Minor nitpick: in the Japanese gen1, money was just called Yen (fictional "PokeDollars" weren't invented until the localization). So the "scam" of Magikarp costing 500 whopping dollars is actually just a pet store selling you a goldfish for five bucks
You can literally fish for magikarp anywhere with a rod that you get given for free. It terms of the games economy this is not a worthwhile deal. Most game guides tell you to not do it. The only possible benefit is the potential early Gyrados
And that means a pokeball, a device that can catch monsters and put them in your pockets, is cheaper than someone giving you a goldfish in one, which means magikarp costs 3 dollars
I always found interesting that only north-americans have this problem, as they only have cared about one type of currency. Never have I seen other people confuse a fictional currency and say "of course it's (insert local currency in a 1to1 conversion here), these price are nuts!".
@@juancruzroviaro1043 My favorite part of Gen 1 is how many pokemon get their "broken clock is right twice a day" moments, like Porygon walling Snorlax, or Golbat actually having a use in Ubers.
i am never scrolling to the comments before watching a video ever again i feel like i just got spoiled and it is 100% my own fault. i wasnt even bored i just wanted to see if the guy he mentioned made a comment but here in the second comment is a description of the ending. im so dumb
Agatha has two Gengars because when she got her first one she traded someone her own Haunter with someone for a different Haunter, then when they wanted to trade back for sentimental value she just traded something else instead and kept both Gengars (which is why one of them has a shittier moveset)
Gen 1 is designed like an RPG. Its designed for you to pick up and retire party members as you go through and get to each gym. The pokemon are very specific to their purpose. Its easier to catch a pokemon than train one up. (though most kids would just use their starter the entire game) Its very different to later gens where every pokemon is designed to be useful through the whole game because they realized that people get attached to their pokemon and dont just replace them that easily.
One thing a lot of people seem to misremember is that Mankey was NOT available before Brock in Red or Blue. Mankey was added in Yellow, and kept in FireRed and LeafGreen to make things easier, losing its status as a version exclusive in the process.
Not just that, but in Red and Blue, there were NO wild Grass types like Oddish/Bellsprout or Water types, like Poliwag, you could catch on Route 22 or Route 2, either. They only later added them in games like Pokemon Yellow or Crystal, but not in the originals. Which seems like a huge oversight. They also should've had Ponyta on Route 22 as well, so one could theoretically have all three Starter types before even going into Viridian Forest. This is also why they specifically had Charmander learn Metal Claw at level 13 ONLY in gen 3 and no where else, to take on Brock's gym. But it was pointless, as that was a physical move anyway, meaning it'd do less super-effective damage than Ember's not-very-effective damage. They would've been better off having it learn Dragon Rage at level 13, which also could've been kept past gen 3 instead of the one-time-deal of Metal Claw in the Kanto remakes.
I will always remember this, because I would always bring up that piece of trivia or advice for players claiming that Yellow was too hard. Additionally, they altered Nidoran and Butterfree’s early move list to help deal with Brock as well (and any of those three options is nearly a guaranteed victory against Brock when you have that non-resisted move.) Now I just wish I’d pointed people toward Nidoran instead, since its evolution line is viable for the whole game.
This is an awesome video, and delves into an aspect of Pokemon that strangely often goes ignored: its design as a single-player experience. It’s a pretty well known fun fact that Multiplayer Battles were a late addition into the original RBY and that the game was designed primarily as a traditional JRPG with a monster collection twist. The social aspect of Pokemon was pretty much a marketing gimmick that was so ingenious it ended up subsuming the franchise identity. That means a lot of the ‘questionable’ design quirks and traditions of the series can be traced back to the original design of RBY.
Except, you know, the fact that the developers wishing they could trade loot between their Dragon Quest cartridges was one of the main inspirations of Pokemon's development and so being able to trade Pokemon was planned from the start.
@purim9995 But that means that there was always a social aspect to the game from the start and that there being social elements wasn't just a gimmick but a genuine creative decision. Pokemon was always designed to be a single-player game with social elements to enhance the experience.
This sentiment exactly. I would like to add though that regardless of when in development multi-player connectivity was planned, these games are still first and foremost, single-player RPG games with PvP play as a major, though still secondary, element. I hate it when people assert that a mon is poorly designed because it isn't competitively viable or that certain design choices were only made for how they'd stack up in the meta. A Pokemon's typing, move pool, abilities, etc are picked to fit a certain design concept, provide logical challenge and progression depending on where they are in the game, to fit the game's story, and so on. If anything, competitive viability is typically only considered in the generations after a mon is introduced and typically only considered for fan favorites. This is why Charizard and Pikachu keep getting buffed, while mons like Ledian are left in the dust. Shuckle has monstrous defenses and appalling stats otherwise not to keep it from being OP, but because that combo of stats is funny.
The name Moltres is also another well designed part of the game. Moltres is the only one you're pretty much guaranteed to run into, and the more astute kids (or the Spanish ones at least), would see the "tres" and wonder, hey, where are uno and dos? Am I missing something?
I am jumping up and down, grabbing my head in disbelief that after 20 years of playing Pokémon and 4 months working on this video, I never notices the "uno" "dos" "tres" in the legendary birds
@@ProfessorBoppera rare objective translation win for sure. The original Japanese names (probably undercutting that deducted design intention) were just フリーザー, サンダー, ファイアー. Freezer, Thunder, Fire.
Not to mention Moltres is numbered 146, creating the gap on 144 and 145 which makes the player wonder about the possibility of existing another bird. And once you find Articuno in Seafoam, you are more determined to find the Power Plant and Zapdos (scoring the Thunder TM for your troubles), which may also make the player want to Go back to earlier areas that you can explore further by surfing, culminating on the discovery of the Cerulean Cave.
This brought me back to being 5 and not understanding what type effectiveness was so I ignored it. I was overleveled getting one hit kills and seeing "it wasn't very effective," confused at the game's appraisal of my Charizard's skills. Bullshit it wasn't effective I just flamethrowered that thing to dust. My level of understanding has formed a circle to agree with my child mind so now I just use pokemon I think are cool.
I remember when I first beat Emerald as a kid using only Blaziken because I was one of those kids that used to play the games with only their starter, and trying over and over to beat Wallace. I had some basic understanding of super effective attacks like obviously water is going to be strong against fire so I knew I was at a disadvantage even if I was pretty overleveled. The only reason I was able to eventually win was because I landed a crit on his Milotic and to my little baby brain it felt like a moment out of the anime it still sticks out as one of my favorite memories play any of these games.
@@koifish835 You reminded me of beating Lorelei(how tf you spell her name lol) in Red the 1st time with only my lvl 55 Charizard and clever use of fire spin and fly. Was so epic as a kid.
Many cases in these games. The ability to catch and use them was supposed to be a bonus, for world building and to give you an extra gameplay time sink by catching everything once you beat the main game. You were never supposed to build “competitively viable teams” with whatever you think looks the coolest.
A lot of Pokémon were like that--designed more for the opposition than for you. Zubat was designed to be a mook--annoying but weak. And Golbat is still pretty weak, especially in Gen 1. Countless members of villainous teams have Zubats and Golbats. But the only time you'll ever see _Crobat_ is in major boss battles. A Gen 2 Elite Four member, the villainous team leader in Gen 4, etc.
@@CyberchaoX The fact that Crobat needs friendship to evolve speaks to Cyrus having more of a heart than he'd like to admit. And then there's Melli, who's so annoying that his Golbat refuses to evolve, just to spite him.
@@tysondennis1016 It could be one-sided with his Crobat which seems more likely honestly. Even if you don't really like someone or something, they can like you despite that since those types do exist.
A lot of people who get "into" Pokemon start seeing all Pokemon through the lens of either competitive or endgame and forget that a lot of the Pokedex is devoted to Pokemon that are meant to be good in the early and mid-game. Nearly every early route normal type and bug fall under this category, they are meant to be sort of like Fire Emblem Jagens, things that grow fast and although their peak strength is low in the context of the entire game they get much stronger than the challenges you'll face early on quicker than the Pokemon that evolve over three stages, usually. Even in hard-mode versions of Pokemon games like Radical Red or Blaze Black some of the best encounters early on are Pokemon like Beedrill which help you get through to the mid-game easily on the back of it's early BST advantage, and by the time it drops off you have far more options to choose from in terms of replacing it. It helps make the collecting of Pokemon relevant throughout the adventure, it's genuinely good game design, but once you realize how good Dragapult is for the E4 it's easy to dismiss Beedrill as a "weak" Pokemon, even though for the majority of the main game it's probably outclasssing your Dreepy that doesn't even have a chance to evolve yet.
The real problem is that the intended "swap party members constantly and leave weaklings behind in the box" design is wildly unpopular and most rather keep there team members over a whole play through. (Not helped by the fact that in Gen 1 even the rival only boxes a singer Pokemon between all encounters with him)
@@rynobehnke8289and that the wider franchise REALLY disincentivises it with the people and pokemon being friends thing. Like, would you shove your trusted friend who you've been sharing your adventures with into a box and never look at them again? No. The games even Know this, it's why your starter has stats so close to a pseudo legendary: You're not expected to switch it out, because its been with you the entire time... It sometimes feels like half of the design team actually understand what the appeal of Pokemon is, while the other half just see it as a generic RPG... And sadly I think it's the ones who have actually worked on other RPG's who probably understand what makes Pokemon uniquely appealing, if the RPG heavy side of the games is anything to go off.
@ciarannihill This is exactly why I love Dunsparce in any Johto playthroughs I go to Dark Cave and spend the time searching for one. It also reminds me a lot of me; who had Precocious Puberty, and was "tall" for a ten year old (at only 180 cm) but never grew since age 10, now being short/"weak" compared to other Western adults in my country.
@@rynobehnke8289 Before Pokemon, there was Dragon Quest V,. and it was there that the idea of recruiting monsters, training them, adjusting their moveser and later replacing them was born. That's the underscript framing a lot of the entire Red and Blue monster design.
I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for using the word "penultimate" correctly re. the Lance fight. I've noticed a trend lately of video essayists using that word to mean "final." As a person who is pedantic to a likely unhealthy degree, it drives me nuts.
For as hard as Beedrill falls off in this game, in Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness, this thing is a monster. Get the multihit attacks linked together with Focus Energy and that's four guaranteed Critical Hits in one turn if you don't miss and TWELVE guaranteed Crits if everything hits. Heracross with Skill Link in those games is even more of a walking apocalypse, it's beautiful
All of the multi-hit moves were devastating. Sceptile with bullet seed defeated most legendaries in one round. It was the Pokemon power fantasy I needed
One of my favorite design aspects of gen 1 that was taken out of future generations is for Magikarp - right after you purchase one near Mt. Moon, Mt. Moon's first item drop is a water gun TM. At this point, only Squirtle/Wartortle can learn this I'm fairly sure; and they likely already have if you beat Brock. It exists to tell the player that Magikarp is TRASH. It can't even learn one of the most basic offensive water type moves in the game via TM, and is caste into a role of splashing helplessly against other Pokemon.
Everyone above me already said it, but yeah, I taught TM12 to my Jigglypuff, as I rarely pick Squirtle in Kanto. The point I _thought_ you were going to make though, is to save the TM once Magikarp finally evolves into Gyarados sometime along Route 24 or Vermillion City, thus rewarding the player for hard work. However, this only applies if Pokemon isn't your first game and you actually know how TMs work.
Oh yeah I meant STAB my bad - it is good for gyarados as well but you likely have a bubble beam tm by then too… The position of the TM is crazy. Again; we know that magikarp can’t learn that, but if gen 1 is your first pokemon game, which for everyone in 1996 it was, then it serves as a really brutal message to the player that magikarp is not self-sufficient in the state that you receive it in
The most interesting/funniest part about Moltres, IMO, is that he only learns two fire moves (which are also its only Special moves): Fire Spin and Fire Blast (no Flamethrower). He can only learn the latter from the single Fire Blast TM Blaine hands out upon defeat... which Blaine himself immediately recommends blowing on a goober like Ponyta ("Teach it to fire-type Pokémon! Charmeleon or Ponyta would be good bets!"). I don't know if it's good or bad game design, but I find the idea of Moltres being an unga bunga big BST 'mon with a stunted movepool (barring Fly and arguably Fire Spin) that can be greatly helped if you know to save a TM for it to be cool. It's like saving a Luna and Body Ring for Athos in fe7, y'know? Addendum: Zapdos and Articuno learn Thunder and Blizzard at lv. 51, respectively. Moltres gets... Leer. It's been theorized that this was an error and it was *supposed* to learn Fire Blast.
Just to build on the Fire Blast bit in the addendum: Leer's move ID is one lower than Fire Blast's so its not particularly Farfetch'd that someone just messed up in the coding.
