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.

Pokemon Red Revenge part 3

I don't know why I'm even calling this "revenge" at this point lol but it stuck!!

I went back to the Game Corner to see if Champ-in-Making Guy would say something different now that I defeated Erika. He does, but all he says something about how they give rare Pokemon away as prizes at the Game Corner. Surprised he didn't mention anything about Erika at all.

We head west to Route... 16? Where there is a Snorlax blocking the path, but there's a little area we can use Cut to get to with some grass in it.



And here we find our next party member! Doduo can appear up to level 22 here, but I was having trouble finding anything over level 20, and eventually got frustrated and just caught a Lv20 and decided to move on. You can actually catch them up to like 26 or 28 on a later route, but it'll be a while before we can get that far.



After catching Doduo, we head into the Rocket Game Corner. Yes, that's the actual name of it. And people are like "It's rumored that this place is run by Team Rocket!" lol... Team Rocket is referred to as a 'mafia' in the Japanese games, btw, so it makes sense they run a casino and traffic Pokemon through it. I think in English they only ever refer to them as "gangsters."

Anyway, we flip the switch behind the poster and head into the basements. I always dread this part of the game but it's actually not bad at all. I think my dread comes from the actually-horrible Silph Co. dungeon, and I get the two confused in my head or something.



This is the one place in the game where you MUST talk to a trainer after defeating them -- this guy drops the Lift Key if you do. IDK why he doesn't just pick it back up, but he leaves it on the ground for you to pick up. Yay!

Another Rocket you beat makes a door open. Talking to him he says something like "Oh no! The battle opened the door!" or something lol...

The Rockets here don't really say anything interesting, strangely. You just learn that they stole the Silph Scope.



In the final basement after you find the Lift Key and can take the elevator there, you can fight Daddy Giovanni. Look at that delicious receding hairline... hehehe.

Alakazam made quick work of his party and picked up a hefty chunk of EXP in doing so. Kangaskhan was worth like over 1000!



We head back to Lavender Town and take the Silph Scope into Pokemon Tower. There are all these Channelers in here that make weird sounds and say creepy things like "I want blood..." and when I was a kid (and even until now) I just thought they were supposed to be "crazy people" who hung out in graveyards because they were nutso. But I guess these are actually priestesses of the tower who have become possessed by the ghosts of Pokemon that the Rockets killed. The more you learn...

At this point I can level Raichu freely as he can easily take out the ghosts with Thunderbolt, so we don't even need Alakazam's super-effective hits. Doduo is still a bit weak and Dig is annoying with only 10 PP, so we don't use Charmeleon either.



So, apparently the Rockets were holed up in the top of the tower harassing (and I guess, killing) "useless" Pokemon, and Mr Fuji left went there of his own free will to stop them and calm the spirit of Cubone's mother. Perhaps that's why Marowak guarded that final little room...? And maybe that's why all the ghosts were lured there...? Though even after quelling Marowak and "saving" Mr Fuji (who says he wasn't in danger), the ghosts still remain. I mean, I'm sure it's just so you can continue to catch them for your Pokedex, but...



One of the Rockets has a Golbat, which is the first time we've seen this sprite in the game. It's hilarious XD

Anyway, Mr Fuji thanks us for helping calm Marowak and gives us the Poke Flute. Also IDK if I commented on Fuji before, but he's a dude from Lavender who cares for abandoned and orphaned Pokemon, so it's no surprise Marowak would want to protect him when he's likely caring for her child.



After getting the Poke Flute, which someone in a Pokemon Center says makes a sound "only Pokemon can hear," we head south to Route 12 which is mostly docks and water. There's a ton of fishermen here, who mostly have weak-ish fish Pokemon, so we try to raise Doduo as much as we can while switching into Raichu as needed.

We find Snorlax blocking the road south, and play the flute, which very clearly makes a sound that we can hear. I mean, it plays out a whole little tune in a scene before Snorlax awakens lol.

We don't need to catch Snorlax so we just beat it up for some extra EXP.



We find the next fishing rod, grab a Goldeen from the nearby water (as we'll need something to use Surf before we can get Tentacool), and then head further south to "who builds fences this way?!" area. Along the way, Doduo learns Drill Peck (Lv30) and then evolves into Dodrio (Lv31) and is suddenly a powerhouse. Now we have a stronger physical attacker than Charmeleon with his annoying Dig attack, so we can easily one-shot Psychic Pokemon before they're able to damage us without worrying that Dig might JUST not be enough.

