Pokemon TCG Was Accidentally Broken After 20 Years By Speedrunners

Speedrunners broke yet another Pokemon game.
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Music
Halo Wars - Money or Meteors
PMD - Escape Through the Snow
Castlevania SOTN - Rainbow Cemetery
FFX - To the End of the Abyss
Legend of Dragoon - Forbidden Land
Pokémon Colosseum - Pyrite Town
Lufia 2 - Tower
Pokemon TCG - Ronald
Cave Story Remaster - Geothermal
FFMQ - Spencer's Place

[@DoctorSwellman]

Thanks for watching. I tried a lot of new things in this vid, tell me what you think! Resources: Technical document (Note, Down + A glitch doesn’t work on certain versions) - pastebin.com/QnYGzNey Speedrunning discord: discord.com/invite/aXc3nbC

[@alexaarson4091]

I think FFMQ and Lufia 2 music use are bangers

[@noahblaine1901]

Gotta love arbitrary code execution. I took one of those code build/execution bots on discord and was able to inject C code in order to open a socket to download and execute code, being that it was contained in a docker environment suited only for a specific language. They forgot to trim the socket stuff out of the linux GCC repository for a non-C language. I can exploit this by downloading code to run dynamically and leverage the containers to do whatever task I wish remotely from a discord command. To prove this, I broke out in Lua, used GCC to download 7z and Lua, built Lua, then executed the different version of Lua on the machine. While I don't have root access, I believe that root can be exploited by another dynamic code execution if an out of date root-only library revealed to me by another youtuber. When you have root access, you can then break out of the container, and control it. Perhaps even take over the host.

[@giannigomez4645]

darn it the glitch made my game freeze, would have been funny if it worked everywhere

[@Mith07]

you should pin this, I had to scroll down quite a bit

[@DoctorSwellman]

@@Mith07 ty, I didn't realize this was unpinned

[@ascentlx4222]

Imagine reading a tech document, only for it to define something as "weird shit." I swear, speed runners are something else.

[@Atmapalazzo]

That's more of a coder thing from what I've seen. Personally I've seen a code comment of "i was kinda buzzed when I wrote this but the effect is cool so I'm keeping it". On the other hand I've commented before "I'd rather have a book randomize this than the RNG routine but computers are stupidly deterministic." And then continued to rant about how bad the results were from the RNG routine for several more comments.

[@benjaminjameskreger]

Scientists do this all the time, gotta label stuff pre-hypothesis; Einstein described quantum physics as "spooky action at a distance".

[@dio_Brando1888]

Tbh I'm interested in what the hell that weird shit is. Lol

[@Maric18]

​@@Atmapalazzo heh yeah i have seen a lot of //black magic

[@robw3610]

LOL, I mean, I have literally written technical documents with section titles like "Weird Shit". Stuff like that tends to be a lot more common in small tech business settings than you might imagine.

[@SetoShadowVT]

Huh.... now I understand why people have said for years Down+A increases your chance of a Pokeball throw catches a Pokemon instantly....because of glitches like this

[@shujihar2410]

I love seeing how each area had different versions of things like this, for my area it was down + b, for one of my older cousins it was up + a

[@Franck_Gerard]

@@shujihar2410 just mashing A here !

[@chuckdastump]

hold a spin d pad was my go to

[@LilyCelebiFlipnote]

Mine was the B button alone!

[@konayasai]

B+Up in my little clique in Sweden.

[@Mimiyan_or_Pikapikafan]

I pulled it off on emulator, and found out something interesting: If I turbo buttoned using B and pressed A somewhat frequently, it would actually end the battle as well. Idk why

[@dmgdgamer9759]

Best guess is that the screen switching that was going on with the turbo B + A sent the cursor to a default position that is probably the same position the Down + A trick is using.

[@raizeprime]

entirely unrelated to your comment but i love your icon, i have the same image saved and i just found it amusing

[@justinbaker4608]

The OST for this game goes unnecessarily hard. I love this game.

[@nisbahmumtaz909]

*[doot-doot-doot, doot-doodoot] INTENSIFIES*

[@pokemontradingcardgamecoll5934]

The Mason's Laboratory/map theme is my favorite song from it and I love playing it along with my guitar.

[@jackcullen69]

Grandmaster Theme for me

[@zephyrias]

@@pokemontradingcardgamecoll5934 thats a good theme. I just hate Professor Masaon and his unavoidable tutorial.

[@turnkey_hole]

​@@zephyrias did you watch the video? The glitch is real time viable. You can do it yourself!

