Returning to Generation 1!
I finally have a Pokémon game from each generation and thought it would be fun to play a through of each generation starting with Pokémon Red/Blue all the way to Pokémon Sword/Shield. My first Pokémon game was Pokémon Blue and I played the through Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire dropped off the series until Pokémon X and Y, so most of these will be a walk down memory lane and some will actually be a new adventure. Now I also decided that for each playthrough I will have a set of rules I will follow for most playthroughs and some goals to complete. With that intro out of the way let’s start my Pokémon Red adventure.
I chose Pokémon Red, causes I played through Pokémon Blue when I was younger and I bought Pokémon Red when the 3DS ports were released so I figure I would just stick with 3DS as much as I can. First what rules have a set for my Pokémon playthroughs:
- 5 out 6 team members must from the generation that I am playing (this is more Gen 2 and up).
- All Pokémon I plan to use, both for battle and HMs, must be named.
- All Legendary Pokémon (non-story captures) can’t be caught until after the Elite 4 is defeated
And that is about it, keeping it simple. Now for the goals for this playthrough are:
- Collect 8 Gym badges
- Defeat the Elite 4 and become Champion
- Post Elite 4: Capture Mewtwo, Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.
Keeping it pretty simple for this first playthrough and also will be placing time stamps after earning Gym badges and other major events with a update view of my team. Think with all the basics handled, let’s begin our journey through Pokémon Red.
I start the game by naming my character Mike and my rival Gary. I let a twitter poll decide which starter I will use for the play through and Squirtle which I name Ralph. After completing the beginning task to get the PokeDex and grabbing the map, I spend the little cash I had to get some PokéBall then headed Route 22 east of Viridian City. I caught a Spearow, which I named Jet, to be my flyer since I never have used it before and a Nidoran Male, named it EL REY, to be a future ground type against Lt. Surge. I then headed to the Viridian Forest and capture a Pikachu and named it Static. After leveling up Ralph to use a water-type move I went into the Pewter City Gym and defeated Brock and got the Boulder Badge.
Time stamp: 1 hour, 2 minutes.
Next, I went through Mt. Moon, caught Toad the Paras to be my Cut HM-mon and collected the Dome Fossil on my way out. This is where I ran into my first issue of being under-leveled. I usually battle a few trainers as possible so if I get a weaker Pokémon or struggling on cash, I could go back and battle those trainers. However, in Red/Blue once you get to Cerulean City, the only trainers available for you to train on is to the north, but that requires to defeat your rival, whose Pokémon is in the mid to high teens and my Pokémon were finally getting to level 10. I did a bit of grinding and decided to go for the gym badge first. Thanks to Static and Toad I was able to defeat Misty and grab badge number 2.
Time Stamp: 3 hours, 28 minutes.
I headed up north of the city, defeated my rival and made my way through the Nugget Bridge. Ralph evolved into Wartortle and EL REY evolved into Nidorino which I then evolved into Nidoking with a Moon Stone I got in Mt. Moon. Talked to Bill, got the S.S. Anne ticket and made my way south to Vermillion City. This is where I notice issue number two. I caught Nidoran because Nidoking is pretty good and was planning on using the Dig TM to give it a descent ground-type move…HOWEVER, Nidoking can’t learn dig, so I have a ground-type with no ground-type moves as I go into the third Gym, but that is okay. I get to Vermillion City, grab a fishing rod, coupon for a bike and complete the task on the S.S. Anne. Taught Toad Cut and then battled Lt. Surge. Luckily Nidoking was able to power through the gym and grab badge number 3.
Time stamp: 4 hours, 46 minutes.
Before heading back north I go through Diglett Cave, grab the HM Flash (which I never used), then headed back to Cerulean City then head east to Rock Tunnel. Along the way I found a Rare Candy and gave it Jet so it could finally evolve into Fearow and capture Brock the Geodude and swapped it out EL REY for it. As much as I would of like to used Nidoking, without a descent poison or ground moves, I decide to move forward with Geodude. Made my way to Celadon City and began a major side track on my journey.
First, I went and collected Eevee from the Celadon Mansion, name it Blaze and evolved it with a Fire Stone to use as a possible Fire type I may add to the team. Next, I headed to the Game Corner to deal with Team Rocket. As I’m battling Rocket Grunts, Brock evolved into Graveler and made my way to Giovanni and got the Silph Scope, first battle against him went pretty smoothly thanks to Ralph.
