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Episode 6: Pokemon Generation 1 Red, Blue, and Yellow
15 Plays1 month ago
Calling all genwunners! Let's talk about the first generation of Pokemon! Don't get Red in the face, hold your breath 'till you turn Blue, or even Yellow into the abyss because this episode is finally here!
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Transcript
Introduction and Apologies
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. We recorded this episode two years ago and are just now getting around to releasing it. Sorry for the wait. We hope you enjoy the episode.
Personal Updates and Gaming Talk
00:00:12
Speaker
Did I give those to you?
00:00:16
Speaker
I've been waiting to bust that out. Rumors on the playground. Bladantly false. Requires basic training skills. It's been so long, Chris. How are you?
00:00:27
Speaker
I'm good. it Okay. Like it literally was like three months or something, right? Yeah. I think the last episode. has to have been. It was before June. I'm sure. i mean, I guess I could go look to see when we actually recorded it.
00:00:40
Speaker
Is that possible right now? We recorded four months ago. In your defense, you had a baby. did have a baby. So that's a pretty big life changing situation.
00:00:53
Speaker
That requires a lot of your time and energy. Yeah, like not only after they're born, but before they're born too. Yeah, indeed. I did not, but I was traveling for a lot of the summer. So that was my excuse why I wasn't available.
Baldur's Gate 3 and Podcast Traditions
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I was done playing this game like two weeks after we rolled it. so
00:01:16
Speaker
I feel like four months, what can we talk about? There's been a lot of stuff that's happened recently. i mean, Zelda came out. Yeah, I still have to play more of that. Tears the Kingdom came out.
00:01:28
Speaker
Baldur's Gate 3 came out. Starfield's coming out next week. Have you played Baldur's Gate? I kind of want to, but the Mac version isn't out yet, so I'm waiting for the patches and stuff. Have you played it?
00:01:39
Speaker
i So I share libraries with a friend, ah and he bought it. So i was like, everyone says it's really good, so I'm going to download it.
00:01:50
Speaker
So I just downloaded it and like tried it one morning before everyone was awake. Yeah. Dude, it's so gory. Yeah. could warned you Chris I was like this is too much and I didn't even get past like I made it to the first battle and was like nope the thing is is that like I've heard what the... So I played the game before that, Divinity Original Sin 2, which is by the same company. yeah Also very mature. Also very gory.
00:02:16
Speaker
But it's also kind of like just ridiculous gory. Like whenever you attack somebody, there's just like blood everywhere. Blood on the floor. blood off. You can like zap the blood. It's just like... It's kind of silly.
00:02:27
Speaker
It's kind of ridiculous. But like, I've heard what the opening cutscene is for... Dude, it's more so much. gratuitous. I don't know if I could like... I don't know. I'm trying not to like, I don't want to get spoiled if I ever do get the game because I want to go in as like fresh as possible, but it's just like... Well, and that's why i was like, you know, I'm just going try it.
00:02:46
Speaker
I had access to it for free. Sure. So was like, i'm just going And I was like... It's definitely a capital A adult video game. Well, capital M, but yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah. Capital A means something different. No, that's AO. Oh, you're right. you' That's adults only. You're right. Wait, did you just start us in the podcast? Is is this the podcast right now?
00:03:10
Speaker
What you talking about? Are we podcasting already are you just asking me about my life? I mean, yeah,
Gaming Experiences and Setups
00:03:17
Speaker
I was starting the podcast. We didn't say it smells burnt in here.
00:03:22
Speaker
Oh, you just did. Oh, okay. I mean, I like starting like putting smells burnt in like five minutes after we start, but we could like maybe we could start over if you wanted. No, it's fine.
00:03:36
Speaker
Oh, man. What else is... it's like It's been so much time that I even know what to talk about. Yeah. And like it's not like we haven't talked, right? Yeah, that's true. That's true.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yep. New birth in the family. Just been playing Pokemon Unite. Yep. Being frustrated with two-year-olds playing on my team. Like, you're a literal two-year-old or other two-year-olds?
00:04:00
Speaker
They act like two-year-olds. Oh, excellent. When they play the game. Chris has a two-year-old, and so I wasn't sure.
00:04:09
Speaker
No, I mean, I have a friend. He says that his daughter plays, and she's like five, and she gets MVP most games. Nice.
Wisconsin Corn Festival Adventures
00:04:16
Speaker
I guess the other big news in the in our and my household is that ah my roommate got a PS5.
00:04:22
Speaker
Oh, nice. He got it so that he could play the newest Final Fantasy, but he's also been playing Remnant 2 as well as Apex Legends. I think I tried Remnant for like half an hour.
00:04:33
Speaker
It's kind of like a little bit of a roguelike, a little bit of a Dark Souls, a little bit of a shooter game. It's kind interesting. yeah um Multiversey. It's just kind of funny though because he's playing it on my tiny 32-inch TV. I'm like,
00:04:46
Speaker
ten a ptv and like huh the problem is is that i don't use the tv very much and so i don't really have a very good justification for getting a new tv but it's just like this is a little bit overpowered
Gifts That Gained Value Over Time
00:04:58
Speaker
for the moment car oh well so we were cleaning out the room for the new baby and there was just a box in there right uh-huh and i'm like oh we should move the tv out of this closet and she's like wait there's a tv in this box Now, Oliver, you were with me when I won this 26-inch TV back in 2009. Oh, my gosh. No, it's that one?
00:05:22
Speaker
You still have it? I still have it in the original box. That is... I mean, that's the only... That's the best way to move, like, electronics. But still, Chris, I would have thought you got rid of that years ago. Nope. Well, so I was like, i don't know what to do with this. And I just... She was like, let's just DI it or, like,
Pokemon Nostalgia and Gameplay Mechanics
00:05:39
Speaker
send it to Goodwill, whatever you want to call it, right?
00:05:41
Speaker
And I was like, well, let me see if my brother wants it. And he was like, yeah, actually, I've been meaning to... Something, something, TV in the room for X, Y reason. Sure. So he's got it.
00:05:53
Speaker
And like when I left the country for two years, he took it. And then like I took it back and then we had to use it and then we didn't use it and then we use it again. And then we did, you know, so it's been a good backup TV, but but like, yeah, playing like games on the Xbox one in 720p or, you know, it's just been interesting.
00:06:13
Speaker
My roommate has to sit on the lawn chair in the middle of the living room to be able to see. Nice. So that's what's been going on. I was in Wisconsin last week. Why were you Wisconsin?
00:06:27
Speaker
We could have this up too. Did you want cheese? I'm so confused. It's so funny because like every time I tell that to somebody, everyone is like so confused. So about like a year or two ago um my team at my old company,
00:06:42
Speaker
They hired some remote workers and one of them was from Wisconsin. And so I only met him person like once or twice, but like we headed off. And whenever I left the company, we kept in touch and he was like, you should really visit sometime.
00:06:54
Speaker
It'd be fun. And I'll be like, yeah, that would be fun. And I've never been to Wisconsin. So sure. and don't see any reason why not to try not to be like biased, you know, try to go in with like an open heart. um So then he's like, okay, well, when did you should you come?
00:07:08
Speaker
Well, we're going to have a sweet corn festival in August. Yeah. you should come for that. And I'm like, that is the most Midwest thing you've ever told me. Let's do it. And so I bought my plane tickets. And then, of course, like the month leading up to this trip, he just keeps sending me corn memes.
00:07:23
Speaker
Like he made a Spotify playlist full of songs about corn. I'm just like, stop. So I get to Wisconsin and it's like the most stereotypical Wisconsin trip ever. We took a tour of a dairy farm.
00:07:37
Speaker
where we got grilled cheese and they had unlimited milk. We went to the veteran of foreign wars post to get a Friday fish fry, which is a very Wisconsin thing, apparently.
00:07:49
Speaker
We went to the Wisconsin state capitol and did a tour. We went to the University of Wisconsin and got ice cream from their dairy science lab. We went to the Sweet Corn Festival where they served 80 tons of corn over the course of a weekend.
00:08:02
Speaker
It was so much corn, Chris. You cannot even imagine the scale of this corn operation. I just have one question for you. When are you moving?
00:08:15
Speaker
and I don't want to move. But the weirdest thing. You don't want to move to Wisconsin? Wasn't that the whole point of the trip? That's what it sounds like. The weirdest thing. So my friend lives in the suburbs of Madison, Wisconsin. It felt so much like College Station.
00:08:26
Speaker
i couldn't under I couldn't believe it. It was so weird. like I don't know if it's just the fact that it was like an agricultural town. But like the when we're driving around and I saw a lot of like the the streets...
00:08:37
Speaker
And like the medians with the grass growing on them. And then the architecture is kind of like semi-70s, 80s, you know. It felt so much like College Station. It was weird. It's like flashbacks PTSD.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, seriously. It was wild. I'm really glad that i went. don't want to move there. But it was very it was surprisingly fun. It sounded like it was like Wisconsin propaganda trip. I mean, he did that intentionally. Yeah.
00:09:04
Speaker
We went to the Cave of the Mountains, which was actually a very cool limestone cave. Highly recommend. But yeah, Wisconsin, man. Now, Ollie, I came to this podcast with a question mind for you.
