Pokemon Stadium 2 Complete Game FAQ

	Pokemon Stadium 2 Complete Game FAQ:

Q: What is this category?
A: This is the Complete the Game, getting to the end credits. To do this, I finish the Gym Leader Castle, then do all 10 Stadium Cups (Little Cup, Prime Cup, 4 Poke Cup, 4 Challenge Cup) and then the Rival fight. That then unlocks Round 2, and I do it all again. And yes that timer is right, it takes almost a whole day to do this.

Q: Why are you doing this category again?
A: Well last PB I said I wouldn't return unless the AI Team selection was figured out. And it has been. So I have lots of new strats.
You can read up about it here: https://genericmadscientist.github.io/posts/ps2-ai-teams/
And there's a tool you can play around with yourself to see it in action here: https://genericmadscientist.github.io/AI-Team-Manipulator/

The concept being that the team of 6 you show to each opponent will impact the possible teams they can bring. While you can't even force a trainer to *always bring* a specific team, you can skew the odds in your favour.
However, of course you still need to bring Pokemon that can win. And you typically win more than 1 fight with the team you use, so you can't always carry dead weight Pokemon just for manipulation, but it does happen a reasonable amount.

Q: How many strats has this changed?
A: Quite a few. That being said, there are quite a few fights where the previous strats can't really be improved upon. After all, the good rentals are still the good rentals. There isn't suddenly a better option than Voltorb's Mirror Coat to win hard fights, it's just about having the desirable matchups appear more often.
And there were also a few fights where team manipulation was used in the past (i.e. a dead weight Pokemon to try and force more likely teams between a few fights), and it turned out that even with just manual testing, I had found the best Pokemon for this purpose.

It's also been helpful not just for teams, but even in fights where the same team is used, to streamline the strats just by knowing what is and isn't possible to appear in the fight in given scenarios (i.e. if they lead with Pokemon A, Pokemon B can not appear in the fight, so don't need to have a contingency plan for it)


Q: Why are you using <pokemon>? Why not <other pokemon>?
A: Because the restrictions in running this game involve only using rental Pokemon (as otherwise it would be incredibly easy and not at all challenging) Generally speaking, worse stat Pokemon have better moves, it's about finding the right combinations. So in a lot of cases you will see me use for example, Kadabra (Has Psychic/Thunder Punch), but never Alakazam (Has Psybeam/Theif)

Q: Are the movesets the same between all the Cups and Gym Leader Castle?
A: Gym Leader Castle and Poke Cup have the same rental movesets. Prime Cup has a lot that are the same, but some are slightly different, and some are very different. This is because some Pokemon learn moves after level 50, so they only get them in Prime Cup. Two examples used in this run, are Hitmonlee (learns Reversal at 51, this replaces Mud Slap from the level 50 rental), and Heracross (learns Megahorn at level 54. Moveset is entirely different, as would be too OP with both Megahorn and Reversal)

Little Cup is just different. The main poke used in Little which gets use elsewhere is Voltorb, which actually has Thunder and Mirror Coat in both, however it has Rollout in Little Cup, and not Selfdestruct. (Also Curse instead of Rain Dance, but that's not too relevant)

Q: Is that Pokemon Shiny?
A: No, it isn't. However, when Pokemon get given nicknames, it can slightly alter their colour (which is why trainers that aren't leaders have nicknames on their Pokemon to show off this feature)
It is actually possible that a Shiny Pokemon will show up in Challenge Cup, as everything there is randomised. However, it will actually sparkle, like seen in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKx37qF79TA

Q: Why does that gym leader have a Pokemon that isn't of their type??
A: Because if every leader had only their type, all these fights would be easy. It's not like in the games where you only have a small team, since you have access to every Pokemon, they need coverage in order to be a challenge at all.

Q: What is the record?
A: http://www.speedrun.com/pkmnstadium2#Complete_the_Game | See: Splits (no one else runs this lol)

Q: So what's your goal?
A: I'm not sure! Sub 19 hours would be sick, but I'm not sure if I'm going for that much of an improvement. Just wanna get a run with new strats in!

Q: You're so far behind! Can you really make up that much time?
A: Yes. This game has a ridiculous amount of variance compared to others. I can without a doubt make back up over an hour. In fact it's happened in past runs. Check the bottom line of the splits - Best Possible Time, this reflects what my time will be if the rest of the run equals my sum of best, meaning the best time from this point onward.

Q: What's the hardest part/Where can you lose the most time?
A: Easily Elite Four Round 2. Not only are these fights incredibly stupid with all their hax items (Quick Claw, Bright Powder, Focus Band etc), but losing here costs more time than anywhere else, because you have to fight all of them again. In the Stadium Cups this is not as much of an issue, as I setup Infinite Continue Glitch so that any death should just be a restart at that fight.

The singular fight where I think I have the lowest chance of winning is Baxter-Master-2 (Fight 7 of Poke Cup Master Ball-Round 2) - I can only win against Electrode leads (which only happen 57% of the time), and even then it's a coin flip whether I win from that position or not.

Q: What is Infinite Continue Glitch?
A: Basically if you already have a suspended (saved) battle, and then go to suspend another battle it'll ask whether you want to overwrite your previous one, or continue without suspending. If you choose the latter, the game allows you to restart the fight as if it was using a continue, but your continue is not used up. To have this option you must first have a continue however, so especially in the harder cups I'll specifically be playing for a continue in the first or second fights, because restarting the cup all the way from the beginning is a ridiculously long amount of time

Q: How many fights are in this run in total?
A: 238, 119 in each round.

Q: Why do you reset after completing a cup?
A: This is just to skip the small cutscene that shows all the Pokes you used in the cup. Saves just a few seconds each time.

Q: How are you going to play for 20 hours straight?? Don't you need to eat and shit??
A: I got some snacks. It ain't too hard to not use the bathroom for 20 hours, especially if you aren't drinking too much. I've done this whole thing before, it honestly takes no extra effort in that regard. Focused on the game, so I just get it done.