It wouldn't be Fire Blast, though, because you got that from Blaine's TM and they made an intentional design choice that the moves taught by Gym Leaders' TMs would not be found in *any* Pokémon's level-up movesets (though they broke this rule for Yellow Version because Thunderbolt has always been Pikachu's signature move in the anime and it was also the move from Surge's TM.) They only moved away from this philosophy in Generation III, where only three of the eight Hoenn Gym Leaders gave out a TM with a move no Pokémon learned by level-up (Wattson, Flannery, and Norman).
@@CyberchaoX probably ws fireblast unil they decided on the leader exclusive tm moves. then they did a quick fix by downshifting to leer and never changed it to the new move/never made one
@athath2010 It's not an error because no Pokemon learn Gym TMs in gen 1, except for Surge's TM25 (Thunderbolt) that they later gave to Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow. It might have learned Flamethrower at level 51, which isn't as powerful as Blizzard or Thunder, but it wouldn't have been a gym leader TM.
“All the grass type moves deal mental damage instead of physical” made me laugh more than it should. I like the idea that it deals damage not by actually harming anything, but by being so scary it scars them mentally.
The thing I lament is that Game Freak is allergic to base stats rebalance between generations. They only started doing it after Gen 6, and 99% of their "buffs" or "nerfs" are 10 more or 10 less base stats in one or two stats. While Onix got an evolution in Gen 2, it was still not as good as it could've been, so it would've been nice if Onix got a stat buff on top of its evolution in Gen 2.
I love how Sceptile is entirely built to be a special attacker when its moveset and its signature move are almost all physical because of what grass was in Gen 3.
One really have to wonder if they just do not have any visual aids in the Pokemon Company, like, curating the pokemon seems like the most sacred task in capitalism...but....noo....nooo....surely the market is not big enough to sustain a department of 50 people...oh, wait...@@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes
Even then, Onix wasn't ever one of the reballanced ones, they gambled on an evolution that would turn it into a wall proper but doesn't even do that. This is entirely my point. There's no reason for Onix to keep the role they gave it outside of Kanto. Even in Kanto, even if you understand Brock's boss battle, it is still wildin' that Bruno would use two slots on it. Onix should be a late bloomer and have exponential attack stat growth past level 30 or 40 to be justified in the Elite 4.
@@jpcsdutra To be honest, Bruno is a joke in general in Gen 1, besides having two Onix for no reason, Fighting types had it rough with basically no good moves at all and low Special, they get destroyed by any good Special Attacker while not really doing good damage to anything with decent bulk. But going back to Onix, heay even in Gen 1 it stat distribution is pretty weird. I'm pretty sure it deals way less damage than his Geodude. Onix needed to have the same Atk as a Geodude AT THE VERY LEAST.
One point I want to bring up for Beedrill - in Gen 1, Bug and Poison were super effective against each other (for some reason). Which means all the Grass/Poison types you run into throughout the game are 4x weak to Twineedle, which means Beedrill has some legs later in the run, especially if you started with Squirtle. Not quite as good as Butterfree being able to learn OP Psychic moves, but still good.
beedrill is a lot better than butterfree, because the psychic moves it has access to will never be terribly powerful and on top of that it's the only form of meaningful damage butterfree can attempt to do. psychic as a type isn't OP, a handful of the best pokemon just happen to also be psychic type.
@@gmerc1333 Psychic type in Gen 1 is only resisted by other Psychic types, and it's super effective against all the Poison types running around, which is why I called it OP. It's even better defensively, since it's only weakness is Bug in Gen 1, but having a fake Psychic type in the party is still super useful.
in practice butterfree's psychic attack doesn't really have legs long term at all. beedrill is better than butterfree in essentially all situations where butterfree would excel. butterfree lives and dies by being able to use sleep powder and that's about it.@@SilverZephyrFalcon
@@gmerc1333well it's worth noting that butterfree also has sleep powder and green 1 sleep is really powerful. It's one of the reason it often performs better than beedrill in solo challenges. The only real thing last game beedrill has going for it is swords dance which is rather risky as it's not great at taking his
When I was a kid trying to get Porygon, I didn't know about the Missingno glitch yet. I also didn't seem to think about just buying the coins outright when blowing past the Elite 4 over and over with Mewtwo. Due to gambling being considered a terrible sin where I lived, (for reference, we were warned not to go into the giant slot machine in Sonic 2's Casino Night Zone, and if we did, our parents would make us shut off the game) I would become exceptionally furtive while playing the slot machine in the Rocket Game Corner. Effectively pointless to try and be secretive about it, since the original Game Boy's screen was so terrible, it was barely possible for the player to see what was going on, let alone anybody trying to look over your shoulder. But that sense of accomplishment to finally get Porygon was weirdly powerful. Even though Porygon is straight up terrible in Gen I, I felt like it was the greatest because of how much work I put in to get it.
Bopper's delivery on the line "It's just like that boss from Dark Souls" is really good, I can almost see the randomly capitalized letters as he says it, and in general I think he's doing an awesome job keeping his reading this emotive for this big of a vid!
I really love the angle this analysis went, observing the pokemon from the context of how they developers wanted you to encounter them in the context of a single player RPG. Just goes to show that even if people keep parroting the same things about a nearly 30 year old game over and over, you could still find new things to talk about if you shift your headspace a little. I hope you keep playing games in the series and find more to enjoy. Personally, I think the third generation hit the perfect sweet spot for me in terms of how the games designed their first encounters and rewarded exploration.
I think of it as a reward for players who, perhaps to spite their Rival boxing the Rat for being too weak, keep their Raticate around. Even if Raticate isn't as strong as it once was, it can soften up an enemy so much that your other pokemon can quickly finish the fight
I charmander mained. I picked up butterfree to help on onyx, jugglypuff cos i enjoyed it’s anime hijynx, magikarp as I liked its underdog/hidden potential vibes, abra cos I heard it had a good final evolution and stumbled into a 29 dugtrio which just cleared the midgame for me. So yeah, that was my pre-SS Anne team I levelled up and took through elite four. I didn’t experiment much with other pokemon I found as I read (in game) wild pokemon would be much weaker than my trained up team … and swapping out any of them would have felt like a betrayal!
My brains as a kid didn't get that message, what it got was "Charizard line is the best, if you are not winning with the charizard line is because you need to practice that ember in bugs so that it can finally melt stone" and then I proceed to use only my starter, with all other party members being there to take hits while i use potions or revives. Somehow in my brain, if i did it any other way it would be like betraying my starter
Since nobody else was degenerate enough to research. The traded Lickitung's japanese name is Namezō according to Bulbapedia. The "artist" is named Namezou. As far as I can tell they are pronounced the same, but googling lickitung's with the ō gives very different results than with the regular o.
I used to play pokemon blue on my brothers OG gameboy before I got my own Gameboy Color with Pokemon Yellow on my 10th birthday. It felt like I was an actual Pokemon trainer starting out. I'll never forget those were some of the best years of my life. Im 31 now and gifted the Gameboy color and all my games to my ex's 8yo kid. I don't regret it.
It really is astonishing that people who claim to be all about game design can't seem to put it together that Onix was designed to be boss monster first and foremost
Minor thought on the "difficulty" of choosing Charmander. While yes he can have a little trouble with Brock compared to Squirtle and Bulbasaur, he's also the fastest to train in the nearby Viridian Forest by far as they'll 1shot everything including kakuna/metapod. To be honest when I was a kid I got easily to level 20 with Charmeleon before Brock, as I'd seen another kid get a Pikachu in the forest (I think it was a 5% encounter rate) and I spent a couple hours training there trying to catch the thing. When I finally got to Brock, I steamrolled him.
The trick to Charmander was to use Growl whenever Onix used Bide, this helped not only by preventing Bide from doing double the Ember's damage but made subsequent Tackles from Onix weak Even with Charmander you didn't need another Pokemon
Generations of content creators will look back to this video in content-creator school when they write their dissertations on absolutely fire transitions.
I feel like one awesome thing about the trade evos is the fact that if you look closely, you'll see that you have good stat distributions in the 2nd stage. Haunter and Kadabra's speed and special is phenomenal and they come with the overall same relevant movepool. Meanwhile Graveler and Machoke's attack and overall bulk are solid enough for an in-game version
Graveler is also EXTRA beefy due to how much the AI spams Normal type moves. Haunter is similarly impressive in its survivability considering how poor its Hp and Defense are
As a kid I thought Pokémon blue required grinding, because I was trying to beat the game with my early Pokémon leveled up. Someone had told me Pokemon were stronger if you raised them so I never considered using anything I caught at high levels.
Yeah, but I took that advice way too seriously so my whole team was the pokemon I raised from the lowest levels. So I was rolling the Butterfree all the way to the elite four instead of swapping in new team members with more overall power.@@PsiPaula4
@@PsiPaula4Stat experience is not completely equivalent to EVs. They're calculated in different ways but the main difference is you can max out every stat in stat experience, but EVs only allow for a total of 510 EVs and a maximum of 255 (gen 8 onwards made it 252) in a single stat
I really didn't expect this video to be as engaging as it was. The balance of your laidback attitude and in-depth analysis of Pokemon viability and fun-ability is just right. Great work.
Lackluster move sets are overall annoying but they do make TMs feel way more valuable. Also, every TM that is given by a Gym Leader is the only way any Pokémon can learn that move. This means moves like Thunderbolt and Fire Blast, both incredible STAB options, will only be learned ONE Pokémon no matter how many Pokémon you catch and grind up.
The lackluster move sets and scarcity of TMs made plenty of room for HMs so they didn't feel as bad in Gen 1. In fact, Surf had been the best water type move for a long time until Scald came along. Strength at 80 BP is just Mega Punch or Hyper Fang without the accuracy penalty and is only strictly worse than Body Slam which you only get 1 copy. Fly isn't bad for single player, in fact it is Pidgeot's best Flying STAB option. It was only when move pools got better and HMs got more numerous in the sequels (all of them Normal or Water for some reason) that the 4 slot limitation really started to hurt.
I feel they could have made onix better overall and still kept it as a strong first gym ace with one change: Boost its Attack stat to something not as pathetic, say 80-90, and replace tackle with constrict, a move with only 10 base power. Not only would that balance things out and have onix do pretty much the same damage in the fight with Brock as it currently does, but also makes more sense with onix being a giant rock snake
@@xunknownartist You are thinking of Bind. Constrict doesn't continuously damage a Pokémon and make it unable to move. It's just a terribly weak normal move with a high chance (in Gen 1) to lower the opponent's speed. Perfect for the snake that needs to outspeed its opponent for Bide to work properly.
I love how early Pokemon design had such mechanical pesonality. Not every Pokemon needs perfectly tailored stats, easy plug-in STAB options and 10 Coverage types. The strange limitations and quirks add a lot of personality to each individual Pokemon, because for instance, Electrode isn't just a fast, kind of weak Electric Type, it's that thing that uses Thunder Wave then Explodes. Dugtrio isn't the best, but it has a pitiful HP stat and is the only fast Ground Type. Why doesn't Pinsir learn Earthquake? Why should you expect it to? The game gets significantly less interesting if every Pokemon had everything it needed to thrive.
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I lowkey do wish they nailed the concept of _giving mono-type mons at least a decent STAB move,_ but then didn't feed into every mon ever getting Ground, Rock, Electric, or Ice coverage. Even within Gen 1, it was pretty weird seeing Tauros and Snorlax get random Fire, Electric, and Ice coverage just because. Move type distribution has become a lot less restricted offensively, especially now that the omni-coverage Hidden Power has been powercrept by the even omnier-coverage Tera Blast this gen, and I do wish that they could balance out the stronger mons by narrowing their move options in the way of typing. Why should standard Lilligant only have Grass and Normal coverage, while Ogerpon gets Grass, Normal, Dark, Fighting, Rock, Water, Fire, Fairy, Bug, Ground, and Psychic coverage, all on decently powerful moves?
