@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon I love those little details you put in all those sprites! They are so small and nuanced but once you notice them it truly enhanced the viewing experience!
Hey, the guy, he's not that crazy either, to do, different strategies, with 6 smeargles, can be done, but nobody is so crazy to repeat a video like that, that would be absurd.
5:47 There is an Aerodactyl puzzle in the Ruins of Alph. Kabuto, Omanyte, Aerodactyl, and Ho-Oh are the 4 puzzles that exist, even in gen 2. Great video!
38:00 you couldve used the k.o. Strategy, meaning learn spore, loose, learn another sketch, then return to him and learn swords dance. I know loosing to a parasect is rather unpleasant, but it works.
I just typed this all out and then figured someone in the comments must have beaten me to it. I don't think he was treating deliberate Faints as resets (as noted by his early-game Faint to Spearow). Well said.
Theoretically you could get both Spore and Swords Dance from the Parasect by sketching one of them, roar the Parasect out, defeat the trainer's other Pokemon to level up mid-battle (learning Sketch again), and then sketch the other move from Parasect.
23:39 To be fair to Janine, she's just taken over Gym Leader duties from her father, so you can say she's still learning the ropes and whatnot. Pryce, on the other hand, should have decades of experience, and yet he tends to be a pushover. I think he has fully earned his spot as "the Bruno of Gen 2."
Those runs where the pokemon makes you play the game differently are the most entertaining. Can't wait to see a run where the pokemon ends up in the Bruno tier.
For those PP stall situations with Farfetch'd, you could equip a mysteryberry for 5 more free turns. Honestly there's probably a lot of situations where 5 extra PP mid-battle could make the difference.
The best part about mystery berry is that you can get one just outside goldenrod by the little lake just out the north exit too. So you don't even need to do that stupid long down route by blackthorne and sticking to the right side for it too.
Couldn't you just throw pokeballs at it? Obviously you can't catch a trainers pokemon, and you'd use your turn wasting the ball but the opponent would still attack
42:35 Bruno’s Hitmonchan has the elemental punches as its other moves. That’s why it uses Mach Punch most of the time: The AI here is smart enough to know about how much damage each move will do, and given Hitmonchan’s stats and type, against most opponents Mach Punch will do the most.
Unless it's a ghost Pokémon, a legendary bird, or the gold and silver cover legendaries, or a psychic Pokémon with good defenses. By discard it will make the other attacks.
I know that Jrose started before Scott, but honestly, congratulations to Scott, because he is doing much better than Jrose. Since he is a bit annoying and does not learn from his mistakes and he doesn't take advice, sometimes I get desperate,
Parasect always gets to me. Like, its eyes are whited out and it’s a zombie being puppeteered by a parasite, but it still manages to smile. It could be the parasite smiling, but I like to think that Parasect’s host is still in there, smiling despite its situation. Like a living example of staring into the abyss, it staring back, and you just smile at it undaunted.
Planning really goes a long way with this one. I once did a run with only Smeargle (6 of them though) in XY and everything I actually planned out went much MUCH better than usual, because some moves just aren't meant to be able to be used together. It's a bit of a shame Hidden Power goes such a long way here as it makes it hard to replicate without outside interference, but everything else was really cool to see. I didn't even know birdkeepers were set to ungabunga brain mode. That's really funny (also means less sand attacks!) The artist jokes are appreciated. Most of them are true to life :´)
Smeargle is interesting. Having access to every move is theoretically amazing, and in competitive Pokémon it lives up to that potential as a support mon, but for an in-game run, between Smeargle’s poor stats, the fact that which move you Sketch is dependent on the AI’s willingness to use what you want when you go to copy it, only having a maximum of 10 Sketches (and I expect that you’ll need all of them at some point in the run) since there’s no Move Reminder in Gen 2, and the fact that Smeargle can’t learn TMs, I can see this being an absolute nightmare. Good luck!
So, watched this after it premiered, and Smeargle really outperformed my expectations. Its stats didn't look quite as bad as I expected in your playthroughs (though it was quite slow time-wise - was this due to doing a lot of extra grinding you normally might skip? Or are Crystal times normally very long and I'm just not remembering?), good moves were available early enough that the last few Sketches weren't needed (I seriously expected Spore would be locked up somewhere in Kanto, if it was available anywhere - I did think Swords Dance would be more widely available though), and the Spore-boost-recovery set combined with decent Speed really made this Pokémon into a masterpiece. Beating the game with no losses/resets outside of a few Sketch-related issues on the second run was quite impressive, and beating Red on the first try twice was definitely surprising. I was right about the AI being uncooperative with a few Sketches, though. Watching this playthrough has made me wonder how good Smeargle could be with later gen moves, so I'm going back to finish Shining Pearl so I can catch several artdogs.
It is really interesting to hear the background workings of the trainer AI. Most other videos don't discuss it, because is basically didn't matter, but these videos push the limits of the single player experience.
Seeing you grow as a UA-camr and Pokémon player has been so fun to watch. You’re becoming one of my favorite poketubers, if not my favorite. I was lowkey sad when your video didn’t come out on Friday I thought you weren’t doing a video. Just got a huge raise at work so I’m considering becoming a Patron at the highest tier :)
I was disappointed when this wasn’t ready for Friday. Thanks for considering supporting on Patreon! I really appreciate it! The support there is one of the reasons I can focus on quality of quantity!
I now understand exactly why you were so excited when I mentioned an auto-populating damage spreadsheet. Loved the math explanation in this one and the unique strategy that this took. On a personal note, Smeargle holds a special place in my heart just like Farfetch'd. Something about these little tough guys holding an item (yeah, Smeargle's is its tail, but still counts) is adorable and endearing.
10:09 of course it is, I would know, I did this exact challenge myself! Hypnosis was pretty much mandatory until one random pre Victory road Parasect trainer that had Spore Parasect. When I got that one, the run was basically complete
This was a cool run! I really thought it would be a terrible video to make because of how Sketch works. You made Smeargle actually pretty competitive, which is crazy! I honestly thought C tier could have been justified. Also, during the bloopers you said “Scott’s Sounds” and now I’m thinking a second channel with just blooper reels would be a fun idea. Thanks for the awesome content!
Pretty cool run. I remember when I had my 'overtweaking' phase playing gen 2 I wanted to get one and set it up like they do on competitive stage, with spore, agility and batton pass. To my sad realization, sketch did in fact only copy the last move used by opposing pokemon, not any one it has (a la mimic in gen 1), so getting it to learn a batton pass became practically impossible and it got banished to PC forever ^ ^
Probably one of my favorite runs to watch so far; really pushed you to think outside the box from normal “terrible” Pokémon and having to rely on same strategies like struggle, etc. Great job!
one of my favorite things to do in later games is to make smeargle have the ultimate moveset of Spore, Mind Reader/Lock On, and Sheer Cold for instant KOs! Last move usually is for survival depending what i encounter, like recover or substitute. It usually requires outside main game help, however, but pretty fun to get through battle frontier-like challenges sometimes with it!
Knew I wasn't the only one who figured this out haha, even as a children. That fourth move was such a conundrum. Recover or Substitute? It felt so wrong to get the best sleep move, and then make the on hit KO move never miss haha. I also liked the Quick Claw to help me get a first attack, but I bet there're other good held items too for it.
Spore, mind-reader, guillotine, hidden power ice (for Gengar), replace with recovery move. Not sure where to find Guillotine, would have to figure out if it’s possible from NPCs / wild Pokémon.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Horndrill on Brock's Rhyhorn, but who knows if he'd actually use it when you need him to. Also very far in to get it. Any other trainer that has a 1HKO move seem to be around cerulean (Route 26 - Cooltrainer Gaven has guilliotine, Route 25 - Cooltrainer Kevin has horn drill. ) So i was researchign while typing this, but when you get the super rod, you can pull up level 40 krabby in some locations with water, and they should have guillotine as part of there moveset. Maybe Kingler too. Sadly, sheer cold doesn't exist in gen 2 as its main reason to be picked is it has nothing immune to it. If you have explained this in video, I missed it, but why not sketch ice beam (90 power, one of the dragonairs from Claire have it) instead of having hidden power ice (70 version as stated in video)? Or as an upgrade for it at least.
I just love how enjoyable your content is, it’s not an annoying repeat of beating Pokemon games with only shiny’s or something. While he makes such amazing yet hard ideas that could never think off, mad respect to you my guy
@29:15, interesting fact: in Gen 2 Tri Attack that is used on a burned or frozen pokemon removes that status condition. I really enjoyed this, as it was very strategic throughout. What a challenge!