[@Abyssoft]

These animated borders are fucking awesome, time to step up my own game

[@Controllerhead]

You dudes, Bis, and Storster here doing God's work =) Also shoutouts to that King's Quest guy

[@arceusalmighty1276]

Abyssoft! Looking forward to the new video!

[@mathprodigy]

@@Controllerhead i can confirm all you stated

[@TiKevin83]

Thanks for the cameo!! This was a blast to be a part of breaking open the RTA run and then verifying the TASes on console

[@lovesickherox]

Hi TiKevin83 Big Fan o/

[@FernandoRafaelNogueiraReis]

Congratulations!

[@AceWolf456]

I love the fact that there's a technical document that's listing possible results as "weird shit" and I think science needs to adopt that instead of "miscellaneous".

[@AwesomeAim]

"It contains something very important, the content of the player's deck." I feel as though there may be some ACEs in this deck.

[@SergirothGames]

I came to the video to check something, and I’m happy to say that I was right! Back when I was 8 or 9, I was playing against Lance, and I suddenly won, just barely starting the fight. It may have been a couple of turns in, but I’m not entirely sure; as a kid, I just thought that it was either a bug (like in many games at that time) or some winning condition that I hadn’t paid attention to. I’m happy to see that it was actually a thing and that it could be replicated😊

[@plant7371]

Damn, lucky. I never could get past Lance, his third goddamn dragonite is the bane of my existence.

[@mathprodigy]

naw bro u a demon

[@WhatIThoughtChannel]

Is there a character in TCG Game Boy called Lance? Or are you referring to the Champion Lance in R/G/B/Y? If the latter, then this video is not a replication of that; this is an entirely different game.

[@bren8511]

@@WhatIThoughtChannel there's a Great Value elite 4, with the players with souped up versions of the bird trio and dragonite as the 4th

[@WhatIThoughtChannel]

@@bren8511 Yeah, but that’s not Lance though, which is what I’m trying to ascertain - if it’s just a case of mistaken identity and the original post is referring to an event that occurred in TCG, then that’s relevant; if they’re talking about instantly winning a battle against Lance in Gen I core series, then that’s an entirely different kettle of fish

[@OdaSwifteye]

1:09 why would a speed runner glitching a win through the game ruin my childhood? Bad card draw and coin flips is more ruining than any exploit I've ever seen.

[@Trackjacket69]

I love when a video about a speedrun is longer than the run itself

[@xEvilRaptorx]

Most will be. It takes longer to explain some tech than the amount of the saved by said tech

[@2WaterGuns]

I like that there's an actual Pokémon game where pressing Down + A with good timing actually does something

[@WhomisDS]

Oh dang, I remember when this was discovered. The No ACE category was really fun to grind even though it got quickly forgotten. Kinda wish I had tried the ACE category at some point, but this was a fun nostalgia trip either way!

[@SirAthiro]

You were right; this was bonkers. Gotta love how speed runners break games like eggs.

[@Gabowsk]

Oh, yes, I love accidentally breaking the fabric of reality of a videogame.

[@Hornswroggle]

It's always amazing to see how once someone determined enough to cross wires in videogames can find one random input at the right time and the right place and the time for the game comes down like you pulled the bottom brick of a Yenga tower.

[@LanEXHikari]

Interesting video, Doc! It was well presented considering all the technical (and painstakingly) shenanigans behind TAS recording. These research videos are fun to watch and sometimes inspiring for potential speedrunners ✌🏼

[@000aj]

Awesome video! Even tho I've ran the category, I had no idea how the specifics worked aside from some very basic stuff. Also I got way too much credit in this video lol, I don't even hold the WR in Glitchless or No ACE.

[@nox_luna]

as a kid i found out the down A thing existed, but being not with internet communities at the time, i never realised what i found. i mostly ignored it too cause i didnt realise what i stumbled upon.

[@alexpotts6520]

I'm sure there are hundreds of discoveries like this across hundreds of games that were just never documented. So if you ever find anything like this in a game again, get the word out - speedrunners will immortalise you!

[@nox_luna]

@@alexpotts6520 i like to play games wrong sometimes, in an effort to break it or cheese the level, that being said, anytime i discover some jank, someone else already found it when i google it...

[@nicholasgeere5125]

Same

[@KiraSlith]

Same, I always assumed it was some kind of debug cheat or something. Never even considered it might be an unintentional bug.

[@pokemontradingcardgamecoll5934]

I love this and thank you soo much for illustrating all of the steps through the processes involved. I would love to see more glitches with this game and see if there are any for the Japanese sequel and its English translation version.

