Epic Fail / Twitch Plays Pokémon Red

WHY DID WE USE DIG, WE WERE SO CLOSE!

A list of Red's biggest screwups from Twitch Plays Pokémon Red. Get comfy.

• The group spent several hours trying to navigate a path without falling down a single ledge because one person presses the wrong button, accidentally or not.
  • It's also a frequent occurrence whenever there's a tree blocking the path, also taking several hours to pass because of how difficult it is to translate the never-ending sea of commands into "Cut."
• The team surprised everyone, including themselves, when they managed to quickly cut the tree blocking Vermillion Gym and solve the randomized puzzle of said Gym on the first try. Their hot streak was abruptly halted by Lt. Surge, who wiped their asses and kicked them back to the Pokemon Center. It took hours for them just to cut the tree again.
  "In the amount of time this is taking I COULD HAVE CUT DOWN A REAL TREE."
  —Reilswithe
• After defeating Lt. Surge the mob was attempting to cut the tree in Cerulean City and soft reset the game! A new save file was selected, the new protagonist named xxx and his rival AABEEEEF and they almost overwrote the old save file.
• When attempting to box Eevee, they instead ended up releasing JLWVNNOOOO and ABBBBBBK, the latter being one of their two only good Pokemon (the other being Pidgeot, who barely avoided this fate).
• After gaining Eevee, Red was sent to the department store so the community could buy a stone for it. Most of the people playing wanted to get a Water Stone, as the team would eventually need a Pokemon that could Surf and they were worried about what could happen if they had to resort to the PC. Others wanted a Thunder Stone because a Jolteon would be useful in battle. What did they end up with? Four Pokedolls and one Fire Stone.
• The group tried to be smart by fainting all of their Pokemon except Pidgeot in the hopes that they couldn't box their only usable Pokemon, letting them get rid of their cannon fodder and Flareon more easily. All they did was discover that it was possible to black out inside of a Pokemon Center by boxing their only usable Pokemon.
• The admin had to manually remove Red from a Pokemon Center because he kept going left and right around the exit instead of down through it.
  • And again after Red got trapped in the maze when he didn't need to go there, brought to the elevator that time.
• Red was stuck in-between Revive Girl and 3 walls.
• Team Rocket HQ is just full of failures.
  • After an entire day of being stuck in the Rocket Game Corner, Red accidentally used DIG, which took him back to the Pokemon Center entrance. This happened twice.
  • They finally got through the maze... and then walked right back in.
  • They finally managed to grab the Lift Key, only to use Dig again shortly after. Oh well, at least they don't have to go through the maze anymore...
  • Then they made it to Giovanni, and were about to take down his last Pokémon, when Pidgeot, their own last Pokémon, used Whirlwind instead of an attacking move, and promptly lost.◊
  • They then made it back to Giovanni's floor after their first loss to him, then used Dig AGAIN.
  • And finally, what happens after they beat Giovanni? They Dig, one more time...missing the Silph Scope in the process.
• They released Flareon by accident.
  • Worth to notice that a lot of people wanted Flareon released for metagame reasons, even though it was the second highest levelled Pokemon remaining at the time.
• The team is stuck in Pokemon Tower because very few of their attacks can damage Ghosts.
  • Pidgeot (level 47) fought a level 24 Gastly that won the fight.
    • Multiple times.
• A Max Ether was used up ON GUST. While lost once again in the Rock Tunnel.
• The entire experience is best exemplified in a Tumblr post.
  "THEY FUCKING BEAT THE ELECTRIC GYM IN ONE TRY.
  THE GYM THAT WAS THE BANE OF EVERY CHILD’S EXISTENCE. THEY BEAT IT IN ONE TRY.
  AND THEY CAN’T GET OUT OF A FUCKING SUPERMARKET."
  —Artoriious'.
• In an attempt to retrieve CCC the Hitmonlee from the PC, Red accidentally stored the SS Ticket, Helix Fossil, Cut, the Silph Scope, and released CCC along with x the Zubat.
  • It should be noted that Red only had CCC in his possession for a grand total of thirty-seven minutes. Many fans believe that CCC took one look at what was going on and ran far away.
• Pokemon Tower became a serious setback to the team due to their lack of moves capable of harming Ghost types. In several occasions, trainers with a single Gastly have taken out the entire roster. What should have been a series of manageable battles turned into another purgatory.
• Drowzee was taught Psychic in order to help against Ghost Pokemon. Trying to teach it the TM29 took many hours and there was a very high risk of tossing the TM instead of teaching it, but then it finally succeeded. Then some time later, after effortlessly defeating a Channeler's Gastly, Drowzee reached Level 24... and forgot Psychic for Headbutt.
• A great amount of effort was put into trying to catch Snorlax. The mob ended up running away instead.
