A Pokémon Fan Devised the Hardest Challenge Run Imaginable; Now, Over a Year Later, It’s Been Beaten

You probably don’t think of Pokémon when asked to name notoriously challenging games. Despite having a complex competitive meta, the campaigns of Pokémon games have been accused of being too easy for years now, especially in more recent games. As a result, fan communities have come up with various voluntary, restrictive challenges to make the game more difficult, such as the many variations of the Nuzlocke challenge.

But there’s one fan-created challenge mode that’s so difficult it had never been beaten… until now. It’s the Super Kaizo Ironmon challenge, and it’s just been defeated after over a year and thousands of attempts by hundreds of community members.

The Super Kaizo IronMon challenge was created by streamer iateyourpie, who came up with it in 2024. It builds off of the IronMon challenge and its past variations, which iateyourpie created a few years before that, and which was already a difficult way to play Pokémon.

The standard IronMon challenge includes rules such as required use of a randomizer, all enemy trainer and wild Pokémon levels increased by 50%, a requirement that if a Pokémon faints, it cannot be used anymore, and a rule that you can only catch OR kill one Pokémon per route — no grinding wild encounters for EXP.

Then, there’s the Ultimate IronMon rules, which add more restrictions such as only allowing six Pokémon to be obtained during the run total, not letting you leave a Gym once you enter until you’ve beaten it, and only allowing players to enter a dungeon one time.

And then on top of that there’s Kaizo IronMon, which adds rules like only one Pokémon being allowed to be used at a time, only allowing players to catch Pokémon up to four levels higher than the highest Pokémon on their team, prevents killing any wild Pokémon at all, and bans all sorts of helpful items, abilities, moves, and Pokémon.

Super Kaizo IronMon takes literally all of those rules, and for some unhinged reason, adds even more. It require a ROM patch to give trainers smart AI and held items, and gives Gym Leaders full teams of six, making them far more difficult than normal. It forces players to “pivot” to a new Pokémon midway through the game, and has restrictions as to how that Pokémon can be chosen. It bans even more moves and items, and has various requirements for different versions of Pokémon that restrict certain areas such as the Trick House in Pokemon Emerald, the S.S. Anne in FireRed and LeafGreen, and Amity Square in Pokémon Platinum.

So, yeah, maybe no shocker that this took so long to beat, huh? But streamer Reimi has finally managed to do it after an eye-popping 8,502 attempts. The winning run, which concluded this past Friday, took place on Pokémon FireRed. Because it’s a randomizer, any Pokémon can appear anywhere, so Reimi’s starter Pokémon choice was between a Krabby, a Weedle, and a Blissey. Unshockingly, Reimi went with the Blissey, which became his main fighter for the whole first half of the run.

But because of the pivot rule, Reimi had to swap main Pokémon halfway through the game. He was allowed to catch three different Pokémon from one specific area to choose from, and ultimately settled on a Crobat nicknamed Heskey that evolved from… Ivysaur (it’s a randomizer!). Reimi’s initial reaction to the evolution on screen was, “That’s at least something,” but that something turned into a whole heck of a lot as the run continued.

It all culminated in a nervewracking final battle against Blue with Heskey at level 90 and equipped with Earthquake, Sludge, Aerial Ace, and Thunderbolt. In this randomized version, Heskey took out Blue’s Camerupt easily with a one-shot Earthquake, and a Parasect with Aerial Ace. Parasect left a nasty partying gift in the form of Flame Body burning Heskey, only for Blue to send out a second Parasect with Acid Armor. Heskey still managed to take it out a single shot with Sludge after healing the burn, and Blue sent out his ace next: a level 95 Quagsire. But Heskey dispatched THAT in one shot too, with a critical hit Earthquake.

Next up was a level 86 Rayquaza, of all things, which proved trickier. Heskey had to slowly chop its health down with Sludge, and while he managed to poison it, Blue kept using Full Restores and Rayquaza kept using Refresh to negate Heskey’s efforts. At one point, Reimi had to use the one Full Restore in his bag just to keep Heskey alive, despite wanting to save it for a potential Dynamic Punch later in the fight. Eventually, Rayquaza dropped, leaving Poliwrath. Three attacks later, Heskey finished the job, and Reimi became the first person ever to finish Super Kaizo IronMon.

So what’s Reimi doing now that Super Kaizo IronMon has been conquered? He’s… still playing it. At the time this piece was written, Reimi was just outside of Viridian City with a level 39 Tentacruel named Squidward.

Reimi’s victory will likely pave the way for more wins down the road, but iateyourpie’s disclaimer on the Super Kaizo IronMon rules page, “This is not meant for everyone,” certainly rings true given how ridiculous it was just to get one person to reach the end of the challenge exactly one time.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.