Web Video / Twitch Plays Pokémon: Arena

"Twitch Plays PBR is amazing; it conveys a lot of emotions. After the throw part in the middle, it sounds like you have no chance of winning, but then the top better quickly recovers and you feel full of hope again. It keeps alternating between tragicness and epicness. Finally, everything goes downhill when RNG picks 1% Memento."

"This song is amazing" Copypasta snowclone, summing up TPP Arena in a nutshell.

Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments that started in February 2014 in which commands representing buttons on an original Nintendo 3DS, DS, Game Boy Advance, or Game Boy are entered into a chat on Twitch, and then translated into a game of Pokémon via an IRC bot. In short, hundreds of people fighting over a controller. Throughout its life, Twitch Plays Pokémon has spawned hilarious characters, memorable moments, a World Record, and even a few religions.

Twitch Plays Pokémon: Arena is a special intermission for Twitch Plays Pokémon in which the chat bets on and plays an emulated version of Pokemon Battle Revolution. The stream uses 3-on-3 single battles, in where Pokemon are randomly selected beforehand, and the computer chooses the attacks for the teams. Bets are made by inputting "!bet <team color> <p100>" ^note 100 can be any amount at or below your balance, attacks are selected by inputs of !<letter a, b, c, or d>, with the topmost move being A then going downwards ^note There is a fifth input of "-" to use, but it only reverts the last input to no selected input., and Pokémon can be switched out by inputs of !<number 1, 2, or 3> with 1 being the first Pokémon in the lineup.

Originally, the game was a simultaneous betting minigame played alongside the Nintendo DS runs, using Pokemon Stadium 2, in which players would place bets on either Red or Blue Team and let RNG do its job. After Pokemon X was finished, the game was expanded into a weeks-long intermission played in-between major runs, with the gameplay now revolving around manipulating the RNG to choose the right move for their team, or not. Ever since Omega Ruby, Pokemon Battle Revolution replaced Pokemon Stadium 2, expanding the Pokemon roster to the fourth generation with custom movesets, abilities, and other gameplay quirks.

Following the completion of Twitch Plays Pokémon Red Anniversary, a new subsection has been added to the stream in the form of an intermission game. After a battle or quiz have concluded, people would take a vote on which input for the game to take in around 50 seconds per round, in which the stream resumes to its betting state, and players who voted had a chance to win tokens. After Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal Anniversary, the sidegame is now played alongside battles and the timer for voting has been increased. Players can use tokens for engaging on a stock bidding, placing bets on the next song to play, betting on a Pokemon Pinball board, or bribe players on the sidegame.

Access to the stream by clicking here. Archive of battles can be viewed here.

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Arena mostly receives large updates after a main run has been completed. This list won't cover any small updates given sporadically ^note As in added music, minor removed features, and bugfixes.

NOTE: This list is not official, but an approximation of what major updates were implemented into the game.

Arena Versions 0 and 1

This run is played on its own separate time-slot played for more than a month, has Pokemon Battle Revolution as the base game, gameplay revolves around RNG manipulation, and each version changes or adds other things besides betting.