• Red spent several hours making his way from Lavender Town to Fuchsia City. Nearing the end of their journey, all his Pokemon had fainted save for his overleveled Pidgeot. At low health and low PP, Pidgeot had to go through a series of potentially fatal encounters on the last stretch of land at increasingly low HP. When Red took his first step in Fuschia with their bird at 16 HP, the Twitch chat breathed a sigh of relief as the only remaining thing they had to do was to enter the Pokemon center and heal. But thanks to the sinister positioning of the Pokemon Center between ledges and Koga's gym, Red walks into the gym before he is able to heal, challenges a trainer, gets Pidgeot poisoned, and blacks out just steps away from healing.
  • The effort to invoke Democracy Mode to potentially salvage the situation since Pidgeot had around 20 HP remaining before dying of poison was also a proverbial kick to the crotch. Safe to say Anarchy still rules in the land of Twitch as they aimlessly walked around forced to watch as Pidgeot succumbed to poison.
• A rare non player character version - Koga using Self Destruct with his last Pokemon, handing victory to the mob.
• After a hard-fought victory over Koga, Pidgeot managed to level itself up enough to earn the move "Mirror Move"... and deletes one of its only two damaging moves for it.
• The Safari Zone has proven to be a worthy successor to the Rocket Hideout.
  • After finally reaching the long anticipated Safari Zone the mob was faced with a virtual conga of epic fails, starting with failing to enter the building for over an hour, an attempt at Democracy that was overthrown in mere minutes, followed by discovering the step counter was still in place, a single encounter with a Pokemon (a Doduo) which the mob fled from, topped off by DigRat digging out of the safari zone!
  • Red exited the Safari Zone immediately after entering it once.
  • A subsequent attempt at the Safari Zone resulted in (after much walking into a signpost and a tree stump) an eventual encounter with a Kangaskhan, who rarely appears there...which led to, after spamming the "BAIT" option, Red throwing 5 Safari Balls with all 5 missing the Pokemon (quoth one commenter: "HOW DO YOU MISS SOMETHING THAT BIG"), followed by it running away. Then Digrat immediately used DIG to escape.
  • After finally making a decent amount of progress in Democracy mode, being only one room away from the Warden's teeth and the Surf HM, the chat proceeded to lose it after catching a Rhyhorn. The slow process of nicknaming the rocky beast ("AEWWWWV") led to people calling for anarchy...and as soon as anarchy was reinstated, they proceeded to waste their few remaining Safari Balls on an Exeggcute, thus getting themselves kicked out and starting the long, tedious process all over again.
• The group has been issuing so many commands that the emulator breaks and won't take their commands anymore.
• They accidentally threw away the TMs for Skull Bash, Double Team and Toxic while trying to teach Lapras Surf (for five hours).
• At Silph, Bird Jesus was poisoned. An attempt to reach the healing beds instead led Red straight to Giovanni, who engaged him in battle. The Lift Key, Helix Fossil, S.S. Ticket, attempts to run, and a catchy Poke Flute tune couldn't save Red, and Giovanni defeated him.
  • In narrative...
  Red stood face to face with the evil Giovanni... All of his Pokémon were weak or fainted. The boss of Team Rocket smirked. "So, little boy... Looks like your Pidgeot only has one move left before it succumbs to poison... What do you hope to do now?" Red lowered his head and smiled. He reached in his bag... and took out the Poké Flute. He whistled a jaunty little tune on it, soothing the Pidgeot's final spasms as the poison took his final ounce of strength. It was okay now. They would go to the Pokémon Center and try again.
• Bird Jesus was defeated by Sabrina's first Pokemon due to Mirror Move going before it and Whirlwind not doing anything. Red then lost the fight.
• After receiving the Master Ball, the chat decided to try and capture Zapdos using it. This meant either traversing Rock Tunnel, or trying to get past the ledge again. They chose the ledge, and predictably, once more spent several, SEVERAL hours trying to make it past.
  • Eventually they did finally manage to get past the ledge, go farther up to the tall grass, and run from a Spearow. But the mob for some reason made Red turn back and jump over the ledge again, and they had to start over. Then after that they entered democracy mode, and the mob made them go even farther away from their goal.
    • This was due to a rival Twitch channel sending his chat to deliberately sabotage the mob's efforts, turning the eventual victory over The Ledge into a Moment of Awesome.
• While trying to rescue AA-j (Zapdos) from the PC (and Almost releasing him), Red withdrew 3 Safari Zone Pokemon, deposited Cabbage, the Keeper, Air, and Bird Jesus, and changed boxes. He then deposited AA-j in Box 2.
  • Twelve Pokemon have been released during the post-Zapdos Exodus. While most of them were Safari Zone Pokemon... three were Cabbage, Big Dig and Dux, which also were the only Pokémon which would learn Cut. They will be missed. This whole ordeal became known, quite aptly, as "Bloody Sunday" by the chat.
