Somehow, it's possible to beat all 4,294,967,296 permutations of Pokemon Platinum simultaneously using the same button presses, as long as you can simulate a full multiverse of timelines and account for their worst-case scenarios at all times.
If you're already confused, that's understandable. The thing is, Pokemon's random number generation isn't truly random. When you load up a game of Platinum, it's assigned a 'seed' – one out of over four billion possible options – and 'random' events like Pokemon encounters and Shiny finds will play out differently depending on what seed you're playing on, in a pre-determined way. Since 2022, content creator MartSnack has been working out what actions you'd have to take to beat all of these seeds using the same button presses at the exact same time – something only possible because each seed's random events are essentially being mapped out in advance. Using the power of simulation, this Pokemon professor could become omniscient – with knowledge of everything that'd happen at any moment across the Platinum multiverse.
But to play through over four billion timelines at the same time, you've got to consider the worst things that can happen. Not necessarily in a dramatic sense, but for example, encountering a wild Pokemon in the tall grass will usually take you between six and 17 steps. However, because MartSnack's seed-tracking simulator shows it can take up to 195 steps, they had to take that many steps every time they wanted to battle a wild Pokemon to keep all the games in sync.
- Former Pokemon world champ uses a "stupid strategy" that "should never work" to transform a Lapras into an OHKO machine so powerful it can even take out enemies in alternate dimensions
- Pokemon professor does the math to work out the most damage possible in each generation over the past 28 years, and the number is staggering
Keeping things in sync is a constant battle in itself, though. As MartSnack explains, when it comes to level grinding, the fluctuating amount of EXP earned across the different timelines (thanks to encountering varying Pokemon) means that the alternate seeds gain level-ups at different rates, therefore making Pokemon attempt to learn moves and attempt to evolve at different speeds. Thankfully, these things could be used to MartSnack's advantage with a technique the creator calls 'stopping rules,' to stop advanced seeds from progressing while the slower ones catch up.
One of the best examples of this came at the start of the run, as MartSnack was leveling up over four billion Chimchars. Since the Fire-type attempts to learn Taunt at level nine, MartSnack could configure their button presses to keep the seeds that hit this level stuck in a loop, constantly clicking between the options to learn or forget the move, while the other seeds carried on running around in the grass and fighting Pokemon. Eventually, when they all caught up, they could learn the move simultaneously and move on.
Similar techniques to keep certain seeds 'occupied' in menus were used throughout the challenge, sometimes to purposely throw things out of sync for a while. Attempting to use a healing item in a battle when it's not required in one seed but is in another is a great example of this – while the healing seeds are busy getting healthy, MartSnack can freely navigate through the battle menus of the other games to land an attack without those button inputs doing more than the player wants them to. Things can be resynced after the battle is over by directing all the games to run into the same wall.
Those things only scratch the surface of the full depth of MartSnack's winning strategy, which comes together to make something happen that I genuinely would have thought to be impossible had I not seen it with my own eyes – you should definitely watch the full video to see it all in action. Going into the final series of fights with the Elite Four and Champion after more than 50 billion simulations and nearly two years of work, the creator says, "I'm not worried, my victory was guaranteed the moment I started the game." That might just be the coolest thing anyone has ever said about this beloved creature-collecting RPG series, which is very appropriate to describe one of the most ridiculously brilliant Pokemon achievements anyone has ever pulled off.
Pokemon Platinum is one of the best Pokemon games, so it definitely deserves to be played 4,294,967,296 times.