I'm looking forward to you painting us a picture of how good this pokemon can be. (On another note, I'd love to see Smeagle modded into Yellow to use his strats against gen 1).
The quality of these viseos, especially in the smaller details, is amazing. The sprite that changes expression depending on how the battle is going... Fantastic content
I remember playing Silver as a kid and trying to find Smeargle. The pokedex showed its only nest was the Ruins of Alph, so my child brain decided Smeargle was the creature that painted the Unowns. Until I found the secret tunnel from Union Cave, I thought Smeargle would appear once you caught all 26 forms.
Finally caught up with the solo run playlist, and this comes out as I do. Huzzah! Smeargle is one of the runs I'm most interested in. Bad stats plus the Most diverse move set makes it a high skill run, unlike, say, Magikarp, which is very much more "Are my numbers good enough?" Due to a lack of options. A Smeargle was one of my main choices in Super Mystery Dungeon's late game, where Rollout and Iceball do all their hits in a single turn. This means that Mind Read -> Rollout/Iceball hits all 5 times, with the +50% base power bonus from Technician.
Hi, I've been watching for a little while now (since the octillery playthrough) and i gotta say your production quality is excellent. Great attention to detail and I appreciate multiple runs with each Pokémon to show what they are truly capable of. Thanks for all the videos they are really entertaining
Another incredibly interesting run. I would also like to say how impressive it is that the production quality of your videos has come so far in such a short time, it's the little things. changing the colour of Smeargle's tail *chef's kiss* beautiful! I posted a comment on one of your previous videos of a challenge idea I was going to try and you said it was interesting and asked for an update. I've tried posting a link to the Reddit post but I think UA-cam deletes them so I'll copy and paste it into the replies to this comment. Fair warning its quite long and I don't expected you to actually read it. But I do want to thank you for giving me a little inspiration to try something like this. I've recently became a father and found this was really helpful at occupying my mind when trying to rock a newborn to sleep at 4am. keeping notes and typing the whole thing out was a strangely cathartic experience. Thank you for providing a healthy if slightly obsessive distraction. New capture challenge: After recently discovering solo runs and Pokémon challenges in general, I downloaded a Pokémon emulator. After doing a Bulbasaur solo challenge on Fire Red I thought of a more interesting challenge, but I honestly don’t know if it is possible.(spoiler alert it is). In hindsight there are about a dozen decisions I wish I made differently but it was still incredibly fun, I'd probably add a rule that allows a Fly HM slave after failing to the Elite 4 x amount of times just to prevent needless grinding. I would love to see you do this challenge the same way you done the Porygon challenge and involve other content creators. The possible variations make this quite exciting but probably not very competitive, the way everyone approaches the mid game and plans ahead (or fails to) would be quite entertaining. So… the challenge: When you encounter a wild Pokémon you have not captured you must capture it and use only that Pokémon in battle until your next new encounter. This means only training against wild Pokémon you have already captured and against trainers. I think it would be interesting to see how you could try and manipulate encounters by only training in specific areas to ‘save’ an encounter for a later battle, like against certain gym leaders or significant battles. If you fail to capture the Pokémon for any reason you must reset. In my run I'm not allowing HM slaves. This is the real challenge and interest. I'm also attempting to complete this with no in game trades, no repels, and no items in battle. (I fail at the no items in battle but it is doable). I’m allowing evolutions in my run, and if you encounter an evolution line you have already captured you must not capture it again e.g. already caught a Caterpie then encounter Metapod you can kill the Metapod for xp or flee but cannot capture it. Possible issues: Safari zone is probably very difficult to do without repels or glitches. Issue of catching Pokémon on the first encounter. Potential soft locks, especially if not allowing HM slaves. No repels would certainly be more interesting but may make the challenge impossible if combined with no HM slaves. I’d love have some feedback and thoughts on how this would go, especially across different generations. How it went: I managed to complete the game and defeat the elite 4 without using any repels, no issues in safari zone, no in game trades/gift Pokémon, and without using HM slaves, and have not had a single Pokemon evade capture. However, I have used numerous items in battle, and I have swore a ridiculous amount in front of my new-born son. I highly recommend trying this challenge, getting to use new pokemon I would never usually use was great fun and the lack of HM slaves in a pseudo solo run made the challenge extremely fun and challenging. This is how the entire run went, I will be surprised if any one reads this. I began by selecting Charmander, this may seem irrelevant as I will be frequently changing Pokémon but I figured I would want to be heading to Misty with Paras if possible which would give me an advantage over the rival's Squirtle, and I believe there are Oddish available just before the rival fight in the SS Anne, and honestly I just think that Blastoise is the weakest out of all the starters.
The challenege begins... after leaving Pallet Town I obtained the Pokédex, while leaving Pallet Town I encountered and captured Rattata, captured a Pidgey in next patch of grass. Captured a Kakuna in Viridian Forest, realised I only had a single pokeBall remaining. Returned to Viridian City and purchased 15 pokeballs. Kakuna lost a battle to Pidgey returning to the forest as it could neither attack or flee. Returned to Viridian to heal. Captured a lvl 5 Caterpie, trained on Caterpie and Weedle line in VF to lvl 7. In the forest I captured a lvl 3 pikachu, never knew these were found here. Trained on route 1 to lvl 8, defeated optional rival. Arrived in Pewter City and realised I’d have to face Brock with a Pikachu…Jesus... trained Pikachu to lvl 16, continued to lose to Brock. Realised I had yet to explore route 22, on arrival immediately caught a Spearow then a single step later a Mankey (thank Christ, I thought Mankey was only here in Pokémon Yellow) trained Mankey to lvl 12 on route 2 then challenged the trainer in Brock’s gym levelled up and smashed Brock. Minimum battles on the way to Mount Moon. On entering I immediately caught a lvl 8 Clefairy and realised it was sent to the PC. So ditched all my previous Pokémon and collected Clefairy and re-entered Mt. Moon, and hoping to exit with a paras. on entering captured a lvl7 Zubat and after getting TM08(bullet seed) captured a lvl 8 Geodude. Finally I captured a lvl 8 Paras at the rare candy. Paras fainted after fighting a Zubat, did not white out as there were other Pokemon still in the party. On the way to the pokecentre accidentally encountered a trainer so had to reset, thankfully I have been saving after every capture so far. Ok Paras absolutley sucks in Mount Moon, I'm a little annoyed with my self for actually wanting this useless shroom wannabe. But I’m fairly certain there’s no other new encounters and it will be good against Misty and hopefully the rival if sufficiently levelled so training is required. I’m fairly certain there are Jigglypuff on route 3 but I’m not sure if there’s any other new encounters there and I don’t want to research online, I feel that will take away a bit of the challenge, so will stick with training in Mt Moon. I do know there are Ekans at Cerulean which means I may have to over level Paras or lose repeatedly to the rival until I win. Trained Paras to lvl 13, when it learned poison powder. Proceeded through Mt Moon fighting all trainers on the way. Fought Misty after defeating her gym trainers at lvl 23 and whited out repeatedly. Seriously I was stuck here for so long until I remembered TM's were a thing. Taught Paras bullet seed and easily won on first attempt and levelled up and evolved into Parasect. After many attempts at the rival I finally levelled up after intermittently defeating Pidgeotto then easily swept the rivals full team at lvl 25 as scratch became a 2 hit KO on the Pidgeotto, a critical hit on Rattata for the KO, and a clutch five turn bullet seed on Squirtle to finish him off. I attempted the rival before fighting Misty and evolving and got completely stomped repeatedly, evolving into Parasect made the fight much more feasible. I should also note that I spent all my money on poke balls and a handful of potions before fighting the rival since I knew I would white out. Progressed through to Bills house, then through Vermilion to the SS Anne, fought some optional trainers for items and proceeded to the rival with Parasect at lvl 31 were we easily won. As I’m not allowing HM slaves I forgot scratch and taught Parasect cut, he also knows bullet seed, spore, and leech life. Completed the trash can puzzle in less than a minute and shockingly subdued Surge. Made my way back to Cerulean then cut through the small tree to Rock Tunnel and upon entering captured a lvl 17 Machop, had to put it to sleep and whittle it’s health down to capture so returned to pokecentre to heal. Upon exiting realised Machop did not know cut and was unable to learn it so had to fight Picknicker Heidi to progress back to Rock Tunnel. Machop struggled against the unavoidable Pokemaniac so battled all the trainers on route 9 and wild Pokémon in rock tunnel and retried the pokemaniac at lvl 24 and defeated him. Machop progressed through Rock Tunnel easily and evolved into Machoke after defeating the self destructing hiker with a Graveler and 2 Geodudes. Arrived at Lavender and healed then spent cash on great balls and proceeded to game corner to get the Silph Scope. I had intended on fighting Erika here but machoke can’t learn cut which is required to access her gym and I feel he'll do well in the hideout. Machoke made his way to and through Giovanni without issue. Defeated rival in Lavender after a few attempts, captured a lvl 17 cubone. Could not progress past the Channeller as Cubone was unable to hit ghost Pokémon, thankfully captured a lvl 13 Ghastly shortly after. Trained Ghastly to lvl 24 on the Fishermen south of Lavender and the trainers north outside of Rock Tunnel. Progressed through Pokémon Tower taking on all trainers, evolved into Haunter. Arrived at the top floor with Haunter at lvl 30, made it to last team rocket member but he had a Rattata I could not directly damage but after a curse and confuse ray it fell reasonably quickly, spammed confuse ray on the following Raticate which fortunately only tried using scary face. Proceeded to Silph Co. and made it to the rival with little hassle, Haunter couldn’t affect a couple of Raticate’s so had to rely on curse and confuse ray to whittle them down. This problem is amplified when fighting the rival, he constantly 2 shotted Haunter, only occasionally taking damage from confusion, time to get a new fighter. I went to route 7 and immediately caught a level 19 Oddish with the moves sweet scent, poison powder, stun spore, and sleep powder… wow. After Haunter this was awful. After attempting to train it for a short time I thought I’d head to cycling road to level it up, realised Snorlax blocked my way so he was captured and thankfully I didn’t have to deal with the ridiculously shit Oddish. Snorlax made it past the Pidgeotto reasonably well but fainted straight after. Trained in Silph Co. and got Snorlax to lvl 37 and easily defeated the rival. Had one reset after two critical hit mega punches from Kangaskhan. Then defeated Giovanni. Proceeded to Sabrina, easily defeated in the first attempt.