Forgive me if this was brought up and I missed it but I really want to congratulate Game Freak on the original idea behind the Dragon type. It's only used by the penultimate boss. The only other way you can encounter a dragon is by finding it in the Safari zone, where you don't battle them in a normal way, so all you could possibly know about Dragon-type Pokemon is what you read in the back of the instruction manual. The starter Pokemon are explicitly designed to remain with you your entire trainer career -- being cute when you start, turning into cool monsters when you end, and having the three evolution levels timed so just as the previous form starts to fall off you get a power boost that keeps them relevant to your party until the endgame. You are all but ensured to still have your starter Pokemon (and for them to be one of the strongest on your team, if not THE Pokemon carrying you), and as you encounter these mythical creatures you bring out your starter... And Dragons are resistant to all three of those types. Not strong against them -- it's not a totally lopsided fight -- but you're going to have a much harder time just powering through them with your starter the way you probably powered through the rest of the game. They're even resistant to Electric-- less pertinent since Dragonite's Flying-type mitigates the advantage, but it still cuts down on the power of the series mascot that kids might have carried with them all through the games, too. Meanwhile, their only true weakness is Ice... a Pokemon type you can go the entire game without ever finding for yourself. The only Ice-type you're guaranteed to run across is the gift Lapras (which can be easy to forget to come back for, although I don't think that was intentional). Otherwise you have to find the Jynx trade (and remember to go back to it), explore the Seafoam Islands (completely skippable), or use the Super Rod in the waters between Vermillion and Pallet Town (Cinnabar and Seafoam inclusive). You don't NEED any of the Ice-types, of course, and in fact the type is almost deliberately set up to be weak against the endgame... except against Dragons, where it becomes a secret weapon that you had to work to find. Dragonite's secondary Flying type might even be specifically to make Ice a nuke against it to reward a player for finding and raising this rare, nigh-hidden type. Gen 1 seems so janky and weird from a present day perspective but it's fascinating to look back and really understand why the (im)balances are the way they are. I've really developed a massive appreciation for the thought that went into these games, just wonderful.
If you look at Onix from a nature perspective, he's an incredibly specifically developed pokemon for locale. It does well there, and very few places elsewhere. It's, not every pokemon is going to be a world beater. It's not possible, feasible, or dare I say it, realistic.
Which is why the evolution into steelix is kinda interesting to me, because it's actually clearly evolving to be better. I, I know this happens otherwise, but like, changing from a caterpie to a butterfree eventually is NOT the same thing.
@@Earthboundmike I'm pretty sure it's also implied that Steelix isn't natural. He's a modern mutation, formed by an error caused by the Metal Coat during trading. Same with Scizor, except it's even more blatant with that because Scizor's BST remains the same, it just gets a stat allocation and steel typing.
fun fact: if you're in a trainer battle, your poliwhirl/staryu/shellder/eevee levels up, then you switch to onix for the last pokemon, after the fight, the water pokemon will evolve
One of my favorite videos you’ve done; this really makes me want to play rby again. The “figures” spread throughout your video lend it a super cool feel, and I love the fear and hunger music when Onix shows up (square tf up Valtiel)
The really sad part is that even recently in gen 9 pokemon seemingly did the butterfree/beedrill thing with spidops, even though many pokemon on the same route evolve either around the same time or dont need to at all and can last the entire game with no issues, while spidops has nothing to justify its pitiful BST.
Or Kricketune. Like seriously, I think those two have right now the lowest BST total of any fully evolved bug type, with the exception, of course, of Shedinja, who *doesn't use three of its stats*.
Okey, I was mistaken, turns out that Dustox has it worst than Ledian (but better than Kricketune). They gave Beautifly a stat boost in gen 6 and I assumed they would've given it to Dustox too (though I don't know why I assumed it if they didn't give it to Ledian when they gave it to Ariados). Still, Ledian's case is particulary outrageous because it's supposed to be specialiced in punches, it's one of the few Pokémon that learn Comet Punch, its hidden ability is Iron Fist and yet attack it has just *35* base attack.
I love this video because it goes into the extremely nerdy detail about so many pokemon that I do when I replay Pokemon Red once again. Pokemon Red replays made me wish Pokemon games weren't so connected, because many of the early mons were designed with very specific roles and contexts in mind that are simply lost in other games of the series and even more in other mechanics. Ekans and Arbok are seemingly worthless, but much like their position as villainous snakes would suggest, they are tailor-made to abuse Gen1 Wrap with either their signature Glare (which lets them trap any opponent forever) or Toxic. They can also learn Dig right after getting the TM, so they can beat Lt. Surge and later use Dig with Toxic. Raticate and Farfetch'd are the perfect child's play Pokemon in my opinion. Rattata is the first mon you likely catch and learns the strongest Normal type move for a while very early. Its stats, while low, are also surprisingly optimized in Atk and Speed, so it really does make for a nice "can't go wrong" option. Nowadays, its stats and Hyper Fang aren't nearly as good, but in Gen1 it's great. Farfetch'd is my favorite Gen1 mon and it's exactly because of the story in the video - I was a dumb kid struggling to keep up in levels (because the level economy in Gen1 *is* pretty strict) and here comes Farfetch'd leveling like crazy AND dealing tons of damage, because I obviously used the TM Bodyslam on my highest level pokemon. Plus, it got Slash, the same super strong move Charizard has! I admittedly didn't wake up to Swords Dance until I was 11 or 12 (I played Red when I was 8) but it made replaying the game with my childhood hero even sweeter (because yeah, I didn't get far without Dux)
Only a couple minutes in, but it’s also worth noting that while some of those Pokémon have lower BST than onix of the group mentioned at the beginning, many are practically stronger. Farfetch’d is JUST fast fast enough to have “guaranteed” (99.6% chance) crits on slash, so it’s actually about twice as strong as advertised on the tin. Lickitung has a similar trait, being the only swords dance user (aside from farfetch’d, who gets little use because crits ignore your own positive boosts too and is too fragile to set up basically ever) who is a normal type, and so while every other SD user hits the attack and consequently damage cap, lickitung gets STAB on the busted Gen 1 hyper beam. And anyone who knows anything about Gen 1 battles knows porygon can counter many snorlax and mew sets, something almost nothing else in the game can claim to be able to do. Onix has no such niche usage, it’s simply just terrible, except maybe as a role compression to have a rock type on a partial trapping spam team if you’re on that gigacopium.
comparing pokemon by base stat total was explicitly mentioned to be a reductive way of looking at things in the video, this discrepancy is intentional so as to speak generally about relative strength without getting lost in the weeds of every asterisk
Even if you're only looking at OU/Ubers specifically, Farfetched is probably still objectively worse than Onix. Onix gets that Rock/Ground typing, which makes it the FOURTH best option if you want one of those for their general utility. ...Which isn't good, but Farfetch'd is only the third best normal type slash user, out of three. You're actually misremembering the fun fact, too. It's just barely Slow enough to miss out on 99.6 Slash. (60*100/64=93.75) Just for fun, let's dump on the others too! Porygon is novel for being able to sometimes sit on specific Snorlax builds, notably not "many Snorlax and Mew sets," but exclusively Body Slam/Reflect/Rest sets without Ice Beam. This is compared to Onix, who can reliably 1v1 all Zapdos! Confirmed better use of a team slot. (Just use Rhydon) Lickitung is a funny case, because IF you can get it to +6, STAB makes it stronger than other Swords Dancers, but it's base attack is actually so low that it's +2 Hyper Beam is only _on par_ with other Swords Dancers in power. And if you're not getting up Swords Dances, you're left with a generic normal type with worse stats than Onix, go figure. The real hero among the stinkers is Butterfree, who rules Onix's home tier 6u/zu with an iron fist. It doesn't have an OU niche though, so uhhhhj Ditto "wins" the paralyzed Mewtwo matchup, we have a winner, something actually better than Onix, let's go.
I had Pokémon blue growing up, I had articuno and was grinding before beating the elite 4 I let a friend on the school bus borrow the game as he’d never played before, he was sheltered, and he beat the elite 4 and when he saw the credits he thought he beat the game and started a new save 😭
I let a schoolmate play my Pokemon Ruby. Two Days later, she said it was boring. I started my save data, to notice that my player was called "SUSAN"with a level 5 treecko. SHE DELETED MY SAVE DATA. I almost completed my dex, had to start over...
This onyx design may work when you get a starter with a stab special move, but I played yellow as a kid. What I learned is that onix is imune to my stab special move and nothing in the game taught me why. I didn’t even know what his stats were because the game didn’t tell me. I didn’t know I was supposed to evolve the weakest bug Pokémon I could find twice to get my first special move because the metapods I saw looked terrible and I didn’t want them. Eventually I got a nidiran that dwarves double kick, which did “super effective” damage but still barely hurt onyx. It was only years later I learned how it actually works. Sometimes I wonder how I beat yellow without understanding what stats were, that certain types like dragon and ice even existed and that paralysis quartered speed. So much is not told to you.
The guy that is always at the start of a gym and gives you advice actually tells you that Pikachu's electric moves will be harmless against Brock's pokémon because they are ground-type, but yes I don't remember stats ever being explained in the game and which types are physical and special. I actually learned that through the help menu in FireRed, it actually explains a lot of those mechanics and can tell you type matchups if you open it in battle
All I ever learned was basic match-ups (fire beats grass, etc ) when I played Blue in my childhood. I beat the game despite not understanding most of the mechanics, lmao
Something that occurred to me during the end was It feels like Porygon should have been able to learn all TMs. I know this was Mew's gimmick, that it has psychic typing, reasonably high balanced stats, and can learn all TM/ HM moves, and the lore reason for that last trait was it being said to be the common ancestor to all pokemon. Porygon also has mostly balanced stats and the slightly weaker but reliable normal type, and it does have a good movepool, but it's also explicitly a man made pokemon developed using recent technologies. With that in mind it should be possible to have made it compatible with just about any TMs, since it's properties should be fully within control of it's designers, and while it's not canon it'd fit if it had actually been created in the first place as a beta tester for the development of new TMs and HMs. A custom built cyber pokemon to use for testing TMs to make sure everything's functional before moving forwards to see if it works with "naturally occurring" pokemon. Maybe that misses the point of "Porygon is a lifestyle choice, not an optimal one", I just thought it'd fit lorewise and would've been pretty cool, like a budget Mew despite being the one pokemon (of the generation) that by all means ought to be confirmed as not a descendant of it.
I continue to not know anything about pokemon so I have no clue if this video makes sense, but it's nice to look at and fun to listen to so you and Nin have once again succeeded at this youtube thing. well done! more importantly your "I cheated on too much of my math classes and now have no idea what the math for my pokemon video is telling me" problem is very relatable. I mean not to me but. Basically what happened is the other day my mom showed me a news article featuring a very dumb chemistry mistake (guy didn't know what nitrogen was) and she told me: "hey. remember that funny story I told you about how one time I wrote a chemistry test with carbon paper so the entire grade could cheat off of me" then she looked very serious for a moment, and continued, "and I never regretted it. but maybe... maybe this guy shouldn't have passed chemistry. but he did. because of me." it was a beautiful moment about the long ranging consequences of youthful mistakes and also what I assume will happen when the generous soul who you cheated off of in algebra watches this video
I kind of spaced out and I heard "lick his ass", but more importantly I want you to know I waste a lot of time trying to catch Onix in Heart gold. I got all the way to the final gym before I realized it had 50 hp at level 46.
I'm glad that Onix can serve as a tutorial boss in Gen 1. But nowadays I think they should buff his stat total to be equal to Steelix's, mirroring how Scyther and Scizor share a base stat total but with a different distribution. Both evolve using the Metal Coat, and Scizor loses speed to gain attack and defense. I think Onix could be the same way. Lose its decent speed stat and gain some attack and defense to become Steelix. Guys I just really love Onix and want to be able to use him to some effect.
Great video! Made me appreciate the behind the scenes design of a lot Pokémon I didn’t care about. I would love to see a sequel to this video about the Pokémon from the 2nd generation!
Shoutout to 7 year old me for using the master ball on an Onix in Victory Road because it was so darn intimidating earlier in the game. (Don't worry, I fainted all the legendaries because I interpreted "The ball missed the Pokemon!" as meaning I couldn't catch it)
Good video. If this is the direction you'll going to take your channel (analyze odd / peculiar things from childhood games etc)then I really look forward to your next video !
I feel like this video was all over the place in a good way. I had a lot of fun just watching it, and you did a great job with it. I hope to see more from you :)
I am only 10m in and you've already made me think about these games in ways I haven't before, blowing my mind in a way I thought Pokémon videos couldn't anymore. This video needs to blow up
what makes pokemon gen 1 great, is that it gives you everything you need to beat the game without grinding. But it also gives you everything you need to make it a painful head smahing into the wall slog.
This was a great video, and I want to especially highlight how great the title is. It made me curious as to the meaning (just barely clickbait, I guess), and, by the end, the meaning made complete sense. I felt fulfilled watching through the video and absorbing your points. Good job; subscribed; and keep it up.
When you busted out the 151 to the 6th power equation... Jeez, I truly forgot just how staggeringly high the number of options for party composition we have in Pokémon games. Insane.
