Oh, that’s a deep cut.
For those not in the know, HP meters in Diamond and Pearl (I think also in Platinum, Heart Gold, Soul Silver, and maybe Black and White 1 and 2) were animated based off the actual HP number instead of the proportion visually. So it wasn’t “remove 29 HP which is 1/5 of the HP at 3 pixels per frame” it was “remove exactly 29 HP at 1 HP per frame” even if 1 HP was smaller than a pixel.
It meant that HP bars for creatures with more HP literally took longer to animate, even if it was a one hit KO where it didn’t have to calculate the remaining health or amount of pixels left to show or anything.
here it is in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhmDmIt8AHY
iirc it was even a strategy used in online battles: people would have a team of 6 Blisseys (pokemon with the highest HP stat), all holding a Focus Sash (item that makes you resist any move that would’ve killed you in one hit, with 1 HP left), and all knowing Rest (move that heals all your HP and puts you to sleep)
basically, what you see in the video, except 6 times
this team was so royally annoying to fight against that people would often just forfeit immediately
Oh, this video is art
This is an amazing TIL (and also now I miss the old Pokemon games that used sprites.)
How did this not get caught in testing? Wtfs
Honestly that’s pretty cool
lazy. I think it’s lazy.
