2006 TPM RBY Monotype Challenge

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Name: Matt
Type: Rock
Reason: I have a stone hart.
Badges: 1
Progress:

So I decided to start out, picked Bulba, yadayada, the whole shebang. I defeated my rival on the league-road, smashed through Viridian Forest and entered Pewter city. I healed and immediatly took out the gymtrainers.

Brock: Vinewhip x2, badge!

Hurried to Mt.Moon, caught a l.7 Geodude, avoided all trainers through Mt.Moon until I obtained TM01 (Mega Punch). Taught Geodude Megapunch and started beating out Zubats, etc. Caught a Clefairy and a Paras just for the heck of it.

After it reached l.16, defeated all trainers and some other wild pokemon and saved before the fossils.

Pokemon


Geodude (l.20)
Rock Throw | Mega Punch | Tackle | Bide
(Probably full out attacker that can b00m.)

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

Next up: Training, bigger rocks, and a wet opponent.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Name: Matt
Type: Rock
Reason: I have a stone hart.
Badges: 2
Progress:

Picked Helix fossil, did some more training, picked up TM04 (Whirlwind) and reached Cerulean City. Defeated rival and Nuggetbridge and Geodude evolved. Cleared out the whole way until Bill, taught Seismic Toss and returned. Picked up Dig and taught it to Graveler. Misty's apprentices are pussies.

Misty: Dig took out Staryu. Then I received a Watergun which put me up at 1/10 of my health. Dig, dead and done. Badge!

Some more training until Vermillion, saved there.

Pokemon


Graveler (l.30)
Rock Throw | Seismic Toss | Dig | Selfdestruct
(Probably full out attacker that can b00m.)

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
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[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

Next up: Some more training, an easy swipe and into a place like home.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Name: Matt
Type: Rock
Reason: I have a heart of stone.
Badges: 2
Progress:

Mostly training here now. Cleared out the route east of Vermillion, then the ship. Defeated rival, picked up HM01, traded Spearow for Dux and taught it Cut. Went through Diglett's cave and picked up Old Amber and HM05 (Flash).

Saved before Vermillion Gym. Excitement all around.

Pokemon


Graveler (l.37)
Rock Throw | Seismic Toss | Earthquake | Selfdestruct
(Probably full out attacker that can b00m.)

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

Next up: Surge's going down.

[ssj4supernerd]

Badabump


No data and detailed description this time, I accidentally pressed BACK and my whole post was deleted, in short I kicked Misty's and Surge's butt, Graveler is lvl 36

Pokemon


Rocker
Lvl 36
Earthquake, Rock Throw, Mega Punch, Selfdestruct
(Overleveled lol)


Whipper
Lvl 18
Tackle, Cut, Leech Seed, Vine Whip
Finally back in action


Flasher
Lvl 5
Sing
(Now that Dig is gone, is also gonna get Teleport duty.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Name: Matt
Type: Flying
Reason: Started bug, but realised that I already did that before.
Badges: 1
Progress:

Started out with pikachu like usual, did the errand, got my pokeballs, then went straight for Viridian Forest and caught myself a level six Caterpie, named Suzemebachi. Trained it up, went back to finish off Gary and trained in Viridian Forest until I got myself a Butterfree.

I entered Pewter with Suzemebachi and headed for Brock. It was a decided match after four shots and that was that. Went further to Route 3, defeated the trainers there and arrived at the foot of Mt.Moon, where I saw Shazza.

Got myself a Magikarp and named it Nejibana. Trained it up piggybacking style for a while and then decided to enter the cave. Explored the cave and picked up all the items while training Nejibana some more.

Picked Helix fossil, did some more training by beating Jesse and James, picked up TM04 (Whirlwind) and reached Cerulean City. Defeated rival and Nuggetbridge and got myself a CHarmander. I named it Ruyjinjakka.

Training along route 25 now.


Pokemon


Suzemebachi | Butterfree (l.22)
Confusion | Sleeppowder | Stunspore | Tackle


Nejiban | Magikarp (l.17)
Tackle | Splash | - | -


Ruyjinjakka (l.10)
Scratch | Growl | Ember | Megapunch

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

Next up: Evolving and Misty!

[Mr.E]

What ever happened to Rock from... two years ago?

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Wel, it got boring, training one teammember. I redid Rock in RSE, though, more variation.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Name: Matt
Type: Flying
Reason: Started bug, but realised that I already did that before.
Badges: 2
Progress:

Did a long training session beyond nuggetbridge, went back, defeated Misty's servants and went back in training above nuggetbridge. I obtained a Rare Candy in Mt.Moon befor and was going to use it on Nejibana at l.19, but I gave it to Ruyjinjakka by accident =/

I growled and trained Nejibana some more, it actually took a long while before it reached l.20 and EVOLVED! Yay, I was so happy. Gyarados looks awesome. I taught it Water Gun and trained some more until Ruykinjakka evolved. Then I hurried up and rushed back to the gym; where I crammed Misty's ass so hard I came. My pokemon deserved the win, since we had been working very hard for this victory.

Followed up those splendid actions by beating that Rocked Guy with the Dig TM and immediatly gave Dig to Ruyjinjakka. He was happy to obtain it and would be useful further in the game. Since Nejibama would be jealous, I gave her (yes it's a she) Bubblebeam.

I went into the underground path and quickly rushed to Vermillion, with no competition of trainers. FOOLZ!

I healed my pokemon again since PP was my biggest enemy for now, headed to SS. Anne and cleared it aswell. Darkly (as my rival is called) was no match and I quickly obtained HM01.

With that being done, I wanted to test out my skills and challenge Surge, who's my biggest rival typewise. Crap, I forgot I needed Cut for that. I didn't want to teach it to my Charmeleon so I decided to venture into Diglett's cave and get myself a HM slave.

While I was there I decided to pick up Old Amber, Mr.Mime, HM05 all in once, so that I did not need to worry about those later. Returned after the capture of a Diglett, AFTER I got my items at Pewter and Viridian and saved in front of the GYM.

Surge is going down!

Pokemon


Suzemebachi (l.24)
Confusion | Sleeppowder | Stunspore | Tackle


Nejibana (l.26)
Tackle | Bubblebeam | Bite | Dragonrage


Ruyjinjakka (l.25)
Scratch | Dig | Ember | Megapunch

[IMG][/IMG]
Unknown (l.?)
- | - | - | -

HM slaves: Diglett

Next up: One-move-defeat!

[dygricon]

My pokemon deserved the win, since we had been working very hard for this victory

[DaBlackBandit]

Wel, it got boring, training one teammember. I redid Rock in RSE, though, more variation.

You could have got Onix in the Rock Tunnel, The Rhydon. Good luck with the Flying type. I'm doing an Ice Type, challenge

[Blademaster]

So I was at a game store not too long ago and found they had a yellow GameBoyColor + Pokemon Yellow bundle for a good price, so being the whore for nostalgia that I am, I snatched that shit up.

Unfortunately, you apparently can't transfer Pokemon from RBY to the newer Gens. Like, at all. In any way. You'd think there might be some way to daisy-chain Pokemon from a GB game like Yellow to a GBA one like Ruby or FireRed, and then from there to a DS game and then the 3DS and Bob's your uncle, but nah. Fuck that, apparently. So I guess I can't glitch my way to a full Pokedex in Yellow, which sucks.

But hey, silver lining: Now I can use those glitches on this dead-as-fuck thread and do a Monotype challenge! I don't know what type to go with, though.

So why don't you potentially-nonexistent folks pick one for me? It can be any type; thanks to later-Gen retcons, Mega Evolutions, and Alola Forms, even a Fairy-type run is technically doable with some hand-waving. So pick something out for me and I'll do it, just because I'm bored.

[Mr.E]

That's why we have digital downloads for RBY in the Nintendo eShop now, for the new-gen transferability.

Rock.

[Poryhedron]

So, what, you're saying you could do a Mono-Steel run in Yellow version with Sandshrew, Diglett and Magnemite? That's not really a monotype challenge, just a Themed run...