This girl asks if we "want to Pokemon" with her which I thought was a funny way to put it. To Pokemon is to gamble though! But also to Pokemon is to live, so she wants to live with us...? LOL Anyway, afterward she says she doesn't know anything about Pokemon and just collected cool ones.



Charmeleon has finally reached evolutionary levels, but we're keeping him unevolved to learn Flamethrower faster.

Someone comments on wondering which is stronger, male or female Pokemon, meaning that Pokemon indeed entertained the concept of gender even before the second generation.



The word "govern" is used when referring to the Pokemon League HQ, which is said to "govern" all trainers; however, this doesn't make it much of a government, as it would only rule over trainers and no one else, so I'm guessing it's more just letting you know that the Pokemon League is formally organized.



Bikers have nice noses. But are otherwise garbage XD



The words "birds of prey" are used to describe the three Legendary Pokemon, implying that the concept of predators and prey exist in the Pokemon world. This is further explored in Pokedex entries, but even characters are saying that Pokemon prey on one another.



We get to Fuschia City, home of the zoo and Safari Zone. You can get some free "seen" Pokedex entries by inspecting the zoo exhibits. The Warden of the Safari Zone has the nickname "Slowpoke" because like the Pokemon, he "looks vacant" lol. He's also lost his teeth, which are lying around in the Safari Zone for... some reason.



In the southwestern corner of Fuschia City is the Fuschia gym, which is the home of Koga, the ninja. There are "invisible walls" here but you can see which walls are the invisible ones, so they're not really invisible. I thought it was an emulator graphical glitch, as I can remember just bumping into walls randomly as a kid, but one of the gym members even says "look for gaps in the walls to see where the invisible ones are" or something like that.

Despite being a poison-type gym, half of the Pokemon here are psychic types. Either way, I just kept Charmeleon in the lead and tried to Dig everything to death faint. It mostly worked, though some stuff stuck around a little longer than I liked, so we had to resort to Drill Peck, or for the stuff that was actually posion type, Psybeam.



After clearing the gym, we head into the Safari Zone where they're giving away a free Surf HM to anyone who can find the "Secret House" within the time limit. I used a map. Though I used to have the path there memorized.

We grab the HM03, take the Gold Teeth back to Slowpoke, and get the HM04 from him. Now we have all the HMs except Fly! And we have all the badges to use them all, too!



Once we get HM03, we can teach Surf to Goldeen, head down to the south of Fuschia along the coast, hop on Goldeen (how does that little fishie carry us?!) and surf back and forth to find us a Tenta. You can find them up to Lv40, but like with Doduo, I got frustrated looking for the max level and settled for a 35 (they seem to appear in level multiples of 5). We taught it Ice Beam and Surf and it's already pretty powerful.

I ran around in the grass to get Charmeleon the little bit of experience he needed to hit level 42, so he learned Flamethrower, then out of habit I canceled his evolution again, so now we're stuck with Charmeleon for another level lol. No big deal!

Now pretty much the entire game world is opened up to us and we can clear the remaining two gyms in either order, as well as go on the sidequests to find Articuno and Zapdos. I think we actually missed HM02 (I looked it up and it's on Route 16, where we caught Doduo) so I'm gonna go back and look for that next.

And that's where I've stopped for now!

ETA: One of the things I forgot to mention was that there was a "pamphlet" on TMs and it was 'signed' by Silph Co., indicating that Silph Co. is actually the producer of TMs in this game????? Later on in the series TMs become easy to create (you can even craft them yourself in ScarVio) but early on they seem to be more rare items, so it seems like Silph Co. was one of the early producers of TMs. LOOOOORE

Pokemon Red Revenge part 4

So the journey continues...

I went back to Route 16 and found the "hidden retreat" where you get the HM02, and taught Dodrio Fly. Very covenient! Then I ran around in the grass and leveled up Tentacool one level so he'd evolve to Tentacruel. I just couldn't help it... I wanted to have the full team fully evolved...!!



And now the gang's all here! Look at how cool Tenta looks with his crossed... tentacles... XD I love it.



