Exposing Pokémon "HARDEST" Challenge: Kaizo Ironmon 

the number at 3:48 wasn't my reset counter, it was how much psychic damage i've cumulatively taken

kaizo ironmon is the pokemon version of "90% of gamblers quit before they win big"

Funny part is, Kaizo Ironmon wasn't created for "streamers." It was created by and for one streamer, Pie himself. He openly stated his intentions of making it random as all hell and near impossible to win without great luck, and didn't expect many to play it, let alone Kaizo to become the "default" Ironmon ruleset that people play.

"What exactly _is_ Kaizo Ironmon?" Not fun. That's what it is. Not fun. This is one of the things they do to people in Hellraiser's Labyrinth.

Kaizo ironmon is basically just an excuse to have a just chatting stream, with a memeable clip generator in the form of rage game, but using a fan favourite franchise, pokemon! Its fun to watch/chill with

06:48 sturdy being useless is hilarious for this channel

its not the hardest challenge in pokemon. the real hardest challenge is my new rom hack where every trainer has level 100 legendaries and you can only find wild magikarp which can't evolve.

The fact that on the side of this, RU-vid recommended me a kaizo ironmon stream with the title "Harder than nuzlocke" is so funny

Watching that cartridge go into the GBA backwards made me wince.

If you like Kaizo Ironmon, you might like the casino. It's a real tough challenge that loads of people love.

I am not joking, one of the rules is to talk to mom. I'm not kidding. You lose if you don't talk to mom.

I do like the rules on Dungeons/Caves, wild Pokémon grinding, and only being allowed to use heal items in battle. Honestly, just those rules on top of a Nuzlocke would be sick and it might even be actually fun!

12:01 - it is worth mentioning that even with low odds, with the hundreds of opposing Pokémon you face, the compounding 214/215 chance starts to become increasingly unlikely, heck even after just 200 Pokémon of level 30+, the chance you *won’t* see a shedinja is ~40%. After 300 enemy Pokémon that falls to ~25%. As a reminder, there’s ~100 Pokémon before you complete Cerulean+Nugget Bridge+Route 25. The numbers pile up quickly. Even with sub 30 estimates for all of them, that’s a ~78% chance you don’t see a Shedinja before then, so 1/5 runs will. Planning for it is necessary. This isn’t a criticism of the video, if anything it’s a reminder that the RNG is even more punishing.

So, I'm a member of the Ironmon creator's Twitch community. Have been for longer than I've watched stuff that you, pChal, Alpharad, and the like put out. I think this "hardest" message came more from clickbait and from some parts of the community that formed around the challenge than from Pie. He's always admitted he intended this to be an unfair challenge designed to take a stupid amount of time to beat. To make stream value. And a lot of people, myself included, enjoy that to some degree. Some of them perhaps a bit too much. I'm honestly tired of this constant need to compare Nuzlockes and Ironmon. Let people play these games the way they want to. Anything less feels like gatekeeping. Because when it comes to either challenge, it's the creator's personality and not the challenge itself that'll get me to watch. I like watching Pie attempt Ironmon because of his personality, despite knowing he has some of the worst luck of anyone out there and will rarely get on a run. Or he'll run absolute garbage 'mons and manage to get them decently far. I don't get the same enjoyment of Ironmon from all streamers. With some creators, I don't watch unless it's clear they're in late game. Nuzlockes are in a similar boat for me, *especially* the hardcore ones. I used to eat up Nuzlocke playthroughs of ROM hacks and fan games during their RU-vid heyday in the early to mid 2010s. And then I gravitated to Twitch and I became completely uninterested in full Nuzlocke playthroughs. The only thing that brought me back to them was *scripted* content back on RU-vid. I've tried to watch Nuzlocke streams, but I just can't get into them. Especially in the age of the hardcore Nuzlocke where team planning can take ages and, at least from my perspective, isn't that interesting to watch. Like, yes, it's nice to hear the player's thought process and the order of operation they're going through, but it doesn't take long for it to all start to blend together for me. Maybe it's because so much of my job involves reading and drafting reports that Nuzlocke streams make me feel like I'm at work again. Or maybe I just don't enjoy Pokémon much as a livestream game. No idea. I don't know if you'll read this, but figured I'd offer my ramblings anyway. tl;dr: Stop comparing. Its the personalities that make challenge runs enjoyable... or not.