Time stamp: 6 hours, 51 minutes.
After clearing the Game Corner hideout, I headed to Lavender town to clear out the Tower and saved Mr. Fuji who gave me the Poke-Flute. After that I headed south to the encounter the Snorlax at the intersection of route 11 and 12. I caught the Snorlax and named it Bum, then I headed to the fisherman’s house a bit further south and grabbed the Super Rod. I made my way back to Celadon City to do a couple more things. First, I caught the other Snorlax and called it Sleep. I compared Bum’s and Sleepy’s stats and Bum is the one that made the team. However, I still needed Toad to get to Erika’s gym so Bum stayed in the box for now. Next, I went fishing in the pond next to the Game Corner and caught a Poliwhirl which I named Chad and made my way back to Cerulean City. In Cerulean City, you can trade a Poliwhirl for a Jynx. I decided to go with Jynx for a number of reasons; first I had never used a Jynx in a playthrough so figure it would be a good experience. The other reason is Jynx is Ice and Psychic, so this would give me a Pokémon to use against Koga’s Poison Pokémon and to be used when I face Lance in the Elite Four. Jynx has the name LOLA and that filled the 6th slot. I made my way back to Celadon to face Erika, which when smoothly thanks to Jet and LOLA’s efforts. 4 badges down.
Time stamp: 8 hours and 24 minutes.
With completing Erika’s gym, I no longer had a need for Cut so I swapped Toad the Paras with Bum the Snorlax. Grabbed the HM for Fly then decided to head to Saffron City which probably was a bad idea. First thing to do was to free Silph Company from Team rocket. Everything went smoothly until I face my rival Gary. His Alakazam was being pain with Psybeam hitting multiple critical hits. Bum however was finally able to over power it with pure strength and we were able to move on. I got Noah the Lapras and then face Giovanni for the 2nd time. Defeated him and got the Master Ball, which I put in the PC so I wouldn’t accidently use it.
Time stamp: 9 hours and 55 minutes
Next, I went to the Fighting Dojo to train up LOLA and Jet a bit and got LIL MAC the Hitmonchan. I went next door to face Sabrina and somehow got the Marsh badge. During the battle Static finally hit level 30 (yes, I’m still way under level) and I decided to evolve it into a Raichu.
Time stamp: 10 hours and 25 minutes.
After all the chaos I finally made it to Fuchsia City. I went to the Safari Zone first to get the HM for Surf, which I taught to Ralph, and the Golden Teeth that I would trade for HM Strength, which I taught to Bum. After a bit of training and filling out the PokeDex, I went in Koga’s Gym and acquired the Soul Badge thanks to Brock and LOLA.
Time stamp: 12 hours and 4 minutes
With Koga defeat it was time to sail across the sea and then make our way through the Seafoam Islands. I used this as another opportunity to fill up my PokéDex when I was re-introduced to a annoying “feature” in the first Pokémon game. In recent games once a box in you PC was filled up it would just start filling up the next box, however in the next first game you had to manually switch boxes and if that box was full you couldn’t catch anymore Pokémon. I remember to start switch boxes when I was going into a new area where I knew I would catch a lot of Pokémon. Once out of the islands, I finally made it to Cinnabar Island. Once on the island, I grabbed Toad and flew back to Pewter City to grab the Old Amber from the Museum, but then I revied Blade the Kabuto and Terror the Aerodactyl, which went straight to the box. Next, I made my Pokémon Mansion to get the key to the gym but during that Ralphed into a Blastoise. Now armed with a turtle with cannons, I went into the Cinnabar gym and flushed Blaine’s team away.
Time stamp: 14 hours and 6 minutes.
With 7 badges in head, I sail north back to Pallet Town for a bit of training. Once back in Pallet Town, I had Jet fly me to Viridian City where I blast my way through the gym and defeated Giovanni for the last time.
Time stamp: 14 hours and 23 minutes.