00:09:18
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, what's up? And it will both answer this question. Okay. What is a gift that you've received in your life that in the moment you're like, eh, but then like later down the line you're like, wow, this is the most awesome thing I could have ever received?
00:09:33
Speaker
that's a hard question, Chris. You should have given me time to like think about this ahead of time. Nope. So my parents have got given me some pretty cool gifts, but it's stuff like, oh, messenger bag.
00:09:44
Speaker
Okay. But then like it's like a super canvas, like super tough canvas bag that's lasted me for years and years and years. I'm like, Mom and dad knew what was going on. Right.
00:09:56
Speaker
Same thing with like good, good luggage. They got me a really nice suitcase when I moved out here. Yeah. And it's still going strong. My high school luggage has not held up. I had to get rid of it because the wheels broke.
00:10:08
Speaker
My wheels just broke. Yeah. It's the same luggage for those of you listening. We all got it as like a project grad thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's probably the first thing that comes to mind is just like gifts from my parents, like clothes or very practical stuff. You're just like, oh okay.
00:10:27
Speaker
But then you're like, oh, man, this is awesome. So for me, a number of years, like two so many years ago that I don't want to say how many because honestly, I don't remember, but it's been a while.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah. Somebody gave me a pair of rainbow flip flops.
Pokemon Speedrunning Insights
00:10:45
Speaker
It was Ollie. Did I give those to you? And he's like, wow, these are so great. You'll love them. I'm like, sweet. And I like tried to wear them a couple times and they like hurt my feet. Oh yeah. And they were like rubbing my toes the wrong way. I'm like, this is the worst. I can't stand this, but I'm not telling Ollie.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah. So I kept buying these like $1 pair, like old Navy flip-flops that kept breaking and until finally like my last pair broke after buying them for like the third time.
00:11:12
Speaker
was like, oh, I guess I'll just try these rainbow things out. And after like two days, they were the most magical flip-flops I've ever had. And I've been wearing them every single day ever since. And I have been waiting to record this podcast to tell you.
00:11:27
Speaker
ah so My heart is so warm right now, Chris. That's amazing. I don't even remember giving you those. When did I give you those? i Dude, like I said, it's been so long. It's got like college or something, like a decade ago. no ah I don't remember. I would probably five years, maybe six.
00:11:45
Speaker
I don't remember at all. I'm so glad, but like I could have, I should have warned you because like. I think you did. Like there you said there, are a couple of but like, man, like I was getting blisters in between my
Art and Music in Pokemon
00:11:56
Speaker
toes. and Yeah. Dude, this is crazy. And now now once you get past that, they're like, they last forever.
00:12:01
Speaker
Like, I don't think I've ever had the strap come out on one of my rainbows. Yeah. No, it's, it's been great. Excellent. So I just have been waiting for this very moment to tell you that. I love it. Thank you.
00:12:14
Speaker
oh man. You know what else comes in a rainbow? What comes in a rainbow? The various boxes for Pokemon.
00:12:25
Speaker
good I tried. i tried. I'm not as good at this as you are. i honestly was thinking, like you know what else lasts forever? The Pokemon franchise. That also works. but That was good, Ollie. You're picking up on it.
00:12:38
Speaker
All right. We're going to talk about the generation one, the first generation of Pokemon on this podcast. Yeah. Good hype, y'all. So I played Pokemon Red. So Pokemon Blue, yuck.
00:12:49
Speaker
And I played Pokemon Yellow. I'll have more to talk about this particular copy of Pokemon Yellow. but i think So Chris asked me to do like the little intro that we do every time. It has been four months. So apologies if we mess up a little bit on the format.
00:13:04
Speaker
But we're going to go for it. So ah Pokemon, the first generation, that's what we're going to call it, was
Favorite Pokemon and Recent Playthroughs
00:13:10
Speaker
developed by Game Freak, which actually was a company that had been around for a while before Pokemon came out, ah published by Nintendo.
00:13:16
Speaker
So there's a lot of release dates and already we're getting into the weeds here with the Pokemon series. so you'll have to bear with me. There's four different versions of Pokemon in the first generation. Pocket Monsters Red and Green came out in Japan on February 27th, 1996, and that's the generally accepted Pokemon Day.
00:13:34
Speaker
Something like eight months later, on October 15th, 1996, Pocket Monsters Blue came out. And that was like ah had some bug fixes, different sprites, couple of those different things.
00:13:46
Speaker
Speaking of, have you seen the original sprites? Some of them are ugly. They're wild. I can't remember if it was like they did the sprites first and then Ken Sugimori did the character designs or vice versa. I think it might have been the sprites for first. Maybe it was, yeah.
00:14:02
Speaker
But anyway, so those three games all came out in Japan first. And then in Pokemon Red and Blue, which was international release, came out in America on September 28th, 1998. So two years later.
00:14:13
Speaker
Australia, October 23rd and EU, October 5th of 99. So EU didn't get there until 99. That's like over a year later. That's crazy. And then Pokemon Yellow...
00:14:25
Speaker
came out in Japan on September 12th, 1998. So before Pokemon Red and Blue came out in America, they had a yellow. That's insane. Which is wild. And then um Australia got it September 3rd, 1999.
00:14:39
Speaker
America got it October 1999. nineteenth ninety nine And EU got it June saying So already the EU is kind of lagging behind, unfortunately, but that's how it goes.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So that's the release date. A fun little factoid for you guys. I don't know if you're familiar with Pokemon. Pokemon is probably one of the largest, if not the largest, media franchise in the world.
00:15:03
Speaker
So the Pokemon company is owned by Nintendo, who's a publisher, Game Freak, the developer, and Nintendo. Creatures, Creatures Incorporated, which interestingly enough, used to be the same company that made Earthbound, Ape Incorporated.
00:15:17
Speaker
um But they make ah they do the modeling for the Pokemon games. They make all the 3D models ever since Pokemon Stadium. So they've been doing the 3D models for Pokemon for forever.
00:15:28
Speaker
Which is a great game if you're into mini games. Oh, yeah. Definitely. We might have to play that at some point on the podcast. because i'm I'm pretty sure it's in the list. Yeah. If not, before we roll today, we'll make sure it's in there.
00:15:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, what is there to say about Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, and Green? Like, this was like a huge part of our childhood, right? Like, i don't even know, like, how to start with this. Oh, I guess First Impressions?
00:15:53
Speaker
Do you remember your initial impressions? I... Okay. I want to ask you first, do you remember the moment that you were introduced to the Pokemon franchise?
00:16:04
Speaker
Not the games, but just Pokemon as a whole. All right, let me double check a couple things here. So the release date was 98 here. Okay. So either it was the commercial with the, I don't know if you you know, i don't want to steal your thunder. Okay. So there's a commercial that came out where it was like a bus driver, school bus driver. And then all the Pokemon were on the different like seats of the bus. They're both been around.
00:16:28
Speaker
And was like, got to catch them all. um But probably the first exposure was whenever my brother got Pokemon Red for Christmas that year. And I still remember that. I still remember getting the red box. Nice.
00:16:40
Speaker
I mean, he let me play it a little bit, but like, I still when he got the red box. So, for me, think of yourself, I don't know, 1998, 1999, somewhere in there.
00:16:52
Speaker
Definitely, probably 1998. Definitely, probably. Definitely, probably. And it's before school, and you're just flipping through the channels, looking for something to watch before you have to walk out the door. And suddenly, you see a flower with eyes and drool coming out of its face.
00:17:06
Speaker
And you just keep flipping and then you stop and you're like, what? So you flip back and suddenly there's a redheaded person, a blue haired person, a redheaded person ah with R's on their chest and a talking cat.
00:17:19
Speaker
And we just kind of stare at the TV and we're like, what is happening right now? I didn't think that the anime was out that early. i I did. That was the only, the first time that I ever saw it.
00:17:31
Speaker
And I know it was before summer 1999. Okay. Right. Yeah. Cause I feel like we really got into it like that time period. Cause like, I remember we got the part of the card game.
00:17:44
Speaker
my brother got a copy of the Pokemon card game starter set when we were, when we went to visit our, like our grandparents and stuff that summer. So the summer 99 and like after that, that's when the card game really exploded with like the fossil set and the jump set.
00:17:59
Speaker
We'd go to like, mason road to get like pokemon cards and stuff oh nice it was crazy do you remember that don't know dude it was insane at my okay wait hold on back to what this might turn into like i did just like an i'll do episode guys like i'm sorry about this but okay wait what was i saying yeah so first pokemon i ever saw was gloom okay and then it was meow and team rocket um my son who's two years old can say team rocket's blasting off again So that's the thing.
00:18:28
Speaker
That's completely unrelated to what I was talking about. Then i don't remember. i received Pokemon Red in my family, but I don't remember when.
00:18:39
Speaker
Like, was it for my birthday? Was it for Christmas? I don't know. One of those two, probably. It was probably Christmas. And dude, blew my mind. I mean, we had played RPGs before. By the way, this game's an RPG.
00:18:51
Speaker
But it was just like... There's a bug. I can catch it. I'll add it to my team. It became a butterfly. What the heck? It's so interesting because like you grew up with RPGs.
00:19:03
Speaker
like like We've had talked on the podcast before. You had a Super Nintendo. You've played Secret of Mana. Dude, we popped this thing in the Super Game Boy so many times so everybody could watch. Oh, I believe it.
