Pokemon Platinum any% FAQ

      Pokemon Platinum Any% (Glitched) FAQ

Q: Is this a new route?
A: Yes! Over 3 years after I confirmed it's faster, this is FINALLY the Golduck route.

Q: What is the Golduck route?
A: The Golduck route catches a Golduck. Specifically, it catches a Level 40 Golduck.
The old route caught a Level 40 Tentacruel after Gardenia, and then a Level 50 Tentacruel on the way to Pastoria. THis route catches a Level 40 Golduck after Gardenia, but still gets the Level 50 Tentacruel on the way to Pastoria.

Q: So much much better is Golduck than Tentacruel?
A: Actually, Golduck is worse than Tentacruel. The reason it's faster is that it's faster to obtain Golduck, but in the battles it has to complete, it performs worse (because it doesn't have Poison Jab for Rival 3).
But L40 Golduck can be obtained on Route 205, just west of Eterna City, so right after the Bike. Whereas the old route backtracked all the way to Sandgem Town to get the L40 Tentacruel.

Q: Are there any other routing differences?
A: Yep. Quite a few incidental ones (because different route means different seeds, so slightly different stats, etc), but the biggest difference is probably that this route uses Fly instead of Teleport.

Q: Why does this route use Fly over Teleport?
A: Simply because not getting the L40 Tentacruel means there's one less use for Teleport, so it's not quite as useful. So instead, getting Fly and beating Maylene's Gym ends up being the way to go.

Q: How much faster is Fly than Teleport on this route?
A: It's about...less than 1 second. It's so little that the variance of timing it is actually bigger than the time difference itself (because of things like "How long do you have to wait for this spinner to pass if using Teleport?").

The bigger advantage of Fly over Teleport is catching a Starly instead of an Abra, which is much more likely to get in the Poke Ball straight away (99.994% vs 27.973%)

Q: Any other new strats?
A: My PB is quite old, there's actually a trainer on the way to Veilstone that can be skipped with a tweak that my run did not skip, so nice time save there.

Another big one is how I'm approaching the Level 50 Tentacruel - instead of saving on the water and manipping from there, I'm actually saving on land and doing the tweak during the manip. This makes the manip more difficult (as messing up the movement means I'll fail the manip), but it makes it more consistent IF I do it correctly, because it means I shouldn't get screwed by unseeable NPCs.

Q: So how much faster is this route?
A: Very difficult to say! The biggest time save is the Golduck difference, and the main reason it's faster is that I don't Save & Quit to manip for it, which saves about a minute. This means it's far riskier though, as I have to catch it without manip, and also far harder, as I have to keep initial seed manip all the way to Golduck or the run can not continue.

Ultimately though, I'm hoping to push this under 2:40 with all the new stuff in the run. But doing so will still be quite tough.

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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 Chimchar? I you used Piplup for Platinum?
A: My glitchless runs of Platinum use Piplup, but Any% uses Chimchar. The reason for this is simple, Chimchar is much faster for the first part of the game, whereas Empoleon is much faster at the latter part than Infernape. However in Any%, you switch your main Pokemon 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 tweaking into Pastoria Gym early. There are 18 tweaks in total used in this run.

Q: Do you use Chimchar the whole run, or catch something else?
A: Chimchar/Monferno is used until just after Gardenia, more accurately until I get the Bike. With the Bike I can do impactful tweaks, which allow me to tweak into the water and catch higher level Pokemon there.
Once I can do this I switch my main to Golduck. Then after Maylene, I switch my main again to Tentacruel.

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 50 after Maylene, and that level gap is huge. 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.

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, along with getting an instant Level 40 Golduck with great stats after Eterna.

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 17996, 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 26 HP, 31 Att, 21 Def, 29 Sp Att, 24 SP Def, 29 Speed with a Naughty nature.
The Golducks IVs are 17 HP, 21 Att, 23 Def, 29 Sp Att, 8 Sp Def, 28 Speed with a Mild 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 only 1 encounter before Eterna City, a Level 2 Starly.
No other HMs slaves are caught in this run (All other HMs are given to Monferno/Golduck/Tentacruel)

Q: How do you manipulate the L50 Tentacruel?
A: After I position myself right at the corner of the first loadline, 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.
This manip is quite difficult as I am also attempt to manipulate the Battle RNG in order to catch the Tentacruel (if I fail this, it generally kills me)

Q: What is Battle RNG?
A: As it sounds, the Battle RNG is the RNG that impacts the battles (like what moves the opponent uses, how much damage it does, whether it crits, and most importantly, whether a Ball will catch or not).
Battle RNG is computed the same way as regular RNG, but the thing that makes it harder is that it's reseeded for each battle, meaning in this case the seed for the L50 Tentacruel battle is made right before the battle starts. As one of the factors of the seed creation is the in-game frame count, and lag frames do NOT count towards that, it means you have to control the amount of lag that has passed to that point.
In this case, that's quite difficult, as different areas of the map have different amount of lag. Additionally, every step you take on the beach creates lag as well. So every section of the movement is critical in order to get the manip to work, as well as having frame perfect timing on using the honey.

Q: What are the Level 50 Tentacruels stats?
The Level 50 Tentacruels IVs are 9 HP, 30 Att, 21 Def, 30 Sp Att, 23 Sp Def, 25 Speed with a Mild Nature. It is level 50 (levels are 30-50), has a Poison Barb (5%), and has Clear Body (blocks Intimidate and Psychic Sp Def drops).

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 Rival fight on Route 203

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

Q: So what is your goal time?
A: Just to get WR back for now, but also want a sub 2:40.