Pokemon - A Complete Retrospective

0:00 [Music] Pokemon is old really old you just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly old it is with the main series alone that spans 38 games in less than 30 years it's unbelievably massive in scope I mean people say Kingdom Hearts has been going on a long time but not counting remakes that series only has 13 games and when you really think about it only seven are required Pokémon has been around longer than some of you have been alive it's a more common household name than Mickey Mouse I've grown up with Pokemon just as much as I've grown up with other game franchises but the question is how do they actually hold up Pokemon as a franchise is steeped in Nostalgia it's a common sentiment that your favorite generation is the first one you played heated discussions about which generation was

0:45 the best can get dominated by the generations that Mark themselves a generational divide but how much of that is based on things that just don't exist anymore many of these games have features that don't work and take far too much time to really dig into and which you needed to enjoy the game already to get the most use out of see when people talk about the Pokémon games I feel they tend to get bogged down in the features or the memories Nostalgia is a very powerful tool especially with some of the mid gen games to hear some people talk for instance you would be forgiven for thinking that generation one was this magical experience that changed people's lives but in reality it was just the first open world game on a handheld console to hear people talk you would think the univa games had this deep rich story that delved into complicated mature topics but in reality it's actually a story about the very weak premise of well I sure do love opinions and yeah it's kind of a you to

1:31 be there bit but my question is can you still play these games without the Nostalgia today when all you have is the main game the competitive scene is dead and half the features don't work anymore can you still play gen 3 without friends to record mix with can you play Gen 4 without friends to crawl around the underground with these games still have a main storyline and a progression path does that part hold up on its own and most important did it ever hold up at all do these games hold up as RPGs that's the premise I'm working through how does Pokémon hold up as a game rather than a loose collection of memories well in this Monstrous Nightmare project tentatively called a video we're about to find out this is a complete retrospective on Pokémon

2:45 [Music] ah gen one the OG the Retro the god what are some other flowery words for old the Vintage there we go it's in Vogue these days to kind of trash on gen one for its glitches and lack of content and oversaturation of modern Pokemon and terrible artwork and messed up approach to game balance and excuse plot and simplistic antagonist and the fact that it's not on the DS oh [ __ ] I wasn't supposed to say that when I load but I found that the trashing is done without Merit or at least from a very wrong-headed Place most arguments against gen one cite the lack of tertiary features the lack of a story and the bugs but personally most of those are a positive not a negative it might not have a story but having played the games that have one honestly I'm glad it doesn't I'm glad there's still a Pokémon game out there as flawed as it is that just lets you go on your own

3:31 Adventure it's something I feel Pokémon has gotten too far away from as the years go on it's hard to introduce gen one because its main selling point is that it was the first nothing in the games has remained only in those games all of its mechanics are just the Baseline mechanics of every Pokémon game so let's just jump right into it and get this ball rolling so in gen one we start off getting to name our rival because his grandfather can't remember his grandson's name actually wait I can't believe I'm already making a tangent but isn't it weird that between this and him asking you your gender in the Gen 3 remake the latter became more MD on gen 3 has gender select and the weird parody web comics come out in full force honestly Professor Oak was ahead of his time he doesn't assume trans Ally Professor Oak can't say the same for the manual though oh yeah I name my rival sketchy my mom tells me to look for Professor Oak and when I go to check the grass because naturally that is the first place anyone would look he comes out of my house so I guess he was hiding

4:17 in the closet are you my dad he takes me to his lab where sketch's waiting for the both of us and lets me choose a Pokémon I chose Bulbasaur because it's correct sketchy chose a fire type because of course he did and then he wants to fight wouldn't be sketchy if he didn't want to compete in something I just picked up that day so of course he beats me should have gotten the suspicious potion first whatever I got that and a free one from the salesman dude you're the worst salesman ever went to the Mart and got deputized into a special delivery service this place is very trusting how do you know I'm not going to steal it ah I took it back to Professor Oak so I guess he really did know he gives me a Pokédex and tells me to fill it by myself I am 10 and now I'm completely off the leash record time actually if there's one thing about gen one that still holds up it's the fact that it quickly lets you off the choke chain to let you play the game even the catching tutorial is optional if you don't know how to catch Pokemon you can ask this guy and he actually tells you you can ask him the first time you pass

5:04 him but you can say no and carry on with your day it's really that simple and I was actually surprised coming back to gen one just how simple it was I mean we all talk about how Pokémon should let people skip the catching tutorial and this becomes a weird debate among some people but it exists in the first Pokémon game and I find people forget that this was something we figured out a long time ago so I sted myself a Pidgey before moving on to vidian Forest in the forest I was looking intently for a Caterpie for far longer than seemed usual actually I kept running into Weedle instead so I looked it up and it turned out that the encounter rate for some Pokémon is different based on the version not just the exclusives h no I don't care for that should have played Yellow Version liil I did eventually find a Metapod though I really want a Butterfree because I have a bone to pick with literally every single poket tuber on the planet see because my generation is kind of dumb there's this idea that because Butterfree doesn't get stab

5:49 moves that makes it useless that it's an early game Pokemon and you should soon replace I disagree with that attitude and I think that attitude is why Whitney and Cynthia made you all into whimpering piles of mulch and made you think you need to trick out a weile to even stand at a chance also Butterfree is literally perfect look at her she is baby moving on to the first gym and you know what I kind of admire it Brock even says at the start that his whole gimmick is defense and unless you open with Squirtle it's not going to be a straight one shot but there's something clever here see Brock sonx uses B A Move that relies on taking damage and it can very easily [ __ ] you over if you feed it a lot of people have pointed out that b is pretty useless because it gives the enemy an opening to set up status moves but that's the beauty of it that's what the game is trying to convince you to do as early as the first gym the game is teaching you that status moves are the way to go and