00:19:14
Speaker
But like I don't think I'd ever really experienced an RPG before this. It was mostly like Zeldas and stuff. And it was just like... I don't think anybody really knew what they were doing.
00:19:24
Speaker
Like everyone was like not able to like, they are only leveling up one Pokemon. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Or they were like getting stuck because they didn't know how to use cut or any of this weird stuff. I didn't even know. Okay.
00:19:36
Speaker
Oh man. Let's talk about gameplay really quick. Okay. Okay. Okay. So but that was first impressions. Yeah. Now we're hopping over to gameplay quick. Okay. So gameplay is like you're an RPG, but you build a team of Pokemon up to six Pokemon on your team.
00:19:51
Speaker
Pokemon are like either animals or magical objects. Kind of like one of them is basically a ball with magnets on it. cool. Yeah. Yeah. So you build your team and then they gain levels just like in a normal RPG.
00:20:05
Speaker
And then once they hit a certain level, they evolve into like a better version of them. Stronger version. And it's interesting because a lot of times it's kind of like, somewhat like a child and then the second evolution is like an adolescent and then the third evolution is kind of an adult which the first pokemon you get speaking of three stage evolutions is what they're called starters right and there's a fire starter a water starter and a grass starter there's charmander bulbasaur and squirtle yep who was the first one you ever picked charmander easy charmander easy Which is interesting because it wasn't the easy pick. you're True. It's like the hardest early game. It's the hardest pick because the first two gyms.
00:20:43
Speaker
There's eight gyms. You get badges from them and then you fight the elite floor and become the champion. Yeah. So the idea is you build up a team. You have to, there's two different goals. So the first goal is build up a team, beat all the different, the strongest trainers in the region, which is the gym leaders.
00:20:58
Speaker
And then you go to the, I guess the presidency, the reigning council. and you beat them up and then you beat the champion and then you win the game. But then you also, ah there's the scientist who's like, hey, I need you to like do scientific research and fill out this encyclopedia for me by catching every Pokemon ever.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yep. So there's two goals. And the really cool thing about this game is that it was interesting because it came out basically when the Game Boy was already dead. Like the Game Boy was like on its way out.
00:21:28
Speaker
So old. um But it made use of the link cable for the Game Boy where you could connect two Game Boys together and you could trade Pokemon and you could also battle them.
00:21:38
Speaker
And that basically revitalized the Game Boy, made a huge deal because now all of a sudden you go on the playground and you'd be like, Hey, I've got a Kadabra. You want to trade it? You trade it. Holy crap.
00:21:49
Speaker
It gets evolved into an Alakazam. Whoa. Just really rich gameplay in some respects. If you were not alive or around in 1998, 1999, 2000, holy
00:21:59
Speaker
two thousand holyley crap Pokemon was crazy. Yeah. We talked about the Game Boy games. Oliver mentioned the cards.
00:22:10
Speaker
The TV show. The TV show. We would tape it. We'd get like the VH. We had blank VHS tapes. If we're going on vacation, our parents are like, we have to tape this, mom and dad. Like, we can't miss this episode.
00:22:23
Speaker
And so we tape it. See, my family would never went on vacation, so we just watched it every Yeah, there you go But, like, my it got so crazy, my school banned bringing Pokemon cards to Oh, same.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yep. Because, like, kids would get into fights at recess. No Pokemon cards. gosh. Yeah, there's, like, too many people were getting them ripped up. They're getting the foil scratched off. Everyone's mad about it. so Well, and so back to what we were going to say before, right? So you can level your Pokemon and like the first Pokemon in your party lineup gets sent out. You send out one at a time in battles.
00:22:53
Speaker
One-on-one. One-on-one. and But you can switch out Pokemon mid-battle or you can rearrange your party, which was like a thing that I had been doing in RPGs since time immemorial, right? But your whole party usually fights with you. Like Final Fantasy, you have like an order. Yeah.
00:23:07
Speaker
but Right, so you like swap the order, right? Yeah, but that everyone's battling at the same time usually. Right, but if you go to this party screen, it's not like, it's like, oh yeah, let me just switch these guys around so I send out this guy first. Like, it was like so just like ingrained in my memory.
00:23:20
Speaker
There was a kid down the street who was into Pokemon. Well, I don't know if he was into Pokemon at the time, but he had the Pokemon game. Yeah. He's like, our age. I went down the street and he's like, I have this Pokemon game. I'm like, oh, Pokemon's so cool.
00:23:32
Speaker
And he had a level like 20 Ivysaur and hadn't made it to Brock yet. Yeah, that's classic. People getting lost in Viridian Forest. And like, he's like, I just don't know what to do. I just fight Pokemon.
00:23:46
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, so you need to build out your team. Let me teach you catch Pokemon. Right. And I'm like, you're going to one shot anything you try to catch. just gotta to throw stuff like... I'm gonna find you like a level 2 because at the time I didn't understand you can still catch like level 5s easy at full health.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah. um So to catch Pokemon you whittle them down and you throw Pokemon you catch them. um So i caught a level 2 female Nidoran for him. You knew ah you understand these mechanics quite well. I mean it was just like I played it enough that I like understood. We were pretty fine. did the whole like hold down the B button.
00:24:14
Speaker
Oh yeah of course. and make sure that you get the catch no one knew how these games work schoolyard rumors and so there's so much crazy stuff that would come up yeah so I like caught him a female Nidoran taught him how to catch Pokemon and then I swapped her to be the first one I'm like okay so you can train her up I'm just gonna leave her here right yeah a week goes by whatever we hang out again at his house and he's like i just like she's getting over leveled because i always send her out first i'm like why don't you just switch her like in the party screen he's like what i did it in front of him i don't know and so he had like a level 24 knit arena was like dude
00:24:59
Speaker
I mean, ah again, all this stuff, like no one really understood. It was very much a kid's game and it's a lot of kids' like first exposure to RPGs. and or just games in general. Yeah. So no one knew what they were doing.
00:25:10
Speaker
It was wild. For me at my elementary, it was like second and third grade. We're just like all Pokemon all the time. Yeah. And then it became uncool in fourth grade. i I don't know if I'd go that far.
00:25:22
Speaker
at my school, if you liked Pokemon in fourth grade, you were the worst. Oh, jeez. i don't even remember. So I just didn't say anything because I still liked Pokemon at that point. Remember like the when the movie came out?
00:25:33
Speaker
Dude. That was huge. I don't think I went to the first movie, but I definitely went to Pokemon 2000. Oh, I'm not going to go. let's ah Let's not talk about 2000 because we can talk about that with Generation 2 because I have lots of stories about that one.
00:25:47
Speaker
But at least the first movie, like for Pokemon the first movie, I remember my like getting our parents to take us to like the Cinemark. all these kids. We got like the special promo like Pokemon cards. I think it was like a little Pikachu or something, man.
00:26:01
Speaker
It was Pokemon. Crazy is crazy, dude. Oh man. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Did is there anything else you wanted to say with regards to the gameplay to gameplay? Cause I think what we should do is like take a step back from the nostalgia and talk about Pokemon red and yellow as a game.
00:26:18
Speaker
Now that we're adults and it's been 25 years since they came out. It's like how it's aged or whatever. Yeah. Or just like more of like divorced a little bit from the nostalgia and just do like a more of a critical analysis of it.
00:26:30
Speaker
For example. Um, so we were talking about like, it's an RPG. You go throughout the the world, you train up these monsters and you like battle them and stuff. I heard somebody talking about the other day about how this was game freaks attempt to make their own dragon quest.
00:26:47
Speaker
Okay. Could you see that? Like, can you elaborate on that? Because I haven't played in the Dragon Quest games. Do you see any similarities there? I have a story. Oh, okay. Fourth grade. And like I said, no, it's fifth grade.
00:26:59
Speaker
Like I said, at my school, no, it was sixth grade. Wait. Yes, sixth grade. you were in junior high at this point. Yeah. In my junior high, it was not cool to like Pokemon.
00:27:12
Speaker
And I say this because I had received Dragon Warrior 1 and 2 on the Game Boy Color. And we were going on a science trip to the Gulf of Mexico. We lived in Houston. It wasn't that far.
00:27:25
Speaker
So we were riding on a bus for like two hours, right? Yep. And i brought Dragon Warrior because I was playing it. Yep. And I was like playing it on my Game Boy. And this guy, who, by the way, was playing Golden Sun, so i don't know why he said this.
00:27:39
Speaker
I'm like walking around on my Game Boy, like fighting monsters, right? Yeah. Because you get into random encounters. And he's like, oh, that looks like Pokemon. Ha ha ha ha ha. And he was like making fun of me, even though he was playing an RPG at the same time.
00:27:53
Speaker
I was like, dude, what the freak? So, yes, I can see that. Due to my own personal experience.
00:28:02
Speaker
At least this conversation that I found on the internet was actually kind of interesting because they're saying that like, when you think about Dragon Quest in some respects, like it was one of the seminal JRPGs.
