marchionessofmustache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marchionessofmustache) wrote2023-07-27 08:01 pm
marchionessofmustache) wrote2023-07-27 08:01 pm
Entry tags:
Pokemon Red time!!
So in my endless quest to start games and projects and never finish them, I've decided to start casually playing Pokemon Red on my phone emulator when I'm lounging around the house, nothing big. But of course I can't just play something casually, I have to be stupid about it, so I got out paper and took notes on Pokemon and stuff and have devised the "best" team to get through the main quest of Pokemon Red. Note that I've finished this game many times, but not much in recent days.
I actually wanted to find a whole party of 6, but tbh there's not any need. You can cover everything and even have access to all five Hidden Moves with only a party of 5!
My goal is to create a team where basically you can just run through and one-shot everything without ever taking damage first. Now, if you've played Pokemon before, you know this is pretty much just how the game works anyway, as it's very easy, but now and then you get 'snagged,' and of course there's the dreaded Elite 4 which actually poses a challenge.
I prioritized firstly Speed, and then damage output. Damage output is a little 'boosted' by using STAB and strong moves, so the Speed stat is where its at -- there will be times you NEED to go first or you're going to take a heavy hit or get caught in something stupid like Wrap.
So what five Pokemon did I decide on???
Here we go!
Charmander is our starter -- I was actually planning on not using a starter Pokemon if I could find a better Pokemon, but Charizard actually has 100 Speed, can use Strength and Earthquake with its balanced attack stat, and you get bonus access to Flamethrower.
Charizard, however, is actually the weakest monster in the group. It may have 100 Speed, but its Attack and Special are not even 90 (coming in at 84 and 85 respectively). Pretty mediocre, but near-90 is still not terrible. Flamethrower is going to be very situational, and Earthquake is cool but not entirely necessary with the rest of our team's movepool.
Charizard's main claim to fame in this party is its ability to learn Strength. Without that, we probably wouldn't even be using the poor guy.
Raichu is a surprisingly good Pokemon from the original games. Coming in with another 100 Speed, it boasts higher Attack and Special than Charizard (both at 90), and Pikachu is the only Pokemon that can learn Thunderbolt by level up in the game, which will be incredibly helpful against the various and numerous water-type Pokemon in the game.
Jolteon was an option, with higher Speed and Special, but Jolteon's weak 65 Attack made me go with Raichu instead. Not that either of them would be using their Attack stat much, but I did want to carry Swift for those pesky avoidant Pokemon that use Sand Attack, Double Team, Minimize, etc. Hopefully we'll be knocking them out quickly before they can do that stupid stuff, but you never know.
If you've ever played the original games, you know that this mustachioed mon is an absolute powerhouse. Other than Mewtwo, Alakazam is objectively the strongest Pokemon in the entire game, and you're not able to get Mewtwo until you've pretty much done everything else in the game anyway, so Alakazam is going to carry you for most of the game. With 120 Speed (!) and a whopping 135 Special (!!!) and access to the powerful move Psychic, Alakazam can take out like 90% of the game on its own. Plus it gets Recover! Its miserable Defense is a bit of a problem, but it can sort of make up for it with the use of Reflect, but since it hits so hard so fast, you're likely not going to have to use that anyway.
With a complete lack of counters to Psychic Pokemon in the game, and so much stuff being dual-typed with Poison, and a powerful move pool, Psychic monsters are by far the most useful and powerful available, and Alakazam is easily number one.
The next two Pokemon on the list are very overlooked ones -- first up we have Dodrio. Most players choose Pidgey as their token bird in the party, as you get it on the very first route in the game, and Ash had his iconic Pidgeotto in the cartoons. Somewhat more attack-focused players may choose the slightly stronger Spearow which also gets access to Drill Peck, something Pidgey is sorely lacking.
But both of those Pokemon come early in the game, while Doduo is found quite a bit later. Doduo, however, blows the other two out of the water with not only 100 Speed, but a solid 110 Attack, making it the strongest user of Drill Peck in the game. Double Team and Tri Attack are nice bonuses, and then we are able to use Fly, oddly, with this wingless bird.
