In Japan a group of fish have successfully beat Pokémon Sapphire after more than 3000 hours of gameplay. After defeating the Hoenn champion Steven Stone they are now the world’s first Fish Pokémon Masters.
In an experiment akin to Twitch plays Pokèmon Japanese YouTuber Mutekimaru set out in summer for an experiment: Could his four Siamese fighting fish clear Pokèmon Sapphire?
Mutekimaru set up a special aquarium with motion tracking and areas designated as controller inputs. As long as his four fish swim around normally they would now send inputs for the game.
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With all the preparations underway the four fish set out on the journey that was streamed live on YouTube to the audience worldwide. Throughout their 3000+ hours journey the fish made steady progress and even discovered a new bug in the game on one occassion:
Pokémon Masters at last
On November 7 the team of four fish finally finished their journey to become masters by defeating the champion and beating the main story of Pokémon Sapphire.
After completing the main story the fish are currently on a quest to clear the post-game content as well. Their succes so far is reminiscent of the “infinite monkey theorem” that says that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will eventually type out a work of William Shakespeare.
Mutekimaru has not yet announced a new project for his fish to tackle, but if he aims for completing the entire post-game as well, his pet fish might just need a while before a new challenge is needed.
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