Last time,

Time to try out the pokeflute.

I always found that description amusing.

There’s amnesia, like I was telling you about earlier. Snorlax lacks special moves, so the brokenness of this isn’t yet apparent.

When I played the games, I wouldn’t catch the first snorlax. Its brilliant strategy of resting and healing was too much for me. Originally, I intended to go back to catch the second one once I had access to ultraballs and stronger pokemon, but then I had access to infinite masterballs, so it was effortless. While the missingno cheat opened up a lot of the game, it’s also how I came to realize the problem with cheating. A lot of the gameplay is the challenge of catching pokemon, just like a lot of it is raising them. Once I reached Cinnabar and learned of the cheat, I never had to work to catch pokemon and I could produce any pokemon I wanted for a L100 team without real effort. When Yellow came out later, I found it was harder but ultimately more rewarding.

This does nothing to tell you that snorlax are actually pretty tough. They’d only improve in the next generation.

Now, to discover what the sign says.

…that’s all?

It’s particularly odd given that the fishing area seems to be talking about the area just north of here, since that’s where all the fishermen are. Despite the fact  you get the pokeflute in Lavender, the game seems to assume you’ll go to Celadon to wake the snorlax there, travel down Cycling Road, reach Fuchsia, then come back up this way.

It’s rare to see someone hanging out in an area with a team with a type advantage over the local pokemon, rather than the same sort.

I think he’s holding a microphone? Maybe?

His pokemon fail to do any damage because they just keep using light screen. This is the part of the game where pokemon start having access to a variety of non-attacking moves, and is likely one of the reasons those were held in such disdain at the time. The AI is extremely simple and can’t pick moves properly. Badly picked attacking moves will still eventually defeat you if you keep going long enough without healing, but using non-attacking moves badly accomplishes nothing.

Again, the game really thinks you’re going the other way for some reason. The good rod is, as I recall, in Fuchsia.

How did you even get in there?

Like, how you’re caught in here?

Seriously how did you get in here, and also why didn’t you evolve your magikarp? Since no one wouldn’t evolve a magikarp, I suppose this is yet another point for the theory they evolve at different levels based on their trainer.

Look what you did! By battling me you’ve made the bush regrow and you’re trapped again. Idiot.

Yes, but unfortunately there’s no dialogue option to offer it to you. They’re all over the place, though, just hike through some dungeons.

I think this is the badges/trained stat boost. My nidorina should not be hitting anywhere near as hard as a nidorino. It’s kind of annoying, actually, because it means the system’s handicapped in my favor. I’d like to know how well I’d do fairly.

I too am confused by that, oh kindred spirit.

You know what’s weird? I don’t recall any theories about what bird keepers were holding, despite the fact it doesn’t clearly resemble any particular pokemon. I guess even people falling for the sort of ridiculous theories back then were bright enough to realize not to read too much into trainer sprite art.

People here seem so friendly!

I do not remember that at all. Sure sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

This is a maze full of trainers, and my pokemon are almost all L30, so I’m going to head back to Celadon where I still have a rainbow badge to earn.

Seriously, what’s with this layout?

…

In the anime, there’s a big fuss about how only girls are allowed in the gym, which doesn’t make any sense. Then later in the anime you find out Gary has ten badges and other trainers have sets of badges showing none of the canon set, so it’s actually feasible there for boys to avoid this gym and still get eight badges. Still doesn’t explain why it’d be allowed.

I bring this up in part to say that Ash gets in by putting on a dress. Did Gary here have to do that? That would be hilarious.

Apparently they originally meant to have a female trainer option. I wonder how things like this were meant to work with that – or, perhaps I answer my own question there, and this is why they scrapped it as too much work. The default dialogue often assumes the character to be male, so it’s not as if here is the only place that’d need to be altered, either.

Male = default is one of those biases that just feeds on itself.

God, this sprite annoyed me.

The dialogue that tends to go with it doesn’t help, either.

The trainers of the gym seem to have a particularly communal view of it.

They also remind you constantly that they’re girls who do girl things.

It is an option to have characters that do stereotypical female pastimes while also being skilled at whatever is valued in the universe’s context, but I don’t think they pull it off. Depending on your level, this gym can be a bit of a challenge, but it’s mostly an issue of attrition. The pokemon have a lot of status-altering moves, which will make the next battle more of a challenge, but you can always leave to heal.

I like this trainer’s attitude. She gives no fucks about the gym. Watch for trainers? Who. Cares.

Yeah, this is not my favorite gym.

Another new sprite.

And some new trainer behavior. For some reason, the game has trainers withdraw pokemon after a hit rather than before, making this particularly pointless. Rather than teaching players about strategic switching, everyone I encountered just virtually never switched pokemon in link battles.

Quick stat comparison.

Thank you, trainer, you were more useful than official helper guy.

Did you know the people in this gym are girls? They are girls who are girly. Girls!

My team is overleveled and has some advantages, so it’s been pretty easy. I’m going to see if I can sweep Erika with just my beedrill.

This actually works – Erika’s pokemon are a big step up from the rest of her trainers, so she comes off as a polite badass.

I use pin missile, hitting twice, it uses wrap. Then cut misses because cut keeps missing for some reason and it knocks my beedrill out. Irritated, I reset, intending to use twin needle for a knockout…

And somehow my game is on a much earlier save, before even getting the Silph scope. I started looking around for cheats to boost my team back up, but whatever, I was overleveled. Let’s do this.

As you can see, Tangela are square. That bugged me to no end.

Vileplume also look pretty weird.

My beedrill takes them out far too easily, but assuming you don’t, the vileplume will start using petal dance, a powerful move that ends with it becoming confused due to fatigue. It also knows mega drain, allowing it to heal itself.

I’m surprised by how useful my beedrill’s managed to be. Bug being strong against poison is really a major boon given how extremely common the type is in the original game.

HP-stealing moves just don’t work well in the games. I’m sure people have figured out a way to make them halfway viable on specific pokemon, but for the most part, the combination of the weakness of the move (mega drain has a power of 40) and the fact that it only gives half that much HP back make it bad both as attacking and healing moves. It doesn’t even have the PP to sustain itself – it can only be used ten times. Giga drain, introduced in the next gen in an apparent attempt to address the problem of hoow weak mega drain was, had a power of 60, just barely decent, and paid for it with a gutted PP of 5. This for a move whose entire point was to prolong a battle.  More recent gens have upped both the PP and attack power somewhat, so possibly it actually works now.

It’s a shame because absorb is an okay move in the very early stages and it’d have been nice for that to remain viable.