Written By: Johnny
Intro: Early in May, Chris approached me and said he found his old Pokemon Red, and Pokemon Blue games for Game Boy. Chris challenged me to a Quest, in which he would give me a copy with one of his Game Boys and we would begin our adventure new and play up until beating Mewtwo in Cerulean Cave, and then we would battle via link cable. I agreed.
June 17th: Chris handed me a green Gameboy Pocket with Pokemon Blue in the cartridge slot. We laid out ground rules:
- Max level of 70 for any pokemon in our party. If a pokemon exceeds level 70 before the final match, they cannot be included in your party.
- No Rare Candies, Carbos, Protein, or any out of battle aids can be used, if found in game you may sell or toss them.
- We get one trade via link cable at any point before our final encounter, intended for evolving trade-only evolution pokemon, but can be used however.
- No time limits.
- In game aids like Exp-All will be allowed.
- During the battle, no items can be used
- The game should be played with the volume high as much as possible, the music is infectious and may affect gameplay.
0:00 – I name the protagonist ‘John.’ In Pokemon Blue it is one of the preselected names for the protagonist (or an antagonist in Pokemon Red). I name the Oak’s Grandson ‘Chris’ in respect to my challenger. I am playing the Blue version of the game, so it seemed fitting to choose Squirtle. I nickname most of my pokemon, so I named it Raphael; after my favorite Ninja Turtle. I also make an assumption early on that Chris will choose Charizard. Hopefully that doesn’t bite me in the ass.
1:18 (1hr 18 mins): I beat my rival twice, and grinded Raphael to level 11 near Victory Road. I caught four pokemon, one Spearow, two Rattata (one by accident), and one Nidoran♀. I saved in the Viridian Pokemon Center and plan to reach Pewter City by hour 3 with proper grinding.
3:17 – Brock has been defeated. Raphael reached level 12 and I grinded the rest of my party up to near level 10. I caught a Pidgey and a Pikachu in Viridian Forest, as well as some bug type pokemon. I formed my first party of six and took on the Pewter city gym. I saved after beating Brock and I set my sights on Mt. Moon and Cerulean City. My goal was to reach level 15 pokemon and the Lighthouse by hour 5.
5:26 – Made it to Cerulean City a little behind schedule, and beat Nugget Bridge. Replaying this part of the game made me sad they never implemented an option to choose to join Team Rocket. As a kid I never would have joined the evil organization, but now I hear they have great benefits. My pokemon party average was lvl 14.83 with a Standard Deviation of 1.94 (YAY STATISTICS). I still had a couple trainers to beat before I can meet Bill and face Misty, but I pressed on.
7:17 – Misty was down and I set my sights towards Vermillion City. I caught a Bellsprout and a Sandshrew outside Cerulean and added them to the party. By the time I finish S.S. Anne I plan to leveled the party to 25.
10:00 – Ten hours in and I beat my Rival on the S.S. Anne, and received cut from the captain. I decided to save here and noticed I was at 10 hours exactly… pretty cool. I did not meet the quota for any of my primary pokemon to be at level 25.
I subscribed to a number of fan theories and according to one of them, this is the most pivotal point in the game. According to this theory, my rivals’ loss was more than he bargained for, he didn’t make it to a Pokemon Center in time to save his Raticate. The next time we saw him was in Pokemon Tower paying his last respects to his lost friend. From then on his resolve was to become the best and beat me. I liked that theory a lot, but that would not stop me from whipping his ass.
11:10 – Thanks to a big grind in Diglett Tunnel, all of my party is above lvl 20; I caught a lvl 31 Dugtrio and planned to use it against Lt. Surge but did not need to. Armadildo, my Sandshrew, was in the pocket for the battle and annihilated Surge’s forces. At the end of the brief romp, Armadildo evolved into a Sandslash! I switched out a couple of pokemon, and headed back to Cerulean for a Bike
Onwards to Rock Tunnel!