Went to Cycling Road and healed at Fuschia then defeated the trainers in the gym and Koga himself on the first try but it was very close, had to use rest twice against his Weezing and got a lucky critical hit headbutt. Proceeded to Safari Zone and captured Exeggcute then a few steps later the same with Nidoran male (Was very lucky here, I saved outside incase I failed a capture). Now this is where I made a strange decision. Nidoran can’t learn surf and I need to go to cinnabar for the next badge, I collected the super rod but decided to trek all the way back to Pallet Town. I haven’t played these games since Yellow apart from one solo run before this. So when it was originally released I remember Seafoam Islands being a nightmare and besides that I figure ice types might be good to leave as late as possible. So I left Fuschia by heading East onto route 15 and captured a lvl 24 Venonat. I then died to a Bird Keeper shortly after and had to white out as I forgot to save after capturing Venonat, so lost some cash. Proceeded through the route then encountered Snorlax… which I forgot would be this way. It took a few tries but after poisoning and a bit of confusion luck Venonat defeated snorlax and proceeded to Digletts cave. In the cave captured a lvl 29 Dugtrio. Also having only played Gen 1 and 2 I’ve never played with Pokémon having abilities. Dugtrio's sand veil combined with sand storm and mud slap could be a great combo to stall... Or I will never get to find out because I’m a complete idiot and forgot I was going to Pallet Town so I could Surf to Cinnabar so never got to use it in a single battle…oh well. I used the super rod in Pallet and caught a lvl 18 Horsea. Used surf and encountered and captured a lvl 5 Tentacool after two steps in the water… bastard. Made it to Cinnabar after resetting a few times after being killed constantly after from lvl 12 Tentacool's. Captured a lvl 30 Koffing on entering Pokémon Mansion, then Growlithe on the same floor and then a lvl 32 Raticate at the stairs to the next floor. Captured a lvl 28 Grimer then a lvl 30 Ditto in the basement. Found the secret key and exited the mansion to realise I had fucked myself, since Ditto is almsot useless, especially when trapped on Cinnabar. So I tried to get new encounters in the mansion, no joy, I tried fishing for new Pokémon, only Horsea so no luck there, and so I began training ditto… it was just over an hour of hell before I came to a realisation. I could use the old rod to get Magikarp and evolve it into Gyarados. Sure, it would take a while but I could beat Blaine with it and surf the fuck out of there and have a good great Pokémon for Giovanni. However, as I was about to use the old rod I realised I had the good rod still, so I tried that expecting just another Horsea but luckily I got a lvl 14 Krabby. Now that’s not great but it’s better than ditto, and a lot better than having to train a lvl 5 Magikarp. After about 10 battles of Krabby and horsea I switched back to the super rod to fight harder Pokémon for more xp. But un-fucking-believably my first Pokémon was a lvl 22 Sheldar. I was here with ditto for almost an hour and got nothing but Horsea. What a bastard, I need a break. I spent what felt like an age trying to level shelldar and eventually surfed back to Pallet Town and went to Mt. Moon and back all the way through to to route 11 battling all the trainers I’d skipped on the way until I whited out from struggle to respawn at cinnabar at lvl 28. Shelldar would consistently beat the first 2 Pokémon from the first trainer in Blaine’s gym and die to a quick attack from the Ninetales. Trained using this method to lvl 30 before realising I could get a water stone from Celadon… and so without fly I trekked all the way back there and picked up the leftovers from the defeated Snorlax spot on the way. After returning to Cinnabar Cloyster made it all the way to Blaine easily, what a difference an evolution and some leftovers make, I wasted so much time training here. Got to Blaine at lvl 33 Unfortunately couldn’t get past Blaine’s Rapidash it hit too hard and too fast so back to the mansion to train. Returned to Blaine at lvl 40, would one shot his Growlithe and Ponyta but would only occasionally make it past Rapidash, third time I reached Arcanine it missed fire blast and died to a lucky critical surf. Told Bill to piss off on exiting and made my way to Giovanni… except I forgot to battle Erica… bastard. Cloyster can’t learn cut so I crawled back to Bill and went to the new islands to see if there was anything that could learn cut I could catch there. This was a complete and utter waste of time, it was fucking awful. Captured a lvl 31 Psyduck which also cannot learn cut. Fortunately next encounter was a lvl 33 Tangela which can, now for the long journey back to Erika... Except I can’t leave until I do some subplot bullshit during which I capture a lvl 31 Meowth. The bikers were a bastard, even after Meowth evolved into Persian after the first level up. I gave Persian the sunglasses to boost bite and feint attack and made it to the final biker but between poison damage and self destruct I couldn’t make it past him. Time to grind. I just repeatedly battled the bikers as it was efficient. It was during this grind against the bikers I realised I was fucked. Persian could learn cut but not surf. After completing the islands it will take me back to Cinnabar where I’ll be trapped until I do the awful Magikarp idea I had previously. Finally, at lvl 41and teaching Persian dig, and giving it leftovers, and getting lucky that Weezing self destructed as Persian was underground and a critical hit on the Muk the bikers were defeated. Captured a lvl 37 Hypno in Berry forest right before battling Lostelle. (In hindsight this was also incredibly lucky to encounter Hypno right at the end as it can't lean cut which I'm sure is needed to progress through the forest to Lostell). Returned to Cinnabar with Hypno. So now I have two options, use one of the fossils to escape or use the old rod to catch Magikarp and grind. So in the spirit of the challenge I threw out a line and encountered a lvl 23 Gyarados… wtf I didn’t even realise they appeared with a super rod, also lucky I forgot to switch to the old rod. This has saved me literal hours, the thing I also wasted on Bill's bullshit subplot. Glad I never used the fossils, while technically allowed I just feel this is more in the spirit of the challenge.
