History WebVideo / Pikasprey

* SadisticChoice: One of his Softlock Picking videos involves trapping the player in Cerulean City with no items, no money and only one Pokémon whose moveset won't be able to beat the rival, blocking off Route 24. The sadistic part is that the Pokémon in question is a Shiny Poliwhirl, which the player could trade to an NPC in Cerulean but likely won't want to, even when they have no other option besides restarting the game and losing the Shiny anyway.

** His attempt to beat ''VideoGame/PokemonCrystal'' with just a Ditto eventually became a purely-luck based game, one where everything had to go right for him to win a battle. This becomes UpToEleven when battling Red, as to even come close to winning, he needed to have impossible luck, such as every electric move hitting, crit-ing, ''and'' paralyzing.

* MoodWhiplash: One of the ''VideoGame/SonicExe'' fan-games played started off with a relatively creepy and interesting atmosphere, being a first-person adventure game...until a 3-D rendering of [=Sonic.Exe=] appeared in a flash, leaving Christian stunned and laughing.

** He makes a lot of shots aimed at ''VideoGame/SonicExe'' and its fans, referring to it as an abomination or similar.

** ''WebVideo/VGMyths'' made [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ylEp-uu3EU "Can You Beat Pokemon Without Getting Hit?"]] where [=Gamechamp3000=] attempted to complete a run of ''Pokémon Blue'' without taking any damage from opponents' attacks or status effects. Pikasprey, on invitation, joined in as a guest commentator to point out how ridiculous the challenge's premise was, observe quirks of enemy AI, and chip in as the voice of the rival character. Most of Christian's quips involve some variation of "Oh no. I lost again" in his usual deadpan voice. The final confrontation at the end of the game has Christian put on a BadassBoast that is an odd combination of deadpan and awesome.

** Picking a Smeargle as your starter on the open world ROM hack ''Pokémon Crystal Clear'' gives you a message from the modder, Shockslayer, which reads "But why would you do this?" and is signed off by Asprey.

Pikasprey [[note]]prounouced "Pik-aspree", not "Pika-spray"[[/note]], also known by his real name of Christian, is a [=YouTuber=] who makes videos about various Video Games, often for the purpose of reviewing, analysing, or playing them.

He has two separate Youtube channels and a [[https://www.twitch.tv/pikasprey Twitch channel]]:

* BaitAndSwitch: In the "BAD Mario Fan Games" video, Pikasprey introduces it as a video covering the topic his viewers have been "demanding I cover for a while now"... as a screencapped comment asking him to feature unused content in the fourth series of Pokemon games floats into view.

** ''WebVideo/VGMyths'' made [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ylEp-uu3EU "Can You Beat Pokemon Without Getting Hit?"]] where [=Gamechamp3000=] attempted to complete a run of ''Pokemon Blue'' without taking any damage from opponents' attacks or status effects. Pikasprey, on invitation, joined in as a guest commentator to point out how ridiculous the challenge's premise was, observe quirks of enemy AI, and chip in as the voice of the rival character. Most of Christian's quips involve some variation of "Oh no. I lost again" in his usual deadpan voice. The final confrontation at the end of the game has Christian put on a BadassBoast that is an odd combination of deadpan and awesome.
---> "And this is where it all comes to an end. No human being has the willpower to survive Viridian Forest power-levelling twice in one lifetime. There will be no more VG Myths. When people think of Pokemon challenge runs they will think only of ME. I’m about to end your entire career."
** Picking a Smeargle as your starter on the open world ROM hack ''Pokemon Crystal Clear'' gives you a message from the modder, Shockslayer, which reads "But why would you do this?" and is signed off by Asprey.

* {{Determinator}}: In some ''Pokemon'' playthroughs, he'll set some utterly brutal challenges for himself, but won't stop trying until he either succeeds or can no longer continue.

** Discussed in "Hidden Content: ''Mortal Combat'''s Insane Secret Characters", where he complains about how cryptic and hard it is to unlock the secret Jade and Smoke fights. It's then parodied, where he makes his own OriginalCharacter "Donny Rage", who can only be unlocked with an impossible series of steps, including "having an A in your first name".

