[Challenge] The AAAAAAAAA Challenge (A Button Only!)

Imported Cheese · Nov 11, 2020

Hey everyone,

With the common consensus being that modern pokemon games are "braindead easy" due to permanent, party-wide experience share and infinite use TMs, I thought I'd try to see if you could clear one of the older games by literally mashing the A button throughout the entire game.

The only hard and fast rule of the challenge is that from the moment a battle starts until you return to the overworld, you can ONLY use the A button. That means no directional inputs, either!

This actually ends up restricting tons of basic actions that you might not assume would be off-limits; despite the fact that your strategy in battle is as simple as can be (mash A lol), there's a lot of planning outside of battle needed to ensure you don't softlock yourself.

I'd welcome you to try a run yourself to discover these restrictions, but as an example I'll post a video of a full A button only run I did in Pokemon Green, along with a full write up of the restrictions hidden by spoiler tags. See if you can figure them all out without peeking!
(And there is a reason I chose Green instead of Red/Blue, but it only comes into play during the Elite 4)

Full example/walkthrough of the challenge!

Spoiler:

-By default, this will be a no-item run as you can never scroll over to your item menu.

-While this isn't a "solo" pokemon challenge, you can't actually catch any pokemon because you cannot access your item menu or pokeballs. You can still use gift pokemon, and notably you CAN catch pokemon in the Safari Zone, as your cursor automatically starts on the Pokeball command.

-Since catching pokemon is restricted, you need to consider the HM compatibility of your starter. In Gen 1, Squirtle is a softlock in Vermillion City as it cannot learn Cut and you are unable to obtain another pokemon that can.

-You can only ever use one pokemon in battle, as if your lead pokemon faints, you will be stuck at the menu prompting you to switch pokemon.

-If you have more than one pokemon in your party, you MUST change the battle style from "switch" to "set." If you don't, then you will softlock in trainer battles with more than one pokemon, as you will be unable to escape the menu prompting you to switch.

-My favorite part of the challenge is how it restricts your moveset. In Gen 1, you can only rearrange your moves in battle using the select and directional inputs, which...are not the A button. This means that you can only ever use the very first move in your movelist, and that when you attempt to learn a move through level-up you are FORCED to learn it and overwrite your current move, since you can only mash A. Manipulating exactly what your only usable move is through TMs and rare candies out of battle is the true big-brain play of the challenge. If you try this challenge outside of Gen 1, I encourage you to keep this restriction, even though you technically can switch moves out of battle at the stats screen.

-Tying into the previous point, Disable becomes a super one-hit KO move, not only making you lose the battle, but also forcing you to reset >.>

-You can never run from encounters, as you cannot scroll over to the run command. This is mostly a matter of convenience in the mid/late game, but until you get repels it actually becomes an issue when it comes to PP management, since you can end up running out of PP before you make it through a cave/dungeon.

[Challenge] The AAAAAAAAA Challenge (A Button Only!)

Imported Cheese