[@connorgow5448]

really great and concise video, interesting to see progress through "failure". Happily subbed and waiting more interesting content

[@cjitsallgewd5507]

Great video! Fun fact: at 0:55, I'm the CJ they're talking about. If I remember correctly, I raided TiKevin right before that clip.

[@DoctorSwellman]

Holy moly, that’s actually incredible!

[@sirsamgrace]

the editing on this video is really good! love all the custom graphics and animations.

[@clownmoshpit2778]

Pokemon tcg is such a gem, haven’t thought about it in years but it’s super sick to now see a speed running community for it

[@ninj1an]

This videos runtime is how long it took 000aj to run the game great work, as always! love these history videos!

[@johnbuscher]

That’s an interesting coincidence!

[@kinggacha7274]

The Pokemon TCG video game is an underrated gem. That musicccc 🎶 🕺

[@mulldrifter6040]

I wasn't aware of this glitch before and just pulled it off multiple times, surprisingly easy to do, and super useful for farming packs. I was finally able to get those two missing Super Energy Removals I needed in under 3 minutes. Thanks for posting this!

[@VinsCool]

I like how Hex values are displayed with the Pokédollar sign lol

[@j.a.8224]

When the document describes things as "weird shit" you KNOW you're going to see it doing something amazing likely involving random bytes executed in weird and wonderful ways. This kind of stuff is why I love TAS and ACE, and this video is a great showcase of one of those.

[@SylvesterAshcroft88]

It always surprises me Digimon isn't more well known than it is, considering how long it has been around for, and i literally grew up with it alongside pokemon. It's probably due to a lack of strong media presence in the early 90's, outside of the sub par digimon the movie, the digimon world games, and the tv series were all we had, but still a shame none the less.

[@tootzy-the-roll]

Digimon was not on a good channel.

[@Swagtildawn]

@@tootzy-the-roll What channel was it on for you?

[@tootzy-the-roll]

@@Swagtildawn I'm in Canada, so for me, all the english anime were on YTV

[@tootzy-the-roll]

@@Swagtildawn wait.. that's not true. I also had Kid's WB.. I think it was on there..

[@Fulldre]

Idk that movie slaps for being 3 unconnected mini films

[@Kaubocks]

cannot believe you excluded my last place time on the leaderboard at 1:02 :'(

[@dirkkrohn1907]

I used to play this game quite a bit back in the day. I even recreated the theme decks from the real world sets that were in it card for card.

[@SamSoapyThomas]

Sweet! I'm playing through this at the moment and had been wondering what the speedrun times were like.

[@Bull_1112]

I love how people can find these glitches out. Also I really like your music choice from The Legend of Dragoon and Final Fantasy X

[@WilliamSyler]

How dare you! I was just about to subscribe when you blew up that innocent Charizard! You didn't give me enough time! You Monster.

[@milotic3333]

Ikr

[@charziz6693]

When I heard that they found the part in the code that checks the player's deck I knew Arbitrary Code Execution was coming soon after.

[@dukemagus]

Your editing skills improved a lot! Great video!

[@felicityc]

This is pretty much why I say the words "never" and "impossible" have a poor record.

[@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli]

I play this game occasionally from a new file just for fun, and this glitch has been a godsend to skip that awful tutorial. LOL

[@crystalqueen9711]

"Subscribe or I'll make Charizard explode" Bruh, you're only giving me an incentive to *not* subscribe

[@AsilarWindsailor]

Nice music selection. I knew I could make out some familiar tunes there. Bonus points for using Dragoon and Lufia tracks

[@halfmoon24641]

I love how you dove right into the content of the video. subscribed.

[@veghesther3204]

However the Pokemon card game DID get a sequel to it on the GBC BUT IT never actually left Japan.

[@jolly_39]

There is a Fan Translation of the sequel though and it's fully playable on an emulator. I played for a bit years ago and the game ran without any issues.

[@MiQuentin]

Love that your yt is popping off doc!

[@MisC21]

Can we appreciate the fact this video is 1337

[@WhaleDisease]

I remember doing this glitch 20 years ago spamming buttons on the gameboy around the end of the game during a duel and winning. I was confused at what happened lol and this vid explains it.

[@Ninshi2g]

I see you using Legend of Dragoon music at 6:49 👀. Excellent choice

[@MrEDK1985]

Here I am thinking how endlessly complex it is to code a (relatively) simplistic game from almost 30 years ago, and wondering how that complexity has grown exponentially since then. @_@

[@cerebralcloud92]

Holy shit Halo Wars music, I was NOT expecting that on a Speedrun Examination video on a spin-off of a spin-off of pokemon.

