How Speedrunners Beat Pokemon Gold in Under 8 Minutes | Speedrun Explained

[@Abyssoft]

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[@storymaster21]

About 3 weeks ago I completely accidentally activated key item underflow in my gameplay of pokemon crystal. I could not replicate it and had no idea how I achieved it, but it resulted in me having so many different items and a literal neverending inventory..

[@josephfrahill3523]

@@storymaster21 a lot u a lot longer u to u the iiiiiiu

[@ajx2956]

Interesting.

[@ΣπύροςΚοσκινάς-τ5ι]

How the hell these things figured at the first place,and the steps after?

[@danthe360man]

Thank you casual!

[@Adusakful]

When the explanation video is twice as long as the speedrun takes, you know you're up for a treat

[@DengueBurger]

At first, I was upset at that, but then I realized that it must mean the speedrun takes a lot and a lot of work went into figuring out how to get the time to be that low.

[@cesarhernandez6861]

You can speed run the video by skipping most of it. ;)

[@RebornAudio]

Or in for

[@MABfan11]

*10 second Pokemon RBY speedruns have entered the chat*

[@pstew5309]

​@@MABfan11 so because of your comment I tried to look up 10 second runs. Can you please point me to any videos? Cuz i can't find any.

[@SWISS-1337]

I like the gengar floppy disks representing "bad/corrupted" data, very nice detail. Great video, I am sure you'll get far.

[@MissIceMateria]

Dang, way to warp in and scare Red away. I mean, random kid stepping through a glitch wall and distorting the world around me... I'd probably run from that eldritch abomination too.

[@MDLuffy1234YT]

I feel like you would actually warp there just to seek a barely stable, fractallized Red's approving nod and slight smirk of acknowledgement as an equal.

[@kinglyzebra6417]

Especially when said glitched kid starts saying "I'm Dead" over and over

[@Nukestarmaster]

@@MDLuffy1234YT Red pats his bag where he keeps the pokeballs containing his lv. 100 Mew and MissingNo.

[@rustysalmonella7681]

0:10 that kid threw that Pokéball like Elekid owes him money That’s a baby dude

[@michaelsmart7445]

"Let's battle!" "I have zero Pokemon." "Fuck, you win!"

[@mightydragon4083]

Looks like bringing a gun worked

[@J2dad5389]

Pokémon logic lol

[@3rdalbum]

I would have assumed this was originally implemented to help with testing the game, but was accidentally left in.

[@MuchWhittering]

It's most likely there as a failsafe, simce Gen 1 just goes insane if you battle with no Pokémon. ​@@3rdalbum

[@Abyssoft]

Looks like I got the badge count in Kanto wrong, I forgot that Blue is the leader of Viridian after you get the other 7 badges and I am fully prepared to atone for my sins with all the "um ackshually" comments I'm about to get

[@Fig_Bender]

Based

[@jamiebrand2294]

Um ackshhully 🤓

[@EWOODJ]

You’re damn right.

[@Epsilonsama]

I mean no offense but that's a huge mistake. But you are forgiven for your sins.

[@no_less03]

Um, ackshually you were wrong in the video and I'm glad you acknowledged your mistake 🤓

[@andreasul2608]

Me going to the kitchen and puts on the stove, turns around 3 times and walks outside, circling the house counterclock wise 4 times. Walks over to the mailbox and switches my nighbors mail with mine. Walks back inside of the house, opens and closes the frontdoor 13 times. Grabs a pair of pants, a pack of gums and 3 bananas. Eats 1 banana and walks to town. Orders a taxi back home and ends up in uruguay 2 minutes later.

[@smashdriven1640]

“You have to buy 11 antidotes and then stand on a specific tile and drop a potion.” Sounds like what kids used to say about how to catch Deoxys.

[@deathstinger13]

reminds this one of how to get Mew, or the pokegods

[@HistoricalWeapons]

mom: "you only 10 minutes of game boy" boy: "ok ill beat the game"

[@kennethjuarez5384]

What really trips me out is I would unknowingly do something with (8:00 save corruption) this as a kid. Someone taught my brother how to duplicate pokemon in the Box system and then quitting when saving. I had at least 10 Mews. One as an HM Slave for a regular team. It was beautiful

[@Schnort]

That's hilarious

[@Plumjet09]

Memories of risking my Pokemon Crystal save file to clone my Typhlosion. If I messed that up I don’t think I would’ve mentally recovered.

