Pokemon Brown Marathon Practice FAQ

Pokemon Brown Any% Glitchless Marathon Practice FAQ
Last updated 11 August 2016
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Q: So what is a Pokemon Brown anyway? Some kind of poopy Pokemon version?
A: Pokemon Brown is a ROM hack of English Pokemon Red. It is most notable for being the first major Pokemon ROM hack ever released (there were minor ROM hacks with sprite/text changes before, but nothing on this scale). It features 75 new Pokemon from Gens 2-6 (without removing any Gen1 pokemon), new Pokemon sprites, types and moves, and a revised story set in the new region of Rijon (har har).

Q: Where can I get it?
A: Pokemon Brown's homepage is the "World of Rijon" which you can find at http://rijon.com/ . That website will also serve as home to the as-of-yet-unreleased sequel called Pokemon Prism.

Q: So what is the speedrun like?
A: As this is still a Generation 1 game at heart, the AI is pretty stupid and so the speedrun isn't overly challenging from a "you're going to die to this fight" standpoint. However, it does take Gen 1's most notorious trolls (Sand-Attack, status moves, Agatha) and ramp them up to even more annoying levels, so things can get pretty trolly at times. Most of the times I save are just safety saves, the chances of me wiping to any one fight are pretty low. Unfortunately, this game does suffer from the issue a lot of ROM hacks have where there are tons and tons compulsory trainers, but the level curve sort of justifies it anyway.

Q: Why not just run a real Pokemon game instead?
A: I tried running main series Pokemon games in 2013/14, and didn't find competing at high levels too interesting. My execution has never been great, so I prefer playing this kind of game, where I can spend more time trying to improve the route than grinding out an existing route. Routing by far is my favourite part of Pokemon speedrunning.

Q: What Pokemon are used during the run?
A: Squirtle/Wartortle/Blastoise serve as the main Pokemon for this run. Nidoking is still pretty OP, but unfortunately I can't catch a Nidoran until my Wartortle is already Lv18 (compared to Lv10 Nidoran), and it just can't catch up against the trainers at that point of the game. There is also no buyable Horn Drill TM, so one of Nidoking's major advantages is gone. I use a Zubat and an Oddish as my Fly and Cut slaves, and optionally an Abra for a single use of Teleport that saves about 40 seconds. Blastoise learns Strength, Surf and Dig to complete the lineup of necessary field moves.

Q: WHY ARE YOU MOVING SO FAST? STOP USING SPEEDUPS!
A: Pokemon Brown's 2014 release added a new feature: Running Shoes. Unfortunately [or fortunately depending on your point of view], this feature was a bit rushed, so it just gives you bike speed whenever you hold B. This means that I can move at bike speed (double walking speed) for the entire game, and I can skip the bicycle altogether because Cycling Road is optional.

Q: What is the world record for this game? Or your PB?
A: My best time in a clean run from New Game to credits is 2:08:43, you can find that video @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RyABnkl1c4
Calling it a "World Record" is extremely silly since only one other person has ever done serious runs and he didn't route it all that thoroughly.
I also have a 2:06:41 which was achieved during marathon practice, but as it was practice it reloaded a save to get a runnable Squirtle, so it isn't really a legit PB/WR.