For a game to be difficult tbere has to be enough control for you to make errors, for you to be able to look back and go 'Oh, this is how I could improve!' this is like saying seeing your favorite character die in a movie is something you could have overcome, despite you having no control over that

Personally I really like watching Kaizo Ironmon content, but playing it myself? Absolutely not. But then, the same applies to hardcore nuzlockes, so I guess that makes me a boring casual player

I NEVER understood the appeal of Kaizo Ironmon. I love Nuzlockes and I enjoy randomizers sometimes, but the restrictions and heavy RNG just seems way too frustrating.

“Or is it?” -Vsauce and captain kidd

Well-crafted ROM-hacks like Garbage Green are much better examples of true Pokemon challenges. They are carefully crafted puzzle boxes that require a solid strategy to even have a chance of survival. Difficult game design, true challenge, real bragging rights.

Wow. Someone put all of my thoughts on this Pokemon """Challenge""" in a good video! Great stuff!

Kaizo Mario is known for allowing some of the most insane clips and shows of skill in a platformer. Kaizo Ironmon takes almost all of the skill away. Insane.

As someone with a gambling addiction, big fan of this challenge, cant put a finger on why

Remember… your run doesn’t count unless you say goodbye to mom!

this video explains exactly why i don't watch or do kaizo ironmon, its just rng pulling a slot machine arm

It’s only hard because of rng everything being random just makes it unpredictable and the unpredictably nature is what makes it hard. But like others have said it’s an easy challenge to do but hard to stay focused if you aren’t one to have patience

It kinda baffles me that of all the ridiculous rules in this thing, a level cap isn't one of them when that's almost always used as an optional rule in Nuzlockes.

kaizo ironmon is definitely an interesting content machine with the sheer amount of RNG, imo the most fun parts about this challenge really are, when you have to manage your ressources, during challenging battles, which unfortunately are only a small percentage of overall gameplay.

Been looking forward to this since hearing you talk about it!! I gotta agree with pretty much all your points about it being essentially shiny hunting for the perfect run. I think it still has a purpose of telling a good story with the crazy number of attempts it takes, and the story practically writes itself in the right storyteller's hands when a perfect counter suddenly appears at any point in the game, but the run's purpose should never be to be seen as the "hardest" challenge or the ultimate test of any skill other than patience with how truly random it is Looking forward to seeing what that Aerodactyl pulled off!!

Bro I saw the 10,000 resets at the beginning and I knew it had to be chillin 😂 poor guy has made it to the elite 4 so many times. Love the streams though

I'm hurt you don't think I legitimately like Blissey.

You don't like Kaizo Ironmon? Heh this guy could never beat an ACTUAL hard challenge like Kaizo Ironmon

4:00 the favourite clause makes it very clear that the man did indeed intend for this to be fun on some level.

patience is also a skill. other than that i love this video because it is nearly as petty as me

So basically, no matter how good you are at the game, there's a good chance you'll just randomly fail at any time due to unfortunate randomization?

*Artificial difficulty.* I think the "challenge" is stupid and a waste of time honestly.

"good speed" *underlines special defense*

I really dislike the ironmon "challange" as well because it really is just a weird slot machine. And its really sad imo that it kinda survived longer and somehow could carry on its hype over PokeRouge and Emerald Rouge because these are actually good rogue likes unlike Ironmon (which through all the randomization has kinda become one) and it most certainly didn't earn the right to have putten Kaizo at the beginning of its title.

"Pffft, winning the lottery is obviously the hardest challenge." A statement dreamed up by the utterly deranged.

I think the worst thing is how you could have the best mon and then you meet a random sturdy perish song mon on a trainer with 5 mons and you simply die. Literally nothing you could've ever done. Not like you can start all battles with disable perish song and expect to win anything

I agree that challenges should be overcome with skill and learning from past attempts. This is like throwing a bunch of various dice and hoping the dice like you and give you good luck

Wait... Kidd can put a GBA game the wrong way in a GBA and make it work?! That man's a wizard!!