6:35 for a Pokemon that is as defensive as Onyx and has as low attack as Onyx bite is a really good move to have well it's not good in competitive Lily yeah but competitive has always been an afterthought and I'm not talking about postgame I'm talking about game game that's why I'm doing it this way anyway that aside was to cover the fact that all I really did was Chip them down with leech seed first badge Acquired and Metapod was just a little bit from evolving so I had to go take out another Weedle which felt a little anticlimactic honestly but whatever the important part is I have a goral who knows zero new moov oh God damn it Mount moon is the second dungeon in the game and the first point of no return after you clear it it's impossible to get back to Peter city until you unlock access to diglett's cave in Vermilion Mount moon is your first introduction to Team Rocket a group of Pokemon thees that are plundering the mountain for clearan fossils they're all over the dungeon but in truth you only have to fight maybe

7:21 three or four to get through as they are actively blocking your path this is an interesting decision because it means you get to decide how much you want to care about Team Rocket are you going to go through the process of stopping every grunt for the the XP or just take the ones that actively get in your way that sounds like a weird thing to praise but later games don't let you show this level of indifference to their evil teams for the end I picked up the Helix Fossil because I'm a cringey [ __ ] who thinks internet Mees are funny coming into Cerulean is where you find your first mandatory Rival Battle you know there's an awful lot of debate about the whole mean rival V friendly rival dichotomy but if I could take a moment to have a hot take I don't think blue is a mean rival I know much of Pokemon fandom is on the internet and people on the internet think making friends is hard but blue and red always seem to me like really close friends blue come off like a smarmy [ __ ] but I mean is 10 his dialogue always comes off more like good natured slagging like the two are

8:07 always competing with each other but in a fun way I mean his establishing character moment is effectively him saying last one to complete the Pokédex is a rotten egg and his catchphrase smell you later is just see you later with a different sense and when you're 10 you think that's the height of comedy and he's right that is the height of Comedy look at his actual dialogue in the game itself he slags you off quite a bit but never too much that it becomes unreasonable he's a sore loser but he talks to the player and gives them information like a kid going hey gu that's what I found you should go check it out I have no problem believing these two are friends in fact this is the most believable rival friendship in the entire series because the two of you are in competition but it's clearly a friendly one I honestly don't even know why the term rival even exists most people in real life don't have Rivals much like how most people don't have enemies I know the cartoon wrote Gary is an actual bully and full of himself rich

8:52 kid and I think people let that color their perception of blue as a character then again I have also noticed that people on the internet today are extremely touchy in regards to someone else simply seeing pompus internet dwellers treat arrogance like it's the single worst sin imaginable and so I'm not surprised a lot of people took it weirdly personally when blue slags the player off we often blame children for the decisions of game freak like the rivals characterization or the handholding the games are played with but the truth of the matter is that people my age have been complaining about these games being too hard for a long time like it wasn't gen Z that made Whitney and Cynthia into a meme or complained about a non-issue like the HMS I honestly think one of the reasons characters like Sharon and Bianca are so popular isn't because they have compelling character arcs but because they kiss the player's feet and I think it's largely people my age who like that about them they often say they don't but

9:38 I think that's just social desirability bias every gamer has a praise Kink no matter how hard they try to convince you otherwise lelay stop bring him BDSM in a Pokemon it works as a metaphor all right I like blue and I like him specifically because he comes off like a more genuine friend than the sycophantic warbling of later Rivals anyway after helping Bill get out of his fur suit and getting a cruise ticket we're finally able to challenge Misty actually wait was the Jim even blocked off I don't remember whatever Misty is a water type trainer so ivysaur's got this in the bag just constantly whipping those Stars whip them good see I told you it worked as a metaphor second badge acquired Vermon city has only two things of not the gym and the SSN oh yeah also diglas cave the SSN is required to get to the gym and it's crawling with optional trainers you can just go right to your rival and the captain if you want but I want that juicy XP so I barged into every cabin and beat up everyone's pets like the completely reasonable person I am I

10:25 don't have a problem [ __ ] you now that I have cut I can open the gym wear oh [ __ ] the trash puzzle nope nope nope nope no no no no no no no no oh hey oh hey okay so I'm through the trash puzzle and I caught a diglet which means I win your X speed can't save you now third badge acquired now that I have the third badge I can go North to Saffron City and then West to seladon actually no I can't because the guard is too thirsty to let me through what I can actually do is go back to Cerulean City take a roundabout route through this winding Cliff side go through a dangerous pitch black tunnel cut through a haunted oblet go through another underground tunnel and then into Celadon just a small detour I'd almost forgotten just how dreary the mid game is after you leave Rock Tunnel your next task is to go through two backtack rocket areas three if you decide to hammer out silco right away you can skip the rocket Hideout by using a pokka doll on Marowak but for sake of this video I

11:11 um didn't and going through the track of Team Rockets Hideout then sadon gym and then Pokemon Tower is not great it's too many Dungeons and cities with very little Overworld to break it up and this is only compounded by the fact that the next area after this is the very long and very interesting area between lavender toown and fuchsia City gen one's biggest problem is that it's often unevenly spaced and a lot of the major areas are clustered and sad on at saffron it's a similar issue I have with golden rod in generation 2 too much is crammed in here and you end up spending way more time in this area than you'd ever want to at any other point I actually slammed out seladon gym first since Pidgeotto and Butterfree needed the easy XP and since I was going to be in that basement for a while going to the game corner you beat up the guard and dive into the basement for a series of moving tile puzzles which I don't wish to be melodramatic are the worst [ __ ] things in the game not because the movement itself is bad but because it's so

11:59 painfully slow later gam speed this up but wow this is cursed I move through one floor get the lift key move through the second get to the elevator we meet Giovanni for the first time giovan's thing is ground type Pokemon unlike the rest of his team who uses Pokemon that are the easiest in the game to actually get you that actually says something about Giovani like he went out of his way to import a Kangaskhan for himself but just drags up whatever can be found on the cheap for all of his grunts makes no difference because this capitalist rat's going down after that we're headed to Lavender Town the only real point of interest in this part of the game which stands out by how Bleak and sad the whole place is and how migraine inducing the music is because some dick decided hey let's make this track really loud and harsh and see how much we can torture the Game Boy speaker they tortured that poor little speaker until it was begging for more I mean mercy and frankly I don't think we needed to know what the effects of VR headsets would be if they were focused entirely on your ears but somebody at gamefreak would apparently disagree whoever wrote These