• Version 0 ^note This is what it's usually referred to when talking about Pokemon Stadium 2: Released after Twitch Plays Pokémon X, using Pokemon Stadium 2, players are able to influence the outcome of what attacks the computer chooses for them by inputting !move <a, b, c, d, and ->. The leaderboard shows the standings of all players in a five-minute time frame with advertisements at the last two minutes. Music from the Pokemon franchise are used instead of the original game's soundtrack.
  • 0.1: The computer is able to randomize the order of its color team.
  • 0.2: Near its end, before Omega Ruby started, people were able to donate for custom matches of Pokemon of their choice.
• Version 1.0 ^note Arena is typically referred as PBR by this version point: Released after Twitch Plays Pokémon Omega Ruby, the game was changed to Pokemon Battle Revolution, or PBR for short. Pokemon up to the fourth generation with custom setups are played with new selections of coliseums and music. The leaderboard only shows the players who own over 2000 Pokedollars and scrolls much faster, with a Pokemon trivia quiz for two minutes (simultaneously having advertisements). Donation matches are now placed into a queue, with higher donations going first. This does not randomize its Pokemon before a match.
  • 1.0.1: Called PBR Gold, edits the Pokemon's movesets and stats for more balanced matches.
• Version 1.1: Released after Twitch Plays Pokémon Red Anniversary, it virtually has the same gameplay and Pokemon setups from Version 1.0.1, with new improvements implemented for a faster and stable gameplay with more music added. Moves can also be chosen by typing !<a, b, c, d, or -> on the chat. This version adds the "Between Match" subgame stated above.
  • 1.1.1: Custom Matches have been revamped with a new "Token" system. One token is given for every dollar donated, where players can use them to make matches through the chat. Players can also win tokens by placing a vote at the subgame, where after the input has been made one player is chosen at random and given one token to use. The subgame can be now played after a leaderboard and a Pokemon quiz, for faster progress.
  • 1.1.2: The seed featured between Version 1.0 to 1.1.1 has been changed, as it no longer gives advantages for flinches and OHKOs for the first attack of the game. Token Matches replaces the donation queue, where people can bet their tokens for battles in a two minute timeframe. People are also able to donate their tokens in the subgame for other players to win. For example, if one inputs !add 3 (assuming they have the amount of tokens) during the voting session, then three tokens are placed into a pool and four people can be chosen to win a token each ^note It's the one token always given in every session added with the number of tokens donated from all players. A notification in the chat will say whose token the winner has received from.
  • 1.1.3: The Leaderboard is now merged with the subgame, showing the current standings of the players who have played the match beforehand. The donation listings and Pokemon's win-rates have been removed, however the "Who's That Pokemon" quiz break is still intact, happening every hour.
  • 1.1.4: Called PBR Platinum, this again alters the Pokemon's moveset and statistics. Some Pokemon are given items to hold and use (although the betting screen doesn't show this). Arceus is now able to use its various plates and is cloned sixteen times to do so (one for each type).
• Version 1.2: Released after Twitch Plays Touhoumon & Moemon, where it introduces a new matchmaking system of sorts. Now allows the gambling of tokens in five available slot machines, one token per spin, with the jackpot being 100 tokens. There is now a secondary time-limit concerning bids, where bids equal or higher than 1000 can only be placed before the last 30 seconds and bids equal or higher than 10,000 a minute before bidding ends, in order to stop large bidders from ruining odds. Statistics for the Pokemon in the subgame are shown in the HUD. There are also hashtags for some reason.
  • 1.2.1: Players can use tokens to bid on what music will play on a match, that is, the available ones on the metadata list on the stream's description. Once the winning song has been played, it cannot be bid on for another six hours.
  • 1.2.2: Released a few days after Twitch Plays Pokémon Alpha Sapphire, the slot's jackpot (777) prize is now a progressive jackpot. Anytime a player places tokens on the slots, the pool raises by the number of tokens the player has used (e.g. two spins adds two tokens to the pool). Once the jackpot has been met, it resets back to 100 tokens. Shiny Pokemon or Pokemon-S, stronger versions of the fighters, are added to the Pokemon Roulette, showing up rarely. They are currently known by their moveset and not their color palette.
  • 1.2.3: Pokemon, once again, have their movesets changed, including higher use of non-legal moves. Players can use tokens to change their secondary color (i.e. the outline around their username) ^note A player's username's color is based on their selection from Twitch (regular or turbo), the secondary color outline is stream-exclusive by using !unlocksecondarycolor (costs one token) and then !color ###### (hexadecimal).

Arena Version 2

• Version 2.0: A complete revamp of the betting layout, this update features a new engine made for the stream, with betting and battles going much faster (mechanics-wise, not the battle itself). Donating gives out a raffle of tokens to random active members of the chat, and using emotes will cause a rain of images on the stream. Switching during battles is now possible and every Pokemon is given an item to use. Additionally, this update introduces shiny Pokémon with unusual(read: hacked) movesets and abilities. The slot machines have been replaced by betting tokens on a board of Pokemon Pinball, and tokens can be bet on battles using a stock system similar to MarioParty247. Leaderboards, the "Who's That Pokemon" quiz, Token Matches, and hashtags have been removed. The "Before-match" sidegame has been replaced by a simultaneous game seen at the bottom-right corner of the screen.
• Version 2.1: Introduced few weeks after 2.0, this update brings back most of the missing features - token matches, leaderboards, hourly break for "Who's that Pokémon" quiz and the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon sidegame last seen from Crystal Anniversary, this time played similarily to Vietnamese Crystal (one input after every battle, although without token giveaways).
• Version 2.2: This update changes betting layout, bringing back the "slots" picking Pokémon for the match(albeit in shorter version) and allows to see exact stats and held items before match.

