Pokemon Yellow Dexrun part 4
Aug. 25th, 2024 03:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marchionessofmustacheSo, I can't continue Pokemon Silver Skies right now because I have to wait for Hoppip, which only appears in the Morning or Day time, and it was already night while I was playing. I'm not staying up til 4AM, so it'll have to be put off til tomorrow.
In the meantime, I was still hankering for some Pokemon, so I "continued" my Yellow Dexrun. And by that, I mean, I completely restarted on my new phone emulator (this one I'm trusting not to corrupt my saves). Because my old file was on an old laptop that I wiped and installed Linux on without backing up stuff like emulator saves. Which also means all my work for Pokemon Red Revenge is gone; I was going to use that file to trade with this one, but NOT ANYMORE.
So I put the emulator on speedup and rushed through to where I left off. I don't have the Weedle line in the dex this time, but I'll get them in there later. It only took like 15-20 minutes to catch up, and that's with evolving Metapod and re-catching everything.
We left off coming out of Mt. Moon!
There's no new encounters here on Route... 4? They share the encounters with the 'western' part of Route 4 which was on the other side of Mt. Moon (even though I could have sworn that was Route 3 IDK)
So we're gonna head into Cerulean and see what's up. First order of business is fighting Blue and going across Nugget Bridge. This was all the same as in Red, as far as I can remember. And then we head over to Feat Kid and there's some new Pokemon to catch.
I want to correct something I said in Silver Skies -- I said that the Poke Balls changing colors to match the color scheme of the Pokemon was a new thing for Gen 2. Well, it actually first appeared in Gen 1 with Pokemon Yellow, the first Game Boy Color Pokemon game! My bad :P
Look at these cute little colored balls:
(I purposely chose a Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow one to show off. Clever, right?)
In the grass here we were able to catch Oddish, Bellsprout, and a little surprise to me, Venonat! Venomoth is one of my favs, so I think we're going to put it on the Main Roster, so he joins Pikachu, Mankey, and Clefable. Oh, yeah, I used the Moon Stone from Mt. Moon (could've sworn you got two in there, but I guess I was either misremembering or missed one) to evolve Clefable and add it to the party.
Pikachu is more just a pet at this point, though. There's not really any reason to keep fighting with it. It's weak, and to preserve the animu-ness, we're not going to evolve it, so it runs around behind us all the time.
Speaking of that, it's starting to show a happy face when I talk to it now! Before, it was kinda meh about me. I even let it faint and it's still happy. Also I discovered that if you talk to Pikachu immediately after winning a battle, he does a little fistpump:
Cute!
And there's more, when we get to Bill's little shack on the cape, there's a brief little "scene" where Pikachu walks up to Bill and makes a confused face. When we run the Cell Separation System on the Teleporter program and Bill pops out the other side, Pikachu makes a shocked face. I sadly didn't catch the screenshot of that one (it happens very quickly), and didn't feel like watching the whole scene again just for that. But he's even more surprised than the surprised Pikachu meme :)
I want to note about this because I don't think I touched on it in Red Revenge but... what is even going on here? How did he splice himself with a Pokemon just trying to do what seems like a teleportation experiment...? And why does he have a 'Cell Separation System' program ready to go? Very curious. I can't even begin to start theorycrafting this one. Any readers have any ideas?
Anyway, I forgot to mention there's a new NPC north of Nugget Bridge who says he basically is a sucky trainer and should give up his Pokemon. We decide to take it in and give it a good home -- so welcome, Charmander! And by good home, I mean the box, because I ran around to evolve it into Charmeleon and immediately threw the poor guy in Box 1. I was going to trade over Charizard for the dex entry when I traded my Kadabra to evolve it, but... yeah, I didn't realize I had lost my Red Revenge data at the time... so we'll have to evolve Charizard later.
Back in Cerulean, I find a new little thing. There was a girl trying to train a Slowpoke in Red and Blue, but in this version, she's trying to train an Electrode instead. She says two different things when you talk to her, and talking to Electrode gives one of various messages that you would get if your Pokemon disobey during battle. Pretty neat. Pointless, but neat.
So it's finally time to take on Misty! She's got shorts and a tank top now to match her cartoon counterpart, rather than her swimsuit from the originals. Instead of using Pikachu's supereffective (but severely underpowered) Thunderbolt, we fight our way through using Mankey's Karate Chop and Clefable's Mega Punch. We even had Clefable faint just before taking out Starmie, so I swapped in Pikachu, used Thunder Wave to paralyze Starmie, then let it KO Pikachu (which... wasn't hard), and then swapped in Venonat to let it absorb all that delicious EXP. Almost 1,000 points! Totally worth it. Sorry, Pikachu.
After that we go into the broken-into household where the Rocket grunt stole the Dig TM. I don't think I pointed this out in Red Revenge, so I'll show it now: there's a bunch of unique sprites here, from weird tracks on the floor, scratches on the walls, crooked chair, knocked-over plant, and books on the floor! A lot of unique artwork went into this single room, which is never used again.
Also you can see how BOLD BLUE the Cerulean pallet is in this game lol. Every route/city/whatever is basically monochrome like this, and even Pikachu and Red change colors to match.
We head south to Route 5 to make two new catches -- Abra and Jigglypuff. No Moon Stones left, so Jigglypuff stays jiggly (no wiggles for you!) and goes in the box. Abra evolves at level 16, so while speeding up the emulator and quickly grinding it out, I got the rest of our main roster to around level 22, and evolved into Kadabra while we were at it. And then I traded with some random two-badge Red file I had on this laptop, which also had a Kadabra, so I didn't have to trade back. Now we got the sexy Alakazam!
