Pokemon Yellow Playthrough

[wraith89]

I tried playing Yellow version again, and I'm actually having fun. I just defeated the League and caught Mewtwo, making me the POKEMON MASTER!

... I am living my childhood life again I guess!

So far, I have seen 148 Pokemon and caught 133 of them. Yes, that includes Mew and the trade evolutions (Alakazam, Machamp, Golem, Gengar). No I did not cheat for Mew: there is a glitch to exploit to get it in any of the original Generation I Pokemon games. As for the trade evos, there's TGBDual for that. What? Yes, I have the original cartridge as well, so thank you for asking.

I am missing:

[icon]013[/icon][icon]014[/icon][icon]015[/icon][icon]023[/icon][icon]024[/icon][icon]026[/icon][icon]052[/icon][icon]053[/icon][icon]106[/icon][icon]109[/icon][icon]110[/icon][icon]124[/icon][icon]125[/icon][icon]126[/icon][icon]135[/icon][icon]136[/icon][icon]140[/icon][icon]141[/icon]

Apparently you are not allowed to capture Team Rocket's Pokemon nor the Weedle family nor the elementals in this game. Oh yes, and no Raichu.

Yes, I picked Hitmonchan over Hitmonlee. Get over it. I picked Omanyte over Kabuto because I like it better... I guess. And as for the Eeveelutions, you only get one Eevee in this game with no breeding. Yes, I like Vaporeon the most, and so that's the one I got.

I have NOT seen Electabuzz, Magmar, and Kabutops.

I guess I will have to play the other versions and trade in the ones I am missing to complete my Dex... as usual.

If you have no link or TGBDual or Gameshark or not exploiting glitches or whatever, you would NEVER see Golem, Electabuzz, Magmar, and the final form of the fossil you did not select. There are some others like Venusaur and Pidgeot and Porygon, but they are possible to get in this game if you take the effort to obtain them. I'm still disappointed I could not see the others, so yeah... time to play Red/Blue or something.

[icon]025[/icon]Some quirks about this game:

• There was no Special Attack nor Special Defence: both were counted as one stat called Special. Yes, that meant the Alakazam with 135 Special had 135 Special Attack AND Special Defence. Talk about broken!
  
• The Pokemon's learnset were terrible... in fact, so spaced out you would have to literally wait like 9 levels until your Pokemon learned its next move. Some Pokemon would only start with one move and would have to wait until Level 38 or something outrageous to learn a new move, such as Magmar, because in Blue version you would find it in that level. Future generations fixed that I guess.
  
• Sorry Lorshy but your bugs were inadequately powered in this generation.
  
• Pikachu cannot evolve. Forcing a Thunderstone at it will only be met with a message of refusal.
  
• The Pokemon actually start looking like the actual Pokemon, compared to its predecessors.
  
• The AI is pretty good and all, and it is a vast improvement over Pokemon RGB. However, your rival's final team could have been better. While he did teach TMs to some of the Pokemon (such as Sandslash with Earthquake), I could not help but wonder why he had no Mega Drain nor Psychic on his Exeggutor, nor a Fire Blast in Ninetales, while keeping some unorthodox moves such as Tail Whip or Barrage on them. Oh well.
  
• I cannot help but shudder at many of the useless TMs that were scattered all over this game! Sure, TM12 is Water Gun, but that would prove helpful to your Rattata or Nidoran if fighting against Geodudes in Mt. Moon (that is where you find it), but after you get outside of Mt. Moon comes the amazing TM04... with WHIRLWIND! ... but in this generation Whirlwind had no effect whatsoever in trainer battles, meaning it was incredibly useless. Well, you can teach it to some bird and transfer it to GSC if you want some use I guess... Then comes TM30, which is NOT Shadow Ball because that move did not exist, but it is the astounding TELEPORT! Interesting move if in real life, but in-game... that does NOT help! Then comes very specialised TMs such as TM37, which contains EGG BOMB, only learnable by 3 Pokemon (4 if you count Mew), which are Exeggcute, Exeggutor, and Chansey. And then there's TM41, Softboiled, only learnable by Chansey and Mew. What in the world? TM23 is Dragon Rage, the only dragon move in the game, which only hits for 40 damage every time. Available for 3500 coins at the Game Corner... as if I needed it at that point!
  
• Forget the TMs, what about the actual moves themselves? While some otherwise useless attacks such as Roar and Whirlwind have improved later , some moves have not changed much from the first Gen, such as Razor Wind and Submission. Who in their right minds thought these were great attacks anyways? Too bad Submission is the most widespread best Fighting move in this game though.
  
• Glitched moves like Focus Energy and Substitute were fixed later in Stadium: right now, Focus Energy DECREASES user's critical hit ratio while Substitute allowed the user to take status. Eww. Speaking of Substitute, when that Snorlax blows up on a substitute, it will NOT faint!
  
• Moves like Wrap or Fire Spin were almost broken, except for their accuracy, because it prevented anyone from attacking for 2-5 turns, which explains why Fire Spin was like an "ultimate move" back then. Now look at where it is at! But unlike their future counterparts, the trapped foe can switch out.
  
