Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments in which commands representing buttons on an original Game Boy Advance (up, down, left, right, A, B, L, R, 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 Touhoumon & Moemon, the second run of the second season, introduces a brand new way to play Pokemon games on the stream. For the first time ever, the stream plays two games at the same time, those being Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced 1.8note and Moemon FireRed, using a shared series of inputs. The former featured AAABBHM and her team of "Bonéka", living puppets designed after characters of the Touhou Project franchise, while the latter featured AAtatat in a world populated by gijinkas desigend after the original 151 Pokémon.
The run began at 12:00 PM GMT on May 10th, 2015, coincidentally the same day that Reitaisai 12
began and Touhou Shinpiroku ~ Urban Legend in Limbo was released. Both runs ended on May 24, 2015, with Moemon finishing first, about twelve hours earlier than Touhoumon.
Touhoumon was revisited as an intermission during Twitch Plays Pokémon: The Gauntlet, from March 18th, 2020, to March 23rd, 2020, allowing AAABBHM to explore and obtain the badges of the post-game region of Johto. During that time, many old memes were brought back, and new ones were born.
See also here for the archived status of the Touhoumon run, here for the archived status of the Moemon run, or here for live updates, which have been archived here. There is also a recap page, found here.
Twitch Plays Touhoumon and Moemon contains examples of:
- Alternate Universe: Both games are Pokemon FireRed hacks, and the differences between them are slight dialogue, selection of 'mons, and gameplay. Otherwise, most characters and its overworld are the same.
- Amazon Brigade: What both runs have in common is the fact that the main characters' teams are composed entirely of cute, powerful girls. It's not like there's a choice in the matter anyway, given that almost every obtainable companion is a girl.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The select button allows players to shift around moves so that an effective attack may be put first. However, because the Select Sect was formed right before the runs, moves are shifted more often than they should. Select also opens registered items, such as the Teachy TV or the TM Case, which are spammed as well.
- Big Secret: The exact Rom versions being used, as well as the exact input method, remain under lock and key even with three days to go before the run. It was eventually revealed that the games would share one series of inputs, and that the roms being used are Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced (Touhoumon 1.8E) and a still-unknown version of Moemon. But yes, both were FireRed hacks.
- Bowdlerisation: When battled during the revisit, A-VIVIT◊ had her sprite covered by a black box, to ensure that the stream wasn't infringing the rules of Twitch regarding nudity. After being added to the team, her sprite in the HUD depicted her as being fully clothed.
- Buff: Unlike previous runs, Democracy Mode can no longer be overwritten by a majority Anarchy vote. To compensate, the voting timer is invisible.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Dugtrio became this during the Elite 4, where she was mainly used as cannon fodder for Lorelei.
- Bruno's status as this has expanded since the previous games, as general consensus makes him not even considered part of the Elite 4 (or Elite 3 in this case).
- The Bus Came Back:
- The timed tug-of-war Anarchy/Democracy system last seen on Twitch Plays Pokémon HeartGold returns, although now it's persistent throughout the run rather than showing up randomly. The voting time for said input systems is increased to fifteen minutes.
- For the first time since Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, the mob finally picked Helix once again in Moemon.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Touhoumon 1.8 uses a vastly different type chart than any other Pokemon game. Moves like Tackle ("Beast" type instead of "Normal") are super-effective against the starter (whose type is "Faith").
- Democracy Is Flawed: Managed to release BB the Cirno in Democracy Mode. Thankfully, HM mechanics allowed her to escape such fate.
- Demoted to Extra: The Fossil Pantheon are barely used or referenced by the chat in Moemon. Subverted in Touhoumon, in which Helix's alternate Marisa was part of Green's team and Dome's alternate Reimu was basically an HM Slave.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: After Moemon finished the Elite 4, one of the streamers made all Moemon in Gen 3 appear in the game, at a cost of having male genders as well. Most Moemon have a feminine physique and wear skirts.
-
Dummied Out: Touhoumon's Music House's entrance has been blocked with a shrub and a sign next to it saying, "Streamer says you can't pass". This was to prevent the chat from intentionally staying inside to hear the game's soundtrack. - Early Game Hell: Sanae has it even worse than normal, as most Route 1 and later early routes' puppets have moves super-effective against her.
- Everybody Lives: Both runs finished without any releases, making them the third and fourth games to do so. note
- Game Mod: In this case, two of them, both based on Pokemon FireRed. The run uses an undisclosed version of Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced and Moemon. This is also the first run to use Pokemon hacks.
- Game-Breaking Bug:
- In certain menus, commands given in democracy are doubled, making it impossible to reach every other menu option when there are an even number of options and wraparound. For example, attempts to rearrange the Moemon party in democracy to keep the starter from becoming to overleveled failed because the "switch" option was unreachable.
