Pokemon has been the epitome of masterful handheld game design for many years. The series has seen six unique iterations, with three of those iterations getting remakes, all of which have evolved the Pokemon experience in some unique way. Over time, the developers have tightened up minor imbalances by adding new types, created all new team-building strategies based purely around Natural abilities, and have introduced mini games strictly for EV/IV statistic enhancement.
Before all of these became the norm in the Poke-verse, things were a lot simpler. Type, statistics, and movesets pretty much determined everything. Having a Psychic type was a must. Almost everyone started with Charmander, and your rival was actually a rival.
Pokemon Red/Blue was a playground for experimentation and customization. As a result, there are certain trends that inevitably became popular. Here are the 7 things that everybody did in the original generation of Pokemon.
1. Made some variation of the word “ass” a part of their rival’s name. And it was deserved.
Blue was an ass. All he did from the beginning to the end of your journey was remark how much farther ahead he was than you. And he was right. He was legitimately tough, which made him even more unlikeable. But you couldn’t help but smirk at least a little when the screen faded to black and the words “ASSWIPE wants to fight!” came up. Despite his jerk-titude, the kiddies in X & Y have nothing on Blue.
2. Took at least a minute to figure out that you had to go into the tall grass to find Professor Oak.
Just where the hell is Profossor Oak when you first leave your house? Seriously, his house has one floor and his assistants are some of the least helpful people in the Pokemon world. Unless your mom was hiding him in the refridgerator, Oak must have a portal to some alternate universe that he only activates when 10 year old children approach tall grass. Maybe that’s where he gets all of the starter Pokemon that conveniently can’t be caught in the wild…
3. Bought Magikarp from the sketchy salesman at least once.
Hey that guy was convincing, alright? Bulbapedia wasn’t there to tell me that it was a waste of 500 bucks. Who knew you were going to get an Old Rod like an hour later? Buyer’s remorse…
4. Dropped one of their champions for MewTwo as soon as they caught it.
“Holy crap, it’s Level 70!!” cried just about every Pokemon player when they encountered MewTwo for the first time. Not only that, MewTwo wrecked everything. In those days, Psychics didn’t have a weakness. Dark types weren’t created until Gold/Silver, so you always had a good chance to win if you had Alakazam or Hypno in your lineup throughout the main storyline. Your prospects increased tenfold if you upgraded to MewTwo. That is, until your best friend got it too, and every link battle boiled down to “whose MewTwo faints first?”
5. Traded with themselves at least once.
Whether you were lucky enough to have a copy of each game (and a second Gameboy), or you snuck a trade when your buddy wasn’t looking, everybody tried trading with themselves at least once. Growlithe, Vulpix, Magmar, Electabuzz, Scyther were all unique to specific versions, and it could be so frustrating to have a Graveler, Machoke, Kadabra or Haunter just sitting there for weeks on end, knowing that you could be even more powerful if you just had a quick way to trade and trade back. It was also the only way to (kind of) attempt an Ash simulation, by trading over the other two starters.
6. Thought Ditto was a great idea at first, then battled with it, and threw it back into the PC, never to see the light of day again.
The anime makes Ditto look strategically viable, by copying its moveset and turning it on its opponent. So why wouldn’t that be the same for the game? If only Ditto weren’t so weak, and didn’t have to burn a turn to use Transform, likely being damaged in the process. Well, at least it has a new lease on life as a Pokemon Breeder’s sex slave, right?
7. Used the Missingno glitch to get 100 Master Balls and Rare Candies.
“Yeah, I totally trained all these myself.” Liar. As skilled as some Pokemon players are, 100 hours is not enough to get all 151 ‘mons to Level 100 without a little help. Mmmm, candy.
What about you? Did you do these things? What other things do you think should be on this list? Let me know in the comments!
Published: Aug 22, 2015 05:43 pm