16:30 – Rock Tunnel kicked my ass! By the end of it, I was down to just my Wartortle, a few potions and ethers. Long story short, I super grinded him to level 31 while the rest of my pokemon remained in the lower twenties. I made it to Lavender Town and passed out. I probably should not have played until 3AM.. I then grabbed some revives and headed west to Celadon City. I caught a Vulpix and collected the Eevee in Celadon, I used a fire stone to turn it into a Flareon and went to face Erika. I was severely out-leveled by the grass/poison Gym Leader but between Vulpix’s ember attack and Flareon’s sand-attack I made her Vileplume my bitch.
I wanted to get the rainbow badge before I took on the Rocket Game Corner because of my lower level my pokemon. When you have more badges, every time your pokemon levels up the more experience they get. I think this technique was crucial in defeating Chris at the end. I pressed on to beat the Rocket Game Corner catch some ghost Pokemon in Pokemon Tower and put Cubone’s mother to rest.
18:59 – Pokemon Tower has been completed. I found two Cubones in the climb, caught one, and also caught two Gastly. With Gastly in my party I am one pokemon short of the party I think will take on Chris. I headed south from Lavender Town and planned to approach Fuschia city from the East.
24:53 – After the many, many trainers on the route east of Fuschia City, I spent some time building my Pokedex in the Safari Zone. I ran into a Chansey, but after five throws of a safari ball it ran, it didn’t even stay inside it for one shake. I now have 50 total pokemon so I finally received an EXP-ALL from Prof Oak’s Aide. Took on the trainers in Bicycle Bridge. I beat Koga, surprised by the lack of variety in his pokemon, two Koffing and two Weezing were no match for my Haunter. I was disappointed I couldn’t use Vulpix in a battle against Venonat or Venomoth, she still needs some leveling up. On to the Rocket-infested Saffron City and the psychic sexpot, Sabrina.
31:07 – I cleared Silph Co floor by floor, collecting a Lapras and beating Giovanni. I beat the fighting dojo in one run with Haunter’s immunity to Physical attacks. I also grabbed a TM29 from Mr. Psychic. I ran into issues with Sabrina, unknown to me, generation 1’s psychic types are only weak to Bug types. My Haunter strategy backfired, but for some weird reason, she had a Venomoth, between Vulpix and Exeggcute, she wasn’t too hard. After the battle I flew to Pewter City, got Old Amber from the museum, then to Pallet so I can ship off to Cinnabar Island. I reached Port and switched my HM-slaves for primaries and changed my pokemon to Box 3, the Burned Building and Battling Blaine with brawn and brain will be my bold Plan-B… Alliteration isn’t for everybody.
33:01 – I battled Blaine boldly, mastered his quiz with a perfect score and still battled his trainers. Blastoise drenched the all fire-type competition, and I received my 7th badge. I caught a Magmar in the Burned Building and I’m considering training it instead of Vulpix. I also collected my Aerodactyl and Omanyte from the resurrection lab. I flew to Viridian to face the 8th gym leader. I wondered who it will be…
33:33 – No real milestones here, I just wanted to vent my frustration battling the trainers in Viridian gym. It wasn’t too bad. I used this time to level up the Pokemon at the bottom of my spectrum most crucially my Dratini at level 21 when I started the gym. Exeggcute ran out of PP on leech seed so I switched out him with Dratini to face a level 38 Machoke. Machoke’s first move was focus energy, huge mistake. Dratini opens with a Thunder Wave paralyzing Machoke, from there on it’s a long winded battle because dratini uses wrap at the top of the round and gets trapped in Dratini’s binding attack. the wrap attack only stops 1 HP per round, or 4 if it critical hits… so this was going to take a while. After 19 successful uses and over 40 turns, Dratini has Machoke down to 1 HP, I have 1 pp wrap left and Dratini fucking misses. Since wrap was its only physical attack I have to change out my pokemon and share the Battle Experience with Haunter. -sighs-
35:14 – Giovanni was defeated and I’m currently grinding my pokemon to beat the elite four. My first trials will be to catch the legendary birds, I spent some time clearing the sea south of Fuschia City and made a quick trip to Celadon city for some stones and TMs, I’m gearing up for Seafoam Island, with my party with 5 of my lowest leveled primary pokemon and my HM-Slave Krabby.
