marchionessofmustache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marchionessofmustache) wrote2023-08-09 02:39 am
marchionessofmustache) wrote2023-08-09 02:39 am
Entry tags:
Pokemon Red Revenge part 2
VENGEANCE! I've now caught up to where my save got corrupted last time. Huzzah! In just one night of playing! Well, I did spend a lot of time AND I used the speedup feature of the emulator through a lot of battles. I also turned battle animation off so it went even faster XD
So last time we left off we were going to S.S. Anne.
The ship visits Vermilion City only once a year. Lore!
This one sailor says that "Jellyfish sometimes drift into the ship." Now, I'm assuming he means Tentacool and Tentacruel...? Or are there like... real-world jellyfish that aren't Pokemon...? Also what does he mean they "drift into the ship" ??? Like they get caught? Where? What is he talking about???
Then another sailor says "You know what they say about sailors and fighting!" But ... I don't know what they say... and he never tells me! He just asks me if I want to be a sailor after I fight him...
This is also the first time we get to see the Gentleman sprite!
This guy claims to be a "global police agent" on the trail of Team Rocket. Now, global police as a concept is explored further in later games, but I didn't remember it having its origin in the very first game! Neat! Also what exactly is "global police?" Is there a global government in the Pokemon World or is it some kind of private agency? I don't think this is ever clarified. In fact, the Pokemon world seems to be run by private agencies without any kind of government at all. Government is never mentioned in the series, and police seem to be for-hire in most cases. Weird.
The captain of the S.S. Anne is a "sword master." There are no swords in his office so I guess you'd only know this by talking to the random wandering NPC.
The biggest threat to us right now is Blue's Kadabra (we blazed through the rest of the ship without having to go back to the Pokemon Center), which was able to be taken out by Charmeleon's Dig. Phew! No damage sustained. That was the scariest part of the adventure on the S.S. Anne.
In the Captain's room you can read his open book which is apparently about curing seasickness, and you can even look in the trash can he's puking in and it says something like "Yuck! Shouldn't have looked!" LOL
Actually going back to governments...
Lt Surge is known as the "Lightning American" and served in "the Army." It doesn't say what kind of army or what they actually did, but I kinda doubt there are like... private-entity armies...? So I guess there are governments of some sort, and they even have armed forces... Which means even in the modern day there is tension between nations in the Pokemon world. Interesting.
While past war is touched on in other games, Surge also mentions that electric-type Pokemon saved him during "the war," which means there was some kind of modern war...???????? The Pokemon world seems kind of terrifying tbh.
Surge himself was not too difficult of a fight -- I started out using Charmeleon's Dig for those supereffective hits, but got a bad case of paralysis that did me in, but Alakazam's Psybeam was more than enough to finish off Raichu. Our days of one-shotting everything haven't come yet, I guess, but we're close enough.
Alakazam did meet his match though -- in the form of a wild Lv29 Dugtrio. Dugtrio is a decent counter to Alakazam. Not a hard counter, but it can get some damage in before going down. Using Dig, it was able to outspeed Alakazam and almost OHKO him! We made it out alive but wouldn't have been able to take on a second one. Thankfully another one did not appear.
This is like the only time in the game you run into really overleveled Pokemon in the wild. Most Pokemon are fairly low-level, but here we found a Pokemon higher level than us, and using only 3 Pokemon, we're quite high levels...
We went back and got the Old Amber, HM05, and talked to that one guy in Viridian City who was behind the plant. He gave us the TM for Dream Eater.
After cleaning up the stuff back through Diglett's cave, we head to Route 11 to clean up the random trainers strewn about here. We can't get further east because there is a Snorlax blocking the path (not the thirsty guard like I thought in the last post XD) but there's quite a few randos here to beat up.
One guy says "I did my best! I have no regrets!" At least he didn't use a comma!
This is also our first glimpse at the Gambler sprite! So sexy <3 Love that bald head lmao. I like to imagine they have little mustaches as well. But I'm pretty sure they don't.
One of them says "Pokemon is life! And to live is to gamble!" So is he saying to Pokemon is to gamble? What is this supposed to mean? The people in this entry are saying such strange things!! I guess it's better than boring game "hints."
This is also our first exposure to the Engineer class. I don't even know if these guys show up anywhere else...? They're "laying wires" on Route 11 and one of them calls you a "spark plug" when you beat him.
Rock Tunnel is dark, but it's possible to navigate it without using Flash. But it's annoying and I'd much rather use Flash. Part of the "point" of this team is to have access to all five Hidden Moves, so we're going to use Flash, dammit!!
