Got a little time in, my trainer Goliath is currently making his way through Mt. Moon. I haven't had any failed first encounters, although as soon as I evolved Metapod into Butterfree, I got him killed by an enemy Spearow. I also was hoping for a Jigglypuff on route 3 and a Geodude from Mt. Moon, but I was unfortunate in both areas. So it goes.
Welcome to the newcomers. Good to see others are giving this old game another go, and everybody seems to be enjoying the challenge. .
Great nicknames, Murph! Love splinter.
Catching a Mew, you cheesy, cheesy person... I don't know how to do that bug anymore, but it's easy enough to google it.
Part 8: Back on Track
After healing up, and beating the remaining trainers east of Fuchsia City, I first went for a Dratini. I think I'm lucky here in that it didn't flee, even after 6 Safari Balls. Welcome to the team, Tiamat (Dragon God.)
Silph Co and Giovanni were defeated fairly easily, with my new main God, Skadi, which opened the way to the Saffron City Gym.
Sabrina from Saffron City Gym was tough. Actual spoiler on her.
Her Alakazam has recovery!
I was lucky to scrape a win from her, with no casualities. Skadi did amazingly throughout all the battles, but nearly fainted to Alakazam, so I threw in my next best, Oya, who was around 6 levels below her Alakazam. And somehow, I got lucky... Very, very lucky.
I do miss my Poseidon though. He was just awesome. I taught him Thunderbolt to destroy anything living in the sea. He truly was the God of Water...
Actually, Lapras (Sliph Co building) has to go, as I got Hitmonchan from the Fighting Gym in Saffron City. Not that either really have their use.
Code:
[B]Current Team[/B]
[B]Name Species Level Captured[/B]
Skadi (God of Winter) Vaporeon 52 Celedon City
Oya Reborn (Spirit of the Winds) Pidgeotto 32 Route 6
Tiamat (Dragon God) Dratini 15 Safari Zone
Anubis (God of the Dead) Ghastly 21 Pokemon Tower
Sekhmet (Egyption ?Cat? God) Meowth 25 Route 7
Geodude (HM Slave) Geodude 10 Mt. Moon
Bellsprout (HM Slave) Bellsprout 13 Route 5
MR Ali (Storage) Hitmonchan 30 Saffron City
[b]RIP
Name Species Level Captured Died to?[/b]
RattusZRat (Feral TV) Rattata 5 Route 2
Oya (Spirit of the Winds) Spearow 11 Route 4 Drowsee
Khloris (Goddess of Flowers) Ivysaur 27 Starter Drowsee
Aikami (Goddess of Love) Nidoqueen 27 Route 22 Dugtrio
Morpheus (God of Dreams) Drowsee ?? Route 11 Dugtrio
Gaia (Goddess of the Earth) Diglett 24 Diglett's Cave Machop (SSAnne)
Poseidon (God of Water) Gyarados 44 Vermilion City Raichu
Is Safari Zone a different area than Fuchsia City?
Is Pokemon Tower a different area from Lavender Town?
Is Power Plant a different area from Route 9?
Is Pokemon House a different area from Cinnabar Island?
Is Safari Zone a different area than Fuchsia City?
Is Pokemon Tower a different area from Lavender Town?
Is Power Plant a different area from Route 9?
Is Pokemon House a different area from Cinnabar Island?
So I decided to screw my own rule about keeping my party maxed and leveled up, and stopped working on Eric who is now a cut mule. He will eventually be replaced. Lt. Surge and SS Anne were easily walked all over by Gregory with a few times helped by Margaret. Was a bit worrisome to go for the THUNDERBADGE using only flying pokemon, but turned out to not matter.
Mirror Move is fun sometimes
Code:
8 hours.
RNG 3 -> Bulbasaur (Eric)
RNG 1 -> Dome Fossil
First Encounter with Rival: He used growl a lot, and I didn't. I had to use my potion to not game over right there and he almost killed me anyway (6hp left or so).
Second Encounter with Rival: skipped
Brock: Vine whip. Vine whip. Ez.
Third Encounter with Rival: I forgot he was there, and wasn't really ready for it. If I had known, I would have leveled up a bit more. Pidgeotto took my spearow pretty low, and also took some on my ivysaur. During Abra fight I used potions since he just has teleport, then the reast was easy. Fury attack and peck die die die.
Misty: Vine whip. Vine whip. Vine Whip. Actually it took several, staryu has a lot of HP.
Fourth Encounter with Rival: Gregory + Margaret overleveled = I took no damage in this fight.
