Pokémon Scarlet Any% F.A.Q.

Pokémon Scarlet Any% F.A.Q.

NOTE: There are some story spoilers in this F.A.Q. Any answers with "endgame" spoilers are marked with a *

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: I am trying to complete Pokémon Scarlet as fast as possible

Q: What is your best time?
A: My best time is 5:27:15

Q: What is the World Record?
A: The current World Record is 5:23:12 by SaiyanCinq

Q: That's not you!
A: I know :(

Q: What are you playing this on? Is it emulator?
A: I am playing this on a Nintendo Switch (OLED) hooked up to my PC via a Capture Card

Q: Where can you save time?
A: Everywhere. The game is still new

Q: What Pokémon do you use in the run?
A: I start with Fuecoco, which I use until I gain access to the Koraidon mount and then I catch a Flamigo, which is the main for the rest of the game. I also catch a Lechonk in the catch tutorial, and I catch a Hawlucha or Scyther to use for double battles and the Team Star bases

Q: Do you need to pick Fuecoco or can you pick any starter?
A*: Fuecoco is not the fastest to get through the early game, but it has other benefits that make it the best choice for my route:
- Fuecoco (or rather, Crocalor) can beat a gym on its own at the lowest level of the three starters
- The two starters you don't pick will exist on the Clavell fight (level 61) and Nemona fight (level 65). Giving Clavell Quaquaval and Nemona Meowscarada seems to be the best. Quaquaval is a tough range even at 61, so it'd be much worse at 65. Meowscarada is fast, but Skeledirge is even bulkier than Quaquaval so that'd be tough too

Q: Why does Fuecoco need to beat a gym? Can't Flamigo do it?
A: Nemona challenges you at 3 points during the Victory Road storyline: before Gym 3, after Gym 5 and before Gym 7. You're also allowed to lose these fights and still progress the game. Losing the Gym 3 and Gym 7 fights is easy because you can withdraw Lechonk before entering the gym, and then swap to your Flamigo before challenging the gym leader, however after the 5th gym leader, Nemona challenges you without giving you a chance to change your team. Because of that, we purposely delay the Bug gym until 5th to allow Fuecoco to win, and then be low enough level to die to Nemona

Q: You can lose to Nemona? Why would you?
A*: Nemona challenges you 6 times during the run (when you get your starter, before Mesagoza, before Gym 3, after Gym 5, before Gym 7, after the Pokémon League) and you are allowed to lose all but the final one. We win against Nemona 1 since it's slower to lose, but for Nemona 2-5, we lose on purpose because it's much faster. In each of the fights 2-5, Nemona will Terastilize one of her Pokémon, which is a very long animation. Add in the fact that she, like Hop in Gen 8, likes to talk about Super Effective moves and Critical Hits, you can see how losing will be faster

Q: Why is Flamigo obeying you when it's Level 70+ but you have no badges?
A: Obedience in this game is unlike almost every main series game before it. Prior to PLA, only Pokémon that were traded will disobey you, and it was based on their current level and your current number of badges (for example, in BDSP the traded Kadabra will disobey you when it's Level 16 before you have 2 badges, because your obedience is Level 10). Starting in PLA, obedience is no longer tied to traded Pokémon (meaning all Pokémon succumb to obedience), however it's based on the level that you met the Pokémon, not their current level. This means that the Flamigo we catch at Level 17 (within the obedience cap for the beginning of the game) can be level 100 and still obey us no matter what

Q: Does your Flamigo's ability matter?
A: Kind of. The run is totally possible with a Tangled Feet Flamigo and you can get a great time with it. Scrappy does save a bit of time, but at this point in the history of the game, it's not worth resetting an hour in because of a 50/50 ability

Q: How does Scrappy help? Are there a lot of Ghosts?
A: We actually don't use Scrappy to hit Ghosts. Starting in Gen 8, Scrappy blocks Intimidate. There's only a handful of Intimidates in the run, but being Scrappy just allows for some further optimization of move selection and map movement

Q: What are the most dangerous fights?
A*: Because of the nature of the run (run around, grab candies, become OP), there's not a lot of fights that'll kill you. That said, here are a few fights (in order of appearance) that can be annoying and lose time:
- Tatsugiri Titan can kill you, but since it's a 2 on 1 battle you can be saved by bad AI
- The Kofu fight can randomly have Sandstorm, which is slow
- The Katy fight can randomly have Rain, which makes Crocalor not one shot the Teddiursa
- The Ghost gym as a whole can be slow if you got a bad Scyther or Hawlucha
- Clavell's Amoonguss has Effect Spore, which can lose time, and Quaquaval can be a range
- Poppy's Corviknight and Bronzong can be ranges
- Hassel's Dragalge has Poison Point which is slow
- If Penny really wants to, she can Baby-Doll Eyes you a TON and lose you time, but it's pretty rare
- Al Sada's Scream Tail can drop your attack with Play Rough, which makes it a range to KO

Q: Do you ever Terastilize in the run?
A: No

Q: Why are you looking at the ground so much?
A: To reduce lag. No I don't know if it actually does anything lol

Q: Any%? Are there glitches?
A: There's a super-glide glitch that people are trying to incorporate into runs, however I'm not using it here. It would almost certainly save time, but I don't want to spend a lot of time looking into something that could very likely be patched out. There's talk of us creating an Any% Glitchless category, however those discussions haven't gone very far yet which is why my run is still labeled as "Any%"

Q: Can you do this route in Pokémon Violet?
A*: Yep! There are only a handful of differences between the two games, and almost all of them are within the final hour of the run. In Scarlet, we get the Past Paradox Pokémon to fight in Area Zero while Violet gets all the Future ones. This means that the fights are a bit different between the two games, but neither one is really faster or slower than the other. That being said, some recent work is being done to compare lag between the two games and preliminary results are indicating that Pokémon Violet is a bit slower overall because of lag. More work needs to be done to really confirm this, but at the time of writing this FAQ it seems pretty legit

Q: Do you plan on running Pokémon Violet?
A: If the route is better in Violet than Scarlet, or if the runs are split on the leaderboard, then yes. Otherwise, no

Q: What is your goal time?
A: Better than my PB