The Gen 4 Pokémon Feature That Nobody Unlocked

[@Etch]

UPDATE: I made a dumb math mistake when calculating an estimate for how long it would take to get 10k total win streak, so here's a much more thorough estimate: There's two ways to approach this efficiently: either have a living dex of all Pokemon so you can knock it out quickly, or thoroughly route and prepare for it and evolve Pokemon along the way (for example, get a 20 win streak with Bulbasaur, go out and evolve it, then get a 20 win streak with Ivysaur). I've talked with a few people who have completed gen 4 living dexes to get a rough estimate for how long it would take. If you prepare and follow guides while also utilizing Gen 1-3 games, you can definitely get it done in 200 hours. For more casual players doing it more on the fly, you can expect 300-400 hours to complete it. How fast you can complete it varies greatly by what other games you can use (for example, if you have Plat but no HGSS you can only transfer 6 Pokemon through Pal Park per day, whereas HGSS has no restriction). You can cut a little time off of this since you do not need to worry about Mythical/Event Pokemon, as they are banned from the Battle Frontier anyways (only 475 Pokemon are legal). You also need to get all these Pokemon to level 30 so they can enter the Battle Hall, plus they should have one or two decent moves so they can actually rack up wins. This is incredibly tedious without cheats and your best bet will just be grinding the Elite Four with exp share on each mon. Each Elite Four run takes 20+ minutes, and you can get 3-5 Pokemon from low level to level 30 in this time (pretty likely to be low level since a lot of the mons would come from eggs). Let's say you have to get 300 Pokemon up to level 30, if we get 4 to level 30 per run you're looking at 100+ hours of E4 grinding. Getting decent moves should be pretty trivial, stuff like Strength is sufficient for a lot of Pokemon. I'll only add 5 hours for getting updating movesets. As for the part that I messed up, I made the dumb mistake of multiplying the time to get a win streak by 10000 instead of 1000. I was thinking 10000 wins so multiply by that amount, whoops! That's what I get for recording and editing in one night. So if we assume we have a living dex of capable mons ready to go in the PC, knocking out the Battle Hall itself should be doable in about 150-200 hours. My initial estimate of 8 min 20 seconds per win streak was a little generous as a lot of weak Pokemon aren't going to one-shot, plus factoring in PC time to swap Pokemon (and the 20 seconds you add to your next save every time you use the PC), 9 minutes is a more reasonable estimate for each 10 win streak. So 150 hours is doable if you are going nonstop and never drop unlucky and lose a streak earlier than intended. So all in all, assuming no cheats or speedups, I would estimate this would take about 600-750 hours if you prepared a living dex in the process and had average luck. I would expect any casual file that has this accomplished to be around 1000 as I would hope you did the actual fun parts of the game before tackling this. If you did the other method I mentioned and routed your entire playthrough around this goal, I think around 500 hours is definitely doable. So yeah please don't do this regardless, just watch the video instead and save your time. Sorry again for missing the mark with the math in the video, I'll be much more thorough going forward.

[@malachibingham3215]

speeed run

[@johnowlgem9264]

i noticed that the mom in HG SS said about going shopping for you and that made me wonder is there different dialogue depending on if you have her save your money or not?

[@gigantomastiaCuddler]

How did you get 10k to make the video? I'm unclear on what you did since you say it's an authentic copy of the game.

[@gigantomastiaCuddler]

How did you get to 10,000? Since you said it's original hardware I'm curious how you got it to 10,000.

[@keepyourhornson5311]

Appreciate the followup! I'm at a cumulative 1,026 myself having not really poured THAT much time into the Battle Hall (this record is split across 21 Pokemon, without having done more than 1 attempt on most of them and probably not more than 2-3 on any), so I don't think 10k sounds THAT bad, though that's with the caveat that I don't play past Gen IV and therefore have all the Pokemon from my many Gen III playthroughs handy in Platinum already, so I'm not starting from a fresh file like a theoretical example might be. Of course I'm still an order of magnitude away, but just getting to an average of ~20 per Pokemon sounds doable enough to me... but I'm biased in that the Battle Hall is somehing I've long been interested in conquering, lol. Still, there's for sure at least one person in a Battle Frontier Discord who has gotten over 10k. Anyways, loved this video as a deep dive on this feature. I'd definitely read about this feature on a Wiki or fan site years and years ago, so I was familiar with it, but I totally trust you that the dialogue wasn't documented anywhere at all and that therefore if anyone had done this, it wasn't many people; I wonder how many have. The Battle Hall is possibly my favorite feature in all of Pokemon and without question, by far the Battle Facility I'm most interested in, so it's nice to see more attention paid to it, and hopefully this video makes some people go for their own Battle Hall records to try and access this dialogue legitimately! It's also great to have concrete info out there about what triggers the NPCs' appearance, given that they're not there all the time.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

"if you grind a ridiculous amount of points in the battle frontier, professor oak shows up and says he's proud of you" definitely sounds like the sort of thing that could have been a playground rumor back in the day.

[@pedropimenta896]

"Ash's father" for example 😂

[@getthegoons]

Nah the playground version would 100% have like, Lucario with Super Aura Sphere or something as a reward roo

[@37Jhian]

Sounds like something he should say to his Grandson Assfart instead of the random 10 year old he met in Johto

[@qwopiretyu]

​@@getthegoons when the kid telling you to unlock it would get to his third "THEN you have to do x100 MORE times" I would tune out

[@Ian-vq3qe]

"surf at the edge of cinnabar Island after talking to the guy that catches a pokemon then put a masterball in your 6th slot and keep surfing until you find a pokemon that doesnt exist named missingno" I thought the pokemon was called missingno never released it meant missing name/number until someone told me in a yt video.