  • The worst part of it all is, they still didn't get AA-j out of the box after all of this. They did succeed getting it back into Box 1, but the combination of the Twitch stream lag, the Pokemon preceding AA-j in the list and the influx of trolls eventually made them give up on the endeavor (for now).
• After much effort to enter the Day Care center, including a switch to democracy, Red finally approaches the Day Care man and speaks to him... only to deposit Pidgeot, because the cursor unexpectedly started at the bottom of the list. They tried again, anticipating the cursor placement, but the cursor appeared at the top this time, so they accidentally deposited Drowzee. In their third attempt, they deposited Gastly and abandoned him, even though they meant to deposit Zubat.
• After a long struggle in Pallet Town, the mob finally managed to use surf. They made a beeline downwards to Cinnabar... and ended up swimming straight into a floating pier with two fisherman for company. They nicknamed it "Fat Guy Island" and were stuck on it for an hour.
• When Red finally reached Cinnabar Island, obviously the first thing he did was revive the Helix Fossil to the joy of many. Said joy promptly turned into horror when the mob realized that the party was full, thus causing Omanyte to go straight into the PC. The mob promptly descended into utter chaos about whether they should stick with the (actually good) party they had, or confront the PC to retrieve Omanyte for religious reasons.
  • Omanyte was eventually retrieved with only a few Red Shirt casualties, though Drowzee ended up boxed in its place, ruining the mob's whole days of work towards grinding its level up for Psychic/Hypno.
• In Pokémon Mansion, AA-j was slowly dying due to poison (and eventually finished off by a Ponyta) because Red kept on using Poké Flute in battle!
  • It should be noted for clarity that AA-j is Zapdos. One of the most powerful Pokemon in the entire game.
• After many attempts to navigate the mansion, Red blacked out◊ right in front of the Secret Key.
• Red managed to get himself trapped◊ in between a table, some rubble, and a Burglar for over an hour in the Pokémon Mansion. Democracy was invoked to try and use the Escape Rope. It didn't work. Naturally, the chat immediately turned to the fact that DigRat (known for using Dig at the most random of times) could have easily saved them....
  • The real kicker is that the Trainer is one of the few that doesn't challenge you as soon as they see you. Instead, Red had to talk to him and initiate the battle himself. Essentially, the mob got themselves into this mess.
  • Red escaped almost two hours later by blacking out (via Nidoking finally fainting) at the hands of the endless horde of Growlithe, Ponyta, and Koffing that would spawn in the two-block area that Red could walk in.
• While surfing up from Cinnabar, Red got stuck on Fat Guy Island. Again. Shortly after escaping, he trapped himself on a walled-off chunk of land right below Pallet. It took hours to finally Surf again and traverse the last ~8 steps to his destination.
• Even Red's item-only PC caused trouble, as Strength was deposited by mistake and while trying to retrieve it several valuable TMs were lost.
• Then it was time for Red to face yet another horrific ordeal: entering the 8th Gym.
  • After finally making it back to Viridian City, Red spends over five hours wandering around aimlessly, unable to enter the Gym due to the ledge which is just one space underneath the door. Red is unable to get to the Gym's door without jumping the ledge due to a combination of the stream's delay and the trolls that spam the "down" command every time he starts to get close.
  • Red spent most of his time not even trying to get to the Gym, but rather wandering around just under the ledge, talking to the locals, or walking north and entering Route 2 on several occasions. He also frequently entered the house just southwest of the Gym and on one occasion wandered around inside for almost 20 minutes before leaving, and then immediately entering again. It didn't help that part of the mob insisted on talking to the NPC inside the house because the man suspiciously looked like Giovanni.
  • After the Moment of Awesome involving Red finally entering Viridian Gym (under Democracy Mode, after hours of jumping over the same ledge over and over) and tenaciously winning the first and second battles inside the Gym, Red (under Anarchy Mode) somehow manages to walk downwards right out of Viridian Gym and hops over the ledge again, thus undoing a major accomplishment within 15 minutes. The puzzle inside the Gym itself was nothing compared to the truly daunting challenge of walking through the front door.
  • Less than an hour after this (which is practically seconds in TPP time), they made it back into the Gym in Anarchy mode. After several successful battles (with some truly awe-inspiring moments from Lord Helix and Air Jordan), Red suddenly bolted out of the Gym and over the ledge. Again.
• When Red finally confronted Giovanni at Virdian Gym, he defeated Red, kicking him out of the Gym and forcing him to conquer the ledge again.
  • All in all, it took over 17 hours to defeat the final Gym.
• The next battle with Blue was just a trainwreck... for him.
  • He sent out Blastoise against Zapdos. It went as well as you'd expect.
  • During that same battle, he used a regular Potion in a battle between what could be reasonably called end-game teams. The Pokemon he used it on died immediately after.
