Funny enough. I always assumed Pikachu is so over-leveled due to trying to keep it on par with the rest of Red's team, due to its lower base stats. But having a super high level lead be a warning for the fight to come is also a clever use of it. Especially since said stats of the Pikachu will still balance its level closer to the rest of the team in actual pratice.
Well it does also aim to help compensate. After all, there's only so much a Pikachu can realistically contribute prior to Light Ball's existence. However, the point would still stand. Regardless of whoever gets sent out first, that Pokemon would display a huge level 80+ label, informing the player of how the rest of the team will be like
@@GoldenOwl_GameActually the light ball did exist gen 2. I'm pretty sure if you trade the pokemon yellow pikachu to gen 2 with the time machine it is holding the light ball.
@@sheepwithshadesgaming4717 it is when it’s only options to hit electric resist are iron tail ( inaccurate commonly used electric resist resist iron tail as well anyway like ampharos or quagsire) or quick attack.
I rationalized Espeon being in Red's team as a way of the game telling you that, just like you did, Red had visited (and mastered) both regions as well.
I think it’s important to note that Snorlax has the number 1 viability position in GSC competitive play, both in OU and in Ubers. Game Freak couldn’t have known for Gold and Silver, but the only concession Snorlax makes is an unoptimized move set. Which I am glad for, because an optimized Snorlax would have been truly horrifying to face.
21:15 Red in Let's Go takes advantage of the stat candy/AV system that the game has where any stat can be given an upwards of +200 boost meaning that base stats matter much less. In this context Special moves on a Machamp make much more sense. Also in Let's Go Mega Drain was buffed to be 75 BP basically being Giga Drain in the game.
Thank you! This comment needs more attention! He also points out that his Let's Go team doesn't use items, even though held items don't exist in those games...
You know what would have been cool? If Red, Blue, Gold, Silver, and Crystal had come out in the DS era, they could have had save data linking, like B2W2 had with BW. How cool would it have been if, when you went to fight Red in Gen 2, he had your Gen 1 Champion Team? Prolly with boosted levels. It’d be less cool for the kids who just bulldozed everything with their Starter, and kept a bunch of HM Slaves in reserve
It's also worth noting that Red's Pikachu has the same moves as Ash's Pikachu back then, and it's the only source of lightning ball unless you want to try your luck with a wild Pikachu. That's pretty neat too!
I mean, they don't even need to "break the rules" of the game to give us a decent superboss battle, they could just implement that friendship thing with them. That would certainly make the fight not only difficult, but perhaps even unfair, which would be worthy of a superboss battle if you ask me.
@@creature6715a Pokémon with maxed friendship has, if owned by the player, a 20% chance to survive a knockout, and a 20% chance to heal its status condition at the end of a turn. Any enemy that targets it has 10% deducted from any moves it has that aren’t guaranteed to hit. It also doubles the crit rate
The Red battle is something that I don't care for on paper, but the first time experience of battling yourself is so iconic and memorable that I can't argue with it. I've always had issues with Johto's level curve (originals and remakes) but despite that the memory of the first time I reached the summit of Mt. Silver and realized who I was looking at is up there with some of my most cherished gaming memories.
Professor Sycamore is gonna be a 1v5 horde battle where he has 5 Complete Form Zygardes. I know that doesn't make sense in the lore yet but I'm sure they'll find a way.
You didn't mention it, but Red *does* have a way to compensate in B2W2. Red's Pokémon have the most IVs of any trainer at a perfect 31. That technically means he has more and/or better stats than any other trainer. On top of that, he has no set lead, which is the last thing you want to deal with in the tournament. Blue shares that distinction too, but has fewer IVs because his team is well... better than Red's. They are the two fights you don't want to get due to the extra randomness factor compared to everyone else.
I don't know if this was the main point of the video, but I find it interesting that one of the points you made is that newer game design/quality of life improvements isn't necessarily better design, but different design. Everything has it's drawbacks even when common wisdom assumes that change is good for video games, when with other mediums change is seen as "different." It's a very interesting art form, and I don't even know if you agree with what I'm saying, but as a person who is young but plays classic games, I find that calling quality of life improvements "only positive" is misguided and somewhat disrespectful to old game designers. Although I don't think that people can handle your "hot takes" like with the Persona 5 UI video.
i gotta agree! i like how he puts things, not talking down changes in the series, just noting that they're different. i struggle immensely trying to play classic games, the QOL improvements are essential to my enjoyment, but that doesn't make older games "worse".
Game design in old games is fascinating for this exact reason. It’s designing around limitations that existed at the time, but it still tries to achieve whatever the creator intends as their intended outcome Newer games have different design goals because the nature of the target audience has changed significantly. The intended outcomes are now different because gamers are different than they were in the past. And these gamers demand a new type of game experience as a result
@@tinycatfriend I totally agree. I'm completely fine with people having preferences, and I think there is value to those changes. Sometimes I don't like when a game is very cumbersome to play, but I think that has more to do with how it's implemented rather than it being implemented at all. I just don't like when people make their preferences out to be what is and isn't good game design. For example I don't think it's fair to disregard an old RPG for having limited inventory as a "limitation of game design" when it just seems to be just challenging game design to actually chose what items to keep, and what to disregard. Now, it is completely fine to think that it is poorly implemented and makes the game unnecessarily challenging, but I don't like the idea that it's just "outdated game mechanics." That is more what I'm referring to as an issue I have with a lot of people praising remasters for "fixing" problems that aren't really problems with the limitations, but problems with the game design. Anyway, I don't want you to feel guilty for not enjoying classic games.
@@GoldenOwl_Game totally agree that expectations and preferences are what has changed with gaming. That's why I get frustrated when people say "you're just nostalgic, and that's why you like the games" when it is more you just prefer different styles of game design. And I'm playing these games for the first time, so I'm not really nostalgic, I just like the design. Now that's not to say I don't enjoy new games, there's plenty I love. I just love how different experience exist depending on what era of games you play.
@@thomasffrench3639 thank you! i completely agree, whenever i try out an old game i try to put those strange choices into perspective. like ocarina of time having an indicator for what the A button does; having buttons work that way was very new, it made a lot of sense! or animal crossing gamecube requiring you to drag a tool into your character's hand; designers thought it'd feel the most natural compared to real life. those aren't technical limitations, they're what made sense at the time. they seem silly now in comparison, but 20+ years will do that to a young medium like this!
Before deciding and starting research for my next video's topic, I'll be giving streaming a try for fun. We'll be playing Pokemon Colosseum, one of the few Pokemon games I've never played before. Should be an experience of many firsts. I'll also be deciding on the next video topic there. I've never done streaming before, so I'm hoping it'll be a fun experience. Link: www.twitch.tv/goldenowl_twitch Stream is planned for tomorrow, 20th March, 11AM (GMT -4). I'll also make an additional announcement post on TH-cam tomorrow morning when I start it up. I also intend to make a proper edit of my Pokemon Colosseum playthrough to post on TH-cam in future after it's finished.
You mentioned Whitney's Miltank being difficult. [ W H Y ? ] [ W H Y D O E S E V E R Y O N E ] [ M I S S T H E T R A D A B L E F E M A L E M A C H O P ? ] [ W I T H T H E D A Y C A R E C E N T E R ] [ R I G H T N E A R B Y ? ] Unless that was solely within Crystal, it's been literal decades. Also, in Crystal are the Revival Herbs in Goldenrod's underground. Again, citation needed due to me getting old and my mind going to crud.
I liked the video but the only thing I didn't like was the thumbnail. From a glance it looked like any other pokemon video until I saw the channel name. Mainly because there's no Rowlet in the corner. When I think of your videos or just a reference I think of your Rowlet in the corner.
Could Red's Charizard, Blastoise, and Venusaur be considered his "exclusive superboss mechanic"? There's no way to get the Kanto starters in game, only by trading from the older games. Imagine if Gold and Silver were your very first Pokémon game. You'd get to the final final boss and he would use three pokémon you've never seen before and you don't know what they do.
I have no idea what kind of childhood a kid would have to have in order to grow up with GSC being the first Pokemon game they not only beat, but totally complete in order to fight Red, and NOT have ever heard of the Kanto starters.
Actually this is supposed to be a reference to Pokemon Yellow, where the player can obtain all 3 starters (Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Charmander) through the course of the story.
It really was a shocking twist to not only explore the world you played in during a previous game (which had notably been done in Dragon Quest before), but to have the optional super boss be the player in the previous game. It brought all of your feelings about beating RBY to the fore of your mind, but made those memories ominous, as opposed to wistful. Re-contextualizing the player's own experience that way was a stroke of pure genius.