[@DakkonAkrossa]

Oh wow, that dialogue. Win ten thousand times and maybe your mom will tell you she feels some kind of emotion when she sees you succeed. She's not sure though.

[@LonesomeDevil]

That's a huge plotwist right here and I'm surprised almost no one was mentioning it. Maybe this is implying that giving birth to our player character ruined her entire life which made her feel empty inside and this is the only way to actually awaken her motherly instincts. 😂 (I'm not being serious at all, by the way)

[@ma.2089]

Asian parents :(

[@user-lh7mt7zo7l]

@@ma.2089 lmaooooooo this reminds me of a youtube video I saw where they asked random Asians (I think it might have been in China or something) to call their parents and tell them that they love them and one of the parents said something like "I love when you listen to me" instead of actually loving their kid 😭

[@MagillanicaLouM]

@@ma.2089 5 stars to you

[@DarkMarxSoul]

@@user-lh7mt7zo7l There are a lot of weirdo narcissists and emotionally repressed and confused people across the world. It's pretty sad.

[@HMMadsen]

Soft reseting for Shinies: ❌️ Soft reseting for Professor Oak: ✅️✅️✅️

[@kristoferkoessel4354]

Soft reseting for shiny professor oak

[@solidzack]

@@kristoferkoessel4354 🤯

[@KremBotop]

If you're a massive fan of Oak, Whitney or (especially) Jasmine, a grind of that caliber should probably be worth it. Just for favorites' sake.

[@JorgetePanete]

resetting*

[@Schnort]

​@@KremBotopor maybe just use the old man glitch in gen 1 to fight him

[@Justin-oq3ng]

"the azure flute was too confusing to hand out"

[@phyllotaxis]

That was Junichi Masuda, the same guy who said there was never meant to be a Pokemon Z and the national dex was cut to work on improving animations.

[@mysticdigital5936]

​@@phyllotaxis That last statement is still so vile and deceptive

[@djspit8929]

Ngl i cant wait till masuda gkes the way of the dodo. Hes holding pokemon back because hes lazy and complacent ​@@phyllotaxis

[@whichcache2517]

@@mysticdigital5936I think pointing out that the animations and models hadn’t improved or changed is missing the forest for the trees. The main reason they cut the national dex (the dex itself already being missing from Sun and Moon) is because there was too many Pokemon at that point, they weren’t going to support every Pokemon on one cartridge indefinitely, and SwSh was going to be the ones they’d put that feature to rest. It sucks that what he said about improving fidelity and animations was provably wrong, but it’s not the only excuse they had at the time. The way I see it, if Pokemon is still going 50 years from now, and 1700 more Pokemon get added to the dex, it would be needlessly cumbersome for new players to obtain 2,725 Pokemon across multiple games, systems, and limited time events and DLC, _on top_ of the declining quality of the games due to the dearth of time and resources afforded to the developers. Pokemon games have a lot of issues, but the lack of a National Dex is just scratching the surface of the surface.

[@DerrickWilson-fm7vc]

@@whichcache2517I agree the cut was inevitable, but they really didn’t put their best foot forward by making the cut with SwSh, imo the worst Pokémon game. They really needed to spend extra time ensuring the first game without it would justify not having it, and they didn’t. And the animations still haven’t improved with SV; they got worse with things like the sandwich nonsense. It’s obvious they need more time in general, but they should have been given that time especially when making such a big change

[@iceneko9170]

The hgss mom saying shes going to buy stuff at the dpt stone on the way back (probobly with your money) made me laugh way harder than it should have.

[@komarunaegi7460]

Same, I love when these games add extra jokes and personality to their dialogue. It’s one aspect of the series I’m glad was upped in later gens, like 7 and 9, because Gens 1-4 really needed to work on making some NPCs offer a little more conversationally besides “I love Pokémon.”

[@Normal_user_coniven]

It is been very long time since I played this game, but when I read that dialogue while watching I remembered the pain. One time I was planning to buy something expensive when she used my money at the last moment and made me gather the money all over again.

[@Calmtimer]

​@@Normal_user_coniven wait doesn't she litteraly *not* use your money to buy berries? I heard that she says she uses your money but actually doesnt

[@RaptinDinon-mn4ps]

Bro, you have to go back & check dialogue in gens one to four. There is some great dialogue in there. Take t th e time to read some. My favorite from Kanto is the crazed bird trainer who thinks he's a bird. Even years later in gen two he's still only making bird noises.

[@komarunaegi7460]

@@RaptinDinon-mn4psDon’t get me wrong, the earlier gens definitely had some funny lines-otherwise we never would’ve gotten memes like “I like shorts” or top-percentage Rattatas-I was just saying that there was a lot more stiff and generic dialogue back then in between those gems. Like, there was a reason why so many Pokémon fans developed “I can’t read” syndrome because they got into the habit of spamming A through all the dialogue. A lot of it was fluff exposition or tutorial stuff. The newer games have that too, but they try to add more personality into the characters to try to compensate, and have more natural conversations down the line.

[@melonman6522]

"No, you are not worthy of my praise until you get a 1000 streak" -The PC's Mother apparently

[@InfraInfernape]

Hi u/YammaTamma here. Im so glad you made a video to documents this lol. The post got like 4 upvotes so I was worried nobody knew about this. Maybe next you get a winstreak of 200 on the battle subway for a starf berry or 100% the pokeathlon which requires like 200 different mons (jk....unless?) Great video Cheers!

[@DJFracus]

If you add up all the Battle Hall records on Smogon's Gen 4 Battle Frontier records thread for each individual Pokemon (e.g. the highest streak is 354 with Raikou, so for Raikou I used the number 354 once and none of the lower Raikou records), you get a total of 5746. To be fair, there is a minimum of a 170 winstreak for a Pokemon to be included. And there's a lot of repeats that aren't included, like half of the records are with Garchomp...

