Part 8: Update #08: Blue and Orange
Time to take on the second Gym!
: The LEADER: MISTY is a pro who uses water POKEMON! You can drain all their water with plant POKEMON! Or, zap them with electricity!
Man, I really should stop goofing off and having fun.
Wha? How did you do that? I can't do that, how can you do that?
#116: Horsea
It's your basic Water type in your basic Water Gym.
#090: Shellder
Not particularly difficult, let's move on.
I'd be more inclined to believe you if I didn't have an Electric and Grass type.
Well since you're now standing in front of her, you're just being rude.
#118: Goldeen
Well that was fun.
I think I'm a protagonist, but it's hard to tell.
: What's your policy on POKEMON? What is your approach? My policy is an all-out offensive with water-type POKEMON!: MISTY, the world-famous beauty, is your host! Are you ready, sweetie?
VS Leader Misty
Misty: The Tomboyish Mermaid
(Obvious from mist, while Kasumi is literally kasumi, mist, or umi, sea, or kasumisō, the plant baby's breath)
#120: Staryu
Alright, let's see what this thing can do.
Yeah, not much. All it can really do is Tackle.
#121: Starmie
Now this is a big one. Watch out. I need to neuter this thing, fast.
We haven't encountered these yet, but X items boost a stat by one stage. You could just use a boosting move, or just attack. They're really not worth it. I have never used them.
I can just ignore the Defence boost and hit on the Special side.
Starmie can and will wreck your shit though, so take it out quickly.
It only has Water moves and Tackle to hurt you though, so it's not the destroyer it could potentially be.
: All right! You can have the CASCADEBADGE to show you beat me!
"up to L30 obey!": That includes even outsiders! There's more, you can now use CUT anytime! You can CUT down small bushes to open new paths! You can also have my favorite TM!
: TM11 teaches BUBBLEBEAM! Use it on an aquatic POKEMON!Bubblebeam (Baburu Kōsen) is a straight upgrade from Bubble and is a pretty good Water move. For this part of the game. It gets horribly outclassed later.
"darn good team!"Yeah, you tell me stuff I already know and I do stuff I've done hundreds of times before. Teamwork!
Pfft, this game'll be done in about a week at this rate.
Only one way out of this city.
: We're positive that TEAM ROCKET is behind this terrible deed. Even our police force has trouble with the ROCKETs!Is this where I joke that the police assume it's always Team Rocket because they dress in black? No? Okay...
: They stole a TM for teching POKEMON how to DIG holes! That cost me a bundle it did!That's a real shame, with that kind of power, he's probably long gone by-
Oh. The police are IDIOTS.
"yard! Huh? Me?"
: I'm an innocent bystander! Don't you believe me?
Funnily enough, no.
#096: Drowzee
And your basic Psychic attack. Confusion (Nenriki: Mindpower) is a kinda weak move that, well...
Yeah...
And this is what Disable really does. It really is just random.
"leave quietly!"
"DIG without a TM!"Hope you recover and fix up your unique sprites.
Dig (Ana wo Horu: Dig Hole) is actually an okay move that helps you escape from caves to the last Pokemon Center used. However, since it's a two turn move, any move with more than 50BP outdamages it, but it's pretty good for now. Also, Ivysaur has the nickname of Vegeta. Our team's looking good.
Time to get out of here.
Hmm.
Not that way then. Even though we can Cut down bushes, we still don't have the specific HM.
What is the point of this fence?
COLOUR! Let's get some new Pokemon.
#063: Abra
Oh this one. For whatever reason they moved it from Routes 24 and 25, but whatever. You might want to catch this thing fast.
Because otherwise this will happen. Teleport (Terepōto) will allow you to escape wild battles or return to the last Pokemon Center. It's useless otherwise and the big reason why Abra is such a pain to catch.
We can also find Jigglypuff here, because they moved it from Route 3 because of anime or whatever. Also, a low level has nothing to do with capture chance, it is strictly HP and status.
Great...
So Sleep is pretty bad. It makes you unable to do anything for a number of turns until...
You wake up. Which takes an ENTIRE TURN, so you could be sent right back to sleep again. This is thankfully fixed in later gens.
Still, Paralysis is very useful for capturing stuff, since we can't sleep anything (and may never do).
