Pokemon Yellow Part #21 - Riding the Psywave

Part 21: Riding the Psywave

Starting off with more evolutions. Still plenty to go. Will today be your favorite? Find out here!

Team Rocket is gone from Saffron, so now we can access all areas.

"to see you soon!"

: Hey! Don't look at my letter!

While this is a cool bit of continuity, I don't get no free stuff, so who cares, right?

"of techniques!"

Bit tame compared to the new letter being 'so I hear you've been taken over by the mafia?'

This is the interesting house.

While imitation is the highest form of flattery, that sounds annoying as hell.

Seems to have a pretty lucky family.

: Uh no, I just asked you. Huh? You're strange!

: But that's my favorite hobby!

: For me? Thank you! You can have this, then!

: Use it on a good POKEMON!

I would if it were a good move. Mimic (Monomane) allows you to select the enemy's move to copy. This allows you to see their entire moveset and see just how terrible they all are. Funnily enough, you can't use this feature in link battles. They at least got some things right... But yeah, unless you really want to use the opponent's moves against them, just attack them with what you learn.

: Pardon? Is it that fun to mimic my every move?

Okayyyyy, moving on from the crazy girl (she's great)

"It's only a doll!"

Copycat is a big fan of dolls, so that Poke Doll I bought way back in Celadon is better given to her then sequence breaking.

Copycat tells her parents her Doduo talks. They don't believe her.

"on his head!"

This is a very obscure reference to the Japan only Mario and Wario on the SNES. It was planned to be localized, but alas, never came to be. It was one of the few games to use the SNES mouse accessory (yes there was a SNES mouse). Interesting that they kept this in, since no one would understand the reference in the west.

This might be the first time I've ever picked up this hidden item.

Oh?

"CLEFAIRY!"

Oh. Not really not much of a secret if everyone knows it.

Well, time to take down this Gym.

: SABRINA's POKEMON use psychic power instead of force!

: Fighting POKEMON are weak against psychic POKEMON! They get creamed before they can even aim a punch!

He doesn't mention Poison types because lol if you're using one this far in the game.

Oh yeah, TELEPORT MAZE YAY. I ignored the shit out of these in Silph Co. because aside from a couple, they're completely useless. However, you need to use these to navigate the 3x3 grid of this Gym, with Sabrina in the centre. Good fucking luck.

"our LEADER!"

: You won't reach her easily!

Crap, the Bug Catchers are back.

Oh wait, never mind.

#080: Slowbro

This thing is strong. Or my thing is weak.

"SAFFRON."

: The FIGHTING DOJO next door lost its GYM status when we went and creamed them!

Rude. But tis simply the circle of life.

We'll be going to each room and clearing them and the best way to do that is to head across vertically each time. You'll only miss out on two teleports, but you'll eventually reach the leader after taking out all the trainers. A visual aid would be better.

So, the colours only indicate how many teleporters you've traveled to reach there. The minimum teleporters you'll use (including the first one), is 5 to reach the leader. So the quickest path is to go A, C, F, J, M. Or, go A, D, O, N, M. Or, A, C, E, H, M. You get the picture, there's quite a number of ways to get through. And then reverse for when you're heading back. Simple.

"fight!"

Oh great, these guys again.

Boring ghosts aside, this should be interesting because...

Thunder (Kaminari) is the strongest Electric move, if a bit inaccurate. This is just the boost Ikue needs to stay relevant.

"place."

Otherwise, eh. (Pikachu does the electrifying animation like it did with learning Thunderbolt, but I forgot, sorry!)

I don't believe your AI can predict the future!

...so not Ghost? So you knew of the glitch??? But didn't fix it?????

"its psychics!"

: You want to see SABRINA! I can tell!

Your powers told you that a Gym challenger wishes to battle the Gym Leader? Great clairvoyance there mate.

Pfft, easy. (Due to no Psychic moves)

"read your mind!"

...but you lost.

"respect her!"

Why are you here???

Oh yeah, Seismic Toss ignores weaknesses, resistances and immunities. If I hadn't mentioned that before, I have now!

: If you wish to beat SABRINA, focus on winning!

Everyone's very chatty in this Gym.

"enough!"

So I use the force?

Heh, I beat you up with power.

"MASTER next door!"

Been there, done that.

"their trainers."

: Your POKEMON must be tough then!

I know yours aren't, I've faced a million of them!

"to my POKEMON!"

TM is love, TM is life.

That's all the trainers, so let's head to the final teleporter.

: I have had psychic powers since I was a child. I first learned to bend spoons with my mind.

: I dislike fighting, but if you wish, I will show you my powers!

VS Leader Sabrina

Sabrina: The Mistress of Psychic Pokemon!
(Sabrina sounds vaguely like psychic, or a combination of Abra and brain. It could be based off Sabrina The Teenage Witch, which debuted in comic form in 1962 and TV form in 1996. But who knows for sure. Natsume is the Japanese name for the jujube (or date) tree.)

Oh, whoops, accidentally sent out my Fighting type. Whatever will I-

jk, Abra has no damaging moves. And look, the strongest type in the game is at level 50. Oh won't this be fun.

Kadabra does have some powerful moves which can really hurt. Well, except for Psywave (Saikowēbu: Psychowave), which does a variable amount of damage that increases depending on the user's level. It uses the formula (X+0.5)*L, where X is a random number between 0 and 1 and L is the level of the attacking Pokemon. So at level 100, it can do between 50 and 150 damage, which is either amazing, or pathetic. So go with something that has some consistency to it. It isn't affected by typing either.

Wukong did its job though. And Psywave did 52 damage. So, by reversing the equation, we get (52/50)-0.5, which is 0.54, the number chosen. Maths bitch!

Okay maybe Wukong wasn't that useful. But Aquamemnon has this. Right?

