Pokemon Red

Okay I'm at home and I'm so bored I've spent the last 4 hours reading message boards about video games that aren't even out yet. So instead of writing Fairy Lights (I wrote the first sentence and got bored) I'm gonna come online and waste 20 minutes of my life ranting about a game that was made over 10 years ago, Pokemon Red.



Pokemon Red Version: Red was the orignial Pokemon game on the GB along with Pokemon Green (or Blue). Although it's old it's still a lot of fun to play. Graphically, it sucks a lot of ass. Musically, it makes your ears bleed. BUT, graphix and musix are not the main selling points of these games. Pokemon games are so popular for their gameplay. I don't know WHY catching horribly ugly monsters and making them fight in boringly simple battles while listening to awful music and sound effects is enjoyable, but it is. Probably due to some weird nostaligic kind of thing but whatever. The game begins and pretty much straight away you get to select your first Pokemon. You can choose from Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle. There's all sorts of reasons to pick one over the other including elements, statistics and movesets but everyone just picks the one that is the cutest (or least ugly). I chose Bulbasaur. Probably a bad move on my part as he was never particularly useful. Not that it matters, this game is ridicuously easy, despite what my memories from when I was small tell me. You get your first taste of how easy the game is straight away as your rival (Green is is official name but it's more fun to call him things like Lisl or Sefie) wants to battle. Instead of easily destroying me with his Charmander's scratch attack he decides that using growl and not damaging me at all is the way to win. "IMA GONA BE DA BEST POKEMANZ TRAINA!" he says as he walks off. Whatever Green, you just got your intense fire-breathing dragon killed by a tiny animal with a bulb on its back. Face it, you suck just as much as every other trainer in this damn game. So you head out and catch lots of Pokemon (despite what your inner-child remembers, Pidgey sucks. Spearow is 451370 times better. And even then, Spearow's not exactly amazing) and battle lots of nerds who collect bugs. You get to Pewter City and are instructed to battle Brock. He uses lots of rock Pokemon, forunately for you the best move they learn is tackle. If you have a Squirtle on level 8 or a Bulbasaur on level 13 you can probably win this battle in 15 seconds (for real) otherwise it may take longer. Still not particularly hard though. The trainers coming up are the only peeps I struggled with in the whole game and that's only because my team consisted of a level 9 Bulbasaur, level 8 Pidgey, level 9 Spearow, level 7 Rattata, level 5 Weedle (don't use him ever) and level 12 Nidoran M. Eventually (after returning to the Pokemon Centre after every battle because that's all you have to do to get completely healed) I get to Mount Moon. Another place with lots of ridiculously easy trainers and super crappy Pokemon to catch (although I did snag a Clefairy which I actually found useful and ended it up using it for the remainder of the game). In Cerulean, I continued to fight more random trainers (I was shocked to realize that I still remember which Pokemon 95% of the trainers in this game use). Beat the shit out of Misty at the gym (I caught an Oddish above Cerulean on level 12 and it did the entire battle for me despite Misty having two pokemon on like level 19 and 21 or something) and continue along. Continue your journey, fighting dumb trainers, catching ugly monsters and collecting ridiculously-easy-to-get gym badges. Although despite all of the badness, I found myself loving every moment of the game. Eventually you'll get all 8 badges and be on your way to the Indigo Plateau. Taking the time to obtain Zapdos and Articuno pretty much guarantees you a win. I couldn't be fucked and used the same old team I used pretty much the entire game. Still wasn't hard though. Before you get to the Indigo League, Green turns up and wants to battle. I thought I'd include how this battle when down just to prove how ridiculously easy this game is. Alright, it went like this -->

• Green sends out level 47 Pidgeot. Scott sends out level 36 Nidoking. Nidoking (God knows why he has more speed than a Pidgeot 11 levels higher than him) uses rock slide. Pidgeot uses agility. Pidgeot is now faster than Nidoking. Next turn. Pidgeot uses agility, again. Um... What? Nidoking uses rock slide. Turn 3. Pidgeot uses agility. Nidoking uses rock slide. Turn 4. Pidgeot uses AGILITY. Nidoking uses rock slide. Pidgeot faints.
• Green sends out level 45 Rhyhorn. Scott sends out level 39 Venusaur. 4x weakness to grass + razor leaf = Dead Rhyhorn.
• Green sends out level 45 Exeggcute. Scott sends out level 31 Flareon (which by the way, I evolved from and Eeevee at level 25, put it in the daycare until it learned ember and this was the first time it had been used since). Flareon uses ember. Exeggcute uses poison powder. Flareon uses ember. Exeggcute faints.
• Green sends out level 47 Gyarados. Scott sends out level 38 Clefable. 4x weakness to electric + thunderbolt = Dead Gyarados.
• Green sends out level 50 Alakazam. Scott sends out level 37 Pidgeot. Alakazam uses recover. I haven't hit you yet, dumbass. Pidgeot flies. Alakazam uses recover. STILL haven't hit you yet. Pidgeot uses fly. Alakazam uses psychic. Pidgeot flies. Alakazam uses psychic - misses. Pidgeot uses fly. Pidgeot uses quick attack. Alakazam faints.
• Green sends out level 53 (53!!!) Charizard. Scott sends out level 35 Gyarados. Charizard uses... LEER. Gyarados uses surf. Charizard uses leer. Gyarados uses Surf. Charizard faints.

And that's that. I mean, come on! His guys were like 10-20 level higher than mine and I still pawned him. He attacked me ONCE with Alakazam. Oh well, moving on. Victory Road is easy. The Elite Four :O:O:O YAY! We're here, at last. Here's how these battles played out.

• Lorelei's Dewgong, Cloyster, Lapras and Slowbro were all owned by electric attacks. Clefable fried those bastards. Jynx was the exception to the "SPAM THUNDERBOLT NAO" strategy. A good fire attack should have taken care of her but my level 31 Flareon got killed in one hit by her level 56 Jynx. So instead I just sent out all of my guys one after the other and spammed their best attacks.
• Bruno is laughably easy. TWO ONIX!? Seriously? 4x weak to water AND grass??? Flying rips his Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan and Machamp apart.
• Earthquake = Dead Agatha. Except for that fucking Golbat. Thunderbolt kills that, though.
• Lance has lots of evil dragons. Ice attacks FTW!!! Electric attacks on Gyarados, water attacks on Aerodactly. Also, does Hyper Beam not need to be recharged back in the RBY days???
• The battle with Green was pretty much exactly the same as the last 5 except he FINALLY evolved his Exeggcute. No problem here, I just matched types and killed everything. Although, his Exeggutor did kill my Flareon this time. Pidgeot was a fine replacement.

So then I got to watch the Hall of Fame, which I LOVE! I always have loved it always will. And then the game was over. Yaaaaaaaay! I could've gone and caught Mewtwo if I wanted but meh. Playing through Red Version was fun for nostalgia purposes but with FireRed and LeafGreen in my posession I really have no reason to ever play this game.

[6/10]