The official poster of the run, depicting our starter... technically.
Source
"We get an egg that is absolutely Chatot"
— Ennard-is-A-NERD, "Pokémon Chatty Crystal Discussion Thread" on the TPP subreddit
Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments in which commands representing buttons on an original Game Boy Color (up, down, left, right, A, B, start, and select) are entered into a chat on Twitch, and then translated into a game of Pokémon via an IRC bot. In short, hundreds of people are fighting over a controller. Throughout its life, Twitch Plays Pokémon has spawned hilarious characters, memorable moments, and even a few religions.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Chatty Crystal is the first run of Season 8, aka the seventh anniversary run, and the fiftieth main run overall. It began on February 14th, 2021 and ended on March 8th, 2021. Similar to Chatty Yellow before it, it features a hack of Pokémon Crystal in which all non-plot dialogue is replaced with Markov chains
generated from chat messages, leading once more to an absolute slew of copypastas in the chat that resulted in completely nonsensical dialogue all over the place.
This time, rather than a Chatot, KKKB received an Unown as her starter, named PPPPss. Like a regular Unown, it only knew the move Hidden Power; unlike a regular Unown, its Hidden Power did not change type based on DV-based calculations but rather based on which emote was currently the most present in the chat, and its base power increased depending on the current speed of the chat. Later on, she also received a Chatot named KENYA from an NPC, with a Chatter attack that worked identically to the one from Chatty Yellow by triggering specific moves associated the emote most present in the chat, albeit with a revamped move list.
Chatty Crystal also holds the honor of being the 50th main run of TPP; to celebrate, not only were a great number of Pokémon from later generations added to the game, but many, many previous player characters made an appearance. KKKB had no less than three rivals, namely AJDNNW from Crystal, BABA from Vietnamese Crystal, and EVAN from Crystal Anniversary, plus recurrent encounters with ×ᴹɴ(? from Chatty Yellow who took the role of Eusine (chasing Entei rather than Suicune), and every Gym Leader and League member along with various other characters were replaced with characters from TPP's past, for a total of 36 previous Hosts appearing.
See also here for the archived status of the run, or here for live updates. The ROM used for this run has been released in IPS patch format, and can be downloaded here.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Chatty Crystal contains examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features: Brought over from Crystal Anniversary is a mechanic that automatically switches to the next PC box upon saving if the current one is full, rather than having to go to a PC and manually switch it.
- Apple of Discord: As soon as Eevee was obtained, it immediately caused disagreements among the Voices. Some wanted to release it right away to make sure it wouldn't end up on the team, others wanted to leave it in the Daycare to prevent any accidental releases from happening, others still were fine with getting rid of it but wanted to evolve it first to register Glaceon in the Pokédex and get badges to drop, and finally some actually wished to keep it on the team (either genuinely or out of spite towards the first group). It was eventually deposited in the PC only 20 minutes after obtaining it, along with the entire team bar from Unown and Chatot.
- Ascended Glitch: Kind of. There is a glitch in the Generation II games that makes it so that if the player crosses a map warp by entering the surfing state, the warp will not actually trigger. It is actually impossible to trigger this glitch in the base games as the maps are deliberately designed in a way that prevents it from happening, but it can be an issue that romhacks may run into. In Chatty Crystal, there is a small piece of land south of Pallet Town where said glitch can be intentionally triggered, allowing access to a patch of grass in which Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle and Mew can be caught.
- Ascended Meme:
- The starter Pokémon being an Unown that draws its power form the chat is a nod to the Voices being frequently depicted as such in fanworks.
- Entei being the plot-centric Legendary Beast rather than Suicune is a reference to its status as a Memetic Loser among the community. Appropriately enough, it went down in a single hit before KKKB had a chance to catch it.
- Boss Rush: The Trainer on top of Mt. Silver was, surprisingly, Red with his original team from Pokémon Gold and Silver. Beating him opened the door to the Silver Cave, in which every Host from a previous anniversary proceeded to show up: RED from Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, AIIIAAB from Red Anniversary, EVAN from Crystal Anniversary, ×ᴹɴ(? from Chatty Yellow, ((( and XXWWNNᴾₖ from Dual Red & Blue (fought one after the other), KAY from Burning Red, and RED from Gauntlet Red. Then, the final room featured one last battle against Azure, the rival from Crystal Anniversary using her team from the final battle of Pyrite, and finally an encounter against the elusive Phancero from Pokémon Prism.
- Combined Energy Attack: PPPPss' Hidden Power attack increases in power the faster the chat goes, encouraging viewers to spam as much as possible when using it.
