◊Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments in which commands representing buttons on an original Game Boy and Game Boy Advance (up, down, left, right, A, B, L, R, start, and select) are entered into a chat on Twitch, and then translated into a game of Pokémon via an IRC bot. In short, hundreds of people are fighting over a controller. Throughout its life, Twitch Plays Pokémon has spawned hilarious characters, memorable moments, and even a few religions.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Burning Red is the first run of Season 6, marking the fifth anniversary of Twitch Plays Pokémon. It started on February 12th, 2019, and ended on February 22nd, 2019. As is tradition for anniversary runs, it features a hack created specifically for the stream, although with a brand-new mechanic: during scene transitions, there is a 15% chance of the emulator switching between Pokémon Red and Pokémon FireRed, with both games sharing the same team, inventory, and global progress. Due to this game-switching mechanic, certain tasks, most notably beating Gym Leaders and other important Trainers, have to be accomplished in both games.
The Host for this run, a boy named "KAY", was characterized as a homeless kid raised by rats, due to catching a large number of Rattata during the first day of the run and keeping Ratticate nicknamed "King Jackass" on his team for the entirety of the run. He also earned the title of "Planeswalker" among loremakers, due to his ability to cross not only between the Generation I and Generation III engines, but also a secret area based on the original games' Glitch City
, in which a certain Flying/Ghost Pokémon can be encountered.
From March 11th, 2019 to March 13th, 2019, the game was revisited during a special intermission. The game-switching mechanic was disabled, with the revisit instead focusing on the FireRed post-game Sevii Islands. From there, Kay was able to access the glitched dimension once more, leading to an unexpected Legacy Boss Battle.
See also here for the archived progress of the game, here for the archived status of the run, or here for live updates, which have been archived here.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Burning Red contains examples of:
- Call-Back: The name of the "00LD33..n" area references the infamous OLDEN glitch from Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal Anniversary, which became on of the most iconic villains in TPP history. One of the houses in it can be entered, and the inside looks like a corrupted version of the Battle Tent from Twitch Plays Pokémon Red Anniversary, which was notorious for the sheer amount of Game Breaking Bugs it caused. Inside is also a Psyduck that, when talked to, speaks in what appears to be garbled text; however, the words "azure" and "SS ANNE" can be made out, most likely referencing the S.S. Anne sinking in Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal Anniversary during which Evan's rival Azure was thought to have died.
- Developer's Foresight: Averted in one instance. While the developers made sure that only moves that existed back in Generation I could be learned through leveling up and TMs, so as to keep movesets consistant between the two games, they forgot to remove the Move Tutor from FireRed's Two Island. As a result, Charizard was able to learn the move Blast Burn, which permanently turned into Acid upon switching back to Red.
- Dimensional Travelling: The entire run revolves around this concept, with Kay regularly shifting between the Red and FireRed dimensions.
- Eldritch Location: The Glitch dimension, also known as 00LD333..n, which was designed after the infamous Minus World from Pokémon Red and Blue referred to by fans as Glitch City. As such, the layout of this world is completely nonsensical, diving straight into Alien Geometries territory. To add to the eerie atmosphere at play, there is no music playing at all, and the screen is filled with visual glitches that even persist in the interface itself. Fittingly enough, it is the home dimension of spoiler:Phancero, the incarnation of an Eldritch Abomination that plagued the Voices from Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal Anniversary to Twitch Plays Pokémon Prism.
- Hell Is That Noise: In the early hours of the run, one particular viewer repeatedly used Noisemaker items to make Meloetta's cry play over and over and over. Some of the lore suggests that Kay himself had to listen to said cry echoing through dimensions for over 20 minutes, without a clue as to where it came from. To make matters worse, it happened again while the game was frozen.
- History Repeats:
- Zig Zagged. The Magikarp on Kay's team was initially named "AIIAAAAAAB", a name very closely resembling the one of the Host of Red Anniversary, "AIIIAAB" (or "Abe"). Abe himself owned a Magikarp named "BABA", a name which later became that of the Host of Vietnamese Crystal, thus making it an ironic inversion of that situation. Also played straight in that it makes Abe the third TPP character to be turned into a Magikarp, after Cyan and Picnicker Edna.
- Kay's team is often referred to as "The Rat Pack". This is not the first time that name has been used, as it was also what Athena's team was known as.
- Interface Screw: The visual glitches in 00LD33..n not only appear all over the overworld, but also in the menus and during battle.
- Legacy Boss Battle: Phancero, the Flying/Ghost Pokémon from Twitch Plays Pokémon Prism, can be found and caught in 00LD33..n. This notably marks its first appearance in both a Generation I game and a Generation III game.
- One-Letter Name: Kay's Chansey is simply named "X".
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: During the revisit, Cyan, the Host of Twitch Plays Pokémon Prism, was also found in 00LD33..n, serving as the endgame condition of said revisit.
- Stylistic Suck: Phancero's sprite in Red intentionally looks very grotesque◊, paying homage to the notoriously strange and uncanny-looking sprites of the original games.
- You Can Not Grasp The True Form: About one hour and half into the run, the game suddenly froze, and Kay's party was replaced by a sleeping LV.0 Pokémon◊ whose sprite was rendered as a broken image file. One theory links said Pokémon to other "invisible" Pokémon from previous runs, implying that it either lacks an actual physical appearance, or that said appearance is so horrifying that it cannot be comprehended.