00:28:13
Speaker
It was the first JRPG. Even before Final Fantasy? Yeah, Dragon Quest came out first. Yeah. yeah And so like it codified a lot of these things. And if you look at it, at the two games that like pokemon for example like there's a monster that's a mimic which is like the voltorb and the electrode it's like a pokeball yeah like there's a lot of some of the design unfortunately i don't have it that conversation in front of me so there's more examples that they gave but like a lot of like the enemy designs the kind of the the way that the game works it's very dragon questy in some ways you know um i can see that but i may also give you a counterpoint that
00:28:51
Speaker
Like you said, those things in a JRPG had been codified. I mean, it was like 10 years later that those games came out. Fair. However, I'm sure they were trying to chase the Dragon Quest high.
00:29:03
Speaker
Like, they specifically requested that Dragon Quest come out on Saturdays because kids were skipping school in Japan on release days for the new Dragon Quest. I love that.
00:29:14
Speaker
What other franchise could you possibly think of that would cause that? Well, now, Pokemon. Right? I would say that they succeeded. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
00:29:24
Speaker
Sorry, this is not a Dragon Quest episode. I apologize. I mean, we might talk about it later. Oh, quick random segue. So I was just thinking. So the Pokemon games were partly inspired by the creator Satoshi Tajiri.
00:29:38
Speaker
His childhood love of bug collecting. you would often go out and collect bugs and have nets and stuff. And he wanted to kind of translate that into this game where you catch and collect different monsters and also train them and stuff.
00:29:51
Speaker
And actually it was ah originally going to be called capsule monsters. If you, you know, in Japan, like they have like the capsule balls that come out, which you can kind of see the different, the similarity with like a poke ball, you know, yeah capsule monsters.
00:30:03
Speaker
This is just a random anecdote. So I went to Japan in 2019. And i was with a friend. We were walking around, i think, the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Just kind of like, not like next to it, just like nearby. And there's like some parks and trees and stuff. No, actually, it was next to the Budokan, which is like a famous kind of like revered martial arts tournament hall.
00:30:25
Speaker
Anyway, we're walking around and we see a trail of children, a line of children. And I'm like, what's going on? And when we see at the front, there's a an adult. At the back, there's an adult. And then just all these preschoolers.
00:30:37
Speaker
And they're all wearing yellow hats. And they all have nets and little boxes. And they like are in a line. They cross the street. And they go to this park. like I absolutely kid you not. like This preschool was going to a park to catch bugs.
00:30:51
Speaker
And they were wearing the yellow hats that you sometimes see youngsters wear in Pokemon. like It was fascinating to walk around Tokyo and to realize how much Pokemon is just literally real world. It's just like Tokyo.
00:31:03
Speaker
I mean, Gen 1, it takes place... in the Kanto region, which is an actual region in Japan. Which is Tokyo, basically. I'm sure. I don't know. Yeah. And you can actually go online and you can see like where different landmarks are in the Pokemon game. They correspond with Tokyo landmarks.
00:31:19
Speaker
So it's just very interesting to like look at the Pokemon games from some time behind because, especially the first generation, they were still trying to figure themselves out. They're trying to figure out, okay, where where does this game take place?
00:31:31
Speaker
What's the world that it's in? And there's so many references to real world things. Like it really does just take place in Japan. yeah Like you go to Pewter city and there's a museum and it's an astronomy museum.
00:31:42
Speaker
And there's a, an exhibit on the space shuttle Columbia. And then you talk to an NPC and they talk about the moon landing on July Let's see, July 20th, 1969. I was so impressed by this. I took a picture and I was playing and I like have it.
00:31:59
Speaker
That's how I remember. Like it's very much rooted in like an alternate earth. Yeah. More so than any of the other games, which I thought was really interesting. Yeah. I mean, that's maybe the writing section. I don't know.
00:32:11
Speaker
Dude, this is all over the place. it doesn't even matter at this point. There's too much. It's too much. There's too much. um Well, okay. Let's... So, you go through the game. You fight eight gyms. Yep. Right? Oh! We should mention the elements.
00:32:24
Speaker
The types. That's important. Oh, yeah. Each Pokemon has one or two typings. Which corresponds with an element. Like a classic element. Like fire, water, air, flying, ah rock,
00:32:35
Speaker
That kind stuff. Yeah. I think there's 15 in Gen 1. 16? Maybe. i don't remember exactly. like I think they've added three so far. And there's 18 now. Yeah. That makes sense. And each one, like, fire is super effective against grass, but water is super effective against fire. And grass is super effective against water, creating, like, a triangle.
00:32:53
Speaker
There's a rock, paper, scissors mechanic. Yeah. Where there's strengths and weaknesses. And so the game becomes very strategic. Maybe more so than other RPGs. Like, other RPGs of the day...
00:33:04
Speaker
It was mostly like, okay, the attack patterns from bosses or different, like using magic or using like fighters or whatever. But this game was very rooted in like rock, paper, scissors, these different types and making a team that could cover all the different.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah. I will say like RPGs at that time had gotten to the point where like, if there was a wood themed boss, you could use fire on it and it would be weak to fire.
00:33:32
Speaker
Sure. But Pokemon has set a much more intricate system. Like there's multiple weaknesses, multiple resistances, some immunities to some types and the others, you know. So it does like, oh, my team is really weak to this. I need to get a monster Pokemon that will cover me in that typing, like said.
00:33:50
Speaker
Actually, really quick so like side note. So I recently picked up in Wisconsin, I picked up a copy of Pokemon Platinum, which I lost like a decade ago. So was excited to like find an actual copy again.
00:34:02
Speaker
um So playing through it again. Second gym is a grass gym. I have nothing that can beat grass. And it was so hard. I know yeah i can't even. So what ended ended up happening is that this is like, so this is generation four. So this is way ahead, but just because it's topical fighting the grass gym, they have a Roserade as their last, their last Pokemon, which is a grass poison type.
00:34:27
Speaker
I have two evolutions back. i have a buddhu, which is also grass poison type. All my other Pokemon are wiped out. I had the water starter. they're dead. I had all my other Pokemon are dead. Like literally everyone's dead. So it's just like a battle of attrition where all I can do is a grass move, which does very little. Four times resisted.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah. I had to do growth six times to just even do like six points of damage or something. oh my gosh. Badu is so bad. i love Badu. Like he's actually beat both of the gyms so far. He's the only reason why i've been able to make progress in this game. I mean like, sure, but his stats are just terrible. Yeah. They're not good.
00:35:04
Speaker
They're not good stats. That's so funny. Anyway, so yeah, if you you really need to like have a team that can cover all these different weaknesses or just like spam ah healing items and like other scummy tactics like I did just to beat this box.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yep. Oh, man. Gameplay. Where were we? Before we went on our side tangent. ah We were talking about gameplay. we were talking Oh, yeah yeah. So you get the eight badges. You want to be prepared for each gym with a certain type that will counter that gym's main type.
00:35:37
Speaker
yeah And you beat the Elite Four and the Champion. Should we talk about speedrunning really quick? We can. Okay, so wait, did you look up the speedrunning? ah I did. was supposed to do that. You did that.
00:35:48
Speaker
I did that. Did you already look it up? No, that's fine. That's fine. Okay, yeah, I looked it up. Okay, it's my turn to guess. I haven't guessed yet. Yeah, yeah. So I think you might actually do a good job with this. Okay. All right, so there's a couple different categories, and I kind of wanted to like actually go through them all because it's all kind of interesting.
00:36:03
Speaker
So the first category is the main one. It's any percent glitchless. Okay. Just as a quick definition. So there's, it's basically how fast can you beat the game without glitches? It doesn't matter how much you complete the game. You just have to beat it.
00:36:15
Speaker
You have to get to like the credits without any glitches. Now I actually am familiar with Pokemon speed running. Yeah. Not familiar enough to know what the current best time is, but I know the strat really quick. There's two. so maybe I should just clarify.
00:36:29
Speaker
There's any percent glitches and any percent glitches classic. The classic route means you can't manipulate RNG. Okay, so no RNG manip. Okay, yeah, yeah. Because I know the any percent with the manip gets a really good Nidoran male and gets Nidoking really early and just stomps the game with it.
00:36:48
Speaker
Really? didn't know that. He's just like so good. Because at level 16 you can have a Nidoking, right? Sure. Because his base stats are crazy. Oh, it's probably something like 30 minutes or so. No, there's just so many gyms and so much walking.
00:37:05
Speaker
I'm going to with 45 minutes. One hour, 44 minutes and three seconds. i so i You know, I was thinking maybe it's like two hours. Dang it. It's really just like how long it is to go around.
00:37:17
Speaker
Oh, I'm so mad at And that's the other thing with like Pokemon is that very very much there's not really any sequence breaks. There's different roadblocks in the map that you have to have certain bad badges to be able to get through.
00:37:29
Speaker
yeah And so there's no way to like get to the end of the game without glitches and without skipping that stuff. yeah Wait, so then with that with without the Minip... I'm guessing it's probably like 2.15 or something like that.
00:37:41
Speaker
It's one hour 56 minutes and 29 seconds. I was going to say two hours again. Just 12 seconds, 12 minutes longer. Yeah. All right. There's also the any percent no save corruption route.
00:37:52
Speaker
So this is, you can use glitches, but you can't corrupt the save. How long do you think that'll be? I don't know what consists of corrupting the save. I know one of them you can get there in under a minute. It's probably the save corrupt.
00:38:10
Speaker
Yeah, let's just let's skip that one because that's hard to have context on. Any%? percent What do you think the Any% percent route is? It's probably like five minutes. One minute, 18 seconds, and 793 milliseconds.