[Blademaster]

So, what, you're saying you could do a Mono-Steel run in Yellow version with Sandshrew, Diglett and Magnemite? That's not really a monotype challenge, just a Themed run...

You got a better idea? I'm not going to pick Steel outright, but if someone else picked it for me, what other option do I have?

That's why we have digital downloads for RBY in the Nintendo eShop now, for the new-gen transferability.

Oh really? Sweet.

Rock.

Awwww, you suck. Oh well, I'm a man of my word.


Name: Ash
Type: Rock
Reason: Mr. E is a jerk.
Badges: 1
Progress:


Alright, so, like I said, I'm going to be using glitches if need be in order to perform this run. Unfortunately, there's no glitches that can net you a Rock Pokemon any earlier than Mt. Moon. It's theoretically possible to encounter a Rhydon if you can find a Pokemon with a low enough Sp. Atk., but I couldn't find any Pokemon with a Sp. Atk. low enough for that, so Geodude was going to be my starter.

So, I basically speedran my way through the early game, beelining for the grass north of Pallet Town so I could meet Prof. Oak and get Pikachu. After roflstomping Gary (I got lazy with the names, shut up.), I headed straight to Viridian City for Oak's package and then straight back, got a Pokedex, and headed off to start my game. From there, I avoided every Trainer I possibly could on my way to Pewter City; I think the only Trainer I actually fought was that Bug Trainer near the end of Viridian Forest that is pretty much literally blocking your path. I wanted to preserve as many Trainers as I could to feed Geodude EXP later. To that end, I tried doing the Brock skip glitch so I could leave Brock unfought and just beat a few Trainers at the base of Mt. Moon instead, then enter Mt. Moon, catch a Geodude, and go back to start my run.

Unfortunately, the Brock skip glitch doesn't work in Yellow. So, unable to acquire a Rock Pokemon before Brock and unable to skip him, I had no choice but to beat him and get a BoulderBadge first. How did I beat Brock with a Level 7 Pikachu, then? Well, since I couldn't acquire a Rock type to fight him with, I was going to have to grind my way to a high enough level that Pikachu could learn Quick Attack and attrition Brock to death...

Nah, just kidding. That'd take WAY too long. See, since I couldn't find a Rock Pokemon to fight Brock with, I decided that the Pokemon I beat Brock with was irrelevant. So, I decided to catch a Level 100 Nidoking and brush Brock aside that way. Generating a Level 1 Nidoking was easy enough, but waiting for him to hurt himself with Thrash so I could catch him was a pain in the ass, since he just dodged all Pokeballs at full HP and Pikachu couldn't hurt him thanks to his immunity to Thundershock. After about 20 minutes, I managed to catch him, and one wild Pidgey fight later, he was at Level 100. Brock's Pokemon fell in one hit each, as did every Pokemon belonging to those pipsqueaks on Route 3 that I had to fight. I made it to Mt. Moon and finally caught a Level 10 Geodude.

NOW my run could finally begin. I retraced my steps back to Route 1 and talked to everyone on the way through to Viridian City, then took a detour towards Indigo Plateau to fight Gary... who didn't show up. Did I accidentally fight him while trying to level up Pikachu before giving up on that idea? Fuck, oh well, whatever. The Trainers in Viridan Forest, Route 3, and Mt. Moon provided plenty of EXP. Nothing else of real interest happened in Pewter City or at the base of Mt. Moon, though I DID accidentally wind up buying a Magikarp from that fucking peddler in the Pokemon Center while hammering A to get through dialogue boxes. Oh well, money is common as dirt in Pokemon games.

Mt. Moon presented what I guess I could call Geodude's first actual challenge. It's not so much that the Trainers here were difficult, but there were enough of them that Geodude simply ran out of PP pretty quickly, especially due to Rock Throw's abysmal accuracy and the high frequency of Sand Attacks that Geodude had to swallow. By the end of the first floor, I had to use my Escape Rope to return to the Pokemon Center. Also, there was a Trainer with an Oddish and a Bellsprout that Geodude simply couldn't compete with. I left her alone and progressed through the rest of the area, kicking Team Rocket's collective ass and acquiring a Dome Fossil for later. I'll explain why I chose it over the Helix Fossil in a future update.

With all that done, I left Mt. Moon and entered Cerulean City, where there was again little to do before tackling the Gym. The Gym that specializes in the type that Geodude has a x4 weakness to. Oh dear. I'm going to need more EXP, and possibly (but hopefully not) more overpowered glitch Pokemon. Let's try the former first, shall we? Heading north to Nugget Bridge, I ran into Gary again and proceeded to bury his team under rocks, netting enough EXP to bring Geodude to Level 24. One Rare Candy later, and my Geodude evolved into a Graveler. Hopefully that'll give me the edge I need against Misty and her Trainers.

Hopefully.


Pokemon:

Name: GRAVELER
Level: 25
Moves: Tackle, Defense Curl, Rock Throw, Selfdestruct
Team leader.

Name: PIKACHU
Level: 7
Moves: Thundershock, Growl, Tail Whip, ---
Team mascot.

Name: NIDOKING
Level: 100
Moves: Tackle, Horn Attack, Poison Sting, Thrash
Future HM User.

Name: MAGIKARP
Level: 5
Moves: Splash, ---, ---, ---
Mistake.


Next time: Misty, followed by hopefully more Pokemon. Not sure what route I'll take yet, but I'd like to acquire my other Rock Pokemon ASAP so they can acquire a healthy amount of EXP even in the later stages of the game.

[Poryhedron]

NOW my run could finally begin. I retraced my steps back to Route 1 and talked to everyone on the way through to Viridian City, then took a detour towards Indigo Plateau to fight Gary... who didn't show up. Did I accidentally fight him while trying to level up Pikachu before giving up on that idea? Fuck, oh well, whatever.

That battle is meant to happen before you beat Brock. Gary's dialogue mentions how you can't get past the first gate because you don't have any Badges. If you beat Brock without having fought Gary, he doesn't appear there...not until you've got all eight Badges, anyway.

[Blademaster]

That battle is meant to happen before you beat Brock. Gary's dialogue mentions how you can't get past the first gate because you don't have any Badges. If you beat Brock without having fought Gary, he doesn't appear there...not until you've got all eight Badges, anyway.

Ah. That explains it.


Name: Ash
Type: Rock
Reason: Mr. E is a jerk.
Badges: 3
Progress:


Graveler didn't give me the edge I needed. Rock Throw and Tackle were simply too weak to beat down Staryu and Starmie with before they drowned Graveler. So, I had to do a bit more grinding. I went up through Nugget Bridge, Route 24, and Route 25, clearing out as many Trainers as I could. Unfortunately, that only got Graveler to Level 27. Still not enough... I got the S.S. Anne Ticket from Bill and then went back to Cerulean to try and figure out a plan. That's when I saw that the Dig guy's house was no longer guarded. Huzzah! Now I could not only get a very useful TM, I could also head south of Cerulean City and look for more sources of EXP. I don't quite remember who I wound up battling, but by the time I'd cleared out almost every Trainer up to that point in the game, I got Graveler to Level 29. It was time for a rematch with Misty.

Aaaaand she stomped my ass again.

Yeah... It was much closer this time, but after several resets, it seemed like the pattern had made itself clear: I would use Dig to OHKO Staryu, then start off against Starmie with less than half my HP due to either Staryu getting off a Water Gun or Staryu getting X Defended and then Starmie getting off the Water Gun. Dig wasn't enough to OHKO Starmie, and the ten-pointed fucklackofface favored BubbleBeam over Water Gun, which easily brought Graveler down on in one shot.

So, it was back to the drawing board. After I left the Gym and checked on Graveler's stats, I saw that Graveler was only about 900 EXP away from Level 30. So, I returned to Route 24 and did a bit more grinding, raising Graveler to Level 30. That didn't seem to help much, so I went to the nearest PC and pulled out and used my last emergency Rare Candy, bringing Graveler to Level 31. And that, finally, was enough to win the CascadeBadge. Staryu went down to Dig easily by this point, and after a few resets, Misty opened with Starmie by using X Defend, letting me knock off half its HP. But this time, RNGesus smiled upon me, and Starmie used Water Gun on its next turn instead of BubbleBeam. Graveler's health was in the red, but its next attack was a KO, and the battle was over.