12:45 tracks owes me some TI andol Lavender Town is practically Infamous for how sharp of a tonal shift it is inspiring about 20,000 crappy ghost stories written by kids but honestly I think that's about the only real value Lavender Town has personally I always found the Verdian foresting to be much creepier but there's nothing as Charming as reading some bad Campfire story about the cartridge ejecting itself from the Game Boy at Mock 5 and lodging itself in your throat to punish you for looking at ghosts yeah there's my hot take of the day Lavender Town is actually kind of [ __ ] and its only entertainment value is Kids Scaring each other with rumors and creepy pasta otherwise it's just another two long dungeon that demonstrates how weak ghosts are a psychic in this game this part of the game is open-ended but it's clear they want you to go in a particular order because the levels of individual Pokemon do not actually compensate for which way you're going after Erica Koga and Sabrina have huge spikes in levels because the game assumes you're going to have gone

13:32 through three entire dungeons before reaching them and you'll have had to have gone through at least two of them to get to them anyway you're not getting to fuchsia City without the poke flute and you're not going to Sabrina without silco sure you can do them in any order if you're determined enough but you still have to do all of them and there is a very strict recommended order right on the trainer card after the gauntlet that is Celadon in lavender toown you get to go through the best route in the game Route 12 it takes you through a bridge over a coastline down into a fence path and then back onto the main road to fuchsia City it's the longest route in the game packed to the brim with trainers and there's no rest stop at any point this is one of the few points in the game that feels like you're actually traveling the route is so expansive and it actually takes a while to get to fuchsia City it replicates the arduous journey of traveling between towns as best as the Game Boy can I love this route so much it really captures what I mean about how Pokemon's difficulty is based primarily

14:18 on endurance seriously the next time you play a Kanto game go through this route and fight every trainer without going back to heal at the center it's an amazing experience arriving in fuchsia City Butterfree steamed the world through koga's team with only one minor hiccup requiring a switch from Pidgeotto I'm quite happy about that butterfree's actually been carrying the entire team since I stopped off in Saffron for psychic and I'm feeling very Vindicated by this see I was watching old poketuber videos because that's something I occasionally end up doing and a common theme for Butterfree in gen one is that she's good in the early game and not very good anywhere else and like I said I had a bone to pick about that so I resolved to keep Butterfree on my party and sweep the game and so Butterfree turning out to be my best Pokemon is very vindicating I snagged the items I needed from the Safari Zone without much care because I actually don't like the Safari Zone all that much it was interesting for the rare Pokemon you could fine there but I've already got my team in mind and have no need for anything in there and not being able to

15:04 battle them just makes the whole ordeal annoying this was the area I was least looking forward to so we're moving on to damn it that's even worse there's a problem in Saffron City in that most of the city is on lockdown until you clear out Team Rocket from silco and I'll be honest I think silco is the worst area in the entire series it is a labyrinthe dungeon that you have to use these extremely awkward teleporters to zip from room to room until you find the card key and it's an intense Maze of locked doors tele qus and just the worst kind of Rocket fights in the entire damn series and I am including gen 2's radio tower in that oh my [ __ ] God if you know exactly where to go or cheated and look at the map like I did because [ __ ] this dungeon it's not long but if you don't like most people don't oh my God this is arduous you're lost in this maze

15:50 having your resources chipped away on more and more fights and there's a fight with sketchy right before Giovani this dungeon and Pokémon Tower both have places to heal mid dungeon no other area in the game has that I think that's the point you can say the dungeon is too big and I'd be fine with how big it was if it wasn't so dull if there was a clear forward progression but this can be the shortest place in the game if you know which teleporter actually gets you to where you want to go it's this one see I actually quite liked Rock Tunnel no one trainer battle is going to really challenge you outside of the boss fights but instead you're draining PP losing Health running out of healing items and there's no restoration or March until you reach the next town Rock Tunnel actually it's a Pokemon Center right outside because it is a gauntlet something Gen 2 did as well with Union Cave and as you get through there's more and more trainers in your way dwindling

16:36 your resources but because Rock Tunnel is mostly linear you're always making forward progress and while losing can restore your health and PP it costs half your money to do it this incidentally is why you can't buy PP restoring items it's why PP exists at all this game is very unforgiving to your PP L knock it off this is actually a really good approach to gameplay most trainers don't have more than one or two Pokémon but you're not just up against one trainer you're up against all of this but Sil go has more trainers than Rock Tunnel it's got a layout designed to confuse you and it's right in the middle of a city so nothing is stopping you from taking the elevator to the lobby and going to the Pokémon Center and healing up it's just the worst dungeon in the entire game I [ __ ] despise it people complained about Rock Tunnel because you needed to use Flash or wander around blindly and we'll get into HMS in a little bit because I actually like them but it's

17:23 actually very welld designed a very mey challenge for where it is in the game and very satisfying to get through especially since it's a transitory period of the second act of the game there's no cheating through it you have to go through it in this One Direction which means this one direction is very interesting oh [ __ ] that was another hbomb quote wasn't it silco is just obtuse for the sake of obtuse and can be effectively skipped over if you're crafty enough so it's either unbearably grueling or terminally short and easy with no middle ground and the gym afterward also features a teleporter pad puzzle that again you either try every pad and get lucky or know exactly where to go it's no surprise they didn't do this kind of gym puzzle a second time now there's the the part where I'm supposed to talk about how powerful the psychic type is and how broken and overwhelming it is everyone talks about it and how obscenely powerful the psychic types are here's the thing