- Foreshadowing: ♀♀R was fought early on in the run (with a low level team of unremarkable Pokémon), and was notably the only character to neither be a recurring character nor a Gym Leader, instead taking the place of Sage Li, the elder fought at the top of Sprout Tower. Much, much later, he appeared once more as member of the Elite 4, using his much higher-leveled Hall of Fame team.
- This was actually an unintentional example, as some of the Hosts had to be re-assigned late into development. ♀♀R was placed in Sprout Tower to replace A from Emerald in order to increase the number of characters from later generations, but the developers forgot to check if he was already used elsewhere in the game.
- Game-Breaking Bug:
- Early during the run, one of the Sages in Sprout Tower caused the game to freeze with a loud buzzing noise. Despite several resets, said battle kept breaking the game. The game was then manually saved and completely reset by the stream host, but as inputs resumed, a textbox containing a long string of question marks immediately popped up, followed by an error screen. After another reset (which had the amusing side-effect of dropping Unown and Zigzagoon badges again), and another crash against the same opponent, the question marks textbox appeared again, followed by this monstruosity of a screen◊. The issue was finally identified as an AI code change calling the wrong data, and said Sage was finally able to be battled. And KKKB lost to him.
- On Day 3, the Voices noticed that VVVVVV, the Turtwig that they left in the Daycare, had somehow turned into a glitchy, pixelated square, and talking to it caused an overly long and mostly silent cry to play ; this was due to a programming oversight that caused the conversion table to get flooded when consulting the Pokédex, deleting Turtwig's species identifier. The Voices' reaction was to immediately retrieve it and attempt to send it into battle, which to the surprise of no one caused the game to freeze.m4_used_rollout: chat I want you to sit and think about what you've done
- Inside the Silph Co. building, one of the opponents had its lines of dialogue replaced by a string of question marks, which stayed on screen for a few seconds before the textbox filled with garbage text then crashed back to the title screen, which can be seen in this clip.
- Early during the run, one of the Sages in Sprout Tower caused the game to freeze with a loud buzzing noise. Despite several resets, said battle kept breaking the game. The game was then manually saved and completely reset by the stream host, but as inputs resumed, a textbox containing a long string of question marks immediately popped up, followed by an error screen. After another reset (which had the amusing side-effect of dropping Unown and Zigzagoon badges again), and another crash against the same opponent, the question marks textbox appeared again, followed by this monstruosity of a screen
- Glitch Entity: After being left in the Daycare, VVVVVV the Turtwig turned into a glitchy pixelated square with an overly long and mostly silent cry that caused the music to get distorted. After it was retrieved, the overlay wasn't able to properly display its sprite, and it froze the game upon being sent into battle. This was the result of a programming oversight that caused the species conversion table to get flooded when scrolling through the Pokédex, thus deleting Turtwig's species identifier.
- Good Bad Bugs: The Voices found out that, due to a programming oversight, scrolling through the Pokédex somehow made the in-game date change, and exploited this fact in order to raise Buneary's friendship level by getting multiple haircuts in a row from the Haircut Brothers, which are usually limited to one per day.
- Legacy Boss Battle:
- The Pokémon League PC from Red Anniversary and Crystal Anniversary can be found once more inside the Battle Tent; just like in those games, it allows KKKB to battle against her own team.
- Azure, the rival from Crystal Anniversary who also served as the final boss of Pyrite, is the final opponent fought inside the Silver Cave. She uses her team from Pyrite, namely Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Lapras, Snorlax, and Mew.
- Phancero appeared for the third time after its original appearance in Prism and its return in the secret area of Burning Red, this time as the eleventh and final opponent of the Silver Cave, which is also the place where he was seen for the first time in Crystal Anniversary before flying away.
- Loophole Abuse: The Battle Tent PC in Celadon City allows KKKB to battle against a team of Pokémon identical to her own, with the same stats, the same moves, and more importantly the same held items. Her Skuntank just so happens to know the move Thief, which can permanently steal an opponent's item; the Voices eventually realized that they could exploit this to create infinite duplicates of unique items (the Leftovers, the Focus Band, and especially the Master Ball) by making KKKB's Pokémon hold them then stealing them from the PC's team. There is however a risk involved that the League PC's Skuntank may do the same, which would result in a permanent loss of the item.
- Luck-Based Mission: The final boss battle was against MARINA from Twitch Plays Pokémon Metronome Sapphire. True to her game of origin, her entire team was only able to use the move Metronome. However, KKKB's team was also only allowed to use Metronome during this battle, turning it into a complete game of chance.MARINA: Oh, a battle? Very well. But on my terms.