With that nightmare behind me, I headed south and took the tunnel from Cerulean to Vermilion City, where I beelined for the S.S. Anne. I skipped all the Trainers there (I'll explain why later.), so I only had to fight Gary's army of Normal-type pussies. Once he was out of the way, I got the Cut HM from Captain Whogivesashit and left the ship behind, teaching Cut to the Charmander I'd gotten on Route 24 and heading back to Cerulean. From there, I headed east, Cutting my way onto Route 9 and weaving past as many Trainers as I could until I reached Route 10. I entered the pitch-black Rock Tunnel and basically just stumbled around for a half an hour until I finally encountered an Onix. I caught it and repeated my earlier strategy of heading back to the start of the area and fighting all the Trainers I'd left behind, allowing Onix to level up.

I'd like to take a moment to explain, by the by, that Onix in RBY is... a bit of an oddity. I'd always disregarded the huge stone snake even in later Gens for being rather weak, having low stats and a limited movepool, so I didn't expect much of the big lug after catching it. But the combination of Bind and Screech quickly made it into my attrition weapon of choice, since Bind is basically a guaranteed paralysis-inducer in this game. I never realized that before this run, so at least I learned something.

Anyway, Rock Tunnel was too annoying to navigate blind, so I returned to Vermilion City and took Diglett Cave back to Route 2, catching some shit Pokemon I'll never use so I could get the Flash HM. I taught it to Pikachu, stocked up on Repels, and returned to Rock Tunnel to clear it out and trek to Lavender Town. This is where the run gets interesting. The next two or three towns are sort of intertwined, and I don't want to wait until I have like 5 or 6 Badges to add the latter half of my roster to... my roster. So, I used the same sort of glitch that I used to encounter Nidoking in order to delete Snorlax's sprite from the game's memory, allowing me to bypass the Snorlax on Route 12 and get to Fuschia City early. That glitch took a LOT of attempts to get right, by the way, but fuck recounting the dozen or so failed attempts and the nightmarish SUPER Missingno. encounter it produced at one point before I figured it out. The point is, I made it to Fuschia City. Now I could Fly there (on a Pidgey, go figure) whenever I wanted.

That was Phase One. This is Phase Two: I flew to Celadon and then Cerulean, spending almost all my money on Calciums, potentially useful TMs, and Potions. Then I headed back out to Route 9 in search of a Nidoran or Nidorina/Nidorino that could poison one of my Pokemon. Yes, you read that right. Once one of them poisoned Pikachu, I returned to Fuschia and deposited all my other Pokemon into the PC, then I headed to the Safari Zone. I wasted a few Potions getting through the maze of exhibits and annoyingly placed Cut trees, but eventually I got to the gate, entered the Zone itself, and saved. Then I reset the game and, upon returning, promptly left the Safari Zone again. After walking back and forth for awhile before jumping off the ledge on the last step, I essentially gained the ability to walk through walls and over barriers. One poison-induced Game Over and about 500 lost Pokebucks later, and I was heading south and literaly just walking over those giant coffee cans that make up the map boundaries out over the water. I took them to Cinnabar Island, then back around Kanto to Cerulean Cave, just to see if I could. But I couldn't get very far, so I left and hopped down the ledges back to Cerulean where I withdrew the rest of my team again and flew to Pewter for some Old Amber. Then I shuffled some items around, flew back to Cinnabar Island, and revived my two Fossil Pokemon. I also beat up that little girl I bypassed in Mt. Moon while I waited, which brought Onix up to Level 31. So that was nice.

After a bit more restocking, reshuffling, and move teaching, I left the Cinnabar Lab with my new Kabuto and Aerodactyl and saved the game once more. It's been a long day, but both my team and my journey still weren't done. Not even close...

Pokemon:

Name: GRAVELER
Level: 33
Moves: Tackle, Dig, Rock Throw, Selfdestruct
Team leader.

Name: ONIX
Level: 31
Moves: Tackle, Screech, Bind, Rock Throw
The inescapable trap.

Name: AERODACTYL
Level: 30
Moves: Wing Attack, Agility, Fly, ---
Future glass cannon.

Name: KABUTO
Level: 30
Moves: Scratch, Harden, Water Gun, ---
The little guy.

Name: PIKACHU
Level: 7
Moves: Thundershock, Thunder Wave, Tail Whip, Flash
Team mascot.

Name: CHARMANDER
Level: 10
Moves: Scratch, Growl, Ember, Cut
Present HM User.


Next time: Maybe more Pokemon, then the battle for Lavender Town!

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Just posting to say I'm reading this. Interesting journey so far. If only I had time, energy and mental health (?) to do this sort of thing in one of my Pokemon games one day.

[Blademaster]

Just posting to say I'm reading this. Interesting journey so far. If only I had time, energy and mental health (?) to do this sort of thing in one of my Pokemon games one day.

You should try it. It's fun.


Name: Ash
Type: Rock
Reason: Mr. E is a jerk.
Badges: 5
Progress:


So, after adding Kabuto and Aerodactyl to my team, I decided to see what else I could do to strengthen my growing entourage of Rock Pokemon. But first, I realized that I was missing a very useful item with my Pokedex collecting as much dust as it was. So, I decided to take another jaunt around the map and capture as many Pokemon as I could to fill up my Pokedex. By the time I got back to Fuschia City, I had almost 40 different kinds of Pokemon and had gotten the Itemfinder. Neat, but not what I was after. Luckily, I knew for a fact that I could not only stock up on new Pokemon at the Safari Zone, I could also acquire a powerful new Rock-type there: Rhyhorn. So, I forked over another P$500 to browse around the Safari Zone some more, this time for a non-glitchy purpose.

All in all, I made pretty decent bank. Not only did I acquire almost every item in walking distance, but I also captured at least half a dozen new Pokemon, including a Level 25 Rhyhorn. I got the Surf HM with 3 steps left, then exited. A fishing trip and a captured Doduo later, and my Pokedex was full enough for my supply of Moon Stones to round it out to 50 on the nose, at which point I could finally get the Exp. All. With that in hand, I backtracked to Celadon City and took on Team Rocket, whose Poison Pokemon were hilariously ineffectual against my team. It was also at this time that I realized just how devastating Rhyhorn was. It had a single attack - Horn Attack - and yet its absurdly high Attack and its many resistances allowed it to shish kebab almost everything in my way. So, never one to ignore a cheap opportunity, I taught Rhyhorn Rage and watched it merrily destroy all the Grunts, Jessie and James, and even Giovanni. Silph Scope get!

While in town, I also took on the Celadon Gym, which was a breeze. I expected Grass Pokemon to be my team's weakness, but everything was too weak by this point to pose a threat. Even Erika's Pokemon were fodder for Aerodactyl. Rainbow Badge in hand, I headed to Lavender Town and exorcised all the Channelers, beat up Team Rocket again, and got the largely-useless Poke Flute from Mr. Fuji. Great; I didn't care too much. I had a new goal in mind by then: completing my team. Which I could do quite easily as soon as I acquired Surf.

That meant defeating Koga. And, as usual, he was an asshole. His Trainers sucked, too: Why are the Trainers of a POISON Gym using fucking PSYCHIC Pokemon?! Dick move. Anyway, Koga was a hypocritical asshole that said he'd use status moves to win, then when his first Venonat died he just spammed Psychic. Took me a loss before I got a good counter-strategy going: Have Aerodactyl spam Agility while tanking Psychic attacks, then use Supersonic on Venomoth after sweeping the Venonats with Fly. Venomoth halfway killed itself, and Fly finished the job. Soul Badge achieved, along with the far more important ability to Surf.