As I said in my tweet (er, my... xpost?), Tentacruel is probably the most overlooked Pokemon in the game. Since you need to have access to Surf to get to it, every player will already have access to the strongest Water-type move in the game, so there's little incentive (or at least we think) to switch to the wimpy-looking Tentacool, who is basically the Zubat of the sea, annoying players everywhere.
But this thing is strong. It not only has a great 100 Speed, but it has 120 Special on top of 80 HP, making it bulky in addition to powerful. It also gets access to not only Surf, but also Ice Beam, which helps tremendously against Lance's Dragon-type Pokemon. Mega Drain can keep it alive if need be while fighting Special-oriented Pokemon, and then it has access to Cut, which we'll need throughout the adventure. Sadly you don't get it until well AFTER you need Cut for the first time, but we can always use a non-battle substitute until then.
... And that's that.
CHARMELEON Lv 19
PIKACHU Lv 3
Here's the team after defeating Brock :) Now to move on to Mt Moon and start leveling up Pikachu to take on Misty. Going to be a little sad not training a Clefairy, which is one of my favorites, but alas, we're going for SPEED here!
I actually wanted to find a whole party of 6, but tbh there's not any need. You can cover everything and even have access to all five Hidden Moves with only a party of 5!
My goal is to create a team where basically you can just run through and one-shot everything without ever taking damage first. Now, if you've played Pokemon before, you know this is pretty much just how the game works anyway, as it's very easy, but now and then you get 'snagged,' and of course there's the dreaded Elite 4 which actually poses a challenge.
I prioritized firstly Speed, and then damage output. Damage output is a little 'boosted' by using STAB and strong moves, so the Speed stat is where its at -- there will be times you NEED to go first or you're going to take a heavy hit or get caught in something stupid like Wrap.
So what five Pokemon did I decide on???
Here we go!
CHARIZARD
Charmander is our starter -- I was actually planning on not using a starter Pokemon if I could find a better Pokemon, but Charizard actually has 100 Speed, can use Strength and Earthquake with its balanced attack stat, and you get bonus access to Flamethrower.
Charizard, however, is actually the weakest monster in the group. It may have 100 Speed, but its Attack and Special are not even 90 (coming in at 84 and 85 respectively). Pretty mediocre, but near-90 is still not terrible. Flamethrower is going to be very situational, and Earthquake is cool but not entirely necessary with the rest of our team's movepool.
Charizard's main claim to fame in this party is its ability to learn Strength. Without that, we probably wouldn't even be using the poor guy.
RAICHU
Raichu is a surprisingly good Pokemon from the original games. Coming in with another 100 Speed, it boasts higher Attack and Special than Charizard (both at 90), and Pikachu is the only Pokemon that can learn Thunderbolt by level up in the game, which will be incredibly helpful against the various and numerous water-type Pokemon in the game.
Jolteon was an option, with higher Speed and Special, but Jolteon's weak 65 Attack made me go with Raichu instead. Not that either of them would be using their Attack stat much, but I did want to carry Swift for those pesky avoidant Pokemon that use Sand Attack, Double Team, Minimize, etc. Hopefully we'll be knocking them out quickly before they can do that stupid stuff, but you never know.
ALAKAZAM
If you've ever played the original games, you know that this mustachioed mon is an absolute powerhouse. Other than Mewtwo, Alakazam is objectively the strongest Pokemon in the entire game, and you're not able to get Mewtwo until you've pretty much done everything else in the game anyway, so Alakazam is going to carry you for most of the game. With 120 Speed (!) and a whopping 135 Special (!!!) and access to the powerful move Psychic, Alakazam can take out like 90% of the game on its own. Plus it gets Recover! Its miserable Defense is a bit of a problem, but it can sort of make up for it with the use of Reflect, but since it hits so hard so fast, you're likely not going to have to use that anyway.
With a complete lack of counters to Psychic Pokemon in the game, and so much stuff being dual-typed with Poison, and a powerful move pool, Psychic monsters are by far the most useful and powerful available, and Alakazam is easily number one.
DODRIO
The next two Pokemon on the list are very overlooked ones -- first up we have Dodrio. Most players choose Pidgey as their token bird in the party, as you get it on the very first route in the game, and Ash had his iconic Pidgeotto in the cartoons. Somewhat more attack-focused players may choose the slightly stronger Spearow which also gets access to Drill Peck, something Pidgey is sorely lacking.
