I’m not sure when timing starts, so I made sure to note when the Oak cutscene begins and ends, and when the Hall of Fame cutscene begins and ends. As far as I’m concerned the approximately 20-second period wasted on deleting the previous save file shouldn’t count towards the timing, but obviously I’m not the ultimate authority on this issue.

Oak appears at 00:00:22

Gained control of overworld avatar at about 00:00:56

Choosing a starter

Squirtle, as was said at AGDQ, is the only starter. I'd love to see a run where the runner mains a different pokemon though, but that's not a point against this run.

First rival battle

The runner had pretty good luck, no need for potions (though I completely agree that crappy luck here would warrant a reset).

Regarding the stats at lv. 6, I looked up a DV calculator on Psypoke and found that  the attack and special stats of 12 do indeed seem very favorable; as I attempted to account for the effort points gained from the first fight, it is likely that the possible DVs for our turtley friend here range from 10 to 15 for attack and from 8 to 15 for special (which is good, or potentially great, but more on that later). Note that even though I use the abbreviation "DVs", when actually using the calculator I am working with IVs (where DV = IV divided by 2 rounding down).

Delivering the parcel

It always bothers me when NPCs get in your way. Also, it's good that only one random encounter happened the whole way.

Back to Viridian

The runner mentioned that Squirty needs extra exp. to learn to harness bubbles capable of corroding rocks. While ignoring one rattata earlier and then fighting another appears to be a capricious decision, it's because the latter is at level 2. The runner also ignores a lv. 2 pidgey afterwards, since the runner only needed one sacrificial victim to satisfy his turtle's bloodlust.

Viridian Forest

It goes pretty smoothly up to the bug catcher, only one wild weedle dared to interrupt the runner prior to the unavoidable trainer battle. The trainer decides to be a jerk and infects Squirtalicious with generic poison disorder. Good thing the runner picked up an antidote earlier.

Pewter City gym

The runner forgoes fighting Brock's peon, walks a distance of several lightyears in a matter of seconds, and proceeds to drown the onix and geodude with pockets of air surrounded by soapy membranes.

Boulderbadge get. Shitty TM get.

Regarding the stat check at Lv. 11: the fact that the attack stat is at 19 is truly extraordinary (the same goes for the special stat at 19, which is apparently the maximum possible at this point). I decided to try to verify that these were legitimate stats and was initially concerned because the calculator I used (which was not very useful for what I was trying to do, as it turned out) informed me that under the given conditions, the attack stat should only have had a maximum of 18 at this point.

Without going into too much detail (since it's no longer necessary), my hypothesis was that either the runner cheated or the squirtle probably has a DV of 15, which I figured may be the case if I had overlooked something (and I most certainly did).

According to one of the other verifiers who is more knowledgeable about effort points than I am, the runner's weapon of choice gained enough stat exp. in the attack stat to have an attack stat of 19, given that the attack DV is 14 or 15. As it turns out, my hypothesis about the attack DV (given that there was no cheating) was right! The runner has been blessed with a powerful beast in this run, ladies and gents.

Pewter City store

The runner buys 3 monster balls, 3 antidotes, 10 potions, an escape rope, and a paralysis heal before leaving Pewter, leaving the runner with precisely 1 unit of pokecurrency. Which leaves me wondering, if people have to spend the rest of their lives paralyzed from the waist up (or in some cases from the neck up), how the hell do pokemon get over it so easily? Furthermore, how do they manage to get rid of pokemon poisoning so easily? Surely there's a pokemon out there that produces cyanide or carbon monoxide or something.

On the way to Mt. Moon

Hey! It's that trainer who would've left Squirtle for dead if given the chance! Or at least, I'd assume that, given that the runner only fought one trainer battle in the forest. Fortunately, it seems that just like Westley from The Princess Bride, Squirtle has developed an immunity to that particular trainer's weedle's poison through exposure.

"Shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!"

At this point, it's becoming obvious that our tiny-turtle friend here likes Tail Whip a little too much.

I think I'm beginning to see the cost of exercising restraint when given the opportunity to assault underleveled wild pokes like that rattata he nearly violated earlier.

"I don't believe it!"

Habeeb it, kid. Habeeb it.

And so the runner continues plowing through the queue of young, amateurish, and unsuspecting trainers, though he has to use an antidote (leaving him with 2). In the middle of one battle the runner does something quite obnoxious and shouts to no-one in particular, "I learned WATER GUN!" (I forgot to point out that he also did this earlier when Spritle learned BUBBLE). Way to take credit for your pokemon's achievements you jerk.

Next, the runner catches a  fly-slave, I mean a "pidgey", as they call them in Kanto, with one ball, even though its health was in the yellow. Good going! But then another one shows up just for the sake of being a killjoy, and as the penalty for avoiding a fifth trainer fight.

Lo and behold, a pokécenter! Does the runner go in to recover PP? Or the HP of that pidgey his increasingly formidable wartortle-in-the-making just maimed? This runner is too busy trying to beat Gary Motherfucking Oak in record time for that conservative nonsense.

Into the cave he goes.

Mt. Moon

...And immediately he's greeted by one of those goddamned bats, or "Zubats" as they call them in regions not called Unova. At this point the random encounters are beginning to get more frequent, but wild zubats are assholes anyway.