[@TheCarDetailer]

I did mess up as a child with a very high level scissor. Still haunts me to this day 😢

[@srjonesytube]

i used to love to clone my pokemon

[@Loony_BeLuna]

I NEVER failed a cloning save, I did read a few comments about people loosing it. Did you turn off your Gameboy too late, because you was too nervous? xD

[@joshuab4586]

The fact that people can speed run the game twice in the amount of time it takes to explain the runs is mind boggling.

[@recardooneal9900]

It really isn't.

[@theerealatm]

@@recardooneal9900 yeah... Now if the run was 8 hours then it would be.

[@himedo1512]

Not really

[@SpectreXS]

My favorite Gold Any% "Route" was Werster's old run at a GDQ, where the cloning corruption glitch was just found, to which one of the applications was to give the map "funky colors" and change the collision around, enabling the player to walk through some walls. That run is still one of my favorite marathon runs of all time!

[@kitsuneprincess4637]

That's the run that got me into speedrunning!

[@limehawk4989]

That run officiated my wedding!

[@rrickydanby]

@@limehawk4989 omg that run was my best man

[@Hysteria98]

That run was so runny that it gave me the runs!

[@nahuelpintocavilla8190]

@@Hysteria98 That run rang before the ROM in my room ran into REM phase.

[@jevonp]

Channel as amazing as ever, but the editing is seriously getting better

[@Abyssoft]

Thanks, I've put a lot of work into learning new addons and techniques in After Effects, this was my first video where the entire timeline was done with AE compositions.

[@uniatrix]

@@Abyssoft First video I am seeing from you and I was extremely impressed with the editing. And insane storytelling ability.

[@sirplayalot11x]

After about 20 years later, I finally get an explanation on why when my save file in my Gold version bugged out it plopped me in the middle of Saffron City on the previous save file that I thought I had deleted when I made a new game, interesting.

[@eliseosterbrink8000]

I always love any% speedruns that allow glitches. They give you such a unique opportunity to understand how a game works under the hood that many glitchless runs don't.

[@mathprodigy]

well this is just absolutely fascinating, you did a damn good job on this video, a lot of people don't understand the effort it takes to produce such an amazing video, but man this is all-pro. I enjoyed this thoroughly!

[@SenbonKaguya]

It's fascinating how people figure this out. I don't care much for watching the runs but I respect the work that went into all of it. Great video.

[@kennethjuarez5384]

Thats what brings me to watching runs honestly, especially GDQ. Watching people beat games Blindfolded or speed running is wild

[@DioDCynic]

Most are programmers and know how to read the actual coding of the game. Like hackurs

[@ExperimentIV]

great video as usual, abyssoft! vividity is a great addition to the channel as well

[@vividity]

I agree. But seriously thank you!

[@ExperimentIV]

@@vividity hey no problem! as a musician whose anxiety keeps me from taking the steps you take, i wish i was doing stuff like this. and you’re making great stuff. hope my channel has great stuff one day

[@vividity]

@@ExperimentIV You got this! Just recently I was afraid to put out a "weird" sounding song, but a friend pushed me to do it anyways. And a lot of people really enjoy it! It's all about that step of faith ya know? But I believe in you!

[@ExperimentIV]

@@vividity i hope i can believe in me soon. i need to learn the ropes so i can just dive in with much less fear 💖

[@Furotiza]

This video has absolutely broken my mind - seriously my favourite speedrun that I've ever seen. Genuinely an insanely detailed video, beautifully edited - I need everyone to see this.

[@sylv_exter5272]

It astounds me that speedrunners dedicate themselves to this kinda hard work to beat a game faster than anyone else can achieve. Mad props to the folks who worked their asses off to get this kinda achievement!

[@archimedeseye624]

They did not beat the game, not even a little bit

[@lorenzotorri605]

My reaction was initially the same, but then I just thought of all sportsmen who commit their entire lives (well, at least the first 30 years thereof) to basically do something along the lines of "throwing a ball very fast". Of course, the amount of fame and money that goes with the two activities is wildly different

[@jacobyoung4068]

​@@archimedeseye624You do realize that you beat a game when you see the credit's right? How did they not beat the game? And even if they didn't this is way more impressive than beating the game normally.