  • He constantly has Exeggcute fire Solarbeam at Pidgeot. Not only does this do next to nothing since Pidgeot is several levels higher and resists it, but he later Mirror Moves it and Criticals Exeggcute with it, KOing it instantly.
• And then began the ultimate challenge. Conquering the ledge's final form◊
  • During the second attempt at the final ledge of doom, Red surprisingly and quickly managed to reach the other side... before promptly stopping, turning around and running straight off again◊.
• Lord Helix hits level 40 and ALMOST evolves, but several people pressed B and stopped him. To add insult to injury, there is a massive influx of Democracy votes (to evolve the God of Anarchy), but before Democracy can be initiated Helix faints to Poison.
• The very first encounter at Victory Road, a wild Machoke, beat up Lord Helix. The Fonz took revenge but then quickly fell to a Graveler. Heartbreaking after having, just prior, spent countless hours grinding.
• After getting stuck at a puzzle in Victory Road for a while, Red finally blacks out and gets sent back to the last Pokemon Center he used....all the way back at Cinnabar.
• After successfully navigating around the ledge leading to the league, Red is finally able to use strength on a boulder...only to leave the cave and reset the position of said boulder.
• And then, Red arrives at the Kanto Pokémon League headquarters at Indigo Plateau:
  • Red lost his first match with Lorelei very quickly.
  • After fairly easily beating Lorelei and Bruno, Agatha's Gengar manages to wipe the floor with most of the team. Red manages to struggle through... Until Agatha sends her second Gengar out, which instantly obliterates Bird Jesus, whiting Red out. The first match with Agatha also featured a few instances of Zapdos uselessly using the Normal-type move Take Down (despite having 2 effective Electric-type moves at its disposal) against Agatha's Gengar, having no effect on the Ghost-type Pokémon. Conversely, Agatha's Gengar made a few dumb decisions as well, repeatedly attempting to use/spam Dream Eater on Red's non-sleeping Pokémon.
  • Bird Jesus and Agatha's Gengar decided to have a back and forth battle of Confuse Rays to see who will back down first.
  • During one of the battles against Lance's Gyarados, Zapdos is sent out... and proceeds to repeatedly use Take Down until it faints, instead of one-shotting Gyarados with a super effective Thunder or Thunder Shock.
  • The battle with Lance... for him. His Dragonite defeated most of Red's Pokemon, leaving him with only Venomoth, more than 20 levels under it. against all odds, Venomoth poisoned Dragonite and slowly managed to drag through the battle, despite Dragonite having the move Hyper Beam. Dragonite was slowly but surely wiped out, defeating Lance.
    • Lance's Dragonite kept spamming Barrier and Agility against Venomoth because the AI decided the movies, being Psychic, were strong against its Poison typing. Despite the fact that Agility and Barrier do no damage.
  • During one of the battles against Bruno, Bruno's Hitmonlee used Focus Energy, which, due to an error, actually decreases the user's Critical Hit ratio in Generation 1 games as opposed to increasing said ratio. Bruno also opened one battle by using an X Defend on his Onix during a time where Red's Pokémon was well-prepared to thoroughly douse Onix with Special-Stat-Based Water-type moves (which are quadruply effective against Onix).
  • Instead of buying Potions or Revives that would be of utmost use, Red instead decides to buy Ultra Balls... one by one.
    • Red, apparently out of more sensible options, later attempts to use one of his newly-purchased Ultra Balls to catch Lorelei's Slowbro.. It doesn't end well, with Lorelei casually denying Red the opportunity to update his Pokédex.
  • During one battle with Bruno, after causing little damage to Bruno's Onix with Take Down, Zapdos repeatedly attempts to Thunder Shock Bruno's Onix to no avail, almost getting Raged into unconsciousness by Onix before ending the bout with Drill Peck.
  • The mob fails at teaching ATV Psybeam when he reaches Level 38, thus depriving him of his first useful damaging move.
• In yet another rematch against Lorelei, Zapdos (the lead) is doing fairly well ... until they accidentally switch to The Fonz on Lapras. Yes, a Nidoking being used against a Lapras, which the Lapras proceeds to easily take down Nidoking AND All Terrain Venomoth.
• After a grueling, two-hour long ordeal to invoke democracy against a rather vehement anarchist cult in order to switch Zapdos into the front slot (thus allowing it to beat the tar of Lorelei effortlessly), the mob reasonably agreed to go back to anarchy. Once in battle, Zapdos smote the first four of Lorelai's mons with minimal difficulty... and then was switched out for AAAAAAAAAAA (Nidoking, a Poison and Ground type) against Lapras (a Water/Ice type, both of which Nido is weak against). A Total Party Kill happened shortly thereafter as every Pokemon on the team was sent out other than Zapdos.
• Zapdos has more than once killed itself by using Take Down while on very low HP.

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