I put Pikachu at "point" to be like a scout, so I could swap out as needed. Well, I learned this was a bad idea when I swapped into Alakazam to fight a Geodude and it used Self-Destruct. Alakazam is a glass canon versus physical attacks. Now, the point of this team is to outspeed everything so it doesn't matter even if they DO have powerful attacks... but it doesn't work if you switch into a powerful attack... the idea is to also not have to switch. So putting Pikachu first was a bad idea. I had to go back to the Pokemon Center :( I'm trying to avoid having to do that. Afterward, I was able to clear all of Rock Tunnel without having to go back, though, which was nice.
One of the Super Nerds inside the cave asked me if I knew what "costume players" were, and said that they dress up as Pokemon lol. I'm pretty sure the word "cosplayer" was around in 1997 so I'm not sure why they went with the term "costume player" but whatever.
Lavender Town is where we find our first brush with Pokemon death. Apparently the ghosts haunting the tower are relatively new, and seem to be there because Team Rocket is killing Pokemon. Since the tower was already erected as a memorial to dead Pokemon, it seems not all dead Pokemon become ghosts, or at least not all ghosts haunt places. It seems the Pokemon killed by Team Rocket are especially at unrest and now haunt the tower.
One person mentions that Cubone's mother was killed trying to escape from Team Rocket, and then a child claims to have witnessed Cubone's mother being killed. This is more morbid than I remembered lol. It's interesting actually talking to everyone this time through O_o
Into the tower we get to fight Blue again. I want to note that I've been paying attention to his dialogue, and while he is a snarky asshole, he's also friendly. He gives you advice, and at Nugget Bridge said that we "should go thank" Bill. He also calls Red "Pal" on multiple occasions. It seems more like he's your friend who likes to tease you rather than some guy bent on beating you. So I think Blue is a pretty cool guy.
Another thing I haven't seen since I was a kid -- the ghosts! If you go to Pokemon Tower before getting the Silph Scope and climb high enough to find random encounters, you'll run into the ghosts of the dead Pokemon, but they can't be identified as ghost-type Pokemon yet, so your Pokemon will be too terrified to move. The ghosts will just say "Get out... Get out..." and you have no choice but to run.
Since it seems likely that Cubone's mother was killed in the tower, maybe that's why all the ghosts are flocking there? To try to prevent that from happening again? Or maybe because it's a place for dead Pokemon they are just attracted there anyway. I mean, they were ALL killed by Rocket, so it's not like they'd all rally behind that one Marowak lol.
Oh, and a girl at the Pokemon Center says that Cubone skulls sell for a lot on the black market or something like that. This game is ... intense.
Anyway, not much to do in Lavender without the Silph Scope, so we head west. The road to Saffron is closed because the guard is thirsty, so we head to the underground tunnel to Celadon.
And the first thing we do there is buy a Thunderstone! Now we have a MUCH more powerful ally in Raichu, thank goodness. Pikachu was starting to show its weakness.
Celadon is full of lots of cute easter eggs and other funny things. It's interesting to note that people in the game trade Pokemon using Game Boys. It's unclear if they're actually trading real Pokemon to each other, or if they're playing a Pokemon video game in the Pokemon world. One place you find them doing this is in the video game shop in the department store. Weird.
And speaking of games in games, you can actually visit the GameFreak development room and talk to the creators of the game. They'll say things like "I drew you!" so we get some weird 4th wall breaking.
Looks like I was wrong about bike shop guy -- the sprite is used again for the Programmer in the dev room.
At the Celadon gym there's an old man peeping in the window who says the gym is "great" because it's full of women. I am not exactly sure what he's so excited about, though, because it seems like their main activity in there is flower arrangement.
I learned another hard lesson about not having to run back to the Pokemon center -- getting paralyzed and poisoned means a trip back. I was able to swap out Charmeleon and have Alakazam defeat the remaining Pokemon in the first encounter, but I had to take Charmeleon back to the center. So I stopped by the second floor of the department store and bought 20 of each status-healing item. It's a little annoying carrying all these because you have very limited inventory space in this game.
After buying those things, though, the rest of the gym as well as getting the Rainbowbadge was a piece of cake. We managed to burn through the gym with Charmeleon, though it's a little annoying as his strongest fire-type move is still Ember of all things. Even if we don't evolve to Charizard right away, I think he won't learn Flamethrower until level 42. FORTY-TWO. I think it's 46 for Charizard, so I'm probably going to leave him unevolved just to get it sooner.
Um also in here we got a Fresh Water for the guard, met a bunch of gambling addicts, and got the TM for Ice Beam! And that about wraps up the playthrough for the night. I forgot to get a screenshot of Erika :( Oh, and I forgot to mention that if you talk to her after defeating her, she admires that you're collecting Pokemon for the Pokedex, because she would "never collect Pokemon if they were unattractive." Something I'm surprised to hear the calm Erika say. I always thought she was more... uh... idk, nice? than that. But I guess she has a bit of vanity to her as well.