See, the last few Pokemon I wanted for my team couldn't be encountered normally. Instead, I'd have to repeat that Level 100 glitch from my first post, but with a Ditto from Cinnabar Mansion instead of a random Pokemon. After checking a guide on GameFAQs, I discovered that I could acquire a Golem if I encountered a Pokemon with a Special of 49 and a Mew if I encountered a Pokemon with a Special of 21; in the case of Ditto, that meant using one of MY Pokemon with that stat. My Nidoran F had 21 Special, which netted me a Mew to teach all my HM's to, but I didn't have a Pokemon with 49 Special. Thankfully, however, a Trainer on Route 15 did. So, I didn't even need to use Ditto for that! I just did the glitch with that Trainer, returned to Lavender Town, and boom. Level 7 Golem at the western edge of town! Now I just needed to use the glitch to encounter a MISSINGNO. and have it duplicate me some Rare Candies so I could get Golem up to the same Level Graveler was at, andHFAGHJJSFHFSG

...Uh, I SAID, I just needed to use the glitch to encounter a MISSINGNO. and have it duplicate me some Rare CaJHSJFGGSFHSJD

...

Okay, so, lesson learned: Encountering MISSINGNO. earlier in the game caused the game to crash on every subsequent encounter, so no 129 Rare Candies for me. Instead, I had to level up the old-fashioned way... by grinding...

Yeah, I'm not bothering to detail this tedious shit. Bottom line: My Level 7 Golem is now a Level 32 Golem after HOURS in Cinnabar Mansion and at the Power Plant, which is why I needed Surf. I had to go to the Power Plant not just for EXP, but also in search of a Magneton. In order to encounter my final Pokemon - Omanyte or Omastar - I needed a Pokemon with a Special of 98 or 99 (respectively). The Level 20-something Kadabras on Route 11 and the Level 30 Tentacruels I fished up on Route 19 weren't didn't have high enough stats, so the Level 33+ Magnetons at the Power Plant were my next best bet. When I was nearly done leveling up Golem, I captured a Level 33 Magneton that had 92 Special. One Rare Candy and one Calcium later, and it hit 99 Special. Perfect!

I Flew back to Cinnabar Island, healed up, and deposited Graveler in my PC. Then I triggered the glitch, took my Magneton to the basement of Cinnabar Mansion, and encountered a Ditto. One Escape Rope later, and I finally encountered my final Pokemon: a Level 7 Omastar. I captured it and, after some deliberation, decided to give it Onix's spot on my final team. Sorry, Onix: Your Screech-Bind combo may have been useful when you had only one teammate, but now everyone else is outperforming you, and I desperately need a late-game Special Attacker. So, into the PC Onix went. With my team finalized, I returned to Vermilion City to grind the non-glacial way: by reboarding the S.S. Anne. See, told you I skipped it for a reason. I got some good EXP clearing out the Trainers there, then proceeded to start battling my way through the Routes I bypassed earlier. I made it as far as Route 8 before realizing I could get Omastar more EXP by depositing my Exp. All in the PC first, so I did that and then saved on the eastern outskirts of Saffron City. I haven't quite finished grinding my way to where I want to be just yet, but I doubt it'll matter soon.


Pokemon:

Name: GOLEM
Level: 33
Moves: Tackle, Harden, Rock Throw, Selfdestruct
Team leader.

Name: AERODACTYL
Level: 35
Moves: Wing Attack, Agility, Fly, Supersonic
Aerial recon.

Name: KABUTO
Level: 35
Moves: Scratch, Absorb, Surf, BubbleBeam
The REAL future glass cannon.

Name: RHYHORN
Level: 35
Moves: Horn Attack, Rage, Stomp, Tail Whip
The tank.

Name: OMASTAR
Level: 20
Moves: Water Gun, Withdraw, Ice Beam, Surf
Red Mage with a shell.

Name: MEW
Level: 20
Moves: Mega Punch, Cut, Flash, Transform
Permanent HM User.


Next time: More grinding, more Trainers getting destroyed, and probably finally dealing with some of the stuff in Saffron City.

[Mr.E]

You'd also grind faster if you caught all your mons and leveled them together with the EXP. ALL instead of individually. ;[

[Blademaster]

You'd also grind faster if you caught all your mons and leveled them together with the EXP. ALL instead of individually. ;[

Yeah, probably, but that idea would have required me to think of it and then do it first.


Name: Ash
Type: Rock
Reason: Mr. E is a jerk.
Badges: 6
Progress:


It's been a bit slow lately, huh? Sorry about that. We left off on Route 8, my final team assembled and ready for some training. This mostly just entailed clearing the Routes I'd bypassed earlier in the game in order to beat out all the Trainers, acquire items, and manage whatever resources I took away from everything. Route 8 gave me a generous amount of EXP - enough to bring me up to about where I wanted to be, in fact. Routes 9 and 10 had already been picked clean earlier in my game, so I returned to Vermilion City and headed east to clear the long coastline of southeast Kanto. So many Trainers got tragically stomped... Their sacrifices will not be in vain! By the time I'd reached Fuschia City again, everyone was at about the same level, even newcomer Omastar.

Incidentally, Omastar? Holy SHIT is this thing strong. It has enough Defense to tank almost everything the locals could throw at it, and its jacked Special stat is one of the highest in the game. Even ten levels below everyone else, its Surf and Ice Beam attacks were making drug addicts and bird keepers cry all the way to Fuschia. Speaking of which, I took one last trip to the Safari Zone and used my new Surfer to snag a Nugget from the first zone. In other words, I paid P$500 in order to make P$5,000 a few minutes later. Aren't economics great?! Anyway, from there, I flew back to Celadon and headed west. Snorlax was fat and gave some decent EXP for a wild Pokemon, and Routes 16 through 18 were more of the same shitty Trainer marathon, but hey, at least I found some useful hidden items along the way back to Fuschia.

That just about completed all the Routes I "should have" passed by that point in the game, which meant it was finally time to revisit Saffron City. I sold and bought items, taught my Pokemon (mostly Golem and Rhyhorn) some powerful new moves to replace the likes of Harden and Rage (respectively), and healed up for the battle for Silph Co.. And, to be honest? I remember this place being a lot more annoying as a kid. Maybe it's because I had no idea where to go back then, or because I'd never seen such a big area in the game up until that point, but this time it was just kind of tedious. All I did was punch out every Team Rocket grunt on a given floor and then proceed to the next until I reached 5F, and then I grabbed the Card Key (which had been the bane of my childhood to find) in like thirty seconds before heading back down to clear any locked rooms I missed on the lower floors. I worked my way to the final floor and beat the last redshirt, then returned to 3F and started taking random teleporters until I found the one that took me to where I needed to go. Poor, eternally-in-denial Gary got rekt, Jessie and James got rekt (which led to Kabuto evolving), and then Giovanni got rekt. Master Ball acquired, Silph Co. liberated, Saffron City freed. Hooray!

After that, it was much more rudimentary. I cleared out the Fighting Dojo with surprisingly little difficulty, then tackled Sabrina's Gym. Her trainers weren't a big deal, but Sabrina herself gave me a bit of trouble. Funnily enough, her Kadabra and its Recover spam was the biggest hindrance; after it went down, Omastar got a lucky freeze on Alakazam with Ice Beam, then Surfed it to death for my sixth Badge: the Marsh Badge. ...You know, now that I think about it, I think Koga's and Sabrina's Badge names are backwards. Koga uses Poison Pokemon, and marshes are usually filled with noxious gases and icky, potentially venomous creatures, yet he gives you the Soul Badge. Meanwhile, Sabrina not only uses Psychic Pokemon, she's also a psychic herself. Psychic powers come from the mind, which is the seat of consciousness. Consciousness is the thing that makes you you; if you're religious, you could think of that as your soul, or your inner self. And yet Sabrina gives you the Marsh Badge. This is triggering my OCD now. Fix it, GameFreak.