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Simultaneous Betting Games

Small games played alongside the main stream using the currency Arena has.

• Stadium Betting: The original betting game played with Pokemon Stadium 2, played alongside Pokemon Platinum to Pokemon Black 2 and their intermissions. Players would place bets on Red or Blue teams and see what attacks the computer would choose for them.
  • 1st Update: Adds a leaderboard that appears every hour showcasing the top players.
• Smash Betting: Played alongside Twitch Plays Pokémon Alpha Sapphire, the game uses Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Players would bet on one of four Lv. 9 CPU fighters in one-stock matches with items on and see what antics the AI does to win or lose. Unique to this game is that Tokens can be used alongside Pokedollars for betting purposes. Players are able to win up to three times the betting amount.
  • 1st Update: Some fighters have their CPU level lowered down to balance out the game.
  • 2nd Update: Betting is now limited up to 1000 Pokedollars. All balances were reset to whatever players had before Smash betting started. Fighters had their CPU levels changed again.
• Pinball Betting: Debuting in Crystal Anniversary, a single player would insert tokens to a Red or Blue board of Pokemon Pinball and watch the ball fling out all over the place by extremely quick flippers. Each board has its own point requirement of awarding a token. When a Pokemon is caught, a random person of the chat gains the Pokemon as an emblem next to their username in the stream.

Standalone Betting Games

These games are run on a separate channel, thus using a different currency and betting system.

• MarioParty247: An offical spin-off of Arena. Originally using Mario Party 4 and now Mario Party 6, players would bet on either Mario, Peach, Yoshi, or Wario, all set on Brutal CPU level, and see what the characters do to win mini-games and be the Party Super Star. Currency and inputs in this game is different from Arena's, and betting revolves on constantly switching on buying or selling bets on characters the player thinks may win or lose respectively.

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Tropes found in the main game include:

• A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Low-ranked players who win a large sum of money generally bet it all on the next round. The same goes for new players who bet their introductory money (P 1000) without intention.
• A.I. Roulette: Is the name of the game for Arena. The computer controls the Pokémon's moveset not the players (although they can influence the choices), so a match can be affected by dumb choice.
• A Simple Plan: Every other trap match turns into this. Kind of hard to follow a strict sequence of moves when the RNG has the last word on the matter. Trap matches rarely go smoothly, but because of the immunities involved tend to work out in the end.
• Ascended Extra: Because of their limited characteristics for a 24/7 betting game, everyone (the announcers, trainers, receptionist, and Pokémon) have been given personalities to flesh out the game's universe more. Pokémon in general have different backstories about their moveset, winrate, or overall impressions of the chat.
• The Artifact:
  • Combined with The Cameo: The Pokémon selection roulette features Pokémon from Generations V, VI, and VII, despite them being unelectable due to them not existing in Battle Revolution and Generation IV as a whole. "Who's that Pokemon" segments have a possibility of featuring these future-gen species as the subject.
  • The chat calls the bonus effect sometimes given when Ancient Power, Ominous Wind, and Silver Wind is used a Rainbow. This is because the bonus's visual effect was a rainbow colored barrier in Pokémon Stadium 2, which Pokémon Battle Revolution replaced with a small red effect.
• Artificial Stupidity: Some Smash fighters are more competent than others on the same CPU level. Even then, those same characters are able to do the most idiotic of moves, such as standing still near a powerful item.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Despite some top betters best attempts to pull off strategies to win matches, most of the mob tends to default to this mindset when picking moves, much to the rage of most top betters when this ends up causing their strategy to go hilariously wrong.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Pokémon with Guillotine, Horn Drill, Sheer Cold or Fissure, which One-Hit KOs the opposing Pokemon, but has a 30% chance of hitting them (Fissure is useless with Flying-types). Added with the delayed selection from chat to the stream and any damage received when the move misses, it's possible for the Pokemon to faint before the move even connects (or not at all).
• Balance Buff: If a Pokémon is a Joke Character, there is a likelihood that it will have been buffed in some fashion. Unown, for example, is no longer limited to Hidden Power in its move pool and has a unique moveset for each of its 28 variations.
• Behind the Black: In Stadium Betting and PBR, anything that is not in the battle scene is covered by the stream layout. Players would only see the non-battling portion in Version 0 and 2.0, or when the computer stops in the middle of inputting in PBR (due to selection errors).
• Betting Mini-Game:
  • Started out as this between Pokémon Platinum to Pokémon Black 2 as a simultaneous side game to the main adventure. People would bet on purely RNG matches while they controlled the main character. After Pokémon X, it later evolved into its own game with its own time slot and a more interactive experience.
  • Token Matches serve as this, where players bid their tokens for their custom match to be played.
• Book Ends: As a result of Pokémon Stadium 2 ending, the very last Stadium match is in fact the very first match that occurred during Stadium Betting (only this time, with the move selection system from Version 0). A similar thing happened for PBR, this time to showcase how much the stream had changed from Version 1.0 to 1.2 (such as the Pokémon's movesets).
• Bragging Rights Reward: Pokedollars are not used for anything but betting, so having a large quantity is only good for the leaderboards or to have large control of the battle.
• Call-Forward: Several Pokémon have movesets that include moves they wouldn't get until future generations.
• Camera Screw: invoked There's a rare chance where the camera may get stuck in one position (sometimes causing a reset), or in this match between frontrunners Vigoroth and Spritomb, make the camera zoom out the colosseum's boundaries.
• Combat Commentator: Arena has plenty of commentary in addition to Pokémon Stadium/Pokémon Battle Revolution's stock Large-Ham Announcer:
  • As always, the mob is around to gloat/complain about the game.
  • A chatbot of sorts called "tppsimulator" uses Mad Libs Dialogue assembled from the chat to make remarks every now and then. Considering the chat's Trash Talk, Seinfeldian Conversations and wanton usage of emotes, tppsimulator can be a hilarious Cuckoolander Commentator when it manages to say something coherent.
  • On occasion, streamers will provide live voice commentary about the match.
• Commuting on a Bus: Arena stops playing whenever a main run starts and wont return until the run finishes. Sometimes, a smaller betting game might be played alongside the main run.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: No matter how good the team's Pokémon, your strats, or your team's competency is compared to the opponent's, there's always the chance the computer will pick the one move you don't want, maybe multiple times, and screw your team over. This goes for choosing the correct moves that have a low probability of being chosen, for the opposing team.
• Continuing is Painful: While there is no way to lose all your winnings (the lowest you can go is 100 Pokedollars), getting them back is very difficult and slow, and your inputs will barely contribute.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Given to newer players of the franchise, thinking that abilities and moves would work as intended but wont due to the various changes the games had throughout the series since. Some include the Physical/Special split not existing in Pokémon Stadium 2 (a Generation II game) and Sturdy in Pokémon Battle Revolution (a Gen IV game) only protecting Pokémon from OHKO moves and not giving the benefit of acting like a Focus Sash.
  • The lack of the Fairy typing for Pokémon such as Granbull, Togekiss, and Clefable, which was not present when Battle Revolution was released.