TM 01 get! Wait, what's TM 01? (checks Bulbapedia)

It's Mega Punch, which has a power of 80 (which is pretty good this early in the game, even without STAB) and a default accuracy of 85%, which is not too bad in the short run, but in an SS this can screw you over, especially considering that moves with a default accuracy of 100% in Gen. I actually have a 1/256 chance of missing (including moves that are supposed to hit regardless of accuracy, like Swift).

The runner proceeds to replace Tackle, which has a power of 35 (much worse) and 95% accuracy (significantly better), with MEGA PUNCH, which the runner himself takes credit for learning once again.

The runner continues to be ambushed by zubats, who seem hellbent on punishing him for stealing their TM like Indiana Jones gets punished for stealing some sacred idols.

And then Paras shows up for some reason. The runner takes out his anger on the mushroom-laden insect by testing out his new technique DBZ-style. The only possible justification for this (pseudo?)random act of violence is that parases have a higher base experience yield than zubats. But then again, geodudes' base exp. yield is higher than parases', and the runner ignored the geodudes that appeared (in some cases, they also had higher levels). So the choice to kill paras was probably the same sort of split-second decision that is associated with police or military work. Also, regarding the fact that paras went down in one hit: the attack DV definitely had much to do with this, and as we'll see soon, this is perhaps the runner's greatest asset.

And the steady stream of zubats keeps coming. It's like they're stalking the runner or something.

Oh yeah, I forgot Team Rocket was here. No matter, only this one battle is required before the fossil-related one. All goes smoothly.

"What? I is evolving?"

That's "I am evolving", not "is". I may be a grammar cop but good lord, the runner is so hell-bent on taking credit for his turtle employee's labor, that he went out of his way to name the poor bastard "I" to stroke his own ego (typical for the bourgeoisie to do this sort of thing; taking credit for everything and doing nothing but ordering everyone around).

WarioTortle get!

And now to coerce the poor, hard-working fossil maniac into giving up one of his newly found fossils. The super nerd tries to fight back but only fails to see just how persuasive argumentum ad baculum really is. The runner gets a helix fossil for his efforts, a fossil he ends up never using. I hope you're proud of yourself for breaking a man whose only crime was making an honest living and hoarding the fruits of his labor from a criminal syndicate.

The runner then continues to the exit, but not before more interruptions from everyone's favorite troll, zubat.

Cerulean gym

The runner ignores what little Route 4 has to offer and beelines to Misty's gym, which is an odd decision since WarKoopa is only at lv. 17 and his most powerful weapon, Mega Punch, is also the least accurate. Combine that with the fact that Water Gun and Bubble are weakened by "not very effective" more than they are strenghtened by STAB (the power of Water Gun, the stronger STAB move, is reduced to 30).

The possibility of something going horribly wrong may rear its ugly head. Once again, the runner believes himself to be badass enough to go without PP recovery and just uses a couple of potions. The fly slave must be pretty pissed by now.

"I'm more than good enough for you! Misty can wait!"

Right as the runner walks up to approach Misty, Misty's jealous friend intercepts him to see if he's worthy. The one thing I forgot about in the previous paragraph is Tail Whip. This will probably compensate for Mega Punch being underpowered. The worst that happens is that Mega Punch misses once, and WarTankle is hardly affected; considering this is a single-segment, the laws of probability could not be ignored, but all things considered the runner only lost a few seconds. What's more noteworthy is that the runner's pet doesn't start hitting himself to get attention when the goldfish tempts him to. Clearly the runner remembered to give Warty his antidepressant meds.

"You overwhelmed me!"

*insert tasteless sex joke here*

And so, having conquered Misty's underling like the sex fiend he is, the runner turns his eyes to Misty, who isn't intimidated in the slightest. Can Misty tame this beastly runner? Considering her strategy is an "all out offensive", I wouldn't see why not. The runner opens by immediately negating an X Defend with Tail Whip. I was initially convinced at this point that Tail Whip had earned tenure in WarSweeple's moveset for a while. Staryu and Starmie prove to be much more formidable foes than Brock's lackeys, but the runner takes it in stride and endures hits long enough (having to use a couple of potions, though) to outlast the starfish.

"Wow! You're too much!"

Would I be allowed to call myself any form of feminist if I continued making folly out of gender-based conflicts with what could be interpreted as a misogynist tone? Well at least I haven't used the word "rape" a hundred times already, thus cheapening the word and robbing rape victims of the pathos their situations deserve.

In any case, Cascadebadge get. TM Bubblebeam get.

On the way to Nugget Bridge

What I said earlier about Tail Whip is apparently a bunch of bullcrap, as it appears to have been replaced with Bubblebeam.

Oh, now you use the pokécenter. Running just a little low on PP, are we? Pidgey told me to tell the runner to screw himself.

Rival Battle

Oh, okay, this pretty much justifies the pokécenter visit. Sorry pidgey, I'm going to have to side with the runner this time. Will Mega Punch and BubbleBeam be enough to fend off the future final boss?

The thing that bothers me about the rival battles in speedruns is that the game expects me to believe that in the time it takes the player to raise one pokemon to a certain level, the rival managed to raise a whole team of pokes to almost the same level. Fuck you Gary, I know you probably used rare candies.

And the fight starts with Sand Attack making BubbleBeam (a move with 100% accuracy) miss. Pidgeotto has always been a troll with Sand Attack. It seems the runner is afraid that this is sufficient setup for Gary to curbstomp him, so he sacrifices his fly-slave to save face, the heartless bastard.