Surge: Fury Attack + sonic boom kills voltorb. Fury Attack kills Pikachu. Lucky 4 hit fury attack kills Raichu. I killed every pokemon in this electric gym with my flying pokemon Gregory..
Failed First Encounters
Route 1: Lv 4 Rattata -> No poke balls
Veridian Forest: Lv 4 Caterpie -> Duplicate
Route 6: lv 13 Bellsprout -> Duplicate
Digletts Cave: lv 17 Diglett -> Accidental 1 hit KO
Succesful First Encounters
Route 2 : Lv 3 Caterpie (Margaret)
Route 3 : Lv 8 Spearow (Gregory) I was hoping to get lucky and spawn a Jigglypuff, I don't want spearow since I've overused him before (until I found that dodrio is 50x better). Oh well.
Mt Moon : Lv 8 Paras (Vickie)
Route 24: Lv 14 Bellsprout (Lillian) -> Voluntary release.
Route 5 : Lv 15 Pidgey (Mary) -> Voluntary release.
Active Party
Gregory 37 (fearow)
Margaret 35 (butterfree)
[Eric for Cut only]
Inactive Party
Eric 23 (ivysaur) [Boxed/Cut until I get someone else for it]
Vickie 20 (paras) [DEAD]
@Dry - Thanks! I was really fond on Splinter and Bubi, but they're both no longer with the team, unfortunately.
With that being said, I need to stop being so stingy and use more potions.. I was really bummed to lose Venus. By the time I got to Vermillion City, the only Pokemon I had alive was Tahoe, my starter. I also had about 16k to spend :doh:. I needed something to happen, so I went to the tall grass east of the city and picked up a Sandshrew, luckily. Tahoe took him down to 2 hp with one shot. I also got lucky in Digletts cave, and first encountered a Dugtrio, which was also a successful catch.
Not wanting to take on the S.S. Anne with only a water type and two ground types, I spent some time training a Magikarp to level 15. A couple of easy battles on the ship and two rare candies later, I had myself a Gyarados, who handily took care of the rest of the ship with bite. Now I'm on my way to face Lt. Surge and his Raichu, which should be a cake walk with my ground types.
I was wondering what the consensus was on being offered a trade, but not accepting it. Does that still count as a Pokemon encounter for the area?
Man this makes me miss playing pokemon. The new games just have soooo much to them that it is almost too much. I still have my old gameboy pocket, but my pokemon red, blue, and yellow mysteriously vanished from my video game stash. I think someone borrowed them and never brought them back. How I wish I had the time to sit down and play through red/blue again. GL to all in their challenge!
Is Safari Zone a different area than Fuchsia City?
Is Pokemon Tower a different area from Lavender Town?
Is Power Plant a different area from Route 9?
Is Pokemon House a different area from Cinnabar Island?
At first, I was a little uncertain initially with the cities, but now I'd definitely say that yes, they are different areas.
Nice Fearow move! Must have pretty strong claws.
@McMurphy - It doesn't matter about being offered a trade anymore. You may take the trade anytime if it's your first encounter in that area, but it doesn't count as a random encounter if you choose not to take it. A perfect example of this is Cinnabar Island - you can take the offered trade, or you can take one of the two fossils you receive. Just talking to the NPC for it doesn't matter.
Start up anytime, emokid. You don't need to make much progress, just start up, and see if you get any time.
As expected, the greatest difficulties so far have consisted in running out of PP points on my moves.
Code:
Location:
Cinnabar Island
Party:
Slog Blastoise lvl59 (Body Slam, Ice Beam, Dig, Surf)
HM Mule* Mew lvl7 (Fly, Cut, Teleport, Strength)
*(HM Mule has never seen and will never see combat. He is a cute little assistant
and will die with Slog if the latter ever meets his doom.)
Pokemon Tower gave Mildred a few scares. Thundershock wasn't strong enough to one hit the Gastlys so she was frequently paralyzed and/or confused. She got down to 26 health and I healed her in the purification white magic zone, then she got down to 22 health (one hit to death) while confused on her turn. That was a bit scary. After that I used Margaret for the rest of the tower with psybeam. I'm trying to use Margaret as little as possible because I hope to replace her with a venonat/venomoth.
The current plan is to do Team Rockets big hideout place and get masterball, which I use to catch the snorlax by bike trail. Then go down bike trail to fuschia city to get a venonat at either safari zone or route 12/13/14/15. As soon as I get surf I'll look for a tentacool and round my party out with my mount moon fossil of kabuto/kabutops.
Code:
11:32
RNG 3 -> Bulbasaur (Eric)
RNG 1 -> Dome Fossil
First Encounter with Rival: He used growl a lot, and I didn't. I had to use my potion to not game over right there and he almost killed me anyway (6hp left or so).