18:09 though that's only true in theory psychic's power comes from a large variety of stab moves and its two weaknesses either not being coded properly or possessing no moves of decent power sure but one thing we're going to run into later is that the Pokémon Community operates as if stabs super effective moves are the only things that exist you remember how I mentioned I had a bone to pick with Pok tubers well here it is this is why Butterfree is often derided as a low tier Pokémon because she doesn't learn stab moves but the thing is other strategies exist Butterfree might not have stab moves but she has an array of status moves sleep is Godlike in this game and she's one of the earliest sleepers and you don't need stab to do some pretty meaty damage either way neutral attacks are still a thing status moves are still a thing Alakazam might have high special but his physical defense is in the toilet and a decent

18:55 physical move even if it isn't super effective is going to body the [ __ ] these Pokémon are over powered if you're someone who thinks having no weaknesses means you can't be killed but that's never been the case we all beat Sabrina as kids after all and chances are you beat the kid who had Mewtwo in fact despite how supposedly powerful psychic types are Sabrina has never been memd on as heavily as Whitney or synthia have been in the past and [ __ ] Cynthia's Garchomp has a 4X weakness and is still considered brutally difficult even though she has a Pokemon with no weaknesses the truth of the matter is that Alex samam just doesn't have the moves available to him to really take out his real weaknesses physical attackers to be as broken as people claim Alakazam is he would need a much wider variety of moves and he's just never really had that but gen one psychic types just weren't that broken

19:41 to begin with just use slash like ever technically the next area is Seafoam Islands but let's be honest when was the last time you actually went through Seafoam Islands yeah I thought so I certainly didn't I surfed south from palat town you [ __ ] scrub out of all the gyms I think Blaine is my favorite fire type Pokemon are rare and damn near every Pokemon game so a fire type gym is always a welcome challenge but his trivia questions were something I always thought was very cute it's better than maneuvering around gym trainers like someone who's just dropped a really eggy fart and is trying not to be noticed about it all right but first you have to go through the Pokémon Mansion you know I forget about this dungeon every single time I play this game and then I just Spam repels and try not to battle anyone I feel Pokemon mansion should be the coolest dungeon but it's in a city and so suffers from similar issues that silco does the access to a Pokemon center nearby renders the things that make the dungeons interesting completely mood seventh badge acquired swing back to vidian give Giovani a midlife crisis

20:27 then head off for the Pokemon actually hang on I actually really like Giovani he's a much more real villain than any other evil team he just wants to exploit Pokemon for financial gain he could just as easily be the mafia or Amazon but what I really like is that after the third time you beat him he just goes I had my entire Empire toppled by a small child what the [ __ ] is wrong with me what am I doing with my life I am a failure of the highest order and he just quits and goes into hiding and hangs out in a cave for the rest of his life you humiliated this guy so badly he had a midlife crisis and in heart gold and soul silver you could beat him again and make him even more depressed he's actually kind of pathetic I love torturing the elderly anyway after that and a quite invigorating run through victory road my points about Rock Tunnel still stand here I make it to the Elite 4 laurelai was probably the most difficult of the bunch simply because

21:12 ice types are the major blind spot in my knowledge I know they're weak to fire but I don't know anything else about how they work Butterfree swept both Bruno and Agatha I'll be honest I didn't think she could do it two of them are rock type and I thought it would at least be a struggle but it was a massacre I love this little bug and then Lance was swept by star me yeah the Elite 4 wasn't really much to write home about honestly it's one of those challenges was really cool as a kid for the spectacle but as a gameplay challenge it hasn't held up but that's fine it's an old game and frankly I think the first four gens are at a good place difficulty wise they're just hard enough to keep your brain engaged and as a kid some of these challenges can seem insurmountable but they really push you to figure out simple problems in your head which is something kids need to be constantly exercising it's good for them moving on to sketchy it was a mostly okay fight again the spectacle is what made it matter but his Alakazam did get off a cheeky little reflect before I knocked him out buffing his team against physical attacks which

21:59 was uncalled for in fact he did knock out more of my Pokémon than I was prepared for his executor in particular was a stubborn little [ __ ] I really wanted to take out his last Pokémon with Butterfree but alas it was not meant to be but star me pulled through for me and it was all good we're all good and that's gen one all in all I think it still holds up any ranking of the generations and I am going to rank them at the end really ought to have gen One play smack dab in the middle all the usual obligatory Praises about being the trends Setter are one thing but the real thing that keeps me coming back to it is freedom generation one is in this weird position with Gen 2 because they're both very free form games starting from gen gen 3 but really picking up speed and Gen 4 Pokémon became more linear more jrpg game freaks started to get very pushy they wanted to start telling you how to play instead of letting you play on your own the games were more railroaded more insistent on directing

22:44 you mechanics would be removed for seemingly no reason some people claim this started in Gen 6 but it really picked up steam in the DS games generation one doesn't have this problem because the cartridge wouldn't hold enough data there's no story getting in your way no pushy attitudes from the devs getting in your way and just no annoying es the annoyances in this game mostly just come from roadblocks I'd forgotten just how padded the mid game truly is something I never hear anyone talk about because everyone just focuses on the features which is what I find is the problem this is why I wanted to do it this way I want to focus on the game play and not the toys but even with that hurdle to get over I still prefer the adventure and the openness to me the ideal Pokémon adventure is Ash's Adventure where you're going on your own personal Journey maybe you run into a new Conflict at a given City but at the end of the day it's still your journey

23:30 to make of it what you will and that will continue to have value so long as game FR continues to try to make Pokémon into Final [Music] Fantasy so moving on to generation 2 this was a big deal gamef freak managed to take a game that was already big by Game Boy standards and make it even bigger more Pokemon an entirely second region an update on what had happened since you've last been there how did game freak manage to pull off something so spectacular well I'll tell you how they got someone else to do it president of how laboratory satoru aada came in and fix their Frankenstein's monster of code code that was so bad Nintendo's entire team of programmers couldn't decipher it let alone fix it but thankfully someone competent was in the office and so we got to experience the best pair of Game Boy games to ever exist or are they let's Dive Right In right from the start the force tutorials

