marchionessofmustache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marchionessofmustache) wrote2019-02-08 07:07 pm
marchionessofmustache) wrote2019-02-08 07:07 pm
Entry tags:
CHAMPIONS
There isn't too much to say about the final three gyms. We go in and beat them pretty easily. DONNELLY takes care of all the Fire-types in Blaine's gym, so there's really nothing to note there.
Half the Pokémon in Sabrina's gym are Ghost/Poison type, despite the fact that Psychic-types are supposed to be weak to Ghost (though there are no Ghost moves in the entire game, making that weakness pointless anyway, another advantage stacked in Psychic's favor). BARON took care of those easily, and the rest of the gym was actually taken out by RICKMAN, who is one of the few members who doesn't have a weakness to Psychic, and has a powerful Body Slam which can deal decent damage to the low-defense Psychic types.
The final gym in Viridian is pretty easy. There's not even as many trainers as there are in the other two gyms, and Giovanni's Pokémon fall easily to MAILLET and DONNELLY.
The actual trouble comes after all this, with Victory Road. I used to think this place was SUPER HUGE AND CONFUSING but it's actually pretty small. This is the first time in a long time that I've actually gotten this far in the original Red or Blue game. The "puzzle" here is super easy and the only real "problem" is remembering where you are with the high encounter rate and decent amount of rival trainers to battle.
RICKMAN came in handy again, defeating a trainer's Alakazam by putting it to sleep and slamming into it for like 5 turns in a row.
Moltres was a lot less exciting than Articuno and Zapdos; fell down to two Surfs from DONNELLY and barely did any damage back to him.
Then, we finally arrive at the Pokémon League! We had a TON TON TON of money so I just bought like 30 Revives, 30 Max Potions, 30 Full Restores, and like 50 Full Heals. You know, just in case...
First up we have Lorelei, who is very cute and cool. By this time, I've turned Bakula into a Crapshoot Cannon; he now uses moves like Thunder, Blizzard, and Fire Blast, which all have huge power but not so great accuracy.
This battle was his time to shine, missing only one attack the whole time. Despite being ice-themed, most of her Pokémon are Water-type (as there's only like, one Ice-type in this game I think?) except for Jynx, who fell to two Fire Blasts. The rest all were taken care of by Thunder.
Next is Bruno. KOBAYASHI took care of the two Onixs... actually while we're here, I want to point out that the way this game "officially" pluralizes Pokémon names is +"s" to all names. Clefairys, Onixs, etc. This is later changed so that the singular and plural forms are the same, like game animals, but at least in this first game (and maybe the second), we see the use of "s" to pluralize all Pokémon names.
Anyway, aside from those two, BARON made easy work of the Fighting-types here with the overpowered Psychic.
Next up, Agatha. I thought I was going to go through this with mostly BARON again, but he got put to sleep right away, so I swapped out to MAILLET who ended up taking out her Poison-types with Earthquake. I want to note that she's Ghost-themed but has like, Arbok and stuff. I don't know. This game was weird. And Haunter and Gengar couldn't Levitate back then, so their secondary Poison type (why do they even have that?!) made them weak to Earthquake.
Lance was another time for Bakula, who ended up getting the most work in out of the team during the E4 battles. Thunder takes out Gyarados, with Ice beam working on the two Dragonairs, and saving the 5PP of Blizzard for Dragonite. Strangely enough, it fainted to a single Blizzard.
And lastly, we face our rival, the now-champion Nico. DONNELLY's gimmicky set ended up being our saving grace here. While trying several things on his Alakazam (including MAILLET's failed 4 attempts at Horn Drill, which I never used outside of this one battle), over half the party fainted. But we did get in one Toxic with DONNELLY, which badly poisons the enemy, dealing more poison damage with each passing turn.
BARON came out as our damage sponge after that -- with his high Special, he was able to tank a few hits from Alakazam while the poison worked. Of course, it takes a while for a Pokemon to die solely from poison, even with the damage getting greater. So we spent several turns using Revives and Max Potions on all the other members until everyone was fully restored. Alakazam had been randomly using Recover, so he was filling up to full HP regularly. But by this point, the Toxic was doing more than 1/3 of Alakazam's max HP in damage.
And this is where it was actually advantageous that we had BARON the Hypno instead of an Alakazam. The AI in this game cheats in the sense that the computer actually decides what action to take upon the Pokemon getting its action mid-turn (so the computer will be able to use a potion in the same turn it got damaged if your Pokemon is faster, something you CAN'T do yourself, because trainers are supposed to have both inputted commands before the turn begins). The trigger for Nico using a Full Restore on Alakazam is Alakazam hitting a certain HP threshold. With over 1/3 of its HP gone, if we had gotten to attack first, there's a good chance we could have knocked Alakazam into the right HP level for Nico to heal him. But instead, BARON's lower speed allowed for Alakazam to move first, using an attack and losing another huge chunk of HP to the Toxic. Then BARON's turn came, using Tri Attack (which does physical damage in this game) to scrape off the last bit of HP and win the battle. It was beautiful. And a cool tag-team effort by DONNELLY and BARON.
