Team Rocket is back at it again. This time, instead of trying to foil the dreams of Ash Ketchum, Team Rocket is trying to ruin a playthrough of Twitter Plays Pokemon. The social media game allows fans to vote on the actions of the avatar in the classic Game Boy Pokemon Red Version. However, since the voting is open to all actions in the game, a group referred to by players as Team Rocket, waited until many players were asleep to cause some trouble.
Before the trouble, the Pokemon Red playthrough was actually going pretty well. The Twitter-voted actions may take a long time, but players have made good progress, defeating Koga at the Fuchsia Gym for the Soul Badge, and most recently, beating Blaine's powerful fire-type Pokemon for the Volcano Badge. With only one badge left to go, the damage that a few troublemakers caused will be a huge setback for the playthrough.
Late at night, a group of Twitter users decided to ruin the fun for players and released five of the main Pokemon in the party. While they released the five Pokemon, a few trainers noticed the actions and saved a level 41 Psychic-type Kadabra. However, losing five high-level Pokemon may be devastating for the group of trainers dedicated to the playthrough.
It is possible that the team can recover and train more Pokemon, but based on the party of five that was lost, the team may not be able to easily replicate the progress. The Pokemon set free into the wild were a Blastoise, a Graveler, a Fearow, a Jolteon, and the sleeping giant, Snorlax.
It seems the Blastoise and Snorlax may be the most devastating losses, because Blastoise is the starting Pokemon and there is only one other Squirtle in the game, and Snorlax is very difficult to catch, and there are only two in Pokemon Red. However, a team of Pokemon trainers playing Pokemon Red will probably not be deterred and will hopefully stick with the playthrough despite the heavy losses.
Crowd-controlled Pokemon playthroughs have become very popular since Twitch Plays Pokemon became a phenomenon when a programmer in 2014 allowed viewers to control actions through the chat. The crowd-controlled aspect may get chaotic, but allows everyone to feel the sense of playing a nostalgic game with many others. Just last month, after only a week after starting the playthrough, the Twitter Plays Pokemon team beat Misty and earned the Cascade Badge. Hopefully the trainers can continue their playthrough without any more trouble from Team Rocket.
Pokemon Red is available now.