[@Etch]

🐐

[@patroka]

Wow. That might just be the most insanely skewed “unlock requirements / reward” ratio I’ve ever seen. Thanks for doing the work to document it!

[@garrettchandler1948]

In most mario games 100 percenting them only gives you a little star next to your file name.

[@SpiritOfGotham]

​@@garrettchandler1948 and 100%ing a Mario game takes a lot less time and effort than grinding the battle hall for ages

[@AbruptAvalanche]

At the same time though, would you want it to be a reward so cool that you'd feel like you were missing out if you didn't get it? You'd be forced to do the super tedious grind if you wanted it, which would suck.

[@garrettchandler1948]

@SpiritOfGotham true I'm just saying that is technically even less of a reward. But I guess it's better than something useful being locked away by a nearly impossible feat.

[@1stCallipostle]

Ashnard in the PoR trial maps is similar. Go beat a 20-30 hour game 15 times for a character you can only use in a mode almost nobody has ever played

[@davidmeyer4506]

493 Pokémon, 10k to enter. So every single Pokémon needs to have at least a 20 to 21 win streak. Mental!

[@jampine8268]

That's implying every pokemon is viable. I'm not super in pokemon competitive and the battle tower, but it's no secret some pokemon are way stronger than others.

[@oniondesu9633]

​@@jampine8268but the way the battle hall works makes this easy, you wouldnt even need perfect stats on your pokemon, the first few mons you fight from every type are significantly lower level than you and even unevolved too

[@roberte.o.speedwagon6043]

40 wins for 250 Pokemon 80 wins for 125 Pokemon 160 wins for 63 Pokemon 320 wins for 32 Pokemon 640 wins for 16 Pokemon (Roughly) Im sure someone can work out the most effective ratio is, being able to battle each with Pokemon to a set level (not necessarily their max. Maybe Garchomp can go to win 400 for if it, but maybe it only needs to go to win 50 to be time effective for example)

[@TheHippyProductions]

​@@roberte.o.speedwagon6043 320 wins for 32 pokemon sounds like the best bet personally. small enough amount to make it faster, and not as arduous as 640

[@Kealan124]

Including first evolutions and useless stuff like Unown.

[@oucyan]

I unlocked this in Platinum. Only unlocked my up to my Mom though. never got Professor Oak or Jasmine. didn't even know this was a thing. I just thought certain NPCs sometimes showed up.

[@gamer-jm6my]

Wow that’s insane congrats I have a pokemon platinum that I got a few months ago sadly not my og one from childhood it’s long lost somewhere I imagine but yea I couldent imagine sinking those kinda hours into battle frontier congrats

[@oucyan]

@@gamer-jm6my after I 100%ed the game, maxed out the payments on my Resort House and got the Black Trainer Card, there wasn't much to do except go for insane win streaks in the battle frontier (and breed pokemon to get those streaks). I don't know how many hours I sunk into the game before I sold it, but I had maxed out the playtime clock at 999:59, so definitely over 1000 hours.

[@tastyscavenger]

Was literally going to post this, crazy to know Oak actually shows this way.

[@oucyan]

@@tastyscavenger indeed.

[@airtempest8945]

I only knew Whitney was a thing, in part because it feels very in character for her (and Jasmine).

[@jojodelacroix]

Damn. Over 1000 for your own mom to show up?! Poor kid...

[@absoutezeo2126]

Asian parent moment

[@Chatterbox1237]

@@absoutezeo2126I mean sinnoh and Johto are based of parts of Japan

[@RandomiusBronius]

And she doesn't even say she's proud, just remarks that she feels "something" when you battle.

[@medalkingslime4844]

Your title being real and not hyperbolic is so cool. Fully expected to see something super exaggerated or common internet knowledge.

[@pumpkinpartysystem]

personally i was expecting this to be about ball seals or something, a feature i always want to come back in future games but never has

[@GardeDuCoeur]

if you farm 100k point it seems Professor Oak shows up and say "ARE YA WINNING, SON? I'm so proud of you son" 🤣

[@EmeraldSands]

Someone tell Blue this is all he has to do

[@Zactoshi]

Shiny Hunting for Prof. Oak is wild 😂

[@CM_684]

Oh but the azure flute event would have been too complicated

[@BaconNuke]

After all we know now.. I am starting to wonder if that was a mistranslation and no one ever thought to double check.. because wasn't the flute gonna be "go to top of coronet with flute"?

[@thepokemonqueen]

​@@BaconNuke I'm wondering if they meant that the method of distribution they were planning was going to be too complicated, rather than the method of finding arceus in the actual game

[@renzoraschioni7954]

@@thepokemonqueen I re-read the interview, and Masuda is testually stated to have said "I thought it would be confusing for people and kind of hard to understand how it worked. So I eventually made the decision not to disttibute it." If he was referring to the distribution process, then he saying "for people" doesn't make sense since people weren't supposed to worry about the distribution process.

[@thepokemonqueen]

@@renzoraschioni7954 but if they were planning a different type of distribution (rather than just WiFi mystery gift or attending a location), then it could've confused people. maybe if they were planning some sort of scavenger hunt competition or something

[@DarkJ1425]

And how the fixed it in the “””””””remake””””””? Buy Two games

[@derekw8039]

If you're making a game and a fellow dev tells you your feature isn't worth it because too few players will ever see it, show them this video.