Anyway I taught Gyarados surf and headed back to Pallet Town, since Gyarados cannot learn cut I have to find a new Pokémon which will, I decided to head over to Fuschia and see what was nearby cause I figured they would be a relatively high lvl. I captured a Doduo on route 18. Fucker can’t learn cut either. After about half an hour of trying various routes I couldn’t find any new encounters. I decided to save outside safari zone and enter with the condition of any new encounters I must capture and if they escaped I’d reset. On my first attempt I captured a lvl 28 Scyther, jackpot. I assumed it could learn fly but it can’t, luckily it has wing attack to deal with Erika. After going back through cycling road and defeating two trainers in Erikas gym Scyther was lvl 28 and swept her team easily. Now I have Giovanni and realise after him I will need a Pokémon that can learn surf to make it to Victory Road and while on Victory Road I will need something that can learn strength. I remember Onyx appearing there in gen 1 so hopefully it will be the same here. I back track to Fuschia and fish around and eventually, after many Gyarados, and Horsea, I capture a lvl 25 Goldeen. Goldeen can’t learn cut or fly so there’s no way back to Viridian other than going through Seafoam Islands. Upon entering Seafoam I quickly realise/remember I need strength to progress so I try and get some encounters and soon capture a lvl 30 Seel… which cannot learn strength. No new encounters after that, spent half an hour checking and eventually whited out. So I’m back at Fuschia and need to find a Pokémon that can either fly, cut, or can learn both surf and strength… just going to wander around and see what I find. May have to head to Safari Zone in hopes of a Pinsir or Nidoran Female encounter. After trying for a short while every couple of days I realised I could surf to Cerulean Cave which is blocked but by doing so I could make my way to Viridian through mt moon. Thank God. Seel was too weak to take on the trainers in Giovanni's gym initially but with surf could quickly gain xp against Cooltrainer Yuji who has 2 Gravelers, an onyx, Sandslash, and a Marowak. Marowak always came out last and finished me off but Seel quickly grew to lvl 38 where I realised it could probably evolve if it survived a lvl up so I just used a rare candy to evolve into Dewgong. After evolving, Dewgong easily defeated all the trainers in Giovanni’s gym and after a few losses defeated Giovanni at lvl 45 due to a lucky quick claw activating allowing Dewgong to out speed the Dugtrio and one shot it with surf. Initially lost to the rivals Alakazam but on the second try he used and failed disable three times in a row, (cannot believe the luck) Blastoise took a while to take down but was no real challenge. On entering victory road captured a lvl 43 Onix, honestly it took about 30 balls to catch it. After teaching Onix strength and pushing the first boulder twice I captured a lvl 44 Arbok. I was absolutely gutted because I was convinced Arbok couldn’t learn strength, but thankfully it can, and it’s got to be better than Onix. Because Onix fucking sucks. On the next floor, I encountered a lvl 48 Marowak. I captured it before realising that not only can it learn strength but I had also already captured Cubone, so I could not use it in battle or for HM's. Eventually made my way through to the elite four but took a while since I haven’t played in years. and that's where I'm at now. Tried Lorelie multiple times with various strategies. Went in as I arrived at the elite four at level 45 and got abused. Taught a toxic rest combo. got pumped. Done the same with rare candies taking me to lvl 52. Still pumped. Noticed there was a new move I could learn after using the candies. Learned the stock pile/swallow/spit up combo. Really interesting moveset, fun to use. Still couldn't make it past the fucking Dewgong. I Made my way back to route 23 to see if there where any new encounters available. After some time in the grass I decided to try fishing and surfing and eventually caught a lvl 25 Poliwhirl with the master ball, because why not use it?.This could be great, but will take a lot of training. Poliwhirl has the ability water absorb which changes any water attacks into HP. This could be good for Lorelei, Bruno should be a squash, and good for the champion who I’m sure starts with Gyarados and should end with Blastoise. After taking the leftovers from Arbok and going to give them to Poliwhorl I noticed I had a water stone so now I have a Poliwrath. It looks like Poliwrath will be my final Pokémon so I’m giving him all the stat boosting items I have collected (2 calcium, 2 protein, 3 zinc, 2 carbos, 3 iron, 1 HP up) I went all the way back to Fuchsia to learn substitute and eventually returned to Indigo Plateau lvl 38 with these moves: surf, hypnosis, focus punch, and substitute. Attempted elite four just to gauge how much damage I might put out. Poliwrath missed 9 hypnosis in a row against Dewgong and died. Fuck me. Next try hypnosis hit first turn. Set up a substitute then a focus punch which done around 80% damage. Amazing I think considering the 14 lvl difference. Next turn I used surf which did negligible damage and while setting up a focus punch Lorelei switched to Lapras who went down to two focus punches. This is the first time I’ve KO’d any of her Pokémon. Next she sent out Slowbro who I put to sleep and hit with a focus punch which done very little, potentially a five hit KO with good ranges. After Slowbro used amnesia and failed several yawns he eventually fell after 7 focus punches and a surf. Dewgong came out and broke my substitute after being hit with a focus punch then went down. Cloyster was sent out next and I set up another sub after 2 punches the big clam fell. Last up is Jynx which used attract but wrath still punched her and almost KO’d. Lorelei used a full restore so I used a surf then a punch to end the fight. Surprised at how well Poliwrath did but I suppose it does get STAB with focus punch and ice is weak to fighting. I’ve had to leave it there as I have work to do but will likely destroy Bruno and hopefully the rest in the next few days. After several attempts against Bruno I just could not get past his Hitmonchan, it hits too hard and too fast for Poliwrath at the moment. Time to white out and train on Victory Road. Came back to the elite 4 at lvl 49. Lorelei went the same as before, and with a lot of hypnosis luck we best Bruno on the first try since we now out speed his first onyx and speed tie with Hitmonchan. After 2 attempts at Agatha I took her down after using my rare candies to get me to lvl 55. However, it was a long battle with many stalls from hypnosis and substitute from me and many confuse rays and double teams from Agatha. I did also have to use 2 full restores. I was hoping to avoid using items in battle for the elite four but honestly not worth it since I have already used them in battle previously. On to Lance who sent out Gyarados who I put to sleep and set up a sub. Focus punch does very little damage with surf doing even less. After whittling away at him for an age Lance uses a full restore then switches to dragonite. I realise I’m doomed, none of my attacks are doing much of anything. Might go and train some more but I think realistically this moveset just isn’t working. I have the TM for Blizzard but it’s inaccurate and only has 5 pp, ice beam would be ideal but I’ve no way to get past Victory Road unless I teach Poliwrath strength, and that just does not seem worth it. Maybe use toxic in combination with substitute and leftovers? Toxic was useless and in hindsight stupid. Replaced Hypnosis with blizzard and after a few attempts managed to defeat lance but used a lot of hyper potions and spent most of the battle behind a sub playing very conservatively. I stepped through the door and didn’t realise it immediately draws you into a battle. I had little health, little PP, and little hope. Didn’t even manage to take down the Pidgeot, and I hadn’t saved after Lance so I’m back to battling him… After several dozen attempts over the next week or so I get the farthest I’ve been. So I set up a sub on Pidgeot which fails sand attack and land a crit dynamic punch for the KO. Alakazam follows and sets up light screen, sets up future sight, misses psychic and fails a future sight to finally get KO’d by all the dynamic punches. Exeggutor is next and I spam hyper potions as it spams giga drain, it must run out of PP as it jumps between using light screen and sleep powder it also eventually falls after a blizzard, punch, then a critical blizzard which saved another few turns wasted. Next up is Rhydon which falls to a single surf. Arcanine is out and outspeeds and hits the sun with flamethrower which doesn’t even break, it takes about 70% damage from surf then breaks the sun with extreme speed then goes down to another surf. Blastoise is out next and heals Poliwrath with its hydro pump but I’m not taking any chances and set up a sub as Blastoise sets up rain dance. This fight takes an absolute age, the champ keeps stalling with full restores and with only 2 pp left on dynamic punch I get a crit and finally complete the game. That was really fun overall but the elite 4 was an absolute slog. In hindsight I should have trained Poliwrath more but I'd already used most of the ethers and saved by the time I got to the champ. Anyway give it a try yourself, I'd love to see other people's attempts at this, especially different generations. In the unlikely event anyone has actually read through this. Thank you. This has been a fun challenge to do while looking after my newborn son in the short time he sleeps.
Missed the premiere but im going to make my predictions anyway just for fun. I think you might have to reset multiple not because of how bad Smeragle power if not because you accidentally sketched something awful. If you can get the right moves it has great coverage so if you need to learn a new move, you will have to find a wild pokemon or save a trainer battle you know have that move and learn it. Which will be frustrating. Bottom tier just so much can go wrong. The only moves you know you can easily sketch is if the pokemon has one fighting move
Man I love this little guy. He’s GOTTA be in Scarlet and Violet, even if he doesn’t get a new evolution. With all the inspiration drawing from Spain, our little guy has gotta represent famous painters like DaVinci and Van Gogh.
I wonder if Smeargle was intended to be a counterpart to Ditto in that Ditto gets any mon and Smeargle gets any move. Have you thought about making a Missingno run? Maybe for Halloween?
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon hopefully you dont stop there, loads of glitchy abombanations can await... could be neat seeing you run thru with a team of em... esp given misingno's err stats.
We should get a Pokemon that can get any ability to finish off the trio. Give it a special move that switches its ability to the opponent's permanantly. It's a good thing you can't run into Shedinja in the wild or trainer battles, because otherwise...