Another thing onix can potentially do ( specifically when picking bulbasaur) is teach the value of status moves. There’s a very real possibility when you face it you don’t have vine whip. But what you will have instead is leech seed. Notably while you don’t really do anything with tackle neither does it’s attacks either. This can lead to experimenting with status moves which can lead to discoveries like omg most bosses lead a very weak Mon in terms of offensive potential and if I use stat raising moves vs that Mon I can basically win most boss fights from the first Mon easily or hey making the opponent weaker can help my other mons or even wow leech seed is sure useful vs all the Grimers and clefairies that spam minimize since it only needs to hit once to make that Mon eventually go down. Also what are you on about binding moves are honestly overpowered fire spin included in gen 1 that’s like the one good thing about the fire type
@@sebastianlucas704 so are you just confused and don’t realize that leech seed isn’t a status condition healed by full heals or are you just commenting this for no reason since this has nothing to do with the fact that bulbasaur pickers are usually beating Brock via leech seed?
@@ultimaterecoil1136 Well, you turned into a dick fast. You said that onix encourages players to use status, I then pointed out that Brock has 5 full heals per pokemon. This either disproves that, or, is a mistake on the developers end. Why would the developers be encouraging only leach seed here? Considering how the player likely got poisoned trying to get to Brock, wouldn't a lot of players then try poison themselves, just as an example.
yall did such a great job on this. ive had a growing appreciation for the original kanto and johto games as of late for their extreme individuality among the rest of the series and this video only greatly deepened that appreciation. fantastic video
Never have I seen your videos but it looks like the youtube algorithm enjoys this one and I am too so far. Hope this one and/or your channel pops off in a way that you are happy, proud and comfortable with!
I love deep dives like this. People tend to forget that Gens 1-3 were very much single player games that happened to have some strong multiplayer elements to them. The games really didn't lean into its competitive scene much until late Gen 3 and Gen 4. For example Voltorb legit exist just to be the 'mimic' of the game so the speak. I also liked how earlier gens leaned more into the monster aspects. Now pokemon are more based on animals, but during Gens 1 and 2, they legit could be anything. Most didn't have to be based on anything exiting to have a reason to be.
It's not that people forget, but that the people who grew up on Gen 1 are in their 30s at the youngest. Most younger fans don't know how Pokemon used to be. If they ever play Gen 1, what they see is a game that doesn't play like the Pokemon they grew up with.
I love that he keeps referring to special attacks as dealing "mental damage". When you get burned by Flamethrower or zapped by Thunderbolt, it's all in your head man.
Funny thing about onix is that as a kid playing pokemon yellow I used my master ball on an onix in victory road... and I 100% blame the anime and battle against brock for that lol
0:54 Also consider that Farfetch'd gets normal STAB, Body Slam, Sword's Dance and Agility, making it capable to badge boost greatly. So low base stats are not that bad for it.
22:14 another fun Golbat fact is him having a niche in gen 1 Ubers where it completely walls an actual set Mew might be running. Which is more than can be said about more conventionally "Good" pokemon. Big Yellow, Reverend, and Plague Von Karma are great gen 1 content creators. (edit) wow at 48:58 the exact three youtubers I mention appear
Really, any Flying-type can accomplish that feat: the set is Earthquake, Softboiled, Explosion, and Swords Dance. Golbat gets the nod because it learns Screech and Confuse Ray, which give it at least a little utility against the non-Mew Pokemon (most of whom have equally-abysmal matchups against Mewtwo).
Excellent video, love your presentation style! Great find on the Japanese Lickitung nickname! I recently realised that the in-game-trade Jynx isn't named Lola for nothing (See: The Kinks - Lola).
Great work. I happened upon this video, and I recently started a Nuzlocke run with Gen I, and this had some useful bits of information that I can apply to my gameplay.
To me I have a sort of soft spot for Mt Moon. You have so much Zubat, which is annoying, but the location also has Brock's Pokemon, Geodude. And even rarer you have some interesting looking Pokemon like Paras and Clefairy, which I remember seeing with some level of aww. I saw them as these rare hidden creatures that you were rewarded for looking for.
Good video, but I'm not so sure how to feel about the argument that Pokemon was what introduced customizability to the JRPG genre - Shine Megami Tensei was doing that well before Pokemon Red and Blue released.
To be fair, SMT 1&2 are basically Japanese exclusive. SMT 1 got an incredible obscure English port on the iPhone while 2 never got anything. Persona 1 didn't get localized until 1999, by then we were in the middle of Pokemania. I have no idea how popular SMT was in Japan at the time, but I know it was non-existent anywhere else. Given how most creature capture games emulate Pokemon over SMT, I'd say it at least popularized the formula.
@@absollum I think it is important to note that SMT was larger than just SMT 1 and 2 at the time. For example, there were the Megami Tensei games back on the NES (which also had a good degree of customizability). I think if this franchise managed to put out the many games it did (I encourage you to look it up), it must've had at least some kind of presence (enough for other game devs to be inspired by it). However, while it is arguable whether or not SMT was that well-known, Dragon Quest V certainly was VERY popular in Japan, came out three years before Pokemon and allowed recruitment of monsters. P.S.: There is also Wizardry IV which, on paper, sounds like it has a similar battle system to SMT, though I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know for sure.
@@qnr3377 I was primarily talking about the West. The video is made by someone who probably is talking about that perspective, and Pokemon 100% popularized it in Western countries. While Wizardry IV does have a similar battle system, it was a commercial flop at the time. I only know about it due to TH-cam videos talking about early rpgs. Dragon Quest 5 didn't get a Western release until 2009 with its DS remake. It was apparently due to technical issues for the SNES version. It's not surprising that devs in both markets came up with similar battle systems, but Pokemon blew it up for sure. Again, I don't see many SMT clones, but I've seen a ton of Pokemon clones.
Pokemon red and blue is a fascinating case study of a game with so much intention yet there are things like hitmon champ that make you ask why and bugs that negate intention that induces jank like when my lv 10 fly pidgey stood there for a hour untill i ran out of pp vs Giovanni's dugtrio that could not hit me because enemy ai has no pp witch I didn't know till that moment
I love this video, the editing, the script, everything, also your voice fits really really well!! Please keep it up! Would love to see more pokemon videos too
Such a fun video! I'm actually watching for the second time now, even as someone who played the first gen more than a couple times this is enlightening. I had seen a very superficial comment on a community thread before about Onix existing solely as tutorial for types and that was clarifying enough for me, imagine this video. Not to mention all the fun strategies for other gyms i had never and would never think about on my own! I'm seeing the gen 1 with new eyes
Gen 1 is very much like it's JRPG predecessor where you switch your starting sword for a better one as the game progress. You can upgrade your Pidgey into a Doduo and eventually into one of the Legendary Bird. You can go from Rattata to Persian to Snorlax or Tauros or Kangaskhan.
Watching the panning in the beginning and thinking "boy this is just like Jon Bois" and getting the satisfaction of you shouting him out was all I needed today, bless u.
Interesting details throughout, it really gives me a new appreciation for the first generation games. I still think some of the decisions and bugs make it not that fun to play. And yes, I am biased, Ghost types are my favorite.
The move pool being limited is only partially true, because a lot of Pokemon has an impressive move pool locked to TMs, which are extremely interesting, in themselves. One of the subtly brillant one is Water Gun, which you find just as you enter Mt Moon (when you can first catch Geodude). You can immediately teach it to your Rattata, and it's actually a pretty good idea (unless you can get a rare Clefairy, or plan to use Nidoking.). After spending so much time passing the first Gym, you get the ideal tool to destroy any Geodude and Onix that would come your way. Despite the low power and Rattata's low special, they have terrible HP and Special themselves and are 4 times weak to water. Obviously the game let you figures it out yourself, and you're probably going to never use the TM and let it waste inventory space. But it rewards you for trying, and giving you the answer right after posing you the problem is pretty cool
Honestly this review is so thoughtful and from a place of true love for the franchise that I got lost in that part of it since I too grew up on these games, so at the end when you reminded me this was a video about why Onix sucks I couldn't help but laugh. great video
I had pokemon yellow as a kid, and i remember 3 ways i beat Onix as a kid. 1. i grinded pikachu up lvls till his tackle (or bodyslam maybe?) killed him 2. i captured nidoran or nidorin, or both to kill him 3. i captured Manke I also remember accidently releasing my manke into the wild once, and searching for hours, to find the EXACT same lvl manke in the tiny spot of grass near Brocks gym. My thoughts were, if i capture the same lvl manke that i had, in the spot where i initially caught him, that would be where my manke was. i also remember Onix sucking, i thought he was really cool but not very good at the time, what i did without releasing what i was doing as a child, was A - B testing. Onix could take a lot of hits but didnt deal that much DMG, so what was the point of using him then I remember Mistys gym also being really hard, but luckily i had pikuchu cause pokemon yellow, but she still did a lot of dmg i also remember being slightly annoyed that i couldnt evolve pickuachu in pokemon yellow. I was aware that the game was following the anime, but i didnt care i wanted a richu
![ทททททททท #27 [หลุยส์ เค โตมายังไง ณ สระบุรี]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CaKoYw_Xmtg/mqdefault.jpg)
Minor nitpick: in the Japanese gen1, money was just called Yen (fictional "PokeDollars" weren't invented until the localization). So the "scam" of Magikarp costing 500 whopping dollars is actually just a pet store selling you a goldfish for five bucks
it's like 2.5 pokeballs, but that early on you're usually strapped for cash so it still feels like a ripoff.
You can literally fish for magikarp anywhere with a rod that you get given for free. It terms of the games economy this is not a worthwhile deal. Most game guides tell you to not do it. The only possible benefit is the potential early Gyrados
And that means a pokeball, a device that can catch monsters and put them in your pockets, is cheaper than someone giving you a goldfish in one, which means magikarp costs 3 dollars
@@intergalactic92 I usually do it. Money is easy to come by and having a Gyarados super early, like before Misty, is pretty great.
I always found interesting that only north-americans have this problem, as they only have cared about one type of currency. Never have I seen other people confuse a fictional currency and say "of course it's (insert local currency in a 1to1 conversion here), these price are nuts!".
The ending of "yeah porgon is absolute trash competitively but his vibes are off the charts" is the best way to end a video essay
Hyperbean STAB bonus go BRRRRRRRR
Yeah but It walls snorlax
@@juancruzroviaro1043 My favorite part of Gen 1 is how many pokemon get their "broken clock is right twice a day" moments, like Porygon walling Snorlax, or Golbat actually having a use in Ubers.
@@ticklezcat5191or the like 7 taurolites
i am never scrolling to the comments before watching a video ever again i feel like i just got spoiled and it is 100% my own fault. i wasnt even bored i just wanted to see if the guy he mentioned made a comment but here in the second comment is a description of the ending. im so dumb
Agatha has two Gengars because when she got her first one she traded someone her own Haunter with someone for a different Haunter, then when they wanted to trade back for sentimental value she just traded something else instead and kept both Gengars (which is why one of them has a shittier moveset)
girlboss moment
Hold up you're telling me she basically stole someone else's Pokemon lol
@@NeceroeAs she herself said, Oak is foolish
What evidence is there for this?
Sounds like a fun headcanon
Gen 1 is designed like an RPG. Its designed for you to pick up and retire party members as you go through and get to each gym. The pokemon are very specific to their purpose. Its easier to catch a pokemon than train one up. (though most kids would just use their starter the entire game)
Its very different to later gens where every pokemon is designed to be useful through the whole game because they realized that people get attached to their pokemon and dont just replace them that easily.
not me taking a beedrill into the kanto elite four
Personally when I first played gen 1 I stopped catching wild pokemon after the 3 gym because they were all underleved
Snorlax be like hey I'm the best free pass no game corner
@cielbie8251
Exactly why gen 1 Dugtrio and Muk are so damn overleveled and powerful when you find them in the wild!
@@Kowery105 100%. Aside from a small selection of wild pokemon it was a huge grind to swap out a team member.
One thing a lot of people seem to misremember is that Mankey was NOT available before Brock in Red or Blue. Mankey was added in Yellow, and kept in FireRed and LeafGreen to make things easier, losing its status as a version exclusive in the process.
Not just that, but in Red and Blue, there were NO wild Grass types like Oddish/Bellsprout or Water types, like Poliwag, you could catch on Route 22 or Route 2, either. They only later added them in games like Pokemon Yellow or Crystal, but not in the originals. Which seems like a huge oversight. They also should've had Ponyta on Route 22 as well, so one could theoretically have all three Starter types before even going into Viridian Forest.
This is also why they specifically had Charmander learn Metal Claw at level 13 ONLY in gen 3 and no where else, to take on Brock's gym. But it was pointless, as that was a physical move anyway, meaning it'd do less super-effective damage than Ember's not-very-effective damage. They would've been better off having it learn Dragon Rage at level 13, which also could've been kept past gen 3 instead of the one-time-deal of Metal Claw in the Kanto remakes.
