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-	Pokemon Stadium 2 Complete Game FAQ:
+      Golden Sun 2 any% FAQ
 
-Q: What is this category?
+Q: What are you playing on, it is emulator?
-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.
+A: No, I play on a Gamecube through a Gameboy Player using a Gameboy SP as a controller.
 
-Q: Why are you doing this category again?
+Q: Does this game have RNG Manipulation?
-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.
+A: Yes it does!
-You can read up about it here: https://genericmadscientist.github.io/posts/ps2-ai-teams/
+The categories for the games are generally distinct between allowing Save and Quits, and not. This is just any%, so S&Q is allowed, and as such there will be RNG Manip.
-And there's a tool you can play around with yourself to see it in action here: https://genericmadscientist.github.io/AI-Team-Manipulator/
+S&Q also allows for other things that aren't strictly manip too, save as save warping (both Sanctum warping, which is intentional and Save Retreat warping, which is a glitch.)
 
-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.
+Q: How does RNG manipulation work in this game?
-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.
+A: There are 2 different types of RNG.
 Battle (Referred to as BRN), which as you might guess is relevant in battles, including things like what attacks enemies use, and whether you get Attacks First or Caught by Surprise against an enemy.
-Q: How many strats has this changed?
+and General (Referred to as GRN), which is relevant for everything else (including stuff inside battles, such as who enemies Target, whether you can flee from encounters, stats levels up after a battle)
-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.
+When you Hard Reset, both of these values are set to 0. When you Soft Reset (AB Start Select), the GRN is set to 0 but not the BRN. When the BRN is 0, you always get Attacks First on the first party (allowing you to flee).
 
-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)
+Now while the GRN is reset to 0, it during the Title Screen every frame. So hitting a consistent GRN value after a reset is a frame perfect trick.
 So in order to do manips with good consistency, clusters of several frames are mapped out, with different procedures. The general idea is typically to take the first encounter after a reset, and then depending on what it is, slightly alter what you do in order to then end up on a known GRN slightly after, and then follow a set path.
 
-Q: Why are you using <pokemon>? Why not <other pokemon>?
+Q: Does this mean everything in the game is manipped?
-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)
+A: No, it does not. There are several places in the game where manip is near on impossible to control, because so many things advances it in different ways. For example;
 
-Q: Are the movesets the same between all the Cups and Gym Leader Castle?
+Being in a town for a long time is hard, but not impossible to keel manip for. There are some instances where I'd like to map out manips through towns, but for now I'm not.
-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)
+There are several places in the game where RNG is advancing every frame, and manip is just not on the cards. The exterior of Aqua Rock, as well as the outside of Mars Lighthouse are good examples of these.
 Using Burst gives crazy random results, fuck Burst.
-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)
+
 There are also some instances where you can manip, but it's faster not to because there's only a few encounters until the next place, so it's faster to just run. And/or some of these where I just haven't mapped out the manip yet.
-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)
+There are also some places where manip can *slightly* vary because of odd frames cycles. Magma Rock is the worst for this, both using Burst inside AND casting Judgement.
-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 are you clearing the names at the start of the game?
-Q: Why does that gym leader have a Pokemon that isn't of their type??
+A: This is because it advances the GRN every time you do, and once you start the game, there are a few random things that are checked for, notably the starting stats of the characters, and perhaps more importantly the starting Djinn of the characters from Golden Sun 1.
-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: Why are you going to attack and then cancelling out?
-Q: What is the record?
+A: This is known as Attack Cancelling, and the reason for it is every time you register a command with a character, the GRN advances by 1. So say I want to advance it by 2, I'd input 2 characters to attack, and then B out to cancel them. This is often used to allowing for fleeing from encounters, but also other things like changing targets of attacks.
-A: http://www.speedrun.com/pkmnstadium2#Complete_the_Game | See: Splits (no one else runs this lol)
+
 Q: Why are you using a Psynergy there when it does nothing?
-Q: So what's your goal?
+A: Using certain Psynergy in the overworld will advance the GRN by specific amounts. For example using Growth advances it by 63, and Frost by 96, Lash by 144. This is used to often change encounter patterns, i.e. change what and when the next encounter will be.
-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: Are there any glitches / skips in this run?
-Q: You're so far behind! Can you really make up that much time?
+A: Oh my yes!
-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.
+One that is used quite a bit is the Retreat Glitch. By attempting to use Retreat from a shortcut (L or R) with less than 6 PP, you enter a glitch state which has a few applications;
 1) Retreat warping, where entering a loading zone will warp you to a different location.
-Q: What's the hardest part/Where can you lose the most time?
+2) Save retreat warping, where saving after entering this state and reloading will load you in a different area.
-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.
+3) Retreat chesting, where picking up a static item (for example a chest), gives you a different item.
 
-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.
+The glitch that saves the most time in the run by itself is known as Death Storage, where by having a character gets posioned and dying in the overworld right as you pass a loading zone, you pass through that loading zone and can go OoB. This is used twice in the run, but skips hours.
 
-Q: What is Infinite Continue Glitch?
+There are several other glitches and skips used in this run, such as Move clipping, Boat clipping, Burst Glitch, Fire phasing, Aerie OoB, and some small others.
-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 do you have Isaac already?
-Q: How many fights are in this run in total?
+A: There is a certain chest in Gabomba Statue, that if you reach the puzzle at the top (this is important as it sets the Retreat location to that space), and then backtrack to it and Retreat Chest, you get rewarded with a Sol Blade, and Isaac. And as a flow on effect, the ability to effectively 'clone' a member of your party. It's pretty busted, and really cool!
-A: 238, 119 in each round.
+
 Q: What is the current World Record?
-Q: Why do you reset after completing a cup?
+A: www.speedrun.com/gsuntla#Any | See: Spilts
-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: What time are you aiming for?
-Q: How are you going to play for 20 hours straight?? Don't you need to eat and shit??
+A: To start with, would like to get sub 3 hours with this route. Then there are quite a few optimisations I can make that would take a lot of rerouting, see where it goes from there.