LOL I remember that as a kid I kind of accidentally cheesed the Red fight in Gold. In the games, you would catch the Box legendary of your chosen version shortly before the E4, and then gain access to the other version's box legendary in the postgame at a much, much higher level- level 70. I had actually failed to capture the level 70 Lugia in the whirl islands a crapload of times, until I entirely accidentally managed to get an ice beam freeze off on it with a random underleveled poliwhirl that was on my team for whirlpool. So when I finally got to the Red fight, despite most of my team being woefully unprepared, I was packing a level 70 flying-psychic legendary. Lugia absolutely CLOWNED on Red, lol.
I believe they changed Espeon to Lapras to make Red’s team more exclusively Kanto. And while HGSS did a good job in buffing the Pokemon movesets, having Hyper Beam really brought the team down. Ironically, I think if Red had Mewtwo instead of Espeon, he could have more closely fit the definition of a super boss, having a Pokemon you literally couldn’t get in the game.
When you mentioned that future super bosses would have to cheat, like the multiple Giratina forms, my first thought was, what if a future game gave red multiple Megas? Or like some combination of gigantamax pikachu and mega charizard/blastoise/venusaur?
It should also be noted that asset reuse also just works with Pokemon. Like, Pokemon HAVE to exist in the games, so nothing has to be created for Pokemon's super bosses, cause they would already exist. And being in a cave means that asset reuse will also just be natural.... cause it's a freaking cave....
Nah, I wouldn’t say asset reuse would *always* be natural. In GSC, yes, because every cave used the exact same tileset, but HGSS went out of its way to also make it the only area in the game (besides Sinjoh Ruins) with traversable snow, with new sprites for snowy trees, rocks, and terrain-plus the blizzard effect at the summit. Pokémon games as of late have also been trying to break established traditions these past few gens, as cases like Eternamax Eternatus and Team Star’s Starmobiles are bosses that are completely unobtainable to the player, and only serve as unique challenges to overcome and nothing more.
Didn’t play the original GSC but I did start with fire red in the late 2000’s a couple years later playing heartgold thinking I had done everything the game had to offer and then accidently stumbling upon red is still probably my favorite gaming experience of all time and the battle met my expectations at the time. I don’t care if he’s easy now I’ll always remember that
An easy way for them to buff it in the future is to give Lapras an absurd mega for Red & Lorelei to share - then only let the player get the mega stone via extremely obtuse means... Making it a surprise upgrade under (what would now be Snow) that you wouldn't know about unless you looked it up prior. Or change Blast Burn, Hydro Cannon, and Frenzy Plant into Gen 1 Hyper Beams for their types rather than Gen 2+ Hyper Beams. Which would not only give half his team nukes but would also make those moves useful in competitive for the first time ever.
I'm a big fan of the second idea. I understand that back in Gen 1 Hyper Beam was ridiculously powerful, but powercreep has seriously caught up anyway, so they could easily bring that mechanic back. Even immersion-wise it makes perfect sense. The Pokémon spends its "recharge turn" resting while the opponent is choosing which other Pokémon to send out. It's not like even in Gen 1 Hyper Beam was an instant option to spam either. If you didn't finish off the opponent with it, the recharge turn could easily make you lose. There was still a risk, even if the potential reward was huge. Normal is a very bad attacking type these days too... I think they could use a little buff. Including the starter exclusive moves is neat as well, but it would unfortunately only benefit the Special Attackers.
@@jaernihiltheus7817 Oh yeah, sorry. I was thinking about battling as a whole, not just buffing Red. To get back on that topic, programming his AI to go for the moves if he sees it would KO and ignore them if they don't wouldn't be that complex either. It would push the player to either face him with a bulky team, or trick his AI into thinking he'll get a KO and have a counter-strategy planned for it.
Between the shallowness of Red's move sets and the enormous advantage stat experience gives the player in GSC, I found Red to be beatable with a team in the mid-40s with the right type-matchups. From what I remember, more grinding was required to beat Red in HGSS because those advantages were no longer available and because they didn't adequately fix the lack of experience.
Seeing Ledian Ice Punch that Venusaur was painful... until I remembered that Gen2 has it run off of Ledian's 55 Base Sp. Atk. rather than its 35 Base Atk.
This was awesome! Between today’s stream and this video, it’s made me realize how much I’d love videos on the Genius Sonority game bosses (especially Mysterial’s Set 8 final match where he uses Kyogre or Groudon). I feel like that demonstrates potentially the final level that Pokemon can reach in boss battles (being to have a team that’s competitively viable, has strong movesets and item choices, the mons synergize well with each other, etc)
One thing to note about Let's Go is Mega Drain was temporarily buffed into Giga Drain, and Giga Drain itself was removed. This only applies to those games as it was reverted immediately after.
15:38 "Red's Pokémon are not that powerful." >Shows Red possessing a Gen 2 Snorlax (Granted, it doesn't have an optimal moveset and Pokémon's AI was always historically bad, but this is still an insane Pokémon to have for a superboss. Even if Red only has it by sheer coincidence.)
No game is without flaw. And the Johto games certainly had many flaws. That said, few games are without merit. And the Johto games indeed have many merits. They did a lot of extremely cool things. It’d be unfair to judge a game without considering everything about it in its entirety
Espeon is a manga tie in, in the Pokemon manga red has an eevee that was experimented on and it could switch between the water/fire/elec forms and in the GSC part of the manga it permanently evolved to espeon
PokeSpe GSC was released mid 2001, Pokemon GS was released late 1999 It's more likely that the manga was written based on the game than the game being made according to an adjacent media that won't come out until nearly two years later
If Indigo Disc is anything to go off, Gamefreak may be realizing they have to challenge the player by means of using Double Battles to make full use of the available Pokemon. Kieran's team is even built like something you would see at a tournament with staple support mons and decent depth. Hopefully going forward, the Pokemon League recognizes double battles as the official format so at least all gym leaders/trainers, e4 members, and champions will be fought in double battles.
My favorite superboss in gaming has got to be Professor Nebilim in Tales of the Abyss. Like the other Tales of superbosses, defeating her unlocks the true potential of the Devil Arms, a weapon set that have the potential to be the best weapons in the game, despite there being no other challenge as difficult as she is in the game. But there's a secret reward to defeating her. During the fight, you can use specific artes which, if you engaged a game mechanic correctly during your playthrough, can steal items from her. One such item is something you can carryover into a New Game +. This means that the prize to defeating her is something useful in future playthroughs, however to get it you actually have to use the stealing artes until you manage to steal it, thus making the fight even harder than it already was. IMO great superboss design.
From my experience, in GSC you get to Red with a level 48 team, and you need to grind them to 55 to win. Mt Silver acttually has a lot of level 50+ pokemon in the wild so this shouldn't take too much time. Steven in Emerald is more grindy, if anything. Or even elite 4 rematches like in frlg.
Awesome video as per usual. Lapras getting subbed in for Espeon most likely has to do with the fact that you could pretty easily miss Eevee in the original games. Lapras is a gift pokemon from a Silph Co. employee that's standing in the same room as the rival fight, where as Eevee you needed to find the back door to the large building in Celadon City. As for superbosses in pokemon, I actually think there's a pretty easy design decision in this aspect, especially when considering someone like Red or other previous player characters: bring back older mechanics. Because Red's pokemon are fan favorites and get extra attention each time a new gimmick is brought out, he's got plenty of choices of mechanics that could be brought back. Just taking his HGSS team, you have Mega Venasaur, Mega Blastoise, Charizard X, GMax Snorlax, and Pikachu with his Z-Move.
I wonder... if Ethan, Lyra, and/or Kris were post game bosses, I wonder what their teams would be. Probably something like the Johto Starters, Ampharos, Togekiss, and either Sudowoodo, Espeon, or Umbreon 18:58 I have taken advantage of the ability to do rematches against trainers outside the gym leaders in HGSS. It's a good way to grind. Helped with the Elite Four prior to post game Given how Unova was a soft reboot, they really should've had Hilbert and/or Hilda as bosses in the post game of Black and White 2. What with Hilbert and Hilda having unused lines.
Red's team is my team in every game it's possible to get it, because I cosplay Red. So the Quiz about Red's team is free for me, I just remember my team.
Instead of espeon red should've been given Mewtwo. This could be rationalize as him having taken the time to find and put together all the clues of Mewtwo's existence and actually finding and capturing him just like most dedicated generation one players did.
12:05 Something I want to add on is that Red does not have access to EV's/Stat XP like the player does. If Red was the same level as the player, the player would likely be numerically stronger than Red on top of the whole human intelligence deal.