Anyway, now that the mid-game clusterfuck is finally over and done with, it's time take one more trip back to Fuschia City. First, though, I decided to use all the vitamins I'd found thus far to boost my team a bit more, and fortunately, they all seem to excel in unique areas, so there was no need to ration: Rhyhorn's beefy HP made it a prime candidate for HP Ups, Kabutops' razor sharp Attack meant it got all the Protein, Speed demon Aerodactyl got the Carbos, Special attacker (And defender: The fucker swallowed Psychics like candy in Saffron Gym.) Omastar got the Calcium, and jack-of-all-trades Golem's highest stat is Defense, so it took the Iron. I figured my Rocks could use any help they could get since I'm about to tackle what could easily be the most annoying part of this run: the aquatic Routes. And seeing my poor Rhyhorn repeatedly get crit one-shotted by Horseas and Tentacools 14 levels lower than it on Route 19 just cemented that viewpoint. Luckily, Rhyhorn was at Level 41 at the time, and a few matches of Pokemon rotation were enough to level it up and finally evolve it into a Rhydon. Now my team is REALLY complete, and ready to take on the waterways of Kanto.

I just hope that they're tough enough at their current levels to also face the sea of FIRE looming on the horizon...


Pokemon:

Name: GOLEM
Level: 41
Moves: Double-Edge, Earthquake, Rock Throw, Selfdestruct
Former Reinstated team leader: Double-Edge and Earthquake have turned him from a damage sponge to a real powerhouse.

Name: AERODACTYL
Level: 41
Moves: Wing Attack, Agility, Fly, Supersonic
Aerial recon. I love Aerodactyl, but it's starting to worry me just how ineffectual this guy is. It'd be joining Onix by now if not for its typing and crit rate.

Name: KABUTOPS
Level: 41
Moves: Slash, Swords Dance, Surf, BubbleBeam
Much more resilient than it looks. I've heard Swords Dance doesn't boost Slash correctly in RBY, but this thing's Attack and crit rate combo has made that pretty irrelevant.

Name: RHYDON
Level: 42
Moves: Earthquake, Fury Attack, Body Slam, Rock Slide
A juggernaut everywhere but the water, where he basically dissolves like an origami boat made of tissue paper.

Name: OMASTAR
Level: 41
Moves: Water Gun, Horn Attack, Ice Beam, Surf
Temporary team leader; the team's much-needed Special attacker.

Name: MEW
Level: 28
Moves: Strength, Cut, Flash, Transform
HM User and EXP leech.


Next time: Swimming to Cinnabar, then teaching a few more moves now that everyone's natural movepools are almost tapped out. I'm thinking Aerodactyl could use Take Down over Wing Attack, Kabutops could get Submission over Bubblebeam, and Omastar could get a new Special move over Horn Attack, but I'm not sure if I have anymore Special TMs right now. Rhydon's Fury Attack probably needs replacing, too, but I haven't given much thought to what with.

[Blademaster]

The journey is nearly over...


Name: Ash
Type: Rock
Reason: Mr. E is a jerk.
Badges: 8
Progress:


So, it seems my concerns about Blaine's Gym were largely unfounded.

Once Rhyhorn evolved, my troubles with the Trainers along Routes 19 and 20 pretty much vanished. I cleared out the former, then I flew to CInnabar Island to heal before dealing with the latter. I didn't feel like wandering around in the maze of the Seafoam Islands with no Repels on-hand, anyway. With the Trainers taken out, I resupplied on Cinnabar Island, then went to the Gym Mansion to find that stupid key. The Trainers and wild Pokemon there provided some decent EXP without being annoying, and I found more items I had no room for, so that was nice. Once I found the Secret Key, I Escape Roped out and took on the Gym. I got all the questions "right (even though half of them are wrong)," then talked to all the Gym Trainers anyway. By the time I reached Blaine, my Pokemon were all at or close to Level 45, which gave me the edge I needed to bury his team under rocks and mud. Badge get!

After that, I headed up Route 21, which was thankfully longer than I remembered. More Trainers, more EXP, you know the drill. Upon returning to Pallet Town, I walked back to Viridian City to take on the final Gym. Like Route 21, there were more Trainers there than I remembered. There was also a Revive randomly laying in one of the corridors. ...Lucky me? Anyway, at the end of the road was Giovanni, who was spoiling for one final battle. And, I won't lie, his Nidoqueen and Nidoking gave me a lot of trouble, crushing Golem and Rhydon into gravel with their Double Kick and Earthquake and frying my Fossils with Thunder. It was only after rotating for awhile and healing Golem to maximum that I finally managed to use my own Earthquake and then Golem's newly-learned Explosion to put them both down. After that, a Surf from my Revived Kabutops was sufficient to one-shot Rhydon for the win, netting me my final Badge.

After Giovanni ran off crying like a little girl, I wasted no time stocking back up on useful items and heading straight to the Pokemon League to end this run once and for all. Gary showed up on Route 22 again, which actually surprised me. I'd totally forgotten he shows up there. Sadly for him, he was pretty well fucked after Giovanni, with none of his Pokemon coming close to giving me that level of hassle. After once more triggering his narcissistic personality disorder, I headed through the elaborate series of checkpoints before Victory Road, then used my first Max Repel at the entrance and headed inside.

Victory Road, sadly, hasn't changed much from my childhood. The Trainers weren't anything special, but those fucking Strength puzzles are such an annoyance. You have to manually select the Pokemon to use Strength instead of just talking to the stupid boulders like in later Gens, and every step you push the damn thing, there's a pause while the little boulder-sliding animation and sound effect plays. In the areas where you move the damn thing from one side of the floor to the other, that shit gets old QUICK. And why are those fucking mysterious chalk squares blocking the path and can only be moved by pushing a giant bar of soap onto an LED in some obscure corner of the cave system, anyway?! None of the other Trainers there have to deal with that bullshit! Fuck you, Indigo League. Assholes.

...Sorry, but this is my least favorite area in the game for that exact reason. At least the Strength puzzles in Seafoam can by largely ignored if you aren't going after Articuno (Which reminds me, I need to get EXP from it and Zapdos, too...). The one upside is that there's some great items to be found in Victory Road by stumbling around blindly, including Aerodactyl's ultimate move: Sky Attack. I'm a bit irked that I can't replace Fly with that, but lesson learned for next time, I guess: The only HM worth bothering with in a Gen with no Move Deleter is Surf. End of story.

Oh, and near the end of Victory Road, I sort of accidentally stumbled across Moltres. Rhydon gave it a light slap, and it died and coughed up about a thousand EXP. Yay.

That was about it, then. I left Victory Road and arrived at Indigo Plateau, healed my team, and sold off my excess items. Then, I stocked up on healing items, swapped some TM's I had with saved ones in my PC, and gave my team one more upgrade in terms of both moves and Vitamins, including using the one PP Up I'd found all-game on Omastar's Ice Beam. I have a feeling I'll need that...

With my team and my backpack ready, I'm now nearly ready to face the Elite Four. I just need to take care of a few last loose ends first, and then it's on to the final battle...


Pokemon:

Name: GOLEM
Level: 46
Moves: Double-Edge, Earthquake, Rock Throw, Explosion
Team leader: Double-Edge and Earthquake have turned him from a damage sponge to a real powerhouse, and Explosion is just plain fun.

Name: AERODACTYL
Level: 46
Moves: Take Down, Sky Attack, Fly, Supersonic
Aerial recon and crit abuser; the bane of the various Grass and Fighting Pokemon that slaughter the rest of my team.

Name: KABUTOPS
Level: 46
Moves: Slash, Swords Dance, Surf, Submission
Much more resilient than it looks. I've heard Swords Dance doesn't boost Slash correctly in RBY, but this thing's Attack and crit rate combo has made that pretty irrelevant.

Name: RHYDON
Level: 46
Moves: Earthquake, Fury Attack, Body Slam, Rock Slide
A juggernaut everywhere but the water, where he basically dissolves like an origami boat made of tissue paper.

Name: OMASTAR
Level: 46
Moves: Water Gun, Seismic Toss, Ice Beam, Surf
The team's much-needed Special attacker and defender.