ETA: I also forgot to add that the guy who stands in front of every gym and calls you "champ in the making" (who I forgot to talk to the first few times) actually doesn't stand in front of this gym -- he's actually in the game corner at a slot machine. But he still gives you a spiel about the gym leader if you talk to him. Forgot to go talk to him again afterward to see if what he says changes lol.
So last time we left off we were going to S.S. Anne.
The ship visits Vermilion City only once a year. Lore!
This one sailor says that "Jellyfish sometimes drift into the ship." Now, I'm assuming he means Tentacool and Tentacruel...? Or are there like... real-world jellyfish that aren't Pokemon...? Also what does he mean they "drift into the ship" ??? Like they get caught? Where? What is he talking about???
Then another sailor says "You know what they say about sailors and fighting!" But ... I don't know what they say... and he never tells me! He just asks me if I want to be a sailor after I fight him...
This is also the first time we get to see the Gentleman sprite!
This guy claims to be a "global police agent" on the trail of Team Rocket. Now, global police as a concept is explored further in later games, but I didn't remember it having its origin in the very first game! Neat! Also what exactly is "global police?" Is there a global government in the Pokemon World or is it some kind of private agency? I don't think this is ever clarified. In fact, the Pokemon world seems to be run by private agencies without any kind of government at all. Government is never mentioned in the series, and police seem to be for-hire in most cases. Weird.
The captain of the S.S. Anne is a "sword master." There are no swords in his office so I guess you'd only know this by talking to the random wandering NPC.
The biggest threat to us right now is Blue's Kadabra (we blazed through the rest of the ship without having to go back to the Pokemon Center), which was able to be taken out by Charmeleon's Dig. Phew! No damage sustained. That was the scariest part of the adventure on the S.S. Anne.
In the Captain's room you can read his open book which is apparently about curing seasickness, and you can even look in the trash can he's puking in and it says something like "Yuck! Shouldn't have looked!" LOL
Actually going back to governments...
Lt Surge is known as the "Lightning American" and served in "the Army." It doesn't say what kind of army or what they actually did, but I kinda doubt there are like... private-entity armies...? So I guess there are governments of some sort, and they even have armed forces... Which means even in the modern day there is tension between nations in the Pokemon world. Interesting.
While past war is touched on in other games, Surge also mentions that electric-type Pokemon saved him during "the war," which means there was some kind of modern war...???????? The Pokemon world seems kind of terrifying tbh.
Surge himself was not too difficult of a fight -- I started out using Charmeleon's Dig for those supereffective hits, but got a bad case of paralysis that did me in, but Alakazam's Psybeam was more than enough to finish off Raichu. Our days of one-shotting everything haven't come yet, I guess, but we're close enough.
Alakazam did meet his match though -- in the form of a wild Lv29 Dugtrio. Dugtrio is a decent counter to Alakazam. Not a hard counter, but it can get some damage in before going down. Using Dig, it was able to outspeed Alakazam and almost OHKO him! We made it out alive but wouldn't have been able to take on a second one. Thankfully another one did not appear.
This is like the only time in the game you run into really overleveled Pokemon in the wild. Most Pokemon are fairly low-level, but here we found a Pokemon higher level than us, and using only 3 Pokemon, we're quite high levels...
We went back and got the Old Amber, HM05, and talked to that one guy in Viridian City who was behind the plant. He gave us the TM for Dream Eater.
After cleaning up the stuff back through Diglett's cave, we head to Route 11 to clean up the random trainers strewn about here. We can't get further east because there is a Snorlax blocking the path (not the thirsty guard like I thought in the last post XD) but there's quite a few randos here to beat up.
One guy says "I did my best! I have no regrets!" At least he didn't use a comma!
This is also our first glimpse at the Gambler sprite! So sexy <3 Love that bald head lmao. I like to imagine they have little mustaches as well. But I'm pretty sure they don't.
One of them says "Pokemon is life! And to live is to gamble!" So is he saying to Pokemon is to gamble? What is this supposed to mean? The people in this entry are saying such strange things!! I guess it's better than boring game "hints."
This is also our first exposure to the Engineer class. I don't even know if these guys show up anywhere else...? They're "laying wires" on Route 11 and one of them calls you a "spark plug" when you beat him.
Rock Tunnel is dark, but it's possible to navigate it without using Flash. But it's annoying and I'd much rather use Flash. Part of the "point" of this team is to have access to all five Hidden Moves, so we're going to use Flash, dammit!!
I put Pikachu at "point" to be like a scout, so I could swap out as needed. Well, I learned this was a bad idea when I swapped into Alakazam to fight a Geodude and it used Self-Destruct. Alakazam is a glass canon versus physical attacks. Now, the point of this team is to outspeed everything so it doesn't matter even if they DO have powerful attacks... but it doesn't work if you switch into a powerful attack... the idea is to also not have to switch. So putting Pikachu first was a bad idea. I had to go back to the Pokemon Center :( I'm trying to avoid having to do that. Afterward, I was able to clear all of Rock Tunnel without having to go back, though, which was nice.
