Pokemon Colosseum FAQ (Quilava route)

Pokemon Colosseum FAQ (Quilava route)

Q: What are you playing on?
A: A GameCube console.

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Beat Pokemon Colosseum as fast as possible.

Q: What is the world record?
A: 3:34:51 by Ryziken.

Q: What is your goal?
A: A 3:32 would be nice.

Q: Why Quilava?
A: It's very likely faster than Croconaw. It has moves that do significant damage in late-game fights -- STAB Fire Blast and Flame Wheel with the Charcoal held item. And it covers Espeon's offensive weaknesses better. Feraligatr's Surf is pitifully weak because this game is only double battles, which splits Surf's damage between two targets (this was changed in later gens). And it has only 79 base Sp. Atk compared to Typhlosion's 109.

Q: Why was this not considered before?
A: Honestly, this was just a huge oversight on my part. The route was likely faster even before Espeon manip and other discoveries, but no one made a proper comparison. It seemed slower because Mt. Battle is ugly with Typhlosion, while Feraligatr's slower late-game fights are at least clean. But the late game makes a bigger difference in terms of time.

Q: Why do you go to Battle Mode before starting a run?
A: This is RNG manipulation. I am generating random teams of Pokemon in "Battle Now" to gather information about my seed, or starting RNG frame. I enter these Pokemon into a program, which tells me my seed and the Espeon stat spreads that will appear on the first ~2000 frames of that seed. The frame counter begins when you start a new game, and the game runs at 60 frames per second. If no desirable Espeons are found, I'll generate another Battle Now team to advance the RNG and check a fresh list of Espeons. This is called a reroll. Most seeds will require 15+ rerolls to find a desirable Espeon.

Q: How was this manip found?
A: Mostly by the hard work of a terrific programmer named aldelaro5.

Q: What is a desirable Espeon?
A: Modest, Mild or Rash nature with 30 IV Sp. Atk, 19+ IV Speed and Hidden Power Grass 66+. You can't get 31 IV Sp. Atk with HP Grass.

Q: Why are you resetting?
A: Probably because I missed the Espeon manip or my Quilava has bad stats. Colosseum is a very reset-heavy run in terms of stats, because the game is basically 3.5 hours of battles, and a turn in battle is 10+ seconds because of unskippable animations.

Q: What stats do you need Quilava to have?
A: The main one is 20+ IV Sp. Atk (and you have to take some big risks with less than 25). Good Attack saves time in the first 45 minutes and on one late-game fight, but it's not worth resetting over. Speed can be flexible; if everything else is good, you can run high IV -Speed or low IV neutral, but you'd prefer to have 19+ IV. It's also very important to have a nature that starts gaining experience early (Shadow Pokemon start gaining experience when their Heart Gauge has dropped two bars). About half the natures get this with no problems; the other half require calling Quilava out of Hyper Mode 1-4 times to lower the Heart Gauge.

Q: Can you RNG manipulate a good Quilava?
A: No, according to aldelaro.

Q: How do you know Quilava's IVs so quickly if you can't manipulate it?
A: After catching Quilava, you can enter its stats and Espeon's stats into a program. That information is usually enough for the program to figure out the frame on which Quilava was generated, and thus its IVs.

Q: Are there any glitches in this run?
A: Yes, two. It uses the ball duping glitch to save money in the early game, and it uses the X item glitch to save massive time in fights throughout the run.