- Mythology Gag:
- KKKB arrived to the Pokémon Laboratory after all three starter Pokémon had already been chosen, mirroring what happened to Ash in the first episode of Pokémon: The Series.
- A Chatot similar to the one from Chatty Yellow was eventually received, from the NPC who normally gives the player a Spearrow named "KENYA". TPP has had a bit of history with KENYA, first when it was randomized into an overpowered Groudon during Twitch Plays Pokémon HeartGold, and then when it was changed to a Hoothoot that made it all the way to the Hall of Fame in Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal Anniversary.
- When facing BABA from Vietnamese Crystal, LARRY from Bootleg Green, and URF from Lightning Sapphire, which were infamously terrible unofficial translations of Pokémon Crystal, Pokémon Green, and Pokémon Sapphire respectively, some of the the in-game battle dialogue actually changed to match said translations, even using the same mistranslated attack names.When facing BABA: EN'SBEST FLAME !TranslationWhen facing LARRY: FOE WEEB'S SNOWSTORM!TranslationWhen facing URF: EnemyWAHCurren!Translation
- Y appeared as the Gym Leader of the Ice-themed Gym of Mahogany Town, a nod to the winter-theme of the overworld of Fused Crystal.
- The 100th and last opponent of the Silph Co. building is Cal, the default Trainer found in the Trainer House of Pokémon Crystal.
- A/Alice from Fire Red is the Gym Leader in Goldenrod City. Given that she (in most versions of lore after it settled) is Bill's daughter, this placement makes the most sense as she already has family in Goldenrod.
- Nonstandard Skill Learning: Similarly to Chatty Yellow, not all emotes are initially taken in account when determining which type is attributed to Hidden Power and which move is triggered by Chatter; more emotes are gradually unlocked by obtaining specific badges. A list of all emote effects can be found here.
- Nostalgia Level: Multiple levels were recreated or brought back from either previous TPP hacks or games previously featured on TPP.
- Returning locations from previous anniversary hacks were the Battle Tent from Red Anniversary and Crystal Anniversary, and the Silver Cave ruins from Crystal Anniversary.
- The Pokémon Tower and Safari Zone were brought back from Pokémon Red and Blue, although the latter had no entrance fee and used normal catching mechanics. The Rocket Hidout in Celadon City was also brought back, now abandoned aside from LARRY and GMMTMT making an appearance.
- The Trick House from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire was recreated in the game, taking the place of Trainer House in Viridian City; the third and sixth puzzle were however omitted, due to the technical limitations of Generation II. The Seafloor Cavern, also from Ruby and Sapphire, was also included, as the "Dream" location accessible by checking Red's bed in Pallet Town.
- The Silph Co. building is a peculiar case; while the location itself originated in Red and Blue, its recreation in Chatty Crystal is functionally closer to Mt. Battle from Pokémon Colosseum and XD, letting players battle against 10 floors of 10 opponents in a row each.
- NPC Roadblock: Because the run started before development of the hack was actually finalized, access to unfinished areas was blocked off by the devs placing a Snorlax in the middle of the path. Talking to any of them prompted a dialogue about how it was "tieing its shoes", forcing players to wait until it was done; this earned them the affectionate nickname of "Shoelaxes".
- The door of the Pokémon Mansion on Cinnabar Island and of the Trainer House in Viridian City were not blocked by a Snorlax, but simply by an old man, who claimed there was a "Snorlax shoe convention" happening inside.
- Obvious Rule Patch:
- The KAPOW emote was initially unlocked from the start, but was eventually locked behind the 13th badge when Explosion, which it made Chatter trigger, turned out to be much too powerful, essentially taking out any opponent's strongest Pokémon in one hit.
- On the first attempt made to catch it, Ho-Oh immediately ended the battle by using Whirlwind. It was removed from its moveset on the next attempt.
- One-Steve Limit:
- Averted with "KENYA", which is the name of both KKKB's Chatot, aoooo's Groudon, and EVAN's Noctowl, due to them both having been given out by the same NPC in their respective run of origin.
- Also averted with A from Twitch Plays Pokémon Emerald and A from Twitch Plays Pokémon FireRed both being present in the game, as a member of the Elite 4 and a Gym Leader respectively.
- Doubly averted when the Silver Cave featured no less than three different characters name RED: the canon one from Pokémon Gold and Silver, the one from the original Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, and the one from the Gauntlet Red run.