So let's look at our new Pokemon for today. I probably shouldn't have gone on to Route 5 because now we have a LOT to look at:
#0004 - Charmander
Lizard Pokemon
Lizard Pokemon sounds about right. The RG sprite looks so derpy. The Blue sprite is cool and nostalgic. And then the Yellow sprite actually looks the best this time.
"Obviously prefers hot places. When it rains, steam is said to spout from the tip of its tail."
"The flame at the tip of its tail makes a sound as it burns. You can only hear it in quiet places."
"Even the newborns have flaming tails. Unfamiliar with fire, babies are said to accidentally burn themselves."
That's cool that there's a sound to the tail fire. I wonder what it sounds like...? The crackling of a campfire comes from the crackling of the wood, right? So what does tail fire sound like...? Maybe a faint wind-like sound like a gas stove being lit?
Also, what is a "newborn"? We don't even know how Pokemon are born or where they come from, so how do we know what a "newborn" Charmander is?? Maybe we just assume some are newborn because they are small and dumb and burn themselves...? Maybe Charmander have a habit of caring for their young in a way that makes you assume some are babies? Quite strange. I'm guessing they just didn't think this one through, of course, but it's interesting to ponder.
Also what are the babies burning themselves on? Their own tails? If the tail can burn them wouldn't it hurt the tail...? I'm so confused lol.
#0005 - Charmeleon
Flame Pokemon
Flame Pokemon... so I guess now that it's evolved, the fire has become more important than the lizard shape?
All the sprites look kinda off here. The tiny arms on the RG one are really awkward, and both RG and Blue have that bulbous snoot that doesn't quite match the cool and more streamlined look of the official art and Yellow's sprite. But then Yellow's sprite has a dumb pose, dumb face, and strangely too-large eye. Not a fan of Charmeleon's looks in the first games... which is a shame because Charmeleon is a very cool Pokemon.
"When it swings its burning tail, it elevates the temperature to unbearably high levels."
"Tough fights could excite this Pokémon. When excited, it may blow out bluish-white flames."
"It appears to be very vicious. It attacks with razor-sharp claws and won't stop until the enemy is defeated."
Whoa, a feisty Pokemon that loves to battle. Usually until this point Pokedex entries have focused on Pokemon in nature, not in battle. So this is a little interesting. Though we can assume that Pokemon also have fighting/battling outside of the head-to-head competitions they have alongside humans. Like in the wild, you know?
I wonder how high the "unbearably high levels" are for the tail flame...? It doesn't say anything about the color, so maybe it's just uncomfortably hot, but the fact that it can actually blow blue fire when it's excited is quite terrifying. It also isn't JUST a fire-breather, but it is known for its razor-like claws?
Dang, Charmeleon is a scary little thing. Very cool though. I think this is our first look at a Pokemon that induces this much fear.
#0036 - Clefable
Fairy Pokemon
Clefairy was also "Fairy Pokemon." I think this is the first time we've seen a Pokemon's evolution be the same classification as its predecessor? I can't remember, hahaha.
Anyway, CLEFABLE!! One of my favorite Pokemon. All the sprites look SO cute and cool. The RG sprite looks like it's happy and dancing around. The Blue sprite looks similar but with its arms raised as if to use the move Metronome. And then the Yellow sprite looks like it spotted something curious in the distance and is looking over at it. They're all so great, I can't pick a fav! (Actually, I can, it's the RG sprite LMAO)
"A timid fairy Pokémon that is rarely seen. It will run and hide the moment it senses people."
"They appear to be very protective of their own world. It is a kind of fairy, rarely seen by people."
"Its ears are very sensitive, so it does not like loud noises or busy places. Will not come out in front of people."
Interesting. Basically, it's rare. Also it has sensitive ears, neat. But what I'm mostly taking away from this is that there are wild Clefable, but a 0% chance to encounter them in the wild (gameplay-wise). That means that from a gameplay mechanics versus lore standpoint, there are indeed Pokemon that exist in the various areas of the game whether or not they are part of that route/area's encounter list. This makes Venonat's entry make a lot more sense. Or at least a little more sense. More sense nonetheless.
These entries are not in the order I'm writing them -- I'm writing them in roughly the order I encountered them in the game/remembered to add them to the list, then I'm ordering them by dex number in the entry. So I'm sorry if I reference stuff before you get to read it XD
Anyway, another takeaway is that tame Pokemon are quite different from wild Pokemon. A tame Clefable would participate in battles, even noisy ones, which is completely against its wild nature. In this game, Oak referred to Pikachu as "not tame yet," and we've also had people say stuff like "when bad Pokemon use Pokemon, the Pokemon become bad as well." So it seems that simply catching and raising a Pokemon can VASTLY change its very nature and personality.
Lastly, what is this "own world" they speak of that the Clefable is "protecting"? There's the theory that Clefairy came from another world such as the moon, but how would we know if Clefable are protective of the moon or some other world when we don't even know where they came from? Is it just talking about its cave habitats? What does this mean? I can't come up with anything.
Unless the Pokedex, being the "high-tech," auto-completing device that it is, is actually able to sense things about the nature of Pokemon that even humans are incapable of noticing on their own. That's some pretty advanced AI. Pokemon has the weirdest, most advanced technology... and they can't even make infrastructure for cars and are still playing on the SNES.
#0039 - Jigglypuff
Balloon Pokemon
Balloon! Which implies it can inflate and deflate, right...? Sounds kinda creepy. And look at those sprites. Definitely creepy! Well, the Yellow one isn't so bad but I think the eyes having a full ring of white around them in the RG and B sprites make it look quite scary. But something about the eyes feels off in the Yellow one, too. Overall, I'm not really a fan of any of Jigglypuff's sprites in this generation, sadly.
"When its huge eyes light up, it sings a mysteriously soothing melody that lulls its enemies to sleep."
