This extremely hard Pokémon randomizer is the best thing on Twitch right now – The Verge

For the past two weeks, every time I hop onto Twitch, I’ve found myself browsing through Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen streams so I can watch people play the classic games in perhaps the most difficult ways possible. If you’ve played through a mainline Pokémon title before, you’ve probably been able to get through the game without too much trouble. I’m pretty sure all of my friends growing up experienced some variation of just letting their starter carry them to becoming the Pokémon champion. But there’s a community of players making the games dramatically more challenging by applying some form of what the community calls “IronMon” rulesets. The gist of IronMon is that it’s a really hard randomizer. The pokémon you encounter, their moves, and the items you pick up are randomized, while the pokémon you fight in the wild or those owned by trainers have increased levels. Yes, this means that your starter pokémon will be random, too, so you won’t just pick between Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. According to the rules, you even can’t peek at which pokémon are available to make your choice; you just have to walk up to a pokéball and accept what you get. (Though…
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