Pokemon Blue Squirtle% FAQ

Pokemon Blue Squirtle% FAQ (November 2020)

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Beat Pokemon Blue without RNG manipulation using Squirtle as the main Pokemon.

Q: What year is this?
A: 2013.

Q: What are you playing on?
A: Gambatte-Speedrun, an accurate emulator for Gen 1-2 Pokemon games.

Q: Why are you running this?
A: I like the challenge of finding improvements to existing speedrun routes. The Squirtle route has been around since 2011, but I had never gotten around to optimizing it, since Nidoran was always considered to be faster. I started routing it this past week and found some improvements that could possibly make Squirtle competitive with Nidoran again.

Q: Do you think Squirtle is faster than Nidoran?
A: Not quite. I've been making some rough comparisons in this paste, and Squirtle is still 20+ seconds behind: https://pastebin.com/uCd3VYVD

Q: What is the world record?
A: For Squirtle, I have an unrecorded 1:56:02 that uses a slower route. Werster has the official record of 1:56:08. The Nidoran record is 1:50:31 by me.

Q: What are the routing improvements?
A: I fight the Hiker in Mt. Moon and kill 2 wild Geodudes, which allows me to Rare Candy once to Level 20 for Misty. This gives me a ton of useful early-game levels that save turns and make red bar more consistent. Then for the late game, I use 3 extra candies (which take only 47 seconds to get) and try to red bar most of the Pokemon from Silph Rival to Bruno. I skip Mega Kick and Blizzard, which allows me to teach Strength to Squirtle and skip getting Lapras. Full notes here: https://pastebin.com/4Frqw8mL

Q: What are the hardest fights?
A: It depends on how aggressively I try to maintain red bar. If I play it safe, the hardest fight is Surge (10% to die). If I play it risky in red bar, I can easily die to Rival 2, Juggler 2, Koga, Sabrina, and Viridian Rival.

Q: Why are you resetting?
A: I need my Squirtle to have 11 Attack, 10 Speed, and 11 Special at L5 (sometimes I'll take 10 Attack and hope it goes 12 at Level 6). The odds of getting this are 5%, or 1/19. Each reset takes a little less than 2 minutes, so this means I'll get on a run once every 35 minutes.

Q: What is your goal?
A: To get a time around 1:51:30 (this would give an in-game time of 1:49). It's very possible that this is too much of a grind for me right now, in which case I'll be happy with getting an official Squirtle WR around 1:54:30 (1:52 IGT).

Q: Why not run with manip?
A: Hitting 1-frame windows is not a fulfilling life choice.