[@komarunaegi7460]

I disagree. Small secrets like these for the most dedicated and skilled players are fine in moderation, but sometimes compromises have to be made when pretty much every game ever is held back by tight schedules and limits from development time. Adding extra features and Easter eggs makes for great attention to detail, but focusing on the broader aspects of a game-like graphics, performance, main mechanics, story/characters, etc-should always come first. Look at Scarlet/Violet for instance. The devs still seem passionate enough to add hidden secrets, interactions, and Easter eggs here and there throughout the games, especially in the DLC, but didn’t have the time to finish the overall world, polish up the graphics, or stabilize the performance. And I say this as someone that would’ve loved SV if it had another year or two in the oven. The music, story, characters, and base gameplay are great imo. But things like this, while I respect the effort, should be an afterthought. Not that mention, this secret is so thoroughly hidden that WAY less than 1% of players would’ve spent this much effort to dig up these interactions. Thousands of hours for one of the most difficult and rigged gauntlets of the game is too daunting of a task. Secrets are still meant to be accessible to *some* degree-otherwise if they’re THIS hidden, unless it genuinely took zero time and effort to program, then there’s no point.

[@TheDeathmail]

This video is proof that it's over all a waste of time... They worked really hard to add in something that almost nobody saw.... it didn't boost the game, didn't make it more worth purchasing and had no real benefit... So it wasn't worth all of the hard work....

[@MercuryA2000]

I think there's a limit to it. Putting something in only 1% of players will see is one thing, but one in a million? That's too far.

[@Laezar1]

@@TheDeathmail it's also the kind of thing that make making a game enjoyable. You're thinking about it in term of cold value but games that are made this coldly are going to feel clinical and lose a lot of charm. I'd much rather have something messy made with heart.

[@sombrego2260]

As someone who makes videogames for a living I can tell you producers will tell you buddy this feature is completely pointless let's not waste budget on this and do something useful. Unless you're an indie dev doing whatever you want you can't do that anymore. Gen 4 was in a different era of videogame making.

[@Sol_Calibre]

It's so ridiculous that shit is STILL BEING DISCOVERED after 20 years

[@goldenpig6453]

i mean, its not exactly a discovery, the guidebooks explicitly said that it exists, its just that absolutely nobody has ever bothered to get it.

[@Sol_Calibre]

@@goldenpig6453 considering people hunt for shines, I'm surprised it took this long for anybody to do it.

[@definitelynotashark1799]

TFW Pokémon games used to be complex and full of personality 💀

[@Gigi-zr6hp]

​​@@definitelynotashark1799 well if you play competitive pokemon nowadays it's way more complex compared to the older days with no gimmicks involved. And regarding personality Pokemon fans still love the character designs of modern like Larry/Nemona

[@SophiaLilithUwU]

@@goldenpig6453 as far as i can tell the dialogue of these npcs hasnt been documented on bulbapedia yet, so its def a discovery.

[@malachiatkinson7245]

I've had my copy of the strategy guide since it came out, and I've read it front to back. It's cool how many little things are in these games; things you either had to work yourself to the bone for, or you could read about in a walkthrough. Case in point, I never got very far in the Battle Frontier, but I've always known about the fans. On a somewhat related note, I distinctly remember being freaked out by the old lady who heals you on one of the snowy routes, because the guide says that if you don't pick the right dialogue option, quote, "you will never leave." Being young and autistic, I took that to mean that choosing the wrong thing would literally lock you in the house forever. I was terrified that I'd misclick and ruin my save

[@1manApocalypse_CP]

What was the actual meaning of "you will never leave"?

[@malachiatkinson7245]

@@1manApocalypse_CP if you choose not to leave, the old lady will just cycle through her dialogue again

[@hayuseen6683]

That's poorly worded. Not your fault they chose to use horror story tone

[@iantrolington6594]

@@hayuseen6683 It's accurately worded. You guys just don't understand english at a competent level.

[@hayuseen6683]

@@iantrolington6594 ohyouguyz

[@Mother_boards]

Etchy is officially a Pokemon researcher

[@Mito383]

“You have fun whether you win or lose!” I can assure you Lyra, I do not have fun when I lose to BS RNG.

[@handmetheparachute]

One of the shortcomings of the fandom databases is that all dialogue from the games isn't catalogued and searchable. I'd love to be able to remember what was said in Pokémon games that I can't restart.

[@InsidiousOne]

On UESP (The better Elder Scrolls wikia, basically) there is a full catalogue of all the generic NPC dialogue from Morrowind, helped me a lot

[@UltraAryan10]

I think this shows the different mindset between developers and the marketing people. The devs dont mind adding things literally only few dedicated people will find (they will be happy someone went that far) but apparently Azure Flute event was too complicated from the prespective of the events team.

[@IgnatiusBlaze4]

9:40 your criminal mom caught in real time, WASTING YOUR MONEY ON USELESS JUNK UGGH

[@theneedforspeeder9575]

She actually gives you unique items after a while

[@IgnatiusBlaze4]

@@theneedforspeeder9575 I remember her buying plushies, too, but can't recall if that's GSC or HGSS. I mostly remember the useless stuff lol, especially getting random berry number 8 or a measly potion despite being at the elite 4.

[@zjzr08]

​@@IgnatiusBlaze4I'm not sure if you get Plushies but I do know in HGSS you get pretty good stuff from time to time if you do allow your money to be saved through her account hehe.

[@IgnatiusBlaze4]

@@zjzr08 Ok yeah that was GSC, a Charmander, Pikachu, Cleffairy, and BIG Snorlax plushies.

[@nefariosgliscor]

Well the important thing is that she at least name dropped Goldenrod as the shopping venue. It's a shame she doesn't give you the receipts. Now you have to issue a subpoena for them in court.

[@JMAR_GAMES]

Generation IV had so much content, I loved it when they added more and more with each installment. Nowadays we’re wondering what they left in the games, it’s a real shame they don’t get more development.

