Pokemon Platinum Bidoof+ FAQ

      Pokemon Platinum Bidoof+ FAQ

Q: What does Bidoof+ mean?
A: It means I'm going to catch a Bidoof, and use it (along with it's evolution) to beat the whole game. In other words, an alternate Pokemon run using Bidoof!
The + in Bidoof+ is to differentiate it from a potential alt run with *just* Bidoof, where you never evolve it. And yes, before you ask, someone has already done that (albeit not very well).

Q: Is this run Glitchless or not?
A: Yes, it is glitchless. Alt poke runs are glitchless unless explicitly said otherwise.

Q: So is this faster than using Empoleon?
A: No, the entire point of an alt Pokemon run is that it is not the fastest way to beat the game. Otherwise it would just be...the fastest way, and it'd be the main category.

Q: So how much slower is this going to be? What's your estimate?
A: The very first section where you are still Bidoof is much, much slower. Bidoof requires a lot of grinding for extra experience before Roark - and he is slow at grinding too because of his experience curve. But Bibarel actually goes in really hard, to the point where he actually does large segments of the game faster than Empoleon. Estimate should be between 4-4.5 hours.

Q: Isn't Bibarel really bad? How does it do anything fast?
A: Bibarel has two abilities - Unaware, which completely ignores all stat changes, and Simple, which doubles them. Doubling stat changes is *really* good, especially since it works with X Items. And having X Items raise two stages instead of 1 is insanely helpful. Can you imagine how busted it would be if that happened with every Pokemon? Haha....ha...

The flip side however is that Simple is really *bad* for the start of the game, because so many Pokemon use Growl on you. Even Leer can be pretty bad. So Bidoof has a rough time of it.

Q: Does Simple work with Choice Specs? If not, what item do you use?
A: Choice Specs still only raise by 50% sadly, the effect isn't doubled with Simple. They actually aren't worth it, even though Bibarel does get and use Surf a decent amount, it primarily attacks with Physical moves throughout the run. The item I'll be using will be a Lucky Egg stolen from a manipulated wild Chnasey.

Q: How are you going to manipulate a Lucky Egg wild Chansey??
A: I'm a genius.

Q: What are the hardest fights in this run?
A: All of the early fights are pretty tough for Bidoof. You also have to do so much grinding that you end up very low on PP and Potions, it's very possible to run out and be screwed. But overall the fight I'm most likely to die on is Fantina, more because of circumstance than because she herself is the worst (that is, it's before you can buy X Items and you're forced to use the only other X Items you can get on other fights like Roark/Gardenia).

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: Why do you choose Turtwig as the starter?
A: Two reasons for this.
1) As a HM slave, it learns Cut/Rock Smash/Strength/Rock Climb, which is perfect. However, Chimchar also does this, hence the second.
2) To force the rival to pick Chimchar. Chimchar and it's evolutions are the easiest to kill, primarily because they learn Leer instead of Growl, but also because of their lower defences and typing for Bibarel to kill.

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, and Piplup'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 26147, 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: What are your Pokemon's stats like?
A: The 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 Bidoofs IVs are 23 HP, 31 Att, 31 Def, 25 SP Att, 30 SP Def, 31 Speed with a Naughty nature, and Simple ability.

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 Bidoof 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 catch the Bidoof at Lake Verity, and then a Starly (For Fly) on Route 201. Shouldn't get any others.

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.

Q: Is there anything else in the game you manipulate?
A: Yes! There is one more thing you can manipulate in Platinum and not Pearl - Pokerus! Pokerus is obtained off the 5th trainer fight on Route 204.

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 Bidoof '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: https://www.speedrun.com/pkmngen4ext#Alt_Main_Pokes_Platinum (Real answer is there isn't one and it's going to be whatever I get.)

Q: Do you plan to do other Alt Pokemon runs?
A: Yeah, in the future. I've already done Rocky in Crystal and Makit in ORAS. I've got quite a few more on my list to do in the future (mostly across Gen 4/5). I definitely don't need suggestions on more - I've thought about and considered everything you can imagine. It's hard to find the right mix of something you get early enough in the game that is actually still interesting to use. But I've certainly got some more planned, it just takes a long time to route the whole game with something else.