They revived a god. Now they have defeated a god. It was the only way.
As some of you know, ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘ had thousands of people banding together to control a single Pokemon trainer — first, in a modified version of Pokémon Red, and later in a modified version of Pokémon Crystal. The Crystal run took a surprising turn this weekend when players challenged Red, the protagonist from Pokémon Red. Instead of having the usual team of a Pikachu, an Espeon, a Snorlax, a Venusaur, a Charizard, and a Blastoise, Red had the team that Twitch acquired during their earlier run — a Zapdos, Pidgeot, Venemoth, Lapras, Nidoking, and of course, the revived Helix fossil, Omastar. It was as if Twitch was facing off against itself, amazingly enough.
Initially, the new team in Crystal — which is composed of a Steelix, a Raticate, a Dragonite, an Espeon, a Feraligatr, and a Pidgeot — was no match for Red. But after seven losses against Red, Twitch players finally persevered. You can watch the footage of their win, which was captured by icymate, above. The good news is that it includes the chat at the time, so you can see how people were reacting as the battle occurred. That’s great, because let’s face it, the chat is one of the best aspects of the stream.
The twenty minute match was intense, and full of awesome moments — you should watch it!
As for what’s next with ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’, a counter on the stream indicates that a run of Pokémon Emerald will occur in about six days, which gives time for people to take a breather and hopefully make all sorts of awesome art about the final battle. We’ll keep you updated on anything cool that happens, of course. Hopefully the Emerald run will have more neat things that are only possible if the streamer modifies the game a little bit, as they did with the Red trainer’s Pokemon in this run. For now the stream continues to let players play Crystal, which means that Twitch is free to pursue side-quests such as capturing the legendary dogs and re-challenging the Elite Four. The bulk of the game, however, can now be considered to be beaten.
And if you’re curious about how players actually manage to make progress like this, despite the chaos of having thousands of people control a single character, make sure to read this. Or, if you’re curious as to why the Helix fossil became such a big meme in the first run of ‘Twitch Plays Pokemon,’ you should read this. The gist of it is, in the first run, having so many players try to control a trainer meant that the stream would often accidentally go into the wrong menus. One of these menus contained the Helix fossil — making it seem as if Twitch players were consulting the Helix fossil for guidance. The Helix fossil then started being considered a holy deity of sorts — but now, it’s simply a ‘mon that the stream has defeated.
Leave a Reply