[@illuminati955]

Let's hope that with Palworld stealing their thunder GF actually bothers with their flagship series again - that being said, with how many nostalgia addicted Pokémon adults there are maybe they have too lucrative of an audience to bother

[@JMAR_GAMES]

@@illuminati955 I hope so too. I’m sure there are passionate devs at GameFreak, but I think it’s clear that they need more than a few months to make a new game

[@emblemblade9245]

@@illuminati955Palworld did nothing, it died within weeks. The change is gonna have to come from elsewhere. Looking forward to Legends Z-A at least

[@turmspitzewerk]

​@@emblemblade9245please explain how a game that "died within weeks" has been sitting in the top 30 games on steam for the last 6 months lmao

[@clyden1685]

25k+ concurrent players on steam alone right now. "Died within weeks". Buddy if you wanted to sound smart you should have tried harder.

[@kiwigaming0215]

Mega congrats on this.. You should probably let Serebii know about this so it can be updated and go on there.

[@MISTAKEWASMADE4live]

Bulbapedia is better for this stuff, Serebii is easier to navigate but their pages aren't nearly as thorough, and they typically don't get updated at all post release for a few titles.

[@RunicSigils]

Years ago I emailed him multiple times over the course of like 4 years about fixes all over the site. He never responded to any message and the pages are still the same upwards of 15 years later. Not only do some of the pages lack information, they are just actively wrong and he doesn't care.

[@MISTAKEWASMADE4live]

@@RunicSigils Yeah, it's a shame cause the UI is amazing, one of the best I've ever seen, but they just don't get updated, in fact some of them only have pre-release info 💀. Still really good, but I need both Bulbapedia and Serebii open for my playthroughs.

[@diethylmalonate]

​@@RunicSigils lol same, during high school I reported on the forums that most of the PMD moves descriptions are just copy and pasted from the mainline games, which makes many of them wrong now I'm finishing grad school and nothing has changed

[@mikki6158]

I mean, this easter egg is really cool and all, but congrats? For what? He just cheated in the points necessary to get the npc's to spawn, nothing at all impressive or difficult about it, and certainly not congratulatory worthy. I'd save congratulations for the madlads who do it legit.

[@alexlowe2054]

Ah, the classic cursed big eyed sprite at 1:52, on the right side of the screen. I love gen 4 so much. Besides the silly quirks, there's just so much love put into the game, where you can tell it oozes personality and care. And the music was so good. It really was peak pokemon.

[@trumpeterjen]

I like how the choices for NPCs and dialog are a specific nod to this facility’s gimmick: the player is required to learn about--and battle with--many different Pokémon before they can meet the NPCs. It makes sense that the aids and professors would show up, just like they said. Maybe the devs considered doing this for the other facilities but couldn’t think of anything or didn’t feel it was worth the effort. If Grimmsley were around in Gen IV, I bet he’d love the battle arcade.

[@amberhernandez]

Battle Arcade be like: "Llllllet's go gambliiiing!!"

[@AnarchySplatcast-SilentN]

Finally! Someone acknowledging this topic! I was always curious about this, but only extended my win total enough to unlock Dawn, and I couldn't find any online sources covering the rest of the characters and their dialogue. Of course, I wasn't going to put thousands of hours into training up hordes of different Pokemon to extend a luck-based win streak just to see some anticlimactic texts, but I was still curious as to what these obscure encounters would be and was disappointed that no one was talking about it. By the way, there's still something this video missed; the dialogue and location of Serena/Winston in the Battle Hall also changes as you progress. I played as the male protagonist, so I have only seen Serena's dialogue, of course, but if you talk to her before you have participated in the challenge yet, she starts off standing near the Hall's front door and laments that the Battle Hall hasn't had any impressive challengers lately. Her exact words, if I recall correctly, are; "It's about the Battle Hall... There just haven't been any interesting challengers lately. The type of gorgeous trainer who can make me a fan... Aren't there any around?" (Note: I am writing all of this from sheer memory, so I likely don't have her words 100% accurate.) After you beat the Hall for the first time, she takes notice and her dialogue changes to; "Excuse me... Are you perhaps getting into the Battle Hall? It's fun in an engrossing way, isn't it? Did you know? The more you extend your winning streak, the more kinds of Pokemon you can face!" And after you have extended your win total beyond a certain point, she will instead be standing closer to the Hall's reception gate and seems to be crushing on you, saying when you speak to her; "Um, e-excuse me... I watched you on the stage. It made me feel all tingly inside to see you... You don't mind if I cheer for you from now on, do you? Please, May I?" I don't know whether or not her dialogue continues to change again as you extend your total win count further, and as I said, I am writing all this from memory so it's probably not exact, but I haven't been able to find any online sources that cover any of this. You'd think this would be a more popular topic of discussion, though, since it's one of the rare few instances of a potential romance involving the protagonist being canonically teased in a mainline Pokemon game. 🤣

[@LonesomeDevil]

Makes sense they were experimenting with this in Gen 4 considering they went full-on dating simulator in B2/W2 with the lost phone sidequest, which is barely less complicated than this one. And that's only because moving around on every tile of the map is easier than getting a winstreak score.

[@Etch]

Holy moly I am so overwhelmed by the response to this! I recorded and editing this video the same day I finished researching, just to quickly put the information out there. Never expected so many other people would be interested in it, thanks for watching! I'm working on similar projects for both Gen 4 and other Pokemon games, so please subscribe if you're interested! I know way too much about weird Pokemon mechanics from my history speedrunning the games, so I'm happy to share what I know through these videos :).

