Web Video / Twitch Plays Pokémon Platinum

No matter the struggle, they stuck together until the end.

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"No, I don't like pokemon."

— Napoleon

Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments that started in February 2014 in which commands representing buttons on an original Nintendo DS (up, down, left, right, A, B, X, Y, L, R, start,) and touchscreen coordinates are entered into a chat on Twitch, and then translated into a game of Pokémon via an IRC bot. In short, thousands of people are fighting over a controller. Throughout its life, Twitch Plays Pokémon has spawned hilarious characters, memorable moments, and even a few religions.

Pokémon Platinum was the fifth game confirmed by the streamer. It began on May 3rd, 2014 and is set in Sinnoh, a snowy region to the north of the Pokémon world. What trainer has been chosen for the Mob's frigid adventure? Why, "Napoleon", a young boy trainer with conquest in mind whose namesake didn't exactly have good luck with the cold.

After 17 days, 11 hours and 38 minutes and 49 attempts, trolls be damned, Napoleon defeated the Elite Four and Cynthia to become the Sinnoh Champion.

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for the archived progress of the game, here for the archived status of the run, or here for live updates, which have been archived here. There is also a recap page, found here.

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This game contains examples of:

• A God Is You: It has been hypothesised that Bronzor is the apostle of Bird Jesus.
• But Thou Must!:
  • Played darkly. Proceeding through the game requires the Bike, but Cynthia won't allow Napoleon to get one until he accepts her Egg into his party. Unfortunately for him, this requires going to the PC and attempting to store one of his Pokemon.
  • Surprisingly, they made it out alright. Only depositing a level 26 Bidoof... they had two in the party.
• Central Theme:
  • Gambling, Greed, and their many consequences. Similarly, coming to terms with things you weren't comfortable with before.
  • Could also be accepting people for what they are, if the inclusion of Flareon (False Prophet) and Shinx (unevolved) is an indication.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Cyrus against Napoleon in their first battle in the Distortion World. He completely totaled the Mob's team and chucked Napoleon out of the Distortion World without even trying. Some compared it to 9 year olds trying to battle competitive tournament players.
• Demoted to Extra: Togepi, the hatchling given by Cynthia, was sent to the daycare to learn some attacking moves, but she was sent to the PC and forgotten. Subverted due to fan-art portraying this as her life going through school while Napoleon is in his adventure.
• The Dreaded: As with any run of the Sinnoh games, Cynthia. Even before they defeated Blaine in FireRed, the Mob was scared enough that they were coming up with battle plans for her, knowing how much harder Anarchy makes things.
  • Surprisingly subverted when Cynthia turned out to be less of a challenge than Cyrus was.
  • To a lesser extent, Fantina. Sure, she's only the third Gym Leader, but her team of Ghost-types is bound to give The Mob a hard time, combined with the maze elements of her Gym that bring back memories of Morty .
  • Napoleon and the Mob finally got past the Viridian City-esq ledge near the stairs into higher Mount Coronet. What do they find on the next floor that could potentially undo all of that progress? An escape rope.
  • Mt. Coronet, the Distortion World, and Cyrus become one when the Mob realizes how difficult Cyrus is as an opponent. Napoleon would brave the ledge, climb the mountain, and wander through the Distortion World only to be stomped by Cyrus' Pokémon and wind up back at Hearthome.
• Eldritch Location: The Distortion World, home of Giratina. Its twisted dimensions confused the Mob to the point even the trolls are having a hard time trolling.
  • Made extra hard by the decision that, since it lacks any wild encounters, the Mob could be left to struggle without any of the chat leaders there.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Napoleon wants to conquer Sinnoh. Cyrus wants to destroy the universe.
  • Possibly averted, as it seems Napoleon is often undergoing changes of heart.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: According to some members of the Mob, Sinnoh is essentially a Poké-Japanese version of either Canada or Russia.
• Gambit Pile Up: Seems to be developing.
• The Gambling Addict: Out of universe, the Mob has become this thanks to the Derby-style betting used for Pokémon Stadium matches going on to the left of the game. In-universe, either◊ Pearl◊, Napoleon or both depending on who you ask.
• Gonna Need More X: Napoleon has a penchant for this. He caught 11 Bidoofs so far (while Dawn also owns one) and during his trek through the marshes next to Pastoria City, including the Great Marsh, he successfully caught no less then 19 Woopers and 16 Bibarels. This isn't mentioning the other species of pokémon he caught multiple times. Perhaps he's building an army?