Just to say, streamers can't lie about favorites. It's on the tracker, and 99% of streamers get their chat to pick them if you gift sub.

Not finished with it yet, but this is probably my favorite video of yours BY FAR. You kisted everything I had a problem with in Kaizou Ironmon and the commentary was great as usual! Stand proud, your video is dinner worthy.

people have always been so weird about ironmon since the beggining. pie was always extremely clear that shit was just for fun, yet people have a strange rageboner hating on the content. it was intended to be a medium for a chill stream with chat interaction, but people pretend it is some kind of competitive league esport and get mad and defensive about it. viewers like the drama, the gamba, the interaction, the atmosphere. and nuzlocke creators bitching about ironmon sound salty and petty when they make negative snarky passive aggressive essays to own the iromon streamers with facts and logic.

I feel like the concept has potential. Running through a Pokemon game with one Pokemon WOULD be a difficult task. What single Pokemon would be the best for running through the whole game? How do you manage your limited overworld items to this end? Running with a single Pokemon, they’ll become higher level right away, so increasing the levels of core trainers would help keep the difficulty curves. But, they just completely trash it by randomizing everything. Randomizing starters makes sense, as otherwise your pickings for the attempt are always limited. But randomizing items? Moves?! STATS?! It’s just a glorified slot machine, sadly. Nothing to learn, just throwing yourself at the wall until you stick. It’s fun to watch the recap stream highlights, but it isn’t challenging. I just wanta see Ironmon, but in a game like EK, and without all the randomness. Maybe not Emerald Kaizo specifically, that one is maybe too difficult, but a game where teams have better coverage. That way a single Pokemon can’t just sweep the whole gym, and needs to pull out some strategy to succeed. There’s the bones for a genuine challenge here, we just need someone to really grasp it

You know, after reading the comments and seeing the video, it really is unfortunate there is so much negativity here. I've watched a few of your videos in the past, and they were enjoyable, but I'm not a fan of the elitism this video is giving off. You start off talking about how much you hate randomizer's, and then proceed to play a randomizer and have poor opinions about it...because it is a randomizer. You then gloss over the more challenging dungeons, you skip out on taking sleep powder that could have saved your run, and then continously talk about how IronMon doesn't take any decision making and that it actively makes you worse at Pokémon which just insults people's intelligence. Not all the takes you make are what the problem is (some are genuinely good points), but its the condescension that accompanies the takes that makes people unhappy with this. Kaizo didn't ask to be "the hardest challenge". It's meant to be unfair and what one streamer wanted to play for content, and other people picked it up and realized it was a fun time. The Ultimate IronMon category is less restricting if Kaizo isn't people's cup of tea as well, and is generally the more fun challenge for people wanting to get into IronMon. I feel the IronMon Community is also one of the most pleasant gaming communities I've been a part of. We're very welcoming, there's tons of resources to help people get started, and members of the community even built the tracker to help ease the barrier for entry. If people would rather play a Nuzlocke or something else, that's super valid. There's different ways of playing games for different folks. But just because you don't like randomizers doesn't make IronMon any less of a format to enjoy Pokémon than Nuzlockes, Speedruns, Romhacks or any other spin on how to play Pokémon. I know you probably did this for the clicks, but man, maybe a little less hate and isolation of a section of your viewer base and a little more positivity or constructive criticism next time.

Kinda ironic that in the featured run, it was Bruno who was the villain and run-ender, since he’s pretty much regarded as the weakest Elite 4 member of all time, lol.

4:53 Kidd: _"Your best hope of winning is to get a Pokemon with either good typing or high stats, like this Kingdra I'm showing off as example."_ Me who is legitimately more than halfway through a Kaizo attempt with a Kingdra: *"Oh hey, it's me"*

“so uh captain kid why did you decide to do the ironmon challenge?” “spite”

I feel like ironmon has potential to be interesting but with how much rng is in it, it just seems not fun.