[@slysynch8324]

I love the stuff the coin case can do. Would you ever consider a video on just glitches you can do with coin case? Like getting celebi and all that stuff?

[@Abyssoft]

Maybe as a bonus video for Patreon or my shorts channel

[@maverickhuntersyd]

Or maybe a video about some of the most notoriously glitchy places/items in the gen 1-2 games. Like the safari zone

[@ccsleepy8342]

Multiple people have already done videos for those. Try using the coin case glitch to get a Treecko.

[@Solaceon]

Or how you can use box manipulation on Virtual Console to generate Bank-legal shinies! I've got a shiny Ho-Oh and a shiny Unbreon through the method and I honestly think it's way cool and a really easy payload for people who are just playing around with ACE for the first time.

[@slysynch8324]

@@Solaceon how easy is that on vc? I just did the shiny ditto thing to get all my gen 2 shinies beside the legendaries

[@leonardoasaro2826]

Man I love these speedrun explaination videos. These videos inspired me to pursue a career in cs and study these glitches.

[@Arcane_Digital]

@11:09 “received the blessing of RNJesus” made me shoot milk out my nose😂

[@DoctorSwellman]

Great video, Abyss!

[@realfishscience7842]

This video was a blast, how the fuck did they figure this out? Seems insane to me

[@Abyssoft]

A very good understanding of the game and low level programming languages

[@realfishscience7842]

@@Abyssoft personally, my kryptonite is programming, so having it told through Pokémon as the medium was super interesting!

[@ChrisPierreBacon]

Underflow is fairly easy to achieve in the much more broken gen 1 games. They set out to find a way to do something similar to achieve underflow in gen 2. It's much more difficult, but possible a little earlier.

[@stuartdparnell]

@@ChrisPierreBacon would you call Missingno 6th item glitch underflow or?

[@ChrisPierreBacon]

@@stuartdparnell No. It adds 128 to your 6th item... To a maximum of 255. So if you have 128 or more already it won't do anything. I have no idea why though.

[@HiImHavoc]

Excellent job chunking up and distinguishing the nuanced mechanics into digestible content

[@bryceh4439]

I love speed runs that manipulate memory. They're really just incredible that people were able to figure them out.

[@ChrisPierreBacon]

12:20: Just a little explanation here: the memory register that keeps track of how many items are in each part of your bag is an "unsigned integer" meaning it can only hold positive values. In this case, the max value possible in the register is 255. So speedrunners are essentially tricking the game into thinking the key items count is -1, but since it's an unsigned integer, it wraps around back to 255.

[@CasualPokePlayer]

That's not really why that occurs. The reason is simply the game used 255 (the maximum value for a byte) as the "terminator" (ie end of items) for the item list. There's no actual underflow occuring here per se. When merging two key items together, the quantities are attempted to be merged. However, this doesn't quite work correctly since Key Items are structured with 1 byte per item without a proceeding quantity byte. So for the first egg, the second egg's value is interpreted as the first egg's quantity, then the terminator after the second egg is interpreted as the quantity of the second egg. This means that when the game tries to shift the "remaining" items upwards due to merging those two eggs, it skips over the proper key items terminator. It ends up finding a terminator all the way at the balls pocket, which would be empty at this point. So the balls pocket terminator is shifted upwards... which results in that terminator being placed in the number of items byte, thereby giving 255 items in the balls pocket.

[@Abyssoft]

Correct, in this particular case the key items are stored in 1 byte and don't have a byte for quantity, so when you merge them the first egg uses the second eggs byte as its quantity which makes the second egg look for a value for its terminator, which it finds in the balls pocket

[@ChrisPierreBacon]

@@Abyssoft Oh that makes sense. I think? It is actually underflow like I described in gen 1 though.

[@Abyssoft]

@@ChrisPierreBacon casualpokeplayer replied with a more detailed explanation above me, it should answer everything

[@ChrisPierreBacon]

@@Abyssoft I described how it works in gen 1. I (incorrectly) assumed it was the same thing in gen 2. Thanks for the detailed explanation!