And since we still have a Moon Stone...
#040: Wigglytuff
Another one for the box!
Now let's get Abra proper. Not sure why the sprite's not loading, since I can catch it on this route, but it doesn't matter.
And let's get another Pokemon that would appear on this route in the other games. However, I had some problems with this one.
Wha- Uh, that's not right.
So the code for Meowth wasn't working for whatever reason, unless I activated another Pokemon code alongside. This kinda combines them in a way, but once I eventually catch it, everything's fine. But I was very confused for some time.
Exhibit B.
Still a major pain to catch.
Eventually I get one. Best check the stats to make sure it's not some weird glitchy hybrid.
Stats is the first option, so I'll just press 'A' a lot.
Oh shit, wait!
...sigh. Field moves like Teleport are now the first option, so there may be plenty of misclicks if I forget.
Otherwise, it's fine. A legit Abra, aside from level, probably.
Okay... let's catch it?
"to ABRA?"Goddammit... It was actually an Abra. Or hopefully is. Let's just check its stats real qui-
FUCK
"Bye ABRA!"Well... we don't need two.
...maybe this is right?
......................yeah okay. Whatever.
And it's legit, so now we never have to worry about catching this fuck again.
Now can we move on?
The Daycare in this game can raise one Pokemon for 1exp for 1 step taken. That's it. Any moves learnt will replace the previous ones starting from the top. There's not much point to it, but if you leave something here now, it'll gain a number of levels by the end of the game.
So let's head onwards.
"though!"
: Oh, wait there, the road's closed.
Okay, great, now what?
"VERMILION CITY"Conveniently, there's a way to avoid Saffron City entirely until it's opened.
Wha- Do you know what you're proposing with that? Well we don't have a Cubone, so we can't anyway.
We'll talk about in-game trades in today's Side Notes.
The Underground Path is a literal straight line. But there are a couple hidden items. Full Restore (Recovery Medicine) will heal a Pokemon by 999HP and remove any status. Very useful, but short in number for now.
And the other item. Not hugely impressive, but I'm getting them all dammit.
And with that, we're done.
"UNDERGROUND PATH."Not to worry, I just hoover that shit up.
Let's try entering Saffron from this side.
"though!": Oh, wait there, the road's closed.
I'll beat up this dumb guy to make me feel better.
So, Poison has you lose 1/16th of your health each turn. Unless you make a Pokemon faint. That won't be the only quirk.
It's not too annoying, especially if you're wrecking house.
"VIRIDIAN FOREST."Please stay there.
You lose one 1HP for every three steps and the effect is annoying as fuck, so cure it ASAP. See, this is why I bought those Antidotes in Viridian City!
"Leave me alone!"Uhhhhhhhhhh
#070: Weepinbell
We're starting to see some evolved Pokemon. How crazy.
"bother me!"I liked your R/B versions better.
#104: Cubone
Bone Club (Honekonbō) isn't too bad, but doesn't have the best accuracy. It's kinda powerful, but it's not the move a Ground type needs.
Suuuuure, power of friendship, heart of the Pokeballs. No formulae or numbers here...
"Are you good?"Against you? We'll see.
#012: Butterfree
This thing could be a bit difficult to take down.
Especially if this happens. Sleep Powder (Nemuri Gona) is more accurate than Sing, that's for sure.
Useful that I woke up the very next turn though.
...nevermind.
Stop it!
"just bad?"Well you're bad and I'll tell you why. You may have noticed that aside from hitting myself, I didn't take any damage in that fight. That's because of how Butterfree's moveset was moved around in Yellow so you learn stuff earlier. This means it can learn Supersonic by this point. And since average trainer Pokemon just have the last four moves they can learn, Butterfree doesn't know Confusion and instead knew Stun Spore, Poison Powder and Sleep Powder instead. Ahh Gen 1.
Nearly at the next town.
"your secret?"Bigger numbers?
I don't really have a choice.
#020 Raticate
Hmm, Fury Swipes (Midare Hikkaki) can hit up to 5 times and is, on average, stronger than Scratch, but it can and will miss. But might as well use it, I guess.
I'm not going to mug you, geez. You're only four steps from a city.
COLOUR!