24:16 are slowly creeping their ways in because when you tell your mother you already know what the Poke gear is she just explains it to you anyway but in a way that suggests she's asking you to show her how to use it she's sneaky that mother of mine anyway I chose Chikorita because it's correct bulky Pok do really well in these early games and Chikorita gets Early Access to reflect and synthesis two very potent moves reflect especially because three out of five grass weaknesses are physical and so reflect and neutralizes their damage couple that with Meganium naturally High defensive stats and you have a good all-rounder Pokemon the introduction for generation 2 is a lot longer than Generation 1 was not only do you have to walk farther but there's just more dialogue overall we talk about Pokemon games becoming handh holdy as if it was some major shift but as you're going to see each game slowly becomes more and more directed and structured after all that I fight my rival go back to name him now I think silver is one of the

25:03 less interesting Rivals he's just an edgy sore loser who slags off everyone around him and talks about how great and strong and special he is all the while getting bodied every time you see him he reminds me too much of hop just with a worse attitude he's a loser and an edgelord actually since I'm here when you first beat your rival he says my name's question mark question mark question mark and I want to know when you first played this game did you name him question mark question mark question mark I mean technically that's his name it's a weird [ __ ] name but it is his name in the remakes they changed that to you seeing his trainer card and not specifying his name but here your parents never even gave you a chance did they no matter I'll correct that mistake I'll give him a name that suits the pathetic loser he truly is so I named him Kyle Ron on round 29 I snagged a Caterpie which would also become a front runner of my team like the last time and

25:48 in fact I set the challenge for myself that I was going to beat Whitney with only a Butterfree I also snagged a Geodude because I feel like having a rocky girl on my team I never used judu before this might be fun the first thing I did in Violet city was head right to sprout Tower it's the first major dungeon and it's actually a pretty good one like with Rock Tunnel it's a fixed linear path to your destination with plenty of trainers and wild Pokémon so it's an endurance test rather than a puzzle dungeon but like the rocket hideout in silco it's located in a city which means you can always double back to the Pokemon Center this is something they keep doing and I wish they would stop actually compared to sprout Tower Violet's gym is kind of a pushover I mean most of my Pokemon were injured and fainted but I didn't lose Chikorita and Metapod handled most of them until geodo came out to finish off Pidgeotto first badge Acquired and Metapod evolved and now I have a murder bug who I will feed The Souls of my victims heading out to

26:34 Union Cave butterfree's Blood lust proved unquenchable as she slaughtered every last Pokemon and trainer who got in my way Geodude on the other hand she wasn't having as good of a time but I needed to level her up because the next gym was a bug gym and bugs don't like rocks I would know I tested this Theory very thoroughly as a child this is where the railroading gets a little ridiculous the process for aelia town is talk to Kurt clear out the well beat the gym do the farfetch quest then move on and they really want you to do it in that order they not only put a rock grunt blocking the way to the gym but also the well until you talk to Kurt who knocks him in and falls in himself but Kurt's broken his hip and therefore can't help it's almost like diving head first into a well isn't a smart decision but that's just my opinion and so I have to clear it out instead the rocket grunts use mostly poison types so Butterfree and jodu got this the rocket fights in Gen 2 are actually the least interesting part

27:19 of the game there's one stretch of later that goes on for far too long where it's nothing but rocket fights over and over again but this part right here is just a taste of how dreary it is Team Rocket was interesting when it had Giovani but seeing them sort of beaten down and looking for their leader is just odd Team Rocket was a criminal organization they were exploiting Pokémon for money if the group fell apart just join another one why are you sticking around looking for Giovani like he's your dad see part of what made Team Rocket fun was that they were a very real villain but also so pathetic they could be undone by a small child at the end of the game Giovani just breaks down and quits because he knows he'll never recover from the humiliation of being beaten by a little girl three times with a frog and a butterfly Li ooh I have all these cool masculine Pokémon and chirp chirp [ __ ] but here they just

28:05 want crime Daddy back and I almost feel bad about kicking them when they're down Bugsy on the other hand can [ __ ] right off okay so both aelia town and Golden Rod City have leaders whose main gimmick is using attacks that get progressively stronger after consecutive hits now this kind of fight is basically screaming use sleeper accuracy moves because there's no tanking five hits from Fury cutter or roll out and it took me just a little longer than I'd like to admit that Scyther was a flying type and so muds slap wasn't actually going to work but but then I remembered that means he's four times weak to rock throw and I almost realized that just a little bit too late so between the two bad mud slaps and the missed rock throw he got up to four stacks of Fury cutter if I hadn't hit that last one he would have one shot everyone on my team this has been a certified Lily Orchard bimbo moment because I'm 30 and somehow a game for children is getting one over on me second badge acquired anyway then you

28:50 have your first real fight with your rival and I crushed him with Butterfree whose blood lust was sated for now and I take back what I said before Kyle Ron isn't one of the less interesting rivals he is the worst [ __ ] rival in the entire damn series I [ __ ] hate this kid see in gen one you and your boyfriend have a good Dynamic you playfully slag each other off but there's affection and competitive Spirit there gen 2's rival just shows up rants about his strongman rhetoric loses to you and then overcompensates and he never gets any better unless you go way too far out of your way to find the special events with him which I never did because I don't care about his Redemption Arc he's just this obnoxious burden every time he shows up and I resent to the rest of the fan base for fixating on him and acting like he was the best rival just because he was Broody and emo that's the only reason

29:37 you like this guy because he was emo and that's what you think good writing is silver and hop are fundamentally the same character it's just that one of them is superficially emo and the other isn't [ __ ] silver okay so Golden Rod city is packed to the gills with things to do it's almost insane there are a mountain of daily events here tons of nooks and crannies all over the place I think there's more stuff in Golden Rod than any other city in any other game unfortunately I'm not going to do any of it because 16 years of being tortured and tormented by World of Warcraft has meant that your daily Quest can [ __ ] right off this is where we brush up against the core philosophy of Gen 2 see a common complaint about Gen 2 is the level curve while Pokemon and trainers remain at a low level but there isn't enough XP to keep an entire team even as a result but the truth of the matter is that there is enough XP it's just that it's not immediately apparent you know all those trainers asking for your phone