[@BradCashew]

It’s always so funny to me when a speedrun is half the time of a video explaining it

[@kalarse]

I'm so glad Danhausen was used, tho it was a missed opportunity to say "Very Nice, Very Evil" Hopefully you've sent human mony to Danhausen to compesate the mistakehausen

[@jockperkins6632]

Loved this! Would really like to see a "History of Pokemon Gold/Silver any%" video! 😀 thanks again for the great video, love your content

[@kenclarke5966]

dew it

[@LintoSea]

i absolutely love all of your videos and how they go into the ins and outs of glitches and speedruns of different games. keep it up!

[@emmetstanevich2121]

On the one hand, it is impressive just how much improved between gens 1 and 2, both in terms of visuals and balance (a bit subjective, but at least the bug, ghost and dragon types have actually relevant moves, for example), and there aren't as many commonly-encountered glitches (such as the 1/256 uncertainty, or focus energy lowering your crit rate). On the other hand... a coin case? REALLY?

[@CasualPokePlayer]

Blame the localization team, the coin case glitch only occurs on the English versions of Gold/Silver and it's purely due to a localization error :P

[@DengueBurger]

@@CasualPokePlayer classic localization moment! That’s pretty funny. Also a classic moment of less reliable American creations versus high-quality Japanese products.

[@115UndeadAnarchy115]

Gen 2 is horribly balanced lmao, at least Gen 1 gyms and wild Pokemon actually have scale

[@Corphish_]

Every upload is incredible and getting much better real quick too!!

[@WildClaps]

A new Aby video gives me the same excitement as seeing a new Summoning Salt video up.

[@elementgermanium]

Casually creating a hole in reality in my backpack to fuck with the fabric of the universe itself

[@justacarbuncle]

I realized around the 9 minute mark this is similar to why you can start the game with all three starters due to how the backup save works. Never really knew the specifics I always just followed the steps and was like “sick I have all three little guys.”

[@raltsil]

Red: Tiime to battle! Gold: No Red: Understandable, have a nice day.

[@dark5756]

Now imagine going back in time and showing this to your friends in the playground

[@Poopoocachoo]

Was not expecting a Danhausen cameo. Very nice, very evil!

[@ebox147]

Are you considering making more hour long videos? I imagine theyre hard and risky to make, but i really enjoy them. Great videos man

[@Abyssoft]

Yes, if you check the goals section of my Patreon you'll see what my next long video is. They are a risk to make because if they flop then I'm out a bunch of time and the chance to have put out three or four other videos, but the long narrative videos are my favorite to make for sure.

[@Ari.1460]

I love the explanations! when it comes to analyzing code it kinda goes over my head but you did a really good job of simplifying it! keep up the good work!

[@KM____________]

speedrun videos are super popular but only interesting (to me) if the narrator actually explains how scuffed it is. great vid!

[@iamlorddems3859]

I remember using the clone box glitch as a kid. I also remember that if your cloned pokemon was holding an item it'd clone that as well.

[@Not_An_EV]

Oh yeah it did! I made a decent bit of money selling master balls on the playground.

[@jasperdemeurie1]

Absolutely. Got a dozen of Master Balls as a kid. Used it a lot for duplicating rare candy as well to max out my team. Good times.

[@SomeGuy712x]

(1:04) Seven? But, there are eight badges in Kanto as well, and I'm pretty sure you're required to get them all when playing normally. EDIT: Yep, this is an "um ackshually" comment alright.

[@tehcodingmonkey]

haha i was about to point this out too!

[@yofyo]

your explanations and visual assists set you apart -- you are really shoring up your weaknesses and I enjoy all of your videos and the breadth of different video games you cover I really liked your home run derby video :)

[@TheChrisSimpson]

As someone who literally had a hand in manually bin patching Gold and Silver Japanese roms to translate them to english before they launched in the US: God damn I'm impressed

[@Abyssoft]

That's super cool, were there any big version differences that stuck out to you?

