Charlie “Exarion” Armitz of Youtube beat Pokemon Red version in a record breaking hour and fifty minutes. Armitz started out with Squirtle, and posted the completed video to Youtube on July 17th, 2014. Beating this record, as he says in the video, is a lot of luck in battles, the Pokemon you use in game, and how well you know the progression and set up of the game. You can watch Armitz break the record, or just see the way his game lines up to the previous world record holder here:
The speed run took the player through a glitch free version of the game, where he could not hold the record if he used any non-approved by the speed run community, game mechanics that have been considered glitches.
One approved “glitch” in the community, which Armitz utilized was the Pokedoll and Marowak ghost glitch. Most players would devote considerable time obtaining the Silph Scope to view the ghost’s true form, but the Pokedoll allows the player to simply escape, which triggers the game’s prompt of the ghost “moving on.” The “glitch” is fulfilling what the Pokedoll was originally coded to do though, which is to allow for a safe escape from a wild Pokemon, which it lets you do, so the community has allowed this to be utilized in glitch free speed runs.
Armitz had also built upon the community and previous record holder’s contributions, while working in his own calculations to turn the game’s adventure into a time based mathematical formula. He utilizes evolutions, health bar levels… to take safe valuable fractions of a second per sound, which in the aggregate led to some considerable time saved.
Be sure to watch his full Pokemon Red Speed Run to see his full tactics, his close calls, and his world record setting adventure. Congrats to you!
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