Pokemon Red (JP) Sabrina% FAQ

Pokemon Red (JP) Sabrina%

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

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Beat Sabrina 100 times as fast as possible without glitches or instant text.

Q: I thought you could only battle gym leaders once in Gen 1?
A: So did I! Until two days ago, when a Red runner named Zweiteturm accidentally fought Sabrina twice during a JP Red Classic run. We figured out that, after the fight ends, there is a small window during which the game doesn't register you've beaten her. So if you talk to her during that window by pressing A, you'll get the same dialogue you'd get before the fight -- which is the dialogue that starts the fight! So you can rebattle her infinitely. And the A press can be buffered, so it's trivial to execute.

The same phenomenon occurs before the Rival 1 fight in the English version. But when you talk to him before the fight, he just says "My Pokemon looks a lot stronger." So you can only battle him once.

Q: Isn't this a glitch?
A: Maybe, but since it can very easily happen accidentally, it's not fair to exclude it from a glitchless speedrun.

Q: So what's the route?
A: Use moves with fast animations that don't crit much, get as much PP as possible so you don't have to use many PP restoring items, and get into red bar so the fights go faster. Since there is a limited number of PP items before defeating Sabrina, you use a full team to maximize PP.

Here's the fun part: Certain moves are faster with animations turned *on*. The main ones are Body Slam, Poison Sting, Stomp and Headbutt. Poison Sting has the most PP, but only Kadabra dies to it, so the other moves are a better choice. No Pokemon can learn all three moves, so I choose Rhydon as the main Pokemon because it can learn Stomp (the fastest one) and Body Slam, and its low crit rate saves time in text. And I start the grind at Level 59 rather than 100 because lower levels reduce the lag after the "gained experience" text box.

The remaining five Pokemon are two Snorlaxes, because they learn Body Slam naturally (and you only have 1 Body Slam PP) and three more Rhydons. I would use five Snorlaxes, but only two are available glitchless.

Q: Why is instant text banned?
A: Optimally clearing instant text boxes is a huge pain and not fun at all. And you'd lose instant text after using your first PP restoring item, so you'd optimally try to delay that as much as possible by using risky strats.

Q: What is the world record?
A: 1:20:38 by pokeguy.