8 badges collected and now it is time for the final stretch of the journey. Go back to route 22 to face Gary, which went a lot better then back in Saffron City. Next, I made my way through Victory Road and made my way the Indigo Plateau. Only did a bit of grinding before I made my first attempt to at the Elite 4. First attempt I was able to get all the way to Lance, however the Gyarados Hyper Beam spam was too much. Now, before you say “How can he spam Hyper Beam, it requires the Pokémon to rest after each use” which is true, except if it KO’s your Pokémon, so the switch of Pokémon counts tours its’ rest period. I believe this was only an issue during the 1st generation. It also didn’t help that I made a lot of errors against Lorelei Lapras and used up most of my healing items. So I went back and got my team members ups some levels and re-filled my wallet and with a slightly more powerful team and better stocked up on healing items I made another run.
The second run was done much better as I able to really used 2 to 3 Pokémon each battle. Static and Bum handled Lorelei Ice Pokémon, mainly Static was most of the Pokémon were also Water Type. Ralph, LOLA and Jet took care of Bruno. Brock and LOLA handled Agatha’s team though the confusion was a pain. Lance was still a bit of a problem but once Gyarados was out the way LOLA pretty much had it in the bag. After beating Lance, I was told there was one more challenge, took the time to heal up the time then it was time. Gary the rival was now Gary the Champion. I sent Brock out to take care of Pidgeot, Ralph handle his Rhydon and Arcanine, and Static took out Gyarados. Then came out his Alakazam, this took a bit more team of Static slowing it down with Thunder Wave and Bum and LOLA laying the smack down. Finally, he sent out his Venusaur and with a combined effort of Jet and LOLA it was defeat and a new champion was crowned. My team was inducted into the Hall of Fame and then the credits rolled.
Time stamp: 18 hours and 18 minutes.
After the credits, I was back in Pallet Town. Healed up my team, grabbed some Ultra balls and the Master Ball and then headed back to Cerulean City. I first went into the Unknown Dungeon, caught some Pokémon to help with the PokéDex then made my way to Mewtwo, which I just threw the Master Ball and called it Cell.
Time stamp: 18 hours and 54 minutes.
Next, I made my way back to the entrance of Rock Tunnel but surfed south of that and when into the Power Plan to encounter Zapdos. I didn’t spend much time catching other Pokémon as I needed to save as many Pokéballs as needed. Because, there is one thing that was annoying with all the Legendary Birds. In the first game, the Legendary Birds I believe had to be knocked down to a certain hp or something before you can even put them in a ball, cause if it wasn’t you would simply miss when you threw. My plan to capture these birds were to use Static or Bum to paralysis it and chip away down to a certain health then switch to Brock to be chipped away out until I could catch the Pokémon.
Caught Zapdos at the Power Plant, Time stamp 20 hours and 18 minutes.
Caught Moltres on Victory Road, Time Stamp 20 hours and 27 minutes.
Lastly, returned to the Seafoam Islands and caught Articuno, time stamp 20 hours and 42 minutes.
I did use the save before encountering and resetting the game if I killed it or ran out of Pokémon balls a couple of times on each bird. Once complete, I returned back to Pallet Town to wrap up the journey with the final save reading 20 hours and 44 minutes of play time.
Looking back on my playthrough, it was interesting having to remind myself of all the weird mechanics in the game that not longer exist in the series. For example, Night Shade, a Ghost Type Move, was able to hit Normal type Pokémon, which when facing Agatha and her upper level 50 and 60 Pokémon would do a lot of damage. My team build was okay though during the first Pokémon game the Psychic was overpowered due to an error in the game making Ghost pretty much useless in the game and I luckily didn’t have much issues with Water type Pokémon. I had double coverage of most typing except water because as much as I wanted Toad the Paras to be on the team, I was having issues training him up and really didn’t have access to any other Grass type Pokémon that didn’t have a weakness to Psychic as there is only 1 pure grass type, Tangela, and the Parasect and Exeggutor lines to not be Grass/Poison. Overall, it was nice to revisit Pokémon Red and hopefully I will be a bit better and keeping up with the levels as I enter Pokémon Crystal for my Generation 2 playthrough. At the end of the first leg of my Pokémon Journey I have:
Collected: 8 Gym Badges
Capture: 70/151 Pokémon
Total Play time: 20 hours and 44 minutes.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and until the next adventure; Stay Safe, Be Kind and Game On!
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