- Optional Boss: Due to Sprout Tower actually being entirely optional in Crystal, the chat initially skipped the battles against BABA and ♀♀R located there, before eventually going back to Violet City for them.
- Plot Armor: Since they are a central gimmick of this run, Unown and Chatot cannot be deposited, released, or left in the Daycare.
- Precision F-Strike: When entering the room containing the Electrode-powered machine in the Rocket Hideout, Cyan's reaction was "ffs". Made doubly funny by the fact that lore usually depicts her as The Cutie.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: No less than 36 different previous characters appeared during the course of the run, most of them taking the place of major NPCs from the original game.
- EVAN from Crystal Anniversary was the first of KKKB's rivals, using the Grass-type starter Bulbasaur, and was fought in Cherrygrove City* , on Route 42* , on the Ice Path* , inside the Pokémon Tower* , and at the Indigo Plateau* .
- BABA from Vietnamese Crystal was the second rival, using the Fire-type starter Cyndaquil, and was fought inside Sprout Tower* , the Burned Tower* , the Rocket Hideout* , and Mt. Moon* .
- AJDNNW from Crystal was the third rival, using the Water-type starter Totodile, and was fought in Azalea City* , inside the Radio Tower* , in Olivine City* , and on Victory Road* .
- ×ᴹɴ(? from Chatty Yellow took over the role of Eusine from the original game, and was therefore met and battled inside the Burned Tower* , Cianwood City* , the Tin Tower Barrier Station* , and the Celadon Pokémon Center* .
- Sage Li, the NPC battled on top of Sprout Tower in the base games, was replaced by ♀♀R from Gauntlet Black 2* .
- The Johto Gym Leaders were respectively replaced with !12rtyhaszs from Omega Ruby in Violet City* , AHUNIgg from Blazed Glazed in Azalea City* , A from Fire Red in Goldenrod City* , aoooo from HeartGold in Ecruteak City* , AIIIAAB from Red Anniversary in Olivine City* , 9'l from Sun in Cianwood City* , Y from Fused Crystal in Mahogany Town* , and AAAALK' from Randomized White 2 in Blackthorn City* .
- The Kanto Gym Leaders were respectively replaced with RED from Red in Vermilion City* , STARS from XG in Saffron City* , URF from Lightning Sapphire in Celadon City* , nqpppnl from Platinum in Fuchsia City * , dᴾₖ from Gauntlet Crystal in Cerulean City* , AAEFFFF from Storm Silver in Cinnabar Island* , EWWYPPP from Pyrite in Pewter City* , and ébneert from Rising Ruby in Viridian City* .
- Within the ranks of Team Rocket were F48 from TriHard Emerald, fought inside the Slowpoke Well* , the Rocket Hideout* , and the Radio Tower* , LARRY from Bootleg Green, fought inside the Rocket Hideout* , the Radio Tower* , and the Abandoned Rocket Hideout* , AAAAAAA from Colosseum, fought inside the Radio Tower * and on Route 24* , and ACCC from Randomized Colosseum, fought inside the Radio Tower* .
- Inside the Abandoned Rocket Hideout, KKKB stumbled upon GMMTMT, the titular Wooper from The Wooper Who Saved Christmas, which was played as a 2020 Christmas intermission, and battled against it* .
- The Elite 4 was composed of Etr from Gauntlet X* , a rematch against ♀♀R from Gauntlet Black 2* , Paul from Brown* , and A from Emerald* , while the Champion was Cyan from Prism* .
- The Silver Cave featured no less than 11 opponents in a row, 8 of them being the playable characters from the first run of each season: RED from Red* , AIIIAAB from Red Anniversary* , EVAN from Crystal Anniversary* , ×ᴹɴ(? from Chatty Yellow* , ((( from Dual Red* and XXWWNNᴾₖ from Dual Blue* (fought together one after the other), KAY from Burning Red* , and RED from Gauntlet Red* .
- Checking the bed in Pallet Town after obtaining the Diploma transported KKKB to Hoenn's Seafloor Cavern, at the bottom of which resided the final opponent of the run: MARINA from Metronome Sapphire* , who challenged KKKB to a battle in which both sides were only allowed to use the move Metronome.
- Recurring Boss:
- KKKB had three different rivals, all based on characters from previous runs and fought at multiple points of the game. AJDNNW was battled in Azalea City, in Olivine City, and on Victory Road, BABA in the Sprout Tower, the Burned Tower, the Rocket Hideout, and Mt. Moon, and EVAN in Cherrygrove City, on Route 42, on the Ice Path, in the Pokémon Tower, at the Indigo Plateau, and inside the Silver Cave.