[@theswordidtruth]

I heard that "correct choice" sound from Stadium 2! Such a satisfying soundbite.

[@nolchannel4950]

I can't imagine this category holds interest for long. The only optimization is a shortest-route calculator, and most of the value of a speedrun of a TCG game is optimizing luck and strategy.

[@venomdank965]

I remember using that "glitch" but I always thought it was there on propose to speed the game up. I remember using it a lot.

[@aa-tx7th]

i still have some of this games music in my head having not heard any of it or played the game in probably 20 years...

[@pheonixmmkc]

i loved the explanation on bankswitching and interupts

[@Liednard]

I have great memories of Pokemon TCG, thank you very much for the vid!

[@rooislangwtf]

6:04 Man I'd do the glitch at home just to skip the horrible tutorial, not even for speedrunning reasons

[@pedropaulotrevisan]

9:05 "ok, is everyone with me?" no

[@sagacious03]

Great analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@KakoriGames]

I appreciate the effort put into the video, but not your best video imo. I know it can be hard to explain technical stuff, but I feel like too many thing were just glossed over. Basically the video boils down to: 1. Here's how the down + A glitch works 2. There's some bank switching that happens in code 3. Whirlwind does something to mess up with return codes. 4. You can setup your deck to execute a ACE using this glitch. To be honest, the first part is the only one I felt like I really understood how things worked, the rest I just had to accept. Looking forward to more videos tho.

[@zan7838]

wtf is this speedrun review review?

[@archkull]

@@zan7838 the fuck you think comment sections are for

[@187btokes]

Bro I still play this game on my laptop... This video made me so happy

[@HaphazardDisastard]

Nice music choices! It's always nice to see (or hear) The Legend of Dragoon out in the wild.

[@DoctorSwellman]

One of my favorite games!

[@HaphazardDisastard]

@@DoctorSwellman Same! I still listen to the soundtrack on occasion, and I've been thinking about replaying it soon.

[@dragonmaster613]

Down + A to instant Win is possible on the version added to the Nintendo Online. It saves me a ton of time collecting cards to build certain decks and complete the collection. (Haymaker took a lot of tries at certain packs to obtain, because all three mons are rares)

[@Holgast]

I love the TCG game, and I love watching speedrunners break things. Great video!

[@maridiancrest243]

I bet some kid on the playground told people if you held Down+A you could beat the elite 4 but no one believed him. The one time Kid on the Playground was right.

[@phoenixdowner]

The graphics and editing was super effective.

[@osiria_turtle]

Interesting glitch, and interesting how it was found. Thanks for bringing this up in such a well-edited format as always

[@dimsword35]

If i ever make a Gameboy game, I'll make the game pure spaghetti code on purpose just so stuff like this can end up happening

[@dr4gonblitz]

video goin hard with these edits

[@Seth_Hezekiah]

Dude, is that mystic quest music?!? Along with FFX music? Yo. That's sick.

[@KiraSlith]

I did this as a kid back in 2006 on emulator and just assumed it was a debug cheat like so many others. Never thought to look it up before. Neat that it's a glitch that happens to function very similarly to a debug cheat.

[@csolisr]

One of the easiest off-by-one ACEs I've ever seen

[@aquaticchaos1717]

Funny how the video length of this video is not only the exact same as one of the important speedrunning times made after finding the quick battle exploit, but also a second away from 1337 aka Leet

[@Xovamoramee]

I highly respect the Halo Wars background music

[@benjaminjameskreger]

I just got back into this game oddly enough.. farmed four imposter prof oak and then realized they shuffle their hand back into their deck and it's not a mill card. QQ

[@lvl5Vaporeon]

Great work!

[@lightsydepaul1680]

Great video man

[@GHeinz]

great video. pokemon speedruns is a really cool community and definitely deserves more attention.

[@Trillyana]

I just tried and it was surprisingly easy. Then I tried it in the Japanese version and all it did was crash the game.

[@flamingpickle8846]

I would love a short vid on what the "weird sh*t" is lmaoo

[@johnmager9364]

normally im all for glitches in speedruns, but this in particular I can see as a major issue. This glitch alone removed all actual mechanics of the game from the run. when you loose so much of the game that it doesnt mater which game your actually playing anymore, its not fun for the runner or the people watching I feel. massive breakthroughs like this undoubtedly push the limits of achievable times, but it also sets these games communities up to die as the challenge becomes less and less enjoyable. "how fast can I mash out frame perfect inputs" is the only question, what happens on screen no longer maters and all other objectives are skipped. The most famous case of this is obviously OOT, and the resulting solution was splitting the boards into a glitchless and any%, or even just specify that this particular glitch cannot be used as a category (no major glitches or no down A glitch or something like that) but overall, while its an impressive discovery and the way it was found is super cool, I consider it worse for the game overall/ consider if this glitch was known about 20 years ago at launch, would that make it a good speed game? would anyone have ever ran that for more than a year or two before quickly hitting the lower limit of how fast you can do the glitches and get bored? this isn't a development of the route, but a circumnavigation of it.

