Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a social experiment in which commands representing buttons on an original Game Boy (up, down, left, right, A, B, start, and select) are entered into a chat on Twitch, and then translated into a game of Pokémon Red via an IRC bot. In short, over 10,000 people are fighting over a controller. Throughout its life, Twitch Plays Pokémon has spawned hilarious characters, memorable moments, and even a religion.
The first run of "Season 2" takes Twitch Plays Pokémon back to the events of Red but with a twist. A new Democracy system ensured it would be used when needed by only activating if Twitch spent too long in one area. Additionally, Anniversary Red was the first run to use a new completion goal: Get the Diplomanote .
Hilarity ensued as Twitch encountered old enemies like the Route 9 Ledge, the Rocket Hideout, and Professor Oak's nagging as they captured all original 151 Pokemon.
The run officially started on February 12th, 2015, making it the first official run of 2015. The Elite 4 was defeated on March 12th, 2015, one whole month after the run began. The run officially ended March 24th, 2015, forty days since the run began, when the Mob defeated Professor Oak.
See here
for the archived progress of the game, here for the archived status of the run, or here for live updates, which have been archived here. There is also a recap page, found here. The ROM has been released in IPS patch format, and can be downloaded here.
Twitch Plays Pokémon: Anniversary Red contains examples of:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: The party was massively reshuffled twice in the wake of the releases that occurred after the victory over Misty. Onix became the only consistent party member.
- The party was shuffled again prior to the battle against Koga, and this time Parasect was the only party member to remain.
- And then that entire party got thrown in the PC in favor of keeping Parasect, Mr Mime, and reviving the Dome Fossil.
- And then Mime was tossed in the PC (despite calls to release it instead) eventually leading to the new party of Cloyster, Parasect, Kabutops, Zapdos, Muk, and Slowbro.
- Despite the above team defeating the Elite Four, even it wasn't safe from post-game problems, as an attempt to manually change boxes on the PC (a required part of completing the Pokedex) resulted in half the team being replaced. Thankfully, major shuffles were avoided after the PC use, and the final team became Cloyster, Zapdos, Slowbro, Dragonite, Venomoth, and Victreebel.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The step limit in the Safari Zone was increased from 500 to 3,000, allowing the Mob to complete it in Anarchy without any problems.
- Alternate Timeline: It's a replay of a prior run. Needless to say the "Alternate Timeline" lore is going to be stronger than even playing through the remakes.
- Ascended Meme: Being a special ROM hack created for the 1-year anniversary of TPP, the game contained several references to Twitch Plays Pokemon. This included a couple references to memes, including "start9" and "TEH URN".
- Big "NO!": After losing to Brock twice, the mob set out onto Route 2 to catch a less useless Pokemon. Upon coming across a Poliwag, the mob insisted on catching it; when Charmeleon killed it with a single critical hit, a chorus of "NOOOOOOOO"s ensued.
- Happened again when the mob then fled from a Bulbasaur.
- The mob finally managed to throw their only Poké Ball at a wild Nidoran♀... and it escaped. Cue the "NOOOOOOO"s.
- The reaction to taking the Dome Fossil was... energetic, to say the least.
- The Day 4 massacre prompted a lot of these.
- After Streamer's PC lost power on Day 12, he loaded a save file.... from after the Battle Tent incident. Cue the big "No," thankfully it was a mistake and a few minutes later the Mob was back at Fuchsia.
- When attempting to change boxes, the Mob released Parasect, their best 'Mon. Thousands of "NOOOOOOOOO!"'s ensued.
- Book Ends: One of the earliest obstacles were the wild Pikachu, "The Gatekeepers", just outside Pallet. The very last obstacle in winning the run was the level 100 Pikachu on Prof. Oak's team.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The game said Blue picked Squirtle, but he led with a level 6 Eevee that defeated Charmander with a critical hit. In the second battle, he switched back to using Squirtle much to the surprise of the chat, and defeated Abe with a Super-effective water move.
