Pokemon Reborn Episode 18 Speedrun in 8:33:07

[Arkadius]

Hello everyone,

 

I finally (thank you Christmas break) managed to complete another speedrun of Reborn, this time of E18. Before I completed a E17 speedrun in 7 hours, 46 minutes and 6 seconds.

 

When E18 was released some changes were made that significantly impacted the speedrun route I had made for E17. A few months ago I had completed my reroute for E18. Since then I've some minor changes to the route and also improvised some new strats during the run (see below under downloads for a link to the v1.2 route).

 

Now I’ve finally completed a full (segmented) run with the E18 route in 8 hours, 33 minutes and 7 seconds.

The full run can be watched on Youtube:

 

Edit: Link to youtube playlist

Alternatively, find below a list of segments:

Spoiler

- Julia: https://youtu.be/XSGr4uJThvE
- Florinia: https://youtu.be/CygA7CGTVyo
- Corey: https://youtu.be/5YNpJ7njIkU
- Shelly: https://youtu.be/_MiC61T5KCg
- Shade: https://youtu.be/eDIv6bU7_1o
- Kiki: https://youtu.be/jDmhddIQqX8
- Aya: https://youtu.be/dFo8AR2bX9I
- Serra: https://youtu.be/oB8ZjkoNrAc
- Noel: https://youtu.be/_fpdqtFGvhM
- Radomus: https://youtu.be/7dBjRK01zdI
- Luna: https://youtu.be/5OjOshKbuYA
- Samson: https://youtu.be/Ce_ytKLaFfU
- Charlotte: https://youtu.be/AO72S20DMX4
- Terra: https://youtu.be/UEwudVpgw2g
- Ciel: https://youtu.be/Noc_h4QdO5c
- Adrienn: https://youtu.be/YlrJvMgAoyQ
- Titania: https://youtu.be/_Dz_jC_HuKE
- Amaria: https://youtu.be/H_gLG_6WCKk
- Hardy: https://youtu.be/g2zHRbKJ2p4

 

 

 

This is a segmented speedrun, meaning I did not play for 8+ hours in a row, but completed the game in segments. For example, I played from the start until Julia, then from Julia to Florinia etc.
From a speedrunning perspective, a segmented run would normally reset until the segment goes ‘perfect’, but I did not reset for perfect segments.

I followed the route I created (see below) which consists of 19 segments:

 

Spoiler

About the Run

I think it’s a decent run. I expected it to be a lot slower than the E17 run because of the lack of X-items until after Ciel basically. But due to overall routing improvements and better strats the Amaria time in this E18 run is actually a few minutes faster than the E17 run. I think the largest timesave came from not grinding on route 3 as much, but instead fighting the Squirtle-trainer in the Grand hall. The power items also really helps with inconsistent damage ranges. Something notable is that I changed 3 natures in this run, which costs 9 heart scales. I had to use the mining kit for 1. Normally you would not pick up the mining kit. This is a timeloss, but ultimately I think it was a timesave due to the nature change.

The E18 content is really cool. It feels bad to skip so much of the intriguing dialogue. The puzzle in the glass factory is super interesting, the chain battle is amazing and the strats went really well, the events in Agate city are great and finally Hardy’s gym is awesome.

Some timelosses that now come to mind are catching poochyena, the Corey fight, the Shade fight, some trouble at the Kiki fight, bad RNG on the Bennett and  Serra fights, also some dumb RNG on the arceus fight (psychic judgement roll on sharpedo lmao), the Charlotte fight, the Terra fight and the Hardy fight.

 

Edit: another thing that is worth mentioning is that because certain ingame mechanics are affected by the realtime clock on your PC you need to keep track of this when doing a segmented run. For this run I set my PC time date to monday at around 7 am. Monday because the squirtle trainer appears in the grand hall and morning time because it will then not be nighttime when entering the Jasper ward where guards would battle you if it was nighttime. When finishing a segment I would note down the exact time on my PC. When starting the next segment I would set the pc time back to that time. 

 

Downloads

Route: Pokemon Reborn E18 Speedrun route v1.2.pdf (31mb .pdf file)

 

Thanks to Amethyst and to all who have helped to create this amazing game!

 

-Arkadius

 

Edited December 31, 2018 by Arkadius

[MetrololAce]

Very excited to see people taking this amazingly well designed game into the competitive sphere.

I hope to see this continue to evolve and improve.

 

Glad to see you laying out ways you can improve as well.

Looks like the gyms themselves are the real problem here?
I'm excited to watch the splits when I get some time.

 

Hope you and others continue working on ways to speedrun this game!

[Arkadius]

I think the issue is a combination of the fact that you cannot manipulate the stats of your Pokemon (you can only reset for good stats) and my understanding that trainers in Reborn make different decisions based on stats. This combination makes the AI unpredictable.

Take the Terra fight for example. When routing I came up with:

·         Main meowstic, use light screen (Nidoking uses Tbolt)

·         Switch out into Nidoqueen with a synthetic seed. (Nidoking uses Tbolt, it fails)

·         Use toxic spikes twice (Nidoking uses flamethrower/blizzard)

·         Switch in to Sharpedo (Nidoking uses flamethroer/blizzard)

·         X-special twice (nidoking uses Tbolt, with x special boost you survive both unless crit which is like a 22% chance iirc because of the glitch field)

·         Surf Nidoking 

etc

 

In practise this seemed consistent. I tried with different attack/special attack stats.

In this run though Nidoking used Amnesia when I send out Nidoqueen. This could be because Nidoqueen's defensive stats were too high, which made the AI think attacking was not a viable option, so it would use amnesia instead. And of course amnesia in the glitch field is amazing. So yeah this threw off the strats completely because sharpedo would not be able to tank amnesia boosted Tbolt. But things like this are almost impossible to prepare for. So it's more or less how you deal with it on the spot, which of course makes it quite challenging and therefore very interesting. 

 

Finally there is also just the RNG (randomness) that you cannot really do anything about.

 

Thanks for your reply!

 

Edited December 31, 2018 by Arkadius

[MetrololAce]

Right, its certainly not a poster-child for speedrunning or other competitive runs.

I think the biggest thing would be the length of the game though. I was honestly surprised to see you had done it sub 9 hours. That alone is impressive.

I can't imagine playing through the entire game in one day, so I can only imagine how many sessions it took you to get to this point.

 

Either way, I think it would be amazing to see games like Reborn take the next step in their media presence. Let's plays are fun, but I'd love to see things like speedruns and other challenges populate the different pathways for sure!

Keep up the good work!