- Aside from the three rivals, ×ᴹɴ(? took the place of Eusine from the original Crystal, and as such was encountered and battled inside the Burned Tower, north of Cianwood City, inside the Tin Tower Barrier Station, at the Celadon City Pokémon Center, and inside the Silver Cave.
- Of all the previous Hosts featured as Team Rocket members, F48 and Larry are tied for being the ones faced most often. F48 was found inside the Slowpoke Well, the Rocket Hideout, and the Radio Tower, while Larry was fought in the Rocket Hideout, the Radio Tower, and once more in the Rocket Hideout after it was abandoned.
- The Rival: KKKB had three different rivals, all based on previous TPP protagonists and encountered at various points of the game: AJDNNW from Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal, using the Water-type starter Totodile, BABA from Twitch Plays Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal, using the Fire-type starter Cyndaquil, and EVAN from Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal Anniversary, using the Grass-type starter Bulbasaur.
- Running Gag: Whenever players tried to access an area that the developers hadn't yet finalized, the path was temporarily blocked by a Snorlax; talking to it prompted a line of dialogue about how it was "tieing its shoes". Later, the Pokémon Mansion on Cinnabar Island and the Trainer House in Viridian City had their doors blocked by an old man, claiming that there was a "Snorlax shoe convention" happening inside.
- Sequence Breaking:
- Discussed with a plan to get to the Indigo Plateau early in spite of the fact that Chatty Crystal requires all sixteen badges to be acquired first. While the HM for Waterfall was removed from its normal location in order to make the Tohjo Falls impossible to pass through, players thought they could circumvent this by getting a Seaking, which learns Waterfall naturally by leveling up. While some time was spent looking for one, this plan was never actually put into action.
- While it was intended for Kanto to be explored right after Johto, the developers ran late and couldn't get it ready in time. As a result, they temporarily blocked off access to the S.S. Anne by placing a Snorlax on the docks of Olivine City until development was far enough for KKKB to continue her journey. Players simply decided to surf around the Snorlax to talk to the NPC behind it, which triggered a walk cycle to get to the boat that made KKKB walk right through the Snorlax and successfully embark on the boat to Kanto, before the developers intervened and sent her back.
- Series Continuity Error:
- DADA, the red Gyarados from Vietnamese Crystal, did not appear shiny when it was first faced because one of the devs gave it the wrong DV values.
- Some of the Pokémon nicknames don't match with the run they originated from, such as F48's Manectric being named "b syro .9" instead of "b syro .g", or Stars' Blaziken being named "ABBBBBBBBQ" instead of "ABBBBBBBQ". More ostensibly, Stars' Salamence was named "BCCMMW", which was actually the name of his Metagross.
- Stealth Pun: tppPika, an emote representing Pikachu stifling its laughter, turns Hidden Power into a Grass-type move, rather than an Electric-type move. This is alluding to the kanji 草, which means "grass" but is also Internet slang for stifled laughter, due to the kanji w, aka the kanji equivalent of "LOL", looking like blades of grass when repeated multiple times.
- Suicide Attack: The SSSsss and PermaSmug emotes cause Chatter to turn into Self-Destruct, while the KAPOW emote causes it to become Explosion.
- Trolling Creator:
- The Jebaited emote, which is typically used to signify that a streamer has been tricked by their audience or vice-versa, was only unlocked after earning the 16th and final badge. The chat was then finally able to use it and see the move it turned Chatter into... and it turned out to be Splash.
- The developers re-created the Silph Co. building, now home to a new challenge that involved beating 100 increasingly powerful Trainers (similar to Mt. Battle in Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD). The reward for completing said challenge, which took the Voices no less than 12 hours, was a choice between an encounter with either Raikou or Suicune, or an item. They ended up picking up the item... which turned out to be a set of 5 Master Balls, which they were already able to obtain a virtually unlimited amount of through a certain Loophole Abuse, rendering them completely pointless.asdf14396: all i'm going to say is that you get a choice of rewards at the endasdf14396: choose wisely
- Right under the ladder leading to the final room of the Silver Cave was a ledge, clearly placed there to make the simple act of getting to the ladder more difficult than it needed to be.
- The Unintelligible: The Marhov-chain system turns everyone into this, with the quasi-entirety of the game's dialogue becoming a nonsensical amalgamation of various unrelated and out-of-context sentences.
- tppsimulator: GG idiots TriHard