00:38:23
Speaker
man i knew it was i knew it was small we have to explain this really quick so as much of a seminal ah rpg and video game pokemon the first generation pokemon is i'm sorry it's bad it's a badly programmed video game like it's very easy to like literally manipulate the memory in the game which is there's memory leaks everywhere if you're a programmer or familiar with programming that's horrible you never want to like expose memory and so the any percent route is that you get enough pokemon and like certain items that you can like you can do this glitch that allows you to access the memory banks directly and write whatever you want to memory and then it just basically just puts you right at the end and you just win the game
00:39:07
Speaker
I think I've seen it. I think I've seen a run of that. Yeah. They've done it a couple times like Games Done Quick. so Yeah, yeah. And then the Catch-Em-All. So like, I'm not sure what this entails. the title is Catch-Em-All. I'm guessing it's Fill the Pokebecks.
00:39:21
Speaker
That's actually faster than any percent glitchless. I guess they use glitches, but it's like one hour, 28 minutes, and 43 seconds. Yeah, there's this crazy glitch I just learned about where you can catch like tons of random Pokemon at the beginning of the game.
00:39:36
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. By using an escape rope, which is weird. Okay. Speed running. Speed running. We good with that? Yeah. Chris is horrible at guessing. He hasn't had any chance yet.
00:39:48
Speaker
And I'm actually familiar with it. I just had no idea what I was talking about. Yeah. All right, talking about art. Art music. Like, the art style is very retro.
00:40:00
Speaker
Sure. So this is a Game Boy game. I would even argue that it's not even the best Game Boy game graphically. Like, it's very simple. It is very simple. Yeah. You've got, like, very simple sprites in the overworld walking around. All the grass looks the same.
00:40:12
Speaker
Yep. All the buildings look the same. Yep. In battle... The sprites, I think are good. I would disagree. So a lot of the front, so the front phrasing sprites are, are regular resolution. And a lot of times you can't fully tell what some of these things are, especially like the really big Pokemon.
00:40:29
Speaker
Like I think executor is just like really kind of weird. That's true. That's like, they really struggled with the limitations there. And then for whatever reason they decided, oh, so whenever your Pokemon faces away from you, you see it's back.
00:40:42
Speaker
But they're like, hey, it's like a macro photograph. And so that Pokemon should be blurry. And so they have, it's all blown up and like half the resolution. And so it's really hard to tell what it is.
00:40:53
Speaker
Like Charmeleon's back sprite is so bad. That's true. I forgot about the back sprites. I never look at the back sprites. Yeah. Even though they're right in your face. Yeah. So I would say the art is just serviceable for a first try. I mean, they've they, I would say that like Game Freak is not bad at graphics. If you look at some of their pre-Pokemon games, like Pulseman for the super, so the Sega Genesis, they made some great sprite work.
00:41:18
Speaker
Like they can do graphics well. I think it's the limitations of the Game Boy is what they ran into. yeah I think that's fair. Because once they got to like Gen 2 and then Gen 3... Gen 3 was great.
00:41:31
Speaker
yeah Huge. like Huge improvement. so I think it was really just like that. yeah So, music. Music is a banger. bu bu bupa bo So... but of but I mean, yeah. yeah like the The themes are iconic, right? like Such good music. I don't know what it is.
00:41:52
Speaker
like I know that The main composer, Junichi Masuda, he was in band. Maybe a band director. like High school band and stuff. um So maybe that's where he got his like background from it. But like all of the themes are just so good.
00:42:06
Speaker
Dude, Lavender Town will forever be the creepiest music. I would still say that Gen 1 gym leader theme is still one of my favorite battle themes. ah Trying to think off the top of my head.
00:42:20
Speaker
I'm not going I could sing it. It's like the da da da da. da da da no yeah It's like, you like when it starts playing, it's just like, I'm already feeling chills. It's just like, let's go. Let's heck and wreck this. Like, it's so hype.
00:42:33
Speaker
So like all I wrote for this section, Ollie. Yeah. I mean, how can you not? So iconic. So iconic. Like you have the crazy arpeggios in the background and you're just like, yo!
00:42:43
Speaker
It's so good. So good. It's so good. If you haven't heard it, go listen to it. It's yeah quintessential 8-bit music. Quintessential chiptunes. So good. A few more sound effects.
00:42:57
Speaker
The catching sound effect. Doom. Doom. Doom.
00:43:04
Speaker
Oh, so good. So good. Okay. Trying to name your Pokemon and just has like, that dot da da that the da that and you just hear that for hours. Yep. I wasn't a big nicknamer. So that was interesting.
00:43:16
Speaker
Quick segue. I mean, we could talk about this in another episode, but I didn't nickname my Pokemon for a really long time because once you nickname them, their name doesn't change when they evolve. And so i was like, I don't want to name it Charmander because then it will always be Charmander.
00:43:29
Speaker
yeah So I never named it. And then like later on, I it realized like it wasn't until Gen 3, I actually remember this. It wasn't until Gen 3, Generation 3, that I realized you could just like give it a different name that's not what it's called. And then I started naming it by Pokemon, and then I love it. I just never have done it.
00:43:47
Speaker
don't know. Yeah. So who would you say are the most iconic characters in Pokemon? Not Pokemon themselves, but like in Gen 1. Like the humans. Yep. Definitely blue.
00:43:59
Speaker
Or green. Gary. Gary. Yeah. I mean, they're kind of the same person, right? Like even like the, everyone talks about his personality. I think that's pretty striking, but I think I i love his design. It's just very, yeah I think a lot of the later Pokemon games to try to like stand out, they had like different designs that were little bit overdone. yeah This is just like straight up classic.
00:44:20
Speaker
ye I would say he's really good. The gym leaders have just like some really interesting designs. like You've got like the swimmer lady. You've got the army guy. You've got the scientist, the fire dude. You've got like a ninja.
00:44:32
Speaker
You have like the whole gamut. Yep. I would say gym leaders, Professor Oak, his grandson Gary slash Blue, and Giovanni. That's a little interesting, isn't it? That's just like so stereotypical like mob boss.
00:44:46
Speaker
Giovanni. There's this whole subplot of Team Rocket. Team Rocket's blasting off again. And they're like... Team Rocket is a criminal organization, to be clear. Yes. Similar to the mafia. Yeah. And they're trying to... What are they trying to do in Gen 1?
00:45:00
Speaker
I think in Gen 1, it's literally just like... So Giovanni is the... Sorry, spoilers for a game that's 25 years old that everyone knows about. ah Giovanni is the 8th gym.
00:45:12
Speaker
yeah He's later the leader of the 8th gym. But it very much gets the idea that this is like... He has a lot of undercunder businesses like money laundering. He has a casino. yeah He has like all this stuff.
00:45:22
Speaker
So I don't think he's necessarily... They're trying to do any like world domination. He's just a bad dude. Well, but they like take over Silph Company. Yeah, because it's a corporate takeover. He wants the money.
00:45:34
Speaker
Like, I don't think he's necessarily trying to, like, end the world like it gets in some of the later gents. It's literally just some dude. It's like going against, i don't know, al Al Capone. Like, it's just like, all right.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah. And the best part is you're like some 10-year-old kid and you break up the criminal organization in the region. Yeah, just like Shonen, you know, you're always the pro protagonist. the So funny. Well, the other thing, too, is that also there's allusions to like genetic experimentation.
00:46:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah. If you really like explore out places. Yeah. yeah so there's like there's some like morally bad stuff besides all like the criminal activity, like illegal money laundering or whatever. But yeah, I think he's actually pretty tame given the later games that were to come.
00:46:17
Speaker
Okay. Fun stories or memories if you've played it before, which we obviously have played it before. Before we do that, um I'm sorry. It's fine. Go ahead. You can re-intro it. Yep. Do we have a story section?
00:46:28
Speaker
Because we're talking about the characters. Oh, yeah. I thought we kind of like went over it, so I skipped it. But yeah, we can talk about story. So just wanted to comment on the writing for the first generation particular. When I was playing through Pokemon Yellow recently, what's really struck me is that like how kind of like, how do I describe it?
00:46:44
Speaker
The writing for the game is very 90s and also a little bit irreverent. I think that's probably a good way of putting it. Not necessarily irreverent and like inappropriate, but as the games got more popular and as they had a wider reach, the they tried harder with the localization, the translations to be more for lack of a better term like family friendly or like politically correct that's not the great word for it sure sure but like you have kids talking about how they love shorts and then like literally you go to see the captain of ah of a of cruise ship and he's like vomiting into the trash can and you look in the trash can and it says yuck shouldn't have looked in there
00:47:23
Speaker
Or like you go look in the other trash cans and there's wrappers. And then people talk about like beating people up all the time. it's has a little bit of like It feels a little bit more real just from the fact that it's like not so like sanitized, I guess, the dialogue is.
00:47:39
Speaker
So when you it's kind of fun to play after playing a lot of the later games because it's a little bit more... And I feel like it's a little bit indicative of the ninety s The 90s were kind of irreverent as well. The story doesn't have... it There isn't much of a story. It's just like...
00:47:51
Speaker
Your classic kind of like... Become the champion. Become the best that there ever was. Hero's journey. yeah ye Okay, so now this is the part where we just talk about fun stories if you've played it before, which we obviously have.