  • Averted in some of the moves and abilities granted to Pokémon- unlike with typing and ability mechanics, the moves and abilities available for a given species are based on what they can use/learn in later generations. One noticeable example is Drought (Groudon's signature move at the time Battle Revolution was released) being given to the Vulpix family.
• The Determinator: The new matchmaking system in Version 1.2 allows Pokémon to show up in multiple matches in a row, sometimes in the same color team.
• Drop-In-Drop-Out Multiplayer: While you can't join during a battle, it's possible to drop out anywhere. If you are actually leaving the game and had set a command, it's recommended to input "!-" on the chat to remove it, or else the computer has a chance to pick your move (and probably make your team lose).
• Dummied Out: Stargazer and Crystal Colosseum were not selectable (except by bugging out) due to those stages commonly causing early draw glitches or incorrectly stating which team won. PBR 2.0 brings them back into the rotation, including Lagoon Colosseum, originally reserved for wireless multiplayer.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • If talking about betting in the stream, players originally would only bet on either Red or Blue team and watch the computers play on a small screen crunched to the top left of the screen while controlling a character in the main run. Smash betting in Alpha Sapphire brought back this concept, now betting between four CPU characters instead of two teams.
  • If talking about Arena, Version 0 had Rental Pokémon (from Pokémon Stadium 2) rather than custom-made ones, a small pool of music, a five-minute leaderboard, and no subgames, slots, quizzes, or custom matches. For whatever updates it did have, Version 0 is unique in which custom matches were inputted by the mods whenever they're added to the queue rather than by the form of Token Matches, and the teams' Pokemon are shuffled before a match (e.g. Red Team's Pikachu, Entei, and Magikarp on the betting screen would show up as Entei, Magikarp, and Pikachu on the battle screen).
• Fake Longevity: The Pokémon Roulette (custom or random) has its moments where it will choose opposing Pokemon who have a hard time making each other faint for a long time, due to weak/in-effective attacks, high defenses, or abilities.
• Fission Mailed: One selectable format, indicated by the icon of a vampire, reverses the win/loss rule for money payouts. Here, the goal is to bet on which side ultimately loses the battle.
• Gaiden Game: Inherits this from previous intermissions, although Pokémon Stadium 2 and Pokémon Battle Revolution are related to the name of the Stream.
• Game-Breaking Bug: While not serious bugs, these happen uncommonly and are fixed whenever the streamer is online at the moment:
  • Pokémon would appear as one species during the preview, but come out as completely different Pokémon when the battle comes up. Case in point.◊ Sometimes, the game will carry on as usual, but it does have a chance of not letting the color team input, in which the game will freeze after a few moments.
  • If the match unintentionally goes to a draw in the middle of battle, there is a possibility the game will continue during betting and freeze at the menu when battling starts.
  • Either due to Twitch updating/messing with their servers or the game glitching out, it will sometimes not let the chat to input or bet at all, resulting in pure RNG matches, much to the amusement of the mob.
  • The streamer's PC has a rare chance of crashing. Given the streaming is done on a separate computer, directly from the video output of the one running the emulator, the stream usually stays online when this happens, and shows the computer rebooting.
• Gimmick Matches: A non-Professional Wrestling example, in two flavors:
  • Every now and then, a roulette will add various stipulations to the next match, such as Pinpoint^note every Pokémon's ability is replaced with No Guard, making all moves hit, KAPOW^note one move on each Pokémon's moveset is replaced with Explosion or Selfdestruct, or Defiance^note player inputs are disabled; instead, the Random Number God controls both teams, choosing moves at random.
  • During each hourly break, players can spend tokens to choose a special match that plays immediately after the hourly break ends. More often than not they're Metronome matches that leave everything to the Random Number God, or "trap" matches that heavily favor one team due to esoteric team setups.
• Gladiator Games: The whole point of the run is arena battles.
• Grand Finale:
  • Version 0 ended with a Book Ends match with the first Pokémon fighters of Stadium Betting to signify the end of Pokémon Stadium 2 before switching to PBR for Version 1.0 onwards.
  • Played for Laughs later on, in which players would make strange custom matches or bet tons of Pokedollars on what is presumably the last match before a main run starts, only to find out the streamer hasn't come in to switch the games yet.
• Halloween Episode: Every October, the music tracklist is filtered out to contain only "spooky" music and all Pokemon are made Shiny and have Halloween-themed nicknames and movesets. All of the rulesets are given renames, new icons, and new descriptions to better play into the Halloween season.
• Honor Before Reason: According to some of the chat, using Explosion/Self-Destruct, Healing Wish/Lunar Dance/Memento, or a OHKO move is considered honorable.
• Hope Spot: Whenever a team is on the verge on winning, sometimes the last turn, hoping that RNG (game mechanics or selection-wise) will comply to them, or not.
• House Rules: Until PBR 2.0, outside of Roar or Whirlwind (or by glitching the system), there was no way to switch Pokémon mid-battle. All Pokémon had to face their opponent no matter the disadvantage.
• Insistent Terminology: While the money in the Pokemon world are called Pokémon Dollars (or Pokedollars), the stream calls it Pokeyen instead. The chat generally calls it dongers, dollars, or just money.
• Interface Spoiler: Stadium Betting and Version 0 would slowly pick out the Pokémon during betting, however their silhouettes are already shown in their proper order. This gives a player the chance to bet beforehand, due to Pokémon usually having the same moveset and the team's order can have an advantage toward the opposing team. A later update randomizes the Pokémon order so both teams have, mostly, a fair match.
