ironMON FAQ 2022

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: I am trying to defeat this romhack under the IronMON ruleset.

Q: What is an IronMON?
A: An IronMON is a challenge that applies lots of extra rules and restrictions to make the game very much harder. This includes, but it's not limited to: Opposing trainers are a much higher level, you can only use one Pokemon and must beat the game without that Pokemon dying, you can't heal outside of battle, you can't buy any items except Poke Balls and Repels, and you can't use Pokemon with 580+ BST. A full list of rules can be found at ironmon.gg (credit: Exarion's pastebin).

Q: Why didn't you choose the left or middle starter?
A: You can only choose the right-most starter. If that starter is a legendary, however, you must choose the middle one.

Q: You keep resetting. Why?
A: Probably because I died, and, as specified in question #2, once you die it is over. No exceptions.

Q: Can you manipulate good stats for your starter in this as well?
A: Great question. Yes! But it's against the "spirit of Kaizo"

Q: what does that even mean
A: I don't fucking know. Ask pie or something.

Q: Why do you keep talking to your mother before you departure?
A: Because it's in the rules!

Q: why
A: I don't know. It's probably in favor of the spirit of Kaizo or something. Look, I will be honest with you: I think pokemon is too popular of a franchise for people to actually try to make sense out of their creations. They're all about "oh wow this must be unique and special and omg I need to be different" just to stand out in front of other people. This, of course, can be seen in rules such as these. Is there a point to talking to my very mother every time I leave? No, other than "haha you leave and your mother is there and you talk to her for you are leaving". Sure, if you talk to her later she will heal you, and you cannot NPC heal in this category. Does that matter? It doesn't. That's not the point. They just want to be special. Make a relatable rule so that the content creators that produce stuff with this video game, instead of trying to be objective with your rules so that they are comprehensive. They are not comprehensive, they are in fact pretty dumb. Listen, I don't care: I am doing this because I like Pokémon and it's fresh to me. I normally speedrun this game, among others. I think this is a neat idea, but there are so, SO many arbitrary rules such as this one that it kind of makes me cringe. That, however, shouldn't stop you from purely enjoying what's in front of you: Pokémon, but harder. Do I wish it was a little bit more serious, similar to what I'm used to in speedrunning? Sure, that'd make me take this more seriously. Still, and nonetheless, I will try to enjoy this as much as possible.

Q: Will you ever speedrun this?
A: Sure, maybe at some point.

Q: Will you try survival ironMON?
A: Depends on how this does. If it slows my stream down I won't. If I reach new audiences, yes. If I REALLY enjoy this I'll just do it anyway.

Q: Your Pokémon didn't evolve into its vanilla form! Why?
A: Because most of the game is randomized. That includes evolutions, moves, abilities, stats, encounters, trainer's pokémon, etc.