The thing that makes this so inaccurate is that Bruno is difficult

Thank you! Kaizo Ironmon is, like you said, more a test of patience and eventually getting the correct RNG string to be able to click your buttons to OHKO the enemy team and get a minmaxed stat spread without any of the bans mentioned in the video (and this video doesn't even come close to 1/10th of the total restrictions). I'm 90% sure it's just supposed to be an endless grind for streamers, especially streamers that don't know a lot about Pokemon besides type matchups and big base power button with enough pp do a lot of damage. It's a completely different experience to a nuzlocke, or especially a nuzlocke in a game like run and bun, which is all knowledge and optimization and marathoning 500+ fights while playing perfectly the whole time, as one mistake can snowball out of control. But in those games, when you lose a mon, it is (usually) your fault, as your prep might've been suboptimal or you made some mistakes. The challenge and the relief of winning is much more worth it (IN MY OPINION) because the skill required and the amount of skill expression that can be, well, expressed is tantamount to winning a run, which are human elements that are within our control as players. You bring up a super good point with the switch AI. In games like Emerald Kaizo, Run and Bun, even easier nuzlockes like Renegade Platinum, an understanding of the Switch in AI is essential for a victory, which brings in a knowledge gap and skill expression by which you can predamage to bait out pokemon, or even chain kill in some of the harder games. In Kaizo Ironmon, however, a lot of Kaizo Ironmon players don't even know how the switch AI works (I've even seen speedrun explanation videos flat out get this wrong) because you don't need to know it! You can't switch, so baiting is not really a thing, and you don't know what is coming up, so there would not even be a point if you could. Great video! It's quite annoying as a nuzlocker, though a fairly average one, to be bombarded with people saying "oh you just can't beat Kaizo Ironmon that's why you think it sucks" and the general culture around Kaizo Ironmon can be quite toxic at times, presumably because it invites a bunch of casuals who watch streamers have high attempt counters every day and don't actually do any of these runs themselves.

Kaiso Ironmon is still closer to blackjack than slot machines; skill is still involved

as usual your editing is TOP class

as someone who hates games where luck matters more than actual skill.....yeah. absolutely agree

All of these complains for me go towards randomized Pokémon as well. The very nature of it being random mitigates a lot of the skill element.

I enjoy randomized nuzlockes. But only when it's just the encounters and items that are random (and abilities but some might disagree there). Having random types and bst has just never been as fun since it can be either really bs or just boring.

The creator made the challenge for himself. It was never intended to be more then a challenge for him to enjoy

This video is just when the teacher tells you to make a video essay about something that bothers you.

For me, the Kaizo Ironmon and Super Kaizo Ironmon (the even 'harder' cousin') challeng tickle a specific part of my Pokemon heart that Nuzlocks and similar challenges doesn't satisfy anymore. It's probably because Nuzlocks and similar challenges have been played to death, and me not liking the current meta of calcs and insane difficult rom hacks that are about as much about RNG encounters as Kaizo Ironmon but without the fast pace. I enjoy just turning my head off and playing a few seeds while watching RU-vid. And I enjoy Kaizo Ironmon streams simply because its Just Chatting with an interesting background action and fun streamers. But yeah, it isn't neccessarily the 'hardest' challenge (it has been titles that after it gained traction and people wanted more cloud), but its different, and thats what I seek in Pokemon nowaday.

This video is weird

I really like your vision of Kaizo Ironmon There should be 2 or 3 resets counts The total one Pass the lab Pass the first gym

Yeah, this is why I’m not going to try Kaizo Ironmon. If all I have to do to win is get lucky, it’s not really a challenge, is it? A real challenge should test my skill, not just my luck.

26:26 I should not have laughed as hard as I did here.

I used to watch Patterrz Kaizo Ironmon runs and as a viewer what I liked about it the most was the chat interactions that he and some other streamers would do. It would be all around a fun watch... Though yea, RNG doesn't make a game difficult

Last time I checked you don’t even follow kaizo rules correctly then it comes to lab 😂

This is a good commentary on difficulty and gambling in video games. Your skills can only take you so far, which is where you're at the mercy of luck.

