Praise Helix: Twitch played and finally beat every generation of Pokémon

Twitch Plays Pokémon is perhaps the finest example of what the human spirit is capable of when we work together. Well, that and the moon landing … except the moon landing never beat a single Pokémon game.

After nearly six months, the community on gameplay video-streaming site Twitch has beaten every single generation of Pokémon games by working together to spam control commands into a chat window. Twitch Plays Pokémon burst on the scene in February by introducing a way for thousands of people to work together to play a single instance of a game. After attracting a huge audience and defeating Pokémon Red in a couple of weeks, a smaller crew of dedicated fans went on to play through all nine major iterations of the franchise. That includes Pokémon X, which was a part of the latest generation for 3DS.

That last game actually required a bit of tinkering to get it working. One of the fans of the Twitch channel modified a physical 3DS to take chat commands since an emulator doesn’t exist for Nintendo’s latest handheld. That goes to show that Twitch Plays Pokémon always finds a way.

Twitch Plays Pokémon is just one of the reasons that nearly 50 million people tune in to watch gameplay video on the Twitch site each month. It’s also why Google is dropping $1 billion to buy the company and put it under the YouTube brand.

“Needless to say, we love what Twitch Plays Pokémon is doing for the community,” a Twitch spokesperson told GamesBeat. “We love how the Twitch community has supported this every step of the way.”

Twitch Plays Pokémon still isn’t over, and it probably won’t ever end as long as a couple hundred people keep showing up to play. Right now, the players are working their way through Pokémon Stadium 2 for the Nintendo 64.

Check it out:

Going forward, Twitch Plays Pokémon is considering a number of official releases as well as fan-modified hacks. Here’s the full list that the anonymous channel owner is choosing from:

• Pokémon Diamond
• Pokémon Brown
• Pokémon Prism
• Pokémon Quartz
• Pokémon Marble
• Pokémon Blue
• Pokémon Trading Card Game
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon

Up next, however, is a special run of Pokémon Red that will have the community trying to capture all 151 pocket monsters.

In the wake of Twitch Plays Pokémon, a number of other games got similar treatment. That includes releases like Tetris, Street Fighter, and Zelda — although none quite matched the popularity of the original concept.