40:01 – It’s been 13 full days since I started this quest and I’ve officially spent 12.8% of my life in the last two weeks. Less than 1% of my life has been spent on sex or the pursuance of it… some perspective. I have caught 2 of the three Legendary Birds, Articuno and Zapdos, in 5 Ultra Balls or less. I faced my Rival before Victory Road and got my ass stomped. If I didn’t have 8 revives I may have lost. I blame a couple poor switch outs and unlucky status moves. For Chris I’ll be ready though. It’s been a while so before I face the hardest climb to the Indigo Plateau, here is a breakdown of my primary 6 (YAY statistics)
Haunter lvl 45
Nidoqueen lvl 45
Blastoise lvl 44
Exeggutor lvl 38
Magmar lvl 36
Dratini lvl 25
Level average of 39; with a Standard Deviation of 7.43
44:44 – So, I accidentally beat the Elite Four with a level 50 Gengar, a Level 40 Magmar, and a Level 32 Dragonair. mostly Gengar, but the last two pokemon of Lance’s had all normal attacks and I ran out of PP so I beat Aerodactyl and Dragonite with Struggle. No joke. This was fucking ridiculous. I used my Elixir and hoped that Gengar could finish off my Rival… but before that, let’s rewind.
Before Victory Road I met with Chris and we used my link cable trade, I sent my Haunter to him to evolve, and he sent me back my Gengar. I fought through Victory Road and barely made it out, went back, and captured Moltres. I was gearing up to train my lower levels up by decreasing the party and letting dragonair absorb more Exp than it would with a 6 party and Exp share. I went through Lorelei about 5 times, made it past Bruno 3 times, and only beat Agatha once. I fell onto Lance and got really lucky..
The next check in will be when I’m the Pokemon League Champion, hopefully it’s in a couple minutes.
45:05 – I was now Pokemon League Champion with only level 53 Gengar, and two weak-ass Magmar and Dragonair. Like how the hell did that happen? Regardless, the next road of level grinding up to 70 were tough. I faced Mewtwo in Cerulean Cave and refaced the elite four until Chris was ready for me.
58:10 – Nine days passed in the real world but only 13 hours in game time since my last post. I became much more strategic in my attempt to level up my pokemon. I caught Mewtwo in the Unknown Dungeon as well as the rest of strong and rare pokemon in there. I ditched Exp share because my pokemon have reached levels that equal the elite four or better. I defeated the Elite Four 3 more times since the first, expanded my pokedex, and finally evolved Dragonair. My six pokemon are far from lvl 70 but they have all reached their final form. I made use of all the TMs and aside from some level – up moves for Magmar.I have the Pokemon’s moves just where I want them. I checked with Chris to see his progress and he is still on his 4th badge. I know Chris would take a while to catch up, but he would have been my toughest pokemon challenge to this point.. I could not wait for this battle.
69:42 – This is my last submission.It is now the middle of August, and Chris and I set a date to battle. I did not level up my pokemon in the time allotted. He did so he will have the advantage. My Pokemon line up against his will be
Gengar (Grimoire) Lvl 70
Blastoise (Raphael) Lvl 65
Nidoqueen (Nida) Lvl 64
Dragonite (Drats) Lvl 62
Exeggutor (Cooter) Lvl 56
Magmar (Quax) Lvl 54
If you want to hear a live commentary of the battle, check out DOAT Ep 34: Poké-Showdown! Where Chris and I battle it out live! As for me, I have 101/150 pokemon in my Pokedex, for the first time in my life I plan to complete it. Because we all know, I Gotta Catch ‘Em All!
The Dork of All Trades 