I definitely agree. Clearly the hardest challenge is winning worlds.

At 2:30 the cartridge goes in to the gba the wrong way around

Trying to win with a Porygon2? Idk maybe try Aerodactyl next time, he's cooler.

Here's what I'm confused about -- it's fine if you don't like the challenge, but like...if you don't like randomizers as a whole, then why play a challenge that turns EVERYTHING on and adds stuff on top of it? Not liking randomizers is a perfectly valid take to have, you don't have to prove that to anyone. Let alone playing a challenge that you already know you're not gonna like. But making a whole video that effectively attacks the community who do like this challenge just feels like it's in poor taste. Things like how "Kaizo Ironmon makes people, if anything, worse at Pokemon" is BLATANTLY untrue. I've been playing Pokemon for nearly my entire life (I'm 25 rn), and I've learned more things about the in-depth details of how certain moves work, or abilities, or how the AI behaves. Or in some cases, I've learned some fun dumb things about Pokemon that I probably never would have found out otherwise -- like how getting statused in Oak's Lab is bugged, or how the rival fight in the lab is rigged in your favor because you can't ever miss. Yes, a lot of Kaizo Ironmon is pure RNG, there is absolutely no denying that. But it does still require some level of skill, skill that's going to be different compared to things like nuzlockes or speedrunning. But I'm not gonna say that you suck for not finishing a run. Things just happen, and that's just how it is. But if we want to attack other challenge runs, here's my take -- From a viewer's perspective, if I had to choose between watching Kaizo Ironmon vs Run & Bun, it's going to be Ironmon every time. Even if the streamer in question never makes it to Brock or even leaves Oak's lab, because at least I'm actually watching Pokemon, and not Microsoft Excel and the Showdown calculator. EDIT -- I do want to clarify something because I realize how I worded the original comment reflects my intentions poorly. I'm not upset with the fact he didn't like the challenge, I'm more upset with how condescending he comes across in the video. In the original text, I focused more on correcting a few things that I feel was just wrong. Sorry for the confusion.

I think its weird that there's so many bans on pokemon, items etc yet somehow the romhack doesnt include these updated rules? That's my takeaway from this

This is an amazing take on ironmon content…love it

This challenge perfectly embodies how I played pokemon as a child - mash the strong move with the strong 'mon, lose and come back without learning a damn thing lol

While I am doing my own nuzlocke, I won’t be doing the Kaizo Ironman any time soon. For starters, I don’t have the rom for it. Secondly, I’d prefer to keep what’s left of my sanity and leave it to those that might have an inkling of what to do.

I’ve never really liked RNG dependent ‘challenges’. Like said in the video, they just challenge your patience, not your actual ability to play the game. I feel bad for people who are genuinely mislead by Kauai Ironmon and believe the attempt counter and long ruleset mean it’s a difficult ‘challenge’.

the random starter pick is probably so u don't get to choose the starter pokemon for your rival...

Kaizo ironmon feels like a community outsourced project to find all the different seeds of "winnable" versions of this challenge. Surely there's something we can gain to make something interesting from all this head bashing people do

4:15 Being seduced by Mega Rayquaza continues to be an excellent life decision. 6:50 They go together, at least. 7:45 If you have the money. 12:12 Wait, can it have health? 13:13 That 5% chance for SF to miss is _horrible_. 31:00 Wait, you can use heals in-battle, now? If you combined this with Murphy's Law Edition, would it be beatable?

As a player who beat Kaizo Ironmon 5 times in 350 attempts, I agree with you... For the most part. Unless you get the extremely good seed with no opponents whatsoever and the godtier special attacker (or phys attacker without getting intimidated even once), kaizo Ironmon does require a bit of skill in order to get far with mid mons; my first 2 wins were with a mixed attacking Magneton and a Physical attacking Quagsire with which I had to actually use my brain and make calcs/AI manip in order to beat the E4 and Champion. Obviously I'm not saying Kaizo Ironmon is a skill check. It's not. It's a stupid unfun challenge and I very much prefer playing nuzlockes every day of the week. But to say that it doesn't require any skill is a bit of an exaggeration. Personally, I'd say it's 80% luck and 20% skill. Again, unless you find the god run you gotta have the skill necessary to make that luck work. For example, my brother played the same Magneton seed I played and he couldn't make it past Koga. Simply because he didn't have the knowledge of the game AI I had, and he wasted a lot of resources (I'm talking healing items here) where I saved them. So yeah, skill does play a role in Kaizo Ironmon. Just not as big as in actual challenges. I'd compare it to Poker. Professional Poker players need the skill to win even if they don't get 2 aces in every hand