@@kingofcrap4414 the name they give these things. makes me think of a glitch flying around with a cape but yeah it could be a problem if its a one off then yeah could be a funny landmine anything else after that would get old fast... that and most glitch mons got some real jacked up stats
Amazing to see how far the overlay has come. Im a very consistent viewer and i remember when this run came out. Its amazing to see how far the layout, scott, and the channel has evolved.
I thought that Smeargle would suffer way more through the run, but I guess that when the world is (literally) your canvas anything is possible. Beating Red on the first attempt and not even a single rare candy used to boot? It definitely overperformed big time and then some (one of those cases where you can't judge a pokémon by its BST).
Yeah, I really judged it with the base stats and that was a big mistake. Honestly it was way smoother to use than even Lanturn. The variety of moves is just so powerful.
love how thorough and well put together this playthrough is. and i love to see the odd pokemon used in challenges. the fact it only learns sketch and you work around it is amazing. keep it up!!
This was one of the most interesting videos to date, I also thought it would perform much differently than it actually did (no spoilers here). But, one question, slightly spoiler-ish so I will post it lower Did you want to learn both Swords Dance and Spore from the Parasect? Because you could have sketched Spore at lvl 60, let the Parasect kill you, then re-fought the Parasect at lvl 61 to sketch Swords Dance? I thought you blacked out at the peck Spearow and other places just to learn moves?
A really satisfying run: the Sketch mechanic adds a lot of dynamic and interest in the run, together with the fast-levelling curve, and the absence of the classic combo of Return+Rest that makes every run the same (and kinda boring). Thank you also for the math deepening in the core of the video. Great content, great work!
As expected, Smeargle just gets better and better with its moves instead of falling off. I really want to see it in other games, so much so that I might do it. If you're up for another race, I'm free in the coming month. This is the most fun pokemon to race with since the possibilities are infinite. Oh, by the way, no need to rush, you probably have the next 40ish days occupied so we can race later. I'd just really love if you considered this exact pokemon for a race in any game.
Smeargle is one of my favorite pokemon designs, but boy oh boy I'd assume is it a rough one to actually use in battle. These results were definitely a huge surprise to me! Well done little painter! Watching his paint change on the overlay with the different move types was a cute touch 🥰
Wow. The brainpower required for this gameplay is on another level. I didn't get how smeargle worked as a kid so this is so new to me. I understand how you could force through with a bellsprout or something but this is something else. And it feels so smooth! What an episode!
I’m genuinely impressed at all of your improvements, not just in the video but in all of your videos in general. You’re doing incredible work, Scott! Keep it up!
Scott, this was one of your most, if not the most, impressive solo runs yet. This almost felt like watching a RPG game of some sort where you have to carefully choose your primary character's abilities and evolution tree while navigating the game's mechanics. It's a shame that this pokemon is the only one of its kind of with this type of a moveset, unless you can also do a run in Gen 3 of course :)
That was some aggressive primeape art. I love it. I enjoy the Pokemon content, and I love your engagement :-D artwork, commentary, re-run, :-) all of it is great. My god first attempt with full HP.
This was such a satisfying solution for Smeargle! I thought this was going to be a terrible experience but this was an awesome challenge and really fun to watch
This is the most badass run you've made this far. Absolutely amazing strategy. Congratulations. I'd like to suggest fishing for a lv 40 poliwag with the super rod instead of breaking your balls with the bird keeper ai. If you're using spore anyway, belly drum would allow you to setup in 2 turns with recover instead of 3, or even in 1 turn if you're set to sweep.
I’m impressed by how resourceful you were in the first part of the game! I thought for sure you’d have to use Struggle for much longer, but hey, you and Smeargle pleasantly surprised me!
I was a little surprised at the end when it turned out that Smeargle had such a slow time after all. It seemed to go pretty smoothly overall, especially with the straightforward Red fight. I guess Sketch meant that after the early game you always had good enough moves, but the low base stats meant there was more time leveling than usual for those moves to hit the right ranges.
Absolutely loved this run. This is definitely a pokemon I've never used or even considered so it was nice to see just how versatile it can be may be in d tier, but it did well for itself.
It was in the fall of 1998, almost twenty-four years ago, that I first saw Ken Sugimori's artwork of the original 150 Pokémon. From that very moment, I was hooked. Thanks for giving Ken a shout-out! P.S. Venomoth had a different color palette in the original artwork.
Ken’s work is incredible. I was trying to learn how to intimate the old water colour style. I love it so much. Made my childhood so much better being able to imagine and see these fantastic designs!
I love the lengthy explanation/justification of fighting Pryce before Jasmine, as if anybody who ever played through a Johto game with knowledge of the options available would battle Jasmine first voluntarily :D
This was super entertaining. I honestly didn't know that Smeargle was even a Pokemon in Gen 2 when I was a kid, because no enemy trainers ever used it and it was REALLY out of the way to go and encounter one. Once I found out about it years later, it became really obvious how crazy powerful it is
Really interesting video picking and choosing what to use sketch on across the game must have been tough. Smergle being "TM the pokemon" does help with getting a good movepool. Video does a great job at showing how broken Spore is
Fantastic video; the results were surprising and there was lots of fascinating information mentioned such as the Johto Gym Leader strategy analysis and the AI trainer strategy modifications. VanGogh/Sugimori certainly had a tendency to get paralysed but the artist certainly did an outstanding job and truly showed off his artistic vision, "Spore is so broken."
I really love the community speed run idea! Sounds like a lot of fun and I'm going to try to participate. Also, keep up the great work, I love watching your videos!
Very cool! I did this challenge awhile back and wish I thought of spore or recover. The moves I learned in order were scratch, rock throw, magnitude, night shade (for high defense mons, and admittedly baited out with an HM pokemon, also was basically only used against Jasmine's Steelix), hyper fang, tri attack, swords dance (also PP stalling Jose), and earthquake. It was one of the most fun runs I've ever done!
I think that Farfetch'd knew u were going after it's Swords Dance so it tries to fight and prevent on using Swords Dance and then it gave up and like "OK OK U WIN U WIN!"
I really adore Smeargle only runs. Sketch is such an interesting (if kind of bad) move that really rewards a lot of research and planning and really helps to highlight which moves a runner thinks are useful too. This said, was not expecting Red to be that much of a breeze. That has to be perhaps one of, if not the easiest, Red fights I've seen in a long time. For a Pokemon that always struggles so much in the early game, Smeargle's late game performance is really scary huh.
I'm excited to see where you take this. He was interesting in the standard playthrough and basically existed for me to game it with Spore, Lock On, Horn Drill, and something else. That was however with other Pokemon, so a completely different deal.
24:22 TBF, Pryce's strategy is using Icy Wind to remove your speed advantage over his slow glacial mons and then go to town. It's actually pretty solid, he's just stuck with the worst type. That said, he could have thrown in a Jynx or Lapras.
I just wanna say, I know I gave you a somewhat negative comment on the Lanturn challenge run but it wasn't out of malice. I really do enjoy your content, I just had some stuff I wanted to say about that one that wasn't entirely positive. This run was great, definitely made more interesting by all the planning for which moves to sketch. Keep up the great work man!
Those little details! Changing the colour of the tail to the type recently sketched! The quality on theese videos are just the best!
Glad someone noticed it!
I was genuinely wondering why was it blue at the beginning and why it looked worse after that 😆
Thanks for clearing out, this channel is a goldmine
But there wasn't a Tail Color for the Normal Type...
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon I love those little details you put in all those sprites!
They are so small and nuanced but once you notice them it truly enhanced the viewing experience!
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon The little flecks of paint as it sketches more and more moves from previous types was really cool too.
A smeargle race would be the most interesting to watch due to all the different strategies. I might look into that
Yeah, it would be very interesting!
Hey, the guy, he's not that crazy either, to do, different strategies, with 6 smeargles, can be done, but nobody is so crazy to repeat a video like that, that would be absurd.
@Scott's Thoughts 😔 you did not say hi to dennis in your first visit to the lighthouse
5:47 There is an Aerodactyl puzzle in the Ruins of Alph. Kabuto, Omanyte, Aerodactyl, and Ho-Oh are the 4 puzzles that exist, even in gen 2.
Great video!
Woosh
Came to comment same thing....made this comment a few videos ago but its amazing how that a game this old can still hold secrets to some players 😁
@@MonkeymanExperiment it was a joke that went over some peoples heads clearly Scott know about the puzzle in question
This is how I know who watches intently and who listens.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon hehe thanks for the like Scott
"the hiker distinction"
The self-destructing hiker from Rock Tunnel in the Gen 1 games would like to have a word
38:00 you couldve used the k.o. Strategy, meaning learn spore, loose, learn another sketch, then return to him and learn swords dance. I know loosing to a parasect is rather unpleasant, but it works.
exactly my thought
My thoughts also
Yeah, thought the same.
