Corona Jumper: Pokemon LeafGreen, Part 3

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Pokemon LeafGreen, Part 3 - Magikarp's Murder Spree

LEAF tries going on Tinder to meet girls, but all she's getting is couples trying to double team her. In other news, MYA, if that is her real name, has got it going on. Why are Pokemon women so hot?

I'm going through the painstaking routine of leveling up the Useless Fish by having him start fights and then switching him out. You kids today do not know how good you have it with Pokemon games giving exp to the entire party.

If I try to have Magikarp fight anything, HE DIES.

True Story: When I was a teenager, there was this guy in my neighborhood who was a total dick. We were about the same age, 10th-11th grade or so, and were both heavily into Pokemon (along with everyone else). Long story short, he wanted to trade a bunch of Pokemon around, and I'd finished Pokemon Blue already, so I basically gave him my Game Boy for an hour so he could make some trades. Mostly just wanted the #'s for the Pokedex, as this was when I still cared about catching 'em all (which I don't think I've ever actually done in any of this series).

By the time I got it back, I basically just had a Magikarp. Guy was like "no it's okay he evolves into the best Pokemon". I don't know what happened to all my other ones. Maybe they were in the PC boxes? I can't imagine he needed an extra Pidgey. Did he just trade a Magikarp back and forth for all of my Pokemon or something?

With the game downed and me onward to other things, at that point so I didn't really care about any of this or even really think about it until later, but in retrospect that was a SUPER dick move by that guy. If I'd been someone else who actually valued their Pokemon roster he would have basically been totally screwing me over. He did let me borrow his Game Boy Color for like 3 weeks though to play Donkey Kong Land and we also played a lot of Xenogears, so it wasn't all bad with that particular goober. He was actually fun to hang out with. Just a total dick in retrospect.

Later I caught up with him in his college years and he was a bit of a fringe oddball. Acted like we were best buds, one of those. Kinda like this other guy who got me fired from a job in 2004 or so and then ran into me at a party in 2005 and acted like we were old friends. I don't know if that's a thing, acting like best buds when you bump into somebody you were a dick to.

Whew, nothing gets the memory rolling like Pokemon. Feel free to skip over all of these "true story" bits. Is what I should have said before the first one because I think we're all done with 'em now.

When I say painstaking process, I mean painstaking process. However it pays off, because at a mere level 20 (lower than I expected)...

...he evolves. This must be why he looks so freaked out:

Gyarados BURSTS out of Magikarp like some sort of Xenomorph.

Now we're playing with power! Well, sort of. Gya here is still under-leveled and lacking in big moves. It's a work in progress, but worth it if planning to have this 'mon in the endgame team.

With Magikarp Murder Spree concluded, we can finally get back to playing the game.

Man, Prof. Oak sure has a lot of AIDES.

After a journey south, I end up at Fuchsia City, home of Fred Fuchs.

I think this is supposed to be Gym #6 but it always ends up being #5 for me due to how weird the Saffron City situation is. This one's poison-themed, and I never had any issue with this gym at all...until now. Much like Erika's gym, I'm a bit underleveled and don't have the optimal elements for this. Turns out Fire is actually huge in the mid-game, so Charmander starters get to cruise for a while after a tough early going.

Time to back out and get some levels.

At 25, Gyarados finally gets a good move. It's nowhere near as strong as it sounds, but it's effective against dragon-types (which are nearly nonexistent) and generally a solid move against everything else.

I totally skipped most of the trainers in the last several routes, so I take a little while to go back and clear them out.

This includes the creepy twins from The Shining.

They've got the power team of Squirtle and Charmander, seen here completely-outclassed. Like I'm not sure they could be more outclassed than they are right now.

Sandslash is basically Super Saiyan 3. Always liked Sandshrew as a kid and thought he was one of those starter-worthy moychandising dynamos. Unfortunately it's a pretty bad 'mon, even in evolved form. Ground-types in general never did it for me, but I'm sure somebody figured out a meta with them.

Pitched screaming is heard as Gyarados torches Farfetch'd!

At this point I load up my secret weapon: PKHex. This lets you load up a GBA or DS Pokemon save (and probably earlier/later systems too, don't know) and alter your 'mons. Can create a super group with Deoxys and Mewtwo, can put everyone at level 99, etc etc. Well, all I need it for is something very basic: "Evolving" Kadabra into Alakazam. You're basically just flipping it from one to the other without changing anything else. Once you've got a 'mon changed the way you want it, you drag it (from the upper left) back to the party or box where it was.

That's right, the days of not being able to evolve trade-Pokemon on ~~an emulator~~ a deserted island are over.

Now equipped with Gyarados and Alakazam, this group is reaching its endgame form very quickly. This kind of customization and building things the way I want them is the real meat of these games.

Time to actually take on the Poison Gym. It's kinda more of a Status Effect Gym.

Koga is probably the coolest of the gym leaders from a pure cool perspective. It's no wonder he gets promoted to the Elite Four in the generation after this.

His 'mons are all status effect oriented, or in my case, nothing-oriented because none of them get a move off.

Alakazam is a KILLING MACHINE.

There's something else to do here in the hometown of Fred Fuchs. Not one but two HMs are found in the Safari Game. Always thought this was one of the weirder parts of Gen 1, but it's different, at least.

The trees look particularly weird, and like they got transplanted from an entirely different game.

Not sure if this increases Speed, or randomly gives you first strike, or what, but I gave it to Gyarados. Could use any assist I can get on that one, given the lack of levels.

I highly doubt that, considering the SECRET HOUSE is out in the open in a well-traveled safari area...

Surf opens up a lot more of the world (pretty much all of it, really)

There's also HM04 which is crucial for the last area. Getting it involves finding this guy's gold dentures. I don't wanna talk about it.

Time to sail south. This part is actually a disadvantage if you chose a female character, because periods can attract sharks for MILES.

That hasn't stopped this brave young lady!

Sharks are very underrepresented in the Pokemon lineup. Is there even a shark pokemon?

I put the hunt for Seafoam Islands on pause when I discover that I can actually get to the Power Plant now.

One of the vanilla game's two optional dungeons, I always thought this was basically postgame, or at least you couldn't get into it until very late. Not the case, turns out one can go here as soon as they get Surf.

Not much to this place except to go through a pretty dull maze and find Zapdos. This place does raise some lore questions though. Why is this place in ruins? Is it a relic from The Great War? Why do I care about Pokemon lore when they're not going to get into it in any major way?

Zapdos is something I'm VERY underleveled for, but if I can catch him, I'll leap in overall power.

This took several resets, and the key was getting Thunder Wave on him right away and hoping for the best. He'd be able to absolutely chew through the party if he wasn't stunned as much as possible.

Aren't Electric types supposed to be unstunnable? Maybe that was added in a later gen. No idea.