How long did it take you to beat Pokémon Scarlet & Violet? 20 hours? 30 hours? Well, the speedrunning community is here to put us to shame, as Automaton Media has spotted that the latest Pokémon games are being completed in under five and a half hours.
At the time of writing, the world record on Speedrun.com is held by Pokémon speedrunner truely, who has managed to beat the game in an impressive 5 hours, 27 minutes and 11 seconds. Okay, so that’s all three story paths, a decently levelled team of Pokémon, and plenty of other things we don’t want to spoil here, all wrapped up in an evening?
But wait, it’s not a team of Pokémon helping many of these speedrunners. In many of his runs, truely has relied on one early-game Pokémon — Flamigo, the Fighting/Flying-type flamingo. We say relied on, but what we mean is that truely pretty much only uses this single Pokémon for the entire run, save for a few exceptions. Flamigo has already proven quite popular for its typing and its strong physical attack and high speed stats, but this takes its strengths to a whole new level. All of the top three records on Speedrun.com all focus on using this brand new Pokémon to power through the game.
Other than abusing Flamigo’s Scrappy ability (which allows it to damage Ghost-type Pokémon with Normal and Fighting-type moves), there aren’t too many tricks to a super fast Paldean playthrough. One obvious trick seems to be focusing on the Titan Pokémon, as beating them allows you to upgrade Koraidon/Miraidon’s traversal abilities.
There are lots of awkward climbs and big drops that allow truely to achieve the current best time. But, like any good speedrunner, he’s determined to beat his own time and thinks he definitely can. We’re cheering you on!
You can watch the full speedrun below but be warned of some strong language throughout the video.
Are you impressed by Pokémon Scarlet & Violet speedruns so far? And are you fond of Flamigo? Let us know!