Probably my favourite kaizo ironmon video to ever be created

The only thing worse than being at the mercy of a game designer's whims, is being at the non-existent mercy of an RNG.

Here is a Pokémon challenge. I personally like to call it the death Road challenge rule number one you’re only allowed to use moves. They are the same type as your Pokémon rule number two. During gym battles, you’re only allowed to use one Pokémon elite four fights you’re allowed to use three rule number three during gym battles and elite four fights you aren’t allowed to use super effective moves rule number four you aren’t allowed to damaging moves during a wild Pokémon encounter using status moves is fine

It took 3 minutes to get me to despise this challenge

If kaizo Ironmon is playing slots, then nuzlocking is just being a mathematician.

Pokémon Kaizo Ironmon: “The hardest Pokémon game to beat”. That fits it way better. Nuzlocke’s are easy. Pokémon can only be so hard without completely changing the game to almost something else entirely, which is what Ironmon does.

regarding shiny hunting, i have heard it referred to as hard/difficult tbh, especially when its a longer or more skill dependent hunt (ie rare pokemon in lets go who have unusual movement patterns or flee quickly, rare pokemon in general, pokemon go shiny hunting, marked shinies etc), especially compared to easier hunts like a route 1 rattata in lets go. theres a test of determination going on as well. its usually said when a hunt is going to be a particularly long grind as well- because its hard on your personal determination and patience.

So you admit to not liking randomized runs and yet...you subject yourself to a randomized run for what reason? Just...don't play it? Maybe?

The people that say that Kaizo Ironmon is a skill based challenge are the same that believe that winning in a casino is a skill based event.

from the 4 minutes i watched, it's a lot of misinformation and relatively cynical assumptions "this point of this is to arbitrarily inflate attempt numbers so the streamer looks cool" like, it sounds like you're just trying to be an ass at that point

This video feels incredibly NEGATIVE towards Kaizo players. You repeatedly call their challenge "no skill" throughout the video and at one point said it actively might make players dumber. I don't enjoy Kaizo myself, but this seriously feels like a slap in the face to people who do enjoy it.

Great way of burning bridges with the Kaizo Community

I love the question, “what makes a challenge difficult?” And I love the way you emphasize growth outcomes as being desirable! Are you a better runner when you finish your first marathon? A better student when you complete a degree program? Have you challenged yourself and become a better gamer, a better person? How much of life’s success and happiness is a result of doing hard things and overcoming challenges ? I’m only half way through the video, but I had to stop and comment because I love this question so much❤️

This dude could never beat an ACTUAL hard challenge like Kaizo Ironmon.

Why you gotta do my boy chilln like that 😂

This video puts into words what I've felt about Kaizo runs for a while now. I've always felt that a Nuzlock with harder rules would be much more difficult than this slot machine of a mode.

Great video!

I watched all your vods doing Kaizo Ironmon, and as you finally won with aerodactyl, I won with gardevoir

I was watching FlygonHG's soul silver flying type only nuzlocke the other day and learned, during his fight against Karen's Double Team spamming Umbreon, that Foresight renders evasion boosts useless. It's such a niche interaction that would almost never come into play unless you're doing something like a monotype hardcore Nuzlocke. The format Pokemon randomizers seem most fun for me is something like PokeRogue that at least offers a decent number of resources for a player to use and keeps enough consistency where strategy and planning are required. It doesn't matter how skilled a player is if they have virtually zero resources at their disposal. At that point, like you pointed out, it's just luck.

Yeah it just sounds like you have a skill issue buddy