Last time, Fuchsia!

Today, running around after loose ends, actually.

Checking movesets, tauros’ is even more lamentable than dratini’s, and without any hope of pokedex data. I may bring one with me for Seafoam Islands, though. Until then, I guess I’ll raise a dratini.

Team Rocket really doesn’t seem like the sort to value free spiritedness. They may be criminals, but they’re organized crime. This is such an edgy teen thing to say.

Above: the quality AI in action.

I forgot these were here!

In my first game, I ran into one and it transformed into my venusaur. We failed to do much damage to each the as venusaur was sporting grass moves, so I tried switching in another pokemon, but as my starter was significantly stronger than the rest of my team by then, the battle was long and arduous. I was hugely impressed by ditto, then hugely disappointed when I actually tried using it myself.

I was never particularly clear on what transform did, precisely, and my friends at the time figured it just gave you the moves without altering ditto’s abysmal stats. I didn’t mess around further because I’d realized that a copy of your opponent generally meant you didn’t have super-effective moves on hand and would end up hit by those in the unlikely event you did. It wasn’t until hearing about the second gen shiny ditto trick that I learned they actually did alter their own stats.

In retrospect I’m surprised no one tried using ditto to give themselves an extra mewtwo. I played against dozens of kids without ditto ever featuring.

Anyway, ditto’s a cool pokemon. I mean for it to show up in Inheritors, if I ever regain spare time.

This is nearing the point you can start getting those, so now is a good time for people to bring them up.

…yeah, the character is definitely very yang.

This is interesting. Where do HMs come from? They seem vital for moving around, but so far, no sign of anywhere you can buy them. But they also don’t seem incredibly rare – people who do have them hand them out as if they’re easily replaced. It seems like there’s some sort of haves/have nots setup where some people have access and the rest have to get it through them.

Maybe the woman who gave me fly is some powerful executive at Silph.

Dratini actually has a surprisingly coherent moveset.

Wrap is, as I believe I mentioned, quite broken. Like most broken things in this game, it becomes even more so with a bit of foresight.

Dratini knows thunder wave, which slows its opponent, and then learns agility, which boosts its own speed. With either of those, it can ensure it moves first…which in turn, ensures the other pokemon never gets a chance to use a move at all so long as wrap hits.

Considering what an afterthought the dragon type was, it’s surprising to see something that looks so thouoght out. Perhaps dratini and dragonair were done first and only connected to dragonite and given the dragon type afterward.

…I think this area is two separate ones, because the trainers are resetting their locations while I’m trying to move around.

The people in this area will not shut up about how awesome TMs are. I guess it’s an attempt at viral marketing by Silph.

Also, remember that in the first gen, TMs included such good moves as teleport and whirlwind.

So presumably these were put there on purpose, but…why?

Another bit suggesting having badges is more the exception than the rule.

Male.

Remember this place?

The fact I couldn’t take them and get pokemon out of them nags me to this day.

I love this guy.

Explain it to me anyway.

…and? That’s it? You won’t actually talk to me unless I’m smart enough to know what amber is? Fine, we’ll play it your way.

“trying”? I saw one in a zoo!

Yeah, it would be great to get more than one pokemon out of it.

I wonder why they would.

Although, since the other one is talking about how happy he is about their fossils, maybe they know but just don’t care. It’s not clear if the resurrection process destroys them. Certainly you don’t get either fossil back.

Not that I’ll turn down a free pokemon, but why can’t you just go there on your own?

…also, why are you so secretive? You said your colleges ignore you, not that this is something illegal.

Well, I am meaning to skip ahead to Cinnabar. I have some TMs that need duplicating.

Huh, never noticed that before. Why bring seaweed into this? It’s not like vines normally bear much resemblance to seaweed. Tanegla only appear in the grass patch below Pallet, right on the ocean…is it meant to say that it lives in the sea?

Anyway, time for some missingno cheat. Everyone knows how to do it already, right?
We

It’s often hard to make sense of what was going on in the designers’ brains with TMs. Some are learned by very few pokemon, others almost any.

By putting toxic on my dratini, I can make wrap exponentially more broken. If I’m lucky, a single sequence of wrap combined with poison damage can knock a pokemon out.

What other TMs do I have?

Eh.

Although this is technically usable, it’s one step away from having splash as a TM.

That, on the other hand? Actually decent. My venusaur and nidorina will both benefit.

I can only assume some of these are here because Silph was trying to learn how to emulate some of the weirder moves.

Actually useful! Back to the duping grindstone, then!

IT’S A ZOMBIE GET IN THE CAR

Not bad, but the AI isn’t smart enough to mess with accuracy most of the time and when it does it’s almost always sand attack, so you can just switch pokemon to get rid of it.

And the best status-changer.

One problem about skipping ahead to cheat is that the pokemon are actually pretty dangerous.

A tempting move, but none of my pokemon can learn it,

Sadly, my pokemon can’t learn it.

Yup, in addition to tiny bag capacity, your computer also had very limited storage. In fairness, this really only becomes an issue in combination with the missingno cheat – the designers obviously intended you to immediately sell any nuggets you found, and either use or sell most of your TMs as you got them.

Speaking of money, I now have a lot more TMs than I can use. Time to flood the market with Koga’s secret technique, then buy up coins. The guy gives his whole several-dialogue-box spiel with every purchase, so that takes all of forever, but it’s still easier than winning them.

All that for a basically unusable pokemon. But what matters is the collecting, not the using.

You are one weird person.

Two. Mew, after all.

I really have to wonder what was going on in Silph’s heads. Then again, I think chansey didn’t learn this move naturally, which suggests the move itself was actually invented by them. That raises other questions, like if it was deliberately made chansey-only and if they might be able to make one any pokemon can use.

Remember that guy saying his poliwhirl evolved? He probably got it here.

I never found poliwhirl at all appealing.

In GSC, you can find grimer here, which I found funny.

While I’m here, more TMs!

Useful, but not something I need right now.

Same.

I’ve never been able to figure out what the point of razor wind is. I’ve seen it show up in later games, so it must be working how it was meant to.

Not a move that makes for good battles.

Now for some stones…

In other words, don’t fuck with these guys.

Wait, “legend”? So they have absolutely no clue how these things reproduce.