When last we left, Pikachu was poisoned!

Really, none of my team is looking good.
I check back with the guy who found the fossils, but he just tells me about Cinnabar, so apparently they didn’t steal anything from him. Maybe he said I stole his only fossil to get Jesse and James off his back.

Sorry, Pikachu, but it actually works better to order you to fight than to run, since you’re high enough level to take them out in a single shot.

This took forever.

And ran down most of Pikachu’s HP.

I mean, sure, I could’ve just headed into Cerulean and healed Pikachu, but then I would have lost out on these baubles until I came back a few hours later.

Ah, and here we are in Cerulean.

I don’t like the colors here. It’s too dark, hard to pick out the characters.

We’re down to the wire now.

Made it!

Of course, the game doesn’t note I took the very long route to get Pikachu healed, or that I didn’t even bother stocking up on proper items. My potion workaround is actually the superior choice, since I ended up using a bunch and each use made Pikachu happier.

Look, other pokemon with unique sprites!

What’s weird is these won’t be used from the team screen, where oddishes and bulbasaurs will still be represented by the usual flower shape.

Normally, I only get Bulbasaur after beating Misty, to the point that for a while I thought that was actually deliberate. The only exception is when I’d artificially raise Pikachu’s happiness by using the glitch where attempting to use an item on Pikachu makes it happier even if you’re told you can’t and the item isn’t consumed.

I say no to see what will happen.

One of those odd minor changes. Maybe they didn’t want to make a slowbro sprite, so they picked a pokemon that’s already got an accurate sprite?

Some things don’t change because they never, ever should. Oh, delicious bricked backyard candy.

Speaking of, let’s go see Gary now.

Rattata are really kicking my butt. Starting to regret not trying one out this playthrough.

One double team, like one sand attack, continues the streak of the opponent always missing the next move.

All shall fall before me.

Pikachu is pleased.

High level fodder for Pikachu continues to be provided. Apparently there’s also pidgeotto here, but I didn’t see any.

Paras still has little in the way of moves.

As you can see, this is still before type immunities. Grass move against a grass/poison type? Why not?

The sand attack streak continues.

Perhaps to make up for the removal of weedle, you can catch both of these guys in Yellow.

Also, for some reason, this guy!

I think I’ll try it out.

Pikachu is thrilled again. Seems there’s different expressions for crushing a trainer vs capturing!

Look, I got it down to one HP! As much as I accept it makes sense to heal pokemon in the PC, it really takes away from your ability to enjoy stuff like this.

Let’s go back and get that bulbasaur.

And just like that, it’s gone, to languish in my PC forever, never again to see its friends or feel the ground beneath its feet.

Because what’s important is, I finally have a pokemon on the first page of my pokedex!!!

They really should go through the effort of putting in different dialogue for if you haven’t yet walked out of the building.

You can’t call this guy’s bluff, he’ll just stand there ready to hand his charmander over forever.

I found this disappointing, because as we all remember very well, Bulbasaur is gotten from the nice girl who helps pokemon, Charmander from the jerk who needs to get punched. Why am I cheated of the chance to assault someone?

It’s also interesting that he doesn’t make any reference to Pikachu’s happiness or my own obvious trainer skill. It can be explained by him not knowing as much as the girl with Bulbasaur, but my pikachu is jumping up and down with joy at the moment, so it shouldn’t be hard to notice.

It’s going to live in the PC forever, kid.

PC. Forever.

DAMMIT

Wasn’t paying attention there.

Well, time to see Bill.

Pikachu’s ? box here has caused it and me to disappear.

Pikachu is still very, very confused.

Now it’s forgotten anything happened and is back to puppyish joy at my existence.

Let’s check out Bill’s PC.

I don’t much like them, except for the flareon.

Spearow’s fainting doesn’t penalize me in the least, or even have any way of being measured, so no need for potions or antidotes or really, any effort at all.

I head to the gym, where the advice guy no longer gives tailored advice but just the same speech as he does in the previous games.

I’m not sure if this sprite is better or worse than in Blue.

The opening is slightly reworded and that last part is all new. I’m not sure why. Misty did mention appearance in her anime portrayal, but she doesn’t say this stuff like a kid, so…

Still terrible AI.

Bubblebeam still packs a wallop.

Again, slightly different.

Although it no longer matters, I’m still trying to keep Pikachu from fainting, which makes things more difficult.

Now to leave.

Oh cruel irony.

Also, I quite like drowzee’s sprites.

It was an interesting battle. First, sleep lasted max turns, allowing the drowzee to batter my clefairy, then even when it woke up, its only attack was out of commission. Shows what the status moves can do if things line up right.

Hm…

Why not?

Eh, not worth it.

I always wonder exactly how randomly the pokemon are generated, since it seems like most of the time I get a streak of the exact same pokemon.

Sadly, I try to weaken it instead of just tossing a pokeball. It faints.

The rattata brutalize my team.

Note the level. Both the abra and jigglypuff here are present at the same levels as you could find in the earlier locations of Red and Blue.

Well, I’ll have another chance at jigglypuff, so I think I’ll leave the land of the unstoppable rattata hordes for now.