- Continuity Reboot: If it is an Alternate Timeline, chances are it's continuity will be starkly different from the original Timeline because of the nature of TPP's lore.
- Darkest Hour: The massacre on Day 4 resulted in mob morale hitting arguably an all-time low, with some questioning whether the run was even salvageable at that point. After three Pokémon were successfully retrieved, however, things started to pick back up again.
- Then it got dark again the first hour of Day 9. When the chat triggered a bug by visiting the Battle Tent that left their entire party stuck in the PC, while they had a party made up of 6 Glitch Pokémon. Thankfully it was fixed by hacking a real Pokémon onto the party and going to the PC.
- In the middle of Day 30, the Leech
King was released, and Muk and Lord Dome were deposited.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: The Gym battle against Surge culminated in a Lvl.18 Diglett facing off against his Lvl.42 Raichu. Though Raichu couldn't hurt Diglett, it was able to drastically lower its Attack by spamming Growl, to the extent that by the end of the battle, Diglett ran out of PP for Scratch and had to knock Raichu out using Struggle.
- Determinator: Operation Restoration is a testament to how, even in the darkest moments, TPP never gives up.
- Early Game Hell: Brock required 10 attempts to defeat, while the lone other trainer in his Gym required 15. The next gym leader, Misty, required 19 attempts. After that? 5 of the remaining 6 Gym Leaders were defeated on the first try, the Elite Four went down in only 16 tries (at the time, the second-fewest behind only FireRed, though Season 3 would bring easier E4s), all eight rematch Gym Leaders went down in one try, and the rematch Elite Four, despite having an extra trainer, only lasted 23 attempts.
- Epic Fail: As usual, it has its own page.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: It's Twitch Plays Pokémon which has a history of dying to wild encounters. It took forever for them to even make it halfway through Viridian Forest. Their opponents? An Eevee, some Pikachu, an assortment of flying-types, multiple Digletts, and at least one Tangela and Psyduck.
- Four Is Death: The fourth day (starting from "03d" because the counter started at 0) saw fifteen releases, including four Digletts in a row, Charizard, and Kakuna, which had been trapped in the PC all day and was supposedly the reason the mob kept trying to use it.
- There have been four "Final Parties" so far. And the previous three have all ended with a PC Massacre.
- Game-Breaking Bug: A Battle Tent was hacked into the game, but when Abe tried to use it, he ended up with a glitched Golduck on his team, the game crashed, and when it came back up he had no Pokémon! He couldn't stop blacking out, and the stream was stopped so the save file could be fixed manually (an Abra was temporarily edited into the party to stop the blackouts, allowing the mons to be retrieved from the PC).
- They triggered it again on Day 18, but instead of MissingNo or 'M(FF) it turned the entire party into Unstable Glitch Pokemon. This one had to be fixed by loading a previous save.
- Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Of all the problems with the Battle Tent, the glitch where it was giving so much money for winning that the money counter was instantly maxed out had to be the best.
- Golden Ending: According to the creators of the special TPP Version being played, there is a brand-new "True Ending" that has been added into the game. To unlock it, 4 conditions must be met, and then the Mob must challenge the Elite Four again. The conditions are as follows:
- 1.) The game must be cleared once (Player must be registered into the Hall of Fame).
- 2.) The bed in the player character's house must be checked after meeting the above condition (It triggers a battle against Dream Red).
- 3.) All Gym Leaders must be rematched.
- 4.) The Diploma must be obtained (Catch all Pokemon).
- Considering the run didn't end until the Golden Ending was achieved, this made the normal ending more of a Your Princess Is in Another Castle!.
- Heroic BSoD: After Day 4 saw one of the largest massacres in TPP history, culminating in the release of Charizard, the inputs almost dried up completely as the horrified mob tried to come to terms with what they had done.
- History Repeats: Blue's name stayed Blue, and AIIIAAB chose Charmander as his starter.
