Pokemon Colosseum FAQ (December 2021)

Pokemon Colosseum FAQ (Quilava route, December 2021)

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: 3:29:07 by Baltan.

Q: What is your goal?
A: To beat the world record.

Q: What Pokemon do you use?
A: Espeon and Quilava are used as primary battlers. The other four Pokemon -- Umbreon, Makuhita, Meditite and Plusle -- are only used in a few battles.

Q: Why those Pokemon?
A: Espeon is overpowered for the whole game with STAB Psychic moves, and you can use RNG manipulation to get a high-IV +Sp. Atk nature with an ideal Hidden Power (Grass). Quilava's Fire typing complements it well, and Quilava's moves have fast animations (Flame Wheel) and a lot of power (Fire Blast).

Umbreon comes with Espeon as your starter Pokemon. Makuhita is used to bait the AI in several fights. Meditite is caught because it holds the Twistedspoon, which powers up Espeon's moves. Plusle is given to you for free and is used to quickly die on some fights that can be lost.

Q: Any new strats?
A: Yes, there's been about a minute worth of time saves since I last ran this category in 2018. Two of them are brand new and will be tested for the first time with these runs.

The first strat is catching Makuhita, depositing Umbreon, and then sacrificing Makuhita on Ferma to give Espeon 1218 extra experience. Details here: https://pastebin.com/GLx5RbTe

The second strat is intentionally losing five fights in the Shadow Pokemon lab. Losing is much faster than winning, but you lose valuable experience. Details here: https://pastebin.com/GLx5RbTe

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 each frame. From there, I will use various methods to advance the RNG to quickly reach the frame that has my desired Espeon. The RNG advances a little whenever you generate a Battle Now team, and it advances a lot when you're in battle with a Pokemon whose sprite contains particles (such as Moltres or Koffing).

Q: What is a desirable Espeon?
A: Modest or Rash nature with 7+ IV HP, 17+ IV Defense, 30 IV Sp. Atk, 27+ IV Speed and Hidden Power Grass 68+. 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 15+ IV Sp. Atk (and you have to take some big risks with less than 20). 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 16+ IV. It also helps 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 2-4 times to lower the Heart Gauge.

Q: Can you RNG manipulate a good Quilava?
A: Possibly, but no one has found a good setup for it yet.

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.