I didn’t think much of the EV system when making this video because it didn’t exactly matter much. At the end of the day, they were just more stats, albeit not obtained via levels. So I felt it didn’t add much to mention it
One time I was doing a Nuzlocke of Crystal. It was a real decision point whether to add another 4-5 hours just for grinding or just count Blue as completion.
You laid out why Red would have each of his Pokemon (mascot, starters, and free or guaranteed Pokemon), but that's from a Red and Blue perspective. If you instead look at Red as the protagonist of YELLOW, ALL of his Pokemon are either guaranteed encounters (Pikachu and Snorlax) or free Pokemon (Eevee/Lapras are optional but free pickups and there are NPCs in Yellow that give you a free Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle).
Gen 2 snorlax as a reasonable opponent? With that moveset it's passable but Snorlax bent competitive around it in GSC. That thing could go toe to toe with the legendaries of that gen. Mewtwo struggled to deal with it and straight up couldn't if it got a couple of curses up.
I was referring to Red's Snorlax specifically. It's moveset was so lackluster that it went from being one of the best Pokemon of that generation to merely "acceptable" for a superboss With only Normal moves and nothing else, it was moreso a DPS check than anything
Red in Stadium 2 would often use an Espeon to set Reflect, then switch to a Snorlax. That way you couldn’t lead with either of the two good fighting pokemon at the time (Heracross and Machamp) and Snorlax had it’s single weakness covered very well.
I think another reason that Red's levels were so high in Gen. II was because the player's Pokemon would most likely have their stat experience maxed out (or at least close to it) by that point in the game. Red's Pokemon don't have any stat experience programmed in (none of the NPC Trainers do), so the player's team would more than likely have stats much higher than Red's team would have if they were around the same level the player was expected to be at by that point, and Game Freak decided to fix that by boosting Red's Pokemon's levels until their stats were high enough to pose a real challenge.
As someone who knew no strategy, I went in against Red with my Swampert and Typholsion and somehow item abused my way to victory, but man did only having 2 battle viable pokemon sting hard. Even if I won barely, I understood I needed an actual team. And it's why my Swampert could never beat the Hoenn elite four (it could just no PP left to do it with before you keysmash)
My experience? Oh boy... - I open up with a pokemon I thought to be immune to electric moves; - Volt Tackle OHKO's it. No level creep will ever overwrite this memory.
Tbh my first impression with red around 14 years ago was that his team was based on Ash's. I never knew his exact team as it changes a bunch, but his highest level ace being Pikachu with volt tackle stood out. I don't know if Ash ever had all 3 starters but I knew he's had a lot over the years, then I just assumed he could've owned a snorlax and lapras at some point. This was so long ago where I hardly watched the anime if at all so most of it was assumptions. But the Pikachu with volt tackle and the charizard jus stood out so much that I definitely assumed the rest was based on Ash, especially since on a meta level they are connected since Ash in the anime is meant to be an anime counter part of Red, just like how his design changes each generation to reflect the playable character's outfit in that generation
(gen 2) my thing is that u could just grind until u reach his levels. however, hes there to test ur team comp and ur knowledge on type match ups. i beat him first try in silver or gold (i bought the version with donphan in it before the eshop closed) due to me knowing my type matchups and wat his pokemons types themselves. and i see why its a beloved fight. no, i havent played any main series pokemon game till gen 4 when i was a kid.
On a side note, a bit off-topic from Pokemon, but on the topic of superbosses. My next memorable encounter with a superboss after Red was that , to my feeling, unfair boss, at the end of Dragon Quest VIII. Looong after you end the game, there is a new part of the map available and at the end, there is that boss that you have to kill many many times in a row without rest to win it. Never managed it cause i had to grind so much XD
As an aside, I wanted to bring up that Nemona and Kieran are actually tied in terms of levels. However, they're actually both exceeded by Director Cyrano, who has mostly the same levels, but two of his Pokémon have a higher level. Making Cyrano the highest level trainer in the series.
When I did my noevorun of Crystal. I had a plan for Red. Go at him at level 80 pokemon. The team I had was Wooper,Cyndaquil, Hoothoot,Ekans,Drowzee, and Dratini.
I will say, Red's moveset from GSC kinda gives me in-game playthrough vibes? Like how when you're moving around the game world you're not nessessarily going to have the most perfect team in the world because you gotta have hms and stuff A shame that his moveset doesn't include any of the HM moves the player needs to get around Mt. Silver, it would be a cute attention to detail
It should be noted that also, the 3 Kanto starters on Red's team may also come from Yellow as well THO, Blue's teams in later games not even remotely matching the one he had in Yellow sorta begs to differ I guess (likely based on Green/Red/Blue canon overall instead of Yellow).
9:57 such as Y̶o̶z̶o̶r̶a̶ most Kingdom Hearts super bosses. It’s kind of their thing. It’s probably why a lot of people love KH post game content so much. Those extra bosses tend to feel like an actual test of player skill… at least since KH2. KH1 super bosses can burn in hell though.
Personally, the thing that stuck out to me was the triple starter setup lol the only pokemon i forgot about was the espeon because i didnt remember what he evolved his eevee into
I haven't played a new Pokemon game since gen 5 but there was definitely still room to improve superbosses in Pokemon after HGSS Red. Most obviously, his team only has one held item between the six of them. Based on what I see on Bulbapedia, it looks like they've improved on that front in the more recent games. Maybe now the only other thing to do now is improve the AI of elite trainers.
Red is a superboss but I consider him to be the real final boss of the Johto games, not Lance. A player will most likely reach Blue and Mt. Silver at levels similar to the Elite Four in most Pokémon games. My theory is that Red was designed to be the real endgame champion battle we thought Lance was. I always used the same "overpower all opponents to win" strategy and it never worked unless I got lucky with legendary Pokémon on my team and a massive amount of healing items. Now I understand that the Johto games did not expect the player to level grind their team until they were at the same levels as Red's team. In GSC, all the player has to do is build a team that counters Red. In HGSS, I usually change the weather to Sandstorm by using Tyranitar while I prepare a few other strong sweepers to defeat most of Red's team. Pikachu getting walled by a Steelix that knows Stealth Rock is most likely the intended way to win the battle in the remakes. Stealth Rock hurts the rest of Red's team, especially Charizard, and now the massive level disadvantage is reduced to similar power levels on both sides.
I do gotta say, red's overlevelled pokemon are a bit less scary in crystal at least when you remember stat experience is a thing and trainers don't have it, big thing that makes his team pretty easy to fight with level 60ish mons in gen 2, though in HG/SS stat experience would now be EVs which cap out at a lower amount and aren't all that noticeable if you don't intentionally EV train (unlike stat experience which you're constantly gaining from everything you beat)
I feel if red is in a game he should have 3 teams that use one starter + pikachu per team then add different Pokémon for the rest. For example if you find red in a forest the only starter he’ll use is venasaur. Or if near the ocean, his only starter would be Blastoise and etc.
21:27 - Venusaur has Mega Drain because they decided to not include Giga Drain in Let's Go and instead just temporarily buffed Mega Drain... to the power of Giga Drain. I get it, Giga Drain didn't exist in G1, but neither did Scald nor Stealth Rock! Why they cut Giga Drain from Let's Go is beyond me, it makes absolutely no sense.
Put it this way. I never played a gen 2 game, not even the remakes, and i know Red's team by heart. If that isnt a sign of jow memorable the fight is, idk what is
I think you can make a very challenging team for the vast majority of players. Yes you can even lock them to level 50, just give them good items, good movesets, good IV and EV spreads and lock the players to the 'set,' same as PvP, switch style where you can't easily swap Pokemóns without losing tempo and most of the playerbase won't be able to beat it. Can have for example an extra battle where you fight VGC Champions and their teams at the time and it'll be basically impossible for the majority of the playerbase even with the AI being quite mediocre.
And without interaction with the generation 1 games (or their remakes), the Kanto starters are inaccessible for the player in the generation two games. For Heartgold and Soulsilver, they are accessible after beating Red. But they can be accessed before then if the player uses the pal park to transfer from Firered/Leafgreen once Fuchsia City is accessible or by trading with a Sinnoh game that has the Pal Park unlocked.
I remember that in a interview they mentioned that initially the devs wanted to migrate the Red/Blue/Yellow of a player to use it as the superboss team, but complications made them accept a "iconic team" as a compromise. Somebody has sources in that topic?