- Also, the fire starter was released yet again.
- There is yet another horrible massacre spurred by a misguided attempt to return a fan favorite Pokémon to the team.
- Guess what the Eevee claimed in Celadon evolved into? Yep, Fire Stone time. Like last time, they wanted Vaporeon or Jolteon, but got Flareon instead.
- Two prominent Pokémon in each Red run are referred to with the title of King (Nidoking/The Moon King and Parasect/The Leech King) and with the names of basketball players (Lapras/Air Jordan and Onix/Shaquille O'nix).
- The Master Ball was again successfully used on Zapdos in anarchy.
- The fossil from Mount Moon was once again revived and added to the (fourth-time's-the-charm) final team. They got the Dome Fossil this time, which is seen as the evil god by much of the mob, so it's surprising that this still happened.
- Both games had a Poison-type with only one direct-damage move and a tendency to exploit Gen 1's terrible trainer AI— Venomoth and Muk.
- Hmm... A common Pokémon (albeit buffed) that carried the team for most of the run, a fossil god, a Poison-type AI abuser, an HM slave that packs a punch, an Ice/Water type with virtually no lore and a Master Ball'd Zapdos... Deja vu?
- Hope Spot: It seemed as though Growlmeleon, at Lvl.22, was finally about to beat the Jr. Trainer at Brock's Gym, prompting a string of Helix-praising comments from the mob, only for his Omanyte to then knock Growlmeleon out with a Water Gun. An almighty Big "NO!" ensued.
- Abe managed to get the coveted Great ball in the S.S. Anne trash can... and failed to catch a Meowth with it.
- After a long period with no money, Abe defeated a Gambler, giving him enough money to buy Pokeballs. He caught several Meowth and an Exeggcute... and promptly released them while trying to retrieve them. Meowth #2 lasted a scant 15 minutes.
- The battles against Professor Oak had a couple of these:
- First, after struggling to beat Blue's true final team, the mob barely survived with only a severely weakened Cloyster left... Just for Oak to abruptly challenge Abe. With no opportunity to heal. ICU managed to hold on surprisingly well but eventually lost to the third Pokemon. To add insult to injury, after Abe lost, the game's visuals crashed; the game had to be reloaded and thus several levels were lost.
- In a later attempt against Oak, the weakened team began to tear through Oak's party, eventually leaving just an Evasion-buffed ICU against Oak's final Pokemon...who proceeded to land Thunder on ICU despite him having spammed Double Team.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": Every time the mob encountered a Pikachu on Route 1. Justified, as said Pikachu tended to knock them out fairly swiftly.
- Releasing Charizard.
- The Day 10 glitchfest, where all the party Pokémon were replaced with Charizard'M and the Mob saved the game. Fortunately Streamer saved the day.
- The Day 30 PC massacre, which saw the release of the beloved Leech King. As they neared the release button, the chat exploded in horror, and crying abounded as he was released.
- The revelation that Prof. Oak is the True Final Boss and the Curb-Stomp Battle that ensued.
- Million to One Chance: After a few failed legitimate attempts, Mew was caught via an incredibly unlikely series of events:
- The mob somehow guided Abe past all the pit traps to Mew without a chat leader. Cloyster was his last available mon, and probably the least helpful for catching things.
- Cloyster weakened Mew with Surf. Another attack would have KO'd Mew, but it saved itself by using Metronome and rolling Hypnosis, putting Cloyster to sleep.
- Abe threw a single, ordinary Poke Ball, and caught Mew. Without giving it a status effect.
- Abe caught Mewtwo in a Great Ball. Albeit Mewtwo was at low health and had a status effect. But the catch rate on Mewtwo is so low that most balls just miss completely.
- Mundane Utility: The mob decided to get Mew, the legendary ancestor of all Pokemon, and using its unique ability to learn any TM or HM in the game, they would teach it to... cut down tiny trees. Leech King was gone, and he was their only team member that could learn Cut. Especially silly because Cut was only a convenience at this point in the game, to make filling up the Pokedex a bit easier.