00:48:04
Speaker
Okay, so just fun stories from the Gen... Okay, yeah, I'll try to like prefix. i can I can start. I've got some written down while you think about it. But preface whether this is like when you were when you were playing it, because we've played this game multiple times.
00:48:17
Speaker
Yeah, this was... So, I mean, I remember beating the game for the first time, and we were like so hyped, right? um We did restart the game a couple times, ah and the last playthrough on my red version that I remember happening...
00:48:34
Speaker
was we had gotten to the third gym, not gotten into it yet. I don't think we'd gone to the SSN to get cut to be able to make it into the third gym. Sure. um And we just decided we were going get every single Pokemon we could catch to level 25 by training in Diglett Tunnel.
00:48:50
Speaker
So we would just spend hours in Diglett Tunnel walking back and forth with our Venusaur, swap training whatever Pokemon we were working on, Beedrill, Fero, Pidgeotto, you know, just like we just decided that's what we were going to do.
00:49:03
Speaker
Why? i don't remember. We didn't play the game so much. Every Pokemon that you could catch up to that point all to level 25? Yeah. Yeah. yeah But Chris, why?
00:49:14
Speaker
ah don't remember. It was just like, yeah, these Pokemon we've never used, we're going use them or something like that. I don't know. But then one day disaster st struck. Uh And we couldn't find Pokemon Red.
00:49:26
Speaker
You lost the copy. Not only that, but maybe like a year later. We were moving stuff upstairs and it had gotten underneath our really heavy chair leg.
00:49:38
Speaker
no. And it was crushed. So you found it again, but it was destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. yeah Oh no. I never knew that. So that was my Gen 1 copy of Red and what happened to it, unfortunately.
00:49:52
Speaker
Oh, that is so sad. Now, later, my younger brother got yellow and my older brother was gifted blue. So, like, we still had Gen 1. And I was, because my game got lost slash destroyed, my parents felt it necessary to give me Gen 2 when it came out. Which is better.
00:50:08
Speaker
Well, we'll talk about it in the Gen 2. Yeah, definitely. But, you know. Excellent. Let's see. Stories. So, it was my brother's. uh gen like red was my brothers technically um but we kind of shared games back then like it wasn't really like who's safe so what was interesting is that i have memories of playing it but i can't really pin it down to that time like i can't really i don't know like stuff like oh yeah cerulean cave that's where mewtwo is
00:50:39
Speaker
And you have the guy standing outside of it and like the cave is there. And I thought it was like his hat. ah thought I thought it was like one of those British guys that had this like big but glo fuzzy black hat. I totally thought his hat.
00:50:50
Speaker
But like I can't really pin down like specifics. Interesting. That's okay. Like I remember the the game corner. Oh, definitely remember like Missing Noh.
00:51:03
Speaker
Oh, the rare candy glitch. That's a fun story. Well, like didn't even do the rare candy glitch. I don't remember how we found out about this. I think maybe you or maybe Robert, our mutual friend, Robert or somebody told us that if you go to Cinnabar Island, which is the seventh gym and you surf, which is like travel across water.
00:51:19
Speaker
If you surf up and down the right side of the island, you would have a glitch show up and it was missing. No. And it just like start spamming like, and then you can catch it Maybe you could try to catch it, but I don't know what it would do.
00:51:33
Speaker
So what happens is the sixth item in your box would like spike up to like a million. I think it was 256, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now that I know that now that I know how computers, but it was like infinite. Yeah.
00:51:45
Speaker
And then you'd go and sell them and they were rare candies. So you sell them all. You just have all the money. So then or you just level up your Pokemon. Yeah. So then you could just level up your Pokemon or you could go to the game corner and buy the EV that was super expensive.
00:51:57
Speaker
no, it was a Porygon. Yeah. It was a Porygon. Yeah. That's something I remember. yeah Oh, yeah. I just learned if you catch a missing no before you've registered Q1 or seen Q1 or registered Q1, one of those two, in your Pokedex, it turns into a write-on.
00:52:12
Speaker
So it's a write-on. Or but you catch it and then it when you look at it, it's a write-on? It's write-on. Huh. Is it still missing no or is it just literally a write-on? It's literally a write-on. Wild. Yeah, so Rhydon was the first Pokemon ever designed that was kept.
00:52:26
Speaker
Right? But... So maybe in the memory it was like number one, even though it was number Well, so there's like a bunch of slots. and So I've looked at the decompiled code for this Pokemon Red.
00:52:38
Speaker
Now we're getting to the weeds. And there are slots for Pokemon, and there's more than 151. There's 151 Pokemon in Generation 1. those slots that don't have anybody anymore, like they're interspersed.
00:52:50
Speaker
Huh. All of those are missing those. Gotcha. Yeah, it all comes down to like a ah bad memory access. Oh, man. So good. The rare candy glitch, you can get, like he said, infinite.
00:53:02
Speaker
It's called rare candy because you use them to level your Pokemon up, right? But, oh, man, just so many good stories. Yeah. I kind of remember the Safari Zone. You have like Scyther and Pinsir. Scyther has been my favorite Pokemon since Pokemon Red. Oh, i was gonna oh that's what I was going to do next in this section.
00:53:18
Speaker
Favorite Pokemon from Gen 1. Scyther, Arcanine. Classic. Favorite starter. Charmander. I wouldn't say that Charmander is my absolute favorite starter of all Pokemon, but in Gen 1, that's my favorite.
00:53:34
Speaker
Favorite legendary Pokemon. in gen one yeah see this is back in the day when legendary pokemon were just like mythical like well there is a mythical it's me but yeah well that's that's that's a that's that's a whole different discussion they made that up later but like instead of like literally the god of time this is just like a firebird um if i had to pick probably articuno well well mewtwo is cool I do like Mewtwo for some reasons, for several reasons, but for my favorite Gen 1, for whatever reason, it's Articuno.
00:54:07
Speaker
You know, I wish it was Moltres because he's a fire type. But I think it's Zapdos. Because I think Zapdos just did a lot of work when we got him. I don't think we ever caught them. Oh no, Ollie. I don't think so.
00:54:20
Speaker
So you get Zapdos in the power plant. Yep. Where do Moltres? In Victory Road. In Victory Road? yeah think maybe we got Moltres, but we, and then. Articunas and Seafoam Islands. Yeah.
00:54:31
Speaker
I don't think we ever got Zapdos. I don't think we ever beat the game, to be clear. Oh, that's too bad. I don't know if I've ever went back and beat it. I feel like, no, I don't think we ever beat it.
00:54:42
Speaker
Hmm. That's too bad. Yeah. Favorite type. Favorite type in gen one. Yeah. Probably fire fire. Oh man. We're just in sync. Yeah. It's so great. This is why we're such good friends.
00:54:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is that like, it's kind of a weird thing to say cause you need multiple types, but okay. So this maybe is like a more general Pokemon question, but what stat breakdown do you like?
00:55:08
Speaker
Like, do you like a wall? Do you like a tank? Do you like a glass cannon? Do you like a special attacker? do you like I mean, I obviously like glass cannons. Yeah. But, um, I don't know.
00:55:21
Speaker
What about you? See, I always liked the fast and hit hard. Yep. Like, I'm not really the kind of person that likes walls that while being someone with high defense or high special defense that can take a lot of hits, but slow and lumbering.
00:55:35
Speaker
Something to remember about Gen 1, special defense does not exist at this point. Yeah. That was kind of a general question. It's just special. And I don't even want to get into why Psychic is overpowered.
00:55:45
Speaker
Never mind. Decided I'm not going to talk about it. I mean, we can say that in like two seconds. Like, Psychic had no weaknesses except for Ghost. But all the Ghost types in the game were also Poison types.
00:55:56
Speaker
And Psychic is powerful against Poison. Did you know it's worse than that? No. Due to a coding error, Ghost does not affect Psychic in Generation 1. I did not realize that.
00:56:07
Speaker
Now, they are weak to Bug, which is like... i thought they added that in Gen 2. Nope, they are. However, the only two moves are Pin Missile and Twin Needle. Which is Big Drill, which is a poison type. Exactly. And then Jolteon, who is a special attacker, learns Pin Missile, which is a physical attack.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah, so it's very weak. Yep. so there you go. There you go. Anyway. Moving on. i wanted I wanted to talk about our playthroughs. Okay. Well, my playthrough, I guess. Oh, yeah. The recent playthrough.
00:56:36
Speaker
Did we have any challenges? um I don't think I gave you a challenge, but you gave me a challenge. Okay, cool. So talk about your challenge when you're talking about your playthrough. Okay, yeah, so I'll just ah'll just start out that way. My challenge from Ollie was to beat at least one gym with struggle.
00:56:51
Speaker
Now, what is struggle, you might ask me? Wait, that was my challenge? Yes. I'm so mean. Struggle is each move that you have as a Pokemon, um you can only use a certain amount of times. Once you have no moves that you can use at all, you struggle, which it's changed.
00:57:07
Speaker
Dang it. I should looked up. It's kind of like in other RPGs where you have health points, which is your health, and then you have magic points, and when you run out of magic points, you can't use spells anymore. Same kind of concept. If you use a move enough times, you can't use it anymore.