You can 100% have a superboss still in pokemon without breaking the rules. Imagine a trainer who ACTUALLY is what they want red to be. The best trainer, with the strongest strategies and teams. In game terms, max level, maxIV/EV's, held items, good moves, and combo strategies. Spike setters/web setters, status stackers, etc. Make them have several teams and the one you fight is random when you fight them. This would prepare you in line with what most players do nowadays with maxed teams, a best vs best trainer, while also forcing players to have to adapt to what the other guy is doing. You swapped in a new pokemon to deal with them? They did for you too. You have trouble with speed glass cannons? You need an answer to those. What about hazards? Have an answer on your team. Basically a total min/max boss from looking at the competitive side of things and bringing that into an actual superboss not meant to be beaten with anything but skill. You can't over level or stat them, because it's the cap, you can't just steamroll them with power moves, they have defensive maneuvers, you can't just status them, they have counters, etc. Not to mention, this could also get players more interested in the game playing against different unique strategies that are there to show the peak of what the game can be. That, would be the new pokemon superboss.
Hallo I completed Heart Gold on the eve, but settled on the block of three dragons, with the difference in the level of my Meganium and Dragonite being as much as 4, because besides it there is also Machok 43rd and Graviler 45th.
Yeah, that Hook superboss at the end of the “Pokemon” event in HSR was almost certainly referencing Red. I never fought Red(I never invested enough time to actually playing the game), but I can understand this line of reasoning.
* Almost * every monster is obtainable. Things like Lance's low level Dragonites and Eternamax Eternatus are unobtainable. Also certain Mythicals dependent on the generation.
Pokémon has allowed you to catch underleveled evolved mons since Gen 1. Pidgeotto in Yellow, Dragonite in BW, Salamence in SM. A lot of people attribute NPCs like Lance and Ghetsis as “cheaters” but I never got why, when players have been able to get similar Pokémon themselves. Sure, underleveled Dragonite were most likely impossible to obtain in Gen 2, but Golden Owl’s point was that you’re able to obtain Dragonite *period.* It’s why he mentions his point at 11:40, where some Pokémon games sidestep this issue by having final bosses use Pokémon you’re not allowed to obtain until post-game-or mons that would be unbearable to level up all the way to their final stage before the post-game. Evolution levels have always been arbitrary in Pokémon. It’s pretty established in-universe that Pokémon can evolve whenever, but it’s only for gameplay and balance purposes that conditions tend to be so strict for us, the players, when it comes to what specific levels certain Pokémon evolve. Hence, Hydreigon at Lv64.
Personally I think Red should have had the pokemon that only he had the opportunity to catch: red and blues legendary pokemon. He's already supposed to be overpowered, why not give him Mewtwo, all three birds, a Snorlax (always thought it was like a semi legendary as a kid) and maybe the R&B starter that your starter is weak to. I get that the Pikachu is there because mascot but it really holds him back.
Loved this one. Very insightful! I’d argue that Red’s team is strictly based on Yellow, though. You get a free Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. The Espeon is the Eevee you can get from Celadon City. Snorlax is just as you mentioned, and the Lapras is the one from Silph Co. Yellow’s the only version where all of this is doable without trading. Another detail I love is the indication that Red’s a legitimately caring trainer who’s close with his Pokémon. Your Eevee can’t evolve into an Espeon unless it has a high friendship value, and the move tutor won’t teach your starters their Hyper Beam variations unless their friendship is maxed out. The devs really wanted to prove Red’s Pokémon love him.
Espeon is a manga tie in, in the Pokemon manga red has an eevee that was experimented on and it could switch between the water/fire/elec forms and in the GSC part of the manga it permanently evolved to espeon
@@NoxLebeau That’s not impossible, but nothing else that I know of points to the manga. He doesn’t have anything else manga-related that isn’t explained by a game connection. There’s no reason to definitively claim it’s a manga reference when the simpler, more likely explanation is that the games are referencing previous games, just like they are for every other detail.
@@trumpeterjen it was the only time GF did a reference like this, gotta remember their thought process was way different 20 years ago, it’s documented that once they hit the RSE era GF stopped worrying about tie ins with the other media also why espeon is only in the gen 2 version
@@NoxLebeau No, you’re just baselessly speculating that that’s the case. As I said, there’s nothing about Red’s team that can’t be explained by game references. It makes more sense that the games would reference other games rather than veer off course randomly for one Pokémon. The evidence for your hypothesis just isn’t there. And Yellow was still relevant because Red’s team in the remakes mirrors the plot and Pokémon encounters of Yellow, exactly like it did in GSC. The only change is Lapras, who’s also readily available in Yellow. Everything matches Yellow.
Wild pokemon bosses are their own thing because the gameplay is just so different for wild battle. Gen 2 has its Mewtwos as well, GS has Lugia and Ho-Oh respectively, Crystal has both.
A good superboss can be made by implementing better AI, randomized pokemon between encounters, and maybe a bit of cheating, but one that can be easily hidden is reading the player's move (and selecting an option that doesn't punish it, but one that does play around it often, as if it predicted that the player's move was a possibility and was slightly cautious against it)
I don't know if you know this, but Snorlax actually is THE BEST Pokemon in Gen 2. Red doesn't have the optimal moves on him, and doesn't have player level skill, but it's still terrifying if you aren't super effective hitting it with something of the same level.
Mewtwo didn't exist in GSC though. In the place of where the cave is the beserk gene existed which is a held item that gives +2 attack and 255 turns of confusion. Not exactly game breaking.
I reckon the superboss of Z-A will be Unbound Hoopa, and he will be constantly dragging legendries that can't be obtained in the game out. Just to piss the player off.
red's team could easily hold up in modern pokemon, gamefreak could just give them illegal stats pikachu has a base stat total of 320, just give red's pikachu 500 or something, problem solved
Don't even need to go that far, just optimizing the move sets and giving them better EVs and held items would be a huge boon to put the team in line with modern end game bosses.
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![How the Elite Four Gaslights every Pokémon player [Game Designer Explains]](/img/tr.png)
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Funny enough. I always assumed Pikachu is so over-leveled due to trying to keep it on par with the rest of Red's team, due to its lower base stats. But having a super high level lead be a warning for the fight to come is also a clever use of it. Especially since said stats of the Pikachu will still balance its level closer to the rest of the team in actual pratice.
Well it does also aim to help compensate. After all, there's only so much a Pikachu can realistically contribute prior to Light Ball's existence.
However, the point would still stand. Regardless of whoever gets sent out first, that Pokemon would display a huge level 80+ label, informing the player of how the rest of the team will be like
Except the whole part where because he leads pikachu red is pretty prone to getting setup swept
@@GoldenOwl_GameActually the light ball did exist gen 2. I'm pretty sure if you trade the pokemon yellow pikachu to gen 2 with the time machine it is holding the light ball.
Just so you know pikachu with light ball has higher attack than mega rayquaza so power wasn’t a issue
@@sheepwithshadesgaming4717 it is when it’s only options to hit electric resist are iron tail ( inaccurate commonly used electric resist resist iron tail as well anyway like ampharos or quagsire) or quick attack.
"Pokemon cant have a boss that no one can use."
Eternamax Eternatus: ~ exists ~
I think my mind has unironically deleted the entirety of SwSh from my memory. I forgot Eternatus was a thing that even existed
it's technically usable in the gacha game
Me: Whatcha got there?
Pokestar Studios: A smoothie.
And the Team Starmobiles too
Don't forget about the starmobiles as well
I rationalized Espeon being in Red's team as a way of the game telling you that, just like you did, Red had visited (and mastered) both regions as well.
I think it’s important to note that Snorlax has the number 1 viability position in GSC competitive play, both in OU and in Ubers. Game Freak couldn’t have known for Gold and Silver, but the only concession Snorlax makes is an unoptimized move set. Which I am glad for, because an optimized Snorlax would have been truly horrifying to face.
21:15 Red in Let's Go takes advantage of the stat candy/AV system that the game has where any stat can be given an upwards of +200 boost meaning that base stats matter much less. In this context Special moves on a Machamp make much more sense. Also in Let's Go Mega Drain was buffed to be 75 BP basically being Giga Drain in the game.
Thank you! This comment needs more attention! He also points out that his Let's Go team doesn't use items, even though held items don't exist in those games...
Pokémon Master Red did not climb Mount Silver.
Mount Silver grew where Pokémon Master Red decided to stand.
Haha, I remember these Chuck Norris style memes about Red.
In lore it also makes sense for red team to be so over leveled due to his status. He was the league champion and left due to wanting to get stronger.
You know what would have been cool? If Red, Blue, Gold, Silver, and Crystal had come out in the DS era, they could have had save data linking, like B2W2 had with BW. How cool would it have been if, when you went to fight Red in Gen 2, he had your Gen 1 Champion Team? Prolly with boosted levels.
It’d be less cool for the kids who just bulldozed everything with their Starter, and kept a bunch of HM Slaves in reserve
@@GloomdrakeIIRC, the devs had thought about that, but I can't recall if it was too tricky to implement or they ran out of time.
