Pokemon Fire Red Kaizo speedrunning FAQ

Pokemon Fire Red Kaizo FAQ (November 2022)

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Beat a randomized version of Pokemon Fire Red as quickly as possible using the Kaizo ruleset (found at ironmon.gg).

Q: How do you speedrun a randomizer?
A: Create a bunch of seeds (as many as you want), then look at the spoiler log to find one that looks like it will play fast. Once you find one, route it like you would any other Pokemon game -- by planning every fight and every overworld movement to be as fast as possible.

Q: Isn't the best strategy just to create thousands/millions of seeds until you find one that's nearly perfect?
A: Not if runners share the seeds they plan to route (which I think should be a rule if a leaderboard gets created for this). By sharing seeds, runners remove any advantage they gain from hunting for a perfect seed. Thus, runners are likely to only hunt for a reasonable number of seeds -- probably a few hundred at a time.

Q: What makes a seed good for speedrunning?
A: I think a Pokemon with a setup move -- especially Tail Glow, Swords Dance, Dragon Dance or Bulk Up -- is essential, for three reasons: buying X items is banned, you will be doing hard fights at a lower level than normal, and you will always be able to use the perfect number of boosting moves since know all damage ranges in advance. I also think it's much better to hunt for a starter Pokemon than a wild Pokemon, since you can efficiently reset for a good nature.

Q: What seeds have you found so far?
A: I'm going to start by routing the god Crobat seed from my first completed Kaizo run. The Crobat was a starter Pokemon and had Drill Peck, Extremespeed and Dragon Dance.

Q: Is RNG manipulation allowed?
A: Great question! This is an important topic that deserves serious consideration. Please watch this video for an in-depth analysis of RNG manipulation as it pertains to Kaizo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