Name: MEW
Level: 33
Moves: Strength, Cut, Flash, Transform
HM User and EXP leech.


Next time: Taking down the other 2 Legendary Birds, then the thrilling conclusion: the battle against the Elite Four!

[Blademaster]

Aaaaaand the Rock MTC is done. Let's check out the results, eh?


Name: Ash
Type: Rock
Reason: Mr. E is a jerk.
Badges: 8
Progress:


Realizing that I still had yet to exhaust my last few sources of cheap EXP, I left Indigo Plateau one more time. First, I headed to Celadon City to see if they had any more useful TM's for sale. They did not, except for Hyper Beam, which I wasn't about to fuck with slot machines for ten hours straight to amass the coinage for. So, I headed to Cinnabar Island instead for a few more Hyper Potions, as well as some Max Repels. Then it was off to the Seafoam Islands, which are just as labyrinthine as I remember them being as a kid. I found and KOed Articuno with enough ease, but getting back out was another story. Next time, I'm bringing an Escape Rope. Lastly, I returned to Cerulean City and took Routes 9 and 10 to the Power Plant, where the abundant useful items and EXP-rich Level 40+ wild Pokemon were a welcome reprieve after Seafoam. I mineswept a few dozen Voltorbs and Electrodes out of the way, then brought down Zapdos with Rhydon's merciless Rock Slides. Once I left, I was finally ready to face the Elite Four. I returned to Indigo Plateu, used the last few Vitamins I'd found recently, bought and sold what needed buying and selling, and saved at the entrance to the Pokemon League arena. My Pokemon were all a good 10 to 15 levels below the E4's Pokemon, but I had healing items for days and both stats and movesets that were poised to take on any challenge. So, without further adieu, here's how it all went down...

Lorelei

I went into this thinking that Lorelei would be my toughest opponent, since her Water Pokemon would easily wash away the majority of my team. But then her Dewgong did nothing but use Rest while Kabutops set up two Swords Dances and then Aurora Beam when using the third. One Submission knocked out Dewgong, the recoil doing more damage to Kabutops than Dewgong itself did. Slowbro and Cloyster didn't fare much better, the former basically just Withdrawing until it was Slashed to death and the latter dying in one shot to Submission. Jynx, however, was an actual threat: Her Ice attacks did enough damage to bring down Kabutops, and Rhydon fell to a single Ice Beam before it could get off a Rock Slide. I panic-rotated a bit until Omastar entered the fray, its Special matching Jynx's well enough for Surf and Seismic Toss to bring the ice witch down. That just left Lapras, whose bulk was its greatest strength, but with Omastar and Kabutops able to wall its super-effective moves off, even the Loch Ness monster couldn't stand up to my team and ultimately fell to Omastar's Seismic Toss. I healed up appropriately and advanced to the next room.

Bruno

Again, I expected Bruno's Fighting Pokemon to give me a hard time, but in truth he probably fell the most easily out of any of the Elite Four. His first Onyx died to a single Earthquake from Rhydon, and when I saw Hitmonchan coming out next, I decided to let Rhydon handle him as well, since he probably just knew elemental punches. As expected, Hitmonchan did little more than throw Thunderpunches and Fire Punches at the behest of his shit A.I. while Rhydon Body Slammed him and then crushed him with an Earthquake. Next up was Hitmonlee, who might have actually known some Fighting moves. That's when I sent out Aerodactyl, who netted a crit Fly that one-shot the Kicking Pokemon. Machamp was probably the closest thing to an actual threat, surviving a Sky Attack and getting off a crit Karate Chop before getting literally Taken Down. Good thing Karate Chop was a Normal move back then, or I... probably would have just had to use a Revive and then Fly to kill it, actually. Never mind, no threat here. The last Onix fell in much the same way that the first did, and that was the end of Bruno.

Agatha

In yet another display of my parade of misjudging the difficulty of the E4 members, the Poison-reliant Agatha that I had 2 Earthquake users ready to take on was probably the most difficult opponent I faced here. I led off with Rhydon while she led off with Gengar, and I figured I'd get off a quick one-shot and take the lead earl- MEGA DRAIN SPAM EVERYWHERE. Holy shit, I wasn't expecting this. At all. Rhydon fell in one hit. Golem fell in one hit. I'm not sure, but I think even Omastar fell before I finally went on the defensive with a counter strategy: I sent out Aerodactyl and started spamming Supersonic, and for awhile, Aerodactyl and Gengar just sort of Confused each other with Supersonic and Confuse Ray (respectively) until Agatha recalled Gengar and sent in Golbat. And then GOLBAT just spammed Confuse Ray. And Toxic. That at least gave me time to Revive and heal my other Pokemon though, and after whittling Golbat down a bit, Agatha swapped it out for Arbok. That was my chance; I swapped out Omastar for Rhydon, and a failed Glare later, Rhydon's Earthquake OHKOed Arbok, putting me in a position to hopefully take the lead. Agatha sent out Haunter next, who used... Dream Eater. Holy shit, this game's A.I. is atrocious. I slapped Haunter with another Earthquake, and then Gengar came back out. I sent Aerodactyl back in and resumed the Confusion-inducing slap fight, healing for a bit until I finally caught a lucky break: I used Sky Attack, and Gengar hurt itself, then took the full brunt of the attack for the knockout. Golbat came back out next, and Omastar's Ice Beam was enough to power through the resulting confusion and bring the big bad bat down. That just left Agatha's final Gengar. I sent Golem against this one, ready for the worst... and it used Dream Eater. What the FUCK A bit more Earthquaking later, and Agatha was defeated. I healed my team up again, then proceeded on to the final room...

Lance

Lance was about even with Agatha in terms of difficulty, but thankfully only one of his Pokemon gave me a lot of trouble: his lead, Gyarados. The Atrocious Pokemon just spammed Hydro Pump after Hydro Pump. I thought I'd get off to a good start when Rhydon dodged the first Hydro Pump and slammed Gyarados with a 4x effective Thunder... but then it barely brought Gyarados into the yellow, and its follow-up Hydro Pump OHKOed Rhydon. After that, I tried fighting water with water and sent out Omastar. But Gyarados was faster than Omastar, and even with resistance, Omastar lost over half its HP to each Hydro Pump, ALL OF WHICH CONNECTED. So, I just used up almost all my remaining Hyper Potions until Gyarados ran out of PP for that move, then I followed up with a (surprisingly) super-effective pair of Ice Beams that brought Gyarados down. Next up was Dragonair, who had Thunder Wave and Thunderbolt at its disposal. Amazingly, both of those failed to impede Omastar, the former's paralysis not kicking in and the latter not strong enough for a KO. One Ice Beam later, and Dragonair was done. Next up was the other Dragonair, whose BubbleBeam couldn't outperform my Fully Restored Omastar's Ice Beams. Aerodactyl was next... and then Surf happened, and Aerodactyl was gone. Finally came Dragonite. The Level 62 legend. The strongest Pokemon of the strongest member of the Elite Four. The Dragon Master's most powerful Pokemon. This behemoth was going to take all my luck, strength, and cunning to defeat.

...It missed with its Thunder attack and took a 4x effective crit Ice Beam that knocked it out in one shot. Lolololololol.

Gary

With the Elite Four defeated, that just left one more Trainer to beat: the Champion. And I fully expected Gary to be my greatest challenge yet, so I healed my team to the maximum and used up my Rare Candies to give my team one last boost. Then, I entered the last chamber and the battle began. He led off with Sandslash, and I opened with Omastar. I figured Surf would be enough to one-shot Sandslash, but its Earthquake was faster, and Omastar went down. So, I tried using Aerodactyl and putting its Earthquake immunity to good use. The battle with Sandslash was slow and deliberate, but eventually it went down to repeated death from above by Aerodactyl. Next up was Alakazam, who more or less killed itself by spamming Kinesis and the occasional Psybeam instead of its ultra-powerful Psychic attack of death. That gave me plenty of time to have Rhydon Body Slam it until it was Paralyzed, and then Omastar was fast enough to Seismic Toss and Surf it to death. Next up was Exeggutor, who I figured Aerodactyl would be able to bring down... but that was before Omastar's Ice Beam sniped it. Oh well. Next up was Magneton. ...Golem's Earthquake. 'Nuff said. Then came Cloyster, who made the quintessential Cloyster mistake in this game of using Clamp. While Kabutops took chip damage from that, I healed the rest of my team up, just to make victory sweeter. Then I used Swords Dance whenever I got an opening, and one Submission cracked Gary's Cloyster just like it did to Lorelei's. That just left Gary's Flareon... There's no point in pretending. I Body Slammed it until it was Paralyzed, then brought it down with a Rock Slide and an Earthquake.