Eh. Whatever. Moving on.

#065: Alakazam

We need to cripple this thing, FAST. It can deal some serious damage to our team.

THAT WAS A CRIT?

The main thing it'll do is boost its Defense to an amount that isn't completely pathetic. Now Ikue can barely damage it on either side.

But it did what was necessary.

Maybe I would've just died to one attack. Who knows? What matters is I won.

: But, a loss is a loss. I admit I didn't work hard enough to win! You earned the MARSHBADGE!

Holla holla that dolla dolla.

"to L70 obey you!"

: Stronger POKEMON will become wild, ignoring your orders in battle! Just don't raise your POKEMON too much!

: Wait, please take this TM with you!

: TM46 is PSYWAVE! It uses powerful waves to inflict damage!

: Everyone has psychic power! People just don't realize it!

I predict you getting weaker for whatever reason. It's also weird she talks so much about traded Pokemon, which you probably shouldn't have over level 50, or 70 by this point anyway. It's strange. Oh well, back we go.

: If I had that, I'd make a bundle at the slots!

Is that all adults think about in this world?

Regardless, we have only two more badges left. But before we end it off, what I like doing after a specific point is going back through the region with various HMs and items and finishing up some leftover stuff. So let's go.

First up is back home. Now there are a number of places we could go for some of these Pokemon, but I'm going to where they're most likely to appear. Stuff you can catch with rods was changed around a lot between games, so it'll differ a lot in RBG.

Ikue is gonna be pretty useful. I could get a low leveled Pokemon to whittle them down, buuuuuuuuut

We're gonna be doing a lot of catching.

Next up, not new Pokemon, but new places. Kinda.

: The POKEMON LEAGUE champion is the only person who is allowed in!

I get ya. You're guarding this place. Not surprising, with hair like that.

Something new to get though.

No, not you.

#119: Seaking

There we go.

Quick Attack is also very useful in whittling things down.

Hey, remember this girl? No? Good, she's a bit rubbish.

Well, aside from that. Spore (Kinoko no Hōshi: Mushroom Spore) is the only reason to use Paras and friends, since it's a 100% accurate Sleep inducing move. Shame the Pokemon that have it are kinda shit. Ah well.

"mushrooms here."

: I think I got them all.

...well done? I think we should leave her and her shrooms alone.

Got more things here.

#098: Krabby

Coooooooooooooooookiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee.

Heh, it's gone to the PC. Like that episode. Remember? WELL, DO YA? 90S KID??? REMEMBER WHEN THINGS WERE GOOD????? CLICK THIS FUCKING ARTICLE CHRIST

#099: Kingler

Ahh, it's been a while. Well, last, last update, but it was just a stop off.

Here's a weirdly hidden item. Like how the hell did people find this?

So we did miss out on a couple things here. Maybe, just maybe, I purposefully lost. Like I did in Mt. Moon. Yeah...

Bit weird that you can fish up Pokemon in this area despite it being pretty tricky to actually accomplish. Seriously, the rates are different compared to Vermillion.

Also, don't fish on the tile next to the S.S. Anne, because when the map loads back in, the boat LEAVES. Oh, uh, my friend found that out.

Anyway, time to settle the score.

"if you lose!"

Ohohoho. OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO.

: Jellyfish sometimes drift into the ship.

A shame we had to miss out on this item for so long, but he was the most convenient guy I could lose to.

And that's everything. Bye boat! See you next year!

Wait shit I forgot something.

Crap. Well at least I haven't saved.

FUCK. Okay, okay, I can fix this.

Hmm, uh, maybe I can Surf around?

Alright, it worked!

Sure buddy.

Might as well explore.

...the hell is this? What's it doing here? This game is very basic, so if something's in the game, then there has to be a reason. I guess I could move it with Strength and get my Mew... but I already have one. Well, I'm sure it's not important.

So yeah, even if the S.S. Anne leaves, by walking just above the Sailor and quickly saving, you can reset the game and if your character still faces the water, you can Surf on top of the guy and go straight past him. Allowing you to access the S.S. Anne whenever you want.

Now what about the truck? Well, it might have had a purpose at one point, but in this game, it does nothing. In the remakes, they kept it in and had a Lava Cookie nearby, so it might not have been one renegade artist slipping it in at the last second and they actually knew about it. Since you can just trade a Pokemon over that knows Cut, you can skip the S.S. Anne entirely and return later, so the truck could be a cool little easter egg for those more curious players. And of course, if you faint after getting the HM, or just glitching through the guy, you can return whenever no matter what. And, no, you cannot use Strength on it. Beating the Elite Four 365 times however...

Anyway, there's nothing else here. Using the glitch, you can make the S.S. Anne leave and return as much as you want. But I think we're done here.

That's deep man.

#054: Psyduck

Sure, chuck it in the pile.

#055: Golduck

Oh yeah, I ran out of Pokeballs, so I'll just evolve Psyduck later.

I know this has been bothering me for a little bit.

: I've seen you, but I never had a chance to talk! Here's a gift for dropping by!

: TM41 teaches SOFTBOILED! Only one POKEMON can use it! That POKEMON is CHANSEY!

Softboiled (Tamago Umi: Egg Lay) is an okay move that heals you for 50% of your health. And yeah, only Chansey can learn it. And Mew. Is that why it's a TM? Well, it could be useful.

Nearly done, just a couple more Pokemon to get.

No.

#130: Gyarados

We could've gotten this a long time ago had we raised Emperor. But I'm not fucking insane, so here we are.

Last stop and we can get the last item in this goddamn place. But there's just one more thing.

#147: Dratini

Unfortunately we have to find this mythical Pokemon in this terrible place, but at least it's not too speedy. It's fairly common to fish up, so you'll get one eventually.