** Revisited with his Graveler soft-lock for ''Pokemon Fire Red'' [[note]]where the player is stuck with a Graveler that can only use status moves before blowing itself up, preventing them from winning against a Rocket Grunt in Mt. Moon[[/note]]. The only way to get past the Rocket Grunt in the way is to cause his Pokemon to faint themselves with Struggle usage, which can only happen if Graveler spends enough turns without using up PP and causing itself to use Selfdestruct or Explosion. Pikasprey notes this is technically possible by paralyzing Graveler with the help of wild Paras using Stun Spore, and hoping that Graveler loses enough turns due to paralysis... but the sheer number of turns Graveler has to skip means that this is very unlikely to occur.
** Most of his Smeargle and Ditto-based runs end up involving this (as mentioned above). For example, when he played ''VideoGame/PokemonCrystal'' with a team of 6 Smeargle, he faced problems with Morty, the Ghost-type Gym Leader. Only half of his Smeargle could even damage Morty's Pokemon (due to only knowing Normal-type moves), and when he got to Morty's ace Gengar it kept killing his team. Christian's solution was to keep retrying the battle until one of his Smeargle managed to burn Gengar with Ember (which only has a 30% chance of happening). He won by stalling until Gengar finally succumbed to burn damage.

* RecordNeedleScratch: Plays during the review of ''Meteor The Hedgehog'' when he gets into the first battle and sees the amateurishly drawn OC he's fighting.

* SarcasmFailure: The opening cutscene of ''Mario and Sonic: Revenge Of The Deadly Six'' leaves him speechless, and he admits he'd run out of jokes to tell.

--> "If you're here, chances are you have an interest in ''Pokemon'', or unused content in games. Or you just typed "mediocrity" into the search bar, but either way, you've come to the right place."

** Christian's playthroughs of ''Pokemon'' games commonly involve a strict challenge for the sake of seeing if it can be done, with a basic rule being that he can't use healing items in battle. These challenges include:

*** Playing a game with only a team of six Smeargle, or a single Ditto, to use in battle.

** The "How To Become A Sonic Fan" video is a mockery of the ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' fandom.

* OldShame: Occasionally mentioned when discussing his videos on the Yellow channel during streams. In particular, Christian isn't a fan of how lackluster his first Castlevania videos on the Sorrow series are. He also feels his critique of ''Mario: The Music Box'' was overly mean-spirited, despite many responses - including one from the creator - assuring him that his criticisms were warranted.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Admits that against all odds, he actually enjoyed ''Uzi's Drugged Adventure'', despite how he found the humor to be immature. In that game, he also found the joke of a monster he was sent to kill having actually been dead for thousands of years pretty funny and clever.

* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: Invoked; in "Soft-Lock Picking", Christian goes out of his way to create traps that'll completely ruin his game. The trope is usually subverted, however, as the point is to try and ''escape'' these unwinnable situations without cheating, proving the game can be salvaged with enough patience and effort.

---> "Point is, I proved someone wrong on the internet. And at the end of the day, isn't that what really matters?"

** ''WebVideo/VGMyths'' made [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ylEp-uu3EU "Can You Beat Pokemon Without Getting Hit?"]] where Gamechamp3000 attempted to complete a run of ''Pokemon Blue'' without taking any damage from opponents' attacks or status effects. Pikasprey, on invitation, joined in as a guest commentator to point out how ridiculous the challenge's premise was, observe quirks of enemy AI, and chip in as the voice of the rival character. Most of Christian's quips involve some variation of "Oh no. I lost again" in his usual deadpan voice. The final confrontation at the end of the game has Christian put on a BadassBoast that is an odd combination of deadpan and awesome.

** ''WebVideo/Gamechamp3000'' ran a video where they attempted to complete a run of ''Pokemon Blue'' without taking any damage from opponents' attacks or status effects. Pikasprey, on invitation, joined in as a guest commentator to point out how ridiculous the challenge's premise was, observe quirks of enemy AI, and chip in as the voice of the rival character. Most of Christian's quips involve some variation of "Oh no. I lost again" in his usual deadpan voice. The final confrontation at the end of the game has Christian put on a BadassBoast that is an odd combination of deadpan and awesome.

