The recent Switch releases of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen have drawn a massive increase in attention to the games that started it all, and a popular speedrunner says the influx of new players has yielded an unexpected benefit: "the biggest time save in nearly a decade of Pokemon speedrunning."
Pokemon FireRed streamer and current Elite 4 Round 2 speedrunning record holder Gunnermaniac explains the surprisingly simple trick in a new YouTube video, attributing the find to the Red and Green remakes' newfound popularity. "Without the new Switch release, this discovery probably never would've been found," he says.
The 2.68-second time save was discovered by speedrunner iamClemi, who tells Gunnermaniac he made the discovery during the days-long process of soft-resetting the game over and over in an effort to get the perfect Charmander at the beginning of the game. While doing this, he accidentally pressed the L button on his Switch, and the help menu popped up, interrupting the celebratory jingle that plays every time you acquire a new Pokemon.
At first, iamClemi assumed this was just some sort of audio bug, but when he made the same mistake a little later in the game while catching a Mankey, he learned that, by entering and quickly exiting the help menu at the right moment, you can skip the whole song-and-dance that plays when you catch a Pokemon, saving you 2.68 seconds each time and a potential total of 1.5 minutes each playthrough per Gunnermaniac's estimations. That's when iamClemi realized he had "found something groundbreaking," in Gunnermaniac's words.
"This was it. The discovery that was going to change FireRed Round 2 speedrunning forever," says Gunnermaniac. "This trick should honestly be called Clemi's skip because how incredible it is that he found and instantly realized the potential in what he had just discovered. Clemi's skip has completely insane implications for the FireRed Round 2 speedrun."
I went ahead and booted up my copy of Pokemon LeafGreen and successfully tested the skip. Honestly, I'm astounded it was only just recently discovered. I mean no disrespect, but there are speedrunners whose literal job it is to pick apart these games pixel by pixel and find ways to beat them more efficiently, and I just find it hilarious that the most significant skip in 10 years was just hiding behind the L button this entire time.