It's also worth noting that Red's Pikachu has the same moves as Ash's Pikachu back then, and it's the only source of lightning ball unless you want to try your luck with a wild Pikachu. That's pretty neat too!
Red's Pikachu doesn't have a light ball in gen 2. It does have it in Gen 4
My twice cousin got Light ball from Safari. I trademy Master Ball for it
Finally someone mentions the weird let's go red team. Although the Fire Blast Machamp was certainly cooking.
Do NOT let bro cook (he has 65 special attack and no stab)
@@funninoriginal6054(and no No Guard)
@@furiouscorgi6614 (and no ability, because remember, we are talking about Pokemon Let's Go! P/E)
@@funninoriginal6054Better than Hitmonchan's 35 Sp. Atk. and getting the Elemental Punches anyway.
@shinigamimiroku3723 at least Thunder/Ice Punch can freeze/para and give coverage vs Flying
I mean, they don't even need to "break the rules" of the game to give us a decent superboss battle, they could just implement that friendship thing with them. That would certainly make the fight not only difficult, but perhaps even unfair, which would be worthy of a superboss battle if you ask me.
Friendship effects a single normal type move,
Friendship effects one move, it wouldn't be unfair in the slightest
@@creature6715ever since the Let’s Go games, affection was folded into friendship, so it can now ruin your day if Game Freak ever let it
@@creature6715a Pokémon with maxed friendship has, if owned by the player, a 20% chance to survive a knockout, and a 20% chance to heal its status condition at the end of a turn. Any enemy that targets it has 10% deducted from any moves it has that aren’t guaranteed to hit. It also doubles the crit rate
@@creature6715 he's talking about the affection mechanic, not friendship that is used to evolve Eevee.
The Red battle is something that I don't care for on paper, but the first time experience of battling yourself is so iconic and memorable that I can't argue with it. I've always had issues with Johto's level curve (originals and remakes) but despite that the memory of the first time I reached the summit of Mt. Silver and realized who I was looking at is up there with some of my most cherished gaming memories.
Love the intro gag. When I got to the end kf the Aetheriun Wars quest I was like "Omg, it's Red!"
Professor Sycamore is gonna be a 1v5 horde battle where he has 5 Complete Form Zygardes.
I know that doesn't make sense in the lore yet but I'm sure they'll find a way.
Ah yes, Zygarde 500%. Very Plus Ultra of it
You didn't mention it, but Red *does* have a way to compensate in B2W2. Red's Pokémon have the most IVs of any trainer at a perfect 31. That technically means he has more and/or better stats than any other trainer. On top of that, he has no set lead, which is the last thing you want to deal with in the tournament. Blue shares that distinction too, but has fewer IVs because his team is well... better than Red's.
They are the two fights you don't want to get due to the extra randomness factor compared to everyone else.
I don't know if this was the main point of the video, but I find it interesting that one of the points you made is that newer game design/quality of life improvements isn't necessarily better design, but different design. Everything has it's drawbacks even when common wisdom assumes that change is good for video games, when with other mediums change is seen as "different." It's a very interesting art form, and I don't even know if you agree with what I'm saying, but as a person who is young but plays classic games, I find that calling quality of life improvements "only positive" is misguided and somewhat disrespectful to old game designers. Although I don't think that people can handle your "hot takes" like with the Persona 5 UI video.
i gotta agree! i like how he puts things, not talking down changes in the series, just noting that they're different. i struggle immensely trying to play classic games, the QOL improvements are essential to my enjoyment, but that doesn't make older games "worse".
Game design in old games is fascinating for this exact reason. It’s designing around limitations that existed at the time, but it still tries to achieve whatever the creator intends as their intended outcome
Newer games have different design goals because the nature of the target audience has changed significantly. The intended outcomes are now different because gamers are different than they were in the past. And these gamers demand a new type of game experience as a result
@@tinycatfriend I totally agree. I'm completely fine with people having preferences, and I think there is value to those changes. Sometimes I don't like when a game is very cumbersome to play, but I think that has more to do with how it's implemented rather than it being implemented at all. I just don't like when people make their preferences out to be what is and isn't good game design. For example I don't think it's fair to disregard an old RPG for having limited inventory as a "limitation of game design" when it just seems to be just challenging game design to actually chose what items to keep, and what to disregard. Now, it is completely fine to think that it is poorly implemented and makes the game unnecessarily challenging, but I don't like the idea that it's just "outdated game mechanics." That is more what I'm referring to as an issue I have with a lot of people praising remasters for "fixing" problems that aren't really problems with the limitations, but problems with the game design. Anyway, I don't want you to feel guilty for not enjoying classic games.
@@GoldenOwl_Game totally agree that expectations and preferences are what has changed with gaming. That's why I get frustrated when people say "you're just nostalgic, and that's why you like the games" when it is more you just prefer different styles of game design. And I'm playing these games for the first time, so I'm not really nostalgic, I just like the design. Now that's not to say I don't enjoy new games, there's plenty I love. I just love how different experience exist depending on what era of games you play.
@@thomasffrench3639 thank you! i completely agree, whenever i try out an old game i try to put those strange choices into perspective. like ocarina of time having an indicator for what the A button does; having buttons work that way was very new, it made a lot of sense! or animal crossing gamecube requiring you to drag a tool into your character's hand; designers thought it'd feel the most natural compared to real life. those aren't technical limitations, they're what made sense at the time. they seem silly now in comparison, but 20+ years will do that to a young medium like this!
I think it was really cool when Twitch Played Pokemon did Gen 2, they faced off with the Avatar & custom team from the Gen 1 run.
Poor oak. He could have been our super boss but forgot to raise the starter
Poor Oak was about to be the super boss of Gen 1 only to get scraped.
Before deciding and starting research for my next video's topic, I'll be giving streaming a try for fun. We'll be playing Pokemon Colosseum, one of the few Pokemon games I've never played before. Should be an experience of many firsts. I'll also be deciding on the next video topic there. I've never done streaming before, so I'm hoping it'll be a fun experience. Link: www.twitch.tv/goldenowl_twitch
Stream is planned for tomorrow, 20th March, 11AM (GMT -4). I'll also make an additional announcement post on TH-cam tomorrow morning when I start it up.
I also intend to make a proper edit of my Pokemon Colosseum playthrough to post on TH-cam in future after it's finished.
You mentioned Whitney's Miltank being difficult.
[ W H Y ? ]
[ W H Y D O E S E V E R Y O N E ]
[ M I S S T H E T R A D A B L E F E M A L E M A C H O P ? ]
[ W I T H T H E D A Y C A R E C E N T E R ]
[ R I G H T N E A R B Y ? ]
Unless that was solely within Crystal, it's been literal decades. Also, in Crystal are the Revival Herbs in Goldenrod's underground. Again, citation needed due to me getting old and my mind going to crud.
I liked the video but the only thing I didn't like was the thumbnail. From a glance it looked like any other pokemon video until I saw the channel name. Mainly because there's no Rowlet in the corner. When I think of your videos or just a reference I think of your Rowlet in the corner.
Ayy, the best pokemon game. Hope you enjoy!
Would love to see your thoughts on more fire emblem topics!
@@ShadowsWrath4 Theres already a Miltank video in the channel
Could Red's Charizard, Blastoise, and Venusaur be considered his "exclusive superboss mechanic"? There's no way to get the Kanto starters in game, only by trading from the older games.
Imagine if Gold and Silver were your very first Pokémon game. You'd get to the final final boss and he would use three pokémon you've never seen before and you don't know what they do.
I have no idea what kind of childhood a kid would have to have in order to grow up with GSC being the first Pokemon game they not only beat, but totally complete in order to fight Red, and NOT have ever heard of the Kanto starters.
Actually this is supposed to be a reference to Pokemon Yellow, where the player can obtain all 3 starters (Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Charmander) through the course of the story.
You can get all three kanto starters in yellow
Some other NPC trainers use those Pokémon too though. Lance with Charizard for example.
It really was a shocking twist to not only explore the world you played in during a previous game (which had notably been done in Dragon Quest before), but to have the optional super boss be the player in the previous game. It brought all of your feelings about beating RBY to the fore of your mind, but made those memories ominous, as opposed to wistful. Re-contextualizing the player's own experience that way was a stroke of pure genius.
