar by 1 (a 30 Speed IV would tie, to give an indication of just how close that is)

Q: What encounters will you get?
A: The encounters can be manipulated because the RNG does not change if your movement is perfect; so if you just move correctly you wont get encounters on the first route. The Guide Gent at Cherrygrove complicates things do to the textboxes, but if done correctly, I'll get a Level 2 Pidgey right after the Apricorn Box (which I kill for experience) a Level 3 Sentret on Route 29 after getting Poke Balls (which I catch as a Cut/Surf Slave) and a Level 3 Pidgey just before Violet City (because avoiding 1 more encounters seems to be impossible)

Q: Who is the magical god who came up with all of this?
A: MKDasher, pay your respects.

Q: Why not Soul Silver?
A: Heart Gold and Soul Silver are the same for one key difference, you must visit either Ho-Oh or Lugia, and Tin Tower is much quicker than Whirl Islands, so Heart Gold wins out

Q: Why do you use Frame 16?
A: Because it's sexy :3

Q: Why do you play as the girl?
A: The counterpart does the catching tutorial, and the male does it faster, so it’s faster to choose the female for yourself

Q: Why do you name yourself and Cyndaquil 'I'?
A: Because it's faster to name them one character for text purposes, and the letter 'I' gives a nice spin as if the game was self-narrating

Q: Do you catch anything else? Mewtwo maybe?
A: I get a free Wooper Egg for Whirlpool/Waterfall, free Spearow for Fly, free Shuckle for Strength, and with this new Pokerus route, I'm fighting Red with Typhlosion alone, no Mewtwo. So technically no, I don't catching anything else

Q: What is WR?
A: 4:00 by me. It's really bad and outdated now (didn't use RNG manipulation) so any run I complete should beat it.