As soon as pidgeotto is disposed of, it becomes apparent that Gary was so cocky that he expected the portly bird to sweep. He sends out his poor Abra (who can't even attack) and his weakling rattata (which, as it turns out, will soon die) before trying to get things under control with his yet-to-evolve Bulbous-Ore. It turns out that at this point, WarMongle is beginning to 2HKO or OHKO everything in its path (as it should, considering its insanely high attack and special stats), so even the one that should have knocked the runner down a peg or two falls quickly.

Nugget Bridge

Ah yes, these annoying Ess-Oh-Bees expect the runner to take them seriously. What with the first trainer having unevolved bugs over level 9 and such, I'd certainly have cause to worry.

All of the battles, including the one with the Rocket recruiter, are completely uneventful and just a drain on WarSweeper's PP and a waste of the runner's time.

As a master of argumenti ad baculum, the runner is not threatened by half-assed attempts at coercion.

Approaching Bill's house

Nugget Bridge Part Deux: Electric Boogaloo! Well, at least not all of the fights here are required. Once again, WarTurkey sweeps like a champion.

"Hi! My boy friend is cool!"

The question is, will he be cool once he reaches puberty and starts trying to grope you?

"I'm a [pretty] cool guy. I've got a girlfriend [and I doesn't afraid of anything]!"

cool story bro

"I is trying to learn BITE!"

Will you stop it? I swear the runner is doing this on purpose.

In any case, the runner replaces Bubble, at this point the weakest move in his arsenal. Causing the enemy to flinch is a much-needed strategy when trying to eliminate bad luck.

So the runner finally reaches Bill's place, only to discover an abomination when all he wants is to get a ticket for the boat that has Cut on it. Didn't Bill ever watch The Fly? Also, how could he trust a stranger to not fuck with him further instead of doing the right thing and returning him to normal? I guess I have Mean World Syndrome or something.

S.S. Ticket get!

Heading to Vermilion

The runner saves time by using an escape rope while inside Bill's house to warp right to the Cerulean pokécenter. He restores PP again and revives a furious pidgey. If this weren't Gen I and if Pidgey weren't underleveled, it'd be a prime candidate for the Frustration TM by now.

The runner fights the guy in Cerulean who stole Dig now. I don't know if this fight is optional or not, but Dig comes in handy, especially with Lt. Surge coming up (even if it takes two turns); it also eliminates the need to buy escape ropes. As a matter of fact he could have tried catching that paras he beat up earlier, since paras can be both a Dig and Cut slave, but for reasons that will be explained later this suggestion is pointless.

"I found [a completely invisible] Full Restore!"

Lucky bastard. In fact, that seems a bit too lucky. According to Bulbapedia there's always a full restore in this exact location, so it's not suspect (my initial knowledge of hidden items in the underground below Saffron was mostly based on the FireRed/LeafGreen versions, so I assumed mistakenly that the hidden items were placed randomly in Gen I as well).

As soon as the runner resurfaces he's interrupted by not one, but two pidgeys while dodging trainers. He doesn't have time for that bullshit.
Then a bellsprout shows up. Turns out this is a perfect candidate for the esteemed title of Cut-Slave, so the runner quickly catches it, once again only needing one ball. The mighty Blue one gets poisoned though, but that's nothing an antidote won't fix.

Anyway, before he can reach Vermilion he has to fight a couple of mandatory trainer battles. At this point, watching the runner massacre the NPCs is starting to get monotonous. Even the second trainer's raticate, which can wreck your shit if you're not careful (Hyper Fang is a bitch), is owned quickly thanks to a brain-fart that results in the baffling decision to use Tail whip.

Vermilion shop

The runner stops to buy more items. He buys 3 super potions, and 3 repels (god knows how much everyone needs these in an SS run).

S.S. Anne

"I flashed the S.S. Ticket!"

What, do you flash it like it's your naughty parts or something?

Instead of going straight to Gary and the Captain to get Cut as one would expect in a segmented run or TAS, the runner chooses to go into one of the cabins near the entrance/exit and teaches Dig to Warchortle, since the monster's attack is so high and is thus guaranteed to ruin any electric types that try to mess with it.

As I mentioned earlier, the fact that Dig takes two turns is a big disadvantage for the move. It makes an excellent defensive move, especially for a water type. With the electric-type gym coming up, TM 28 is a godsend, for it guarantees that WarTourney can sweep Lt. Surge with relative ease, barring some shitty accuracy-related luck.

In any case, the runner gets rid of Water Gun since it's weaker than BubbleBeam. No complaints.

The runner goes on to initiate a battle so that he can reach TM 08, and does so in such a way that the first trainer he battles blocks the view of the second (thus evading her)! That's really clever. TM 08 contains Body Slam, a normal type move with a power of 85 and 100% accuracy. The runner deletes Mega Punch promptly (both weaker and less accurate), inarguably the smartest decision. The added bonus of the possibility of causing paralysis makes this a killer move for an SS.

Onto the next Rival Battle

What amuses me here is that Pidgeotto has only grown by one level. I guess Gary ran out of rare candies and had to train the hard way.

Wait a minute...what the hell is up with the lv. 16 Raticate? I realize that there was also another trainer with a lv. 16 raticate, but how is it possible? The only plausible explanation is that Gary traded his rattata 3 years into the future and instructed Ethan (a.k.a. Gold) to take it to the Lake of Rage before stopping Team Rocket, in return for exclusive access to pokedex info on the Bulbasaur family (and somehow that kid north of Vermilion got involved). What a prick; that Raticate's going to die from radiation exposure now, you greedy fuck.