"Uses its alluring eyes to enrapture its foe. It then sings a pleasing melody that lulls the foe to sleep."
"It mesmerizes with its large, round eyes and sings a soothing melody. Pokémon hearing this song fall asleep."
All three are pretty much the same, which is a disappointment again. I like when they give us little different bits of information in each entry. We do learn from one that the eyes light up, though, which is a little interesting.
Also something that isn't really a part of Jigglypuff's anime counterpart is the whole enrapturing eyes thing. In fact, if I can remember correctly, Jigglypuff closes its eyes to sing in the show, and never does any kind of lighting up or mesmerizing with its eyes. So that's something neat that seems unique to the games, at least.
Kinda hard to comment on this one as it's so simple. Sings and they sleep. A common Jiggly fact. I guess I do appreciate the eyes thing. Hopefully we learn more about this one in later games, as Jigglypuff is an iconic and well-loved Pokemon that deserves a bit of lore to it beyond being the lullaby Pokemon.
#0043 - Oddish
Weed Pokemon
Obligatory marijuana joke reference goes here.
The RG sprite looks REALLY freaking weird. Blue improved on it a bit, but Yellow's really rounded it out and made it look good. Interesting as so far I'm not liking a lot of the Yellow sprites, but this one is by far the best of the three.
"During the day, it keeps its face buried in the ground. At night, it wanders around sowing its seeds."
"It may be mistaken for a clump of weeds. If you try to yank it out of the ground, it shrieks horribly."
"Burrows underground in the day, exposing only its leaves. It is said to scream loudly if anyone tries to yank it out."
Sounds like the inspiration came from the shrieking mandrake myth. In Red Revenge we talked about the 'birthing' of Pokemon, and in Silver Skies we recently are talking about Pokemon Eggs. I haven't written the entry about it yet, but Elm says maybe not all Pokemon are born from eggs. Now, here we see that Oddish roams around at night "sowing its seeds." Do more Oddish grow from these seeds? So Pokemon can reproduce in a plant-like manner? I mean, I don't know what ELSE would be growing from the seeds other than more Oddish.
Quite interesting. Also interesting that despite being a plant, it's nocturnal. I guess it absorbs up all the sunlight during the day. I wonder if they kept this in-tact for GSC and made it only come out at night...? Guess we'll find out when we get around to Crystal Dexrun if that ever happens.
Oddish used to be one of my favorites, and as a kid I loved it way more than the Bellsprout line. But these days I vastly prefer Bellsprout. I still like Oddish, though.
#0048 - Venonat
Insect Pokemon
Insect Pokemon! Like, specifically, "insect" (despite it having two feet and two... hands? and no other appendages) ... Bellsprout is said in one of its entries to specifically eat tiny insects, and they do live near each other, so are tiny Venonat the food of Bellsprout? We'll get more into that in its entry though.
I like all three sprites quite a bit, and each one brings a different vibe. The RG one looks timid or shy, while the Blue sprite looks outgoing like it's saying hello. Then the Yellow sprite shows it dashing around. So cool. I love Venonat, and glad to see all of its sprites showing it in various ways, all looking cute and cool. Yay!
"Lives in the shadows of tall trees where it eats insects. It is attracted by light at night."
"Its large eyes act as radars. In a bright place, you can see that they are clusters of many tiny eyes."
"Uses its large, radar-like eyes to move around in darkness. It is instinctively attracted to light."
... It eats insects?! What does it eat, other Venonats? Seriously, there are no other bugs around here, and Venonat is the "Insect Pokemon." That's quite disturbing. Does it maybe have tons of offspring and use the runts of the litter as food...???????????
Later in Pokemon RGB, you see it alongside Caterpie and Weedle, so maybe it also eats those. It's huge (3 feet+) so it could probably snack on a Caterpie...
It could also imply that there are nearby Pokemon that DON'T come out of tall grass, but still live in each area of the game. That's probably the better way to look at it. There's probably some baby Caterpies hanging around this route, but they stick to the wood or dirt and are quite docile, so you don't see them in their wild encounters here.
That's what I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe that there are non-aggressive Pokemon in every area that exist but simply aren't encounterable in the game. It's better than Venonat eating its own kind, and more lore-friendly than there being random non-Pokemon animals that are never shown or referenced in any other way.
#0063 - Abra
Psi Pokemon
Some more nice sprites for another great Pokemon. The RG sprite actually looks the most serene, like it's taking quite the deep and peaceful nap, but it's missing the iconic slanted fox-like eyes that we see in the other two sprites and the official art. I like the folded hands over its belly in the Blue sprite a lot. The Yellow sprite is sprawled out and a little more "lively" looking, though it's probably my least favorite because Abra is not supposed to look lively.
"Using its ability to read minds, it will identify impending danger and Teleport to safety."
"Sleeps 18 hours a day. If it senses danger, it will teleport itself to safety even as it sleeps."
"Even while asleep, it can sense enemies approaching. It Teleports itself to a distant spot if there is any danger."
Not alot to take away from these entries. Its ability to sense danger comes from a mind-reading ability. I wonder if it has a harder time sensing danger from slow or mindless creatures? Like maybe a Slowpoke? Or maybe Slowpoke poses very little danger to an Abra so it doesn't matter... lol.
Sleeps 18 hours a day. My kind of Pokemon. We always see it sleeping, though, so what does it do in the other 6 hours? I would like to know, but the entries give us no insight on that. Since we never see it awake in the wild, does that mean it actually stays very far away from the human population while it's awake? It's impossible to encounter one that isn't asleep and teleporting away. Maybe it's a little slower to teleport while sleeping, which is why we're able to encounter them in their sleep, but while awake they teleport so quickly they're never seen by humans.
