Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments in which commands representing buttons on an original Nintendo DS (up, down, left, right, A, B, X, Y, L, R, start, and select) and touchscreen coordinates 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 Randomized SoulSilver is the fifth run of the tenth season of TPP, running from June 10th, 2023 to June 20th, 2023. It is also the fourteenth randomized main run overall, and can arguably be seen as a throwback to earlier randomized runs such as Twitch Plays Pokémon HeartGold, as unlike the most recent randomized runs (notably the three randomized runs of the previous seasons, which all used hacks and mods as a basis), it featured no gameplay changes aside from the randomization of Trainer teams and Pokémon locations, movesets, and evolutions itself.
The run also began with an unintentional call-back to the original FireRed, with the starter chosen being a Machop; unlike the one in FireRed however, this one actually had a very good ability, earning it a spot on the final team. Said final team also caused arguments between the Voices over which of two Lapras to keep on it (eventually settling on the Shiny one), and later which of two Deoxys (in the end actually using both of them).
This run was also the first time TPP played through some of the event-locked content of Pokemon Heart Gold And Soul Silver, thanks to specific event Pokémon being directly inserted into the save file. This included travelling through time alongside Celebi, reuniting the Pikachu-coloured Pichu with the Spiky-eared Pichu, and visiting Sinjoh Ruins twice, once using an event Arceus, and once using the Arceus from Inverse Platinum.
See also here for the archived status of the run.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Randomized SoulSilver contains examples of:
- A Dog Named "Cat": Two different Pokémon caught during the run were named "Arceus"; the first was a Dunsparce that knew Arceus' signature move Judgement, and the second was a Vigoroth that the chat hoped would evolve into Arceus but ultimately became Snorlax instead.
- Ascended Glitch: A script malfunction caused the protagonist of Inverse Platinum to use a team of random Pokémon instead of his own; rather than correct the mistake right away, it was decided to make it a condition that the randomized team had to be defeated first in order to unlock the actual battle against his proper in-game team.
- Old Save Bonus:
- The Sinjoh Ruins event can be activated twice, once using and event-distributed Arceus, and once using an Arceus caught in the Hall of Origin. After using a Toys "R" Us Arceus to access it a first time, the Arceus caught in the Hall of Origin of Inverse Platinum was added to the save file in order to access it a second time.
- As is often the case with Generation IV runs, several Pokémon were transferred from the save files of previous Generation III runs:
- From FireRed: AATUUVWVW (Charizard), Lwweekjjje (Ariados), Quagsire (Quagsire), Lileep (Lileep), hnjkrs (Machop), and AAHHHKWWVV (Cacnea).
- From Gauntlet Emerald: TTTt“11222 (Wobbuffet), A (Castform), BBJPzztttz (Dustox), TGGAATTTT. (Mew), A (Beldum), and AAATTTT (Groudon).
- The Sinjoh Ruins event can be activated twice, once using and event-distributed Arceus, and once using an Arceus caught in the Hall of Origin. After using a Toys "R" Us Arceus
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: The final opponent of the run, awaiting on top of Mt. Silver, was the protagonist from Twitch Plays Pokémon Inverse Platinum, using his postgame team that swapped Medicham, Scyther and Lickilicky for Azelf, Zapdos and Porygon-Z.
- Shout-Out: Rotom was named "TOJIKO" after the Touhou Project character of the same name, a ghost girl with the power to cause thunder.
- Take a Third Option: Arguments of whether to keep the Deoxys that had evolved from a wild Kirlia and thus had spent the longest amount of time on the team or the one that was caught as a roaming Legendary and thus was the randomized counterpart of the memetic Entei were eventually settled by having both of them on the final team, and taking advantage of it to switch the former to Defense Form and the latter to Attack Form during the postgame, thus giving them radically different and non-redundant roles.
- True Final Boss: The Host from Inverse Platinum on top of Mt. Silver retroactively became this. Due to a script malfunction, his proper team was swapped for a randomized onenote ; it was subsequently decided that the randomized team would have to be defeated in order to unlock the actual Inverse Platinum team again, the latter being the one that would count as an end goal for the run.
- The Unpronounceable: On top of the name of the main character ("11 CCvu") and of several of her Pokémon, ("OO LEXMMQE", "DYUHEN6EQP", "?.,,"), multiple Trainers throughout the game also had severely glitched names, such as "Twins ????????II????おおOOOOOOOOOO11 CCvu" in Bugsy's Gym, or "Leader ????????ÎÎ??????OOOOOOOOOO11 CCvu" in place of Lt. Surge.
- Weather of War: This was exploited by the final team, of which the main strategy revolved heavily around Rotom setting up a rainfall thanks to its Drizzle ability. On top of allowing Rotom's own Thunder move to never miss, it also boosted the power of Machamp's and Masquerain's Waterfall by 50%, healed Lapras of status ailments thanks to its Hydration ability, and restored one eighth of either Deoxys' HP due to their own Dry Skin ability.
- Early in the run, players also considered a team revolving around hail rather than rain, making use of Absol's Snow Warning ability along with Lapras' Ice typing granting it immunity from Hail damage, but said damage eventually proved too cumbersome to work around, and Absol was eventually deposited.
- Wonder Twin Powers: Rotom's ability Drizzle, which caused rain to start pouring upon it entering the battle, presented great synergy with those of the second Lapras and of both Deoxys; the former's ability Hydration healed it of any status condition during a rainstorm, while the latter's Dry Skin ability restored part of their HP each turn while under the rain.
