Speedrunning leaderboard site Speedrun.com has begun accepting run submissions for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and there are already multiple times of around 5 and a half hours. These runs put the potential of new Pokémon Flamigo on full display.

Games in the Pokémon series are popular in the speedrunning community. Since Scarlet and Violet are open world, there is a much higher level of freedom in the way that you can approach a speedrun.

Shortly after release, Speedrun.com and its community worked together to devise and vote on regulations that speedrunners would follow when doing speedruns of Scarlet and Violet. Then on December 15, the site began accepting run submissions in the Any% category for the English version of the games.

As of the time of writing, the fastest time on the Speedrun.com leaderboards is 5 hours, 27 minutes, and 11 seconds. This record is for Pokémon Scarlet and was submitted by North American speedrunner truely. His record is significantly quicker than the time it takes to complete the game when playing normally.

It should be noted that at the time the original Japanese article that this article is based on was written, truely held the record for the fastest time with his previous personal best of 5 hours, 28 minutes, and 59 seconds. Therefore, the remainder of this article will discuss that run.

For those who have yet to complete the game for themselves, please be aware that the video below shows truely’s full speedrun of the game up until the end credits. We will also make references to some of the final areas of the game within this article.

When watching the video, what immediately stands out is how straightforward the approach to the run is. truely enrolls at the school and then progresses through the game, completing all the tasks in a regular manner. To reach the credits of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, players must complete all three major story paths in the game. While there are some minor shortcuts that are being used, truely completes each path just like players normally would.

However, towards the middle of the speedrun, a bold route choice and a forceful cliff climb quickly bring truely to the areas that are normally visited towards the end of the game. He rapidly boosts the strength of his Pokémon and fervently dispatches Gym Leaders, Titan Pokémon, the Elite Four, and other foes with only a single Pokémon. Even the squad bosses of Team Star are swatted away like bothersome flies. Eventually, he arrives at the final area, The Great Crater of Paldea and makes use of a massive fall to take a shortcut. He is then victorious in the final battles, thereby completing the game.

The main Pokémon that was used during the speedrun was Flamigo, a Flying and Fighting-type Pokémon that made its debut in Scarlet and Violet. Flamigo can possess the ability Scrappy, which allows a Pokémon to hit Ghost-types with Normal and Fighting-type moves. Furthermore, Flamigos can be caught in one of the very first areas that are visited in the game, and compared to other Pokémon available at that point, they possess an exceptionally higher base stat total of 500. Flamigo possesses high Attack, good Speed, and can learn a wide variety of moves. The Pokémon is quite strong at the beginning of the game and remains a reliable option even at the end. Flamigo has proven to be a popular choice for speedrunners of the game, with the top three records (at the time of this writing), including truely’s, all featuring the Pokémon.

The column of the leaderboards that is labeled “Turbo used” shows whether the player used the rapid-fire capability of a turbo controller during their run. Though the use of a turbo controller is included with each record submission, both runs with and without turbo are included in the same leaderboard. Additionally, those in the community are also voting on other regulations, like the type of save data that can be used for speedruns. It’s possible that the existing regulations will change at some point in the future.

With other categories besides Any% likely to be introduced at some point, we have high hopes for the future of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet speedruns.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-12-15 20:08 JST)