Pokemon Silver monotype?
Aug. 23rd, 2024 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marchionessofmustacheSo, I've been playing Pokemon Gold (I'm in Kanto already!) and I'm basically soloing the entire game with Gengar. So I'm wondering what a cool monotype challenge would be to play in Silver. May as well think about it here while my phone recharges, eh?
Looking at what we can get right away without having to fight any trainers we have:
Fire, Grass, Water, Normal, Flying, Rock, Ground, Bug, Poison
Fire would be boring because I don't think there's even another Fire type in the entire game until post-game?!
Grass could be interesting, but you'd be sorely lacking in variety of moves. You'd have access to some interesting strategy with Chikorita's heals and Hoppip's status ailments and high speed at least...? But I feel like it would just come down to using Razor Leaf and Headbutt/Cut/Strength for 99% of the game. We would get access to Exeggcute pretty early, which would give us some Psychic moves, though. But another big problem is like half our team (Sunkern, Bellsprout, Exeggcute) would need stones to evolve, which we wouldn't get til postgame. I think Picnicker Gina has a chance to offer you a Leaf Stone as a gift, but that's rare and up to RNG, and we'd need two.
Water at least gives you access to a bunch of Pokemon, including the powerful Gyarados and Seadra (I don't think Kingdra is possible until post-game), but water Pokemon sorely lack in variety of moves for the most part. But I guess we can squeeze out some usefulness from them -- we've got Pysduck and Slowpoke for Psychic-type moves, Tentacool for Giga Drain, Totodile for Bite, Chinchou for Electric, Wooper for Ground... that might actually be a pretty fun one.
Normal gives a wide variety of abilities, and we can start off with Jigglypuff, Hoothoot, Pidgey, and Sentret, then make changes as we go. Normal type Pokemon can learn a wide variety of skills, and Jigglypuff would be able to learn the elemental punches. The biggest hurdle to overcome would be that Jigglypuff is weak until it can evolve, and we'd be waiting quite some time for Mom to buy us a Moon Stone. We'd also get to play around with Dunsparce, Girafarig, and Stantler, though I don't know if they'd bring THAT much to the team. Oh, and we'd be able to use the iconic Togepi as well.
Flying is a type a like a lot, since I love the birbs, and we'd have access to Hoothoot and Pidgey right away. Sadly, we wouldn't get Butterfree as it's a Gold exclusive, so we'd be dealing with the two normal birds for a while. Later we could replace Pidgey with Spearow. Zubat would make a powerful ally, and we'd have access to some tricky strats with Hoppip, and then we'd eventually be able to replace Hoothoot with Natu, as well. Eventually, we'd even get Mantine! This could definitely be a fun one, probably a little more challenging than water.
Rock... definitely a weak type in general, but we'd at least be able to get past the first couple of gyms easily as they're both weak to rock. Our starter would be Geodude, and our only other allies throughout the game would be Sudowoodo, Corsola, and the almighty SHUCKLE. But we'd basically be relying on JUST those four for the entire game. Four Pokemon is not a bad team, and Shuckle is one of my all-time favorites. This one would definitely be a challenge, and Shuckle would give us some strategy to work with... dunno how FUN it would be, but of all the ones I've listed so far, it would definitely be the biggest challenge. And I don't mind maining Shuckle for sure. Though a big problem with Shuckle is that we won't get his useful abilities until too late, now that I think about it. Toxic doesn't come until late into Kanto, and Sandstorm you get at the very end. We'd be relying on a weird Bide + Wrap strategy, which would be incredibly frustrating and probably boring.
Ground starts us with Geodude as well, but we get a surprisingly different set of allies. There's the Nidorans which is nice (though I'm not sure how early you can get them), though with the lack of Moon Stone availability, we'd only be able to take one of those. We'll get Wooper, and late-game we'll get access to Swinub. Nidoking could help carry once we finally get the Moon Stone from Mom, but for a long time we'd just be going with Geodude and Wooper.
Bug... I do bug all the time, and did it in HeartGold, so I don't think I'm going to go for it this time, but we would get Shuckle again. Ledyba is not even worth trying to use, even for something like this, so our starter would be Weedle. Would be quite the struggle in the early-game, especially getting past the first gym, since Beedrill is not going to be that amazing. Tanking with Shuckle and Pineco is always fun, though.
And lastly, we have Poison, my second favorite type after Bug. We'll start with Weedle and Zubat, and we'll get access to Bellsprout soon enough. We'll get Nidoran and Tentacool as powerful allies later, as well. Sounds like a decent little team. Psychic moves would be quite terrifying, but we could try to outspeed with Zubat or power through with Nidoran. Would be obnoxious waiting on that Moon Stone, though. I could use Gastly again, but that would ruin the fun of the challenge. I guess Nidoran would end up just being a bargain-bin Gastly after all. So maybe Flying or Water would mix it up enough.
Water, Flying, and Poison are the most appealing to me, I think. Rock was sounding cool until I thought about Shuckle being useless for the first arc. Poison is a lot of fun in theory, but I think boiling down to elemental punches for another run would be a little boring. So I think I'm choosing between Water and Flying.
Let's look at what our final teams would be like:
WATER: Feraligatr, Seadra, Gyarados, Lanturn, Tentacruel, Mantine, Quagsire
We'd actually have to choose one to bench! Mantine and Gyarados are both Water/Flying. Mantine gets access to Wing Attack, which is really cool.
FLYING: Xatu, Fearow, Jumpluff, Mantine, Crobat, Togetic
Togetic would come in more useful post-game with weird stuff like Fire Blast and Zap Cannon. And part of the challenge is to use weird stuff we normally wouldn't use, right?
