Last time,

Today,

God bless save files. This Pikachu has no idea I betrayed and tormented him just to see how an NPC’s dialogue would change as a result. We’re still buddies.
Now to take on Brock…

Because we still have no choice. This is even more annoying than last game, because there’s some wonderful L9 mankey beyond here.

But it’s almost worth it for how funny the three sprite follow chains look. Scamper, Pikachu, scamper!

That’s slightly helpful, in that it tells you you’ll need your other pokemon at high level, but it doesn’t actually give you any advice on what you should do, and as in the last game, the undertrainer has only ground types while Brock’s pokemon are all half-rock, as befits the fact this is supposed to be the rock type not the ground gym.

I usually did a lot more grinding than this. Pidgeotto are rare but really good exp chunks when you run into them. Still, I’ve got my mankey to L9 and that should do it.

Both of his pokemon have lost two levels, which makes this easier and also means you get less money.

The same is true of Brock.

At last it’s working for me!

Seriously, every time a pidgey has used this, my next attack misses.

Pidgeotto is in the half of my team that’s just there to set up for the other half’s actual victory and as always, I really hate the idea of wasting precious experience on anything else, so once it’s crippled geodude, I let it get beaten unconscious. Pidgeotto are really useful here even if you don’t plan to raise them because they’re so strong right out of the box.

Unfortunately, it gets really lucky when my spearow tries to finish it off.

Pikachu is pretty useless here (doesn’t help I haven’t been raising it, since I know Mt. Moon will be good for that and it’s never going to be much help against Brock) but I have to send it out because there’s a happiness boost for fighting a gym leader.

As a result of all this switching (and some bad luck with attacks missing) things end up really close.

Onward!

Fuck.

Consideration for my pokemon’s wellbeing has never really featured in my playstyle, and it does make it harder to get Pikachu happy prior to Misty’s gym.

ARG. Well, let’s finish it off.

There we go. Now to kick you off my team.

The pokedex is funny in Yellow, because neither you nor your rival have the original three, so that whole area’s a blank mystery for now.

Into the PC you go.

Current  team. I am way under my usual levels.

The trainers beyond aren’t tampered with, so there’s weedle everywhere. Still not sure why they thought it was so vital to remove those.

Pikachu’s pleased.

And then it finally learns a physical attack! But Pikachu already knows four moves…

And so we lose tail whip, the attack I never used because previously Pikachu had no physical attacks.

And then, sing.

Pikachu has different faces for status effects! You can also see this one temporarily if you talk to the jigglypuff in the Pewter pokecenter.

It’s at this point that I realize I never fought Gary.

See, fighting Gary determines what eeveelution he’ll end up sending against you. The strategy guide that explained this is even where I first learned of the optional fight, but it’s so optional and so not a factor in most of my playthroughs in Red before I knew it existed that I tend to forget.

In my original game of Yellow, and many that followed, I would always lose both to trick him into evolving his eevee into vaporeon. (In some games, I’d actually farm him for experience after emptying my pockets.) This was really stupid because the other way of dealing with water types is grass types, which I’d inevitably fall back on in any team that didn’t involve Pikachu, but Gary’s vaporeon would know ice beam and smack them with it.

Of the three, I think flareon is actually the worst option, given that’s the one no one actually uses and as I recall, its better stat is attack and this is back when all types were either special or physical. But I’m going to spend this game rubbing Gary’s nose in how much better I am, down to beating his jolteon.

So it’s time to reset and wipe out everything I just accomplished, then backtrack.

And there he is!

Gary can’t be wrong, therefore he won’t appear after I’ve gotten a boulderbadge. This seems like a bad idea, because the first thing I did in my original game was run back here to see if the guy would let me in now that I have a badge, and that’d have been a much easier way to encounter him.

Anyway, he’s pretty tough when you’re fresh out of Pallet, but even then, his pokemon choices are poor for facing a pikachu.

His eevee’s pretty solid, though. But that’s just an excuse to use a potion and make Pikachu love me more.

It’s over.

It’d actually make sense to have Gary say something different, because my victory here is why he’ll eventually use a thunderstone rather than fire stone. Having his dialogue vary depending on if you’d won the first battle would be nice – this could go with a loss the first time, leading Gary to dismiss your win as luck and pick a flareon, and he could say something else about his pokemon when you convince him to go with jolteon – maybe about how he’d do better with your pikachu than you.

But anyway, he swaggers off. Oh, Gary. Best rival.

Well, back to Pewter and getting a badge, then the trainers beyond.

Now finally it’s time to collect some Route 3 pokemon.

For some reason, you can’t find jigglypuff here now. Instead, there’s sandshrew. Actually, that just makes more sense. Okay, game, I’ll give you this one. Plus jigglypuff and clefairy are practically identical, so they really shouldn’t be right next to each other when it comes to teambuilding considerations.

I already have my mankey, so there’s nothing else here for me. And I raised a gyarados last time, so the magikarp at the pokecenter is also unimportant. Time to enter Mt. Moon, the realm of zubat grinding.

Well, that was fast.

I’m going to raise this guy just because  well, why not?

Mt Moon really has a solid variety of pokemon. Mountains generally are possibly the only areas in the game that let you build a decent varied team without traveling, which is why it’s disappointing they don’t feature much in fanfic. There’s five different pokemon here, and the only overlap in types in sandshrew and geodude. You’ve even got a flying type for your future HM needs, and it’s one that learns supersonic. Both clefairy and paras learn various status-effecting moves, so there’s a lot a clever trainer can do with them all.

The only thing you’re lacking is a water type for surf, and you can buy one in the pokecenter by the door.

One day you’ll have the advantage here, Mankey. One day.

Everything that screws with accuracy in these games is gold.

While generally I think the sprites here are great, oddish’s is terrible, because there’s no clear distinction between the body and the leaves. I can see what they were doing with the leaves, and it’d have looked great to have them be two toned if only the oddish’s entire rest of its body wasn’t also the same green.

I’ve caught all the pokemon I want here but one, so technically, I don’t need more pokeballs. But that kind of hubris ensures that it’ll break out of the last pokeball I throw, so it’s backtracking time.

God, Mt Moon is red. This honestly is more reasonable than Blue, since it’s probably clay or something, but it just looks wrong to me.

…I bet I can take him.

HA!

Of course, there’s still one battle left. But let’s compare stats first.

Spearow really do get all the good moves. Just as butterfree and beedrill are supposed to be your introductory pokemon to evolution in general but quickly fall behind, I’ve always felt spearow were supposed to be the introductory pokemon for flying types but fall behind the three-stage evolutions of the pidgey line.

Next time…will I make it through Mt Moon?