Figured I'd make a thread about this, as it's something literally no one's really considered about this game.

It seems that if you reset the game directly after defeating someone, the game still recognizes the win. So for example, say you beat Seeker for the 5th time. If you choose to reset the game before Seeker starts speaking, the game will count the win.

(Note: To be more specific, it's after you leave the actual "duel screen", and right when you see the text box after the duel. Resetting during duels doesn't lead to anything)

Here's a vid of mine I posted on youtube using resets on an emulator:

At about 1:22:00, I just use the button combination on Gambatte to reset. At about 2:03:42, you see that I move on to Tier 3 without any issue.

Basically, with resetting, you can save time by skipping the random crap said by Seeker, Pandora, Slysheen, and Darknite. It also helps if you know you're losing a duel, or if it's just going very slowly. Since literally no one's done this, this can save minutes of time.

The thing is though, there's apparently no easy way to do this on console. All the runs posted are on emulator, no idea if anyone has tried on console. But I assume there's no easy way to just reset the game like there is on emulator.

There's a few options we can consider. We can outright ban resets on emulator, as I'm assuming it's not possible on the "real" version of the game. There's also the possibility of just banning emulators, but literally no one has used console lol. I'm assuming on a real Gameboy, simply turning it off an on would be the closest way to reset.

Again, an easy solution would be to add in to the rules "no resets if using emulator", as it's a pretty clear advantage. We could even come up with different categories. I personally kind of like the idea of skipping useless exposition; I'd even have time added to future runs if I'm resetting or simply turning the emulator off and on at certain points. Something like "For every reset, have 5-10 seconds added to your run", or for however long it might take to turn the game off and on, on console. I guess this is something for mods to consider, or if anyone has input.

I've just tested this on console and can confirm it definitely works.

I also timed some resets and a reset on emulator is pretty much exactly 7 seconds up until the main menu screen, a reset on my console version was around 12.4 seconds (it's kind of hard to time because it fades out on a Game Boy Player instead of cutting abruptly like on an emulator), although I only own the Japanese version of the game and the intro/opening credits are a little different than the US version. On the US version a reset should be about 12.7 seconds with my timing. The only difference between console and emulator should be the Game Boy logo at the start, which I've timed to be about 5.7 seconds, although the Pokémon community uses a penalty of 5 seconds on emulator for every hard reset and I trust their judgement more than mine.

Also, if anyone was wondering, you still get the card drop you would normally get from the duel, but it's probably pretty useless since you don't see which card you got.

Oh wow Avetixz coming through ¤applauds¤

Glad we have some estimates on the actual difference on emulator vs. console. I wanted to make this thread, just because if two runs are fairly close, and one was faster simply for resets, that'd be kind of unfair.

But then again, the only category is Any%; if new finds make old times obsolete that's just how it is in a way. Plus, someone could very well WR without resetting at all (Exarion has splits that smash my time, no resets)

But yea, just to make things equal, the easiest way I see is a penalty. But I'm down with most ideas outside of outright banning stuff (brought it up in the OP since it seemed to be an absolute solution to things)

Is the 5 seconds difference due to the absence of the GBC boot ROM ? If so, just load it in BGB through the "bootrom enabled" option in "System". If there is still a timing issue, you might want to join irc.efnet.org #gbdev to talk about this to beware :P

[16:12:19] @beware are you sure you're not counting with bootrom on the hardware, and without bootrom in bgb? [...] [16:14:53] @beware how do you define "reset timing" ? the logo screens, the time before the music starts? [...] [16:14:53] @beware yes thats about 7 seconds on bgb [16:14:53] @beware i need to try this on gambatte [16:16:28] @beware the sequence seems to be equally fast on gambatte [16:16:28] @beware but i put serious doubts on the claim [16:16:28] @beware [clarification needed] [...] [16:17:38] @beware the game itself has no fade at all [16:17:38] @beware about 0.5 seconds after entry, it shows a black logo screen [16:17:58] @beware (before that, it shows a white screen)

Alright I downloaded the first GBC boot ROM I found on the internet and it seems to be the same length as on console although if you press the reset button on a GameCube it fades out and takes a while to load up the Game Boy logo, which is where the 5 seconds difference comes from. The logo itself takes around 3 seconds, so even with the boot ROM emulator would still be 2 seconds faster than a Game Boy Player, but it might be different on a Super Game Boy or Super Game Boy 2.

At the end of the day it's not really a big difference anyway I guess.