Second Encounter with Rival: skipped
Brock: Vine whip. Vine whip. Ez.
Third Encounter with Rival: I forgot he was there, and wasn't really ready for it. If I had known, I would have leveled up a bit more. Pidgeotto took my spearow pretty low, and also took some on my ivysaur. During Abra fight I used potions since he just has teleport, then the reast was easy. Fury attack and peck die die die.
Misty: Vine whip. Vine whip. Vine Whip. Actually it took several, staryu has a lot of HP.
Fourth Encounter with Rival: Gregory + Margaret overleveled = I took no damage in this fight.
Surge: Fury Attack + sonic boom kills voltorb. Fury Attack kills Pikachu. Lucky 4 hit fury attack kills Raichu. I killed every pokemon in this electric gym with my flying pokemon Gregory..
Erika: Peck and Drill Peck one hit kill everything.
Fifth Encounter with Rival: Thundershock and Fury Attack one hit kill everything.
Failed First Encounters
Route 1: Lv 4 Rattata -> No poke balls
Veridian Forest: Lv 4 Caterpie -> Duplicate
Route 6: lv 13 Bellsprout -> Duplicate
Digletts Cave: lv 17 Diglett -> Accidental 1 hit KO
Pokemon Tower: Accidental one hit kill on Lv 20 Gastly, not that I wanted him :3
Succesful First Encounters
Route 2 : Lv 3 Caterpie (Margaret)
Route 3 : Lv 8 Spearow (Gregory) I was hoping to get lucky and spawn a Jigglypuff, I don't want spearow since I've overused him before (until I found that dodrio is 50x better). Oh well.
Mt Moon : Lv 8 Paras (Vickie)
Route 24: Lv 14 Bellsprout (Lillian) -> Voluntary release.
Route 5 : Lv 15 Pidgey (Mary) -> Voluntary release.
Rock Tunnel: Lv 16 Zubat (Douglas) I was hoping for Onix or Machop. Oh well. -> Voluntary release.
Route 8 : Lv 15 Vulpix (Elizabeth)
Active Party
Gregory 43 (fearow)
Margaret 43 (butterfree)
Mildred 41 (jolteon)
[Eric for Cut only]
Inactive Party
Eric 23 (ivysaur) [Boxed/Cut until I get someone else for it]
Vickie 20 (paras) [DEAD]
Elizabeth15 (vulpix) [Boxed]
Goal Party
Venomoth/Butterfree
Fearow->Fly
Snorlax->Strength
Kabutops->Surf
Tentacruel->Cut
Jolteon
@jimsfriend: where's the masterball in TR's hideout? I must have missed it :scratchhead:
It was a sad day for me. Most of my new area encounters were duplicates. I took the risk of hitting the grass patch on route 16 instead of trying for the Snorlax. No luck, got a duplicate. None of my Pokemon can learn fly or flash, so I'm pretty SOL for the moment. I got some waters to give to the guards so I can travel faster around the map.
I went through Rock Cave blind, but did manage to catch a Machop. Unfortunately, I ran into a Rattata(easy, right?) who used hyper fang on him. Crit hit. Bye-bye Machop. Not the end of the world, I'll go get Eevee and finally have myself a fire type. Got Flareon, bought take-down from the TM merchant, used it on Flareon. Down in Team Rockets' Hideaway, I run into a Raticate(easy, right?). Who used hyper fang.... crit hit.... Bye-bye Flareon :banghead:
Damn mice.
On the other hand, Sly & Tahoe are taking care of the heavy work, no problem.
And that's all she wrote. Used potions for the first time during the final fights. Years ago I had done a solo pokemon playthrough with Charizard and one with Nidoqueen, so I expected smooth sailing. Raticate would probably be a good choice if I had the patience to do it again. It is just too bad that many of the fun pokemon do not show up until late in the game.
Code:
Location:
COMPLETE
Party:
Slog Blastoise lvl80 (Body Slam, Ice Beam, Earthquake, Surf)
HM Mule* Mew lvl7 (Fly, Cut, Teleport, Strength)
*(HM Mule has never seen combat.)
That was a solo run with no deaths? Very nice! What PP did your attacks have, and did you use PP ups/Ethers?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 9 and 10 - Final Gyms and Victory Road: Here I Come
No troubles for Skadi the Vaporeon with the final three gyms (Fuchsia, Cinnabar and Viridian.) I also went to Sea Foam islands, and defeated Articuno there, and after that went to the Power Station area and beat Zapdos, both with Skadi. Skadi vs Zapdos was an enjoyable fight, but nothing dangerous. At Sea Foam Islands, I had wanted to pick up a Staryu - the thought of Recovery is just too good to pass - but alas, not possible.