On Cycling Road we encounter a new trainer class, the Cue Ball. These smexy dudes sport shiny bald heads, studded leather, and a whip. Yeah, we have leather daddy Pokemon Trainers now.



Not much lore to collect down Cycling Road, though I noticed on the map it's shown as a water route. I guess the road goes over the water? But it seems to be land when you're traveling on it...? At least in some parts. IDK lol.

We get some funny things, like a sign that says "Don't throw the game, throw Poke Balls instead!" and a Bird Trainer who says he "collects sea Pokemon on weekends."



With Cycling Road out of the way, we can either surf to Cinnabar Island or head into the center of the map, Saffron City. We're gonna go to Saffron and finish up one of the most annoying parts of the game.

Team Rocket has taken over Saffron, with grunts stationed everywhere, including in front of the gym. There's a second gym of fighting-type Pokemon that doesn't award a gym badge, but rather gifts you a choice of Hitmonlee or Hitmonchan. We blazed through with Drill Peck and took Hitmonlee, dumping him into the box immediately.



And they we head on to... THE TERROR.

The Silph Co. building has been apprehended by Team Rocket, who actually have convinced some Silph Co. workers to join their side! It seems that the Rockets are after the technology of Silph Co., in particular the Master Ball, which can catch any Pokemon without fail.

This place has eleven floors, each of which has a handful of teleporter pads, which take you to other teleporter pads on other floors. There's no way to know which floor you're on as the game doesn't tell you, unless you count the stairs or use the elevator to hit a specific floor. But once you teleport, who knows where you are! On top of that, there are locked doors with a card key.

I actually managed to get through pretty easily -- it's more frustrating SOUNDING than it actually is. I always dread this place, but it's not as horrible as my fears lead me to believe.

Basically, I go up a few floors, fighting all the Rockets and Silph-betraying scientists I can find until I find the Card Key. It's on like floor 4. It's a little tricky to find as it's hidden back behind a little hallway in which you have to first teleport away from it then back to it to find it (makes more sense if you're playing, I promise).

Once I've snagged the card key, I go back to floor 2 (floor 1 is just a giant lobby with a cool fountain thing) and start opening every door and finding every item and trainer battle I can. Important to note is that I'm not going into any teleporters. Once I've "cleared" a floor, I head up the stairs to the next floor, until I arrive at floor 11, which has nothing you can do there coming from the stairs or elevator. Then I go back to floor 2 again (lol) and start stepping on one teleporter at a time. If it just takes me to a place I've already explored on another floor, I go back through the teleporter and find the next one.

Eventually, I find a teleporter that takes me to a place I haven't explored, where Blue is waiting to fight me.

On the way, I encounter a guy who mentions that Silph has a "Tiksi Branch" in Russia. I don't think this is ever referenced again in the series, and so far I don't think any games have taken place in Russia. The regions in the game all seem to correlate to real-world locations -- Kanto is a real region in Japan, and the map is very similar to the actual place IRL. But it's only in the first game that we hear them refer to actual countries, mentioning America in Surge's gym and now Russia. But usually they refer to other "regions" and not countries, so it's a little odd to hear of countries in this game. I don't know if they just retconned countries out of the series, or if they just stopped talking about them, with the implication that regions are within larger countries, but no one really refers to countries themselves with much significance.

Also along the way we find some "Pokemon Reports" which contain little bits of information, two of which are more game hints, but one says that in "Pokemon Lab" (assuming Silph's?) the Pokemon Porygon was created, the world's first virtual reality Pokemon.

This is interesting because this implies that humans can create entire Pokemon species. While it's called a VR Pokemon, it also exists in the real world, and can interact with real Pokemon and things, so that's very... amusing at the least.



Anyway, fighting Blue. One thing I want to note is that it's interesting how they give him unevolved Pokemon that you would normally find around this time. He has a Growlithe, which is found late in the game, so it makes sense that it's not evolved yet. Interesting.

Raichu's Thunderbolt wasn't able to take out the bulky Blastoise in one hit. It ALMOST did, but we got hit with a Bite in retaliation. Didn't cause too much damage, though.



After defeating Blue, the next teleporter takes you to the president's room on floor 11. So it's not actually that hard to find. There were some random items I missed by not going onto every last teleporter, but we did find TM26 (Earthquake) and that's the most important thing.