How does that work?
I just typed this all out and then figured someone in the comments must have beaten me to it. I don't think he was treating deliberate Faints as resets (as noted by his early-game Faint to Spearow).
Well said.
Theoretically you could get both Spore and Swords Dance from the Parasect by sketching one of them, roar the Parasect out, defeat the trainer's other Pokemon to level up mid-battle (learning Sketch again), and then sketch the other move from Parasect.
Ohh you smart cookie!
Could he not also just lose the fight after sketching one of the moves? Like he did with peck? Saves having to sketch roar, which would be painful
Or just white out at level 60 and come right back at 61 🤷♂️
23:39 To be fair to Janine, she's just taken over Gym Leader duties from her father, so you can say she's still learning the ropes and whatnot.
Pryce, on the other hand, should have decades of experience, and yet he tends to be a pushover. I think he has fully earned his spot as "the Bruno of Gen 2."
Those runs where the pokemon makes you play the game differently are the most entertaining. Can't wait to see a run where the pokemon ends up in the Bruno tier.
For those PP stall situations with Farfetch'd, you could equip a mysteryberry for 5 more free turns. Honestly there's probably a lot of situations where 5 extra PP mid-battle could make the difference.
I was wondering if it would be worth it to route for paralyze or poisoncure berries
The best part about mystery berry is that you can get one just outside goldenrod by the little lake just out the north exit too. So you don't even need to do that stupid long down route by blackthorne and sticking to the right side for it too.
Couldn't you just throw pokeballs at it? Obviously you can't catch a trainers pokemon, and you'd use your turn wasting the ball but the opponent would still attack
Also he could have thrown any remaining extra pokeballs he had to waste turns.
I love how Smeargle tail paint changes colour to reflect the type of move he sketched last.
You really put a lot of heart into your videos.
I do.
42:35 Bruno’s Hitmonchan has the elemental punches as its other moves. That’s why it uses Mach Punch most of the time: The AI here is smart enough to know about how much damage each move will do, and given Hitmonchan’s stats and type, against most opponents Mach Punch will do the most.
Unless it's a ghost Pokémon, a legendary bird, or the gold and silver cover legendaries, or a psychic Pokémon with good defenses. By discard it will make the other attacks.
Between you and Jrose's consistent uploads I've really been loving all the solo runs
Yeah! It's awesome that he's back. So much more content now :)
I know that Jrose started before Scott, but honestly, congratulations to Scott, because he is doing much better than Jrose. Since he is a bit annoying and does not learn from his mistakes and he doesn't take advice, sometimes I get desperate,
@@enerc2333 What’s wrong with Jrose?
I don’t think you realize how long I’ve been waiting for a smeargle solo run 😂 I don’t want to do it myself
Hahaha that’s why we all here !!!🤣
Same here!
Just watch Pikasprey. He did it years ago
@@blazin_sky His runs were awesome (Jabadamazo4life) but didn't he do it with a team of spmeargles and not a solo? Might be mistaken.
Parasect always gets to me. Like, its eyes are whited out and it’s a zombie being puppeteered by a parasite, but it still manages to smile. It could be the parasite smiling, but I like to think that Parasect’s host is still in there, smiling despite its situation. Like a living example of staring into the abyss, it staring back, and you just smile at it undaunted.
My headcanon is that the parasite makes Parasect smile, but on the inside it's crying.
...not disturbing at all.
How do I un-read a comment?
Planning really goes a long way with this one. I once did a run with only Smeargle (6 of them though) in XY and everything I actually planned out went much MUCH better than usual, because some moves just aren't meant to be able to be used together. It's a bit of a shame Hidden Power goes such a long way here as it makes it hard to replicate without outside interference, but everything else was really cool to see. I didn't even know birdkeepers were set to ungabunga brain mode. That's really funny (also means less sand attacks!)
The artist jokes are appreciated. Most of them are true to life :´)
Smeargle is interesting. Having access to every move is theoretically amazing, and in competitive Pokémon it lives up to that potential as a support mon, but for an in-game run, between Smeargle’s poor stats, the fact that which move you Sketch is dependent on the AI’s willingness to use what you want when you go to copy it, only having a maximum of 10 Sketches (and I expect that you’ll need all of them at some point in the run) since there’s no Move Reminder in Gen 2, and the fact that Smeargle can’t learn TMs, I can see this being an absolute nightmare.
Good luck!
So, watched this after it premiered, and Smeargle really outperformed my expectations. Its stats didn't look quite as bad as I expected in your playthroughs (though it was quite slow time-wise - was this due to doing a lot of extra grinding you normally might skip? Or are Crystal times normally very long and I'm just not remembering?), good moves were available early enough that the last few Sketches weren't needed (I seriously expected Spore would be locked up somewhere in Kanto, if it was available anywhere - I did think Swords Dance would be more widely available though), and the Spore-boost-recovery set combined with decent Speed really made this Pokémon into a masterpiece. Beating the game with no losses/resets outside of a few Sketch-related issues on the second run was quite impressive, and beating Red on the first try twice was definitely surprising.
I was right about the AI being uncooperative with a few Sketches, though.
Watching this playthrough has made me wonder how good Smeargle could be with later gen moves, so I'm going back to finish Shining Pearl so I can catch several artdogs.
Mmmm
W
It is really interesting to hear the background workings of the trainer AI. Most other videos don't discuss it, because is basically didn't matter, but these videos push the limits of the single player experience.
Seeing you grow as a UA-camr and Pokémon player has been so fun to watch. You’re becoming one of my favorite poketubers, if not my favorite. I was lowkey sad when your video didn’t come out on Friday I thought you weren’t doing a video. Just got a huge raise at work so I’m considering becoming a Patron at the highest tier :)
I was disappointed when this wasn’t ready for Friday. Thanks for considering supporting on Patreon! I really appreciate it! The support there is one of the reasons I can focus on quality of quantity!
I now understand exactly why you were so excited when I mentioned an auto-populating damage spreadsheet. Loved the math explanation in this one and the unique strategy that this took.
On a personal note, Smeargle holds a special place in my heart just like Farfetch'd. Something about these little tough guys holding an item (yeah, Smeargle's is its tail, but still counts) is adorable and endearing.
There is a reason Smeargle was so popular in VGC, especially before the Dark Void nerf.
I still can't believe it took them so long to just make dark void unlearnable via sketch rather than nerfing the hell out of Darkrai.
10:09 of course it is, I would know, I did this exact challenge myself! Hypnosis was pretty much mandatory until one random pre Victory road Parasect trainer that had Spore Parasect. When I got that one, the run was basically complete
This was a cool run! I really thought it would be a terrible video to make because of how Sketch works. You made Smeargle actually pretty competitive, which is crazy! I honestly thought C tier could have been justified. Also, during the bloopers you said “Scott’s Sounds” and now I’m thinking a second channel with just blooper reels would be a fun idea. Thanks for the awesome content!
I love the little detail of smeargle's tail color changing to the newest sketched move's type.
Pretty cool run. I remember when I had my 'overtweaking' phase playing gen 2 I wanted to get one and set it up like they do on competitive stage, with spore, agility and batton pass. To my sad realization, sketch did in fact only copy the last move used by opposing pokemon, not any one it has (a la mimic in gen 1), so getting it to learn a batton pass became practically impossible and it got banished to PC forever ^ ^
Pikasprey Smeargle fan here, I love a good Smeargle struggle video.
Also Smeargles' tails should be a randomized color in the games.
Yeah, random tail colours would be amazing!
Probably one of my favorite runs to watch so far; really pushed you to think outside the box from normal “terrible” Pokémon and having to rely on same strategies like struggle, etc. Great job!
one of my favorite things to do in later games is to make smeargle have the ultimate moveset of Spore, Mind Reader/Lock On, and Sheer Cold for instant KOs! Last move usually is for survival depending what i encounter, like recover or substitute. It usually requires outside main game help, however, but pretty fun to get through battle frontier-like challenges sometimes with it!
Knew I wasn't the only one who figured this out haha, even as a children. That fourth move was such a conundrum. Recover or Substitute? It felt so wrong to get the best sleep move, and then make the on hit KO move never miss haha. I also liked the Quick Claw to help me get a first attack, but I bet there're other good held items too for it.