Then against Nico's Blastoise, we sent out BAKULA again, hoping to use Thunder to take it down. But unlike our previous lucky streak, Thunder missed three times in a row and Hydro Pump took down BAKULA before we could deal any damage. So here comes DONNELLY again with the Toxic. I don't know if Wrap screws with the enemy AI, but Nico never tried to use any healing items on Blastoise. And despite being Lv65, DONNELLY had the speed advantage even at Lv48! Chalk that up to Tentacruel's huge base Speed and those Carbos we've been feeding him. DONNELLY was able to continually and successfully Wrap Blastoise so he couldn't get any attacks in at all. And while setting up, our Water-typing and HUGE Special stat made Hydro Pump a joke.
So basically we took out the final Pokemon in the league with DONNELLY's signature cheese method, which I did NOT think would work on any Pokemon in the entire League since they're able to switch and use items and stuff, which break the "strat."
Took less than 20 hours, and the last spurt wasn't as challenging as I expected it was going to be. Nico gave me quite a scare, but in the end it was a blast.
I really enjoyed this run; I got to play with a lot of Pokemon I've never played with before, re-experienced the original game, and got to see things with a new perspective. Despite having not played in a while, I still felt pretty knowledgable about this game, and I didn't really come up with any surprises.
But I'm really happy to have refreshed myself fully on what the first game was really like, because now I'm moving onto the 2nd gen. And for a long time now, I've maintaned the stance that 2nd gen is by far the worst gen. But playing this game now, and missing out on all the features of newer games, I'm realizing just how much was really added to the 2nd games. And I think playing them after coming off of this one, I might be able to appreciate all the added features more. I mean, I did play it right after the first one when it was new, too, but back then I liked it and it's only over time that my opinion has soured on it.
So I'm really looking forward to playing the next game. Though I still have to do a lot of team planning and deciding what exactly the challenge will be. But maybe I can start tonight.
Though I'm thinking just to keep it at this fairly casual challenge of limited EXP, which might actually be a bit harder in that game since everything is kept at a low level to allow you to choose the order you accomplish certain things more freely. But it'll be a good chance to re-experience the game without having to worry too much about sticking to a really restrictive challenge. Then maybe I can do something harder for gen 3, or maybe just keep playing like this if it still seems fun.
Half the Pokémon in Sabrina's gym are Ghost/Poison type, despite the fact that Psychic-types are supposed to be weak to Ghost (though there are no Ghost moves in the entire game, making that weakness pointless anyway, another advantage stacked in Psychic's favor). BARON took care of those easily, and the rest of the gym was actually taken out by RICKMAN, who is one of the few members who doesn't have a weakness to Psychic, and has a powerful Body Slam which can deal decent damage to the low-defense Psychic types.
The final gym in Viridian is pretty easy. There's not even as many trainers as there are in the other two gyms, and Giovanni's Pokémon fall easily to MAILLET and DONNELLY.
The actual trouble comes after all this, with Victory Road. I used to think this place was SUPER HUGE AND CONFUSING but it's actually pretty small. This is the first time in a long time that I've actually gotten this far in the original Red or Blue game. The "puzzle" here is super easy and the only real "problem" is remembering where you are with the high encounter rate and decent amount of rival trainers to battle.
RICKMAN came in handy again, defeating a trainer's Alakazam by putting it to sleep and slamming into it for like 5 turns in a row.
Moltres was a lot less exciting than Articuno and Zapdos; fell down to two Surfs from DONNELLY and barely did any damage back to him.
Then, we finally arrive at the Pokémon League! We had a TON TON TON of money so I just bought like 30 Revives, 30 Max Potions, 30 Full Restores, and like 50 Full Heals. You know, just in case...
First up we have Lorelei, who is very cute and cool. By this time, I've turned Bakula into a Crapshoot Cannon; he now uses moves like Thunder, Blizzard, and Fire Blast, which all have huge power but not so great accuracy.
This battle was his time to shine, missing only one attack the whole time. Despite being ice-themed, most of her Pokémon are Water-type (as there's only like, one Ice-type in this game I think?) except for Jynx, who fell to two Fire Blasts. The rest all were taken care of by Thunder.
Next is Bruno. KOBAYASHI took care of the two Onixs... actually while we're here, I want to point out that the way this game "officially" pluralizes Pokémon names is +"s" to all names. Clefairys, Onixs, etc. This is later changed so that the singular and plural forms are the same, like game animals, but at least in this first game (and maybe the second), we see the use of "s" to pluralize all Pokémon names.
Anyway, aside from those two, BARON made easy work of the Fighting-types here with the overpowered Psychic.
Next up, Agatha. I thought I was going to go through this with mostly BARON again, but he got put to sleep right away, so I swapped out to MAILLET who ended up taking out her Poison-types with Earthquake. I want to note that she's Ghost-themed but has like, Arbok and stuff. I don't know. This game was weird. And Haunter and Gengar couldn't Levitate back then, so their secondary Poison type (why do they even have that?!) made them weak to Earthquake.