30:23 number to rematch and how the game is laid out in such a way that it's easier to backtrack to certain areas yeah there it is all those areas you missed and didn't come back to later there it is see these games weren't designed to be played by a progression minded player who's just trying to record for silly internet video they were designed for a handheld system that you could take anywhere being used by children who had entire lunch hours afternoons and weekends to [ __ ] around and find out when you were a kid you didn't have this problem because you went back to check out the rest of Union Cave once you got surfed or explored Mount mortar or explored the ruins of Elf or looked around at all those extra areas hidden away wondering what could be down there as an adult you know the progression path and you follow it religiously and the thing about Japanese open World Games is that they don't really lose sleep over whether or not players miss anything so there's plenty of extra

31:09 paths to find and the game isn't really all that bothered if you don't most of the caves especially Mount mortar and dark cave are completely optional you know sometimes I wonder if there's a correlation between this my generation complaining that the XP curve is [ __ ] and modern Pokémon games leading you by the throat through every single possible sight and being terrified you might miss something where was I oh right so I smashed through Whitney with Butterfree and butterfree's thirst for the blood of the living has been sated for now third badge acquired but wait I thought Whitney was super hard and Butterfree is a 4X weakness it [ __ ] sleep powder and Flash guys this isn't rocket science in E critique City you can't actually go to the gym without doing the side quest first you know just like aelia town like [ __ ] half the gyms in this game have some side quest you have to do before you get the badge good Lord the side quest this time is to go through the burn Tower where I found Kyle Ron who

31:55 was looking for a legendary Pokémon but decides to take it out on you when he can't find one dude come on take a chill pill anyway of course you crush him because he's a wuss and then you fall down a pit worse even he mocks you for it but the Pokemon he was looking for was right down here Kyle quit being a little [ __ ] your dogs are down here anyway now that the dogs are gone the gym leader will finally go back to his post and do his [ __ ] job like he was supposed to Great concept huh anyway I open battle with toap Pete that was a false start I switched to Butterfree and mow through his first view Pokemon because some worldclass intellect a game freak decided to make most of the ghost types weak to psychic and most of them have the move that cuts their health in half at the start anyway good job Morty it's even better because you don't take damage from curse on the turn you knock the opponent out so I got two free nukes on them without taking a scratch and curse is a volatile status effect which means it's removed if you switch out it sure would suck if I switched out into a

32:41 normal type who was immune to Shadow Ball wouldn't it [ __ ] ghost types I swear gengar's made strategy is to use hypnosis and then dream meter he will always use dream meter if the opponent is asleep meaning you can switch out to a Pokemon that isn't to make it fail and with hypnosis having a less than perfect accuracy you could effectively dance into a Miss as much as you like this actually makes Gengar something of a pushover an even better approach is to use a normal type that's paralyzed meaning they can't be put to sleep and can't be damaged by any other move making Gengar Sitting Duck this is what I love about Gen 2 you can just bend the game over your knee and beat it until it cries fourth badge acquired coming into Olivine we have another [ __ ] side quest Jasmine is up at the Lighthouse taking care of a sick Aeros and I need to go across the ocean to get the medicine because apparently Olivine City doesn't have a single Runner or fairy going to an

33:27 island locked town just 10 minutes across the sea despite the fact that it's johto's main Harbor with a ship going to [ __ ] Tanto fine whatever sail across the ocean pick up your damn medicine hey I might as well get the badge while I'm oh oh stupid me you need strength in this gym and I didn't get it this is what I mean the HMS are all just lying in random places and cities except for waterfall which you just find randomly an ice path they really wanted you to explore you get to a new town and they're like crawl over every single building and you know what I didn't and now I have to do the [ __ ] Walk of Shame all the way back to Olivine whatever I got it now we're back properly this time most of Chuck's Pokemon are fighting type which means Butterfree gets a sweep a get oh that's not good it's all right toab be's got it and primeape is down I

34:13 sent out bay leaf against Poliwrath but I kept getting stuck in a loop of sleep mind reader and sleep again wake up you damn plant dog switching out wasn't good either because Poliwrath was faster and would just keep doing the loop of mind reader and hypnosis in better games you can Loop AI to your advantage here it just [ __ ] you over and he keeps using hypnosis whatever I decided to take the coward's way out and that was to keep healing until he ran out of power points by some miracle bringing out B Leaf again got him to miss twice with hypnosis nice but then he hit me with the third one a but eventually I won the stalling War because bay leaf is bulky as [ __ ] and definitely not because I had him hooked up to an IV full of potions fifth badge acquired so I got the medicine to Ay and convinced Jasmine to do her job and so we're right back into another Gym battle this is where the game falls apart a bit you see once you finish e critique City you have the choice of where to go next you can do

34:58 the Olivine C and and mahogany Town story lines and their respective gyms in any order you want but you have to do all of them because you can do them in any order they're all relatively the same power-wise this is that Infamous level curve people talk about because once you reach this point progression just sort of stops while Pokemon remain around level 15 trainers have around level 20 and the gym leaders have Pokemon in their 30s for three gyms until you have seven badges outside of red very few battles in this game feature Pokémon higher than level 50 as I mentioned earlier most of the XP is found in the daily and we events and the trainer rematches but the entire system is extremely inelegant and it means you have to wait until the next day to actually do anything this means you don't have to do much grinding for a full team but it also means that if you're not doing those daily events you're going to fall behind very quickly

35:44 because while Pokemon just flat out aren't very high level and if you're only using your starter for everything you're going to be criminally overleveled with all three gemms all having the same level range that Gulf is only going to get bigger and bigger you're either overpowered stuck grinding or stuck waiting all of this is only compounded by the availability of Pokémon more than half the jodo decks isn't available outside of the post game either being locked to Kanto items you get from Kanto or areas you can't access until you've cleared Kanto I know Tomah hero recently put out a video defending this decision as it made some Pokemon rare and desirable through their scarcity but here's a big problem with that johto's actually good Pokemon not being available until well into the post game turns them into trophies rather than actual Pokémon once you get a Mis dous there is nothing left to do once

