FireRed Round 2 FAQ

Pokemon FireRed Round 2 (Zapdos) FAQ

Q: What do you play this game on?
A: I play on both a Gameboy Player for the Gamecube, as well as an original Nintendo DS.

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Speedruns Pokemon FireRed under a certain category called Round 2.

Q: What's the difference between this category and Any%?
A: I can be more lenient on the Squirtles I get for one. I also main switch to Zapdos after a certain point. Lastly, this category also requires beating the champion twice with the 2nd time having 60 Pokemon in the Pokedex.

Q: What else do I need to know?
A: In order to beat Champion twice, you need to complete the following requirements:
1. Beat the Champion once.
2. Have 60 unique Pokemon in your Pokedex, to unlock the National Dex.
3. Complete the Sevii Islands side quests

Q: You keep mentioning "Spinners" what exactly are "Spinners"?
A: Spinners are generally trainers that can spin in many different directions at a time. With the way Generation 3 mechanics work, these trainers can also be avoided altogether through manipulation. By going into one of you Bag menus or selecting the TM Case, this causes their internal clock that causes them to spin, to reset to 0. This basically gives us a 32 frame window to pass any Spinner with only 16 frames required to pass them under normal circumstances.

Q: What do the different colors mean in the Pokemon Catch Counter?
A: Blue = Mandatory Pokemon I need in the future
Red = Non-Mandatory Pokemon I've caught.
Black = Mandatory Pokemon that I've caught.

Q: What are the Sevii Islands and what do you do there?
A: After beating Blaine's gym, Bill prompts you to take a trip to some Islands if I say "Yes". For the first section, I mostly do a few sidequest involving saving a little girl and dealing with a biker gang. The second time we come to the islands, we get a quest from Prof. Oak and deal with team rocket on a few different islands before taking them out. We also have to grab a couple of gems and bring them back to Celeo.

Q: Are there any glitches used in this category?
A: There are no glitches used in the run.

Q: Why do you keep resetting?
A: Probably because I didn't hit the proper frame to get the Squirtle I needed to complete the run. I need are At least 21 or 13 IV Attack, 25 or 16 IV Special, and 28 or 8 IV speed depending on the nature. The nature also has to be Lonely, Mild, Brave, Quiet, Naughty, or Rash.

Q: Why don't you just grab a Squirtle and run with it?
A: If I were to just go off and grab a Squirtle, I'd probably die alot quicker due to me not being able to kill things on the route as fast as I'd like to kill them. I feel it's a huge waste of time, and I'd honestly only ever do this if it were the last run of the day.

Q: How do you know the stats you will get on your Squirtle?
A: So the way Generation 3 games work in terms of getting a good starter is based on the time frame in which you grab the Squirtle from the lab table. Before reaching the lab however, we need to plug our Trainer ID into a program to properly determine what Squirtles are on the seed, what stats they have, and exactly what time frame we need to reach that specific Squirtle at. The game also runs at 60 FPS, so getting a Squirtle is frame perfect making it hard to do. If you're interested in using this program, check here for more details. (http://forums.pokemonspeedruns.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=499)

Q: What are clusters?
A: When I say things like "Oh hey, there's a cluster!", it basically means that there are multiple Squirtles that have runnable stats and natures surrounding each other by a few frames/milliseconds.

Q: Does gender affect anything like in Gen 2?
A: Gender for the Squirtle and Trainer sprite I choose don't really make a big difference.

Q: What are the beeps I hear right before you grab a Squirtle?
A: I use a program called Eon timer. This program basically allows me to produce an audio queue that makes it easier to hit the Squirtle that I want to run.

Q: Why Round 2 instead of Any%?
A: After dipping into Any% for about a month, I wanted to see how much I'd enjoy Round 2. This category destroyed my expectations honestly. Destroying everything with Zapdos and catching all the Pokemon to get past the champion is way too much fun! Also, I'm a bit burned out on Any% for now and I'll probably come back to it when it feels right.

Q: Aren't you tired of FireRed?
A: Have you seen how many categories there are in this game?!

Q: Does it matter if you play FireRed or LeafGreen?
A: Yes, the game corner Pokémon prizes cost more in LeafGreen than they do in FireRed.