Twitch Plays Pokémon is going strong as the community defeats Crystal and a countdown timer begins for Emerald.

The owner of the channel issued a challenge to the community recently saying if it couldn't defeat trainer Red before the end of the Crystal stream, there would be no Emerald. Red is the trainer from the original game who appears in Crystal as an opponent. The game was hacked so Red's party would be the same party that the original stream completed the game with. The community met the challenge, and Emerald is planned to begin in approximately six days on March 21.

You can check out the stream here, which is somewhat aimless at the moment. The game is defeated, so now its just a matter of exploring and catching more Pokémon.

For more on Twitch Plays Pokémon, check out our interview with the creator, as well as a breakdown of the original's streams story and fictional religion.

[Source: Twitch, via Joystiq]