I will always remember this, because I would always bring up that piece of trivia or advice for players claiming that Yellow was too hard. Additionally, they altered Nidoran and Butterfree’s early move list to help deal with Brock as well (and any of those three options is nearly a guaranteed victory against Brock when you have that non-resisted move.) Now I just wish I’d pointed people toward Nidoran instead, since its evolution line is viable for the whole game.
what about nidoran + double kick
@@Porygonal64 In Red and Blue, Nidoran didn't learn Double Kick until level 43. This was changed to a more reasonable level 12 in Yellow.
I was about to comment that too.
One thing to note about Onix's stat distribution is that high defense and low HP minimizes the damage of bide, while still making him feel bulky.
I... never, ever would have thought of that. That's clever.
It also makes me remember Bind. Which in Gen 1 was actual cancer. *shiver*
@@IamCoalfoot Yeah part of me wonders if they didn't nerf the shit out of Onix after realizing with his move pool he would be broken if he was strong.
It's too bad bide is a bad gimmick, otherwise Onix would be perfect for it
@@miraclesage8622 Nah that's part of it, super high defense and low hp means Bide is as bad as it can be on him lol. 😥sadly
@@reitairue2073 Oh RIP Onix lol
This is an awesome video, and delves into an aspect of Pokemon that strangely often goes ignored: its design as a single-player experience. It’s a pretty well known fun fact that Multiplayer Battles were a late addition into the original RBY and that the game was designed primarily as a traditional JRPG with a monster collection twist. The social aspect of Pokemon was pretty much a marketing gimmick that was so ingenious it ended up subsuming the franchise identity.
That means a lot of the ‘questionable’ design quirks and traditions of the series can be traced back to the original design of RBY.
Except, you know, the fact that the developers wishing they could trade loot between their Dragon Quest cartridges was one of the main inspirations of Pokemon's development and so being able to trade Pokemon was planned from the start.
I feel like most good things that made pokemon blew up were entirely accidental. Hence why the games are absolute ass nowadays
@@kevinbell5674Trading was planned. But multi-player versus was not.
@purim9995 But that means that there was always a social aspect to the game from the start and that there being social elements wasn't just a gimmick but a genuine creative decision. Pokemon was always designed to be a single-player game with social elements to enhance the experience.
This sentiment exactly.
I would like to add though that regardless of when in development multi-player connectivity was planned, these games are still first and foremost, single-player RPG games with PvP play as a major, though still secondary, element.
I hate it when people assert that a mon is poorly designed because it isn't competitively viable or that certain design choices were only made for how they'd stack up in the meta. A Pokemon's typing, move pool, abilities, etc are picked to fit a certain design concept, provide logical challenge and progression depending on where they are in the game, to fit the game's story, and so on. If anything, competitive viability is typically only considered in the generations after a mon is introduced and typically only considered for fan favorites.
This is why Charizard and Pikachu keep getting buffed, while mons like Ledian are left in the dust. Shuckle has monstrous defenses and appalling stats otherwise not to keep it from being OP, but because that combo of stats is funny.
The name Moltres is also another well designed part of the game. Moltres is the only one you're pretty much guaranteed to run into, and the more astute kids (or the Spanish ones at least), would see the "tres" and wonder, hey, where are uno and dos? Am I missing something?
I am jumping up and down, grabbing my head in disbelief that after 20 years of playing Pokémon and 4 months working on this video, I never notices the "uno" "dos" "tres" in the legendary birds
@@ProfessorBoppera rare objective translation win for sure.
The original Japanese names (probably undercutting that deducted design intention) were just フリーザー, サンダー, ファイアー. Freezer, Thunder, Fire.
Not to mention Moltres is numbered 146, creating the gap on 144 and 145 which makes the player wonder about the possibility of existing another bird. And once you find Articuno in Seafoam, you are more determined to find the Power Plant and Zapdos (scoring the Thunder TM for your troubles), which may also make the player want to Go back to earlier areas that you can explore further by surfing, culminating on the discovery of the Cerulean Cave.
In German for some reason they just put triple "dos", Arktos, Zapdos, Lavados...
Rare German localization L
This brought me back to being 5 and not understanding what type effectiveness was so I ignored it. I was overleveled getting one hit kills and seeing "it wasn't very effective," confused at the game's appraisal of my Charizard's skills. Bullshit it wasn't effective I just flamethrowered that thing to dust. My level of understanding has formed a circle to agree with my child mind so now I just use pokemon I think are cool.
I remember when I first beat Emerald as a kid using only Blaziken because I was one of those kids that used to play the games with only their starter, and trying over and over to beat Wallace. I had some basic understanding of super effective attacks like obviously water is going to be strong against fire so I knew I was at a disadvantage even if I was pretty overleveled. The only reason I was able to eventually win was because I landed a crit on his Milotic and to my little baby brain it felt like a moment out of the anime it still sticks out as one of my favorite memories play any of these games.
@@koifish835 You reminded me of beating Lorelei(how tf you spell her name lol) in Red the 1st time with only my lvl 55 Charizard and clever use of fire spin and fly. Was so epic as a kid.
so youve grown up but your mind is still 5
@@blob5907 No using the same meta shit over and over in a really easy game made for children is boring, so I just use pokemon I enjoy.
@@koifish835 You just game me an idea, a challenge run where you can only use weak typing against the gyms and no overleveling either.
Onix was designed more as a boss than a playable character
Many cases in these games. The ability to catch and use them was supposed to be a bonus, for world building and to give you an extra gameplay time sink by catching everything once you beat the main game. You were never supposed to build “competitively viable teams” with whatever you think looks the coolest.
A lot of Pokémon were like that--designed more for the opposition than for you. Zubat was designed to be a mook--annoying but weak. And Golbat is still pretty weak, especially in Gen 1. Countless members of villainous teams have Zubats and Golbats. But the only time you'll ever see _Crobat_ is in major boss battles. A Gen 2 Elite Four member, the villainous team leader in Gen 4, etc.
@@CyberchaoX The fact that Crobat needs friendship to evolve speaks to Cyrus having more of a heart than he'd like to admit. And then there's Melli, who's so annoying that his Golbat refuses to evolve, just to spite him.
H Or he stole the Crobat@@tysondennis1016
@@tysondennis1016 It could be one-sided with his Crobat which seems more likely honestly.
Even if you don't really like someone or something, they can like you despite that since those types do exist.
A lot of people who get "into" Pokemon start seeing all Pokemon through the lens of either competitive or endgame and forget that a lot of the Pokedex is devoted to Pokemon that are meant to be good in the early and mid-game. Nearly every early route normal type and bug fall under this category, they are meant to be sort of like Fire Emblem Jagens, things that grow fast and although their peak strength is low in the context of the entire game they get much stronger than the challenges you'll face early on quicker than the Pokemon that evolve over three stages, usually.
Even in hard-mode versions of Pokemon games like Radical Red or Blaze Black some of the best encounters early on are Pokemon like Beedrill which help you get through to the mid-game easily on the back of it's early BST advantage, and by the time it drops off you have far more options to choose from in terms of replacing it. It helps make the collecting of Pokemon relevant throughout the adventure, it's genuinely good game design, but once you realize how good Dragapult is for the E4 it's easy to dismiss Beedrill as a "weak" Pokemon, even though for the majority of the main game it's probably outclasssing your Dreepy that doesn't even have a chance to evolve yet.
The real problem is that the intended "swap party members constantly and leave weaklings behind in the box" design is wildly unpopular and most rather keep there team members over a whole play through. (Not helped by the fact that in Gen 1 even the rival only boxes a singer Pokemon between all encounters with him)
@@rynobehnke8289and that the wider franchise REALLY disincentivises it with the people and pokemon being friends thing.
Like, would you shove your trusted friend who you've been sharing your adventures with into a box and never look at them again? No. The games even Know this, it's why your starter has stats so close to a pseudo legendary: You're not expected to switch it out, because its been with you the entire time...
It sometimes feels like half of the design team actually understand what the appeal of Pokemon is, while the other half just see it as a generic RPG... And sadly I think it's the ones who have actually worked on other RPG's who probably understand what makes Pokemon uniquely appealing, if the RPG heavy side of the games is anything to go off.
@ciarannihill
This is exactly why I love Dunsparce in any Johto playthroughs I go to Dark Cave and spend the time searching for one. It also reminds me a lot of me; who had Precocious Puberty, and was "tall" for a ten year old (at only 180 cm) but never grew since age 10, now being short/"weak" compared to other Western adults in my country.
@@rynobehnke8289 Before Pokemon, there was Dragon Quest V,. and it was there that the idea of recruiting monsters, training them, adjusting their moveser and later replacing them was born. That's the underscript framing a lot of the entire Red and Blue monster design.
@@rynobehnke8289 that's a player problem and not a bad game design problem however
I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for using the word "penultimate" correctly re. the Lance fight.
I've noticed a trend lately of video essayists using that word to mean "final." As a person who is pedantic to a likely unhealthy degree, it drives me nuts.
Using “penultimate” to mean “ultimate but I think I sound smarter” is peak midwit.
I love video essays but i only watch like 4 channels cuz a lot of them are boring or low effort
That doesnt have anything to do with being pedantic. But i dont think ive encountered anyone doing this, do you know a video?
using big words to sound more photosynthesis
As an Italian, since penultimate comes from "penultimo" common italian word of the same meaning, I cringe at hearing it misused.
For as hard as Beedrill falls off in this game, in Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness, this thing is a monster. Get the multihit attacks linked together with Focus Energy and that's four guaranteed Critical Hits in one turn if you don't miss and TWELVE guaranteed Crits if everything hits. Heracross with Skill Link in those games is even more of a walking apocalypse, it's beautiful
All of the multi-hit moves were devastating. Sceptile with bullet seed defeated most legendaries in one round. It was the Pokemon power fantasy I needed
as someone listening to this at work, i now believe in the 14.65 percent chance to crit and will not check if ive been misinformed. thank you
One of my favorite design aspects of gen 1 that was taken out of future generations is for Magikarp - right after you purchase one near Mt. Moon, Mt. Moon's first item drop is a water gun TM. At this point, only Squirtle/Wartortle can learn this I'm fairly sure; and they likely already have if you beat Brock. It exists to tell the player that Magikarp is TRASH. It can't even learn one of the most basic offensive water type moves in the game via TM, and is caste into a role of splashing helplessly against other Pokemon.
Clefairy/Clefable and Nidoking/Nidoqueen can use Watergun, both of which become available around the same time.
Rattata, Nidorina/o, Clefairy, and Jigglypuff too, unless you mean with STAB
Everyone above me already said it, but yeah, I taught TM12 to my Jigglypuff, as I rarely pick Squirtle in Kanto.
The point I _thought_ you were going to make though, is to save the TM once Magikarp finally evolves into Gyarados sometime along Route 24 or Vermillion City, thus rewarding the player for hard work. However, this only applies if Pokemon isn't your first game and you actually know how TMs work.
Oh yeah I meant STAB my bad - it is good for gyarados as well but you likely have a bubble beam tm by then too…
The position of the TM is crazy. Again; we know that magikarp can’t learn that, but if gen 1 is your first pokemon game, which for everyone in 1996 it was, then it serves as a really brutal message to the player that magikarp is not self-sufficient in the state that you receive it in
Lmfao I never even thought of this, that’s brilliant visual storytelling
The most interesting/funniest part about Moltres, IMO, is that he only learns two fire moves (which are also its only Special moves): Fire Spin and Fire Blast (no Flamethrower). He can only learn the latter from the single Fire Blast TM Blaine hands out upon defeat... which Blaine himself immediately recommends blowing on a goober like Ponyta ("Teach it to fire-type Pokémon! Charmeleon or Ponyta would be good bets!").
I don't know if it's good or bad game design, but I find the idea of Moltres being an unga bunga big BST 'mon with a stunted movepool (barring Fly and arguably Fire Spin) that can be greatly helped if you know to save a TM for it to be cool. It's like saving a Luna and Body Ring for Athos in fe7, y'know?
Addendum: Zapdos and Articuno learn Thunder and Blizzard at lv. 51, respectively. Moltres gets... Leer. It's been theorized that this was an error and it was *supposed* to learn Fire Blast.
Just to build on the Fire Blast bit in the addendum: Leer's move ID is one lower than Fire Blast's so its not particularly Farfetch'd that someone just messed up in the coding.
@@VultureSausage A coding error? In gen 1? Surely you jest.
It wouldn't be Fire Blast, though, because you got that from Blaine's TM and they made an intentional design choice that the moves taught by Gym Leaders' TMs would not be found in *any* Pokémon's level-up movesets (though they broke this rule for Yellow Version because Thunderbolt has always been Pikachu's signature move in the anime and it was also the move from Surge's TM.) They only moved away from this philosophy in Generation III, where only three of the eight Hoenn Gym Leaders gave out a TM with a move no Pokémon learned by level-up (Wattson, Flannery, and Norman).
