Some of you may recall that back in 2014, a Twitch channel conducted a radical experiment that saw what turned out to be over 1 million of the site’s users play Pokémon Red using only simple commands in the stream’s chat.
At the time, it seemed doubtful that this many people would be able to coordinate themselves to actually compete but they indeed emerged victorious after sending a total of 122 million chat messages over the course of 16 days.
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And while that channel and its viewers have gone on to conquer other Pokémon games since then, their achievements seem almost quaint compared to the bizarre tale we’re about to explore that sees one Japanese fan letting his pet fish beat the game.
On June 8, a YouTuber who goes by Mutekimaru began livestreaming with a fascinating concept in mind.
As Gaming Bible reported , he would allow his four pet fish — at least one of which being a Siamese fighting fish — to attempt a playthrough of the 2002 game Pokémon Ruby .
Two of these fish would play for 12 hours before the other two took over and let them rest.
Although it’s unclear why exactly Mutekimaru went through with this endeavor, they were quite transparent about how they were able to do it.
As Games Radar reported , Mutekimaru had the fish swim over a grid laid out with all the possible commands they could enter.
As they did so, a camera with tracking capabilities would log their movements, which were then fed into a circuit board connected to Mutekimaru’s Nintendo Gamecube.
As you might imagine, the fish weren’t exactly hardcore gamers.
As Gaming Bible reported , the simple act of setting a clock at the beginning of the game took 35 minutes to complete, while visiting the main character’s neighbor and talking to someone on the second floor of their house took 19 hours and 10 minutes.
In fact, the fish played Pokémon Ruby for about 78 hours before they were even in a position to catch any pokémon.
And considering that it’s not unusual to see them walk their avatar into walls for several minutes at a time, it’s not hard to see where all that time went.
Another factor for this challenge’s intense runtime was the fact that Mutekimaru had minimal involvement in the fishes’ playing.
As Gaming Bible reported , they would only take control of the game to start it, to restore the Pokémon belonging to their fish when they were all defeated in battle, and to enter context-sensitive commands such as using specific Pokémon’s moves to smash rocks or dive into the water when needed.
Otherwise, the fish played by themselves and often did so when Mutekimaru wasn’t even home.
However, Mutekimaru and their fish persevered and were finally able to reach the game’s final opponent, Steven Stone, after five months of playing.
As Games Radar reported , Stone beat the fishes’ pokémon several times but they were finally able to prevail after a total of 3,185 hours on November 6.
This victory was tweeted out as it was happening by a fan, who said the fish had just one pokémon left that managed to launch enough ice balls at Stone’s fighters to win.
As if this wasn’t already enough of an achievement, the fish discovered a glitch that nobody had apparently reported in the almost 18 years since the game was released.
As we can see in a Twitter clip from Mutekimaru, one of the boulders that the fish were trying to push aside ended up duplicating and blocking their path.
And if that doesn’t encapsulate the incredible odds these fish were able to overcome to achieve something we wouldn’t have imagined in our wildest dreams, I don’t know what does.
h/t: Gaming Bible , GamesRadar
