Gotta Catch 'Em All...in 72 Hours!

[Starry Might]

Speed Gamers want to catch every Pokémon

The Speed Gamers, a group of video game enthusiasts who play for marathon hours to raise money for charities, have announced they will attempt to capture every Pokémon available in North America during 72 straight hours beginning 5 p.m. CST Dec. 19. The gamers will donate proceeds raised during the fundraiser to ACT Today, a nonprofit supporter of people affected by autism.

There are 491 Pokémon currently available in North America, beginning with Bulbasaur and ending with Darkrai. To reach the goal, the gamers said they will begin new files of Pokémon FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, XD: Gale of Darkness, Colosseum and its bonus discs, Pokémon Ranger and My Pokémon Ranch. The Pokémon then will be transferred to a single game cartridge to complete the National Dex.

During the marathon, the group's blog will host a live Web cast of two games being played at a time. The blog will also host a checklist of how many Pokémon the gamers have caught.

Original Link

I read this last week (I think). Sounds pretty cool, huh?

Apparently, they've done marathons of other games series (e.g. "Mario") in the past, too.

[MToolen]

That's quite the undertaking. I'm not much of a speed gamer myself, usually racking up three-digit hour totals on games I'm barely halfway done with. I wish them only the best for the good they're doing in this world.

[DarkestLight]

Id be down for that . Its possible. :O

[Heald]

I'd be absolutely pants at this. I have the absolute worst luck in the world, and it took me absolutely ages to find anything in most of the games that wasn't incredibly common (e.g. Zubat, Geodude, Pidgey and Pidgey-clones etc.).

[MToolen]

Absolutely pants? I've never heard that expression before. And I've heard some pretty crazy ones.

[Heald]

It's British for 'terrible'.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

How on earth can a person enjoy a game in so little time? OK, that was a stupid question. I myself just like to play with time, resulting in other people wondering "Why haven't you finished the game yet?". However, interesting this is.

They did this with Mario and there was a topic in Other Videogame forum. Or was it another organization?

Also, we all agree it's cool to suport charities this way, don't we?

[PancaKe]

Ah. I wish I was playing now.

Although this would have been easier if they did it 10 years ago.

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

I think it took me about 150 hours of playing to catch them all, playing through five or six different Pokémon games. Of course this excludes the event-only Pokémon. So I'd be no match for these gamers.

Honestly I wouldn't have the time to train my own Pokémon-gaming skills to get any faster than that. And as Heald kinda said, you need some luck too.

The only game I could do a speedrun in is the original Castlevania on the NES. I can beat that in a good 15 minutes if I blindly rush through it.

[Starry Might]

Ah. I wish I was playing now.

Although this would have been easier if they did it 10 years ago.

Too true.

[classy_cat18]

Definitely. 150 is easier than 491.

And they're going to have a field day with Mespirit and Cresselia.

[Dark Sage]

Definitely. 150 is easier than 491.

And they're going to have a field day with Mespirit and Cresselia.

I had to train a Pokemon specifically to catch those two. It was a Gengar with maxed-out Speed who knew Mean Look and and Hypnosis. Even so, it took a few tries each time.

[DarkestLight]

o.O Wobbuffet/Wynaut FTW :O?

[Dark Sage]

Problem with Wobbuffet in that situation is, it might KO the Pokemon accidentally. Its offensive moves are too powerful. You need to chip away at the a Pokemon's health little by little if you want to catch it.

[Jeff]

Get something really strong with false swipe for the first encounter, then Wobby to hold them there while you chuck balls for the second. Repeat.

[Blademaster]

At least Mesprit and Cresselia don't learn Roar... unlike CERTAIN Pokemon that LOVE to run from you the entire game...

Latios and Latias... I forget what they knew.

Also, it said that there're only 491 Pokemon in America... Haven't they released Shaymin and Arceus YET?! Jesus Christ, Nintendo, throw us a BONE already...

[classy_cat18]

At least Mesprit and Cresselia don't learn Roar... unlike CERTAIN Pokemon that LOVE to run from you the entire game...

Latios and Latias... I forget what they knew.

Also, it said that there're only 491 Pokemon in America... Haven't they released Shaymin and Arceus YET?! Jesus Christ, Nintendo, throw us a BONE already...

They like to release the event Pokemon alongside the movies they star in.

[Dark Sage]

I actually found Azelf the hardest capture of the three Mirages, even though it doesn't run away. Mostly because it knows Uproar, which made it almost impossible for me to put it to sleep!

[The Blue Avenger]

These guys also did a speedrun of the entire Mother series. Therefore, I support them by default.

