Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness FAQ (with RNG manipulation)

Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness FAQ (with RNG manipulation)

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Beat Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness as quickly as possible without using glitches.

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

Q: What is the world record?
A: 4:27:29 by me.

Q: What is your goal?
A: To PB on a run I'm happy with. This will probably be a 4:24 or lower.

Q: What Pokemon do you use?
A: Espeon and Ursaring.

Q: Why Espeon and Ursaring?
A: STAB Psychic and STAB Return are really strong, and you have access to these moves relatively early. Jolteon would be considerable if not for a long detour to pick up the Thunderbolt TM. Houndoom would be considerable if not for its slow experience curve and Flamethrower's slow animation.

Q: Why do you go to Vs. Mode before starting a run?
A: This is RNG manipulation. I am generating random teams of Pokemon in "Quick Battle" to gather information about my seed, or starting RNG frame. I enter these Pokemon into a program, which tells me my seed and the Eevee 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 Eevees are found, I'll generate another Quick Battle team to advance the RNG and check a fresh list of Eevees. This is called a reroll. Most seeds will require 20+ rerolls to find a desirable Eevee.

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

Q: What is a desirable Eevee?
A: Modest, Mild or Rash nature with 30 IV Sp. Atk, 22+ IV Speed and Hidden Power Fire 66+. You can't get 31 IV Sp. Atk with HP Fire.

Q: Why are you resetting?
A: Probably because I missed the Eevee manip or my Teddiursa has bad stats. XD is probably the most reset-heavy run in terms of stats, because the game is basically 5 hours of battles, and a turn in battle is 10+ seconds because of unskippable animations. I want Teddiursa to have 24+ Attack and 16+ Speed when I catch it at L11.

Q: Can you RNG manipulate a good Teddiursa?
A: Technically yes, but it requires saving, resetting, doing the seed-finding procedure again (1+ minute of time loss), and hitting multiple frame-perfect inputs. Not worth it.

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

Q: What are the biggest run killers?
A: The final fight has a 30% chance of killing you outright, which is fun. Otherwise there aren't many dangerous fights, just dozens of damage ranges that can lose a ton of time.