• Blizzard is 90% accurate. What in the world? But yes, it meant that Articuno was actually amazing in this generation. In fact, without factoring weakness or resistance, Articuno's Blizzard is the most powerful non-boosted Special Attack in the game!
  
• Fall asleep, and take a WHOLE turn to wake up. Meaning if your Pokemon wakes up, it just signals the other guy to put your Pokemon to sleep again since your Pokemon will not attack after waking up. Fixed in later gen, but clearly one can see why sleep was pretty broken.
  
• A frozen Pokemon is as good as a fainted Pokemon: it will NEVER dethaw on its own. Only way to thaw the Pokemon out is to use a Fire attack on it or use Haze (yeah Haze gets rid of status for some reason). Or of course, your Full Heal or Ice Heal and the likes, in-game!
  
• In short, Gen I's metagame was a giant trainwreck: all you need is a team of 5 Alakazams and a Chansey to win... and one can see why. Though of course, that's why Species clause was invented. Mostly Psychic Pokemon and Normals dominated in this metagame due to how the mechanics of this game worked. It is an interesting battlefield, but not for the sane.
  
• What Psychic counters? The only Ghost Pokemon family in this game had a subtype weak to Psychic (Poison) and had a Special and Speed rating trolled horribly by Alakazam's. The only Ghost attack without fixed damage (Night Shade) or support role (Confuse Ray) was Lick... which is just about as strong as Absorb. Yeah right. And even so, for some dumb reason, Ghost attacks do NOT affect Psychics in this game! Somebody messed up. What about Bugs? Half of them are part Poison as well, making them weak to Psychic, and the only Bug with a decent enough bug attack (Beedrill with Twinneedle)... you've guessed it, is Psychic weak! And you want to counter Normals too? Fighters with poor special ratings will get manhandled by the uber dominant Psychics. This is why Gen II introduced Dark and Steel types folks! To shift the balance of the metagame... though it worked a little TOO well.
  
• Forgetting about the metagame and competitive junk... the music was great and memorable and the colours that adorned this game were charming. Despite the lack of movepool the Pokemon had and all its other flaws, I was able to see past that while playing this game as a child, and still the same today... I guess. It is just that now with my grown up view with competitive battling and such that I can see where all the pitfalls were.
  
• ... oh cool. I fished out a Level 15 Gyarados in Fuschia City! Really now? That must be quite the scary pond.

As usual, here is the SAV file... full of Pokemon with semi-competitive movesets (I say semi because I tried to make it work in-game and competitively... somewhat).

So yeah... if you want to try some old school Pokemon, you might want to try this game out. For a game with more glitches and exploitables and the ability to evolve your Pikachu and fight a rival with a starter that has an advantage against yours, you will want to try its predecessors Red and Blue.

If you have played it, please share your experiences here.

*sees how dead this boards is... watches tumbleweed rolling through Ghost Town... vanishes into thin air*

EDIT: Updated with all 151 Pokemon caught.

Pokemon Yellow (U).sav

Edited May 21, 2012 by wraith89

[ScientificPikachu]

Ah, Pokémon Yellow, my 1st Pokémon game that I played when I was 9 years old (I'm 15). My 1st time in Mt. Moon was in this game (and I got lost inside and never got out of this Pain-in-the-butt-mountain). How unlucky. That's why I never finished this game and just continued my journey in Kanto 2 years after (playing Leaf Green).

[wraith89]

Eeep. Long time ago I made it to Lance... with a Level 72 Dugtrio and everybody else were really low levels. Needless to say, I failed. Also, I thought Aerodactyl was immune to Thunder, so I never tried that with my Pikachu. It really destroyed me in the end... me and my noobiness

[CharlemagneXVI]

I started playing a Pokémon Yellow ROM a few weeks ago. I was actually surprised at how much fun I found it, even after all these years.

[Texas Fight]

I just bought the game again a week ago along with Crystal. How addictive. I loved the all three starters idea and wish it had been implemented in later games.

[Fab]

I think this game mostly fit with the anime at that time. Think of it: Pikachu refusing the stone in order to evolve reflected the will of Ash's Pikachu not to evolve in order to defeat Lt Surge and his Raichu. Alakazam was a hell of a pokemon when Sabrina showed up (I can still remember my poker face when Mewtwo easily curved Alakazam's spoon in the movie). The metagame was ugly compared to those of today's pokemon games, not to speak of the fact you couldn't assign an instrument (hours to open the bike), and pokemons weren't catchable if the box in the pc was full. Unfortunately I discovered it myself when I was catching Mewtwo.

Plus: the Kanto region was poor, not so difficult to explore and not so damn wide as Unova may be or Kanto+Johto in G/S/C wich (in my opinion) are the best games ever published by Game Freak for the Pokemon series.

You could catch Bulbasaur, Charmender and Squirtle (not that bad) and you could catch Mew (not that DAMN bad). Btw yellow was way better than R/G/B but GSC kidnapped my heart. Probably because I was in the right age and probably because it was a bi step up from the previous chapters.

[wraith89]

It only fit the anime by the Pokemon rosters really, there's really not much else due to the liberty you have in catching the Pokemon you like (not that it's bad of course, as that's part of the gameplay).

This is a speedrun for Pokemon Blue, done in around 2 hours. It's interesting how that is possible.