I'd really like to know what their waking life is like.
#0064 - Kadabra
Psi Pokemon
Another evolution with the same classification as its predecessor, cool. While a lot of the Blue sprites are really nice, it's probably the worst one of the three this time. The RG sprite is the most menacing, while the Yellow sprite is the most dynamic. I like the more frightening image of the RG sprite in this case.
Also interesting to note is that the Yellow sprite has a little splotch on its forehead -- this is a star shape, which was deemed "satanic" or something and not shown for a while. Even the modern official art purposely tilts the head away as to hide the star. The original official art had Kadabra facing forward, star easy to see, so I wonder why it was not included in the two original game sprites...? Maybe it was just hard to draw it with the limited capabilities of the Game Boy, and the expanded pallet of the Game Boy Color allowed for more detail...?
Also, I think this is our first mustached Pokemon to review?!
"It emits special alpha waves from its body that induce headaches just by being close by."
"Many odd things happen if this Pokémon is close by. For example, it makes clocks run backwards."
"When it uses psychic power, all its brain cells work in unison to generate powerful alpha waves."
Now, I'm not much of a science-y person, so I don't really know what all "alpha waves" entail. But it seems to be quite strange. I can get that being nearby a Pokemon emitting some kind of weird wave could instill a headache, though. No idea why clocks would run backward, though.
Overall, not a very interesting set of entries. Would like to learn more about its motives and nature, not just... alpha waves. I don't really have anything else to say about this one.
#0065 - Alakazam
Psi Pokemon
Gee, Bill! How come your mom lets you eat with TWO spoons?
Sorry, I had to say it. He gets an extra spoon when he evolves!! IDK why I refer to the Pokemon as "he" most of the time... there's probably some internalized sexism in there making me think of male as the "default" gender but... I don't want to go into that now.
What we do need to go into is how freaking HOT this thing is. Of course, I fetishize the 'tache so it makes sense I'd love it but it just... looks... so... cool???? I love the shape of its head, the snoot looking like a cool long nose, and I like its hands and feet... so cool and sexy. I love Alakazam so much.
As for its sprites, the RG one looks awkward, kinda scrunched up or something in the face... the Blue one looks the best, super badass. I don't like how it's covering its eye with a spoon in the Yellow one, but they did perfect the mustache for that one, so I'll give that a pass.
"Its brain can outperform a super-computer. Its intelligence quotient is said to be 5,000."
"A Pokémon that can memorize anything. It never forgets what it learns--that's why this Pokémon is smart."
"A Pokémon that uses psychic power. It is highly intelligent and capable of instantly identifying its foe's weakness."
And super underwhelming dex entries. Pretty much boils down to "thing is super smart" and nothing else. Also I'm glad it says "said to be" about the IQ thing, because there would be no way to measure the IQ of a Pokemon, and IQ is a standard for humans anyway. So "said to be" makes it sound like people just made this up, and it's not an actual fact or anything. Plus wouldn't individual Alakazam have unique IQ?
IDK, very disappointing dex entries for this line for the most part. Abra sleeping all the time was probably the highlight. I love these guys to death but they're not delivering on the lore here.
#0069 - Bellsprout
Flower Pokemon
... Flower. It's based on a pitcher plant. Is the pitcher of a pitcher plant actually its flower?! I... never really thought of this. Let's research!! Yup, it's a flower. Thanks, Bing! Quite interesting there. Also strange that it's not called "Pitcher Pokemon" or something like that. Just "flower."
The RG sprite looks a little... constrained, but I like the other two sprites. Blue's has an iconic funny pose, and then Yellow's has more of a pitcher-plant-shaped head with it spreading its leaves, which is nice.
"A carnivorous Pokémon that traps and eats bugs. It uses its root feet to soak up needed moisture."
"Prefers hot and humid places. It ensnares tiny insects with its vines and devours them."
"A kind of bug-eating plant that hunts small insects. It uses its roots as feet for walking."
Is this the first time we've heard the word "carnivorous"? And it's referring to eating Pokemon, so Pokemon are classified as meat, right?
It's said to like hot and humid places. I don't know how hot the Kanto region is, but I could see Cerulean being humid as it's surrounded by water, and it even lives close to the little... river? that Nugget Bridge goes over. It's cool that it can use its roots for both walking and soaking up moisture. I guess instead of drinking water, it uses roots. Makes sense for a plant, right?
But what exactly is its diet? It says it "hunts small insects" but the only insect-like thing around here is Venonat, which is HUGE. Venonat is over 3 feet tall (wow), while Bellsprout is only a little over 2 feet. Are there perhaps "baby" Venonat that are very small that it eats...? Or are there some other kind of "insects" that are non-Pokemon for it to eat? (In that case, the "Carn" in "Carnivorous" wouldn't be referring to Pokemon as meat, then, huh?)
In Blue (/Green), it appears alongside Pidgey and Meowth. No bug-type Pokemon at all in its first natural habitat. Later in the game, you can find it alongside Venonat a lot, and then even later, among Caterpie and Weedle. But even those are like a foot long or so, right? Like half its size? And I'm assuming Bellsprout's body is most of its length, so those bugs would be bigger than its head.
So, this implies there are either some kind of small non-Pokemon insects in the Pokemon world, or there are "baby" versions of Caterpie, Weedle, and Venonat that aren't normal sized. Later on, we see size variation in Pokemon, even though we're given strict sizes in the dex. So we can only assume this is a "common size," and that Pokemon actually come in different sizes. The dex entry says it feeds on "small" insects so maybe it's referring to the smaller versions of Bug-type Pokemon?
Quite curious, indeed.
And that's finally all of them! No real conclusion this time, it's almost 3AM and I am quite tired. I will see you guys in the next entry (which will hopefully be Silver Skies with me catching Hoppip!)