Spore, mind-reader, guillotine, hidden power ice (for Gengar), replace with recovery move. Not sure where to find Guillotine, would have to figure out if it’s possible from NPCs / wild Pokémon.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Horndrill on Brock's Rhyhorn, but who knows if he'd actually use it when you need him to. Also very far in to get it. Any other trainer that has a 1HKO move seem to be around cerulean (Route 26 - Cooltrainer Gaven has guilliotine, Route 25 - Cooltrainer Kevin has horn drill. )
So i was researchign while typing this, but when you get the super rod, you can pull up level 40 krabby in some locations with water, and they should have guillotine as part of there moveset. Maybe Kingler too.
Sadly, sheer cold doesn't exist in gen 2 as its main reason to be picked is it has nothing immune to it.
If you have explained this in video, I missed it, but why not sketch ice beam (90 power, one of the dragonairs from Claire have it) instead of having hidden power ice (70 version as stated in video)? Or as an upgrade for it at least.
I just love how enjoyable your content is, it’s not an annoying repeat of beating Pokemon games with only shiny’s or something. While he makes such amazing yet hard ideas that could never think off, mad respect to you my guy
49:13 - For the Farfetch'd Fight, you could have bought and spammed pokeballs to stall
No items in battle.
@@brutusthebear9050 Poké Balls are the exception, though.
@@skeetermania3202 Catching pokemon is the exception. Pokeballs are not the exception.
@29:15, interesting fact: in Gen 2 Tri Attack that is used on a burned or frozen pokemon removes that status condition. I really enjoyed this, as it was very strategic throughout. What a challenge!
I'm looking forward to you painting us a picture of how good this pokemon can be.
(On another note, I'd love to see Smeagle modded into Yellow to use his strats against gen 1).
The quality of these viseos, especially in the smaller details, is amazing. The sprite that changes expression depending on how the battle is going... Fantastic content
Espeon? I guess it's based on the twin tail cat from japanese folklore- Nekomata.
I remember playing Silver as a kid and trying to find Smeargle. The pokedex showed its only nest was the Ruins of Alph, so my child brain decided Smeargle was the creature that painted the Unowns. Until I found the secret tunnel from Union Cave, I thought Smeargle would appear once you caught all 26 forms.
Finally caught up with the solo run playlist, and this comes out as I do. Huzzah!
Smeargle is one of the runs I'm most interested in.
Bad stats plus the Most diverse move set makes it a high skill run, unlike, say, Magikarp, which is very much more "Are my numbers good enough?" Due to a lack of options.
A Smeargle was one of my main choices in Super Mystery Dungeon's late game, where Rollout and Iceball do all their hits in a single turn.
This means that Mind Read -> Rollout/Iceball hits all 5 times, with the +50% base power bonus from Technician.
Is that how Mind Reader works in this generation?
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon I'm fairly sure it would only guarantee the First hit lands in most of the games.
Hi, I've been watching for a little while now (since the octillery playthrough) and i gotta say your production quality is excellent. Great attention to detail and I appreciate multiple runs with each Pokémon to show what they are truly capable of. Thanks for all the videos they are really entertaining
Thanks so much!
I'm really looking forward to seeing the hard to figure out esrly game routing decisions and the complex lategame ones :D
Another incredibly interesting run. I would also like to say how impressive it is that the production quality of your videos has come so far in such a short time, it's the little things. changing the colour of Smeargle's tail *chef's kiss* beautiful!
I posted a comment on one of your previous videos of a challenge idea I was going to try and you said it was interesting and asked for an update. I've tried posting a link to the Reddit post but I think UA-cam deletes them so I'll copy and paste it into the replies to this comment.
Fair warning its quite long and I don't expected you to actually read it. But I do want to thank you for giving me a little inspiration to try something like this. I've recently became a father and found this was really helpful at occupying my mind when trying to rock a newborn to sleep at 4am. keeping notes and typing the whole thing out was a strangely cathartic experience. Thank you for providing a healthy if slightly obsessive distraction.
New capture challenge:
After recently discovering solo runs and Pokémon challenges in general, I downloaded a Pokémon emulator. After doing a Bulbasaur solo challenge on Fire Red I thought of a more interesting challenge, but I honestly don’t know if it is possible.(spoiler alert it is). In hindsight there are about a dozen decisions I wish I made differently but it was still incredibly fun, I'd probably add a rule that allows a Fly HM slave after failing to the Elite 4 x amount of times just to prevent needless grinding. I would love to see you do this challenge the same way you done the Porygon challenge and involve other content creators. The possible variations make this quite exciting but probably not very competitive, the way everyone approaches the mid game and plans ahead (or fails to) would be quite entertaining.
So… the challenge: When you encounter a wild Pokémon you have not captured you must capture it and use only that Pokémon in battle until your next new encounter. This means only training against wild Pokémon you have already captured and against trainers. I think it would be interesting to see how you could try and manipulate encounters by only training in specific areas to ‘save’ an encounter for a later battle, like against certain gym leaders or significant battles. If you fail to capture the Pokémon for any reason you must reset. In my run I'm not allowing HM slaves. This is the real challenge and interest. I'm also attempting to complete this with no in game trades, no repels, and no items in battle. (I fail at the no items in battle but it is doable). I’m allowing evolutions in my run, and if you encounter an evolution line you have already captured you must not capture it again e.g. already caught a Caterpie then encounter Metapod you can kill the Metapod for xp or flee but cannot capture it.
Possible issues: Safari zone is probably very difficult to do without repels or glitches. Issue of catching Pokémon on the first encounter. Potential soft locks, especially if not allowing HM slaves. No repels would certainly be more interesting but may make the challenge impossible if combined with no HM slaves. I’d love have some feedback and thoughts on how this would go, especially across different generations.
How it went: I managed to complete the game and defeat the elite 4 without using any repels, no issues in safari zone, no in game trades/gift Pokémon, and without using HM slaves, and have not had a single Pokemon evade capture. However, I have used numerous items in battle, and I have swore a ridiculous amount in front of my new-born son. I highly recommend trying this challenge, getting to use new pokemon I would never usually use was great fun and the lack of HM slaves in a pseudo solo run made the challenge extremely fun and challenging.
This is how the entire run went, I will be surprised if any one reads this.
I began by selecting Charmander, this may seem irrelevant as I will be frequently changing Pokémon but I figured I would want to be heading to Misty with Paras if possible which would give me an advantage over the rival's Squirtle, and I believe there are Oddish available just before the rival fight in the SS Anne, and honestly I just think that Blastoise is the weakest out of all the starters.
The challenege begins... after leaving Pallet Town I obtained the Pokédex, while leaving Pallet Town I encountered and captured Rattata, captured a Pidgey in next patch of grass. Captured a Kakuna in Viridian Forest, realised I only had a single pokeBall remaining. Returned to Viridian City and purchased 15 pokeballs. Kakuna lost a battle to Pidgey returning to the forest as it could neither attack or flee. Returned to Viridian to heal. Captured a lvl 5 Caterpie, trained on Caterpie and Weedle line in VF to lvl 7. In the forest I captured a lvl 3 pikachu, never knew these were found here. Trained on route 1 to lvl 8, defeated optional rival. Arrived in Pewter City and realised I’d have to face Brock with a Pikachu…Jesus... trained Pikachu to lvl 16, continued to lose to Brock. Realised I had yet to explore route 22, on arrival immediately caught a Spearow then a single step later a Mankey (thank Christ, I thought Mankey was only here in Pokémon Yellow) trained Mankey to lvl 12 on route 2 then challenged the trainer in Brock’s gym levelled up and smashed Brock.
Minimum battles on the way to Mount Moon. On entering I immediately caught a lvl 8 Clefairy and realised it was sent to the PC. So ditched all my previous Pokémon and collected Clefairy and re-entered Mt. Moon, and hoping to exit with a paras. on entering captured a lvl7 Zubat and after getting TM08(bullet seed) captured a lvl 8 Geodude. Finally I captured a lvl 8 Paras at the rare candy. Paras fainted after fighting a Zubat, did not white out as there were other Pokemon still in the party. On the way to the pokecentre accidentally encountered a trainer so had to reset, thankfully I have been saving after every capture so far.
Ok Paras absolutley sucks in Mount Moon, I'm a little annoyed with my self for actually wanting this useless shroom wannabe. But I’m fairly certain there’s no other new encounters and it will be good against Misty and hopefully the rival if sufficiently levelled so training is required. I’m fairly certain there are Jigglypuff on route 3 but I’m not sure if there’s any other new encounters there and I don’t want to research online, I feel that will take away a bit of the challenge, so will stick with training in Mt Moon. I do know there are Ekans at Cerulean which means I may have to over level Paras or lose repeatedly to the rival until I win. Trained Paras to lvl 13, when it learned poison powder. Proceeded through Mt Moon fighting all trainers on the way. Fought Misty after defeating her gym trainers at lvl 23 and whited out repeatedly. Seriously I was stuck here for so long until I remembered TM's were a thing. Taught Paras bullet seed and easily won on first attempt and levelled up and evolved into Parasect.
