Pokemon Red/Blue - Catch 'em all glitchless FAQ

Pokemon Red/Blue Catch 'em all glitchless (classic ruleset) FAQ

----	How to catch 'em all (fast)	----

- What are we trying to do?
We are doing a coop single-segment speedrun with the goal to catch all 150 Pokemon in Pokemon Red/Blue.
At the end of the run both of us need to have 150 Pokedex entries. Time ends once we get the diploma from the guy in Celadon City. Trebien is playing the Red Version and I (SurrealGuy) am playing the Blue Version.

 - What are you playing on?
We are playing on an emulator called BGB since we don't have the necessary equipment to play (and record) our run on console (2 Gamecubes/2 Gameboyplayers/Capture card etc). BGB is the only accurate emulator that includes a properly working link function which is essential for this run as the route involves a bunch of trading (the last 45minutes of the run is basically pure trading).

- What's the current record? IS THIS WR???
Our current record sits at 7 hours, 8 minutes and 6 seconds. Since we did a whole lot of rerouting and optimizing since our last run from about 3 years ago, we are certain that we should be able to easily break the 7hour mark (that is if Safari-Pokemon like Tauros cooperate a bit). Since seemingly no one else routed or seriously ran this category like we did, our time is the best-known time. 2Dos and IAteyourpie once completed a run (in 2014 i think) on console and they got a time of about 11 hours.

- What are the rules? What are you allowed to do and what is banned?
With the discovery of RNG manipulations which involves hard-resetting the console/emulator Pokemon Red/Blue speedrunning has changed a lot. You are basically able to manipulate every encounter and f.e. catch Mewtwo in the first Pokeball everytime.
Some of the Any% glitchless runners felt the same, so they created another glitchless category with the "classic ruleset":
	- Hard resetting the console during the run is not allowed.
	- Saving and quitting (S + Q) using soft resets is allowed.
	- Using a Poké Doll on Marowak is not allowed.
	- Talking to the Bike Shop owner without having the Bike Voucher to temporarily gain Instant Text is not allowed.
	- Glitches such as trainer-fly, old man, et cetera are not allowed.
	- Surfing on Cinnabar Coast to catch Pokemon from previous routes (especially SafariZone) is not allowed.
Because heavy rng manipulations via hardresets would have trivialized so many fun things about this category we decided to just stick to the "classic ruleset".

- What about Mew?
Mew is only obtainable via glitches and this is a glitchless run, so we won't catch Mew. Mew is also not required to get the Diploma in Celadon City. If you want to see a heavily glitched run that catches all 151 Pokemon in about half an hour, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHEn7tNtpcA

- How do we obtain the third Eevee?
The red player creates sort of a dummy file. He plays to Celadon City to get his Eevee (and also buys Dratini in the Gamecorner) and proceeds to trade these over to Blue. Then he resets his game and his real run begins (that reset happens about 1:15 into the run). In total we will be doing 4 resets to also get all the starters we need. Of course 3 resets would be enough, but Red uses a Wartortle to get to Celadon City much quicker, so an Extra Reset is needed for an Extra Squirtle. (Maybe this can be further optimized in a future rerouting)

- What are the main route changes since last time?
Blue only beats the Elite Four a single time to get access to Cerulean Cave. Red doesn't beat the Elite Four at all. We started to use the EXP much more efficient. EXP is the main bottleneck of this run and we want to beat as few Extra Trainers as possible while still getting our Pokemon to gain enough Levels to evolve. Dratini is bought early so I can use it from Celadon City all the way through the Elite Four reaching about L53 in the process. Ponyta learns Horn Drill which enables beating tough fights like Silph Rival on its own. Instead of slowly switching in and out we developed strats to let EXP hungry Pokemon fight mostly on their own: f.e. Mankey beats Lance's Dragons with Toxic, Ivysaur makes its way through Rock Tunnel etc.
Another slight change is that Blue uses a lot of normal Pokeballs to catch stuff instead of only GreatBalls. This is due to the fact that Blue now buys a lot of X-Items and also needs 130000$ to buy Porygon later in the run. Pokeballs are just a lot cheaper.
Because we now stick to the above mentioned "classic ruleset" (which bans the use of a Pokédoll on the Marowak in Lavender Tower) both of us need to beat Giovanni in the Rocket Hideout to get the Silph Scope.

- What about UltraBalls?
For Pokemon with a very low catchrate like Chansey, Ditto or the Legendaries UltraBalls would be better. Otherwise GreatBalls are mostly superior. Also Great Balls cost 600$, Ultras cost 1200$. We definitely want to conserve money. We also catch a lot of stuff with normal Pokeballs. Here's a good source if you're interested in Gen 1 capture mechanics: http://www.dragonflycave.com/rbycapture.aspx

- How do we find the desired Pokemon in the wild? Why are you sometimes walking outside of the grass?
It's a technique called DSum Manipulation. In each area there are 10 different types of encounters (referred to as slots 1 to 10 with 10 being the rarest). The game cycles through these slots (takes about 6.5 seconds per cycle). With that in mind you know when you can get the encounter you want. This is especially helpful in the SafariZone. There's only a handful of frames in each cycle where we can get the rare encounter (slots 9&10) we want (Tauros, Kanghaskan, Scyther, Pinsir). F.e after I fled from a Nidorino encounter, I know that I have to get an encounter after about 1.5 seconds to have a chance that it is a Scyther. If i don't get an encounter in those 1.5 seconds I wait or walk outside of the grass for the remaining ~5 seconds before I start searching again. This way we can increase our chances to get the encounter we want. DSum manipulation is very technical and hard to understand at first. If you want more information you can check out this link: http://wiki.pokemonspeedruns.com/index.php/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red/Blue/Yellow_DSum_Manipulation

- What about Safari Zone? Is it really that bad?
Yes and no. Luckily we can catch a Chansey in Cerulean cave. But there are 4 Pokemon that we have to catch in the SafariZone and are really hard to catch: Tauros, Kanghaskhan, Scyther (Red), Pinsir (Blue). Finding them is not too hard (although each of them only has a 4% encounter rate) thanks to DSum manipulation and using repels to prevent us from encountering thousands of Nidorans.
Catching them is the real problem. We can always throw one ball after that it's pure luck. Each of them has a 10.4% catchrate and a chance of about 44% to flee on the next turn.
Statistically each of them should be caught in 10 balls (~roughly on the fourth encounter). But as you know you can be unlucky and waste half an hour on one of these or you're lucky and the first ball is a catch. We would prefer the latter.

- Something general about this stream:
I usually don't stream at all. These runs are pretty much an exception. For the most part we'll talk german to each other just because this run relies heavily on communication and we generally don't have many viewers at all. If you have a question about the run or a strategy that seems weird to you, feel free to ask in chat. :)

- Special thanks go to MrWint who did a TAS of this category which was a great inspiration for us especially in terms of using the EXP much more efficiently. Definitely check out his TAS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ivGNZs_Mvw


This is what we've been working on for the last year. Let's catch 'em all (fast).