[@knowwhoiamyet]

I agree. Technical stuff like this is neat on paper, and probably a fun process to figure out how to make work for the people working on it, but from a casual perspective, at this level of breaking the game it doesn't actually require any mastery over the game itself, just menuing and rhythm. If I were to load up a stream and watch speedruns of the game on Twitch because I saw it and was like "Oh I remember that game!" and just saw that it was someone flickering in and out of a status menu for a few seconds before suddenly being at the end of the game, I'd be disappointed in what I saw because I wanted to see the game, not... Whatever I just witnessed.

[@kiraina25]

@@knowwhoiamyet This is why runs of this technical glitched level are usually reserved for bonuses and showcases at events like GDQ. The Yellow run that uses buffer overflow to wrong-warp from your house to the Hall of Fame room wasn't put up on its own, it was displayed as an add-on to a longer Blue run.

[@johnmager9364]

@@gregoryford2532 fair,I left this comment before getting to that point in the video. just leaving my thoughts before I forgot them

[@clockhanded]

Unrelated, I know, but for years I pined for generational updates to the TCG and Pinball video games. There could at least be as many pokemon games as there are Mario games.

[@icetwister2000]

With this knowledge, I will become become the most ultimate isekai MC.

[@travv88]

Define "a few sessions" because I never came close to finishing this game as a kid.

[@rightouskofi7861]

I just beat it in a few days last week on my phone

[@ChikaHakozaki]

this was my favorite game from back then and still is, I feel this game deserved more attention

[@johnbuscher]

Same. I’m sad games like this won’t be made anymore because of things like Magic: Arena. I really enjoy a solid card game that has deckbuilding progression and the ability to save your decks. Roguelike deckbuilders just feel empty to me by comparison.

[@stillbuyvhs]

It came out a bit late to be part of the initial Pokemon craze.

[@nemenhat1]

@@johnbuscher some years ago i had a thing for Mabinogi Duel in android, but when i started enjoying it the most it got cancelled, had lots of problems with the naming not matching the world from where it came from and it died. but it had a lot of interesting mechanics, and it was unique, not a roguelike or a heartstone ripoff :( . im still waiting for the day i find an interesting card game like it.

[@Vaga-Bard]

They actually made a second one but it never left Japan. You can get it on emulator and download a translation for it though. I played it. It isn't as fun as the original, it has team rocket cards though.. that first one is amazing. Beautiful in its simplicity.

[@CAGEMETAL]

@@Vaga-Bard IMO it's as good, if not better

[@Nekufan1000000]

It wasn't four minutes fast, but I beat a playthrough of it glitchless inside of about ... 4 hours, which isn't anywhere near a speedrun. All I did was use normal card game search engine shenanigans. The game can't fuckin' handle it when you Professor Oak three times in a match to get a Charizard on turn 3.

[@jarrettclopton5881]

Nice Lufia 2 music at 9:40!

[@gamesondeck2913]

Legend of Dragoon Background music! Nice!!

[@a-s-greig]

5:12 Explode away, my good fellow.

[@UenoLocker54]

No required battles? Not really a game anymore at that point.

[@deadlineuniverse3189]

Maybe this glitch is why I had 17 player character is K.O on the bank once

[@gamingultivi]

Castlevania SOTN music and FFX music in the same video... ily dude

[@javaguru7141]

Can I have a link to the technical document? I was surprised not to see a link in the description despite the numerous mentions.

[@DoctorSwellman]

Pinned comment

[@PhazonOmega]

A 13:36 record before finding the super glitch? That's exactly the same length of this video, and it threw me off for a moment after I came back from a pause.

[@Puffle573]

3:28 No Patrick, this isn't Friday Night Funkin'.

[@iSnarkTV]

If you press start select + A B at the same time, the game restart But if you press too much times the game restart with graphical and audio glitching

[@-_._._-]

I loved this game as a kid.

[@DanceDanceNorth]

3:29 DDR arrows!

[@charlesbecker7352]

down Plus A glitch is what made people believe that in the original games would help capture Pokemon.... I did this tactic and it worked about 80% which made me believe in the tactic hehehe 😞

[@halotalim]

The intimate party glitch is what keeps happening to me.