(Oh, random thing, but there's a Chansey in the Pokemon Center in Yellow. Didn't point that out yet.)
In the meantime, I was still hankering for some Pokemon, so I "continued" my Yellow Dexrun. And by that, I mean, I completely restarted on my new phone emulator (this one I'm trusting not to corrupt my saves). Because my old file was on an old laptop that I wiped and installed Linux on without backing up stuff like emulator saves. Which also means all my work for Pokemon Red Revenge is gone; I was going to use that file to trade with this one, but NOT ANYMORE.
So I put the emulator on speedup and rushed through to where I left off. I don't have the Weedle line in the dex this time, but I'll get them in there later. It only took like 15-20 minutes to catch up, and that's with evolving Metapod and re-catching everything.
We left off coming out of Mt. Moon!
There's no new encounters here on Route... 4? They share the encounters with the 'western' part of Route 4 which was on the other side of Mt. Moon (even though I could have sworn that was Route 3 IDK)
So we're gonna head into Cerulean and see what's up. First order of business is fighting Blue and going across Nugget Bridge. This was all the same as in Red, as far as I can remember. And then we head over to Feat Kid and there's some new Pokemon to catch.
I want to correct something I said in Silver Skies -- I said that the Poke Balls changing colors to match the color scheme of the Pokemon was a new thing for Gen 2. Well, it actually first appeared in Gen 1 with Pokemon Yellow, the first Game Boy Color Pokemon game! My bad :P
Look at these cute little colored balls:
(I purposely chose a Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow one to show off. Clever, right?)
In the grass here we were able to catch Oddish, Bellsprout, and a little surprise to me, Venonat! Venomoth is one of my favs, so I think we're going to put it on the Main Roster, so he joins Pikachu, Mankey, and Clefable. Oh, yeah, I used the Moon Stone from Mt. Moon (could've sworn you got two in there, but I guess I was either misremembering or missed one) to evolve Clefable and add it to the party.
Pikachu is more just a pet at this point, though. There's not really any reason to keep fighting with it. It's weak, and to preserve the animu-ness, we're not going to evolve it, so it runs around behind us all the time.
Speaking of that, it's starting to show a happy face when I talk to it now! Before, it was kinda meh about me. I even let it faint and it's still happy. Also I discovered that if you talk to Pikachu immediately after winning a battle, he does a little fistpump:
Cute!
And there's more, when we get to Bill's little shack on the cape, there's a brief little "scene" where Pikachu walks up to Bill and makes a confused face. When we run the Cell Separation System on the Teleporter program and Bill pops out the other side, Pikachu makes a shocked face. I sadly didn't catch the screenshot of that one (it happens very quickly), and didn't feel like watching the whole scene again just for that. But he's even more surprised than the surprised Pikachu meme :)
I want to note about this because I don't think I touched on it in Red Revenge but... what is even going on here? How did he splice himself with a Pokemon just trying to do what seems like a teleportation experiment...? And why does he have a 'Cell Separation System' program ready to go? Very curious. I can't even begin to start theorycrafting this one. Any readers have any ideas?
Anyway, I forgot to mention there's a new NPC north of Nugget Bridge who says he basically is a sucky trainer and should give up his Pokemon. We decide to take it in and give it a good home -- so welcome, Charmander! And by good home, I mean the box, because I ran around to evolve it into Charmeleon and immediately threw the poor guy in Box 1. I was going to trade over Charizard for the dex entry when I traded my Kadabra to evolve it, but... yeah, I didn't realize I had lost my Red Revenge data at the time... so we'll have to evolve Charizard later.
Back in Cerulean, I find a new little thing. There was a girl trying to train a Slowpoke in Red and Blue, but in this version, she's trying to train an Electrode instead. She says two different things when you talk to her, and talking to Electrode gives one of various messages that you would get if your Pokemon disobey during battle. Pretty neat. Pointless, but neat.
So it's finally time to take on Misty! She's got shorts and a tank top now to match her cartoon counterpart, rather than her swimsuit from the originals. Instead of using Pikachu's supereffective (but severely underpowered) Thunderbolt, we fight our way through using Mankey's Karate Chop and Clefable's Mega Punch. We even had Clefable faint just before taking out Starmie, so I swapped in Pikachu, used Thunder Wave to paralyze Starmie, then let it KO Pikachu (which... wasn't hard), and then swapped in Venonat to let it absorb all that delicious EXP. Almost 1,000 points! Totally worth it. Sorry, Pikachu.
After that we go into the broken-into household where the Rocket grunt stole the Dig TM. I don't think I pointed this out in Red Revenge, so I'll show it now: there's a bunch of unique sprites here, from weird tracks on the floor, scratches on the walls, crooked chair, knocked-over plant, and books on the floor! A lot of unique artwork went into this single room, which is never used again.
Also you can see how BOLD BLUE the Cerulean pallet is in this game lol. Every route/city/whatever is basically monochrome like this, and even Pikachu and Red change colors to match.
We head south to Route 5 to make two new catches -- Abra and Jigglypuff. No Moon Stones left, so Jigglypuff stays jiggly (no wiggles for you!) and goes in the box. Abra evolves at level 16, so while speeding up the emulator and quickly grinding it out, I got the rest of our main roster to around level 22, and evolved into Kadabra while we were at it. And then I traded with some random two-badge Red file I had on this laptop, which also had a Kadabra, so I didn't have to trade back. Now we got the sexy Alakazam!
So let's look at our new Pokemon for today. I probably shouldn't have gone on to Route 5 because now we have a LOT to look at:
#0004 - Charmander
Lizard Pokemon
Lizard Pokemon sounds about right. The RG sprite looks so derpy. The Blue sprite is cool and nostalgic. And then the Yellow sprite actually looks the best this time.