Both sound pretty interesting. Water is a little more variety which is fun, while Flying might be a slightly harder challenge.
I'll have to think about it as I finish up Gold with Gengar.
Looking at what we can get right away without having to fight any trainers we have:
Fire, Grass, Water, Normal, Flying, Rock, Ground, Bug, Poison
Fire would be boring because I don't think there's even another Fire type in the entire game until post-game?!
Grass could be interesting, but you'd be sorely lacking in variety of moves. You'd have access to some interesting strategy with Chikorita's heals and Hoppip's status ailments and high speed at least...? But I feel like it would just come down to using Razor Leaf and Headbutt/Cut/Strength for 99% of the game. We would get access to Exeggcute pretty early, which would give us some Psychic moves, though. But another big problem is like half our team (Sunkern, Bellsprout, Exeggcute) would need stones to evolve, which we wouldn't get til postgame. I think Picnicker Gina has a chance to offer you a Leaf Stone as a gift, but that's rare and up to RNG, and we'd need two.
Water at least gives you access to a bunch of Pokemon, including the powerful Gyarados and Seadra (I don't think Kingdra is possible until post-game), but water Pokemon sorely lack in variety of moves for the most part. But I guess we can squeeze out some usefulness from them -- we've got Pysduck and Slowpoke for Psychic-type moves, Tentacool for Giga Drain, Totodile for Bite, Chinchou for Electric, Wooper for Ground... that might actually be a pretty fun one.
Normal gives a wide variety of abilities, and we can start off with Jigglypuff, Hoothoot, Pidgey, and Sentret, then make changes as we go. Normal type Pokemon can learn a wide variety of skills, and Jigglypuff would be able to learn the elemental punches. The biggest hurdle to overcome would be that Jigglypuff is weak until it can evolve, and we'd be waiting quite some time for Mom to buy us a Moon Stone. We'd also get to play around with Dunsparce, Girafarig, and Stantler, though I don't know if they'd bring THAT much to the team. Oh, and we'd be able to use the iconic Togepi as well.
Flying is a type a like a lot, since I love the birbs, and we'd have access to Hoothoot and Pidgey right away. Sadly, we wouldn't get Butterfree as it's a Gold exclusive, so we'd be dealing with the two normal birds for a while. Later we could replace Pidgey with Spearow. Zubat would make a powerful ally, and we'd have access to some tricky strats with Hoppip, and then we'd eventually be able to replace Hoothoot with Natu, as well. Eventually, we'd even get Mantine! This could definitely be a fun one, probably a little more challenging than water.
Rock... definitely a weak type in general, but we'd at least be able to get past the first couple of gyms easily as they're both weak to rock. Our starter would be Geodude, and our only other allies throughout the game would be Sudowoodo, Corsola, and the almighty SHUCKLE. But we'd basically be relying on JUST those four for the entire game. Four Pokemon is not a bad team, and Shuckle is one of my all-time favorites. This one would definitely be a challenge, and Shuckle would give us some strategy to work with... dunno how FUN it would be, but of all the ones I've listed so far, it would definitely be the biggest challenge. And I don't mind maining Shuckle for sure. Though a big problem with Shuckle is that we won't get his useful abilities until too late, now that I think about it. Toxic doesn't come until late into Kanto, and Sandstorm you get at the very end. We'd be relying on a weird Bide + Wrap strategy, which would be incredibly frustrating and probably boring.
Ground starts us with Geodude as well, but we get a surprisingly different set of allies. There's the Nidorans which is nice (though I'm not sure how early you can get them), though with the lack of Moon Stone availability, we'd only be able to take one of those. We'll get Wooper, and late-game we'll get access to Swinub. Nidoking could help carry once we finally get the Moon Stone from Mom, but for a long time we'd just be going with Geodude and Wooper.
Bug... I do bug all the time, and did it in HeartGold, so I don't think I'm going to go for it this time, but we would get Shuckle again. Ledyba is not even worth trying to use, even for something like this, so our starter would be Weedle. Would be quite the struggle in the early-game, especially getting past the first gym, since Beedrill is not going to be that amazing. Tanking with Shuckle and Pineco is always fun, though.
And lastly, we have Poison, my second favorite type after Bug. We'll start with Weedle and Zubat, and we'll get access to Bellsprout soon enough. We'll get Nidoran and Tentacool as powerful allies later, as well. Sounds like a decent little team. Psychic moves would be quite terrifying, but we could try to outspeed with Zubat or power through with Nidoran. Would be obnoxious waiting on that Moon Stone, though. I could use Gastly again, but that would ruin the fun of the challenge. I guess Nidoran would end up just being a bargain-bin Gastly after all. So maybe Flying or Water would mix it up enough.
Water, Flying, and Poison are the most appealing to me, I think. Rock was sounding cool until I thought about Shuckle being useless for the first arc. Poison is a lot of fun in theory, but I think boiling down to elemental punches for another run would be a little boring. So I think I'm choosing between Water and Flying.
Let's look at what our final teams would be like:
WATER: Feraligatr, Seadra, Gyarados, Lanturn, Tentacruel, Mantine, Quagsire
We'd actually have to choose one to bench! Mantine and Gyarados are both Water/Flying. Mantine gets access to Wing Attack, which is really cool.
FLYING: Xatu, Fearow, Jumpluff, Mantine, Crobat, Togetic
Togetic would come in more useful post-game with weird stuff like Fire Blast and Zap Cannon. And part of the challenge is to use weird stuff we normally wouldn't use, right?
Both sound pretty interesting. Water is a little more variety which is fun, while Flying might be a slightly harder challenge.
I'll have to think about it as I finish up Gold with Gengar.