While levelling Ryujin (formerly Tiamat - Dratini,) I again took one too many risks. Have I not learnt yet?
"Oh, he'll be fine. He can take one more hit."
"Critical"
"Unless... It's a critical..."
The final Rival Battle was done with Skadi. Four out of his six are super weak to Skadi's Water/Ice moves, one was one-hit-KO'd from Hydra Pump, and the sixth was a similar type - Gyarados. I have since learnt that Gyarados is weak to Ice, so 5 of the rivals are in fact super weak to Skadi!
Finally, Moltres along Victory Road was also defeated.
Code:
[B]Current Team[/B]
[B]Name Species Level Captured[/B]
Skadi (God of Winter) Vaporeon 66 Celedon City
Oya Reborn (Spirit of the Winds) Pidgeotto 42 Route 6
Anubis (God of the Dead) Ghastly 21 Pokemon Tower
Sekhmet (Egyption ?Cat? God) Meowth 25 Route 7
Geodude (HM Slave) Geodude 10 Mt. Moon
Bellsprout (HM Slave) Bellsprout 13 Route 5
MR Ali (Storage) Hitmonchan 30 Saffron City
[B]RIP
Name Species Level Captured Died to?[/B]
RattusZRat (Feral TV) Rattata 5 Route 2
Oya (Spirit of the Winds) Spearow 11 Route 4 Drowsee
Khloris (Goddess of Flowers) Ivysaur 27 Starter Drowsee
Aikami (Goddess of Love) Nidoqueen 27 Route 22 Dugtrio
Morpheus (God of Dreams) Drowsee ?? Route 11 Dugtrio
Gaia (Goddess of the Earth) Diglett 24 Diglett's Cave Machop (SSAnne)
Poseidon (God of Water) Gyarados 44 Vermilion City Raichu
Tiamat/Ryujin (Dragon God) Dragonair 35 Safari Zone Goldeen
jdkerr I assume you mostly leveled up on trainer fights. Did you go find all trainers or did you only do the ones you "happen" to bump in to? When there is more than one route from one place to another (say route 12-16 vs biker road to fuschia) did you do both? Did you use rare candies on Slog?
Drystan your guys are such low levels
I never play this game without power leveling and/or over leveling. My whole team will probably be level 80's by the time I get to elite 4. Maybe not quite the spirit of the challenge, but that's how I play.
@jimsfriend: Trainer fights are easiest for leveling. I used repels on Victory Road, actually, because I wanted to get to the end that much faster. I did not go out of my way to do "full clears" of areas, so the biker road remained untouched (except for getting the HM, of course). When you have only one pokemon collecting all the experience, it levels pretty quickly, so grinding is largely unnecessary. When I got to the end, my level was in the low 70s, so I defeated the final four and OMG (my rival) three times then used four rare candies (first time using them) to bring him to an even lvl80.
@Drystan: Earthquake has 10 PP, Body Slam has 15 PP, Ice Beam has 10 PP, and Surf has 15 PP. I used a PP up on Ice Beam, which was quite useful against Lance. I managed to get through without using ethers until the Final Four + OMG, when I used them [sparingly] between fights.
After running through Victory Road with Skadi basically obliterating everything, including Moltres, I decided to train up some of my others for the final fight.
Anubis, God of the Dead, had a good run, levelling to 35. But managed to get himself killed. He was immune to almost everything there, so he got a little too cocky. Plus, Hypnosis, Dream Eater and Psychic are great moves for him, dealing easy damage to most of the random encounters there!
Ahh, forget this, I thought. I'm taking on the Elite 4, with nothing but my Skadi. He's well and truly overlevelled, as he's my only real fighter.