"Obviously prefers hot places. When it rains, steam is said to spout from the tip of its tail."
"The flame at the tip of its tail makes a sound as it burns. You can only hear it in quiet places."
"Even the newborns have flaming tails. Unfamiliar with fire, babies are said to accidentally burn themselves."
That's cool that there's a sound to the tail fire. I wonder what it sounds like...? The crackling of a campfire comes from the crackling of the wood, right? So what does tail fire sound like...? Maybe a faint wind-like sound like a gas stove being lit?
Also, what is a "newborn"? We don't even know how Pokemon are born or where they come from, so how do we know what a "newborn" Charmander is?? Maybe we just assume some are newborn because they are small and dumb and burn themselves...? Maybe Charmander have a habit of caring for their young in a way that makes you assume some are babies? Quite strange. I'm guessing they just didn't think this one through, of course, but it's interesting to ponder.
Also what are the babies burning themselves on? Their own tails? If the tail can burn them wouldn't it hurt the tail...? I'm so confused lol.
#0005 - Charmeleon
Flame Pokemon
Flame Pokemon... so I guess now that it's evolved, the fire has become more important than the lizard shape?
All the sprites look kinda off here. The tiny arms on the RG one are really awkward, and both RG and Blue have that bulbous snoot that doesn't quite match the cool and more streamlined look of the official art and Yellow's sprite. But then Yellow's sprite has a dumb pose, dumb face, and strangely too-large eye. Not a fan of Charmeleon's looks in the first games... which is a shame because Charmeleon is a very cool Pokemon.
"When it swings its burning tail, it elevates the temperature to unbearably high levels."
"Tough fights could excite this Pokémon. When excited, it may blow out bluish-white flames."
"It appears to be very vicious. It attacks with razor-sharp claws and won't stop until the enemy is defeated."
Whoa, a feisty Pokemon that loves to battle. Usually until this point Pokedex entries have focused on Pokemon in nature, not in battle. So this is a little interesting. Though we can assume that Pokemon also have fighting/battling outside of the head-to-head competitions they have alongside humans. Like in the wild, you know?
I wonder how high the "unbearably high levels" are for the tail flame...? It doesn't say anything about the color, so maybe it's just uncomfortably hot, but the fact that it can actually blow blue fire when it's excited is quite terrifying. It also isn't JUST a fire-breather, but it is known for its razor-like claws?
Dang, Charmeleon is a scary little thing. Very cool though. I think this is our first look at a Pokemon that induces this much fear.
#0036 - Clefable
Fairy Pokemon
Clefairy was also "Fairy Pokemon." I think this is the first time we've seen a Pokemon's evolution be the same classification as its predecessor? I can't remember, hahaha.
Anyway, CLEFABLE!! One of my favorite Pokemon. All the sprites look SO cute and cool. The RG sprite looks like it's happy and dancing around. The Blue sprite looks similar but with its arms raised as if to use the move Metronome. And then the Yellow sprite looks like it spotted something curious in the distance and is looking over at it. They're all so great, I can't pick a fav! (Actually, I can, it's the RG sprite LMAO)
"A timid fairy Pokémon that is rarely seen. It will run and hide the moment it senses people."
"They appear to be very protective of their own world. It is a kind of fairy, rarely seen by people."
"Its ears are very sensitive, so it does not like loud noises or busy places. Will not come out in front of people."
Interesting. Basically, it's rare. Also it has sensitive ears, neat. But what I'm mostly taking away from this is that there are wild Clefable, but a 0% chance to encounter them in the wild (gameplay-wise). That means that from a gameplay mechanics versus lore standpoint, there are indeed Pokemon that exist in the various areas of the game whether or not they are part of that route/area's encounter list. This makes Venonat's entry make a lot more sense. Or at least a little more sense. More sense nonetheless.
These entries are not in the order I'm writing them -- I'm writing them in roughly the order I encountered them in the game/remembered to add them to the list, then I'm ordering them by dex number in the entry. So I'm sorry if I reference stuff before you get to read it XD
Anyway, another takeaway is that tame Pokemon are quite different from wild Pokemon. A tame Clefable would participate in battles, even noisy ones, which is completely against its wild nature. In this game, Oak referred to Pikachu as "not tame yet," and we've also had people say stuff like "when bad Pokemon use Pokemon, the Pokemon become bad as well." So it seems that simply catching and raising a Pokemon can VASTLY change its very nature and personality.
Lastly, what is this "own world" they speak of that the Clefable is "protecting"? There's the theory that Clefairy came from another world such as the moon, but how would we know if Clefable are protective of the moon or some other world when we don't even know where they came from? Is it just talking about its cave habitats? What does this mean? I can't come up with anything.
Unless the Pokedex, being the "high-tech," auto-completing device that it is, is actually able to sense things about the nature of Pokemon that even humans are incapable of noticing on their own. That's some pretty advanced AI. Pokemon has the weirdest, most advanced technology... and they can't even make infrastructure for cars and are still playing on the SNES.
#0039 - Jigglypuff
Balloon Pokemon
Balloon! Which implies it can inflate and deflate, right...? Sounds kinda creepy. And look at those sprites. Definitely creepy! Well, the Yellow one isn't so bad but I think the eyes having a full ring of white around them in the RG and B sprites make it look quite scary. But something about the eyes feels off in the Yellow one, too. Overall, I'm not really a fan of any of Jigglypuff's sprites in this generation, sadly.
"When its huge eyes light up, it sings a mysteriously soothing melody that lulls its enemies to sleep."
"Uses its alluring eyes to enrapture its foe. It then sings a pleasing melody that lulls the foe to sleep."