  • Semi-averted in Version 1.0, which has multiple Pokémon sprites on a roulette, making it much harder to predict what the teams will be. All the Pokémon that will end up being chosen are always lined up horizontally before being chosen though, so with a screenshot taken at the right time, it is possible to determine the entire matchup as soon as a single Pokémon is revealed.
  • Averted for Version 1.1 onward, where all slots are jumbled rather than horizontally straight and both Pokemon from each side are chosen at once, quickening its pace and effectively diminishing any form of quick predictions.
  • PBR 2.0 once again shows the Pokémon's stats and moveset at the start of betting, but switching and team movement makes this a non-issue.
• Intermission: Serves as this for the main runs, lasting for weeks so that players won't get burned out when the next run starts. For Arena, the subgame/leaderboard and quiz/tokenmatch serve as in-between breaks for betting/battling.
• Joke Character: Zig-zagged, as every Pokemon are a joke to specific opponents they are facing with, thanks to the no-switching system. Jokingly, the chat often considers Entei, Darkrai, and Deoxys to be these.
• Just One Second Out of Sync:
  • One the hurdles of team play in this game is changing moves in time before the computer chooses its move, which is easier said than done. The stream's delay from the chat makes players need to change moves ahead of time, the time being short if the player refreshes the stream or long if the player is on stream for longer, which is hard to do when a turn finishes quickly or the computer chooses an attack the team did not want. Other than RNG and trolling, this is also the reason for thrown matches, leading frustrations if a high bidder or the majority of players on a team are slow on switching the required move.
  • On July 1, 2015, the leap second managed to break the chat, rendering all chat inputs null and void. Literally just one second out of sync temporarily stopped inputs on fights.
• Lethal Joke Character: Shedinja, due to the fact that Arena does not allow for Pokemon switching other than using Roar or Whirlwind. It became the go-to guy for trap matches, as players would trick other people to bet on a team because Shedinja may automatically win or lose by some highly contrived plan to defeat it. Shedinja is also used for cancer (time-consuming) matches, especially for Pokemon who has the ability Trace. It has been banned for donation matches since Version 1.1.3 for a short while because of this and later got Curse for Version 1.1.4.
• Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode: Double Subverted. Pokémon games encourage 1-on-1 battles, however with tons of people controlling either sides, matches become even more chaotic.
• Near Victory Fanfare: Happens when the battle comes to only one Pokémon on each side left. Unless the song is Unwavering Emotions, the music will mostly lead into an epic match. It was later removed due to early Draws stopping the battles.
• No Plot? No Problem!: The "plot" is about the chat betting between two computer-controlled Pokémon Trainers for weeks until the next run starts. For the most part, the player is mainly focused on betting between two computer-controlled Pokemon Trainers until the next run starts.
• Obvious Betainvoked: Every major update to the game will suffer any sort of bugs for around the first two weeks of launch. This includes from the wrong Pokemon being assigned to teams to the game outright freezing. The time it takes to fix its problems depends on whether the Streamer is online or not. Some early bugs, for example:
  • At one point the entire system for running Stadium went down.◊
  • "2 pokemon only, and both of the pokemon are wrong. While we were on the selection screen, it froze for a little bit, then it glitched and we gave Kingler a pzncure berry then went into battle."
  • During the first day of PBR, people found out they could bet negative numbers◊, which would always cause the match to end in a draw. The resulting trollfest from this could be seen from spaaaaaace.
  • A few days after PBR started, there was a match with odds of 1:156 in favor of Red, which had Giratina. Giratina easily swept the blue team and Red won, but due to a glitch, the betting system thought Blue had won, giving them a huge payout and starting a riot among everyone who bet on Red.
  • After Touhoumon and Moemon were finished, a slot machine was introduced, as a way to get tokens, by using tokens. People somehow could bet without having tokens and get negative tokens, this then provoked people to start 100 spin games with no tokens. The resulting troll fest wasn't as big as betting negative, however.
• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • The "Who's That Pokémon?" quiz originally had a silhouette of the Pokemon shown, which made answering questions much easier than intended.
  • Certain Pokémon cannot be used for custom matches, due to them being commonly used to prolong matches (sometimes to a timed-out draw), but only if they are the first Pokemon to start the match.
  • Because of the extremely large payouts players were easily getting on Smash betting during Alpha Sapphire, the streamer limited bets to 1000 Pokedollars. Player balances were also reset to whatever they had before the game had launched.
• Old Save Bonus: Money owned is kept throughout every update and betting game, except for Mario Party, which uses its own currency.
• Olympus Mons: Also called the "TriHard" Pokemon by the chat, as most generally have a lackluster moveset compared to normal Pokémon to balance out their above-average stats.
• Ominous Fog: Courtyard Colosseum has a chance of having Fog. Normally it drops accuracy by 10%, yet seeing the battle in action makes the appearance of Pokemon missing their attacks more often than they should.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: New strategies are made to accommodate the lack of mid-battle switching. This is also the basis of "trap battles", to steal large sums of money owned by players who are less savvy on the mechanics of Pokémon, who generally look for what is super-effective and lose because of the more complex strategies, statistics and abilities.
• Pop Quiz: Shows up every hour after the battle/subgame session has been concluded. It consists guessing which Pokémon fits their Pokedex description. Nothing happens if a player gets it right.
• Power Equals Rarity: Shiny Pokémon (they are named as "Pokemon"-S) are stronger versions of regular Pokemon, using non-legal movesets. They are rarely picked on the Pokémon Roulette.