Oh look, Kadabra might actually be threatening now! Oh wait, I almost forgot about its horrendously low phys. defense.

Look at WarTankle take that super effective vine whip like it's nothing. It makes me proud.

"Humph! At least you're raising your pokemon!"

Go to hell, Gary.

Wrapping up S.S. Anne

No comment on the back-rubbing. HM Cut get!

Wait a minute...isn't Gary still on the boat? Where the hell could he be going? And how the hell does he get back to Kanto so soon? Lucky sonuvabitch must be headed for the Sevii Islands, or Rijon, or even Hoenn possibly.

Another question I have is: How does the boat get around the Bicycle Path? There can't be a drawbridge there, it's very obviously a man-made land bridge! I should know since I live near Boston!

Vermilion Gym

The runner uses a super potion real quick to prep Warty for the gym in case things, in defiance of all probability, get hairy.

The poor bellsprout is not given any means of HP recovery, and for its trouble is forced to learn the very shitty Cut HM (which I think is designed to cripple a pokemon towards the late game) and forget Vine Whip, effectively castrating it.

Predictably, the runner gets screwed by the randomly-placed trash cans and is almost forced to fight otherwise avoidable trainers. Fortunately, the runner seems to have developed an effective brute force algorithm and manages to get to the war buff himself unmolested, after finding the first switch a second time.

When I predicted how the Surge match would go, I overestimated WarTankle's speed. Fortunately, since the runner has been blessed with optimal DVs, the starter continues to endure attacks like it's nothing. I was apparently also wrong about spamming Dig; the pikachu was so weak that a single Body Slam OHKO'd it.

Thunderbadge get. Thunderbolt TM get.

Wrapping up Vermilion

That guy with the Rapidash...god he's creepy. If My Little Pony existed as an IP in the pokemon world this dude would be a hardcore Brony, I guarantee it. Are you taking notes, Schwaumlaut?

Bike Voucher get. Emotional Scar get.

Getting the Bike

And now the reason for not entering Vermilion's pokécenter is crystal clear: Dig + indoors = instant warp to Cerulean.

Bellsprout finally gets its reward...and the WarSweeper gets its PP refilled. Hurray.

Bike get.

Approaching Rock Tunnel

I freaking hate the Rock Tunnel, and I hate the route that leads to it. Let's get this over with...

The first trainer on this route was almost uneventful, except for the fact that Warty gets poisoned and the runner uses his last antidote. He will need to be careful around poison types.

"Go, my super bug pokemon!"

Unless you live in Unova or Sinnoh, if you say this you are a deluded nitwit.

A lv. 20 caterpie? That qualifies as animal abuse ladies and gentlemen.

Rock Tunnel

Notice that the runner skips a nominally required voyage through Diglett's Cave to reach the house where one of Prof. Oak's cronies gives you Flash only if you've caught at least 10 species of pokemon. The runner, emulating speedrunners before him, says "screw that noise" and proceeds through the dark cave without it. I'm going to assume he has the path and trainer placements memorized.

Also, at this point, being really sick of random encounters he uses a repel. A wise move indeed, especially for an SS.

For a while, the trainer battles go smoothly, in spite of having to deal with a few slowpokes, until he gets poisoned. What does the runner do, since he's all out of bubble gum antidotes? He kicks ass uses the full restore. Since this is pretty much the only way to keep the run going (and up to this point it's going pretty smoothly), I'm not going to protest it. I just think it sucks that he had to use such a valuable item this early.

Not nearly as upset about this as I am, the runner stoically continues forward, using his other two repels in the process and routinely sweeping trainers.
Now he's finally outside. Max ether get!

En route to Celadon

Since the runner has no business being in the Pokemon Tower yet, the runner heads west to the home of the grass type gym, but not before a quick trainer battle. Runner makes short work of the gambler.

Elixir get (Bulbapedia says this is legit)!

Celadon City

First, a trip to the pokécenter to restore PP. I'm not sure if this one was absolutely necessary, but I'm not holding it against the runner.

As I suspected, the next stop is the Dept. Store to get Ice Beam. It was, without question, a water-type's best friend before the physical-special split. It will be used to crush Erika.

But first, the runner sells a few things, including: a paralyze heal; the nugget he got on Rt. 24; and the Thunderbolt and Bide TMs (they aren't going to be useful here). I'm not sure why the paralyze heal was sold, to be honest.

The runner then buys: a pokedoll for the marowak ghost in the Lavender Tower; 7 X Accuracys; 7 X Speeds; 6 X Attacks; 5 X Specials; two fresh waters (one for one of the Saffron guards, and the other for the thirsty girl who gives you Ice Beam); TM 05 (Mega Kick); and 8 super repels.

Also: Ice Beam get, fuck yes.

HM 02 Fly get!

After getting Fly, the runner teaches Mega Kick to WarTweetle (but not before forgetting that the cursor was on bellsprout, but it's not a big deal). Its power is a whopping 120, but its accuracy is 75%. Exchanging Body Slam for this can be risky in an SS. The runner likely knows what he's doing, since he just picked up seven X Accuracys.

"Pidgey learned FLY!"

Fly is a must in speedrunning any pokemon game. Especially since it's never too out of the way (unlike, say, Flash).

And then WarFrostle learns Ice Beam, deleting the now unremarkable Bite in the process.

Back to Lavender Town

Now the runner's ready for the tower. We don't need no freaking Silph Scope, all right?

