Pet fish plays Pokemon Ruby and wins two Gym Badges during livestream

A Pokemon fan has set up a way for their pet Siamese fighting fish to play Ruby, and it’s managed to beat two Gym Leaders all by itself… Yes, you read that right.

Ruby & Sapphire were the first Pokemon games in the series to come out on the Game Boy Advance in 2003. It transported Trainers to the Hoenn region, where they were introduced to Generation III for the very first time, choosing between starters Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip. In 2014, the titles were remade for the Nintendo 3DS, bringing the classics into the modern day.

While many Nintendo players choose to livestream their adventures for an audience to follow along, one Japanese fan has taken it a step further and set up a way for their pet fish to play Ruby and compete to become the very best like no one ever was. It really is as ridiculous as it sounds.

Pet fish plays Pokemon Ruby

The betta fish, also known as Maurice, is over 725 hours into its playthrough of the Gen III game. In order to make it play, its owner, Mutekimaru Channel, split the tank into several different sections with each one corresponding to a certain button.

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A camera with tracking is set up to trace movements, and it feeds directly into a circuit board plugged into a Nintendo GameCube. This causes the sprite to move on screen depending on which input the fish swims to.

When it came to picking a starter Pokemon, the blue betta selected the Fire-type Torchic rather than the Water-type Mudkip viewers were hoping it would land on. After swimming back and forth, “Nohohohoho” was the nickname chosen.

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After 370 hours, Maurice managed to find its way to the Gym in Rustboro City to battle Rock-type Leader Roxanne. Along the way, the fish had armed itself with a team of monsters it somehow caught itself using Poke Balls.

It took down the enemy’s level 15 Nosepass with a level 26 Combusken, after having evolved it from Torchic, and secured the Stone Badge – much to the delight of an excited audience.

(Topic starts at 7:44.)

The fish also secured the second Badge from Dewford Town after defeating Brawly and his Fighting-type team, which is all the more impressive when you realize the only way to get to the location is to go on a rescue mission for a stolen Wingull first.

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Mutekimaru Channel livestreams their pet’s foray into the series on YouTube almost 24/7, so if you ever want to watch some relaxing (and very repetitive!) Pokemon gameplay when you can’t sleep at 2AM, go and cheer it on. In the livestream description, it’s revealed that they use a second fish named ‘Ponyo’ every 12 hours to give Maurice a rest.

H/T: SoraNews