- When Moemon visited the Day Care, the game froze, and they somehow got◊ a party of six level 2 Ivysaurs at 119% health, 5 badges, and 3848192002 pokedollars. Obviously, a reset was necessary.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: While trying to deposit someone at the Day Care in Moemon, with the intention that the previous glitch was a one time thing, the game reset itself again. It then resulted on those who made the command "downa" to create a new game receive a perma-ban. There was some fierce rioting for a couple of hours, and everything settled down again.
- History Repeats:
- In Moemon, FFF the Charmander, a fire starter, was chosen. (Making TPP 4 for 4 on picking Charmander over the other two first-gen starters.note ) As in the Anniversary run, it somehow failed to learn Flamethrower. Notably Averted in regards to being released though. FFF is the first fire starter not to be released when releasing Pokémon wasn't flat-out disabled.
- Touhoumon's trainer having trouble getting past the first route, thanks to the route's puppets' effectiveness towards the starter.
- Improbably Female Cast: Touhoumon doesn't use genders as a mechanic, so this comes with the source material. Moémon changes gender distribution so that only male-only species can be male. The mob also managed to pick the female trainer in Moémon.
- Interface Screw: Due to a bug, a pair of Boneka/Moemon would flash and dim interchangeably for a moment. Also, Mima has her sprite represented by Isami Asama.
- Just One Second Out of Sync: Not accounting for different text speeds, Moemon is slightly out of sync with Touhoumon. This is mostly seen when both characters are walking straight in Democracy Mode, as sometimes one game might not register all inputs, leaving one character a tile behind the other.
- Later-Installment Weirdness:
- Despite all runs having additional goals to reach after beating the Elite 4 starting with Twitch Plays Pokémon Black 2, both Touhoumon and Moemon ended after reaching their respective Hall of Fame. This was decided due to both games having vastly different postgame content, with Touhoumon's being much more extensive.
- While Democracy went through many adjustments since its introduction, with the latter half of Season 1 settling on making it available through a majority vote exclusively in specific areas, this run brought back the original mechanic from Red, aka allowing a switch between Anarchy and Democracy through a tug-of-war vote every 15 minutes, at any point of the game.
- Moe Anthropomorphism: It's a pair of hacks that take Pokemon and make them look like either
Moes or Touhou Project characters. Expect this trope in spades! - Oddball in the Series: Both the use of moes and the dual run are oddities compared to other runs.
- One-Steve Limit: Both rivals are named Green. Green Oak is also the name for the rival from the FireRed run, going as far as using the same sprite.
- Out of Focus: The chat's form of progression is to concentrate on one game to reach a certain point and doing it again for the other. This leads to instances where the chat are focusing on battling a trainer while the other character somehow is two towns away from where she was or has turned on the PC.
- Perverse Sexual Lust: Moémon attractiveness is a major factor in whether the mob wants a certain mon or not. This was most blatant with "Butterbae" the Butterfree.
- Post-End Game Content: Johto is present in Touhoumon, but was initially not played due to its sheer difficulty and its lack of checkpoints. This was rectified during the revisit, when AAABBHM finally obtained all eight Johto badges.
- Because both games had to be beaten to end the run, whichever game beat the Elite Four first would have the opportunity to engage in postgame content. The chat opted not to take this opportunity in Moemon.
- Save-Game Limits: Apparently, the Streamer had no backups available to save both games while they are being played, so if a new game was made and then saved, then the whole run would be lost for good.
- Schizophrenic Difficulty: While the overworld is the same, Touhoumon's difficulty is greater than Moemon, even though both games seem to be neck and neck in terms of progress.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Only Touhoumon's music is heard, so anyone focused on Moemon might find themselves, for example, hearing the kickass Touhoumon rival battle theme while attempting to enter the Pokecenter.
- Sprite Comic: Pioxys, a popular TPP player, does this with Boneka sprites.
- Title Confusion: Both games are considered by the stream as a single run, known by the pink "12" emblem next to a player's username, despite sounding as two separate runs played simultaneously.
- Throw It In!: In-Universe. Touhoumon's Teachy TV has the Boneka Dude's puppets fainting and later blacking out before he finishes his lesson. The host then goes on with the show as if nothing happened.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Both games are played at the exact same time. Subverted whenever something important needs to be done, in which case the chat will gladly ignore whatever's going on in one game to focus on the other.
- Unreadably Fast Text: During the run, donation messages scroll, with longer messages scrolling faster. Since the donation window is crammed on the right side of the screen, longer messages are basically unreadable.
- World of Action Girls: Applies to both games; all mons are female, and in the case of Touhoumon, instead of having a gender, they have assigned Ying or Yang. However, most of the moves that depend on gender haven't been renamed.
