for Twitch Plays Pokémon XGTwitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments in which commands representing buttons on an original Nintendo GameCube (up, down, left, right, A, B, X, Y, Z, L, R, start, and C-stick) 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 XG is the fourth run of Season 6, beginning on July 13th, 2019 and ending on July 21st, 2019. It follows up on Twitch Plays Pokémon Randomized Colosseum by featuring a hack of Colosseum's sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. Said hack, called Pokémon XG: NeXt Gen, includes a new selection of 122 Shadow Pokémon (over the original 83 of XD), along with whole new Shadow Moves and wild Pokémon, and an increased overall difficulty. It also adds several mechanics from later games, such as the Physical/Special split, an updated type chart (including Fairy-type), and several later-gen moves and abilities.
The Host for this run, Stars, actually shares his name with the creator of the hack himself, StarsMmd; this has led some people to joke that the chat is controlling StarsMmd himself. His starters were an Eevee and a Zigzagoon; the former evolved into a sparkling Vaporeon, whereas the latter was deposited in favour of the three starters and two pseudo-legendaries from Hoenn. In spite of ending up three hours shorter than the original run, much more was actually accomplished this time around, including snagging every single Shadow Pokémon, battling Mirror B. in Gateon Port and Greevil's non-Shadow team, getting to the top of Mt. Battle, and purifying Shadow Lugia.
See also here for the archived status of the run, or here for live updates, which have been archived here.
Twitch Plays Pokémon XG contains examples of:
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Meta example - the closure of the live updater was announced, due to lack of available staff. Cue YugnatZero becoming the first new live updater this season, joining the team 2 days before the run ended.
- Aerith and Bob: Stars' party is composed of Vaporeon and Salamence on one side, and ABBBBBBBQ, CCC /, AB-, and BCCMMW on the other. Vaporeon was later deposited in favor of Lugia, which was renamed ABJJJJJJ after being purified.
- Cargo Cult: Stars tendency to go up and down the same elevator several times in a row has led to cries of "Praise Elevator", which persisted until the end of the run.
- Game-Breaking Bug:
- Cool Trainer Haran in Realgam Colosseum owned a Gyarados with the move Bounce. However, said move turned out to not work properly, as Gyarados kept "springing up" every turn after using it without ever actually coming down. This pretty much caused a complete stalemate, as it was immune to damage while it was in the air, but wouldn't inflict any either since it wasn't coming down. Struggle wasn't even an option to resolve the situation, since it turned out not to be using any PP in the process.
- Anti-cheating methods in the game itself activated following the forced reloading of a save state, which prevented the game from being saved as it believed a different memory card was being used.note Ultimately averted when the developers managed to fix the bug and successfully save the game, to the sound of Sweet Victory.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Due to an erroneous battle ID, talking to Cipher Peon Purple caused Stars to suddenly face a wild Groudon, causing a mix of confusion and hilarity among the Voices. Because this battle was repeatable, they caught seven of them.
- Gravity Screw: A glitch with the move Bounce caused a Gyarados to continuously "spring up" without ever actually coming down, which means he just stayed in the air for the remainder of the battle. Many viewers in the chat, after it stalled the game for about two hours, joked about how he was in space by now, and that his planet needed him.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The game crashed upon facing the first Cipher Peon in the game, and reloading the previous savestate triggered a known protection that prevented the game from saving normally. As the devs kept restarting the game attempting to fix the issue, Stars was forced to relive the kidnapping of Prof. Krane several times in a row.
- History Repeats:
- There have been several input wars between those who wanted to box Vaporeon (the team already had a Water-type, Vaporeon had been used in previous runs, and there were better Pokémon in the PC) and those who wanted to keep it in the party (it part of the team for the whole run, some didn't want to risk a PC accident, and it brought closure to the Eevee from XD). By this point though, input wars over Eeveelutions have become a common occurence in TPP, wether they resulted said Eeveelution being kept on the team, boxed, or even released.
- Averted however when compared to the original Twitch Plays Pokémon XD run, in which the Water Stone was obtained but tossed, and Eevee was eventually boxed. Here, the Water Stone was succesfully used on Eevee to evolve it into Vaporeon, and the latter was kept on the team until the end credits.