LOL I remember that as a kid I kind of accidentally cheesed the Red fight in Gold. In the games, you would catch the Box legendary of your chosen version shortly before the E4, and then gain access to the other version's box legendary in the postgame at a much, much higher level- level 70. I had actually failed to capture the level 70 Lugia in the whirl islands a crapload of times, until I entirely accidentally managed to get an ice beam freeze off on it with a random underleveled poliwhirl that was on my team for whirlpool. So when I finally got to the Red fight, despite most of my team being woefully unprepared, I was packing a level 70 flying-psychic legendary. Lugia absolutely CLOWNED on Red, lol.
This was the coolest battle as a kid
I believe they changed Espeon to Lapras to make Red’s team more exclusively Kanto. And while HGSS did a good job in buffing the Pokemon movesets, having Hyper Beam really brought the team down.
Ironically, I think if Red had Mewtwo instead of Espeon, he could have more closely fit the definition of a super boss, having a Pokemon you literally couldn’t get in the game.
When you mentioned that future super bosses would have to cheat, like the multiple Giratina forms, my first thought was, what if a future game gave red multiple Megas? Or like some combination of gigantamax pikachu and mega charizard/blastoise/venusaur?
It should also be noted that asset reuse also just works with Pokemon. Like, Pokemon HAVE to exist in the games, so nothing has to be created for Pokemon's super bosses, cause they would already exist.
And being in a cave means that asset reuse will also just be natural.... cause it's a freaking cave....
Nah, I wouldn’t say asset reuse would *always* be natural. In GSC, yes, because every cave used the exact same tileset, but HGSS went out of its way to also make it the only area in the game (besides Sinjoh Ruins) with traversable snow, with new sprites for snowy trees, rocks, and terrain-plus the blizzard effect at the summit.
Pokémon games as of late have also been trying to break established traditions these past few gens, as cases like Eternamax Eternatus and Team Star’s Starmobiles are bosses that are completely unobtainable to the player, and only serve as unique challenges to overcome and nothing more.
@@komarunaegi7460 Even those actually reuse many assets...
Doesn't mean they don't add anything unique as well....
Didn’t play the original GSC but I did start with fire red in the late 2000’s a couple years later playing heartgold thinking I had done everything the game had to offer and then accidently stumbling upon red is still probably my favorite gaming experience of all time and the battle met my expectations at the time. I don’t care if he’s easy now I’ll always remember that
Man, I love your editing
Thank you. I do far too much of it…
An easy way for them to buff it in the future is to give Lapras an absurd mega for Red & Lorelei to share - then only let the player get the mega stone via extremely obtuse means... Making it a surprise upgrade under (what would now be Snow) that you wouldn't know about unless you looked it up prior.
Or change Blast Burn, Hydro Cannon, and Frenzy Plant into Gen 1 Hyper Beams for their types rather than Gen 2+ Hyper Beams. Which would not only give half his team nukes but would also make those moves useful in competitive for the first time ever.
I'm a big fan of the second idea. I understand that back in Gen 1 Hyper Beam was ridiculously powerful, but powercreep has seriously caught up anyway, so they could easily bring that mechanic back. Even immersion-wise it makes perfect sense. The Pokémon spends its "recharge turn" resting while the opponent is choosing which other Pokémon to send out.
It's not like even in Gen 1 Hyper Beam was an instant option to spam either. If you didn't finish off the opponent with it, the recharge turn could easily make you lose. There was still a risk, even if the potential reward was huge.
Normal is a very bad attacking type these days too... I think they could use a little buff.
Including the starter exclusive moves is neat as well, but it would unfortunately only benefit the Special Attackers.
@@LonesomeDevil luckily - all kanto starters are special attackers
@@jaernihiltheus7817 Oh yeah, sorry. I was thinking about battling as a whole, not just buffing Red.
To get back on that topic, programming his AI to go for the moves if he sees it would KO and ignore them if they don't wouldn't be that complex either. It would push the player to either face him with a bulky team, or trick his AI into thinking he'll get a KO and have a counter-strategy planned for it.
Between the shallowness of Red's move sets and the enormous advantage stat experience gives the player in GSC, I found Red to be beatable with a team in the mid-40s with the right type-matchups. From what I remember, more grinding was required to beat Red in HGSS because those advantages were no longer available and because they didn't adequately fix the lack of experience.
Seeing Ledian Ice Punch that Venusaur was painful... until I remembered that Gen2 has it run off of Ledian's 55 Base Sp. Atk. rather than its 35 Base Atk.
This was awesome! Between today’s stream and this video, it’s made me realize how much I’d love videos on the Genius Sonority game bosses (especially Mysterial’s Set 8 final match where he uses Kyogre or Groudon). I feel like that demonstrates potentially the final level that Pokemon can reach in boss battles (being to have a team that’s competitively viable, has strong movesets and item choices, the mons synergize well with each other, etc)
One thing to note about Let's Go is Mega Drain was temporarily buffed into Giga Drain, and Giga Drain itself was removed. This only applies to those games as it was reverted immediately after.
As someone that hasn't played past Gen 3, finally something I can understand
15:38 "Red's Pokémon are not that powerful."
>Shows Red possessing a Gen 2 Snorlax
(Granted, it doesn't have an optimal moveset and Pokémon's AI was always historically bad, but this is still an insane Pokémon to have for a superboss. Even if Red only has it by sheer coincidence.)
Love the Ghost Trick sound effects.
Oh, and Apollo Justice? Fire.
There has been a lot of (unfair) slander of the gen 2 games on youtube recently, so the last few sentences of this video were nice to hear.
No game is without flaw. And the Johto games certainly had many flaws.
That said, few games are without merit. And the Johto games indeed have many merits. They did a lot of extremely cool things.
It’d be unfair to judge a game without considering everything about it in its entirety
Espeon is a manga tie in, in the Pokemon manga red has an eevee that was experimented on and it could switch between the water/fire/elec forms and in the GSC part of the manga it permanently evolved to espeon
PokeSpe GSC was released mid 2001, Pokemon GS was released late 1999
It's more likely that the manga was written based on the game than the game being made according to an adjacent media that won't come out until nearly two years later
@@ZenoDLC True. It's the Manga that's always written based on the games than vice versa.
15:10 or because of the permanent hail during the HGSS fight, so they wanted a pokemon that could exploit that
If Indigo Disc is anything to go off, Gamefreak may be realizing they have to challenge the player by means of using Double Battles to make full use of the available Pokemon. Kieran's team is even built like something you would see at a tournament with staple support mons and decent depth. Hopefully going forward, the Pokemon League recognizes double battles as the official format so at least all gym leaders/trainers, e4 members, and champions will be fought in double battles.
My favorite superboss in gaming has got to be Professor Nebilim in Tales of the Abyss. Like the other Tales of superbosses, defeating her unlocks the true potential of the Devil Arms, a weapon set that have the potential to be the best weapons in the game, despite there being no other challenge as difficult as she is in the game. But there's a secret reward to defeating her. During the fight, you can use specific artes which, if you engaged a game mechanic correctly during your playthrough, can steal items from her. One such item is something you can carryover into a New Game +. This means that the prize to defeating her is something useful in future playthroughs, however to get it you actually have to use the stealing artes until you manage to steal it, thus making the fight even harder than it already was. IMO great superboss design.
Pokemon is one of many competition games. Logical is in the end to meet something what is very best, like no one ever was.
From my experience, in GSC you get to Red with a level 48 team, and you need to grind them to 55 to win. Mt Silver acttually has a lot of level 50+ pokemon in the wild so this shouldn't take too much time. Steven in Emerald is more grindy, if anything. Or even elite 4 rematches like in frlg.
Awesome video as per usual.
Lapras getting subbed in for Espeon most likely has to do with the fact that you could pretty easily miss Eevee in the original games. Lapras is a gift pokemon from a Silph Co. employee that's standing in the same room as the rival fight, where as Eevee you needed to find the back door to the large building in Celadon City.
As for superbosses in pokemon, I actually think there's a pretty easy design decision in this aspect, especially when considering someone like Red or other previous player characters: bring back older mechanics. Because Red's pokemon are fan favorites and get extra attention each time a new gimmick is brought out, he's got plenty of choices of mechanics that could be brought back. Just taking his HGSS team, you have Mega Venasaur, Mega Blastoise, Charizard X, GMax Snorlax, and Pikachu with his Z-Move.
I wonder... if Ethan, Lyra, and/or Kris were post game bosses, I wonder what their teams would be. Probably something like the Johto Starters, Ampharos, Togekiss, and either Sudowoodo, Espeon, or Umbreon
18:58 I have taken advantage of the ability to do rematches against trainers outside the gym leaders in HGSS. It's a good way to grind. Helped with the Elite Four prior to post game
Given how Unova was a soft reboot, they really should've had Hilbert and/or Hilda as bosses in the post game of Black and White 2. What with Hilbert and Hilda having unused lines.