[@TheChrisSimpson]

@@Abyssoft I don’t recall too many differences between Japanese and US gold and silver, the one that bummed me out most was the phone link cable and bigger Pokémon center for Japanese crystal, the big pokemon center was taken out in the US version since no cellphone link came here. (I purchased a Japanese physical cartridge off eBay for like $80, it could regularly trade with US gold silver tho iirc which was cool)

[@Abyssoft]

@@TheChrisSimpson I had no idea about that feature, Nintendo did a lot of stuff ahead of it's time, like the Satellaview

[@andremaximiano7170]

This is just amazing. They did extraordinary work as well as you did gathering this info!

[@Rin.Kushikimi.]

I was hooked after you added something to the "explain this later box" 😂

[@Abyssoft]

I'll bring it back for future videos in that case

[@WillowEpp]

Cool breakdown, thanks for showing it off. Just FYI, negative overflow is still called overflow (or "wraparound" if you really can't stand it). "Underflow" is a very specific floating-point phenomenon and never applies to integers.

[@kaan-kaant]

The saving glitch thing was so good in GS. That used to be my method of getting multiple master balls. As a kid I thought it was just a cheat put in

[@adequatepipe8610]

That was an amazing breakdown! I remember when the Coin Case manipulation was all the rage, crazy to see how far it's all come!

[@scytheakse]

the technical knowledge required for this is amazing. but im still in it for glitchless

[@EpicPrawn]

This person managed to explain how an 8 minute speedrun is possible, with sufficient enough information for a layperson to get the gist of it, in just over twice the length of time it takes to actually do the run.

[@leilaclarridge5807]

3:13 "...so they YOLO walk through the grass on the way to Cherrygrove City-" Well, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? And sometimes that means stomping through your backyard and dodging the angry pigeon that built its nest back there.

[@joope125]

11:23 "Yes. Hand me the mystery egg. I have never seen it before and can be trusted with this key item."

[@Overly_Hydrated]

Ash Ketchum? You mean TAS checksum.

[@ratflavoredtaffy]

as a neurodivergent person, the visual aid is unbelievably helpful. it really helps me process the info the first time instead of having to rewatch sections over and over, thanks a million for that. and of course, big thanks to the huge effort of the glitch hunters!!

[@DengueBurger]

I think it helps everyone lol, you’re not special This is like how “learning styles” is BS. (Veritasium did a video on this)

[@PenguinCinema]

@@DengueBurger based

[@Flygonnerrs]

@@PenguinCinema based

[@Kegmastergen]

@@DengueBurger based

[@turnkey_hole]

​@@DengueBurgerbased

[@awildsylveon9896]

I love these types of speedruns. They're not super interesting to watch, but so interesting to learn about

[@archimedeseye624]

This isn’t a speed run, they literally did not beat the game

[@awildsylveon9896]

@@archimedeseye624 that's like, your opinion man

[@pineappleman570]

Perfect writing, explanation, and editing. 10/10 video

[@dccxy]

11:09 "The blessing of RNG-sus" 🤣

[@StuntedSlime]

Red: I challenge you to a pokemon battle! "Jokes on you for I have no pokemon at all!" Red: Arrgh! I've been defeated!

[@ngcf4238]

I can't believe I hadn't seen this one yet! Well, now I have. Thanks Abyssoft

[@Feuerex]

Truly fantastic work by the glitch hunters. I cannot even begin to imagine how much effort must have gone into figuring out all the background operations required for this insane sequence of precise instructions for speedrunners.

[@Asidders]

15:06 If I saw that as a kid, I would FREAK the hell out. 😂

[@amikawi]

The understanding behind the game's code and the way the hardware is used necessary for this kind of feat is incredible. Super interesting to see things like this.

[@freddybento6331]

You guys are awesome! You just made me so interested to learn more about breaking these games

[@Froggerexpert88]

Wow, it’s crazy how technical this speedrun is! Props to everyone who figured this out

[@BrenTenkage]

as i've said before, the first generations were held together by bubblegum paper clips and a few hopes and prayers...this just confirms it

[@buildinpublic]

this is probably one of the most impressive speedruns for any game

[@japko9757]

I dont want to be another "yes man" but you are doing great job with research, editing and other stuff. Keep it up. Greetings from Germa.... I mean Poland

[@nathanon7177]

Went did u say germa

[@Abyssoft]

It's a meme from GDQ, "greetings from Germany"

[@emptybusseat4901]

You said Balls Pocket and I found out I'm still immature

[@grrman]

I love that the video explaining the glitch is about twice as long as the actual glitch takes to finish

[@StepBaum]

Really well done video, especially like the improved sidejokes and musicbackground selection :) everything else was top notch as well

[@Quesly1]

creating the wrong warp payload with a box name is so insanely clever

[@Valientlink]

0:59 slight error, you said 7 more badges when there are 8 in Kanto to get, still done in glitchless.