[@ogbigtitty2465]

Coward

[@askofly_7754]

I'm glad this video got the attention it deserves especially with all the work you've put in ! Legend

[@Emihana]

:D

[@Jack_Krauzers]

Goodluck becoming big KZbinr brother :)

[@xPandamon]

I think I know what may influence this. Date/ time. Hence why coming back to the game or loading the game file seems to work for seeing these NPCs

[@LifeRomanticized]

Isn't it amazing, how games that came out more than 10 years ago still continue to have baffled us for so long? thanks for sheding light!

[@WingedEspeon]

Assuming the 25% chance to one shot ttar is ignoring your crit chance, and a crit crunch would work as well as a defense drop, the chance of losing to ttar like that was 9/1280 or about 0.703% However, you have another 1/16 chance for the second crunch to crit which would also take you down even if you dodged a crit and a defense drop from the first crunch, so you have a 27/20480 or about 0.132% chance of losing to second crunch crit, for a total of 171/20480 or about 0.832% chance to lose that battle. Which is actually pretty likely. With odds like that every battle you would expect to average about 120 wins per attempt. Edit: the original comment failed to account for a crit defense drop from the first crunch and incorrectly had the probability at 189/25600, or about 0.738% of a loss due to a lucky first crunch. The probably of the second crunch critting in this case was correctly ignored, as all crunches that make it past the quick claw+sand veil check in this case result in a loss.

[@Etch]

Yeah the 25% one shot chance was indeed ignoring crit, thanks for crunching the numbers haha

[@samuelread2899]

That's not how averages work

[@heyitsgabe1093]

Which part?​@@samuelread2899

[@gyronutz3043]

You can’t add percentages together to find the total, that’s not how maths works. If I was fighting a pokémon that had a 50% chance to crit me and a 50% chance to flinch me, I wouldn’t have a 100% chance of losing that turn

[@lucario5748]

@@gyronutz3043 For really small chances, it doesn't make much difference. 1-(1-0.00738)x(1-0.00132) = 0.00869 = 0.869%. So they were only 0.001% off.

[@Quaglander]

Can't believe the title was actually accurate and not just clickbait. Great vid! Thanks for documenting this. You've contributed to pokemon history, or at least the preservation of it.

[@mochagotcha]

10:02 I don't think any of us finds it silly! I thought it was really cool!

[@uuh4yj43]

its awesome

[@tristanneal9552]

No shit, I'm here because a gaming website made an article about you 😄 This is a crazy find

[@Condemner4000]

Cool project and outcome! This kinda of stuff is the reason I love the pokémon community. Nice work, Etchy!

[@thecraftykingdomking7029]

Thank you so much for this! I vividly remember Chuggaconroy bringing this up in his Platinum let’s play but thought it was strange that there was no footage of this online

[@NuclearDarkvoid]

Man I need to rewatch that LP

[@2010supersonic]

I can't wait until the Platinum most perfect save state of KarpfeDiem it's in German but really good

[@Jessica_Schweser]

I immediately thought of him too!

[@ianb.2575]

​@@NuclearDarkvoid one of his absolute finest, but I'm definitely biased

[@OsirusIrdia]

Bro went from Pokémon speedruns to high quality videos about niche/obscure topics in the mainline Pokémon games. Please keep this up! People like you are my favorite creators. Subbed

[@Cream147player]

For me it was all the details like this that really elevate specifically Gens 3, 4 and 5 above modern Pokémon. HGSS is full of this kind of stuff, I remember spending a whole day messing around with unlocking the various rooms in the Pokéathlon.

[@thewhatness]

Still boggles my mind at how much new information is being unearthed about Pokémon games all these years later. Great deep dive, Etchy!

[@cecillewolters1995]

I remember loving the battle hall in 2014 and getting a fan to appear, never knew it was such a rare thing

[@DemoniteBL]

I can already see the RetroAchievements subset 😭

[@thebuzz76]

I was thinking in the intro to this video after your hype of saying there's no way I've seen this that I remember this being mentioned in the prima? strategy guide I had as a child but you mentioning the actual parameters for encountering these fans, there's no way I actually saw them myself. Good job and (without fact checking) I'm very surprised that these aren't cataloged anywhere on the internet!

[@dogearflopper7011]

Man, who the heck wrote that strategy guide? Legend.

[@yukihoshikawa]

Really cool discovery; thank you for putting in the time and effort looking into this! I realize this isn't the main point of the video, but I gotta say, my mind instantly focused on the fact that you get bonus BP up to one hundred thousand total wins... I really wanna know if anybody's actually done this, because if it takes over 1,000 hours to see Whitney and Jasmine appear, the time sink for a total win streak of 100,000 has to be insane.

[@BIZaGoten]

This is such a small thing but I'm really glad it got documented. Older Pokemon games never cease to amaze

[@JadeTenebrae]

It's very funny to me that the player needs to achieve a 1000 win streak to convince their own mother to come cheer them on XD

[@jacrispymcrib9992]

I appreciate this video alot, I'm a Hall head (not a factory fanatic or a tower truster) and I always wanted more info on this, but as you saidits poorly documented. I am way closer to unlocking this than I have any right to 😭

[@yokoelfvganime8112]

Thanks for the effort put into this! I love these videos that go into these obscure contents of the Pokémon games. It is interesting to note that this is part of the design philosophy of the Pokémon games, as said in one of the books translated by Dr. Lava. They seek to create unique experiences for each player, and usually they do it through probability (shinies, Mirage Island...) so that some players may have unique experiences and also to create "playground rumors". I believe their goal may have been the same here "I've seen Professor Oak at the Battle Frontier after hundreds of battles trust me!!" although it was clearly badly designed and poorly tested. Anyway I'm always glad to discover something new regarding this!

[@1Thunderfire]

The Battle Frontier in Gen 4 was so cool.

[@dawn-path]

Great video! Really cool little feature! I can't imagine someone ever accidentally got most of these!