For Ethan/Lyra I would go with Johto starters, Togekiss, Gyarados, and Dragonite for their team
Red's team is my team in every game it's possible to get it, because I cosplay Red.
So the Quiz about Red's team is free for me, I just remember my team.
Instead of espeon red should've been given Mewtwo. This could be rationalize as him having taken the time to find and put together all the clues of Mewtwo's existence and actually finding and capturing him just like most dedicated generation one players did.
12:05 Something I want to add on is that Red does not have access to EV's/Stat XP like the player does. If Red was the same level as the player, the player would likely be numerically stronger than Red on top of the whole human intelligence deal.
I didn’t think much of the EV system when making this video because it didn’t exactly matter much. At the end of the day, they were just more stats, albeit not obtained via levels. So I felt it didn’t add much to mention it
One time I was doing a Nuzlocke of Crystal. It was a real decision point whether to add another 4-5 hours just for grinding or just count Blue as completion.
You laid out why Red would have each of his Pokemon (mascot, starters, and free or guaranteed Pokemon), but that's from a Red and Blue perspective. If you instead look at Red as the protagonist of YELLOW, ALL of his Pokemon are either guaranteed encounters (Pikachu and Snorlax) or free Pokemon (Eevee/Lapras are optional but free pickups and there are NPCs in Yellow that give you a free Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle).
I think we can all agree that the best part of red is his theme holy fuck
They should’ve coded a special in-game script where the Pikachu had all of its stats raised upon entry and they should’ve made it his final Pokemon.
Gen 2 snorlax as a reasonable opponent? With that moveset it's passable but Snorlax bent competitive around it in GSC. That thing could go toe to toe with the legendaries of that gen. Mewtwo struggled to deal with it and straight up couldn't if it got a couple of curses up.
very much this, literally the best mon in the game
I was referring to Red's Snorlax specifically. It's moveset was so lackluster that it went from being one of the best Pokemon of that generation to merely "acceptable" for a superboss
With only Normal moves and nothing else, it was moreso a DPS check than anything
Red in Stadium 2 would often use an Espeon to set Reflect, then switch to a Snorlax. That way you couldn’t lead with either of the two good fighting pokemon at the time (Heracross and Machamp) and Snorlax had it’s single weakness covered very well.
@@amurmurmur609also has 3 legendaries dogs
I think another reason that Red's levels were so high in Gen. II was because the player's Pokemon would most likely have their stat experience maxed out (or at least close to it) by that point in the game. Red's Pokemon don't have any stat experience programmed in (none of the NPC Trainers do), so the player's team would more than likely have stats much higher than Red's team would have if they were around the same level the player was expected to be at by that point, and Game Freak decided to fix that by boosting Red's Pokemon's levels until their stats were high enough to pose a real challenge.
NOT THE HONKAI STAR RAIL REFERENCE LMAO
As someone who knew no strategy, I went in against Red with my Swampert and Typholsion and somehow item abused my way to victory, but man did only having 2 battle viable pokemon sting hard.
Even if I won barely, I understood I needed an actual team.
And it's why my Swampert could never beat the Hoenn elite four (it could just no PP left to do it with before you keysmash)
My experience? Oh boy...
- I open up with a pokemon I thought to be immune to electric moves;
- Volt Tackle OHKO's it.
No level creep will ever overwrite this memory.
Tbh my first impression with red around 14 years ago was that his team was based on Ash's. I never knew his exact team as it changes a bunch, but his highest level ace being Pikachu with volt tackle stood out. I don't know if Ash ever had all 3 starters but I knew he's had a lot over the years, then I just assumed he could've owned a snorlax and lapras at some point. This was so long ago where I hardly watched the anime if at all so most of it was assumptions. But the Pikachu with volt tackle and the charizard jus stood out so much that I definitely assumed the rest was based on Ash, especially since on a meta level they are connected since Ash in the anime is meant to be an anime counter part of Red, just like how his design changes each generation to reflect the playable character's outfit in that generation
Well, GSC Red is based on the Yellow player (Pikachu + all starters), and Yellow was made to be closer to the anime, so you weren't far off.
@@tabbender1232 I never played yellow and I don't think I even knew of it's existence when I was that young
I want to battle a super boss in Z-A who is wearing 6 Mega-Bracelets.
Bro is having tooo- much bond with his pokemON ϟϟ(๑⚈ ․̫ ⚈๑)
(gen 2) my thing is that u could just grind until u reach his levels. however, hes there to test ur team comp and ur knowledge on type match ups. i beat him first try in silver or gold (i bought the version with donphan in it before the eshop closed) due to me knowing my type matchups and wat his pokemons types themselves. and i see why its a beloved fight. no, i havent played any main series pokemon game till gen 4 when i was a kid.
On a side note, a bit off-topic from Pokemon, but on the topic of superbosses.
My next memorable encounter with a superboss after Red was that , to my feeling, unfair boss, at the end of Dragon Quest VIII.
Looong after you end the game, there is a new part of the map available and at the end, there is that boss that you have to kill many many times in a row without rest to win it. Never managed it cause i had to grind so much XD
As an aside, I wanted to bring up that Nemona and Kieran are actually tied in terms of levels. However, they're actually both exceeded by Director Cyrano, who has mostly the same levels, but two of his Pokémon have a higher level. Making Cyrano the highest level trainer in the series.
When I did my noevorun of Crystal. I had a plan for Red. Go at him at level 80 pokemon.
The team I had was Wooper,Cyndaquil, Hoothoot,Ekans,Drowzee, and Dratini.
I will say, Red's moveset from GSC kinda gives me in-game playthrough vibes? Like how when you're moving around the game world you're not nessessarily going to have the most perfect team in the world because you gotta have hms and stuff
A shame that his moveset doesn't include any of the HM moves the player needs to get around Mt. Silver, it would be a cute attention to detail
It should be noted that also, the 3 Kanto starters on Red's team may also come from Yellow as well
THO, Blue's teams in later games not even remotely matching the one he had in Yellow sorta begs to differ I guess (likely based on Green/Red/Blue canon overall instead of Yellow).
9:57 such as Y̶o̶z̶o̶r̶a̶ most Kingdom Hearts super bosses. It’s kind of their thing. It’s probably why a lot of people love KH post game content so much. Those extra bosses tend to feel like an actual test of player skill… at least since KH2. KH1 super bosses can burn in hell though.
Personally, the thing that stuck out to me was the triple starter setup lol
the only pokemon i forgot about was the espeon because i didnt remember what he evolved his eevee into
I haven't played a new Pokemon game since gen 5 but there was definitely still room to improve superbosses in Pokemon after HGSS Red. Most obviously, his team only has one held item between the six of them. Based on what I see on Bulbapedia, it looks like they've improved on that front in the more recent games. Maybe now the only other thing to do now is improve the AI of elite trainers.
Red is a superboss but I consider him to be the real final boss of the Johto games, not Lance. A player will most likely reach Blue and Mt. Silver at levels similar to the Elite Four in most Pokémon games. My theory is that Red was designed to be the real endgame champion battle we thought Lance was. I always used the same "overpower all opponents to win" strategy and it never worked unless I got lucky with legendary Pokémon on my team and a massive amount of healing items. Now I understand that the Johto games did not expect the player to level grind their team until they were at the same levels as Red's team. In GSC, all the player has to do is build a team that counters Red. In HGSS, I usually change the weather to Sandstorm by using Tyranitar while I prepare a few other strong sweepers to defeat most of Red's team. Pikachu getting walled by a Steelix that knows Stealth Rock is most likely the intended way to win the battle in the remakes. Stealth Rock hurts the rest of Red's team, especially Charizard, and now the massive level disadvantage is reduced to similar power levels on both sides.
I do gotta say, red's overlevelled pokemon are a bit less scary in crystal at least when you remember stat experience is a thing and trainers don't have it, big thing that makes his team pretty easy to fight with level 60ish mons in gen 2, though in HG/SS stat experience would now be EVs which cap out at a lower amount and aren't all that noticeable if you don't intentionally EV train (unlike stat experience which you're constantly gaining from everything you beat)
My favourite superboss is probably kecleon from the PMD games.
I feel if red is in a game he should have 3 teams that use one starter + pikachu per team then add different Pokémon for the rest. For example if you find red in a forest the only starter he’ll use is venasaur. Or if near the ocean, his only starter would be Blastoise and etc.
21:27 - Venusaur has Mega Drain because they decided to not include Giga Drain in Let's Go and instead just temporarily buffed Mega Drain... to the power of Giga Drain.
I get it, Giga Drain didn't exist in G1, but neither did Scald nor Stealth Rock! Why they cut Giga Drain from Let's Go is beyond me, it makes absolutely no sense.