"It mesmerizes with its large, round eyes and sings a soothing melody. Pokémon hearing this song fall asleep."
All three are pretty much the same, which is a disappointment again. I like when they give us little different bits of information in each entry. We do learn from one that the eyes light up, though, which is a little interesting.
Also something that isn't really a part of Jigglypuff's anime counterpart is the whole enrapturing eyes thing. In fact, if I can remember correctly, Jigglypuff closes its eyes to sing in the show, and never does any kind of lighting up or mesmerizing with its eyes. So that's something neat that seems unique to the games, at least.
Kinda hard to comment on this one as it's so simple. Sings and they sleep. A common Jiggly fact. I guess I do appreciate the eyes thing. Hopefully we learn more about this one in later games, as Jigglypuff is an iconic and well-loved Pokemon that deserves a bit of lore to it beyond being the lullaby Pokemon.
#0043 - Oddish
Weed Pokemon
Obligatory marijuana joke reference goes here.
The RG sprite looks REALLY freaking weird. Blue improved on it a bit, but Yellow's really rounded it out and made it look good. Interesting as so far I'm not liking a lot of the Yellow sprites, but this one is by far the best of the three.
"During the day, it keeps its face buried in the ground. At night, it wanders around sowing its seeds."
"It may be mistaken for a clump of weeds. If you try to yank it out of the ground, it shrieks horribly."
"Burrows underground in the day, exposing only its leaves. It is said to scream loudly if anyone tries to yank it out."
Sounds like the inspiration came from the shrieking mandrake myth. In Red Revenge we talked about the 'birthing' of Pokemon, and in Silver Skies we recently are talking about Pokemon Eggs. I haven't written the entry about it yet, but Elm says maybe not all Pokemon are born from eggs. Now, here we see that Oddish roams around at night "sowing its seeds." Do more Oddish grow from these seeds? So Pokemon can reproduce in a plant-like manner? I mean, I don't know what ELSE would be growing from the seeds other than more Oddish.
Quite interesting. Also interesting that despite being a plant, it's nocturnal. I guess it absorbs up all the sunlight during the day. I wonder if they kept this in-tact for GSC and made it only come out at night...? Guess we'll find out when we get around to Crystal Dexrun if that ever happens.
Oddish used to be one of my favorites, and as a kid I loved it way more than the Bellsprout line. But these days I vastly prefer Bellsprout. I still like Oddish, though.
#0048 - Venonat
Insect Pokemon
Insect Pokemon! Like, specifically, "insect" (despite it having two feet and two... hands? and no other appendages) ... Bellsprout is said in one of its entries to specifically eat tiny insects, and they do live near each other, so are tiny Venonat the food of Bellsprout? We'll get more into that in its entry though.
I like all three sprites quite a bit, and each one brings a different vibe. The RG one looks timid or shy, while the Blue sprite looks outgoing like it's saying hello. Then the Yellow sprite shows it dashing around. So cool. I love Venonat, and glad to see all of its sprites showing it in various ways, all looking cute and cool. Yay!
"Lives in the shadows of tall trees where it eats insects. It is attracted by light at night."
"Its large eyes act as radars. In a bright place, you can see that they are clusters of many tiny eyes."
"Uses its large, radar-like eyes to move around in darkness. It is instinctively attracted to light."
... It eats insects?! What does it eat, other Venonats? Seriously, there are no other bugs around here, and Venonat is the "Insect Pokemon." That's quite disturbing. Does it maybe have tons of offspring and use the runts of the litter as food...???????????
Later in Pokemon RGB, you see it alongside Caterpie and Weedle, so maybe it also eats those. It's huge (3 feet+) so it could probably snack on a Caterpie...
It could also imply that there are nearby Pokemon that DON'T come out of tall grass, but still live in each area of the game. That's probably the better way to look at it. There's probably some baby Caterpies hanging around this route, but they stick to the wood or dirt and are quite docile, so you don't see them in their wild encounters here.
That's what I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe that there are non-aggressive Pokemon in every area that exist but simply aren't encounterable in the game. It's better than Venonat eating its own kind, and more lore-friendly than there being random non-Pokemon animals that are never shown or referenced in any other way.
#0063 - Abra
Psi Pokemon
Some more nice sprites for another great Pokemon. The RG sprite actually looks the most serene, like it's taking quite the deep and peaceful nap, but it's missing the iconic slanted fox-like eyes that we see in the other two sprites and the official art. I like the folded hands over its belly in the Blue sprite a lot. The Yellow sprite is sprawled out and a little more "lively" looking, though it's probably my least favorite because Abra is not supposed to look lively.
"Using its ability to read minds, it will identify impending danger and Teleport to safety."
"Sleeps 18 hours a day. If it senses danger, it will teleport itself to safety even as it sleeps."
"Even while asleep, it can sense enemies approaching. It Teleports itself to a distant spot if there is any danger."
Not alot to take away from these entries. Its ability to sense danger comes from a mind-reading ability. I wonder if it has a harder time sensing danger from slow or mindless creatures? Like maybe a Slowpoke? Or maybe Slowpoke poses very little danger to an Abra so it doesn't matter... lol.
Sleeps 18 hours a day. My kind of Pokemon. We always see it sleeping, though, so what does it do in the other 6 hours? I would like to know, but the entries give us no insight on that. Since we never see it awake in the wild, does that mean it actually stays very far away from the human population while it's awake? It's impossible to encounter one that isn't asleep and teleporting away. Maybe it's a little slower to teleport while sleeping, which is why we're able to encounter them in their sleep, but while awake they teleport so quickly they're never seen by humans.
I'd really like to know what their waking life is like.
