Pokemon Platinum Any% FAQ

      Pokemon Platinum Any% (Glitched) 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 me to record game footage

Q: New Route? What's different? (Probably skip this question and the two afterwards if you aren't somewhat familiar with the route used for my PB from 2016)
A: New route! As opposed to catching just a Level 40 Tentacruel before Fantina, I'm ALSO catching a Level 50 Tentacruel after Fantina. It's ridiculous that catching two of these dudes is faster, but it is. I made a small writeup here; https://pastebin.com/r2A5Jgxj

Tl;dr the comparison is between 1-2 minutes faster with this route. Catching just the L50 and fighting Fantina and Barry 3 with Monferno is comparably close to this route, but mapping out a double battle manip is ridiculous, the effort to do that for something that potentially isn't even faster is not worth it.

I PB'ed (WR'ed) with this route recently, so now I'm just trying to see if I can get a slightly better time.

Q: Any other improvements?
A: Sure! Extended manip after Jubilife saving hitting 4 potential spinners and using 3 repels, so a bit of time save. Extended manip after catching the L40 tentacruel as well, to manip spinners and also save 2 more repels (this manip is tricky and requires a perfect step counter setup, so you'll see me waste tiles before the save for that reason). A few other things change as a result of the route, such as I no longer buy Energy Roots after Gardenia, and instead buy healing items either after Byron, or right before E4.

There's also a few new tweaks, all of which weren't found super recently. Those are; skipping the double battle right before Veilstone, Abigail tweak right after Veilstone (which I actually found before my PB, but wasn't really useful by itself). As a result of those 2 tweaks, when heading back to Sunnyshore it's faster to go south from Hearthome instead of east, which requires yet another tweak to deload a double battle there. There's also another tweak used to get into Volkner's Gym without entering the lighthouse. All in all despite that being a lot, the timesave from these things isn't huge, talking seconds and not minutes.

Q: Why do you choose Chimchar? I thought Platinum used Piplup?
A: Glitchless runs of Platinum use Piplup, but Any% uses Chimchar. The reason for this is simple, Chimchar is faster for the first part of the game, whereas Empoleon is much faster at the latter part than Infernape. However in Any%, you switch Pokemon to Tentacruel after Eterna City, so Chimchar is the way to go for the start.

Q: There are glitches in this run, yes?
A: Correct. Only one, but it is used multiple times. It's quite well known, it's called tweaking.

Q: What is tweaking?
A: Tweaking is a glitch in all gen 4 pokemon games. The games are loaded by 32x32 tile grid, and by moving quickly over various load lines where these grids intersect, you can cause the game to load/unload certain collisions and character sprites allowing you to get to areas before you're supposed to.

Q: How much do you skip in this game?
A: Some, but not a whole lot. The biggest skip comes after Candice, as you can go to Sunnyshore early (skipping huge Galatic sections & Distortion World). There are several other instances, such as skipping the Psyducks (Skipping cutscenes and fight with the grunt, and Cynthia) and going into Lake Valor early (which skips the cutscenes at the Library), and also be skipping the entirety of Maylene's Gym and Fly by tweaking into Pastoria Gym early. There are 15 tweaks in total used in this run.

Q: So...Tentacruel? Why, what can Tentacruel do that other Pokemon can't?
A: By tweaking once you get the Bike, you can place yourself above water, and access one at level 40 when your starter is only level 24, and that level gap proves very crucial. It is a water type, which is crucial (Surf + Specs ruins), and it's speed is excellent, outspeeding every Pokemon in the game without any X Speeds. It's offensives are pretty average, but it still manages very well throughout the game.

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, Pokerus, and Chimchar's starting stats

Q: What causes the resets?
A: I missed the initial seed. There are 2 ways to check to see if I hit the right seed, one is to check my Trainer ID which should be 1218, and the other is to check to movements of the NPCs outside my house. Checking Trainer ID is faster for resets, but obviously takes a few seconds. The RNG for the seed advances every frame, so it is a frame perfect trick

Q: Why don't you check Chimchar's stats? What are Chimchar's stats like?
A: Chimchar's 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 are manipulating so many things, it's literally a game limitation how good they can be.
The Chimchars IVs are 31 HP, 30 Att, 31 Def, 29 SP Att, 28 SP Def, 30 Speed with a Naughty nature.

Q: Why is your movement so strange at the start of the run?
A: This is to manipulate encounters. You can't just find a seed that gets no encounters with a perfect Chimchar by just running straight through (again, game limitation; there isn't one), so I need to do specific movement to manipulate the RNG so that I can avoid these encounters

Q: What encounters will you get?
A: I will get no encounters until after Barry 2, where I will encounter an Abra, and catch that. No HMs slaves are caught in this run (Monferno gets 4 of them, Tentacruel 2, and Fly/Defog are not used)

Q: What is Abra used for?
A: Abra is required for Teleport in order to skip Fly in reasonable time.

Q: How do you manipulate the Tentacruel?
A: After I position myself on the water, I save and quit in order to change the time again to manipulate for it. After hitting the seed, I then advance the RNG where I know the Tentacruel will be, and then use Honey to force him to show up. I also have to time the Honey frame perfectly as well to manipulate the Battle RNG so I can catch the Tentacruel.

The Level 40 Tentacruels IVs are 14 HP, 27 Att, 3 Def, 30 Sp Att, 19 Sp Def, 3 Speed with a Rash Nature. It is level 40 (levels are 20-40), is holding a Poison Barb (5%) and has Clear Body as it's ability (blocks Intimidate)

Q: Is the L50 Tentacruel manipulation any different?
A: Yes. The L50 is harder to manip, there are NPCs on screen that advance the RNG. This means even if I hit the seed, I can miss the frame to hit the Tentacruel if they are mean. The method to mitigate this; the Journal! The Journal advances the RNG by 2 for every time is displays a Pokemon, so the idea is to let this advance the RNG, and then open the menu up quick enough that the NPCs don't have the time to advance the RNG themselves over the Tentacruel.

The second reason the L50 is harder to manip, is that the in-game frame count does not advance every frame on Route 222 for whatever reason. This means the amount of time spent in the overworld there will not be exactly equal to time spent on the menus, meaning the exactly same total may not give the same results for the battle seed, so the time spent before opening the menu is also critical (Note: This doesn't impact getting the Tentacruel to show up, but instead impacts the manipulation to catch the Tentacruel if it shows up)

The Level 50 Tentacruels IVs are 6 HP, 29 Att, 25 Def, 31 Sp Att, 27 Sp Def, 31 Speed with a Mild Nature. It is level 50 (levels are 30-50), and has Clear Body (blocks Intimidate and Psychic Sp Def drops). The Poison Barb is taken from the L40 and given to the L50, a good one that already has it isn't viable.

Q: So why don't you just manipulate everything in the game?
A: There are multiple RNGs at play, and not all of them can be controlled the same way. Battle RNG for example, advances just about every frame, including lag frames, making it totally unpredictable past the first fight (which is still frame perfect)

Q: Is there anything else in the game you manipulate?
A: Yup, I also manipulate Pokerus in this run. It's obtained off the second trainer on Route 202 (Bidoof)

Q: Why do you play as the girl?
A: The counterpart talks less to you if you are the girl

Q: Why do you name yourself and Chimchar '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: What is WR?
A: http://www.speedrun.com/pkmnplat#Any See: Splits

Q: So what is your goal time?
A: I've already reached it, it was 2:45. But I got it so fast, I'm still really enjoying running this category, so I'm just gonna keep playing and see if I can improve it at all. If I can't by the time I'm burnt out, then I'll still be happy. So basically, any improvement is something I'm happy with.