#also I will take NO criticism on his pokemon I'm right on every single one

[overfedvenison]

Playing Pokemon Red

Point by point so I recall later...

I started my pokemon journey, taking Squirtle as my starter. I named her Nine-Four, after the Type 94 Tankette, because she eventually becomes a tank and Pokemon Gen 1 does not allow you to use numbers

Going through the game, I fought the first rival battle after acquiring two Pokemon - Ratata (names GoForT.Eye) and Nidoran Female (Named Zaftig) I did not grind at all for the rival battle, and went in very underleveled. This meant that it was actually quite difficult. I had to use multiple debuffs and all my potions, but Go For The Eyes survived at critical HP and won.

I proceeded to the north through the forest, and to my surprise found a Pikachu among the like, 3 encounters I found. I was surprised; definitely going on my team.

Brock was no big issue with Squirtle, of course. But it's really interesting how he's played. This early, a player may not know types or anything - but this is the big introduction to it which is impossible to ignore. Brock teaches you that Physical and Special attacks are different, but also tests your intellect in other ways - His ace, Onyx, has ridiculous durability combined with Bide, Screech, and Tackle. Beyond type advantage, Bide is a move which reflects damage back on you. When I was a kid I absolutely just attacked through it, but the intent is clearly to make this telegraphed move where you should not be doing that. In every way, Brock is a puzzle boss made to get you to question the battle system and not just push Scratch again.

...I am rather impressed at how nonlinear and full of options this game has even right away. At this stage, pokemon tend to have a single attack move and a support move - but those support moves do different things. If you want to have a specific goal in your strategy, you can swap pokemon for that purpose. And this is actually rather notable and varied even this early on - when going through Viridian Forest, I set Zaftig as my lead. As a Nidoran, she is poison type - meaning the common Weedles there cannot poison her, and only damage her for 1-2 HP due to type resistances. And that's a really interesting option this early in the game. The pokemon are rather stratified in a way you don't really appreciate when looking at their stats alone, and so each pokemon exists in context. The most obvious example is Beedrill and Butterfree, three-stage evolutions you can reasonably get to within a single dungeon and which tutorialize evolution. But Nidoran is similar, in this regard, in that it is a very good choice for Viridian forest - this early, this rabbit is an incredibly potent tank just from situational resistance and being slightly more durable than Ratata and Pidgey.

I saw this more in Rock Tunnel, when Go For The Eyes learned Super Fang. Here's the thing - Ratata is not a powerful pokemon. Quite weak, overall, even this early. But he has a trick - Super Fang and Hyper Fang. Super Fang is an 80-power move you can acquire at a time when 40 power is still really impressive. It's the secret weapon of this little rat and, in context, makes him WILDLY powerful this early in the game. Rock Tunnel also grants you a Water Gun TM right near the entrance. I used it on Ratata, and it's... Crazy, actually. Ratata, notoriously weak Route 1 Rat, can now one-shot almost every random encounter in the entire cave with his superior speed. This is what I'm understanding - to really understand Pokemon Red, you have to look at the pokemon you encounter within context and find what emerges. Replaying was a good choice, and it's interesting to see what kind of Pokemon show their stuff.

Anyways, I acquired a second early-game nuke in the form of Zaftig - who is now level 16, and could then evolve to Nidorina, and then evolve immediately afterward to Nidoqueen. I taught her Bide, since she's a wall and her taking hits only to flip it back has a certain appeal.

...The game really encourages experimentation even this early, and it's easy to see how it caught on so hard.