* {{Catchphrase}}: Starts his videos with "Hello, internet users." Also tends to finish his videos with "My name is Pikasprey, and thanks for watching".

** "Soft-Lock Picking", where he purposefully makes a game [[invoked]]UnwinnableByInsanity, and then proceeds to find ways to escape the trap.

* UnwinnableByInsanity: Invoked; in "Soft-Lock Picking", Christian goes out of his way to create traps that'll completely ruin his game. The trope is usually subverted, however, as the point is to try and ''escape'' these unwinnable situations without cheating, proving the game can be salvaged with enough patience and effort.

** "Soft-Lock Picking", where he purposefully makes a game UnwinnableByInsanity, and then proceeds to find ways to escape the trap.

* PaletteSwap: Parodied with "Donny Rage", an OriginalCharacter who is nothing more than an all-red [[VideoGame/MortalKombat Johnny Cage]] sprite.

The games he features fit into a wide range, being anything from ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'' and ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'', to more obscure games like ''VideoGame/ConfessMyLove'', to fan games, rom-hacks, and parodies; The basic criteria is, if it'll be weird or challenging, he'll play it. This sometimes include setting his own challenges to push the limits of the game, exploiting glitches, or playing whatever his audience requests.

** ''WebVideo/Gamechamp3000'' ran a video where they attempted to win a run of ''Pokemon Blue'' without taking any damage from opponents' attacks or status effects. Pikasprey, on invitation, joined in as a guest commentator to point out how ridiculous the challenge's premise was, observe quirks of enemy AI, and chip in as the voice of the rival character. Most of Christian's quips involve some variation of "Oh no. I lost again" in his usual deadpan voice. The final confrontation at the end of the game has Christian put on a BadassBoast that is an odd combination of deadpan and awesome.

** Christian reserves his greatest disdain for games where it's clear that the developers put in minimal to no effort, particularly for commercially released products such as the Gameboy ports of ''Mortal Kombat''. ''Duel Masters: Kaijudo Showdown'' has him refuse to play the game after realizing the NPC dialogue comprises riddles from a joke book for kids, calling it "one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen in a video game".

** His attempt to win ''VideoGame/PokemonCrystal'' with just a Ditto eventually became a purely-luck based game, one where everything had to go right for him to win a battle. This becomes UpToEleven when battling Red, as to even come close to winning, he needed to have impossible luck, such as every electric move hitting, crit-ing, ''and'' paralyzing.

** Christian's playthroughs of ''Pokemon'' commonly involve a strict challenge for the sake of seeing if it can be done, with a basic rule being that he can't use healing items in battle. These challenges include:

* [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZJVzJk_24aefzpKAbqiP9Q Pikasprey Blue]]: A LetsPlay channel for himself and, occasionally, his brothers or his friend Trevor. Some videos involve multiple games with the same theme, such as ''Franchise/SuperMarioBrothers'' fan-games. Streams also get uploaded here. Games on "Blue" are often later discussed on...

* TheCameo: Christian has been invited as a guest on several channels, often referencing the challenge runs he's set for himself, or demonstrations involving exploiting game design loopholes.
** In an April Fool's joke, Pikasprey took over as narrator for ''False Swipe Gaming'''s video on Ditto's viability in competitive Pokemon.
** ''WebVideo/Gamechamp3000'' ran a video where they attempted to win a run of ''Pokemon Blue'' without taking any damage from opponents' attacks or status effects. Pikasprey, on invitation, joined in as a guest commentator to point out how ridiculous the challenge's premise was, observe quirks of enemy AI, and chip in as the voice of the rival character. Most of Christian's quips involve some variation of "Oh no. I lost again" in his usual deadpan voice. The final confrontation at the end of the game has Christian put on a BadassBoast that is an odd combination of deadpan and awesome.
---> "And this is where it all comes to an end. No human being has the willpower to survive Viridian Forest power-levelling twice in one lifetime. There will be no more VG Myths. When people think of Pokemon challenge runs they will think only of ME. I’m about to end your entire career."
** Picking a Smeargle as your starter on the open world ROM hack ''Pokemon Crystal Clear'' gives you a message from the modder, Shockslayer, which reads "But why would you do this?" and is signed off by Asprey.