[@Etch]

Seriously, even people who did get a 500 total win streak probably never saw it due to randomness!

[@komarunaegi7460]

Amazing find!! I really respect the effort put into this. I can only imagine how agonizing it must’ve been. I’ve always loved how Pokémon games from Gen 3-onward have had hidden character interactions for you to unlock, even up to Gen 9. Really helps flesh up the world and give you that extra incentive to explore or feel accomplished when they lock it behind these absurdly daunting challenges like this one! I really can’t see why they’d make the requirements for this so crazy tho LOL I actually like a lot of the characters and dialogue these games have, but you’d think they’d make the requirements for this way more reasonable for just a few quick interactions. B2W2 has a similar mechanic where you get more and more NPCs that become your fans the more you progress in PokéStar Studios, so maybe this was a precursor to that?

[@Wandergirl108]

As someone who has never found Pokémon battles fun in and of themselves (I love the games, but the battles are easily my least favorite part of any of them), it is mind-blowing to me that anyone bothered programming this. Why would anyone want to rack up enough wins to even make this happen? And to no real end? It's not like you GET anything besides some extra, meaningless dialogue…Just, incredible. The world is such a vast place full of so many kinds of people.

[@PokeToT]

i consider myself a huge epic gamer pokemon fan and this blew me away! i love little crazy details like this. one of the many joys of pokemon!! incredible video

[@AnimalXing]

So cool! Never knew this dialogue existed

[@KrystalFairyFriend]

That's insane that you managed to find and actually do this, thank you for grinding for this.

[@TheBlackPumpkin]

This was actually my favorite part of my favorite Pokemon game. I assure you that I loved every minute of this.

[@an_xon]

there was definitely information about this and the game lines written in quotes section of each character i believe on bulbapedia... still super cool that you went out of your way to record footage of this though!!!

[@MrFlame-zk5cy]

Not to make you do this whole thing again, but do you think HGSS Mom's dialogue changes if you didn't ask her to save money for you?

[@peppermintbubble]

This unlocked such a memory. I was never any good at Platinum but I definitely did meet my generic NPC fan back in the day, and had forgotten all about it until now! What a crazy mechanic though, I can't believe it requires so much work to unlock the "VIP fans". In a way I respect it for the sheer absurdity of this level of challenge, though. Cool that you documented this obscure feature, thanks for the video!

[@prickly10000]

Dawn's hidden dialogue: "Wow, you beat so many pokemon battles. If you want my hat, Room 203. Make sure the lights are dimmed scarf boy"

[@CodPatrol]

Thought it said Route 203 for a sec

[@XSniper74184]

Suddenly there is an explosion and the sound of an eagle soaring through the air, a loud metallic thunk as a maniac beans someone with a shovel on their descent. "THAT HAT IS MINE YOU WEEDLE!" booms a military voice.

[@gm92845]

That's wild

[@Mikewee777]

Team Fortress 2 soldier produces excitement noises in response to her proposal .

[@cynshie]

Great work! I love how new things are still being discovered (or perhaps rediscovered in this case) about these games even now. Shame the actual event is so underwhelming for the amount of effort required though…

[@Farrell_instincts]

As a kid I Remeber seeing my mom character and rivals in there. Wild how oblivious you can be to these kinds of things as a kid.

[@je19493]

ALWAYS I swear I know every minute detail about pokemon games and every time there's some microscopic piece of content like this that blows my mind. Awesome, thanks for sharing this!

[@DillonChichester]

1:15 It’s been well documented by other players that the battle frontier actively cheats RNG to make things harder for you. This wasn’t a bad luck moment, it was the game gatekeeping progress.

[@paulitics6931]

Is it really documented? You have to battle so much that it's just inevitability to get unlucky isnt it?

[@DillonChichester]

@@paulitics6931 You can isolate a sample size of just high streak matches in order to view whether they have base odds and they find that the RNG is wayyyyyy screwed for those games alone. By setting the win streak manually with cheats and then playing 1000 matches or so, you get a reliable sample size to conclude that high streak has rigged RNG

[@PrimeGamator]

@@paulitics6931 Unfortunately yes. My favourite Pokémon game is Platinum and absolutely love the Battle Frontier inclusion but it made me very sad when people proved that as you win more the game rigs things against you by increasing the chances of things like Status Effects and Critical Hits for the opponent. It's truly a shame that one of the best endgames that Pokémon has ever had is tainted by rigged RNG against the player

[@Saber_Nico]

@@PrimeGamator if the game cheats, then you're obligated as a player to cheat back lol

[@ricksanchez4492]

@@PrimeGamatorI’d like to read/ watch something about that, could you point me towards some sources please?

[@PhilipMurphy8]

Still discovering new features to this game even in 2024

[@Blastosie_Offical]

Calling the opposite player character in gen 4 a rival when they literally never fight you in the entire game (both the Sinnoh and Johto ones) is certainly something

[@Alaspooryorick98]

I haven't played the games in a long time but I swear I remembered fighting the other PC in Sinnoh in the Profs lab in sandal or around there or something?

[@klop4228]

I mean, they have a battle in the Gen 4 remakes...?

[@komarunaegi7460]

Yeah, when Etchy mentioned that “rival” popping up for you in HGSS, I was like “whoa, *Silver’s* actually gonna give you props in that game??” but then it turned out to just be Ethan/Lyra-which makes sense, since it was Lucas/Dawn in Platinum, but ah well. Small mistake!

[@komarunaegi7460]

@@Alaspooryorick98In BDSP, you get to fight Lucas/Dawn post-game in front of Rowan’s lab. In D/P/Pt, you never battle them.