Rival Battle

"Your pokemon don't look dead! I can at least make them faint! Let's go pal!"

This is probably the only point where Gary is presented as a sympathetic character. His raticate has just died and his apathetic aspie friend (that would be the player character, Satoshi) has to crash his parade and interrupt his much-needed mourning. Gary has just realized that he made a mistake cheating to get that raticate, and the more observant players are savvy to the subtle pathos.

Needless to say, the runner is thick-headed just like his player character's anime counterpart and proceeds like nothing's changed. That upsets Gary immensely.

The runner starts by negating Sand Attack with an X accuracy. Pidgeotto is actually quite predictable. Unfortunately, as the player raises Warty's special Pidgeotto prepares to troll the runner with more sand in the eye. However, the runner strikes back with Ice Beam. That's really cold, bro.

The Mega Kicks on gyarados were probably really lucky, since accuracy was still reduced by two. Good going! Also, I'm not entirely convinced that no rare candies were involved in acquiring that thing.

The runner is cocky enough to use Mega Kick on Growlithe. His gamble pays off. Kadabra and Ivysore go down without any trouble.

Climbing Lavender Tower

The runner uses another much-needed repel (since seeing a bunch of "ghosts" gets annoying quickly), and attempts to avoid a bunch of insane, superstitious women. Those few he cannot avoid he fights off with ease.

Free recovery in "purified zone"? The runner accepts this offer at absolutely no cost.

The runner is forced to pick up a rare candy on the way to the Marowak ghost to avoid trainers. Gary must've left it behind, to see if he could bring the runner to the dark side by tempting him to use the Missingno glitch and duplicate it 99 times. Since that's not allowed in a no major skips run, the runner doesn't take the bait.

In any case, the Silph Scope skip is completed (that's one hell of a tongue-twister!) by distracting the ghost with a pokedoll. The runner heads upstairs to bully some unsuspecting Rockets.

...But wait! One of the grunts' Drowzee actually slows things down significantly by landing a successful Hypnosis! The runner is forced to wait for WarSleeple to awaken, as he has no awakenings! If only he'd anticipated this! Approximately 20 seconds are wasted here, and this is probably one of the ugliest parts of the run.

Mr. Fuji get! Pokeflute get (which kinda sucks since this would've come in handy just a couple minutes ago)!

Silph Co.

The runner heads straight to Saffron armed with fresh water to keep the bloodthirsty guards at bay.

Before heading to the rival, the runner accesses the elevator to reach a room with some useful goodies inside, guarded by a feckless grunt. But first, a super potion recovery is in order.

I take back what I said about the grunt! This grunt opened with a lv. 33 machoke (the same level as WarTankle is at the moment)! But luck is with the runner right now, as a single ice beam freezes his opponent's monster.

So what was it the runner was after? A rare candy, apparently. While using these in bulk is a sign of ill integrity, occasionally indulging one's self with these is acceptable, and for the sake of speed it is a necessary evil.

Also, TM 26 (Earthquake) get! Seeing that Dig has been (somewhat) obsoleted by Fly, it can be replaced with Earthquake for quicker and greater damage in one turn. However, as we'll see soon, Dig is not what ends up being replaced by Earthquake (after all, the warping, I mean "escaping" abilities it offers are still quite useful).

"I found ELIXER [sic]!"

Before getting back on track and heading for the room with the rival in it, the runner uses the two rare candies he has and...

Blast-Toy get! Also, stat boost get.

Card Key get! I forgot that this was necessary to reach the rival, who blocks you in your path to Giovanni.

Silph Rival Battle

At this point Gary's feeling pretty smug again, doing such things as trash-talking the hilariously incompetent gangsters whom he won't lift a finger to help you drive out. Making matters worse is that it hasn't even been 20 minutes, yet his whole party has gained something ridiculous like 15 levels.

It seems Gary's given his Pidgeotto some steroids rare candies, as it's now a lv. 37 Pidgeot. Once again, X accuracy cancels out sand attack; that is, it would have if Pidgeot hadn't been forced to pay for its past hubris at that very moment. From there it's the typical X-item setup to avoid the single-segmenting pitfalls. The runner sweeps once AttackStoice's phys. attack is elevated to a ridiculous degree. Not even Pingasaur stood a chance.

Reaching Giovanni, Silph wrap-up

I guess I was wrong about Earthquake. The runner elects to remove Mega Kick (which just ran out of PP from the rival fight, by the way) instead of Dig. Either way Earthquake will make Giovanni easier.

Unexpectedly, the runner picks up Lapras. Why do this when BlastMoist can learn Surf? Surf is more powerful than BubbleBeam after all. Surf, as we'll see later, is not the reason why Lapras gets picked up.

One more grunt battle before the boss fight.

"So I! We meet again!"

What's with this "again" bullcrap? The runner only came here because one of your goons is blocking Sabrina's gym!

The runner then demolishes Giovanni's party, and warps out before the poison from that fight can affect MassVoice.

Saffron Gym

I'm not sure whether it would be faster to take a detour to the Saffron pokécenter so the runner would warp there instead of the one in Celadon, but I'm not about to investigate the possible time difference.

In any case, this gym is pretty simple so long as you know which warps to take and in what order. No hassle, just straight to the teenage witch known as Uri Geller.

The runner opens the fight by boosting speed, then earthquakes Kadabra's sorry ass. Since Mr. Mime can actually take a punch (thanks to Barrier), the runner must raise attack before continuing the sweep (note that he uses the last X attack here).