Code:
[B]Pre-Elite 4 Team[/B]
[B]Name Species Level Captured[/B]
Skadi (God of Winter) Vaporeon 66 Celedon City
Oya Reborn (Spirit of the Winds) Pidgeotto 42 Route 6
Sekhmet (Egyption ?Cat? God) Meowth 25 Route 7
MR Ali Hitmonchan 30 Saffron City
Zeus (God of the Skies) Aerodactyl 30 Cinnabar Island
Doduo Doduo 24 Bike Path'ish
Geodude (HM Slave - Storage) Geodude 10 Mt. Moon
Bellsprout (HM Slave - Storage) Bellsprout 13 Route 5
[B]RIP
Name Species Level Captured Died to?[/B]
RattusZRat (Feral TV) Rattata 5 Route 2
Oya (Spirit of the Winds) Spearow 11 Route 4 Drowsee
Khloris (Goddess of Flowers) Ivysaur 27 Starter Drowsee
Aikami (Goddess of Love) Nidoqueen 27 Route 22 Dugtrio
Morpheus (God of Dreams) Drowsee ?? Route 11 Dugtrio
Gaia (Goddess of the Earth) Diglett 24 Diglett's Cave Machop (SSAnne)
Poseidon (God of Water) Gyarados 44 Vermilion City Raichu
Tiamat/Ryujin (Dragon God) Dragonair 35 Safari Zone Goldeen
Anubis (God of the Dead) Haunter 35 Pokemon Tower Victory Rd
So, my plan. Buy healing, including status healers, and just pure tank. Under the spoiler is a list of the Elite 4 battles, and generally how I went. I went in partially blind, knowing approximately their types. Literal spoiler of the Elite 4 battles:
Elite Four #1 Water
Lots of Body Slams, Hydro Pumps, and generally just tanking whatever damage. Starts to perceive a problem with my plan. I'm using all of my abilities on the first of the four!
Surf = 15
Hydro Pump = 5
Body Slam = 15
Ice Beam = 14
Elite Four #2 Rock/Fighting
Some Surf's, as well as throwing Oya Reborn into the fray, to use his super effectiveness against fighting types. But an ineffective Super High Jump Kick takes the wind from the Spirit of the Winds. RIP Oya Reborn.
Back to Skadi to finish the fight.
Elite Four #3 Ghost
These guys took at least two more PP per Pokemon to take out. I can see this being a problem, but apart from Confuse Ray, not too much of a problem.
Elite Four #4 Dragon
Ice Beam = dead dragons. Most of his Pokemon fainted to the God of Winters Ice Beam.
Yay! I'm done. But I thought there was a fifth battle. Oh crap! The last rival battle. Skjolde, you're going down, if I have enough PP left!
Elite 4 Champion: Skjolde
Skjolde sends out Pidgeot.
Skida - Ice Beam.
Pidgeot has fainted.
Alakazam, go!
Skida Ice Beam - 50% Damage.
Alakazam uses Reflect
Skida - finish him with Surf!
Alakazam fainted.
Rhydon? Puh-lease. Surf for a one-hit-KO! Exeggutor next. Skida used Ice Beam - his last Ice Beam for 80% health!
Skida finished him off with Surf
Now came Gyarados. I thought this would be a problem, so I threw my weaker pointless Pokes in to try get some Growls and Leers off. They did around 20% damage to him, due to the Guarydos using Leer and missing a Hyper Beam, and they also got a few Growls off too.
But I've only got 2 Body Slams, and 4 Surf's left. Will it be enough?
First body slam, and Guarydos was paralyzed!
Guarydos used Hyper Beam...
... which did almost nothing!
Last Body Slam and Gyarados faints
What's left? Poor Charizard. Only needs one Surf, and almost the entire Elite Four defeated with Skida, God of Winter!
Everything else fainted, so only Skida is left, level 73 God of Winter.
Using Max Repels, I made my way to Mewtwo, and since I only have one God left, I capture him using the Master Ball.
The End.
All up, not a bad challenge, but I found that I really only had 1-2 main Pokemon at any time. That basically means they become over-levelled, and either fainted to pushing them too far, or them becoming absolute monsters. I was hoping I'd end up with a team like Ratticate, Golbat, Bellsprout etc. Really underused, but I ended up with a Gyarados, which is normal, then a Vaporeon, which is somewhat different, but the over-levelling of him... Made it very easy in the end. The challenge of having to release KO'd Pokemon was good though, and there were bits where I got lucky. *Drowsee and Sabrina's Alakazam* But it's easier to just wander with one or two main powerhouses and run over pretty much everything.
I'll probably try this again on a newer version, but haven't played anything else other than Platinum to completion, so it may be a 90% blind run.
I really, really, missed Poseidon though. A Gyarados with Lightningbolt, and can learn many other powerful moves.
Wow, you guys are fast! haven't played since my last update, but I'm still gonna finish - and hopefully with a full, well balanced team. The temptation of powerleveling 1-2 are however great after reading your posts.
I thought Platinum was the most recent, which I did enjoy, and is harder than blue, as the Elite 4 have moves that are supereffective against their weaknesses (Fire type with Lightning.) That was released in '08, whereas Black and White in '11. Do you have a *ahem* cartridge?
Keep us updated please! Love to hear how White goes (still a fan of Pokemon, even if I only really agree with the first 151.) Also, since it's new (to us at least), would you consider catching whatever you want, but also initially start with Nuzlocke, only using the first encounter, and see how it goes?
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