@@CyberchaoX probably ws fireblast unil they decided on the leader exclusive tm moves. then they did a quick fix by downshifting to leer and never changed it to the new move/never made one
@athath2010
It's not an error because no Pokemon learn Gym TMs in gen 1, except for Surge's TM25 (Thunderbolt) that they later gave to Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow. It might have learned Flamethrower at level 51, which isn't as powerful as Blizzard or Thunder, but it wouldn't have been a gym leader TM.
“All the grass type moves deal mental damage instead of physical” made me laugh more than it should. I like the idea that it deals damage not by actually harming anything, but by being so scary it scars them mentally.
"Touch grass!"
"NOOOOO!"
@@Slysheen This is hilarious
only when you smoke it...
The thing I lament is that Game Freak is allergic to base stats rebalance between generations. They only started doing it after Gen 6, and 99% of their "buffs" or "nerfs" are 10 more or 10 less base stats in one or two stats. While Onix got an evolution in Gen 2, it was still not as good as it could've been, so it would've been nice if Onix got a stat buff on top of its evolution in Gen 2.
I love how Sceptile is entirely built to be a special attacker when its moveset and its signature move are almost all physical because of what grass was in Gen 3.
One really have to wonder if they just do not have any visual aids in the Pokemon Company, like, curating the pokemon seems like the most sacred task in capitalism...but....noo....nooo....surely the market is not big enough to sustain a department of 50 people...oh, wait...@@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes
Even then, Onix wasn't ever one of the reballanced ones, they gambled on an evolution that would turn it into a wall proper but doesn't even do that.
This is entirely my point. There's no reason for Onix to keep the role they gave it outside of Kanto. Even in Kanto, even if you understand Brock's boss battle, it is still wildin' that Bruno would use two slots on it. Onix should be a late bloomer and have exponential attack stat growth past level 30 or 40 to be justified in the Elite 4.
@@jpcsdutra To be honest, Bruno is a joke in general in Gen 1, besides having two Onix for no reason, Fighting types had it rough with basically no good moves at all and low Special, they get destroyed by any good Special Attacker while not really doing good damage to anything with decent bulk.
But going back to Onix, heay even in Gen 1 it stat distribution is pretty weird. I'm pretty sure it deals way less damage than his Geodude. Onix needed to have the same Atk as a Geodude AT THE VERY LEAST.
The + or - 10 points only really matter for speed tiers tbh
One point I want to bring up for Beedrill - in Gen 1, Bug and Poison were super effective against each other (for some reason). Which means all the Grass/Poison types you run into throughout the game are 4x weak to Twineedle, which means Beedrill has some legs later in the run, especially if you started with Squirtle. Not quite as good as Butterfree being able to learn OP Psychic moves, but still good.
beedrill is a lot better than butterfree, because the psychic moves it has access to will never be terribly powerful and on top of that it's the only form of meaningful damage butterfree can attempt to do. psychic as a type isn't OP, a handful of the best pokemon just happen to also be psychic type.
@@gmerc1333 Psychic type in Gen 1 is only resisted by other Psychic types, and it's super effective against all the Poison types running around, which is why I called it OP. It's even better defensively, since it's only weakness is Bug in Gen 1, but having a fake Psychic type in the party is still super useful.
in practice butterfree's psychic attack doesn't really have legs long term at all. beedrill is better than butterfree in essentially all situations where butterfree would excel. butterfree lives and dies by being able to use sleep powder and that's about it.@@SilverZephyrFalcon
@@gmerc1333 True. Butterfree does fall off a lot sooner. And there are far better fake Psychics (and real ones) later that outclass it.
@@gmerc1333well it's worth noting that butterfree also has sleep powder and green 1 sleep is really powerful.
It's one of the reason it often performs better than beedrill in solo challenges.
The only real thing last game beedrill has going for it is swords dance which is rather risky as it's not great at taking his
When I was a kid trying to get Porygon, I didn't know about the Missingno glitch yet. I also didn't seem to think about just buying the coins outright when blowing past the Elite 4 over and over with Mewtwo. Due to gambling being considered a terrible sin where I lived, (for reference, we were warned not to go into the giant slot machine in Sonic 2's Casino Night Zone, and if we did, our parents would make us shut off the game) I would become exceptionally furtive while playing the slot machine in the Rocket Game Corner. Effectively pointless to try and be secretive about it, since the original Game Boy's screen was so terrible, it was barely possible for the player to see what was going on, let alone anybody trying to look over your shoulder.
But that sense of accomplishment to finally get Porygon was weirdly powerful. Even though Porygon is straight up terrible in Gen I, I felt like it was the greatest because of how much work I put in to get it.
Bopper's delivery on the line "It's just like that boss from Dark Souls" is really good, I can almost see the randomly capitalized letters as he says it, and in general I think he's doing an awesome job keeping his reading this emotive for this big of a vid!
I really love the angle this analysis went, observing the pokemon from the context of how they developers wanted you to encounter them in the context of a single player RPG. Just goes to show that even if people keep parroting the same things about a nearly 30 year old game over and over, you could still find new things to talk about if you shift your headspace a little. I hope you keep playing games in the series and find more to enjoy. Personally, I think the third generation hit the perfect sweet spot for me in terms of how the games designed their first encounters and rewarded exploration.
Man, I'm tired of people saying Pokémon is just for kids, like have they really not realized that ramgaM backwards is Magmar?
50 minute video on Onix? I’m in
oh god i thought this was 8 minutes💀
@@qoyoteConsider this though: Onix is really long, so a video on Onix had to be equally long.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 *Galaxy Brain*
Yo TheSmithPlays? Hey Pat.
Love that the pokemon that is halfway up the list of pokemon by BST is also the one with the signature move that deals 50% of your HP.
I think of it as a reward for players who, perhaps to spite their Rival boxing the Rat for being too weak, keep their Raticate around. Even if Raticate isn't as strong as it once was, it can soften up an enemy so much that your other pokemon can quickly finish the fight
Honestly, Onix teaches the valuable lesson of "it's ok, other lines besides the charizard line exist and you can use them, please use them"
I charmander mained. I picked up butterfree to help on onyx, jugglypuff cos i enjoyed it’s anime hijynx, magikarp as I liked its underdog/hidden potential vibes, abra cos I heard it had a good final evolution and stumbled into a 29 dugtrio which just cleared the midgame for me. So yeah, that was my pre-SS Anne team I levelled up and took through elite four. I didn’t experiment much with other pokemon I found as I read (in game) wild pokemon would be much weaker than my trained up team … and swapping out any of them would have felt like a betrayal!
I learned this as soon as I saw charizard. I'm like: "who the heck would pick charizard when venusaur is an option?".
I mean isnt ember still pretty good at killing onix
@@leaffinite3828 It is, and not too many hits either. Brock will waste his turns using Full Heals if you get lucky burns as well.
My brains as a kid didn't get that message, what it got was "Charizard line is the best, if you are not winning with the charizard line is because you need to practice that ember in bugs so that it can finally melt stone" and then I proceed to use only my starter, with all other party members being there to take hits while i use potions or revives.
Somehow in my brain, if i did it any other way it would be like betraying my starter
Since nobody else was degenerate enough to research. The traded Lickitung's japanese name is Namezō according to Bulbapedia. The "artist" is named Namezou. As far as I can tell they are pronounced the same, but googling lickitung's with the ō gives very different results than with the regular o.
"ō" and "ou" are just different ways of transcribing Japanese. Toukyou instead of Tōkyō would also be correct but nobody writes that
I used to play pokemon blue on my brothers OG gameboy before I got my own Gameboy Color with Pokemon Yellow on my 10th birthday. It felt like I was an actual Pokemon trainer starting out. I'll never forget those were some of the best years of my life. Im 31 now and gifted the Gameboy color and all my games to my ex's 8yo kid. I don't regret it.
It really is astonishing that people who claim to be all about game design can't seem to put it together that Onix was designed to be boss monster first and foremost
Minor thought on the "difficulty" of choosing Charmander. While yes he can have a little trouble with Brock compared to Squirtle and Bulbasaur, he's also the fastest to train in the nearby Viridian Forest by far as they'll 1shot everything including kakuna/metapod. To be honest when I was a kid I got easily to level 20 with Charmeleon before Brock, as I'd seen another kid get a Pikachu in the forest (I think it was a 5% encounter rate) and I spent a couple hours training there trying to catch the thing. When I finally got to Brock, I steamrolled him.
The trick to Charmander was to use Growl whenever Onix used Bide, this helped not only by preventing Bide from doing double the Ember's damage but made subsequent Tackles from Onix weak
Even with Charmander you didn't need another Pokemon
Generations of content creators will look back to this video in content-creator school when they write their dissertations on absolutely fire transitions.
I feel like one awesome thing about the trade evos is the fact that if you look closely, you'll see that you have good stat distributions in the 2nd stage.
Haunter and Kadabra's speed and special is phenomenal and they come with the overall same relevant movepool.
Meanwhile Graveler and Machoke's attack and overall bulk are solid enough for an in-game version
Graveler is also EXTRA beefy due to how much the AI spams Normal type moves. Haunter is similarly impressive in its survivability considering how poor its Hp and Defense are
Did you just put the fear and hunger soundtrack in your pokemon video?
Liked
As a kid I thought Pokémon blue required grinding, because I was trying to beat the game with my early Pokémon leveled up. Someone had told me Pokemon were stronger if you raised them so I never considered using anything I caught at high levels.
That's actually true that raised Pokemon are stronger, because when you defeat opponents your Pokemon gains EVs (stat experience in gen 1).
Yeah, but I took that advice way too seriously so my whole team was the pokemon I raised from the lowest levels. So I was rolling the Butterfree all the way to the elite four instead of swapping in new team members with more overall power.@@PsiPaula4
@@PsiPaula4Stat experience is not completely equivalent to EVs. They're calculated in different ways but the main difference is you can max out every stat in stat experience, but EVs only allow for a total of 510 EVs and a maximum of 255 (gen 8 onwards made it 252) in a single stat
I really didn't expect this video to be as engaging as it was. The balance of your laidback attitude and in-depth analysis of Pokemon viability and fun-ability is just right. Great work.
Lackluster move sets are overall annoying but they do make TMs feel way more valuable. Also, every TM that is given by a Gym Leader is the only way any Pokémon can learn that move. This means moves like Thunderbolt and Fire Blast, both incredible STAB options, will only be learned ONE Pokémon no matter how many Pokémon you catch and grind up.
The lackluster move sets and scarcity of TMs made plenty of room for HMs so they didn't feel as bad in Gen 1. In fact, Surf had been the best water type move for a long time until Scald came along. Strength at 80 BP is just Mega Punch or Hyper Fang without the accuracy penalty and is only strictly worse than Body Slam which you only get 1 copy. Fly isn't bad for single player, in fact it is Pidgeot's best Flying STAB option. It was only when move pools got better and HMs got more numerous in the sequels (all of them Normal or Water for some reason) that the 4 slot limitation really started to hurt.
Pikachu's the exception, learning Thunderbolt through level up.
@@VultureSausageOnly in Yellow.
Starter privilege.
Missingno felt like making a deal with the devil, but at least I had unlimited TMs, Nuggets, and Master Balls!
I never owned a Nintendo DS, so Gen 3 is my last experience with Pokemon. The idea of TMs being reusable in later generations bothers me.
Generation 1 of Pokemon was held together by gift wrapping tape and gum, and i wouldn't have it any other way
I feel they could have made onix better overall and still kept it as a strong first gym ace with one change:
Boost its Attack stat to something not as pathetic, say 80-90, and replace tackle with constrict, a move with only 10 base power.
Not only would that balance things out and have onix do pretty much the same damage in the fight with Brock as it currently does, but also makes more sense with onix being a giant rock snake
People would rage quit at first gym with Gen 1 constrict mechanics
@@xunknownartist You are thinking of Bind. Constrict doesn't continuously damage a Pokémon and make it unable to move. It's just a terribly weak normal move with a high chance (in Gen 1) to lower the opponent's speed. Perfect for the snake that needs to outspeed its opponent for Bide to work properly.
I love how early Pokemon design had such mechanical pesonality. Not every Pokemon needs perfectly tailored stats, easy plug-in STAB options and 10 Coverage types. The strange limitations and quirks add a lot of personality to each individual Pokemon, because for instance, Electrode isn't just a fast, kind of weak Electric Type, it's that thing that uses Thunder Wave then Explodes. Dugtrio isn't the best, but it has a pitiful HP stat and is the only fast Ground Type.
Why doesn't Pinsir learn Earthquake? Why should you expect it to? The game gets significantly less interesting if every Pokemon had everything it needed to thrive.