In the president's meeting room, we find Giovanni harassing the president and his secretary, trying to fully take over Silph Co. It seems we arrived just in time, because we are able to challenge him to a battle and get him to stop.

And with that, Team Rocket is disbanded. Nope, not joking! For some reason defeating Gio in a battle here makes the entire team disband. It could be because they were using Silph Co. as their base, and the only secondary base they could have had was the basement of the Game Corner, both of which we have now cleared out all the Rockets. So they have nowhere to go.

Either way, the Global Police were on this case, and a random 10-year-old managed to disband them before they could. I like to believe that Team Rocket is quite young, and may have gotten a start as a small-force group running a gambling ring. The whole taking-over-Silph-Co. thing is relatively new, as they didn't even seem to have gotten to the president yet. So it's kinda like this stuff is JUST NOW happening, and we are more managing it to stop it before it gets big, rather than completely dismembering a well-established mafia. I mean, they didn't even manage to collect a single fossil in Mt. Moon, while a random nerd had already found two. So it's kinda like we're getting there just at the same time as them, and beating them to the punches.

For saving the president, he rewards us with the Master Ball. Now we can catch any Pokemon without fail, but there's only one in the entire game.



With the Rockets banished from Saffron City, we can now get into the gym they were formerly guarding. Here is yet another teleporter maze/puzzle thing. I managed to "solve" it by just always going in the bottom left teleporter (every room has four) until eventually I reached the end.

Sabrina, the gym leader, has had psychic powers since she was small, originally learning to bend spoons with her mind and developing her powers from there. She actually doesn't like battling, but complies with our request for a gym badge, and fights us anyway. Dodrio pecks through all of her Pokemon easily.



After defeating Sabrina, there's only a few places left in the region we haven't visited: the abandoned Power Plant (sidequest to find Zapdos), the Seafoam Islands (sidequest to find Articuno), the Pokemon League HQ (need all 8 badges to get there), and Cinnabar Island, where the 7th gym awaits. So, we're gonna go there. Yeah, skipping the sidequests for now.

I actually surfed from Fuschia to the east entrance of Seafoam Islands, then flew to Pallet town and surfed down to Cinnabar, then surfed to the west entrance of the Islands lol. I just didn't go inside. Well I did go inside for a little bit but got frustrated and left.

In Cinnabar, this dude says there's nothing wrong with having lots of items, and as the limited inventory in this game has taught me, he is dead wrong!

Apparently the gym leader Blaine has been living on this island for decades, so we know there's at least some history to the island. There's also a "burned out mansion," though it's not really explained why it burned down. One of the scientists inside says his mentor used to live there, though, so it sounds like either it belonged to a scientist or it housed many different people.



Also in the mansion we find scattered pages of a diary. I don't know if there are more, but I was able to find four of them, which detailed the following events:

• A new Pokemon was discovered deep in the jungles of Guyana, South America (yes, more referencing to real-world places, now including continents!)


• The scientists named the newly-discovered Pokemon "Mew."


• Mew gave birth to a new Pokemon, which they named "Mewtwo."


• Mewtwo grew too powerful, and they were unable to stop its violent rampage.

Important to note here is that Mew apparently GAVE BIRTH to a Pokemon, and the Pokemon was not another Mew. Now, human-led breeding of Pokemon is always done through eggs, not live birth. Technically it doesn't say that Mewtwo didn't come from an egg, so it could be possible that Mew laid an egg. But either way, Pokemon are not born from other Pokemon, rather the Pokemon somehow "bring" the eggs, and humans seem to have no idea where the eggs actually come from. Pokemon even bring eggs to picnics while under watch of their trainers, so it's assumed that the eggs are created from the power of love and friendship or something, and they are NOT actually being birthed.



But this says specifically that Mew gave birth. Now, Mew is a mythical Pokemon, and mythical and legendary Pokemon are generally not capable of creating eggs in the traditional way. And it is possible for Pokemon to "create" other Pokemon, as Arceus does later in the series. So is it possible that in this one case, scientists actually witnessed a wild Pokemon giving birth? Even if it was through laying an egg? I don't think it's every actually retconned or anything, and the birth is indeed referenced again even after the concept of Pokemon breeding and eggs is introduced into the series (which, btw, "breeding" in the Pokemon world refers to the daily care of Pokemon, NOT mating of Pokemon). So this may be the one time in the history of the Pokemon world that humans actually witnessed the birth of a Pokemon.