- Finally averted with ABBBBBBBQ, which became the first Blaziken in TPP history to be carried until not only the final boss, but the very end of the run. Ever since zyyxyy in Twitch Plays Pokémon Emerald, there have been multiple potential Blaziken obtained, but this is the first one to make it to the end without being boxed or released, a mere thirty-four runs after TPP's first Torchic.
- Long-Lasting Last Words: This run marked the discontinuation of the Live Updater, due to the UpdaterNeeded bot being shut down. In its last few moments, it had an overly long freakout about the game suddenly reverting to Metronome Sapphire.UpdaterNeeded: We snag a male Lv. 100 Venusaur! We snag a female Lv. 100 Gengar! We snag a female Lv. 100 Scizor! We snag a female Lv. 100 Slowking! We snag a Lv. 100 Mew! We snag a female Lv. 100 Furret! Got the Rain Badge! Received the Stone Badge! Got the Dynamo Badge! Got the Mind Badge! Received the Feather Badge! Got the Balance Badge! Got the Heat Badge! Received the Knuckle Badge! Arrived on Underwater. During our shopping trip we sold 2 Full Restores, 11 Hyper Potions, 7 Full Heals, a Moomoo Milk, an Energypowder, an Energy Root, 2 Heal Powders, a Revival Herb, 4 Lava Cookies, an Aura Stabiliser, a Wide Lens, an Eviolite, an Aura Filter, 2 Shadow Armours, a Life Orb, an X Attack, a Cheri Berry, 3 Lum Berries, 3 Sitrus Berries, an Iapapa Berry, a Coba Berry, 2 Passho Berries, a Salac Berry, an Exp. Share, a Toxic Orb, an Amulet Coin, 2 Focus Sashes, a Rocky Helmet, a TM01 Tailwind, a TM02 Fire Blast, a TM03 U-Turn, a TM04 Hurricane, a TM06 Dazzling Gleam, a TM07 Foul Play, a TM08 Power-Up Punch, a TM09 Thunder Wave, a TM11 Will-O-Wisp, a TM12 Wild Charge, a TM18 Freeze Dry, a TM22 Discharge, a TM24 Superpower, a TM25 Earthquake, a TM29 Sucker Punch, a TM30 Gunk Shot, a TM31 Psyshock, a TM34 Solarbeam, a TM35 Focus Blast, a TM39 Waterfall, a TM40 Dragon Claw, a TM41 Toxic, a TM42 Flame Charge, a TM44 Knock Off, a TM48 Stone Edge, and an SM01 Shadow Rush. Then we bought 9 Dive Balls, a Rare Candy, a Heart Scale, an Itemfinder, a S.S. Ticket, a Contest Pass, a PokéBlock Case, a Blue Orb, a Go-Goggles, a Meteorite, a Devon Scope, and a TM50 Overheat. We have ₽354 remaining. We throw several dozen Ultra Balls, several dozen Poké Balls, and a dozen Timer Balls at a wild Nincada that has our eye. We heal! Caught a female Lv. 100 Nincada! Nickname: Nincada (Sent to Box #10.) VVOOOOOOIC (Venusaur) learned Solarbeam, learned Growth, learned Synthesis, and learned Sweet Scent over Metronome!
- Recursive Reality: StarsMmd, the creator of Pokémon XG, joined the chat during the run. Considering that the Host is named "Stars", this led to a form of recursive reality, as this Mind Screwey comment points out:StarsMmd: Stars is watching a stream of Stars watching a stream
- Trapped in TV Land: The Host for this run, Stars, actually shares his name with the creator of the hack, StarsMmd. This has led many people to joke about the fact that StarsMmd has become trapped in his own romhack and that he is the one the Voices are controlling.
- Unreliable Narrator:
- The stream overlay had a few hiccups over the course of the run. It notably listed several bosses (Snattle, Mirror B., Gonzap) as undefeated after they had been defeated, and one of them (Goragin) as defeated before ha had been; it also showed incorrect attempt numbers for two of them (Gonzap and Goragin). It also displayed two more Pokémon in a specific Trainer's team each time he was rematched, which added up to over twenty.
- The Live Updater bot also had its own share of mistakes. Most prominently, it reported wild Pokémon caught as having been snagged from the last Trainer fought, and believed at several points that Stars had sold all of its items only to buy all of them again immediately after.