[@Maheli_Seli]

Gold is breaking his own Adventure in Johto by using the Box System 😂 That’s hilarious 😂

[@glitchmediaprod]

Bro I straight up got a headache tryna follow this lmao this shits wild, I cant even think what goes into figuring these things out like wtf

[@awiseman93]

Thank you glitch hunters!!!! Would love to see more Pokémon speed runs!!

[@vyldim3401]

Imagine if instead of the failsafe being completing the battle you got whited out instead, lol.

[@Wissle]

Oh wow, this is seriously awesome! Thanks for explaining all this and thanks to the people who figured it all out in the first place. It seems this is insanely hard to pull off with so many conditions that need to be met perfectly... a hand full of questions 1) I don't remember, does the game tell you your trainer ID when you start the game? 2) When you do the resetting at Mr. Pokemon's house and it fails and you are back outside again as if you hadn't entered the house yet, am I right to assume that you can just retry immediately, only that it will obviously make your time worse? Or is it failed for good then and requires a fresh restart?

[@manuelnovella39]

It's incredible how knowledgeable some techies are. Hats off to those glitch hunters

[@LolUGotBusted]

"Do you play Pokemon?" "yes" "Do you want to play?" "Sure!" "I win." "What?" "I don't play Pokemon" *visible confusion*

[@pluspiping]

Thank You Glitchunters!! Your dedication to breaking code in the most specific ways is one of the best types of lawful chaotic.

[@lazypaladin]

*Ay, Suprise Danhausen!* _The best kind of Danhausen._

[@marioamro]

imagine being the guy who accidently found this out

[@stevenrichardson6057]

Great video and explanation of how the speedrun worked, positive comment for the algorithm 🎉

[@natesalisbury2196]

Wasn't expecting Danhausen. That was cool.

[@catriamflockentanz]

A Code-combing Pokémon Gold Glitchhunter named "CasualPokePlayer" is a great bit of irony.

[@Wynadorn]

12:01 Prof. Oak gets deleted from existence

[@redfox0008]

MFW, the video explaining the WR is longer than said record: XD

[@SupPartyPeople]

I wish I had known this back then. My brother's copy of Gold was corrupted and wouldn't save your progress. It only gave the "New Game" option every time you booted it up so I had to wait to get to Kanto in Silver before getting Ho-oh

[@CelticGuardian7]

It's great to see speedrun history channels give props to the people who found the glitches in the first place. I know I've seen some speedrun videos from events where the runners/commentators namedropped the people that discovered them. It'd be interesting to see a video summarizing different roles that the discoverers can have, such as people who figure out the theories, ones who route the fastest paths through the game, ones who find the best positions/tells for activating the glitches... I'm sure there's others, which is why I'd like to know more about them!

[@jschmidty2332]

Love how broken the early Pokemon games were

[@VGInterviews]

Love how item underflow is the equivalent of causing the game to have a panic attack so it just drops everything it has for you

[@noctyd9322]

This goes way beyond "rare candy code" 😂 That really blew my mind as a kid too

[@michaelbuckers]

4:25 Echo RAM is a technical happenstance. It's not a real duplicate RAM, it's in fact the same main RAM. Because some leading bits in RAM address are ignored (since there isn't that much RAM in the system), you can access the same place in memory with any combination of leading bits in the address. It's like going all the way around the Earth multiple times - if you travel from Tokyo to New York and then across the entire globe, you still end up in New York. You're not supposed to use it because it's just a happenstance, but it totally works.

[@nvrt7209]

You explained everything so well. Thankyou.

[@turnipwaa1132]

I did not expect to see Danhausen in a speedrun video but I'm glad I did.