Lance was another time for Bakula, who ended up getting the most work in out of the team during the E4 battles. Thunder takes out Gyarados, with Ice beam working on the two Dragonairs, and saving the 5PP of Blizzard for Dragonite. Strangely enough, it fainted to a single Blizzard.
And lastly, we face our rival, the now-champion Nico. DONNELLY's gimmicky set ended up being our saving grace here. While trying several things on his Alakazam (including MAILLET's failed 4 attempts at Horn Drill, which I never used outside of this one battle), over half the party fainted. But we did get in one Toxic with DONNELLY, which badly poisons the enemy, dealing more poison damage with each passing turn.
BARON came out as our damage sponge after that -- with his high Special, he was able to tank a few hits from Alakazam while the poison worked. Of course, it takes a while for a Pokemon to die solely from poison, even with the damage getting greater. So we spent several turns using Revives and Max Potions on all the other members until everyone was fully restored. Alakazam had been randomly using Recover, so he was filling up to full HP regularly. But by this point, the Toxic was doing more than 1/3 of Alakazam's max HP in damage.
And this is where it was actually advantageous that we had BARON the Hypno instead of an Alakazam. The AI in this game cheats in the sense that the computer actually decides what action to take upon the Pokemon getting its action mid-turn (so the computer will be able to use a potion in the same turn it got damaged if your Pokemon is faster, something you CAN'T do yourself, because trainers are supposed to have both inputted commands before the turn begins). The trigger for Nico using a Full Restore on Alakazam is Alakazam hitting a certain HP threshold. With over 1/3 of its HP gone, if we had gotten to attack first, there's a good chance we could have knocked Alakazam into the right HP level for Nico to heal him. But instead, BARON's lower speed allowed for Alakazam to move first, using an attack and losing another huge chunk of HP to the Toxic. Then BARON's turn came, using Tri Attack (which does physical damage in this game) to scrape off the last bit of HP and win the battle. It was beautiful. And a cool tag-team effort by DONNELLY and BARON.
Then against Nico's Blastoise, we sent out BAKULA again, hoping to use Thunder to take it down. But unlike our previous lucky streak, Thunder missed three times in a row and Hydro Pump took down BAKULA before we could deal any damage. So here comes DONNELLY again with the Toxic. I don't know if Wrap screws with the enemy AI, but Nico never tried to use any healing items on Blastoise. And despite being Lv65, DONNELLY had the speed advantage even at Lv48! Chalk that up to Tentacruel's huge base Speed and those Carbos we've been feeding him. DONNELLY was able to continually and successfully Wrap Blastoise so he couldn't get any attacks in at all. And while setting up, our Water-typing and HUGE Special stat made Hydro Pump a joke.
So basically we took out the final Pokemon in the league with DONNELLY's signature cheese method, which I did NOT think would work on any Pokemon in the entire League since they're able to switch and use items and stuff, which break the "strat."
Took less than 20 hours, and the last spurt wasn't as challenging as I expected it was going to be. Nico gave me quite a scare, but in the end it was a blast.
I really enjoyed this run; I got to play with a lot of Pokemon I've never played with before, re-experienced the original game, and got to see things with a new perspective. Despite having not played in a while, I still felt pretty knowledgable about this game, and I didn't really come up with any surprises.
But I'm really happy to have refreshed myself fully on what the first game was really like, because now I'm moving onto the 2nd gen. And for a long time now, I've maintaned the stance that 2nd gen is by far the worst gen. But playing this game now, and missing out on all the features of newer games, I'm realizing just how much was really added to the 2nd games. And I think playing them after coming off of this one, I might be able to appreciate all the added features more. I mean, I did play it right after the first one when it was new, too, but back then I liked it and it's only over time that my opinion has soured on it.
So I'm really looking forward to playing the next game. Though I still have to do a lot of team planning and deciding what exactly the challenge will be. But maybe I can start tonight.
Though I'm thinking just to keep it at this fairly casual challenge of limited EXP, which might actually be a bit harder in that game since everything is kept at a low level to allow you to choose the order you accomplish certain things more freely. But it'll be a good chance to re-experience the game without having to worry too much about sticking to a really restrictive challenge. Then maybe I can do something harder for gen 3, or maybe just keep playing like this if it still seems fun.
no subject
putting it to sleep and slamming into it for like 5 turns in a row.
Sounds sexy.
The typing in this game in regards to trainers is so weird LOL.
Bakula has proved to be pretty BA. Not bad for a cute little creampuff you met all the way back on Mt. Moon.
I love that you can turn even ‘mons who aren’t super famous, like Donnelly, into awesome power houses.
Wow. The entire game in less than 18 hours. That’s nuts. I feel like I’ve spent that in Ultra Sun just wandering around.
Congrats! I’m glad you were able to see this challenge through to the end. Can’t wait to see if you keep it up with the next games. 😉
no subject
dehehehehe
Thanks on the grats. And yeah, it would take WAY longer if I was doing stuff like... actually trying to catch Pokemon. Plus I already knew exactly where to go and what to do for the most part.
no subject