• Progressive Jackpot: Since Version 1.2.2, the jackpot prize (being 777 on the slots) starts from 100 tokens and increases by every token used on the slot.
• Random Number God:
  • Stadium Betting relied purely on RNG; players would only bet and see if the computer chooses the attack needed to win.
  • Version 0 onwards allow people to manipulate the probability of the moves by selecting such move, however RNG can choose those with lowered probabilities, even when it's at zero. For Version 1 only, it was later updated for the computer to choose their own Pokemon order as well, so matches won't be one sided by the preview (although it can give an advantage to the opponent).
  • Since this is Pokémon, critical hits and misses influence the game more than the moves themselves.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • PBR includes a Draw outcome in the case the last pair of Pokemon faint simultaneously (or if the battle lasts 90 minutes). Initially, if the team's last Pokémon has Explosion or Self-Destruct, they'll use it so their money won't be deducted, but it was later changed so that exploding last turn results in the team who did so losing anyways, just as it was on Stadium 2.
  • Of course, there is the off chance that the system might say the battle is a draw, in the middle of an ongoing battle.
  • Just looking at the chat alone, there is a large number of people who Rage Quit after losing a large amount of money on what should have been an easy match.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!:
  • Arena's probabilities are not influenced by the number of people voting but rather the total amount of bets. This means that a high bidder who chooses a different move has a good chance of being selected, for better or worse.
  • At the final moments of Stadium 2 onward, people were able to use their donations to set up their own Pokémon Battles. In PBR, until Version 1.1.2, higher donations go first in the donor queue.
  • The token system introduced after the anniversary run was suppose to help prevent this, as it's now a bidding war with tokens people get for every dollar donated, and during the intermission game around one to three people are selected at random and given a token. However, because of the sheer number of people on the stream, most are even lucky to get a single token in a month of playing, and those who donate can still donate a lot of money to get enough tokens that they flat out can't be out-bidded regardless.
• Signature Move: Some Pokémon's movesets and abilities are based on those who appeared on the main runs, such as Azumarill/M4's Rollout and Typhlosion/Best's Flame Wheel (F-Car).
• Spiritual Successor: The original TPP run was already inspired by SaltyBet, according to The Streamer. Arena brings it closer to home focusing on short matches and a betting system.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: Music in the betting screen will change at the last 30 seconds (less for the chat due to stream delay) to let people know betting is nearly over and the battle is ready to begin.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The stream uses various music from the Pokémon franchise and other games. During battle, the more cheery songs are seen as this.
• Spin-Off: Itself to the main runs. Arena also has a spin-off of its own called MarioParty247, in which players would partake on a bidding stock exchange on four "Brutal" CPUs, buying or selling bids on characters the player thinks they'll win or lose respectively.
• Stealth Pun: The stream tracks the amount donated by every viewer and those who amass a grand total of $200 get a Wailmer Badge next to their name. Fittingly enough, in MMO and F2P design-speak, the Whale is a player archetype that pays disproportionately more for premium benefits.
• Taking You with Me:
  • Explosion and Self-Destruct. Made more dangerous due to its random computer selection.
  • Certain bugs are able to affect both the betting and voting sessions of the game (typically music related bugs).
• Timed Mission:
  • Matches can only last up to 90 minutes (30 in early versions) before resulting into a Draw.
  • While bidding time is around five minutes, not including stream delay, there are other time limits in place:
    • Players cannot bid 10,000 or more Pokedollars when there is a minute left on the clock.
    • Players cannot bid 1,000 or more Pokedollars once the warning music shows up (30 seconds left).
• Troll:
  • Not everyone will choose the move necessary to win, and some won't bother changing their choice, causing their team to lose when the computer selects the lowered probability.
  • In the case of donations, people can set battles up so two Pokémon have a longer time battling each other until Struggle comes into play (sometimes going to a draw). It was later optimized so certain pair of Pokémon cannot be battled, but only if the pair are first to go.
• Updated Re-release:
  • In the Gen 4/5 runs and intermissions (Stadium Betting), attacks would be chosen purely by RNG. In Version 0 onward, attacks are voted for by the human participants, although the RNG picks based on percentages and so even an attack with 1% of the votes still has a chance of happening.
  • Pokémon Battle Revolution has constant updates that changes the Pokémon's moveset, stats, and abilities for better balancing, sometimes subtle or drastic.
  • PBR 2.0 uses a new engine to run the base game without any graphical or stream problems. Switching is now able to be used.
• Unwinnable by Design: The Pokémon Roulette, whether by RNG or a custom match, can pick a team of Pokémon that will curbstomp the opposing team no matter what. Despite the near-impossible chances of winning, some players will tend to bid on the losing team for laughs, or for the slim chance of an immense payout.
• Useless Useful Spell: Lunar Dance and Healing Wish sacrifice the Pokémon who used it to regain HP for another Pokémon in their team, but with the no-switching gameplay, it automatically OHKOs itself. A similar sacrificial move, Memento, is sometimes useful to harshly lower an opponent's attack stat. Unlike the aforementioned moves, Memento will activate even if the user's Pokémon is the last one of the team, making it more dangerous.
• Voice of the Legion: A glitch that has been occurring occasionally distorts the PBR announcer's speech in a way that sounds eerily similar to this.