The credits rolled...

...

...

Then I woke up in Pallet Town, healed up, and flew to Cerulean City. I bought some Repels and an Escape Rope, then headed to Cerulean Cave. On my way there, I was surprised to find I'd missed one Trainer! ...She used Paras and Parasect. Rofl. Once she fell, I entered Cerulean Cave, beat up on the Level 50-60 wildlife a bit, and made my way to my final challenge: Mewtwo. And this fucker was STRONG. It spammed Barrier until even Kabutops' crit Slashes bounced right off it, and its Recover healed all the damage it DID take faster than I could dish it out. Kabutops fell... Aerodactyl fell... Rhydon had enough success that a Body Slam Paralysed Mewtwo before it fell, though. After that, it was up to Omastar... And then the silver lining happened: Seismic Toss and Surf were able to pierce Mewtwo's defenses, and at one point it spammed a few useless Barriers, allowing me to bring it down to the red. It responded with Recover, and then a crit Psychic brought down Omastar... That left just Golem. My first and strongest Pokemon, versus Mewtwo. An Earthquake did good damage to Mewtwo, but its Psybeam did good damage back. Both Pokemon were low on HP when I risked it and used Double-Edge... and Mewtwo's HP dropped to zero.

I'd won.

I used my Escape Rope, Flew back to Pallet Town, and healed my team one more time. Then I went upstairs to my room and saved in front of my TV, right where my game had begun.


Pokemon:

Name: GOLEM
Level: 50
Moves: Double-Edge, Earthquake, Rock Throw, Explosion
Team leader. Destroyer of Legends.

Name: AERODACTYL
Level: 49
Moves: Take Down, Sky Attack, Fly, Supersonic
Aerial recon, crit abuser, and unlikely savior.

Name: KABUTOPS
Level: 48
Moves: Slash, Swords Dance, Surf, Submission
Precision elimnation. The jousting lance.

Name: RHYDON
Level: 49
Moves: Earthquake, Thunder, Body Slam, Rock Slide
The juggernaut. Bitch.

Name: OMASTAR
Level: 49
Moves: Hydro Pump, Seismic Toss, Ice Beam, Surf
Special attacker and defender. Dragonslayer.

Name: MEW
Level: 35
Moves: Strength, Cut, Flash, Transform
Wasn't under the truck.

Final time: 50:11


Well, that was fun. I was pretty slow, though. I need to work on that next time.
Speaking of which, I hear buzzing...

[Blademaster]

Here I go: again, here I go.


Name: Buzz
Type: Bug
Reason:

OK, Blade: Bug.

Badges: 1
Progress:


So, you all know how the early game goes. Wander into the tall grass, get dragged back into town by your ear by Professor Oak, get saddled with a Pikachu that hates you, bludgeon your shithead Rival's Eevee to death with it, then wander back into the tall grass. My Rival's name in this game is 'Raid,' by the way. Because I couldn't think of a more clever name for an enemy of all Bugkind before getting impatient.

Anywho, I visited Viridian City and, in something of an unusual move for me, I actually stocked up on supplies at the Poke Mart. This was mostly because of who I knew would be my first Pokemon: a Caterpie from Viridian Forest. And, in my haste to get and evolve one as quick as possible, I made the mistake of catching a Level 4 Caterpie instead of a Level 6 Caterpie. Why didn't I just reset and catch a better Caterpie, I hear you ask? Because by the time I encountered that Level 6 Caterpie, my Caterpie was at Level 6, too. So, that was about 20 minutes of Tackling Pidgeys and Rattatas to death I'll never get back. And I know I could have just gotten a Metapod, before you point that out. But wild Metapods only know Harden, and I wasn't about to Struggle my way to Level 10, so Caterpie it was.

And let me tell you what you probably already know: Caterpies suuuuuuck at battling. I blew through all of my spare Potions just trying to get the poor little bastard from Level 4 up to Level 7. Even Level 3 Pokemon were outdamaging it, dishing out 5 HP of damage per hit off of its (of course) 19 HP. So, every Potion had to be used when Caterpie had only lost 15 HP, which exhausted the supply even faster. This was going to be annoying...

After about an hour of KOing a single wild Pokemon and rushing back to the Viridian Pokemon Center to heal, Caterpie finally reached Level 7 and evolved. I thought this would give it the strength it needed against Trainers, but of course it didn't. I basically had to skip every other Trainer in Viridian Forest because Metapod ran out of PP for Tackle too fast to face more than 2 opponents at a time, and Struggle was an option I had no patience for since it would mean burning through all of String Shot's AND Harden's PP first. So, again, I had to grind and use strategy, rather than just knocking everything aside in one hit like I usually do.

At last, though, Metapod reached Level 10 and evolved into Butterfree, and I saw those beautiful, Trainer-destroying words at the bottom of the screen: "BUTTERFREE has learned CONFUSION!!" With my shiny new psionic butterfly at the ready, I backtracked and breezed through the remainder of Viridian Forest, knocked out Raid's shitty Spearow and its incessant Peck attacks, and used my hard-earned money to buy more Potions. Then I headed north to Pewter City (finally), beelined for the Gym, and wiped out both Brock and his Trainer. Boulder Badge and shitty TM achieved!

I headed to Mt. Moon after that, avoiding as many Trainers as I could on the way and thankfully running into little interference from Zubats as I descended down to the cave system's lower levels. I ran into a few Level 11 Paras, but I'd learned from my ordeals in the forest and continued in my search, finally finding a healthy young Level 13 one (and an HP Up) on the bottom floor, which I captured. I've never been a big fan of the Paras family's low stats, limited moveset, and abysmal type combination that basically renders it unconscious if you so much as blow on it too hard, but I have plans for this little guy. Big plans...

After that, I backtracked to Pewter once more for more Pokeballs since I was running low (I'm not repeating the mistakes that left me scrambling for an Exp. All last time!), and then I saved at the start of Route 3 once more so I could get to training my newest recruit properly.


Pokemon:

Name: BUTTERFREE
Level: 16
Moves: Tackle, PoisonPowder, Sleep Powder, Confusion
Early game team leader.

Name: PARAS
Level: 13
Moves: Scratch, Stun Spore, -----, -----
In training.


Next time: Spelunking in Mt. Moon, cleaning the mean streets caves, and then onward to Cerulean City!

[Blademaster]

Goddamn this place is dead, I mean holy shit.


Name: Buzz
Type: Bug
Reason:
Badges: 3
Progress:


Probably the biggest takeaway from Mt. Moon this time was that that one little girl with the Oddish and the Bellsprout was a lot less difficult to defeat. A bit of an anticlimax, I know, but there wasn't much else of note to report. I don't even remember what Fossil I grabbed because it's an irrelevant choice in this run.

After arriving in Cerulean City, my team was thankfully at about the same level that Misty's Pokemon would be at, so without the crippling Water weakness from my last run, I didn't feel a need to bother doing anymore training on Routes 24 or 25. The one exception was Raid, who needed a whooping, and the Nugget Bridge Trainers who were blocking the patches of grass on Route 24. Once they were taken care of, I caught an Abra and a Venonat for later. Then I returned to Cerulean City and took on the Gym, getting my Venonat some experience before fighting Misty. This was Paras's time to shine: its Grass dual typing resisted even Starmie's BubbleBeam, and its newly-learned Leech Life spelled doom for Starmie's Psychic half. CascadeBadge acquired!

