Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments 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 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 Sanqui Red & Blue is basically a precursor to the Twitch Plays Pokémon Charity Dual Red & Blue run, meant to showcase and iron out the dual input system returning from Twitch Plays Pokémon Dual Red & Blue. It features two simultaneously-played games of Pokémon Red randomized through the Sanqui Randomizer
, a software that, on top of shuffling around items, movesets, overworld sprites, and so on, also replaces the entire Pokédex with a selection of 251 Pokémon from Generation I to Generation VI, all of them being given their very own Stylistic Suck custom sprites.
Sanqui Red & Blue debuted as a "System Testing" intermission meant as a trial run for the overlay and dual input system intended for the upcoming Charity Dual Red & Blue, which began on April 10th, 2022 and ended on April 12th, 2022, with both sides managing to reach the end of the game.
Following that, Sanqui Red & Blue returned as a sidegame during the following Pokémon Battle Revolution intermission, from April 12th, 2022 to April 21st, 2022. It was initially a direct continuation of the "System Testing' intermission, reprising the same save files where they had left off; a few hours in however, both games were reset, with brand new "re-randomized" save files. This sidegame is notable for being the very first one to not use the "Congress" system in which players vote for a single input between each PBR match, instead being played in Anarchy during th matches and betting periods themselves, with every individual input being registered.
See also here for the archived status of Pokémon Sanqui Red and here for the archived status of Pokémon Sanqui Blue, as well as here for the archived status of the re-randomized Pokémon Sanqui Red and here for the archived status of the re-randomized Pokémon Sanqui Blue.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Sanqui Red & Blue contains examples of:
- Non-Indicative Name: The leftside game is referred to as "Sanqui Blue", but is actually Pokémon Red with a blue palette ; this is due to the Sanqui Randomizer only being compatible with Pokémon Red.
- Pilot: Dual Sanqui Red & Blue can be seen as a pilot of sorts for Charity Dual Red & Blue, as it was intended as a test for the dual inputting system as well as the new minimalistic interface, allowign any potential issues to be ironed out before the run proper.
The System Testing intermission specifically contains examples of:
- Aerith and Bob:
- Played With with the names of the Hosts. While "AMOGUS" in Sanqui Red is definitely a weird name, it is quite tame by TPP standards, especially when compared to "-??((" in Sanqui Blue.
- The final teams of each side were composed of five relatively normal names and one gibberish one in Sanqui Red (SUSGIA, IMPOSTCIE, Cute, CREWROCK, COPIUM, and ZOOMX[ᴾₖᴹɴ]), and one relatively normal name and five gibberish ones in Sanqui Blue (LIFE, GGDs, MMJFK, QHI???????, YXOXYIPᴾₖ,
- Glitch Entity: Both sides purposedly triggered the Old Man Glitch, leading to them encountering multiple Pokémon with levels way above the normal cap (such as Lv. 230 Darumaka, Lv.134 Cherubi, or Lv. 154 Cranidos), as well as a MissingNo.-like glitch Pokémon named "PKMN 0x00".
- Mythology Gag: The Red side's Marowak was named "COPIUM", a reference to the meme of the same name that was repeatedly used during Twitch Plays Pokémon Randomized Black when talking about the Thick Club, an item meant to double Marowak's attack that players spent the entire run searching for without ever finding it.
- Never Given a Name: The Cranidos on Sanqui Blue was given a blank name, consisting of a single space.
- Secret Art: Subverted with COPIUM the Marowak on Sanqui Red, who turned out to be unable to learn Bone Club despite it being the signature move of the Cubone line.
- Theme Naming: The main character and several members of the team from Sanqui Red were named in reference to popular Among Us memes: the Host himself was named "AMOGUS", while his team included "SUSGIA" the Lugia, "CREWROCK" the Regirock, and "IMPOSTCIE" the Diancie.
The re-randomized sidegame specifically contains examples of:
- Ascended Meme:
- The Entei on the Blue team was named "TriHard", referencing the "Entei TriHard" meme that surfaced during betting intermissions due to its terrible win rate.
- Blue also had a Ledyba named "Olden", referencing "OLDEN" from Crystal Anniversary, a game-breaking glitch that was interpreted within the lore as an Eldritch Abomination, and is often associated with Ledian due to occuring when one was sent out in battle.
- A Wooper on Sanqui Red was named "This.", a reference to a memetic Twitter post that presented of a screenshot of Pokémon Gold and Silver solely depicting a single Wooper sprite with a text box containing only the word "This".
- A Dog Named "Cat":
- One Rapidash caught during the course of Sanqui Blue was named "DONKEY".
- Sanqui Blue also had a Mantine named "PIDGEY".
- Aerith and Bob:
- Downplayed by TPP standards when it comes to the names of the Hosts. Both names are perfectly legible, avoiding The Unpronounceable, but the protagonist of Blue is named "JACK", while the protagonist of Red bears the much stranger name of "CUV".
- Also Downplayed with the members of the Red team, which had mostly normal sounding names like "CROISSANT", "SPOT", "PINK", with the strangest-sounding ones being "WEM", "WEMTWO", and "SPRITILIN". Played more straight with the Blue team, which had the unconventional but completely legible "TriHard" an "OP CAT" alongside the much more gibberish "P", "BCELKKU)::", "SCREEEE", and "LML".
- Mythology Gag: A few Pokémon were named after stream emotes that depicted them or their pre-evolutions: Red had an Azumarill nmaed "tppRoyal, while Blue had a Raichu named "tppPika", a Spheal named "tppRoll", and a Linoone named "tppZig".
- Purple Is Powerful: The final team from Red was composed entirely of Pokémon bearing a predominantly pink and/or purple palette, five of which were Legendary or Mythical Pokémon (Cresselia, Mesprit, Palkia, Mew, and Mewtwo), with the last one being the still quite powerful Gengar. Kind of Zig-Zagged, of course, since this is not visible in-game due to the monochrome blue palette.
- Sdrawkcab Name: The Mew one the Red side's team was named "WEM". Accordingly, the team's Mewtwo was named "WEMTWO".