#0064 - Kadabra
Psi Pokemon
Another evolution with the same classification as its predecessor, cool. While a lot of the Blue sprites are really nice, it's probably the worst one of the three this time. The RG sprite is the most menacing, while the Yellow sprite is the most dynamic. I like the more frightening image of the RG sprite in this case.
Also interesting to note is that the Yellow sprite has a little splotch on its forehead -- this is a star shape, which was deemed "satanic" or something and not shown for a while. Even the modern official art purposely tilts the head away as to hide the star. The original official art had Kadabra facing forward, star easy to see, so I wonder why it was not included in the two original game sprites...? Maybe it was just hard to draw it with the limited capabilities of the Game Boy, and the expanded pallet of the Game Boy Color allowed for more detail...?
Also, I think this is our first mustached Pokemon to review?!
"It emits special alpha waves from its body that induce headaches just by being close by."
"Many odd things happen if this Pokémon is close by. For example, it makes clocks run backwards."
"When it uses psychic power, all its brain cells work in unison to generate powerful alpha waves."
Now, I'm not much of a science-y person, so I don't really know what all "alpha waves" entail. But it seems to be quite strange. I can get that being nearby a Pokemon emitting some kind of weird wave could instill a headache, though. No idea why clocks would run backward, though.
Overall, not a very interesting set of entries. Would like to learn more about its motives and nature, not just... alpha waves. I don't really have anything else to say about this one.
#0065 - Alakazam
Psi Pokemon
Gee, Bill! How come your mom lets you eat with TWO spoons?
Sorry, I had to say it. He gets an extra spoon when he evolves!! IDK why I refer to the Pokemon as "he" most of the time... there's probably some internalized sexism in there making me think of male as the "default" gender but... I don't want to go into that now.
What we do need to go into is how freaking HOT this thing is. Of course, I fetishize the 'tache so it makes sense I'd love it but it just... looks... so... cool???? I love the shape of its head, the snoot looking like a cool long nose, and I like its hands and feet... so cool and sexy. I love Alakazam so much.
As for its sprites, the RG one looks awkward, kinda scrunched up or something in the face... the Blue one looks the best, super badass. I don't like how it's covering its eye with a spoon in the Yellow one, but they did perfect the mustache for that one, so I'll give that a pass.
"Its brain can outperform a super-computer. Its intelligence quotient is said to be 5,000."
"A Pokémon that can memorize anything. It never forgets what it learns--that's why this Pokémon is smart."
"A Pokémon that uses psychic power. It is highly intelligent and capable of instantly identifying its foe's weakness."
And super underwhelming dex entries. Pretty much boils down to "thing is super smart" and nothing else. Also I'm glad it says "said to be" about the IQ thing, because there would be no way to measure the IQ of a Pokemon, and IQ is a standard for humans anyway. So "said to be" makes it sound like people just made this up, and it's not an actual fact or anything. Plus wouldn't individual Alakazam have unique IQ?
IDK, very disappointing dex entries for this line for the most part. Abra sleeping all the time was probably the highlight. I love these guys to death but they're not delivering on the lore here.
#0069 - Bellsprout
Flower Pokemon
... Flower. It's based on a pitcher plant. Is the pitcher of a pitcher plant actually its flower?! I... never really thought of this. Let's research!! Yup, it's a flower. Thanks, Bing! Quite interesting there. Also strange that it's not called "Pitcher Pokemon" or something like that. Just "flower."
The RG sprite looks a little... constrained, but I like the other two sprites. Blue's has an iconic funny pose, and then Yellow's has more of a pitcher-plant-shaped head with it spreading its leaves, which is nice.
"A carnivorous Pokémon that traps and eats bugs. It uses its root feet to soak up needed moisture."
"Prefers hot and humid places. It ensnares tiny insects with its vines and devours them."
"A kind of bug-eating plant that hunts small insects. It uses its roots as feet for walking."
Is this the first time we've heard the word "carnivorous"? And it's referring to eating Pokemon, so Pokemon are classified as meat, right?
It's said to like hot and humid places. I don't know how hot the Kanto region is, but I could see Cerulean being humid as it's surrounded by water, and it even lives close to the little... river? that Nugget Bridge goes over. It's cool that it can use its roots for both walking and soaking up moisture. I guess instead of drinking water, it uses roots. Makes sense for a plant, right?
But what exactly is its diet? It says it "hunts small insects" but the only insect-like thing around here is Venonat, which is HUGE. Venonat is over 3 feet tall (wow), while Bellsprout is only a little over 2 feet. Are there perhaps "baby" Venonat that are very small that it eats...? Or are there some other kind of "insects" that are non-Pokemon for it to eat? (In that case, the "Carn" in "Carnivorous" wouldn't be referring to Pokemon as meat, then, huh?)
In Blue (/Green), it appears alongside Pidgey and Meowth. No bug-type Pokemon at all in its first natural habitat. Later in the game, you can find it alongside Venonat a lot, and then even later, among Caterpie and Weedle. But even those are like a foot long or so, right? Like half its size? And I'm assuming Bellsprout's body is most of its length, so those bugs would be bigger than its head.
So, this implies there are either some kind of small non-Pokemon insects in the Pokemon world, or there are "baby" versions of Caterpie, Weedle, and Venonat that aren't normal sized. Later on, we see size variation in Pokemon, even though we're given strict sizes in the dex. So we can only assume this is a "common size," and that Pokemon actually come in different sizes. The dex entry says it feeds on "small" insects so maybe it's referring to the smaller versions of Bug-type Pokemon?
Quite curious, indeed.
And that's finally all of them! No real conclusion this time, it's almost 3AM and I am quite tired. I will see you guys in the next entry (which will hopefully be Silver Skies with me catching Hoppip!)
(Oh, random thing, but there's a Chansey in the Pokemon Center in Yellow. Didn't point that out yet.)