Marshbadge get. Useless TM 46 (Psywave) get.

Being smart, the runner digs out instead of taking the panel warp to the entrance.

Bicycle Path

And now, the reason for having used the Celadon pokécenter last becomes apparent (in his comments the runner refers to the Celadon pokécenter as a "hub", which makes sense). The runner promptly recovers there before assassinating Snorlax. He does this by...running away? Whatever works, I guess.

Like I mentioned earlier, the bicycle path is clearly a man-made land bridge! There's no flipping way S.S. Anne could get through here!

Fuchsia Gym
The couple of trainer battles required here go smoothly, even though the runner got poisoned, and since CrashNoise is overpowered from the leveling done in Saffron. I didn't realize he'd be tackling Erika so late...one would think she doesn't stand a chance at this point, but apparently by the time the runner actually gets around to fighting Erika the stoner, Ice Beam is just barely powerful enough to OHKO everything.

"Koga came from a long line of ninjas! What did you descend from?"

I always figured half the point of playing a nondescript avatar void of any distinguishing personality (i.e., a Mary Sue) was that the answer to this question is meant to remain indeterminate.

Before Koga starts, the runner uses max ether on Earthquake. This was almost certainly necessary since ground kicks poison's ass.

Anyway, Koga's fight starts with Clashchoice being poisoned at almost full health. This is actually a blessing in disguise; the reason why is that the runner won't be affected by toxic! What luck! (FYI: Toxic makes you badly poisoned, which means the poison damage increases every turn, whereas normal poison damage is constant.)

Learn Skull Bash? Nah, it's like Dig except it doesn't have as much type coverage and it leaves you open to attack (unlike in future gens, in Gen I it doesn't increase the user's phys. defense on the first turn).

Soulbadge get! TM 06 (Toxic) get!

The runner, almost surprisingly (though for reasons I already mentioned earlier), doesn't Dig out to reach Celadon quickly to get the long-overdue Rainbowbadge. Apparently he wants to get Safari Zone out of the way first.

Safari Zone

The runner recovers at the Fuchsia pokécenter to get rid of the poison.

He then pays a negligible fee to "join the hunt". If you've beaten this game before, you know it's not rare pokemon he's after, but HM 03 Surf.

This is made evident to anyone unfamiliar with the questing sequence when he uses a repel immediately.

I almost forgot about the Gold Teeth, which are needed for HM 04 Strength. Gold Teeth get!

And almost immediately after, HM Surf get!

The runner wastes no time and Digs back to the Fuchsia pokécenter.

Warden's house

Gives the teeth back; HM Strength get!

Surfing to Cinnabar

Just when I kept thinking that he's going to go beat Erika (that is, when I first watched the run and before I knew why), the runner keeps ignoring the Celadon Gym as if he were hell bent on avoiding it at all costs! Instead he flies to Pallet Town to take the short route to Cinnabar.

Surprisingly, MastMoist does in fact learn Surf, forgetting the weaker BubbleBeam. It's at this time when it becomes obvious that Lapras's role is not Surf-slave but Strength-slave.

Cinnabar Mansion

The game never explains why the gym is locked; the player is expected to just ignore it and use the mansion as an excuse for grinding. But we aren't in the mood for random encounters here, so have your repels ready. The runner certainly has his!

TM 14 (Blizzard) get! Wait, surely the runner doesn't plan on replacing Ice Beam, which is 100% accurate? This runner is the embodiment of the Hustle ability; he sacrifices accuracy in favor of greater power, since he has those oh-so-convenient X items to get by.

Secret Key get! And with that, the runner's business here is done. And the runner digs to Fuschia, since he never entered the Cinnabar pokécenter. The runner has to fly back to the island, though I suspect what the runner did might still be faster than walking over to the pokécenter prior to entering the mansion.

Cinnabar Gym

This gym is a breeze, just answer a bunch of easy quiz questions and you've reached Blaine.

Well actually, no; some of them are meant to fuck with you. For instance: "Caterpie evolves into Butterfree?" This is a trick question because of the ambiguous nature of the question. Caterpie doesn't evolve directly into Butterfree, it evolves into Metapod first. But then again I suspect questions like these are specifically designed to trip up critical thinkers like me, since we're more likely to kick the asses of Blaine's peons anyway.

"There are 9 certified Pokemon League badges?"
I swear, the cursor was on "Yes" the whole time, yet I'm willing to believe the runner pressed B there. It's also possible that this question is outdated, from before Uri Geller scared off Saffron's martial artists.

"Poliwag evolves 3 times?"
Yet another trick question! Does it mean that Poliwag has 3 evolutionary stages, or that it literally evolves 3 times? I have no idea because once again, the runner's cursor was on "Yes" the whole time!

"Are thunder moves effective against ground element-type POKéMON?"
Finally, an unambiguous question.

"Pokemon of the same kind and level are not identical?"
At this point, the tables have turned and the questions are now tripping up the people who thoughtlessly answered the last few questions with ease. Those who've just cruised through the game in Gen I may not have realized that movesets and stats are signs of individuality among pokemon of the same species.

"TM 28 contains Tombstoner?"
Game Freak may not have realized it, but the writer of this question has probably screwed over so many Gen III players who thought it meant Rock Tomb.

"Hah! You better have Burn Heal!"

The runner has something better than that. It's called super effective STAB Surf (fun fact: super effective STAB moves are 3 times as powerful as normal).