36:31 you get a Hound hour you're 95% of the way through the post game with only red in your way same with Larvitar so many actually good Pokemon stuck in a part of the game where once you get them there is nothing left to actually do with them other than erase them by starting a new game this might sound fine for Trophy Hunters out there but if you're someone for whom say Houndoom is your favorite Pokemon this is actually garbage design sure it might make Houndoom more special and exclusive and give it more value to make it so rare but is that fun no it's not and value can [ __ ] off if it makes the game less fun this is why only pathetic sacks of [ __ ] think shiny Pokémon have any actual value there's such a pain in the ass to get that most people just won't bother and not bothering is the smart decision value is entirely subjective and while you might

37:17 need scarcity to make Tyranitar more valuable people for whom Tyranitar is their favorite Pokemon aren't so capitalist in mindset and artificially depriving them of their favorite Pokemon is actually the worst decision a Pokemon game could ever make I know I would hate it if a Pokémon game withheld gardivoir from me until the postgame and several of them have done just that when you have a game series like this where the actual value of individual Pokemon is so subjective artificially withholding many of those Pokemon is just punishing the people who dare to actually like them just for comparison there is a series of ROM hacks made by Drano that increase the difficulty of the Pokémon games but also make every Pokémon available and just looking at a single route there's such a huge variety of Pokémon in each area look at how many Pokémon are around Route 30 in sacred gold alone there is

38:04 no Universe where this isn't better having all that variety being able to make a unique and varied Team every game will always be better than whatever the [ __ ] Gen 2 is doing Gen 2 is needlessly restrictive in this regard you just get so few Pokemon to work with and with how flat the level curve is it just feels bad so many times playing through this I found myself wanting to add a Pokémon to my team only to look it up and realize that I could only get it in Kanto or with an item I get in Kanto I wanted to get an Octillery because I've never used one before but I can't because I needed a super rod to fish for one even though it's in Johto oh and it's not even available in Crystal Version at all thanks [ __ ] anyway Olivine Steel type gym hello graer say hello to Magnemite hello Magnemite now say hello to Steelix

38:51 hello Ste oh that's not good it's all right Bay Leaf's got this with the reflectant you know sometimes I really don't like you it's all right maninee's got it good job Mantine sixth badge acquired getting into mahogany Town there's a problem the gym is blocked off until you complete the underground rocket dungeon which first requires defeating the shiny Gyarados at the lake of Rage this sets in motion the worst part of the damn game I hope you like rocket fights because there's nothing but them for the next two hours you got to go through the rocket Hideout and then after you get the seventh badge you have to Trek through three different dungeons in Golden Rod City filled with Samy boring rocket fights two of which are just the radio tow split into two parts and [ __ ] Christ this sucks compared to the later games it's not as

39:37 egregious I'd rather go through this than the 70 billion plasma Encounters in Gen 5 but it is clear to see where game freak is picking up their bad habits cards on the table uh some people like the more involved jrpg plots Pokemon has had since Gen 4 people gas up Cyrus and n as the best antagonist the series ever had but I [ __ ] hate these two Pokemon storytelling hasn't gotten better over the years it's just gotten worder it takes more text to do the same thing and those bad habits start here so Lance attacks a human being with a fully evolved Dragon are we the baddies and we descend into the rocket Hideout one work around to the alarm system later and we're at the bottom level we need two passwords to open the door to the executive's office to get the real password for the generator and then we destroy the electrode if I'm breezing through this it's because it's really not that interesting so the mahogany gym is themed around ice and the puzzle is a sliding ice puzzle basically you have to

40:22 find the one roundabout route that takes you to the GM leader going through as many trainer as possible so thanks for that game freak I mentioned before about the endurance inherent to Dungeons and I feel mahogany JY manages to get this Vibe down better than most because it's actually a pain in the ass to get back out and back in again so going back to the Pokémon Center to heal is at least somewhat discouraged anyway time for Price his first Pokemon is Seal which is actually a water type so eat leaves and then comes dugong another water type so more leaves price you're getting your ass kicked by the type you're supposed to be good against step it up old man he sends out pile of swine and I B it with a couple of flamethrowers no big deal no Lily Orchard bimbo moments today seventh badge of oh [ __ ] oh that means I have to so Team Rocket is broadcasting a message on public radio demanding that Giovani come back come on baby it'll be different this time so I arrived at the rocket Tower to find that it was

41:09 infested with Team Rocket oh no and they've taken the boss of the radio tower hostage oh no and hit him in the basement of the mall behind a lock door in a button puzzle oh no wait the mall has that why like forget Team Rocket who the [ __ ] put a button combination puzzle on the loading zone of a mall do you hate Dock Workers that much what amaz on Warehouse [ __ ] is this okay so once you get the radio manager out you have to go back through the lock gate to his office to beat up the executive all of this takes place amidst an hour of tedious battles with the same grunts who all have the same Pokemon and [ __ ] kill me now Team Rocket was fun in the last game but as I mentioned before they're so pathetic and sad and in denial I almost feel bad for fighting them and the fact that every fight is a dull SLO only makes fighting them worse

41:54 I don't just feel bad for them I resent them for being so in denial that they're getting in the way of the game which in a sick and twisted way is pretty dark storytelling but it's Pokémon I don't want to beat up people who are clearly depressed this is the same problem World of Warcraft had recently I don't want to beat up someone who doesn't deserve it anyway in return for all that you're given the clear Bell an item that lets you encounter suun in Tin Tower could I have a real reward please okay so there's one more thing to do before I get the last badge that's unique to Crystal you need to go to Tim Tower and have a scripted encounter with the Box legendary oh boy I sure hope they don't overuse this plot point in literally every single game after this that it really suck oh but you can't just go through no that would be simple instead you need to battle the three sages before they will let you through anyway I crushed them and shattered their faith and went on to the dogs two of them ran away and suun challenged me and I killed