00:57:19
Speaker
Yeah. So struggle hurts them and then it hurts you an amount. It changed. Whenever you have no more moves that you can use in order to like not soft lock the game, there's a move that hurts them, but also hurts you.
00:57:34
Speaker
So i chose Charmander because he's the best and for other another reason that I'll talk about right after this. um And I just struggled against Brock in both senses of the word.
00:57:46
Speaker
Because he's the rock type and struggle is not very effective against rock. But it wasn't too bad. I'm pretty sure I just fought all the trainers, went in and struggled.
00:57:56
Speaker
I don't think I used potions. It wasn't too bad. I mean, I needed a little bit of luck, but it wasn't too bad of a challenge. It's just an obnoxious challenge. It is obnoxious. you have to make sure to use up all your power points.
00:58:08
Speaker
um But I thought about trying to do it for every gym, but that was just too tedious because you get so many moves. Yeah. With so many PowerPoints, I was like, eh, I'll just do it for the first one. yeah But I did decide to do only fire type team because fire's favorite type. You did a mono type team. A mono type team, which turned into a Charmander solo run until after the third gym.
00:58:29
Speaker
By that point, I may have had Charizard. Maybe it was only a Charmeleon. Do you Growlithe at that point or a Ponytape? So yeah, you can catch a Growlithe outside the Celadon, the fourth gym.
00:58:39
Speaker
Okay. Then I was playing Red, so I couldn't catch a Magmar or Vulpix, which by the way, all fire type moves in Gens 1 through 3 are special moves.
00:58:50
Speaker
Yep. And Ninetales is the only fire type with a higher special than their attack. Yeah, I think this is like when we're talking about... Gen 1 is probably my least favorite generation because of like these things just make it kind of annoying to have to play.
00:59:05
Speaker
and it's and Oh, Eevee. I evolved into a Flareon in the fourth gym. Which is high attack. it's It's at 130 base attack, which is high for those of you who don't know.
00:59:16
Speaker
And then Ponytie didn't get until a little bit later. You have to catch that a on Cinnabar. Yeah. In the mansion. Oh, it's in the mansion. Yeah. Which also has a higher attack set than special.
00:59:27
Speaker
um And then I caught Moltres in Victory Road. So I ended up with Charizard, Arcanine, Rapidash, Flareon, and Moltres. Oh, not bad.
00:59:38
Speaker
I did use the Rare Candy Glitch after I had beaten everyone but the Elite Four because I didn't want to train all my Pokemon slowly up to level 50. Yeah. yeah But I did only do it to level 50 and then I fought the elite four one.
00:59:49
Speaker
I beat the champion. Sweet. It was fun. I love how canonically, like, so throughout the whole game, your rival who's blue, who's Gary, is kind of like one step ahead of you. Canonically, he beats the elite four and becomes the champion like six minutes or something like that. like Yeah.
01:00:05
Speaker
Six minutes before you come and beat him. And he's just like, I was the champion. For only six minutes. Yep. I feel so bad for him. So funny. I talked about challenges. Should we go to the back of the box quote?
01:00:17
Speaker
Oh, I need to talk about mine. um Oh, sorry. Yes, go. Yeah, so I honestly was like, playing other video games at this point, because i was like, I played Pokemon so much. I don't even need to play through the game to be able to talk about it.
01:00:31
Speaker
But as I had alluded to, um i was gifted a copy of Pokemon Yellow from a friend last year. And it's actually really cool because he got a custom like milled metal cartridge and like took out the circuit board from the original game and like put it in there. So they have this like metal Pokemon yellow. Super cool.
01:00:50
Speaker
Nice. um Recently, whenever played, so I've been playing Pokemon for years, been a fan for a long time. What I tried to do with this run is Pokemon never used before. So I had other than Charmander. Wait.
01:01:01
Speaker
It's yellow. So you start Pikachu. Oh yeah. Yeah. it was yellow. So had Pikachu. I had Nidorina for a while, but then I think I took her off the team, but then i had Sandshrew.
01:01:13
Speaker
um who was a beast. And Abra, who's now Kadabra. You've never used Kadabra? No. He's literally the most overpowered Pokemon in Gen 1, apart from the legendary. I never did.
01:01:24
Speaker
What? Yeah. You know what? You know what? I think he was my go-to in Gen 2 for other reasons. Yeah. I don't... I think maybe there's one other one. No, I think that was like the four main ones. Like i haven't really been using my Nidoran as much, but that was the four main ones that I, and I got as far as I did.
01:01:39
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. Yellow is kind of fun because it's basically the same game, except you have a Pikachu following you around and you can talk to it and like make emotes and stuff. The most fun is whenever it like interacts with stuff. Like when you go see
Pokémon Storylines and Cultural Impact
01:01:52
Speaker
Bill.
01:01:52
Speaker
Bill is this like computer nerd um who owns the place where you store your Pokemon. When you find him, he's turned into a Pokemon. Which interestingly, he has never been visited in the game since. yeah So that's kind of odd.
01:02:05
Speaker
But Pikachu is like, what? Who is this Pokemon? And then he goes into the machine and turns back into a human. And Pikachu's like, what? Like freaks out. don't know. It's just kind of cute to like have him running around and doing all these things.
01:02:17
Speaker
All right. Back of the box quote. Yeah, let's hear it. So I found several. ah Probably my favorite is requires basic reading skills to fully enjoy the entertaining story. That is a back of the box quote if I've ever heard one.
01:02:31
Speaker
Okay. Being more serious or more like. No, I will say that is definitely one of the back of the box quotes of all time. Yes. And honestly, it's in the back of the box of every Pokemon game, if you've ever noticed. Like they really promote reading comprehension for kids. um But the Bane one is Gotta Catch Them All.
01:02:49
Speaker
couple of other ones that were kind of fun. Gotta Catch Them All. Gotta Catch Them All. Yeah. like Before Pokemon became like the cultural juggernaut that it is and has all these really iconic monsters, it was all about just like catching them all.
01:03:02
Speaker
Gotta Catch Them All. Actually, catch them. Anyway, yeah other quotes, catch and train monsters like the shockingly cute Pikachu. It also referred to like Pidgeot, which is kind of fun. Important, no Pokemon can win at all.
01:03:15
Speaker
So it's trying to impress upon you that you need to like. Which is it's paul pokemon blatantly false. You could definitely play through with one guy. They're trying to like teach good good standards here. Yeah. got Yeah, back of the box.
01:03:27
Speaker
Nice. Okay. Are you ready for the listener letter that we have? Yeah, I'm excited. We've talked a lot about this game. Are you ready? Do you see this? Oh, no. What is this, Chris? This is a journal of mine.
01:03:42
Speaker
um i guess the only journal I've ever kept, and it's not very full at all. Okay, so to describe for the listeners, Chris on the video screen holds up A picture of Jake Lloyd with his giant goggles from Star Wars Episode one It's a pod racing journal.
01:03:58
Speaker
And it has like colors on the side. And it says pod racing and like the racing letters. And I'm just like, what is happening, Chris? Where did you find this? says Mos Espa Arena on Tatooine. So I was gifted this journal by my parents for like Christmas or something. And I was supposed to... Let's see when the first entry is. I think ah think Episode I came out in 1999. May Excellent.
01:04:18
Speaker
excellent Oh, ah June 3rd, on Monday, we went and saw Star Wars Episode I. There you go. It came out before Wars because we saw it like opening weeks.
01:04:29
Speaker
so I saw it opening night. Yeah. apparently on May 30th, I played Pokemon with other brother. Anyways, our listener letter comes to us from June 4th, 1999.
01:04:40
Speaker
That's like 24 years ago. My older brother and i are Pokemon masters. I have the day that we beat the game for the very first time. Chris is so cute.
01:04:51
Speaker
Isn't that so great? And the rest of it says, we might go swimming today. I hope we go swimming.
01:05:01
Speaker
i give us that out I love that. That's so awesome. Oh my gosh. Oh man. How did you find that? what What do you mean? How did I find that? I've had this. Let's see. I think I wrote in it recently. See, I have 2007 and it's just been sitting in the closet in the room I grew up in and I grabbed it. Last time you were there. There you go. yeah it's little That's awesome.
01:05:23
Speaker
I love that. So there's our listener letter. Somebody beat Pokemon. Yeah. Yeah. yeah All right. So we've been talking about a lot about Pokemon one. It was a formative part of our growing up for sure.
01:05:36
Speaker
There's so many things we could talk about it, but probably don't want to go on forever. Is there any like main thing that you wanted to impress upon at your listeners, Chris? No. About your experiences with Pokemon.
01:05:48
Speaker
I'll talk about it in my rating.
Evaluating Pokémon Gen 1
01:05:50
Speaker
Okay. But I want you to go first. Okay. So we're doing ratings. Yeah. Neutral. Neutral. Okay. All right, so my rating is neutral.
01:06:01
Speaker
I would say that trying to take a step back from the nostalgia and with the understanding that there's many Pokemon games you can play these days, I don't recommend the first generation of Pokemon.
01:06:13
Speaker
I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad, but there's definitely better games that you can play that you can get the same experience. And there's been remakes. The Pokemon company, for various reasons, has remade Pokemon games multiple times. I think first generation has been remade at least twice.