Tropes found in the subgame include ^note Tropes placed here are for its gameplay and scene elements, not for the game currently played:

• Action Commands: Downplayed, as they are given 30 seconds to vote on a command in which the most popular vote is registered.
• Auto-Save: Creates a save-state a few seconds after an input command.
• Cast Herd: Since both the subgame and main game are played separately, none of the characters from each section will interact with each other, only the mob of course.
• Continuing is Painful: Whiting out in a battle sends the character back to the previous checkpoint, wasting more time to bring the character back to wherever they were once at.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Sometimes the save states may be corrupted or overwritten by the betting session's states, causing the player character to return to an earlier portion of the game, wasting days or weeks of progress.
• Intermission: Serves as this for the main game, showing up in-between matches and between the quiz and token match.
• Meanwhile Scene: One minute sections of gameplay placed in-between matches and after a quiz. A screen shot of the current game is shown at the bottom-right corner during a betting session.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Anything accomplished towards progress or any line of dialog really, due to the ridiculously dilated gameplay.
• Nerf: Despite being the only input system available, Democracy Mode only allows voting of one command at a 50 second time-limit session instead of stacking inputs (such as "a" but not "a9" or "left2a"). The time it takes to place a vote also depends on how long a battle lasts.
• Long Song, Short Scene: Inverted, due to each section taking 50 seconds to input a command and the time it takes for an event to finish, you'll hear its music more than normally.
• Take Your Time: As a result of waiting in-between matches, characters stand in place without second thought, even during speech.

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