*watches the carnage*

"Blaine used Super Potion on Arcanine!"

What the hell? He just sent it out and it was at full health!

Volcanobadge get. Fire Blast...denied (inventory is full!). As it turns out the runner had full inventory here on purpose to skip some text (after all, it's not like Blastoise can learn Fire Blast).

Once again, the runner digs out.

Celadon Gym

When I first watched this, I was worried he'd forgotten this one. At this point it ought to be easy as pie.

"Very well, but I shall not lose."

*watches the carnage again*

Maybe if the runner had come here earlier than he was supposed to, you might have stood a chance, you adorably naive stoner.
Rainbowbadge get! Mega Drain...also denied. Sorry Erika, the runner's too good for your TM apparently.

Viridian Gym (a.k.a. Giovanni's hideout)

"The truly talented win with style!"

Does sweeping as quickly as possible count?

"I lost my grip!"

I didn't need to hear that, you weirdo.

The runner uses the classic strategy of skipping a bunch of trainer fights by exiting the gym so that the "Karate King" is no longer blocking the shortcut.

I approve.

Let's see if Giovanni poses a threat now that he's cheated to gain a few levels for every member of his party in the time it took the runner to gain the same amount for Sweeps McGee...

*watches the carnage for a third time*

Fun fact: pokemon like rhyhorn have a double-weakness to grass and water attacks (both rock and ground have these weaknesses), so STAB Surf actually hurts it six times as much as normal. And you thought the gangster even had a remote chance of winning.

Effortless Earthbadge get. TM 27 (Fissure) get! I suspect the runner will (ab)use this in conjunction with X accuracies. The runner replaces Dig, which is no longer useful by now, with Fissure. More questionably, the runner replaces the reliable Earthquake with the slightly more powerful yet less accurate Blizzard.

Penultimate Rival battle

"Then I'll whip you as warmup for the Pokemon League!"

I think it's safe to say Gary's already gotten through Victory Road by now and simply backtracked with the specific purpose of pissing off the runner before challenging the Elite Four. Even more annoying is that the runner is intercepted by a rattata before the rival is reached, which is kind of lame. Another few seconds lost I guess.

Pidgeot, Sweeps McGee is tired of your cheap bullshit. More X item spam followed by a sweep. What I love about this battle is that the runner doesn't even care that he's thrown caution to the wind at this point. He ends up sweeping Gary using the least accurate moves in his arsenal, not necessarily because he has to, but just because he can (though it’s probably faster anyway). Improbably successful Blizzard and Fissure for the win. It's as if he's telling Gary, "I'm invincible motherfucker. Just try to mess with I here with your explicitly hacked cretins and I'll break their balls, then yours."

"You need more practice!"

Just shut up Gary, you just got thoroughly spanked by this guy. Your condescending facade just barely obscures the insecure sore loser that you really are.

Victory Road

Another interruption on Route 22? Blasphemy! Fortunately our lord and savior Blast-Sweeper is feeling unusually merciful today...

Moving on to the Strength puzzles...good lord I hate how tedious these are. At least there aren't very many required trainer fights.

The 1337 4

Another ugly, but relatively small mistake happens here; the runner accidentally deposits Blaster-Master when attempting to deposit the HM slaves instead to save time at the Hall of Fame cutscene.

Moving on...*hoping for carnage*

The runner heals up and buys 5 full restores before the ice queen Lorelei. Her existence in this game makes her one of the early examples of fanservice in the pokemon series, if not at least retroactively (considering that very few adults were playing this game when it was new).

"Freezing moves are powerful!"

100% agreed.

For the first time in what seems like ages, the Cannon-Meister is underleveled due to a grinding deficiency in its training diet. No matter; X accuracy spam and overpowered moves to the rescue (again)! OHKOs are all over the damn place.

Bruno wouldn't have stood a chance in the absence of fissure, what makes anyone think his overemphasis on physical power (esp. in Gen I, when Special ruled everything) is going to be intimidating?

X accuracy + surf = redundant. Surely it's setup for one of the fighting type opponents? Nope, not initially, for hitmonchan gets surfed too. The runner spams Surf until Machamp, which is probably the only threat, being the highest-leveled. Machamp dies to Fissure, which is probably what the X accuracy was for.

Considering how much Sweeps here likes ground moves, does Agatha, the de facto Poison type L337 Four member, stand a snowball's chance in hell? Don't you believe it!

Though Blasty starts off hurting itself because it is momentarily affected by an emo disorder, the confusion wears off shortly after the X item spam, so little time is lost. Also noteworthy was the runner's overall good luck against the attempted hypnosis prior to the sweep.

Lance, predictably, is allergic to Ice Beam spam. But to ensure nothing goes nuts, a full restore is used first.

It turns out the full restore was totally necessary, as Tank-Toise almost gets screwed by gyarados's Hyper Beam. Gyarados, of course, is the only one of Lance's pokemon not weak to ice or water, so it understandably takes a 3HKO; the lengthy beginning of the match is a perfect excuse for more X item setup.

Champion Battle

Alright, time to take on Gary at full power. Can the runner pull it off quickly?

Well, first and foremost, he needs to use an elixir he found earlier, and one more full restore to bring the ShellShocker back to full strength, since Lance's battle ended with the mighty turtle just about ready to fall at Gary's hands.

After that, the one-pokemon army is about to enter what will be its (and the runner's) crowning moment of awesome...