01:06:29
Speaker
Twice, yeah I think so. Most recent on the Switch. and So I'm not going to say it's a bad game. It's an it's probably one of the most influential games of all time. And so maybe call that the greatest of all time.
01:06:41
Speaker
I would say it's somewhere between neutral and the thumb up. I would just say neutral because it's not my favorite generation of Pokemon. And I only really keep it around for like collection reasons i don't really i don't recommend playing it unless you are specifically trying to experience the first generation gotcha like would you say if you wanted to play one play like the game boy advance or the switch remakes yep if you wanted to experience the first generation okay is it my turn go for it two thumbs up to the sky there you go Now, taking off Nostalgia Goggles, this game is like held together by twigs and twigs. And bubblegum. don't even know. Bubblegum, yeah. And scotch tape, man. And scotch tape.
01:07:22
Speaker
But playing through it, you don't really notice that, right? Is it an old game? Yes. However. That is fair, yeah. If you get into why things are broken, you can break the game wide open.
01:07:36
Speaker
Literally. Literally. like And I don't mean like breaking the game and beating the game in a minute. I mean like taking advantage of things in battles. Like for example, Oh, you're not talking about glitches. You're just talking about the game mechanics.
01:07:49
Speaker
Well, so unintentional game mechanics. So for example, every odd numbered badge that you get raises a stat that you have on every Pokemon by 12.5%. I know this is getting a little in the weeds, but just listen.
01:08:01
Speaker
I didn't know that. Yeah, so when you get the first badge, all of your Pokemon's attack, even though it's not documented in the screen in battle, get a 12.5% boost. Gotcha. gotcha I knew that that was a mechanic. I didn't know how much it was, though.
01:08:14
Speaker
The oversight is any time a stat is modified, the other stats, HP does not come into account. The other three stats are boosted again by 12.5%.
01:08:26
Speaker
What? So, for example, you're sitting in a battle, the Rattata tail whips you, luring your defense. If you have the first badge, your attack goes up 12.5%.
01:08:37
Speaker
Holy crap! I didn't learn that until like a few years ago, right? So now... That's incredible! If a Pokemon learns a stat-boosting move, right? Like agility, which raises your speed.
01:08:49
Speaker
If you use it three times, your attack has now gone up, what, 40%? As well as your special and your defense. And then if you've gotten all the other badges, they also all go up. Yep, yeah except the one that you're modifying.
01:09:03
Speaker
That's insane! However, there's a caveat... If you level up mid-battle, everything resets to where it's supposed to be. yeah Because it recalculates all your stats. Wow. So, you can actually like game the system and beat the game earlier if you like have a Pokemon that can modify its own stats.
01:09:21
Speaker
and That's the reason why you give it two thumbs up. It's just like the seer bonkerness of this game. It's like so bonkers, but you can also just enjoy a playthrough of it if you want. That's true. It's so deep.
01:09:32
Speaker
When I was playing it on Yellow, like it's enjoyable. like It's an old game, but I don't think I ran into any of the annoyances that I had. like I think of a lot of it it just comes from like, I looked at the games for a long time, like the first generation of Pokemon games and thinking, oh, there's so many broken parts about this game. They're bad.
01:09:50
Speaker
But like, and you're just, if you're playing it for funsies, like that doesn't even like come up. Like no who cares that there is no reasonable counter ah to psychic? Like yeah there's like.
01:10:00
Speaker
Use psychic. Yeah. Whatever. So to your point, there are things that are annoying about it. Like her in later gens, you walk up to water and press A and it says, do you want to serve?
01:10:11
Speaker
Yeah. In this game, you have to go into your menu, choose Surf on the Pokemon that knows Surf so you can Surf, or cut a tree, or whatever you need to do. right yeah um There are things that are annoying like that. However, like there is a reason that Pokemon exploded due to these games.
01:10:26
Speaker
yeah right And it's just like, no matter how deep you want to go down the rabbit hole, I feel like there's something enjoyable and worth your time in these games. I, I, I, that's fair. But no changing your answer.
01:10:37
Speaker
I was about to say, i was going to put it as one thumbs up. Okay. You can do that. Yeah. I was being cynical. I was being cynical. I was in in between. Yeah. I'll give it one thumb up. It was so like magical, but even take the nostalgia glasses off. Like I enjoy a playthrough of Gen 1.
01:10:54
Speaker
I wouldn't say it's my favorite Gen to play through, which may show you what a lot of the Pokemon games will be on this podcast rated by me, but I enjoy it. Fair enough. Should we close the chapter on this generation of podcast episode?
01:11:11
Speaker
ah There's just one other thing I wanted to mention. Oh yeah, I remember what it was. Like, it kind of feels a little bit like boomery. Like millennials to be like gushing about Pokemon. It's just, there's just something about that confluence of time. It's kind of like the closest that it's gotten, I think for the rest of the world was 2016 when Pokemon go came out, like it was just everywhere.
01:11:32
Speaker
yeah Everyone was doing it. Everyone was playing it. It was just so universal and everyone loved it. And you know what was crazy about it being so universal? What? The internet wasn't fully established by that. I mean, it was, but like, it was like GeoCities. It was Alta Vista. Google didn't even exist then. So it was like all just spread around like rumors on the playground. We didn't even touch on word of mouth, playground rumors.
01:11:56
Speaker
Like, it was so insane. Yeah, like the view truck and whatever. But like, I think they did, they were really smart with like the trading. That's kind of what I wanted to mention. Oh yeah. I don't think we did a lot of trading for whatever reason, Pokemon has been a pretty solo experience for me throughout the years, but we did do a little bit of trading and I do distinctly remember hanging out at our friend, mutual friend, Robert's house and knowing exactly when to yank the cord so that we could duplicate the Pokemon and get two of them.
01:12:23
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. There's so many things. Somebody duplicated our Mewtwo. I don't know why you can just go catch a Mewtwo.
01:12:30
Speaker
but i Just like all that kind of stuff. Like it was, it's just a very singular experience. It is. It was
Tease for Next Episode: Bastion
01:12:36
Speaker
just a wild time. Yeah. It was wild. I'm excited for when we talk about Gen 2, because I think that continues from this wave.
01:12:45
Speaker
And I think there's a lot of really interesting things we could say about the second generation, yep but I'll hold off on that. Okay. So let's stop talking about Pokemon. Unfortunately, we could keep going.
01:12:56
Speaker
We've been talking about it for about an hour and 30 minutes. Yep. But I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Yeah, I know we kind of like got excited and it jumped around a bit. Hopefully you were able to follow along.
01:13:08
Speaker
And hopefully if you've never played Pokemon before, you weren't completely confused about what any of this meant. Yeah. But it's definitely a game series that's close to both of our hearts and looking forward to the next time it comes up on the randomizer so we can talk about it more. I think i think that's a good summary. It is a definitely a game series for sure.
01:13:25
Speaker
Yes.
01:13:27
Speaker
All right. So now, hopefully is the exciting part where we find out what game we're going play next. And we have a treat for you next time that we'll reveal in the next episode. Spin that wheel.
01:13:43
Speaker
Okay. What's that face mean? This game was released in 2011. So, a much more recent game than what we've been playing lately. Yeah. What is it?
01:13:54
Speaker
um It is Bastion. Bastion! Bastion! Oh, wow. I'm excited about this one. Man, I bought this game so many years ago. I never played it. Really? I got it on the Humble Indie Bundle forever ago, ah but I just never got around to playing it.
01:14:09
Speaker
So this will be the first time I played it. I think it'll be good. And I was literally just thinking about it because one of these game companies put out the vinyl, put the soundtrack on vinyl, and I love the soundtrack for that game.
01:14:20
Speaker
but This is going to be fun. It should be good. Yeah. The thing is, is that I don't know. I'll have to see if I can actually run it because it's old enough that it might not run on my computer. That should be fine.
01:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'll figure out a way. But Bastion, do you think we'll have enough to talk about that we don't need to do a second game? It's a pretty meaty game. Yeah. Sounds good. Sick. Bastion. I'm looking forward to that. Well, all right.
01:14:43
Speaker
Bastion, next time. And just as a little fun, little closer on this Pokemon series. So the one Pokemon generation, I believe. have this too. There's two. the The main one that matters that Chris has not played is Generation 5.
01:14:58
Speaker
yeah And ah I actually found a copy of Pokemon Black recently. And spoilers for Chris, he already knows that this is his birthday gift. I'm giving it to him for his birthday. I actually already have Pokemon White. We're going to play it side by side.
01:15:12
Speaker
And I'm pretty sure there's ways to like trade online, yeah even though they turned off the Pokemon Wi-Fi connection. So... That should be exciting. Yeah. I think it'd be a fun way to like re-experience that.
01:15:23
Speaker
I've played through ah game like side by side like that before. Really? I mean, Pokemon. Sorry. Like I played let's go with my wife.
01:15:35
Speaker
But you can play two player in that game. Yeah. I got into like Gen 7 and Gen 6 kind of the same time everybody else did. But I never played alongside somebody else. so We kind of played Gen 7 at the same time-ish, but we didn't like sync up or anything.
01:15:50
Speaker
Yeah. So that's something else. That's just playing for fun. That's not for the podcast. Yeah. I just thought that we were fun. I'm excited for that. All right. Find your copies of Bastion. All right.
01:16:02
Speaker
And let's play. play.