[Crystalmaster Mike]

These gamers are in for a LOAD of fun, though they'll probably do their research first, to formulate a winning strategy for this. You know, like using a copy of Leaf Green or so to get all Kanto starters instead of trying to snag them on Colosseum/XD.
And in a way, getting the beasts from Colosseum might be easier than running after them through Kanto.
Since they're only aiming to fill the 'Dex on one game, after all...

[Jeff]

I can imagine catching 491 pokemon in 72 hours is going to take some sort of strategy along the lines of what game certain pokemon are going to be caught in. The fewer runners they have to go against, the better. Mew is going to be a pain, unless they play around with the Wii system time. I also wonder how they plan on getting Darkrai. AFAIK, the Darkrai mission in Ranger hasn't even been announced for North America.

[Dark Scizor]

The hell, Pancake is alive?

Also, that's pretty cool. I don't know how they could be bothered to play each game though, it takes around 8-10 hours to complete each, and that's with rushing through.

[DarkestLight]

...... ummm just off the top off my head...

5 3rd Gen games
6 Pokemon in Pal Park...
3 trade time (1 set of 6 trade every 24 hours)
That's 90 Pokemon they'd be able to ship in their designated time slow. Since they're starting from scratch-they have to beat Either D/P first in order to have a window of completing this challenge.

The starters from the three previous generations and the three birds/dog/Regis/elementals will need to be traded over, as will Lati@s, the 100 even crew (Which will present problems..) Ho-oh&Lugia and Deoxys (also a problem). Pfft htf I forgot Mewtwo. 30. Basically one full set of trades from the older games. Those are the only ones you'll need to trade for. Maybe they just have an Emerald stocked with the free Mew/Deoxys/Lugia/Ho-oh/Jirachi/Celebi giveaways already

They are better off trading over things like the fossils, so that's 5 more, since Digging might....take a while. They'll need Ranger for Manaphy/Phione-which'll be simple.

Diamond and Pearl have 10 families that are exclusive to each version. Slowpoke has a divergent evolution, so you'd need two Slowpoke in order to get Slowbro and Slowking...

Aside from that...You won't need much else from the older games, but I suspect they'll play them to grab the more annoying captures, like the Safari Zone mainstays and whatever comes up in Swarms/Pokeradar that's not easily catchable. (I'm thinking second slot hookup with all five games, so alot of Pokemon are caught that way..)

It's not really that bad x_x!

[Houndoom_Lover]

I could be a speed gamer. Drives the family mad. They'd buy me a game, and it take me a week to beat it ^_^

But on Pokemon- I wanna see that done! Go! Go, catch them aaaaall!

[Zallarion]

I'm not much of a speedgamer, I prioritize the stuff i have to do in the game I guess.. like.. first catch this pokémon i want.. then do this, do that.. etc.. and then finally beat the story mode.. it's more fun that way..

[Starry Might]

I was on Bulbapedia (among other sites) earlier today, and I saw that these guys didn't quite get them all, but they raised some sweet cash for the charity:

Speed Gamers catch 429 Pokémon

Effort raises $5,928.69 for ACT Today

The Speed Gamers caught 429 Pokémon out of a possible 491, but they still were able to raise $5,928.69 for autism organization ACT Today. The group's goal was to raise $5,000.

TSG received 243 entries in their Fan Art contest, and NintendoPapercraft.com, which was paired with them, received almost too many paper craft entries to count.

Original Link

[Blademaster]

Which 62 did they miss?

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Which 62 did they miss?

Do they have nerve to say that? I mean if they missed some easy ones will they dare to reveal that? OK, perhaps geting every single Pokemon was too much for them, in such a short time 429 is enough, though it can be argued. We can also argue if it's the main idea here.

[Jeff]

I heard their ruby cart croaked, and that was the main reason they came up so short.

[DarkestLight]

That I can believe. Still an awesome attempt.

yeah Ruby cart died, they lost a bunch of Pokemon. They'll have a list in a few days of whom they tagged. I'm curious.

Also, they lost time with the whole Mt Battle Lvl 100 thing.

[palamon]

How on earth can a person enjoy a game in so little time? OK, that was a stupid question. I myself just like to play with time, resulting in other people wondering "Why haven't you finished the game yet?". However, interesting this is.

They did this with Mario and there was a topic in Other Videogame forum. Or was it another organization?

Also, we all agree it's cool to suport charities this way, don't we?

72 hours O.o

24
x3
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72 hours......
That was only 3 day's I couldn't enjoy just having a game for 3 days........