Another theory could be that a Mew-a-like appeared near Mew some time, and while they did not witness an actual birth or egg-laying or anything (or maybe Mew did bring an egg but they didn't actually witness its creation), and they scientists assumed that Mew gave birth. It's unlikely that Mew brought an egg, though, as Pokemon eggs weren't discovered by humans and studied until 3 years after the events of this game, and the existence of a Pokemon Egg seems to be completely unheard of then.

The source of Pokemon Eggs also seems to be a mystery in the future, as scientists then don't assume that eggs are birthed from Pokemon. So either the studies here were not very thorough, or they indeed witnessed a live birth of a Pokemon, an extraordinarily rare occurance. It may even be that Mew is the only Pokemon even capable of giving birth, and this may have been a one-time occurance that happened to be witnessed by humans? Mew's body is said to contain the DNA of all Pokemon, so it may be very special in the case that it is capable of birthing a new species.

...

In lesser-interesting and lesser-theoretical lore, we also learn that a scientist within the burned-out mansion created the TM for Metronome. These don't seem to be Silph scientists, and later in this entry we'll learn of another person creating TMs, so it's safe to say that Silph is not the sole creator of TMs, but probably more just the largest supplier of them. They do seem to be able to be mass-produced, as you can buy infinite of them from the Celadon City Department Store or continuously redeem them as prizes at the Rocket Game Corner, though many of them seem to be quite rare, at least to Red.



Anyway, at the end of the mansion we find a key to the gym, and can finally go inside. The gym is pretty simple, just a gauntlet of trainer battles, each opening a new door until we finally meet Blaine. Blaine unfortunately does not have his iconic mustache here -- in the Nintendo 64 companion game Pokemon Stadium, this is "corrected," as he's retconned to have a fantastic honkin' 'stache, and his image isn't complete without it moving forward.

One of the gym members reveals the reason Blaine became a Pokemon Trainer if you talk to them after defeating them -- apparently Blaine was once lost in the mountains and a fiery bird Pokemon's light (assumedly Moltres) helped him find his way home.

Blaine's Pokemon (and the Pokemon throughout the gym) fall easily to Tentacruel's Surf, and we're able to move on.

After acquiring the other 7 gym badges, the gym leader of Viridian City returns to his gym and we're able to challenge there. While the gym's theme is meant to be ground-type Pokemon, the members of the gym use all kinds of stuff like fighting types.



Surprise, the gym leader is none other than Daddy Giovanni! Apparently he decided to return to the gym to try to resurrect Team Rocket, but we've foiled his plans again. Now, Blue defeated this gym and gained the gym badge prior to Red coming here, so why is it only until Red defeats him that he decides he can't revive Team Rocket anymore...? The world may never know.

He also reveals that he created the TM for Fissure before giving it to us, and then disappears for good. It makes me wonder if the other gym leaders didn't also create the TMs that they give out...? I think I mentioned this before but in the new games, you can actually craft your own TMs using random drops you find from Pokemon. I don't really know how that works, but it works!

And this is where I stopped for now. I'm not sure if I want to go do the subquests to catch Articuno and Zapdos or if I just want to move on to the end of the game. I don't think there's any more lore/story in the quests to get the birds, so it might be easier to just rush to the end of the game.

TBH though I don't even want to finish the game at this point, hahaha. Silph Co. is one thing, but Victory Road is HORRID. It's huge and confusing and takes forever to get through. I don't know how I even did it as a kid.

Oh and just a side note, while the point of this team was to blaze through everything without having to go back to Pokemon Centers or grind or anything, one problem I've found is running out of PP. As far as I can tell, there's nowhere in the game where you can buy Ethers???? So I eventually run out of PP and have to go back to a Center. It's a lot less frequent than normal, and sometimes I can use the other Pokemon as backups and still take everything out in one hit (all the Pokemon are pretty strong at this point, I can just use whatever and probably one-shot stuff) but even then I still sometimes find myself out of PP. I'm not fighting wild battles, only running, so it's just the trainer battles that I'm fighting. So I'm able to get through easily without any grind, it's just... the PP... lol.