- Mythology Gag: The authors have made a few references to previous runs.
- Dream Red saying "start9" upon defeat is a reference to the original run's protests against Democracy Mode, where spammers would write that to mess with the input system.
- The PC is The Dreaded in these runs, given the high number of Pokémon that get released/killed from its use. Facing against one in battle is either terrifying or cathartic.
- Nintendo Hard: Yes. Quite ironic, considering the original game made by Nintendo is rather easy, but a ROM hack lives up to the trope name.
- Wild Pokémon are at higher levels than in the original game.
- There are more wild Pokémon in each area.
- The AI is more intelligent, and gets secondary effects for certain moves much more often.
- Trainers have higher-leveled Pokémon than in the original game, as well as different ones.
- Perpetual Poverty: The higher difficulty level usually keeps Abe's on-hand cash in the single digits. For comparison, a Poke Ball costs 200 Pokedollars. Eventually averted by farming wild Meowth for their use of Payday and then catching one to do it even more easily.
- Precision F-Strike: With literal precision, given that this happened in the Democracy-activated Victory Road. Crude suggestions when naming a Pokémon in Democracy mode aren't unheard of, but when a Blastoise knocked out a few party members and took a couple dozen Poke Balls to catch, the mob ended up venting out their frustration with its name.
- Recursive Reality: One NPC bought a new computer so he could watch Twitch Plays Pokemon whenever he wanted.
- Re-Cut: A lot of little changes are made by the Streamer to make the run closer to his original intent, and to make the run more enjoyable on the part of the players.
- The original run was supposed to use a 151 rom hack, and may have been intended to end at the diploma, but the Streamer used the wrong ROM and instead the run ended at the Hall of Fame.
- Democracy only triggers after the chat is stuck in one area for an extended period of time, instead of being a tug of war voting system.
- Revenge: The mob got their chance.◊ The end goal became defeating Professor Oak after receiving the Diploma.
- Something We Forgot: The Mob completed the Rocket Hideout spin puzzle in five minutes... but forgot the Lift Key.
- Springtime for Hitler: With most of the Victory Road Pokémon caught, and having freshly blacked out back into the Indigo Plateau Pokémon Center, the mob made the decision to do a quick run at the Elite Four, intending to lose at or before Blue and use the remains of their winnings to buy more Ultra Balls. They accidentally became the Champion again and got sent all the way back to Pallet Town.
- Superboss:
- The mysterious reason the Mob had to check their bed after beating the Elite 4? A Dream Sequence in which Abe battles the original Red whose party is all boosted to level 100.
- Most of the Gym Leaders became available for rematches after the E4 was defeated, now boasting full teams of level 100 Pokemon. The exception is Giovanni, who's instead been replaced by a PC while the League searches for a new Gym Leader.
- After gaining the diploma, the Elite Four and Blue also gained buffed teams. On top of that, immediately after Blue came one final boss: Professor Oak.
- Those Two Guys: Flaeron and Persian are often depicted as this. They were even deposited together!
- The Unpronouncable: Red's name this time around is AIIIAAB.
- Flareon's second name, which is just a long string of A's. The chat settled on "Sam."
- Urban Legend of Zelda: In this ROM hack, you actually can use Strength to push the hidden truck near the S.S. Anne, and Mew pops out from under it! Unfortunately, it flies off to a cave filled with pitfall traps, clearly designed to be excruciatingly difficult for the mob to navigate.
- Wham Episode: Picking up the Dome Fossil.
- Losing Growlizard, Babafish, and several other Pokémon on Day Four.
- Having the entire party replaced by the dangerous glitch Pokemon, 'M (FF) on Days 8/9.
- Releasing Leech King and depositing Muk and Dome at the beginning of Day 31. It hits pretty hard as this occurred on March 15, one year following Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal.