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I mean there’s clear winners though, guys like Gyarados, Alakazam, Snorlax get a lot more than, say, Pinsir. I agree in spirit, but it’s not executed amazingly
I lowkey do wish they nailed the concept of _giving mono-type mons at least a decent STAB move,_ but then didn't feed into every mon ever getting Ground, Rock, Electric, or Ice coverage. Even within Gen 1, it was pretty weird seeing Tauros and Snorlax get random Fire, Electric, and Ice coverage just because.
Move type distribution has become a lot less restricted offensively, especially now that the omni-coverage Hidden Power has been powercrept by the even omnier-coverage Tera Blast this gen, and I do wish that they could balance out the stronger mons by narrowing their move options in the way of typing. Why should standard Lilligant only have Grass and Normal coverage, while Ogerpon gets Grass, Normal, Dark, Fighting, Rock, Water, Fire, Fairy, Bug, Ground, and Psychic coverage, all on decently powerful moves?
Forgive me if this was brought up and I missed it but I really want to congratulate Game Freak on the original idea behind the Dragon type.
It's only used by the penultimate boss. The only other way you can encounter a dragon is by finding it in the Safari zone, where you don't battle them in a normal way, so all you could possibly know about Dragon-type Pokemon is what you read in the back of the instruction manual.
The starter Pokemon are explicitly designed to remain with you your entire trainer career -- being cute when you start, turning into cool monsters when you end, and having the three evolution levels timed so just as the previous form starts to fall off you get a power boost that keeps them relevant to your party until the endgame. You are all but ensured to still have your starter Pokemon (and for them to be one of the strongest on your team, if not THE Pokemon carrying you), and as you encounter these mythical creatures you bring out your starter...
And Dragons are resistant to all three of those types. Not strong against them -- it's not a totally lopsided fight -- but you're going to have a much harder time just powering through them with your starter the way you probably powered through the rest of the game. They're even resistant to Electric-- less pertinent since Dragonite's Flying-type mitigates the advantage, but it still cuts down on the power of the series mascot that kids might have carried with them all through the games, too.
Meanwhile, their only true weakness is Ice... a Pokemon type you can go the entire game without ever finding for yourself. The only Ice-type you're guaranteed to run across is the gift Lapras (which can be easy to forget to come back for, although I don't think that was intentional). Otherwise you have to find the Jynx trade (and remember to go back to it), explore the Seafoam Islands (completely skippable), or use the Super Rod in the waters between Vermillion and Pallet Town (Cinnabar and Seafoam inclusive). You don't NEED any of the Ice-types, of course, and in fact the type is almost deliberately set up to be weak against the endgame... except against Dragons, where it becomes a secret weapon that you had to work to find. Dragonite's secondary Flying type might even be specifically to make Ice a nuke against it to reward a player for finding and raising this rare, nigh-hidden type.
Gen 1 seems so janky and weird from a present day perspective but it's fascinating to look back and really understand why the (im)balances are the way they are. I've really developed a massive appreciation for the thought that went into these games, just wonderful.
If you look at Onix from a nature perspective, he's an incredibly specifically developed pokemon for locale. It does well there, and very few places elsewhere. It's, not every pokemon is going to be a world beater. It's not possible, feasible, or dare I say it, realistic.
Which is why the evolution into steelix is kinda interesting to me, because it's actually clearly evolving to be better. I, I know this happens otherwise, but like, changing from a caterpie to a butterfree eventually is NOT the same thing.
@@Earthboundmike
I'm pretty sure it's also implied that Steelix isn't natural. He's a modern mutation, formed by an error caused by the Metal Coat during trading. Same with Scizor, except it's even more blatant with that because Scizor's BST remains the same, it just gets a stat allocation and steel typing.
@@felixdaniels37Scizor also has an altered stat spread that fits the evolution.
fun fact: if you're in a trainer battle, your poliwhirl/staryu/shellder/eevee levels up, then you switch to onix for the last pokemon, after the fight, the water pokemon will evolve
You can do it with wild battle too
One of my favorite videos you’ve done; this really makes me want to play rby again.
The “figures” spread throughout your video lend it a super cool feel, and I love the fear and hunger music when Onix shows up (square tf up Valtiel)
The really sad part is that even recently in gen 9 pokemon seemingly did the butterfree/beedrill thing with spidops, even though many pokemon on the same route evolve either around the same time or dont need to at all and can last the entire game with no issues, while spidops has nothing to justify its pitiful BST.
Well, it could be worst. It could be Ledian.
Or Kricketune. Like seriously, I think those two have right now the lowest BST total of any fully evolved bug type, with the exception, of course, of Shedinja, who *doesn't use three of its stats*.
Okey, I was mistaken, turns out that Dustox has it worst than Ledian (but better than Kricketune). They gave Beautifly a stat boost in gen 6 and I assumed they would've given it to Dustox too (though I don't know why I assumed it if they didn't give it to Ledian when they gave it to Ariados). Still, Ledian's case is particulary outrageous because it's supposed to be specialiced in punches, it's one of the few Pokémon that learn Comet Punch, its hidden ability is Iron Fist and yet attack it has just *35* base attack.
I love this video because it goes into the extremely nerdy detail about so many pokemon that I do when I replay Pokemon Red once again. Pokemon Red replays made me wish Pokemon games weren't so connected, because many of the early mons were designed with very specific roles and contexts in mind that are simply lost in other games of the series and even more in other mechanics. Ekans and Arbok are seemingly worthless, but much like their position as villainous snakes would suggest, they are tailor-made to abuse Gen1 Wrap with either their signature Glare (which lets them trap any opponent forever) or Toxic. They can also learn Dig right after getting the TM, so they can beat Lt. Surge and later use Dig with Toxic.
Raticate and Farfetch'd are the perfect child's play Pokemon in my opinion. Rattata is the first mon you likely catch and learns the strongest Normal type move for a while very early. Its stats, while low, are also surprisingly optimized in Atk and Speed, so it really does make for a nice "can't go wrong" option. Nowadays, its stats and Hyper Fang aren't nearly as good, but in Gen1 it's great.
Farfetch'd is my favorite Gen1 mon and it's exactly because of the story in the video - I was a dumb kid struggling to keep up in levels (because the level economy in Gen1 *is* pretty strict) and here comes Farfetch'd leveling like crazy AND dealing tons of damage, because I obviously used the TM Bodyslam on my highest level pokemon. Plus, it got Slash, the same super strong move Charizard has! I admittedly didn't wake up to Swords Dance until I was 11 or 12 (I played Red when I was 8) but it made replaying the game with my childhood hero even sweeter (because yeah, I didn't get far without Dux)
Only a couple minutes in, but it’s also worth noting that while some of those Pokémon have lower BST than onix of the group mentioned at the beginning, many are practically stronger.
Farfetch’d is JUST fast fast enough to have “guaranteed” (99.6% chance) crits on slash, so it’s actually about twice as strong as advertised on the tin.
Lickitung has a similar trait, being the only swords dance user (aside from farfetch’d, who gets little use because crits ignore your own positive boosts too and is too fragile to set up basically ever) who is a normal type, and so while every other SD user hits the attack and consequently damage cap, lickitung gets STAB on the busted Gen 1 hyper beam.
And anyone who knows anything about Gen 1 battles knows porygon can counter many snorlax and mew sets, something almost nothing else in the game can claim to be able to do.
Onix has no such niche usage, it’s simply just terrible, except maybe as a role compression to have a rock type on a partial trapping spam team if you’re on that gigacopium.
comparing pokemon by base stat total was explicitly mentioned to be a reductive way of looking at things in the video, this discrepancy is intentional so as to speak generally about relative strength without getting lost in the weeds of every asterisk
Even if you're only looking at OU/Ubers specifically, Farfetched is probably still objectively worse than Onix. Onix gets that Rock/Ground typing, which makes it the FOURTH best option if you want one of those for their general utility.
...Which isn't good, but Farfetch'd is only the third best normal type slash user, out of three. You're actually misremembering the fun fact, too. It's just barely Slow enough to miss out on 99.6 Slash. (60*100/64=93.75)
Just for fun, let's dump on the others too!
Porygon is novel for being able to sometimes sit on specific Snorlax builds, notably not "many Snorlax and Mew sets," but exclusively Body Slam/Reflect/Rest sets without Ice Beam. This is compared to Onix, who can reliably 1v1 all Zapdos! Confirmed better use of a team slot. (Just use Rhydon)
Lickitung is a funny case, because IF you can get it to +6, STAB makes it stronger than other Swords Dancers, but it's base attack is actually so low that it's +2 Hyper Beam is only _on par_ with other Swords Dancers in power. And if you're not getting up Swords Dances, you're left with a generic normal type with worse stats than Onix, go figure.
The real hero among the stinkers is Butterfree, who rules Onix's home tier 6u/zu with an iron fist. It doesn't have an OU niche though, so uhhhhj
Ditto "wins" the paralyzed Mewtwo matchup, we have a winner, something actually better than Onix, let's go.
I had Pokémon blue growing up, I had articuno and was grinding before beating the elite 4
I let a friend on the school bus borrow the game as he’d never played before, he was sheltered, and he beat the elite 4 and when he saw the credits he thought he beat the game and started a new save 😭
I let a schoolmate play my Pokemon Ruby. Two Days later, she said it was boring. I started my save data, to notice that my player was called "SUSAN"with a level 5 treecko. SHE DELETED MY SAVE DATA. I almost completed my dex, had to start over...
This onyx design may work when you get a starter with a stab special move, but I played yellow as a kid. What I learned is that onix is imune to my stab special move and nothing in the game taught me why. I didn’t even know what his stats were because the game didn’t tell me. I didn’t know I was supposed to evolve the weakest bug Pokémon I could find twice to get my first special move because the metapods I saw looked terrible and I didn’t want them. Eventually I got a nidiran that dwarves double kick, which did “super effective” damage but still barely hurt onyx. It was only years later I learned how it actually works. Sometimes I wonder how I beat yellow without understanding what stats were, that certain types like dragon and ice even existed and that paralysis quartered speed. So much is not told to you.
This. People say it teaches you, but it doesnt actually teach shit.
The guy that is always at the start of a gym and gives you advice actually tells you that Pikachu's electric moves will be harmless against Brock's pokémon because they are ground-type, but yes I don't remember stats ever being explained in the game and which types are physical and special. I actually learned that through the help menu in FireRed, it actually explains a lot of those mechanics and can tell you type matchups if you open it in battle
All I ever learned was basic match-ups (fire beats grass, etc ) when I played Blue in my childhood. I beat the game despite not understanding most of the mechanics, lmao
Something that occurred to me during the end was It feels like Porygon should have been able to learn all TMs. I know this was Mew's gimmick, that it has psychic typing, reasonably high balanced stats, and can learn all TM/ HM moves, and the lore reason for that last trait was it being said to be the common ancestor to all pokemon. Porygon also has mostly balanced stats and the slightly weaker but reliable normal type, and it does have a good movepool, but it's also explicitly a man made pokemon developed using recent technologies. With that in mind it should be possible to have made it compatible with just about any TMs, since it's properties should be fully within control of it's designers, and while it's not canon it'd fit if it had actually been created in the first place as a beta tester for the development of new TMs and HMs. A custom built cyber pokemon to use for testing TMs to make sure everything's functional before moving forwards to see if it works with "naturally occurring" pokemon.
Maybe that misses the point of "Porygon is a lifestyle choice, not an optimal one", I just thought it'd fit lorewise and would've been pretty cool, like a budget Mew despite being the one pokemon (of the generation) that by all means ought to be confirmed as not a descendant of it.
I continue to not know anything about pokemon so I have no clue if this video makes sense, but it's nice to look at and fun to listen to so you and Nin have once again succeeded at this youtube thing. well done!
more importantly your "I cheated on too much of my math classes and now have no idea what the math for my pokemon video is telling me" problem is very relatable. I mean not to me but. Basically what happened is the other day my mom showed me a news article featuring a very dumb chemistry mistake (guy didn't know what nitrogen was) and she told me: "hey. remember that funny story I told you about how one time I wrote a chemistry test with carbon paper so the entire grade could cheat off of me"
then she looked very serious for a moment, and continued, "and I never regretted it. but maybe... maybe this guy shouldn't have passed chemistry. but he did. because of me."
it was a beautiful moment about the long ranging consequences of youthful mistakes and also what I assume will happen when the generous soul who you cheated off of in algebra watches this video
I kind of spaced out and I heard "lick his ass", but more importantly I want you to know I waste a lot of time trying to catch Onix in Heart gold. I got all the way to the final gym before I realized it had 50 hp at level 46.
I'm glad that Onix can serve as a tutorial boss in Gen 1. But nowadays I think they should buff his stat total to be equal to Steelix's, mirroring how Scyther and Scizor share a base stat total but with a different distribution. Both evolve using the Metal Coat, and Scizor loses speed to gain attack and defense. I think Onix could be the same way. Lose its decent speed stat and gain some attack and defense to become Steelix.