He has two separate channels:

* [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZJVzJk_24aefzpKAbqiP9Q Pikasprey Blue]]: A LetsPlay channel for himself and, occasionally, his brother. Some videos involve multiple games with the same theme, such as ''Franchise/SuperMarioBrothers'' fan-games. Games on "Blue" are often later discussed on...

** "Soft-Lock Picking", where he purposefully makes a game unwinnable, and then proceeds to find ways to escape the trap.

** His solution for escaping the Lorelei soft-lock [[note]]in which the player's Rage-using mon is trapped in an endless battle against her perpetually-healing Dewgong[[/note]] involves so much luck with RNG that nobody would actually be able to do it- the player would have to miss Rage every turn until running out of PP, a near-impossible feat as Rage is officially 100% accurate, meaning that it actually has a 1 in 256 chance of failing in the original game. The odds of doing so twenty times in a row? 1 in 68 quindecillion. if Rage has the maximum 32 PP, the chance is 1 in 115,8 quattorvigintillion

** His solution for escaping the Lorelei soft-lock [[note]]in which the player's Rage-using mon is trapped in an endless battle against her perpetually-healing Dewgong[[/note]] involves so much luck with RNG that nobody would actually be able to do it- the player would have to miss Rage every turn until running out of PP, a near-impossible feat as Rage is officially 100% accurate, meaning that it actually has a 1 in 256 chance of failing in the original game. The odds of doing so twenty times in a row? 1 in 68 quindecillion.

--> "Point is, I proved someone wrong on the internet. And at the end of the day, isn't that what really matters?"

--> "The level of how much (the developers) had to have not cared is astounding here. If I still did live bits on this show, this would be the part where I pull out my prop gun and shoot the cartridge."

--> "No, but seriously stop stealing other people's work and calling it your own."
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin:

* GuideDangIt:

** Pointed out in his video for ''Confess My Love'' when he tries to unlock the Mutated Room... and learns that following the steps required, which are never outright alluded to during gameplay, only has a 1 in 3 chance of triggering it.
--> "Are. You. Kidding Me."

--> (after Pikasprey discusses how to make "original characters" by using the Fill tool in Microsoft Paint to change the colors on official artwork) "Shadow the Hedgehog? More like, [[StealthPun Phil]] the Hedgehog! Ha ha ha ha ha - [[MoodWhiplash Copyright 2015, DO NOT STEAL.]]"

** ''Gamechamp 3000'' ran a video where he attempted to win a run of ''Pokemon Blue'' without taking any damage from opponents' attacks or status effects. Pikasprey, on invitation, joined in as a guest commentator to point out how ridiculous the challenge's premise was, observe quirks of enemy AI, and chip in as the voice of the rival character. Most of Christian's quips involve some variation of "Oh no. I lost again" in his usual deadpan voice. The final confrontation at the end of the game has Christian put on a BadassBoast that is an odd combination of deadpan and awesome.
--> "And this is where it all comes to an end. No human being has the willpower to survive Viridian Forest power-levelling twice in one lifetime. There will be no more VG Myths. When people think of Pokemon challenge runs they will think only of ME. I’m about to end your entire career."

** His solution for escaping the Lorelei soft-lock [[note]]in which the player's Rage-using mon is trapped in an endless battle against her perpetually-healing Dewgong[[/note]] involves so much luck with RNG that nobody would actually be able to do it- the player would have to miss Rage every turn until running out of PP, a near-impossible feat as Rage is 100% accurate.

--> (after Pikasprey discusses how to make "original characters" by using the Bucket tool in Microsoft Paint to change the colors on official artwork) "Shadow the Hedgehog? More like, [[StealthPun Phil]] the Hedgehog! Ha ha ha - [[MoodWhiplash Copyright 2015, DO NOT STEAL.]]"