• Hoist by His Own Petard: An anti-evolutionist troll during Day 4 started spamming X+A so that the Mob would get lost on the menus. Everyone then started spamming the same commands, because there was a Rare Candy inside of it, which was then used to evolve Budew into Roselia.
• Lethal Chef: Due to the unique input format, the Mob is unable to stir poffin batter, and every poffin they try to make comes out horribly burnt as a result.
• Love Triangle: Lore has that Flareon and Shinx were in a relationship, but then Flareon and Bibarel had an egg while in the daycare.
  • It's becoming a quadrilateral, when the Mob began to ship Shinx and Moonbat in the Hotel Restaurant after a double battle together.
• Irony: The trolls' usernames, which were related to not evolving Pokemon, specific or otherwise. Budew evolved and they got mad, since their names are not relevant anymore.
  • But then shortly after, Togepi was prevented from (unexpectedly) evolving, by Z33k 33, and him alone.
• MacGuffin: The Coin Case for the trolls, as it will give access to the Game Corner's Slot Machines. Because the Y button is disabled, the slots won't be able to be stopped. Now Averted with the inclusion of the Y button.
  • The Azure Flute, Diploma, and other unobtainable artifacts are sometimes thought of as gifts from Helix that Dome has hidden from us.
• Make Way for the New Villains: Zigzagged. After having Bill as the Big Bad of FireRed, he was mostly absent from this run's lore, with Cyrus becoming the main antagonist. However, the next run, HeartGold, was the true Grand Finale of the Bill arc while Cyrus remained a one-run villain...and then Alpha Sapphire happened and retroactively rendered Platinum the first run of the "Glitches" saga, later to become the OLDEN saga.
• Nintendo Hard: Platinum is widely considered to be the most difficult Pokemon game.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Taken into extremes in this run with the bots and trolls' job of spamming B everywhere just to block evolutions. While most Pokémon in the party eventually managed to evolve at least once, it took ten days to get there when they were ready to evolve long before.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Napoleon's defeat of Volkner wasn't recorded by the live updaters.
• Plot Armor: The team (at this time) except Bibarel hold Mail, which prevents them from release.
• Put on a Bus: Napoleon's Pokemon are often sent to the Daycare for level boosting and possible replacement of moves.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Napoleon gives a rather brutal one to Cyrus after their last showdown.
• Recurring Element: The curse of the fire starter continues with Chimchar not even lasting a day before she was released.
  • Bidoof, the Rattata clone of Gen IV, was the first Pokemon released. Fitting, as the first Pokemon released in Red, Crystal, and FireRed were Ratatta, Sentret, and Zigzagoon, the respective Ratatta clones (or Ratatta itself) of their generation.
  • In addition, The Mob has caught quite a lot of Bidoof, like A did with Poochyenas.
• Ret-Gone: Due to the Streamer resetting the game after it crashed, several Pokemon were erased from existence, including a male Roselia that got intimate with Roserade and produced an egg.
• Ship Sinking: Subverted. While 006 and Solareon making an egg in the daycare made a lot of people think that SunFlare is about to crash, it persevered and managed to win Ship-to-Ship Combat with 006/Solareon. Not to say that it remained the same - the Daycare incident is perhaps the most important event in Sunshine and Solareon's relationship.
• Soap Opera: The events of Day 12- the love triangle between Bibarel, Shinx, and Flareon resulting in a child; Napoleon's coma; the Roselia egg that was All Just a Dream- evoke the feeling of a Pokémon-themed Soap Opera.
• Sore Loser: The Mob, since they break out into riots whenever one of their Pokemon rather predictably loses a contest, often calling for the deaths of the judges.
• Stealth Pun: In some stories, Pearl is being pulled around and on the run from an actual Mob.
• Tagalong Kid: Sunshine the Shinx is the youngest team member, without a doubt, though the interpretations vary about just how young she is - but it's generally thought that she is old enough to be in relationship with Solareon.
• The Unpronouncable: Exaggerated compared to previous games, as the nicknaming "keyboard" has a wingdings mode this time.
• World of Chaos: How the Mob will contend with the warped dimensions of the Distortion World is up for debate.
  • The Distortion World was hardly the problem. The entrance into Mount Coronet proved to be an even larger challenge. They had to go up Mt. Coronet and through the Distortion World 3 times.
    • The Mob did get lost in the Distortion World several times, but the lack of wild encounters to kill them made it much easier than Mt. Coronet.
• You Can't Fight Fate: The Fire starter was released yet again.◊

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