After that was the midgame stumble. Once I got Dig and checked out the Routes surrounding Saffron City, I tried to figure out a way to get Pinsir and Scyther early. Both could be acquired through the Mew glitch (which I forgot to do in this run until awhile after this point), and they were luckily able to be gotten rather early: Scyther on Route 8 and Pinsir on Route 10. That entailed getting Cut, of course, so I snuck around the excess Trainers hanging around Cerulean Cape and Vermilion City, then boarded the S.S. Anne, threw Raid overboard, and got the Cut HM. That was when I realized I needed Mew to teach HM's to, so back to Cerulean I went in order to use the glitch on that kid with the Slowpoke that we all know and love, taught it Cut (and a few other helpful overworld moves), and then trekked to Diglett Cave for a Flash HM on Route 2. I withdrew Pikachu and taught it that one, then tried to feed it Potions at full HP until it liked me enough again to get that Bulbasaur for. From there, it was off to Rock Tunnel to glitch myself a Pinsir.

...But I screwed the glitch up, and no battle happened. Shit. That meant I had to go to Lavender Town, then backtrack to Vermilion City again in order to do the Snorlax disappearance glitch. While I was there, I decided to fight Lt. Surge's Gym, which was oddly easy with a team that can spam status moves all day and night. Also, Paras once again got an opportunity to clean house thanks to its type resistance, which saved me after Butterfree went down and Venonat was in the red. ThunderBadge acquired. After that, it was time for the Snorlax glitch (which was much easier than it was in my Rock MTC); then I headed to Fuschia to get a Pinsir the legit way: from the Safari Zone. That was going to be annoying, but at least Paras evolved and I got the Itemfinder along the way. Small reprieves from the HOUR AND A HALF it took to find and capture a Pinsir, but whatever. I got a Pinsir, AND it was around the same level as the rest of my party, so even better. The best part, though, was that it became clear after a bit of training that Pinsir is a strong bastard of a Bug. Not only does it know the debilitating Bind attack, it has a high enough ATK stat to murder things with it quite quickly! A master plan is starting to come together...!

From there, I returned to Lavender Town and then took the tunnel to Celadon so I could get a Fly HM, which Mew learned and then used to return us to Lavender Town in record time. I tried the Mew glitch once more for Scyther, and this time it thankfully worked, and I ran into a Level 7 Scyther at the west edge of Lavender Town. I won't lie, this guy's lack of good moves makes me nervous, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. After all, everyone loves the mantis dinosaur.

With my team pretty much complete for now, I flew back to Cerulean City and beat all the remaining Trainers I'd passed earlier on the surrounding Routes, then headed to Rock Tunnel once more. I had to deposit Mew and withdraw Pikachu again at the Route 10 Pokemon Center, but this should be the last time I need to swap HM users in this playthrough. Once Flash was set up, I cleared the Trainers in Rock Tunnel and then between it and Lavender Town, bringing Scyther nearly up to the same level as the rest of my team. Then I healed and saved at the Lavender Town Pokemon Center and called it a day.


Pokemon:

Name: BUTTERFREE
Level: 27
Moves: Tackle, PoisonPowder, Sleep Powder, Confusion
Early game team leader.


Name: PARASECT
Level: 27
Moves: Scratch, Stun Spore, Leech Life, -----
The secret weapon.


Name: VENONAT
Level: 27
Moves: Leech Life, PoisonPowder, Supersonic, Confusion
The ugly duckling: it doesn't do a lot now, but it has a great deal of potential...


Name: PINSIR
Level: 27
Moves: Vice Grip, Bind, Seismic Toss, -----
The tank.


Name: SCYTHER
Level: 23
Moves: Quick Attack, Leer, Focus Energy, -----
Hoping for the best.


Name: MEW
Level: 7
Moves: Fly, Dig, Cut, Teleport
The HM user.


Next time: Heading to Celadon City for another Badge, as well as the battle at Rocket Game Corner. Now that the finagling for a team is done, the rest of the mid-late game is going to be an EXP smorgasbord...

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

What an exciting adventure, Blademaster! I have read it all this far, keep it up!

[Lady Vulpix]

Yes, it really is exciting to read!

[Blademaster]

Oh shit, really? I just sort of stopped playing since I figured nobody was interested, so there was no point in logging it all. But if people are enjoying it, then yeah, sure, I'll pick it back up again.

[BTPoke]

I'm gonna be masochistic and do a Pokemon Yellow Electric types-only run.

[Blademaster]

That really doesn't sound that bad considering Jolteon's and Electabuzz's versatility and Electrode's speed.

(Spoiler:) Have fun with Brock though.

[Poryhedron]

(Spoiler:) Strat for Brock is level up in Viridian until you know Quick Attack and Double Team; DT until Geodude can't hit you, and since stats in RBY are linked the way they are, those DTs will let your Quick Attack hit like the target's not even Rock-type.

[Lady Vulpix]

Interesting spoilers!

But yes, I'd like to hear more if you're still interested in finishing the game.

[BTPoke]

Name: Brett
Type: Electric
Reason: Because it sounds masochistic (also because jolteon)


I started my journey on what was probably a Tuesday morning, not knowing how much of a mono-Pikachu run this would be. Thankfully, the game I chose for this run was the titular Pokemon Yellow, so I defaulted to starting with a Pikachu anyway. Pikachu looked at me, cheeks tinted with a bright red, almost as if it were blushing, and we shared a smile. I knew this would be the start of a fun adventure, full of fond memories and unforgettable moments.

My rival, Collin, challenged me soon after receiving my Pikachu. His Pokemon defaulted to Eevee since this was Pokemon Yellow after all, and this game didn't give much in the way of choices.

Pikachu vs Eevee always was pretty one-sided, so I won easily enough. After mopping the floor with my rival, I set out to complete the first milestone of my adventure: Learning Double Team. Thankfully, grinding is pretty easy when one of the natural encounters dies instantly to any and all electric shocks. It was here, however, that I made a critical error.

You see, pikachu ends up with 4 moves before trying to learn double team: thunder shock, growl, tail whip, and quick attack. My strategy for brock would include spamming double team until I was nigh untouchable, and spamming tail whip and quick attack until Brock's boulders were pebbles.
However, once I reached the required level to teach Pikachu double team, I accidentally replaced tail whip instead of growl...


One reset and about 10 more levels later, I then proceeded to replace GROWL instead of tail whip.

After beating brock with the aforementioned "brilliant" strategy, the next 2 gyms were a breeze, because here's the thing about my current run: Between the start of the game and the 3rd gym of the game, there are 0 electric type pokemon to be found in the wild.

From Brock to surge, this mono-type run is more of a mono-chu run.

Thankfully, at the time of writing this, I have now reached the route just outside of the rock tunnel, and I have now added a magnemite to put an end to the mono-starter run.


Pokemon
Pikachu
Level: 34
Moves: Thunderbolt, Slam, Tail Whip, Double Team
The overleveled Monster

Magnemite
Level: 16
Moves: Tackle
Boy, you got some catching up to do.

Next Episode: More progress, hopefully less boring stuff, and LOTS of grinding. Maggie here has some catching up to do.

[Poryhedron]

Did you make sure to beat Collin on Route 22? Or will he be using a Flareon?

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

11 years later, it's the renaissance of Monotype Runs!

[BTPoke]

Did you make sure to beat Collin on Route 22? Or will he be using a Flareon?

Yeah, I beat him in route 22. I kind of glossed over it because nothing of any real importance happened in the first 3 gyms lol

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Well, that's your style, Blade, on the other hand, has a nice tendency to elaborate.

[Mr.E]

Whether or not anyone replies, there is probably a small handful of people reading and simply having nothing to say. Understandably, it can still be discouraging not actually hearing any feedback.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Sadly, it can still be a bit discouraging to post at TPM overall as our lines are getting thinner.

[Blademaster]

I'm just lazy. Sorry, I'll try and get back into this soon.

[Lady Vulpix]

...For a given definition of "soon".