But both of those Pokemon come early in the game, while Doduo is found quite a bit later. Doduo, however, blows the other two out of the water with not only 100 Speed, but a solid 110 Attack, making it the strongest user of Drill Peck in the game. Double Team and Tri Attack are nice bonuses, and then we are able to use Fly, oddly, with this wingless bird.
TENTACRUEL
As I said in my tweet (er, my... xpost?), Tentacruel is probably the most overlooked Pokemon in the game. Since you need to have access to Surf to get to it, every player will already have access to the strongest Water-type move in the game, so there's little incentive (or at least we think) to switch to the wimpy-looking Tentacool, who is basically the Zubat of the sea, annoying players everywhere.
But this thing is strong. It not only has a great 100 Speed, but it has 120 Special on top of 80 HP, making it bulky in addition to powerful. It also gets access to not only Surf, but also Ice Beam, which helps tremendously against Lance's Dragon-type Pokemon. Mega Drain can keep it alive if need be while fighting Special-oriented Pokemon, and then it has access to Cut, which we'll need throughout the adventure. Sadly you don't get it until well AFTER you need Cut for the first time, but we can always use a non-battle substitute until then.
... And that's that.
CHARMELEON Lv 19 PIKACHU Lv 3Here's the team after defeating Brock :) Now to move on to Mt Moon and start leveling up Pikachu to take on Misty. Going to be a little sad not training a Clefairy, which is one of my favorites, but alas, we're going for SPEED here!
no subject
This is such a vibe that I identify with.
Big Char-family fan and Kabadra-fen. Love to se it. Actually never see anyone show any love for Doduo, so that's super cool. You could always throw in Mewtwo as your sixth bonus ranger. I mean, you get it way too late for it to matter, but I'd imagine it is decently strong enough to stand among the heavy hitters. (I don't play Pokemon much, so I could be 100% wrong with every opinion I have lol)
no subject
The main point of this team/playthrough is to create the strongest team to actually play through the game with, and getting Mewtwo is the very last of the post-game content, so you wouldn't be able to use him at all throughout the actual playthrough. So that's my reason for not including him -- he IS a big step up from Alakazam. Similar movepool but better stats, but most importantly, access to the move Amnesia.
I also wanted to avoid using legendary Pokemon just because I thought that if you did, your team would just be legendary Pokemon and nothing else. Though that's actually not the case! Moltres and Articuno are quite... lackluster, and overshadowed by other Pokemon. Tentacruel handles ice and goes faster and stronger than Articuno, and the Charizard has the edge over Moltres in key stats and has a better movepool. Zapdos, however, is one of the strongest Pokemon in the entire game, so much so that speedrunners actually go through the entire sidequest to get him because he's THAT powerful that he saves you that much time.
Zapdos could replace BOTH Charizard and Dodrio in the team and the only thing we'd really "miss" is Flamethrower, but Flamethrower is more a novelty than anything, as rarely is anything weak to fire. Most Ice Pokemon are also Water-typed in this game, and can be taken out by Raichu's thunderbolt, and grass Pokemon can be taken out with Dodrio's Drill Peck, and even then almost every Grass Pokemon is also Poison-typed in this one, so Pyschic destroys them easily.
The idea of Mewtwo got me thinking -- what would be a good 'Mewtwo killer' to counter Mewtwo if you were making a PVP team? I don't think there's actually any options -- the only Pokemon faster than Mewtwo is Electrode, and it has lackluster stats outside of Speed; however, it does get access to Explosion. I think the real answer would be the slower Dragonite, who has decent enough Special and HP to tank some of Mewtwo's Psychic, and hope that you could Strength Mewtwo to death before it could take you out. Maybe a mix of both -- Wear it down with Strength and then Explosion it at the end. Maybe even carry Hyper Beam for a critical moment...? (Hyper Beam has a power of 150 but can only be used every other turn, while Strength has a power of 80 and can be used every turn, making it effectively the higher damage-dealer, but you might need to 'finish him off' with a well-timed Hyper Beam instead of losing another turn to Strength...??? IDK. Mewtwo also gets access to Recover so he can tank all day anyway X_x I don't think there's a real answer to Mewtwo lol)