One of the Super Nerds inside the cave asked me if I knew what "costume players" were, and said that they dress up as Pokemon lol. I'm pretty sure the word "cosplayer" was around in 1997 so I'm not sure why they went with the term "costume player" but whatever.
Lavender Town is where we find our first brush with Pokemon death. Apparently the ghosts haunting the tower are relatively new, and seem to be there because Team Rocket is killing Pokemon. Since the tower was already erected as a memorial to dead Pokemon, it seems not all dead Pokemon become ghosts, or at least not all ghosts haunt places. It seems the Pokemon killed by Team Rocket are especially at unrest and now haunt the tower.
One person mentions that Cubone's mother was killed trying to escape from Team Rocket, and then a child claims to have witnessed Cubone's mother being killed. This is more morbid than I remembered lol. It's interesting actually talking to everyone this time through O_o
Into the tower we get to fight Blue again. I want to note that I've been paying attention to his dialogue, and while he is a snarky asshole, he's also friendly. He gives you advice, and at Nugget Bridge said that we "should go thank" Bill. He also calls Red "Pal" on multiple occasions. It seems more like he's your friend who likes to tease you rather than some guy bent on beating you. So I think Blue is a pretty cool guy.
Another thing I haven't seen since I was a kid -- the ghosts! If you go to Pokemon Tower before getting the Silph Scope and climb high enough to find random encounters, you'll run into the ghosts of the dead Pokemon, but they can't be identified as ghost-type Pokemon yet, so your Pokemon will be too terrified to move. The ghosts will just say "Get out... Get out..." and you have no choice but to run.
Since it seems likely that Cubone's mother was killed in the tower, maybe that's why all the ghosts are flocking there? To try to prevent that from happening again? Or maybe because it's a place for dead Pokemon they are just attracted there anyway. I mean, they were ALL killed by Rocket, so it's not like they'd all rally behind that one Marowak lol.
Oh, and a girl at the Pokemon Center says that Cubone skulls sell for a lot on the black market or something like that. This game is ... intense.
Anyway, not much to do in Lavender without the Silph Scope, so we head west. The road to Saffron is closed because the guard is thirsty, so we head to the underground tunnel to Celadon.
And the first thing we do there is buy a Thunderstone! Now we have a MUCH more powerful ally in Raichu, thank goodness. Pikachu was starting to show its weakness.
Celadon is full of lots of cute easter eggs and other funny things. It's interesting to note that people in the game trade Pokemon using Game Boys. It's unclear if they're actually trading real Pokemon to each other, or if they're playing a Pokemon video game in the Pokemon world. One place you find them doing this is in the video game shop in the department store. Weird.
And speaking of games in games, you can actually visit the GameFreak development room and talk to the creators of the game. They'll say things like "I drew you!" so we get some weird 4th wall breaking.
Looks like I was wrong about bike shop guy -- the sprite is used again for the Programmer in the dev room.
At the Celadon gym there's an old man peeping in the window who says the gym is "great" because it's full of women. I am not exactly sure what he's so excited about, though, because it seems like their main activity in there is flower arrangement.
I learned another hard lesson about not having to run back to the Pokemon center -- getting paralyzed and poisoned means a trip back. I was able to swap out Charmeleon and have Alakazam defeat the remaining Pokemon in the first encounter, but I had to take Charmeleon back to the center. So I stopped by the second floor of the department store and bought 20 of each status-healing item. It's a little annoying carrying all these because you have very limited inventory space in this game.
After buying those things, though, the rest of the gym as well as getting the Rainbowbadge was a piece of cake. We managed to burn through the gym with Charmeleon, though it's a little annoying as his strongest fire-type move is still Ember of all things. Even if we don't evolve to Charizard right away, I think he won't learn Flamethrower until level 42. FORTY-TWO. I think it's 46 for Charizard, so I'm probably going to leave him unevolved just to get it sooner.
Um also in here we got a Fresh Water for the guard, met a bunch of gambling addicts, and got the TM for Ice Beam! And that about wraps up the playthrough for the night. I forgot to get a screenshot of Erika :( Oh, and I forgot to mention that if you talk to her after defeating her, she admires that you're collecting Pokemon for the Pokedex, because she would "never collect Pokemon if they were unattractive." Something I'm surprised to hear the calm Erika say. I always thought she was more... uh... idk, nice? than that. But I guess she has a bit of vanity to her as well.
ETA: I also forgot to add that the guy who stands in front of every gym and calls you "champ in the making" (who I forgot to talk to the first few times) actually doesn't stand in front of this gym -- he's actually in the game corner at a slot machine. But he still gives you a spiel about the gym leader if you talk to him. Forgot to go talk to him again afterward to see if what he says changes lol.