Pokemon HGSS Any% FAQ [Flame Wheel Route]:

Q: Whitney Identifiers?
A: Short answer: Yes!
Technical Answer: Battles are seeded the same way as the Primary RNG, deriving from the system date/time and how many frames the game has been running for before clearing the last textbox to initiate a Trainer battle. This means we have a rough idea what seed we hit when we start the battle minus how many frames the game has been running for (because we need to account for lag frames, which there are a lot of). We still have a good idea of the frame range a typical run will make it to Whitney. So, with this knowledge, you can realistically map out clusters of battles that you can identify and win from. Mapping out seeds individually takes a lot of time and effort to try every action you can possible do in a battle to try and get the best outcome. Naturally, because that takes a fuck ton of time to do manually, March and I spent a fuck ton of time developing an as-accurate-as-possible Battle Engine for Gen 4 to mimic the battles exactly in order to bot the fights. This means that realistically I have more and as-optimal-as-possible fights to beat Whitney.

We also identify Falkner, but that's not nearly as cool as Whitney. I did Falkner identifiers forever ago with what was a alpha version of this engine, and with the capabilities of the new engine I was able to redo them much quicker and better, so hopefully I will identify more fights overall. Falkner's winrate is roughly 85%, but not all those fights set you up well for the next split.


Q: Why Whitney Identifiers?
A: Under normal circumstances with this route, Whitney's winrate is an abysmal 35%. With Identifers, it becomes 90-95% success.

Q: What are you playing on?
A: An original DS phat w/ a Capture Card.

Q: What is this category?
A: HGSS Any% is as implies, means to beat the game as fast as possible. Thanks to a well-known glitch called Tweaking, we can finish the game in a little under 2 hours optimally with only 5 badges.

Q: What is Tweaking?
A: So think of Minecraft for a second (don't act like you've never heard of it).
In Minecraft, chunks are a section of the map that gets loaded/unloaded as you approach them. In the Generation 4 games, the overworld is loaded in a similar way. The overworld is loaded in 32x32 "chunks" that load/unload as you get close to them. The game knows to load/deload specific chunks whenever you cross the what are called loadlines, which intersect in the middle of each chunk. However, if we are to quickly move across the loadlines, we can effectively confuse the game into loading chunks out of order, i.e. a chunk that's supposed to load to the right of you actually ends up loading to your left. The bike lets us cross these loadlines at very high speeds, which lets us cause the overworld to get loaded out of order. This lets us get over major roadblocks such as Tojo Falls, which requires us to get Waterfall without beating Clair, and beating all other Kanto Gym leaders before unlocking Blue. 

Q: So what does the route look like then?
A: We play the game fairly normally until we get to Ecruteak, where we B-line it to Burnt Tower to manip Raikou, then after beating Morty for Surf, we essentially B-line it to the E4 and Red afterwards. Blue is required to unlock Red so its why we need a 5th badge. To get into Blue's gym early, you do a tweak. 

Q: What kind of RNG Manipulation does this run require?
A: In HGSS, you need a seed with a good Cyndaquil and the Master Ball from the Lottery in Goldenrod to catch Raikou. During the early game manip for no encounters, I will encounter a lvl 3 Sentret to use for HMs. I will also manipulate Pokerus off Youngster Mikey. Ideally, I will hold manip up until Goldenrod, where things will soften up a bit. I still don't want to dilly dally anywhere or burn too many extra steps. Once I get to Eckruteak, I will identify where I am in the RNG using the wild encounters and advance RNG up to Raikou using turnframes once I know where I am in the RNG. If I'm too slow RNG-wise to get to Eckruteak, I will not get the Raikou I want. Once I am re-algined in the RNG, I will release Raikou to have good stats and attempt to manipulate its location to be just south of Eckruteak for a quick encounter/catch. If that goes well, Pokerus will also immediately spread to Raikou.

On top of that, there will be two battle manips required: Blue, and Red. While Raikou is the best Poke by far to finish the game, the lack of resources we have will make Blue and Red near impossible without some kind of battle manip to make the fights winnable. I will be doing a S+Q to hit a cluster of battle seeds that will let me win after identifying them. Blue has a few clusters that have been mapped out that cycle every 59 seconds, so I will simply wait once the save is done for the next available cluster to come around. These clusters are 9f each, so hitting the manip is quite doable.

For Red, it used to be a similar story. However, with the new capabilities of the Battle Engine, we were able to find a new 4f cluster that allows us to beat Red without healing. The old Red clusters typically had one "God" seed where you never heal and can finish in about 18 turns, and the rest of the cluster can win in up to 27 in some really bad cases. The difference in time can easily be over 30 seconds, which is not ideal. The new 4f cluster requires a time change, which takes a good chunk out of the time saved overall, but the added benefit of not needing to keep a Super from the early game for Red (meaning we can take the optional Bike shop Super way less often now), buying a few less X Items (only need 1 X Defend, 4 X Accuracy, and 0 X Spdef now), and skipping picking up the PP Up in Victory road for cash. For now this cluster is just the first one we found, there is likely a better cluster out there (especially given this one has to wait a few seconds longer for the cluster than the old Red ones), but this is the first we found that ticks all our boxes.


Cyndaquil is 4/23/21/28/5/31 Rash
Raikou is 16/4/22/31/17/4 Rash

Note that while using the same seed as the Glitchless one, this Raikou is different than the 'Raikou 0/Raikou 1' used in the glitchless route. Since we manip the Blue and Red fights to win them because of how under-leveled we are, we don't need nearly as good of an all-around Raikou, and instead get one that's more offensively built. This Raikou is a little later than Raikou 1 in the RNG. Dropping manip in/before Ilex forest gives you a less than ideal chance to get Raikou, depending on what encounters you get.