42:40 it because Legos are boring no really I don't think I've actually caught a non-mandatory legendary in a long time youen or however you pronounce it Gamers at me about how great and special suun is and now we can go between mahogany town and black Thorne city is ice path a dungeon filled with movement puzzles I actually think ice path is one of the more interesting Dungeons and not just because it has unique tile set in Crystal but because the strength and movement puzzles are a lot more interesting than just push Boulder onto button furthermore it follows my thing about good dungeon design because there's so much of movement and puzzle solving there are virtually no trainers here harassing you and getting in your way and while Pokemon encounters don't happen on the ice tiles this means 100% of your focus is spent on navigating the terrain it really does feel like a dangerous cave you need to be careful in making it to Blackthorn City I made a beline straight for the gym Blackthorn uses dragon types of which there are only about four in the game Dratini

43:25 Dragon Aire Dragonite and KRA they're also supplemented with horsey and cedra as well as you can see not many Gen 2 Pokémon this is a complaint of Gen 2 is a hole in that half the new roster has to take a backseat especially where gyms are concerned the fight with CLA starts with dragon air but she paralyzes Butterfree and then gets in a crit slant what the hell fine Golem's got this don't worry Butterfree I still love you but then she pulls out a second dragon air who freezes my Golem you're just being mean at this point so I brought out Mantine and looking at his move set can you guess which move I decided to use against the dragon type Pokémon that's right it was surf it's all right I W anyway no harm done and then there's a a third dragon air you have three why do you have three fine Ice Beam this one [Music]

44:12 to whatever Iron Tail I don't like this gym CLA sends out KRA who is super bulky and gets hooked up to an ivy full of hyper potions which means I lost I really don't like this gym tried it again made better decisions and manag to win but but Claire won't give me the badge because she thinks I'm still not ready for the Pokémon League says I have to talk to the dragon elders and take a little U quiz they made before she'll give it to me I really don't like this gym the dragon [Music] Den get it off get it off oh this music's going to be the end of me the Game Boy speaker really struggles with some tracks in this oh this is torture I actually always wonder what would happen if you got any any of

44:58 the questions wrong but it turns out he just says huh didn't catch that and makes you answer again and the only penalty is that the Dratini you get doesn't have extreme speed oh no if only I like Dragonite and wasn't quite so good at alienating people you [ __ ] heard me old man eventually I gave up my stubborn insistance on being difficult and gave him the answers he wanted to hear and then he lectured his granddaughter to give me the badge eighth badge acquired well that was an ordeal and a half crazy thing this time Victory Road is actually a road most of the route is an Overworld area with the only major cave being mercifully short you have to try travel to Kanto along this winding route through Mount Silver that culminates in a small tunnel with ah crap I have to have one more fight with Kyle Ron who I'm realizing just a little bit too late that I should have named Hunter I bully him and he just doubles down whatever I didn't like you anyway the Gen 2 Elite 4 is slightly different this time around we have will

45:43 Koga Karen and the one we don't talk about using psychic poison dark and fighting Will's up first and thankfully psychic types still have the same fatal flaw in this gen that they had in gen one of being vulnerable to physical attacks even better will has two zatu who are weak to rock so Golem's on point here but his executive got off a cheeky little reflect the [ __ ] but his Pokemon are also weak to fire so we're all good I caught slow bro in an encore trap and then crunched his special defense before blasting him with Razer Leaf his last zatu caught me at a really bad string of confusion but luckily for me Meganium is bulky as crap probably noticing that this time around my Pokemon are a lot more bulky and defensive this is because Gen 2 is extremely stingy with Pokemon XP and moves and so high defense is the most reliable strategy to get through painlessly unless you're just spamming tyion it's also why I kept Togepi and why I got both Chikorita and Geodude going into Koga his Pokémon are mostly

46:29 poison and bug I thought this would mean I'd need Butterfree and togga tick since they have psychic moves but Golem just swept the competition so now I'm going into deleno Bruno namely Butterfree on point to humiliate him the same way I did last time psychic and solar beam I may have hit a solar beam where I meant to psychic but it's all good at least until Machamp got off that cheeky Little Rock slide Butterfree will have her Vengeance it's okay I have an extra moving on to Karen I have a fighting type so I tried just spamming submission to come out on top but sadly the reality of what submission means meant that wasn't going to work but it's fine toen Tak and Golem picked up the slack onto Lance my second least favorite champion this fight can either be really hard or really easy depending on how you've played so far the thing is that Lance is a dragon Master but his Pokemon are more dragon in Vibe than in type he has three Dragonite who all have different Elemental mov for coverage a Gyarados an

47:15 Aerodactyl and a Charizard this obviously means you can't ice your way to Victory it doesn't work pause for effect instead you have to rock your way to Victory because all of his Pokémon are weak to rock type attacks I'm serious all of them and your only threat is Blizzard from one Dragonite once it's out of the picture you're in the clear little bit anticlimactic now that I think about it yeah so um I'm going to be honest here I'm not a fan while it is ultimately gen one but with more stuff Gen 2 was completely hamstrung by its extremely stingy offerings of Pokémon all the fun Pokemon are locked away in the post game that's not where they should be they should be here in the main game that's how the last one worked that's how every gen works it makes absolutely no sense to make a 100 new Pokémon and then take all the cool ones and seal them off in the post game

48:02 follow me on this in generation one how many Pokémon are in Cerulean cave that you can't acquire anywhere else in the game one Mewtwo that's it that's the only one arguably more Kanto Pokémon should have been locked to Kanto with more jotto Pokemon being a jotto in all three Gen 2 games Hound hour can only be found on Route 7 in Kanto that's it this is a jotto Pokemon why isn't he in jotto this is also the case for Larvitar merro and M dous it wouldn't be until the REM where this was alleviated with the return of the Safari Zone but in the original games you get this very stingy amount of Pokémon to play with for arguably no reason other than making them into trophy mons this is a problem that no Pokemon game has ever repeated you can still catch the really cool and interesting Pokemon of each generation before the midpoint of the game gen 3

48:48 does not arbitrarily withhold slacking bril Lum or gardivoir from you if you want them they're right there this is an

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