Guys I just really love Onix and want to be able to use him to some effect.
I’ll always be confused why Dragon Quest III is the most popular JRPG, but most JRPGs don’t have multiclassing or party customization.
Great video! Made me appreciate the behind the scenes design of a lot Pokémon I didn’t care about. I would love to see a sequel to this video about the Pokémon from the 2nd generation!
Look at him in the anime? He lost to thunder shock.
Literally zero dog in him
Shoutout to 7 year old me for using the master ball on an Onix in Victory Road because it was so darn intimidating earlier in the game. (Don't worry, I fainted all the legendaries because I interpreted "The ball missed the Pokemon!" as meaning I couldn't catch it)
Good video. If this is the direction you'll going to take your channel (analyze odd / peculiar things from childhood games etc)then I really look forward to your next video !
I feel like this video was all over the place in a good way. I had a lot of fun just watching it, and you did a great job with it. I hope to see more from you :)
I am only 10m in and you've already made me think about these games in ways I haven't before, blowing my mind in a way I thought Pokémon videos couldn't anymore. This video needs to blow up
what makes pokemon gen 1 great, is that it gives you everything you need to beat the game without grinding. But it also gives you everything you need to make it a painful head smahing into the wall slog.
This was such a great look at Gen. 1's game design, I would love to see you cover other gens in the future.
This was a great video, and I want to especially highlight how great the title is. It made me curious as to the meaning (just barely clickbait, I guess), and, by the end, the meaning made complete sense. I felt fulfilled watching through the video and absorbing your points. Good job; subscribed; and keep it up.
Nice job going with "Fungi Forest" for the background music while analyzing paras/parasect!
When you busted out the 151 to the 6th power equation... Jeez, I truly forgot just how staggeringly high the number of options for party composition we have in Pokémon games. Insane.
It’s not actually that high. Their calculation treats “pikachu in first slot and 5 onixes” as distinct from “5 onixes and pikachu in last slot”
Another thing onix can potentially do ( specifically when picking bulbasaur) is teach the value of status moves. There’s a very real possibility when you face it you don’t have vine whip. But what you will have instead is leech seed. Notably while you don’t really do anything with tackle neither does it’s attacks either. This can lead to experimenting with status moves which can lead to discoveries like omg most bosses lead a very weak Mon in terms of offensive potential and if I use stat raising moves vs that Mon I can basically win most boss fights from the first Mon easily or hey making the opponent weaker can help my other mons or even wow leech seed is sure useful vs all the Grimers and clefairies that spam minimize since it only needs to hit once to make that Mon eventually go down. Also what are you on about binding moves are honestly overpowered fire spin included in gen 1 that’s like the one good thing about the fire type
Unfortunately, Brock has 5 full heals, for each of his pokemon.
@@sebastianlucas704 so are you just confused and don’t realize that leech seed isn’t a status condition healed by full heals or are you just commenting this for no reason since this has nothing to do with the fact that bulbasaur pickers are usually beating Brock via leech seed?
@@ultimaterecoil1136 Well, you turned into a dick fast.
You said that onix encourages players to use status, I then pointed out that Brock has 5 full heals per pokemon. This either disproves that, or, is a mistake on the developers end.
Why would the developers be encouraging only leach seed here? Considering how the player likely got poisoned trying to get to Brock, wouldn't a lot of players then try poison themselves, just as an example.
yall did such a great job on this. ive had a growing appreciation for the original kanto and johto games as of late for their extreme individuality among the rest of the series and this video only greatly deepened that appreciation. fantastic video
Great video! Really loved the F-Zero music you had, Cosmo Terminal was a nice surprise.
Never have I seen your videos but it looks like the youtube algorithm enjoys this one and I am too so far. Hope this one and/or your channel pops off in a way that you are happy, proud and comfortable with!
I love deep dives like this. People tend to forget that Gens 1-3 were very much single player games that happened to have some strong multiplayer elements to them. The games really didn't lean into its competitive scene much until late Gen 3 and Gen 4.
For example Voltorb legit exist just to be the 'mimic' of the game so the speak. I also liked how earlier gens leaned more into the monster aspects. Now pokemon are more based on animals, but during Gens 1 and 2, they legit could be anything. Most didn't have to be based on anything exiting to have a reason to be.
It's not that people forget, but that the people who grew up on Gen 1 are in their 30s at the youngest. Most younger fans don't know how Pokemon used to be. If they ever play Gen 1, what they see is a game that doesn't play like the Pokemon they grew up with.
I love that he keeps referring to special attacks as dealing "mental damage". When you get burned by Flamethrower or zapped by Thunderbolt, it's all in your head man.
Finally, someone understands
Funny thing about onix is that as a kid playing pokemon yellow I used my master ball on an onix in victory road... and I 100% blame the anime and battle against brock for that lol
0:54 Also consider that Farfetch'd gets normal STAB, Body Slam, Sword's Dance and Agility, making it capable to badge boost greatly. So low base stats are not that bad for it.
22:14 another fun Golbat fact is him having a niche in gen 1 Ubers where it completely walls an actual set Mew might be running. Which is more than can be said about more conventionally "Good" pokemon. Big Yellow, Reverend, and Plague Von Karma are great gen 1 content creators.
(edit)
wow at 48:58 the exact three youtubers I mention appear
I wish I could give a heart to your comment like Bopper
Really, any Flying-type can accomplish that feat: the set is Earthquake, Softboiled, Explosion, and Swords Dance. Golbat gets the nod because it learns Screech and Confuse Ray, which give it at least a little utility against the non-Mew Pokemon (most of whom have equally-abysmal matchups against Mewtwo).
Excellent video, love your presentation style! Great find on the Japanese Lickitung nickname! I recently realised that the in-game-trade Jynx isn't named Lola for nothing (See: The Kinks - Lola).
Great work. I happened upon this video, and I recently started a Nuzlocke run with Gen I, and this had some useful bits of information that I can apply to my gameplay.
To me I have a sort of soft spot for Mt Moon. You have so much Zubat, which is annoying, but the location also has Brock's Pokemon, Geodude. And even rarer you have some interesting looking Pokemon like Paras and Clefairy, which I remember seeing with some level of aww. I saw them as these rare hidden creatures that you were rewarded for looking for.
3:25 I forgot just how rad Haunter's original sprite was; it looks like prime evil with its jagged edges and those beady eyes!
Good video, but I'm not so sure how to feel about the argument that Pokemon was what introduced customizability to the JRPG genre - Shine Megami Tensei was doing that well before Pokemon Red and Blue released.
And Gen 1's "Pick and Put" mentality with short term mons is also very akin to how SMT treats Demons closer to equipment on legs than party members
To be fair, SMT 1&2 are basically Japanese exclusive. SMT 1 got an incredible obscure English port on the iPhone while 2 never got anything. Persona 1 didn't get localized until 1999, by then we were in the middle of Pokemania.
I have no idea how popular SMT was in Japan at the time, but I know it was non-existent anywhere else.
Given how most creature capture games emulate Pokemon over SMT, I'd say it at least popularized the formula.
@@absollum I think it is important to note that SMT was larger than just SMT 1 and 2 at the time. For example, there were the Megami Tensei games back on the NES (which also had a good degree of customizability). I think if this franchise managed to put out the many games it did (I encourage you to look it up), it must've had at least some kind of presence (enough for other game devs to be inspired by it). However, while it is arguable whether or not SMT was that well-known, Dragon Quest V certainly was VERY popular in Japan, came out three years before Pokemon and allowed recruitment of monsters.
P.S.: There is also Wizardry IV which, on paper, sounds like it has a similar battle system to SMT, though I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know for sure.
@@qnr3377 I was primarily talking about the West. The video is made by someone who probably is talking about that perspective, and Pokemon 100% popularized it in Western countries.
While Wizardry IV does have a similar battle system, it was a commercial flop at the time. I only know about it due to TH-cam videos talking about early rpgs.
Dragon Quest 5 didn't get a Western release until 2009 with its DS remake. It was apparently due to technical issues for the SNES version.
It's not surprising that devs in both markets came up with similar battle systems, but Pokemon blew it up for sure. Again, I don't see many SMT clones, but I've seen a ton of Pokemon clones.
@@absollum I'm not saying you are wrong on that point. I just wanted to add what I know and what most likely inspired Pokemon itself.
fantastic video! really got me thinking about the design of pokemon in a way i have not really done before
Zac Taylor watching this video to reminisce about one of his favorite retro games: "Why he said fuck me for?"
that out of pocket zac taylor slander was wild
Bengals 14-3 season incoming
Loved the Jon Bois Chart Party style, the narration and the name for your Omanyte was pretty good too 😉
Very good video :)
This video was suprisingly interesting and coherent. Not sure if its your editing or voice, but I was engaged the entire time, nice job!
Pokemon red and blue is a fascinating case study of a game with so much intention yet there are things like hitmon champ that make you ask why and bugs that negate intention that induces jank like when my lv 10 fly pidgey stood there for a hour untill i ran out of pp vs Giovanni's dugtrio that could not hit me because enemy ai has no pp witch I didn't know till that moment
Let's be real, the jank is part of why pokemon became so popular. It made people want to figure out the game that much more.
Never thought I'd see 7U mentioned in a bopper video, but I'm all for it
I love this video, the editing, the script, everything, also your voice fits really really well!! Please keep it up! Would love to see more pokemon videos too
Such a fun video! I'm actually watching for the second time now, even as someone who played the first gen more than a couple times this is enlightening.
I had seen a very superficial comment on a community thread before about Onix existing solely as tutorial for types and that was clarifying enough for me, imagine this video. Not to mention all the fun strategies for other gyms i had never and would never think about on my own! I'm seeing the gen 1 with new eyes
23:08 exeggutor exploding and not even killing Paras not even at full health will always be funny to me
Glad someone saw that Onix isn't the only one
LMAO it's perfectly cut as well.
Thank you
Gen 1 is very much like it's JRPG predecessor where you switch your starting sword for a better one as the game progress. You can upgrade your Pidgey into a Doduo and eventually into one of the Legendary Bird. You can go from Rattata to Persian to Snorlax or Tauros or Kangaskhan.
"Because Scyther is notable for, among other things, having dawg in him" hasn't left my brain since this video dropped
Watching the panning in the beginning and thinking "boy this is just like Jon Bois" and getting the satisfaction of you shouting him out was all I needed today, bless u.
Interesting details throughout, it really gives me a new appreciation for the first generation games. I still think some of the decisions and bugs make it not that fun to play. And yes, I am biased, Ghost types are my favorite.
PChal and his consequences have been disastrous for the Pokemon Community
Amazing video. The amount of thought that went into how the Pokemon functionally work in Gen 1 is always ignored by most people.
I was just thinking about jon bois the other day; the name drop here convinced me to finally rewatch some of his stuff. Thanks!
The move pool being limited is only partially true, because a lot of Pokemon has an impressive move pool locked to TMs, which are extremely interesting, in themselves.
One of the subtly brillant one is Water Gun, which you find just as you enter Mt Moon (when you can first catch Geodude). You can immediately teach it to your Rattata, and it's actually a pretty good idea (unless you can get a rare Clefairy, or plan to use Nidoking.). After spending so much time passing the first Gym, you get the ideal tool to destroy any Geodude and Onix that would come your way. Despite the low power and Rattata's low special, they have terrible HP and Special themselves and are 4 times weak to water.
Obviously the game let you figures it out yourself, and you're probably going to never use the TM and let it waste inventory space.
But it rewards you for trying, and giving you the answer right after posing you the problem is pretty cool
Honestly this review is so thoughtful and from a place of true love for the franchise that I got lost in that part of it since I too grew up on these games, so at the end when you reminded me this was a video about why Onix sucks I couldn't help but laugh. great video
I had pokemon yellow as a kid, and i remember 3 ways i beat Onix as a kid.
1. i grinded pikachu up lvls till his tackle (or bodyslam maybe?) killed him
2. i captured nidoran or nidorin, or both to kill him
3. i captured Manke
I also remember accidently releasing my manke into the wild once, and searching for hours, to find the EXACT same lvl manke in the tiny spot of grass near Brocks gym. My thoughts were, if i capture the same lvl manke that i had, in the spot where i initially caught him, that would be where my manke was.
i also remember Onix sucking, i thought he was really cool but not very good
at the time, what i did without releasing what i was doing as a child, was A - B testing. Onix could take a lot of hits but didnt deal that much DMG, so what was the point of using him then
I remember Mistys gym also being really hard, but luckily i had pikuchu cause pokemon yellow, but she still did a lot of dmg
i also remember being slightly annoyed that i couldnt evolve pickuachu in pokemon yellow. I was aware that the game was following the anime, but i didnt care i wanted a richu
This was amazing. Excellent work to you and your editor. 💖