"I am the most powerful trainer in the world!"

You mean the Kanto/Johto region. You only have jurisdiction over a chunk of Japan, you egotistical loon. Beat Cynthia and I might consider taking that claim seriously.

The battle starts with X item spam. Pidgeot, at this point a failure of a troll, tries to screw the runner by using Whirlwind to bring out one of his HM slaves. There are two problems with this: first of all, Gary didn't anticipate the possibility that the runner has enough balls to not need any sacrificial lambs for teh L337 4 and Champeen fights; the second problem is that Whirlwind never works in battle in Gen I! Using Abra's teleport in an earlier battle might have just been a brain fart, but this is beyond any explanation other than "I clearly haven't mastered Gen I mechanics, dur hurr".

And suddenly, battle animations. The game turns these on automatically for the final boss to make it more dramatic or some nonsense, so the time wasted on these animations is a fixed cost.

Almost needless to say, the runner sweeps once again. Unlike Lance's gyarados, Gary's gets his shit wrecked since it wasn't the opening opponent (though it's still a 3HKO). Pinessaure dies to Fissure (the runner didn't miss even once when using this move, which is damn impressive), and it's all over.

SDA defeats Cancer at 2:04:57

"You forgot to treat your pokemon with trust and love!"

See Gary, grabbin' peelz isn't the answer. Even with your extraordinary habit of raising an entire party within a 2 hour period, you failed to a guy who soloed with a BlastJoyce, whose winning tactic in the end was actually kind of cheap. With that said, the runner has set an interesting precedent, for the new champion is actually more vulnerable and lower-leveled than his predecessor's entire party.

"I" probably won't be holding his title for long, but it's blatant that his goal was to troll the pokemon league by exploiting its weaknesses (e.g., actually fighting fairly tends to leave you open to accuracy-boosted Fissure spam), rather than to become a part of it.

Hall of Fame cutscene begins at 2:05:49, ends at 2:06:10

Play Time says 2:04

Depending on when SDA timing begins and ends, this may be between 2:04:XX and 2:05:XX. If it's a 2:04:XX, it's probably much closer to 2:05 than 2:04.

Final Thoughts

Bad highlights:

The menu work could be optimized a bit more; I recall a few occasions where the runner selected the wrong pokemon when teaching TMs, and the occasion where he deposits Blasty when meaning to deposit everyone else is kind of sloppy.

In places where I expected the runner to sweep without any trouble, but where the runner encountered trouble (such as the one time in the tower where Warty fell asleep, which looked really bad and maybe could've been avoided), I was a bit disappointed. And then I remembered this was an SS of an RPG.

The runner makes a few seemingly questionable decisions regarding TMs (for instance, the detour taken to get Body Slam, which is only used a couple times before being replaced by Mega Kick, might not be necessary; even so it’s still better than Mega Punch). The runner also seems to prefer moves with greater power over those with greater accuracy (goodbye Earthquake, hello Blizzard), though this just bothers me for personal reasons since it's much riskier.

The runner's choice to put off the Celadon gym for so long seems really arbitrary (though the runner's reason for it makes it semi-justified); there are several missed opportunities to go there between the Lavender Tower and the Cinnabar gym, and I suspect the runner was probably trying to play it a little too safe even though he was already armed with Ice Beam and a few levels higher than Erika's pokemon; sweeping should have been a breeze since grass types are slow!

Good highlights:

This run improves the current Red SS by about half an hour, and I don't really see much room for improvement. I think sub-2 hours is possible using this strategy, but it would require everything to go perfectly.

Speaking of which, for an SS, not much went wrong. Confusion only happens a couple times, Sleep only happens once, and Paralysis never happens, though Poisoning happened a bit too frequently (fortunately, the runner got just enough recovery items for this to not be a big deal).

The runner's riskier TM-related decisions are justified by X-item spam at the beginnings of tougher matches. Blasty is almost never put in mortal danger during the X item setups. Virtually all the TMs he gets (except maybe for Body Slam) were worth the time spent going slightly out of the way to get them.

The luck for about 90% of the battles was totally perfect. It's just that the remaining 10% stick out more because they seem like anomalies in an ideal speed run. I'm so fixated on the negative at times, that I almost didn't notice that Fissure never misses once!

After having watched the whole video carefully (I spent maybe 12 hours watching this 2-hour video because I kept stopping to write this, and then another few hours to watch it again to edit my comments and make absolutely sure the lv. 6 and lv. 11 stats were legitimate), I think it's probably safe to say that no cheating happened here. I didn't examine the video closely enough to make absolutely sure that the PPs of every move were consistent the whole time, since the runner moves through the battle menu too fast for me to pause and check it every freaking time an attack is used, but I noticed nothing out of the ordinary, such as using Blizzard or Fissure six times in a row without PP recovery.

The video quality was decent, though I noticed that the screen was too blurry to see the names of the items in the items menu during Rock Tunnel (nevertheless I'm sure the video people like Nate can fix this and other more frequent but less disruptive instances of blurriness).The audio quality was, in a word, annoying. It was tolerable, sure, but only because I turned the volume down like it was suggested in the thread, thus minimizing the impact of the audio's scratchiness. I'm really hoping this can be fixed after the verification.

All things considered, including all the ugly flaws, I think this run deserves to pass the test, mostly due to its nearly optimal strategy (and especially if the video and audio quality can be fixed), and due to its very good luck with the attack and special stats.

Accept this bad larry.