[@Alaspooryorick98]

@@komarunaegi7460 ah, you know what, must be supplanting my old memory with BDSP, I did play that when it came out

[@TheDrake]

I knew about a couple of these NPC's in Platinum, as I believe I had gotten Dawn to show up, and possibly my mom. I had clocked well over 600 hours on my original Platinum save, over the course of a year or so. I'm fuzzy on the precise details, though, as this was many years ago now. Thank you for bringing up great memories!

[@arjitsrivastava3774]

You deserve way more views.I love your voice and how it is crafted.You also show us your process and weave a sort of story(?) with how you tell us how you unlocked this.Great dedication

[@Etch]

Thank you so much!

[@trainerlyra3]

wow, i cannot believe i have never even heard of this before?? thank you so much for documenting, this is fascinating

[@chooch2362]

I was in the middle of writing a comment about the TTar loss but then you commentated it happening as about to hit send

[@Etch]

that loss will haunt me forever

[@anonymouslyyoutubing2004]

Thank you for putting in the work to uncover and document these things for us! Those of us who love these games and have put hours into them may have never known or seen!

[@antoineoubary8576]

I am gonna brag for a bit but I reached a win streak over 1000 in platinum and did see the first set of fans, but yeah didn't know there is more to unlock

[@DraconicDarkness]

I've only seen the "I love seeing cute pokemon!" Part before...

[@kclink1579]

0:18 Well, I didn't even know that.........and I have a 250-hour save on SS.

[@rkeogh3467]

What how😭

[@nomenclature7662]

Bro I got 500+ on a now defunct HG cartridge that won't load my save. Point is I agree. Also had no idea of this

[@nomenclature7662]

Oh u meant you never knew of the battle frontier??

[@joeyno137]

Tbh I don't many people do since making competitive mons wasn't easy as it is now

[@term3092]

Wooow this video popped off !! You deserve it Etchy ❤

[@shingshongshamalama]

Why did they expect children to spend thousands of hours grinding the Battle Frontier?

[@Exlayer-pk8hy]

Theres a reason it never came back

[@komarunaegi7460]

Well, they seemed to have learned their lesson, because an interview the devs had for ORAS says they figured kids nowadays wouldn’t have the time for patience for it, so they opted not to add it in LOL

[@shingshongshamalama]

@@komarunaegi7460 All they had to do was tone down how much utterly bullshit RNG there was and people would probably be all for it.

[@galenmarek4117]

I definitely spent thousands of hours in my childhood on these games, but the Battle Frontier was never really my thing so I never knew about any of this. Thank you for making this video, it was so cool learning about all of this!

[@roseraid-1467]

Im so glad someone is covering this! Ive been grinding platinum on and off for the last 7 years to find stuff like this.

[@JustCallMeKnux]

Thanks for doing all this work and posting it to KZbin so us fans can see. Hopefully this video gets a lot of views ❤❤❤

[@kyle412]

Great video! Could you make a video about the Pokeathlon trophies in Heartgold and Soulsilver? I played the Pokeathlon a lot as a kid but I didn’t get anywhere close to unlocking all 40 trophies. It requires you to play the Pokeathlon literally hundreds of times.

[@F1ghtGam3r]

On FR/ LG on Four Island, you can see some pokedolls in Lorelei's house & an additional 8 dolls are added for every 25 times you enter the hall if fame.

[@tdottosama]

The old games had so much attention to detail. Its one of the many things I miss dearly from them.

[@greysen212]

This level of pokescience should net you a professor tree name.

[@Thieverpedia]

How much of a win streak would I need to get for my dad to show up? Haven't seen him since he left to get Moomoo Milk.

[@Lar_me]

10,000, but only a 0.5% chance of appearing every time you soft-reset (this happens automatically every time you wake up in the morning)

[@BigNation1]

I can appreciate the effort that went into this project. You learn something new everyday with this Generation! I have the guidebook myself, saw this information but never thought much of it back then. It's cool to see this documented and come to fruition. Great work!

[@Landofwolves666]

Congrats!! I loved this

[@Etch]

I love you

[@bladerdj3503]

I love how I keep learning new things about these games since I have revisited them a few years ago. Just how much stuff really is in these games man.

[@EpicPrawn]

Wow what a neat feature. I actually just recently found my old Heart Gold cartridge. Looks like I have something to strive for in a new playthrough.

[@thisismyaltaccount4195]

Well done and huge congrats for being the first to document this! It makes me really happy to see older games still getting attention and new things being found and properly documented! I actually just saw a FOYT Pokemon jump minigame video, and this popped up in my recommended! Can't wait to see more you

[@Lemonicii]

3:20 Weavile is winnable with Focus Sash Garchomp, it's just a massive dice roll. You have to use Fire Fang, not miss, and get the burn

[@WulfilaBelmont]

The KZbin algorithm has blessed me with another fascinating find from the pokemon world. Thanks mate!

[@13luken]

What a video!!!! So cool to learn something new

[@jpcsdutra]

Lorelei collecting dolls after every so many League wipes; the convoluted mess that is RSE secret base collectibles; and now this. If Game Freak put the same effort into actual content as they do into the tiny details no one will ever in their right mind get to, Pokémon could get actually nominated for Game of the Year sometimes.

[@NikkiLayne]

Pure insanity that someone actually went through the effort of getting this footage. Take my sub, you've earned it

[@arenten]

Sounds like a new Johnstone video is incoming, great job documenting this!

[@jakisrandom1]

wow, i remember hearing that your mom can become your fan in the battle frontier in hg/ss if you battle enough but i couldnt find any more info so i thought it just was a hoax

[@poketrekkie]

You're getting a subscribe for this and the DPP honey tree video, those are so cool and unique

[@neji10000000]

Sick video dude that's awesome

[@chavezraul6879]

Oak dialogue it's perfect, it captures it's personality and interests and, therefore, his amazement pretty well