They also buffed absorb to megadrain too. So it was likely just to make oddish better in the early game.
Put it this way. I never played a gen 2 game, not even the remakes, and i know Red's team by heart. If that isnt a sign of jow memorable the fight is, idk what is
I kind of wish they would remake Johto again so I could play through it. It's the only region I've never gotten the chance to go through.
The triple guard in the kh clip was nasty
Unrelated, but I couldnt not say anything about it 😂😂
Pikachu, snorlax, the 3 starters, and I forget 6 but I think aerodactyl or mewtwo
Shadow Origin Form Giratina is Level 100.
I think you can make a very challenging team for the vast majority of players. Yes you can even lock them to level 50, just give them good items, good movesets, good IV and EV spreads and lock the players to the 'set,' same as PvP, switch style where you can't easily swap Pokemóns without losing tempo and most of the playerbase won't be able to beat it.
Can have for example an extra battle where you fight VGC Champions and their teams at the time and it'll be basically impossible for the majority of the playerbase even with the AI being quite mediocre.
Its also a metaphor for growing up as well as surpassing your past self.
I used walk through walls at the beginning of the game and I caught his pikachu.
And without interaction with the generation 1 games (or their remakes), the Kanto starters are inaccessible for the player in the generation two games. For Heartgold and Soulsilver, they are accessible after beating Red. But they can be accessed before then if the player uses the pal park to transfer from Firered/Leafgreen once Fuchsia City is accessible or by trading with a Sinnoh game that has the Pal Park unlocked.
Honestly, I was always disappointed that Red didn’t at least have Mewtwo
I was so terrified of that possibility the first time.
Check Pokémon Crystal Legacy ;)
I remember that in a interview they mentioned that initially the devs wanted to migrate the Red/Blue/Yellow of a player to use it as the superboss team, but complications made them accept a "iconic team" as a compromise. Somebody has sources in that topic?
Does superboss in modern game (like switch games) have better AI tho? Like switching or setting up hazards/stacking?
Idk if she counts as a superboss but Nemona from SV utilizes entry hazards.
So did Kukui with his own lycanrok, but he was still pretty weak.
You can 100% have a superboss still in pokemon without breaking the rules. Imagine a trainer who ACTUALLY is what they want red to be. The best trainer, with the strongest strategies and teams. In game terms, max level, maxIV/EV's, held items, good moves, and combo strategies. Spike setters/web setters, status stackers, etc. Make them have several teams and the one you fight is random when you fight them. This would prepare you in line with what most players do nowadays with maxed teams, a best vs best trainer, while also forcing players to have to adapt to what the other guy is doing. You swapped in a new pokemon to deal with them? They did for you too. You have trouble with speed glass cannons? You need an answer to those. What about hazards? Have an answer on your team. Basically a total min/max boss from looking at the competitive side of things and bringing that into an actual superboss not meant to be beaten with anything but skill. You can't over level or stat them, because it's the cap, you can't just steamroll them with power moves, they have defensive maneuvers, you can't just status them, they have counters, etc.
Not to mention, this could also get players more interested in the game playing against different unique strategies that are there to show the peak of what the game can be. That, would be the new pokemon superboss.
How red could have been impressive in gen7:
Z-move pikachu
Mega Evolve all three Kanto Starters
Hallo
I completed Heart Gold on the eve, but settled on the block of three dragons, with the difference in the level of my Meganium and Dragonite being as much as 4, because besides it there is also Machok 43rd and Graviler 45th.
i like your attitude
“I’ll show em a thing or three!”
Yeah, that Hook superboss at the end of the “Pokemon” event in HSR was almost certainly referencing Red. I never fought Red(I never invested enough time to actually playing the game), but I can understand this line of reasoning.
* Almost * every monster is obtainable. Things like Lance's low level Dragonites and Eternamax Eternatus are unobtainable. Also certain Mythicals dependent on the generation.
Pokémon has allowed you to catch underleveled evolved mons since Gen 1. Pidgeotto in Yellow, Dragonite in BW, Salamence in SM.
A lot of people attribute NPCs like Lance and Ghetsis as “cheaters” but I never got why, when players have been able to get similar Pokémon themselves.
Sure, underleveled Dragonite were most likely impossible to obtain in Gen 2, but Golden Owl’s point was that you’re able to obtain Dragonite *period.*
It’s why he mentions his point at 11:40, where some Pokémon games sidestep this issue by having final bosses use Pokémon you’re not allowed to obtain until post-game-or mons that would be unbearable to level up all the way to their final stage before the post-game.
Evolution levels have always been arbitrary in Pokémon. It’s pretty established in-universe that Pokémon can evolve whenever, but it’s only for gameplay and balance purposes that conditions tend to be so strict for us, the players, when it comes to what specific levels certain Pokémon evolve.
Hence, Hydreigon at Lv64.
Personally I think Red should have had the pokemon that only he had the opportunity to catch: red and blues legendary pokemon. He's already supposed to be overpowered, why not give him Mewtwo, all three birds, a Snorlax (always thought it was like a semi legendary as a kid) and maybe the R&B starter that your starter is weak to. I get that the Pikachu is there because mascot but it really holds him back.
I would definitely have given him Mewtwo instead of Espeon/Lapras, but i wouldn't touch the rest of his team. Light ball Pikachu does hit hard
Loved this one. Very insightful!
I’d argue that Red’s team is strictly based on Yellow, though. You get a free Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. The Espeon is the Eevee you can get from Celadon City. Snorlax is just as you mentioned, and the Lapras is the one from Silph Co. Yellow’s the only version where all of this is doable without trading.
Another detail I love is the indication that Red’s a legitimately caring trainer who’s close with his Pokémon. Your Eevee can’t evolve into an Espeon unless it has a high friendship value, and the move tutor won’t teach your starters their Hyper Beam variations unless their friendship is maxed out. The devs really wanted to prove Red’s Pokémon love him.
Espeon is a manga tie in, in the Pokemon manga red has an eevee that was experimented on and it could switch between the water/fire/elec forms and in the GSC part of the manga it permanently evolved to espeon
@@NoxLebeau That’s not impossible, but nothing else that I know of points to the manga. He doesn’t have anything else manga-related that isn’t explained by a game connection. There’s no reason to definitively claim it’s a manga reference when the simpler, more likely explanation is that the games are referencing previous games, just like they are for every other detail.
Whata bout hgss red he isn't from yellow timeline?
@@trumpeterjen it was the only time GF did a reference like this, gotta remember their thought process was way different 20 years ago, it’s documented that once they hit the RSE era GF stopped worrying about tie ins with the other media also why espeon is only in the gen 2 version
@@NoxLebeau No, you’re just baselessly speculating that that’s the case. As I said, there’s nothing about Red’s team that can’t be explained by game references. It makes more sense that the games would reference other games rather than veer off course randomly for one Pokémon. The evidence for your hypothesis just isn’t there.
And Yellow was still relevant because Red’s team in the remakes mirrors the plot and Pokémon encounters of Yellow, exactly like it did in GSC. The only change is Lapras, who’s also readily available in Yellow. Everything matches Yellow.
Technically mewtwo is the first super boss
Wild pokemon bosses are their own thing because the gameplay is just so different for wild battle. Gen 2 has its Mewtwos as well, GS has Lugia and Ho-Oh respectively, Crystal has both.
black and white 2 has 6 super bosses, one with 4 teams, so arguably 9
A good superboss can be made by implementing better AI, randomized pokemon between encounters, and maybe a bit of cheating, but one that can be easily hidden is reading the player's move (and selecting an option that doesn't punish it, but one that does play around it often, as if it predicted that the player's move was a possibility and was slightly cautious against it)
why does abra only learn teleport? in all gens?
I don't know if you know this, but Snorlax actually is THE BEST Pokemon in Gen 2. Red doesn't have the optimal moves on him, and doesn't have player level skill, but it's still terrifying if you aren't super effective hitting it with something of the same level.
Red is hard. ONLY if you don't catch the mewtwo available immediately after beating Blue.
Mewtwo didn't exist in GSC though. In the place of where the cave is the beserk gene existed which is a held item that gives +2 attack and 255 turns of confusion. Not exactly game breaking.
I reckon the superboss of Z-A will be Unbound Hoopa, and he will be constantly dragging legendries that can't be obtained in the game out. Just to piss the player off.
red's team could easily hold up in modern pokemon, gamefreak could just give them illegal stats
pikachu has a base stat total of 320, just give red's pikachu 500 or something, problem solved
Don't even need to go that far, just optimizing the move sets and giving them better EVs and held items would be a huge boon to put the team in line with modern end game bosses.