After many attempts at the rival I finally levelled up after intermittently defeating Pidgeotto then easily swept the rivals full team at lvl 25 as scratch became a 2 hit KO on the Pidgeotto, a critical hit on Rattata for the KO, and a clutch five turn bullet seed on Squirtle to finish him off.
I attempted the rival before fighting Misty and evolving and got completely stomped repeatedly, evolving into Parasect made the fight much more feasible. I should also note that I spent all my money on poke balls and a handful of potions before fighting the rival since I knew I would white out.
Progressed through to Bills house, then through Vermilion to the SS Anne, fought some optional trainers for items and proceeded to the rival with Parasect at lvl 31 were we easily won. As I’m not allowing HM slaves I forgot scratch and taught Parasect cut, he also knows bullet seed, spore, and leech life. Completed the trash can puzzle in less than a minute and shockingly subdued Surge.
Made my way back to Cerulean then cut through the small tree to Rock Tunnel and upon entering captured a lvl 17 Machop, had to put it to sleep and whittle it’s health down to capture so returned to pokecentre to heal. Upon exiting realised Machop did not know cut and was unable to learn it so had to fight Picknicker Heidi to progress back to Rock Tunnel. Machop struggled against the unavoidable Pokemaniac so battled all the trainers on route 9 and wild Pokémon in rock tunnel and retried the pokemaniac at lvl 24 and defeated him. Machop progressed through Rock Tunnel easily and evolved into Machoke after defeating the self destructing hiker with a Graveler and 2 Geodudes. Arrived at Lavender and healed then spent cash on great balls and proceeded to game corner to get the Silph Scope.
I had intended on fighting Erika here but machoke can’t learn cut which is required to access her gym and I feel he'll do well in the hideout. Machoke made his way to and through Giovanni without issue.
Defeated rival in Lavender after a few attempts, captured a lvl 17 cubone. Could not progress past the Channeller as Cubone was unable to hit ghost Pokémon, thankfully captured a lvl 13 Ghastly shortly after. Trained Ghastly to lvl 24 on the Fishermen south of Lavender and the trainers north outside of Rock Tunnel.
Progressed through Pokémon Tower taking on all trainers, evolved into Haunter. Arrived at the top floor with Haunter at lvl 30, made it to last team rocket member but he had a Rattata I could not directly damage but after a curse and confuse ray it fell reasonably quickly, spammed confuse ray on the following Raticate which fortunately only tried using scary face.
Proceeded to Silph Co. and made it to the rival with little hassle, Haunter couldn’t affect a couple of Raticate’s so had to rely on curse and confuse ray to whittle them down. This problem is amplified when fighting the rival, he constantly 2 shotted Haunter, only occasionally taking damage from confusion, time to get a new fighter.
I went to route 7 and immediately caught a level 19 Oddish with the moves sweet scent, poison powder, stun spore, and sleep powder… wow. After Haunter this was awful. After attempting to train it for a short time I thought I’d head to cycling road to level it up, realised Snorlax blocked my way so he was captured and thankfully I didn’t have to deal with the ridiculously shit Oddish. Snorlax made it past the Pidgeotto reasonably well but fainted straight after. Trained in Silph Co. and got Snorlax to lvl 37 and easily defeated the rival. Had one reset after two critical hit mega punches from Kangaskhan. Then defeated Giovanni.
Proceeded to Sabrina, easily defeated in the first attempt.
Went to Cycling Road and healed at Fuschia then defeated the trainers in the gym and Koga himself on the first try but it was very close, had to use rest twice against his Weezing and got a lucky critical hit headbutt.
Proceeded to Safari Zone and captured Exeggcute then a few steps later the same with Nidoran male (Was very lucky here, I saved outside incase I failed a capture). Now this is where I made a strange decision. Nidoran can’t learn surf and I need to go to cinnabar for the next badge, I collected the super rod but decided to trek all the way back to Pallet Town.
I haven’t played these games since Yellow apart from one solo run before this. So when it was originally released I remember Seafoam Islands being a nightmare and besides that I figure ice types might be good to leave as late as possible. So I left Fuschia by heading East onto route 15 and captured a lvl 24 Venonat. I then died to a Bird Keeper shortly after and had to white out as I forgot to save after capturing Venonat, so lost some cash. Proceeded through the route then encountered Snorlax… which I forgot would be this way. It took a few tries but after poisoning and a bit of confusion luck Venonat defeated snorlax and proceeded to Digletts cave.
In the cave captured a lvl 29 Dugtrio. Also having only played Gen 1 and 2 I’ve never played with Pokémon having abilities. Dugtrio's sand veil combined with sand storm and mud slap could be a great combo to stall... Or I will never get to find out because I’m a complete idiot and forgot I was going to Pallet Town so I could Surf to Cinnabar so never got to use it in a single battle…oh well.
I used the super rod in Pallet and caught a lvl 18 Horsea. Used surf and encountered and captured a lvl 5 Tentacool after two steps in the water… bastard.
Made it to Cinnabar after resetting a few times after being killed constantly after from lvl 12 Tentacool's. Captured a lvl 30 Koffing on entering Pokémon Mansion, then Growlithe on the same floor and then a lvl 32 Raticate at the stairs to the next floor. Captured a lvl 28 Grimer then a lvl 30 Ditto in the basement. Found the secret key and exited the mansion to realise I had fucked myself, since Ditto is almsot useless, especially when trapped on Cinnabar.
So I tried to get new encounters in the mansion, no joy, I tried fishing for new Pokémon, only Horsea so no luck there, and so I began training ditto… it was just over an hour of hell before I came to a realisation. I could use the old rod to get Magikarp and evolve it into Gyarados. Sure, it would take a while but I could beat Blaine with it and surf the fuck out of there and have a good great Pokémon for Giovanni.
However, as I was about to use the old rod I realised I had the good rod still, so I tried that expecting just another Horsea but luckily I got a lvl 14 Krabby. Now that’s not great but it’s better than ditto, and a lot better than having to train a lvl 5 Magikarp.
After about 10 battles of Krabby and horsea I switched back to the super rod to fight harder Pokémon for more xp. But un-fucking-believably my first Pokémon was a lvl 22 Sheldar. I was here with ditto for almost an hour and got nothing but Horsea. What a bastard, I need a break.
I spent what felt like an age trying to level shelldar and eventually surfed back to Pallet Town and went to Mt. Moon and back all the way through to to route 11 battling all the trainers I’d skipped on the way until I whited out from struggle to respawn at cinnabar at lvl 28. Shelldar would consistently beat the first 2 Pokémon from the first trainer in Blaine’s gym and die to a quick attack from the Ninetales. Trained using this method to lvl 30 before realising I could get a water stone from Celadon… and so without fly I trekked all the way back there and picked up the leftovers from the defeated Snorlax spot on the way.
After returning to Cinnabar Cloyster made it all the way to Blaine easily, what a difference an evolution and some leftovers make, I wasted so much time training here. Got to Blaine at lvl 33 Unfortunately couldn’t get past Blaine’s Rapidash it hit too hard and too fast so back to the mansion to train. Returned to Blaine at lvl 40, would one shot his Growlithe and Ponyta but would only occasionally make it past Rapidash, third time I reached Arcanine it missed fire blast and died to a lucky critical surf.
Told Bill to piss off on exiting and made my way to Giovanni… except I forgot to battle Erica… bastard.
Cloyster can’t learn cut so I crawled back to Bill and went to the new islands to see if there was anything that could learn cut I could catch there. This was a complete and utter waste of time, it was fucking awful. Captured a lvl 31 Psyduck which also cannot learn cut. Fortunately next encounter was a lvl 33 Tangela which can, now for the long journey back to Erika...
Except I can’t leave until I do some subplot bullshit during which I capture a lvl 31 Meowth. The bikers were a bastard, even after Meowth evolved into Persian after the first level up. I gave Persian the sunglasses to boost bite and feint attack and made it to the final biker but between poison damage and self destruct I couldn’t make it past him.
Time to grind. I just repeatedly battled the bikers as it was efficient. It was during this grind against the bikers I realised I was fucked. Persian could learn cut but not surf. After completing the islands it will take me back to Cinnabar where I’ll be trapped until I do the awful Magikarp idea I had previously.
Finally, at lvl 41and teaching Persian dig, and giving it leftovers, and getting lucky that Weezing self destructed as Persian was underground and a critical hit on the Muk the bikers were defeated. Captured a lvl 37 Hypno in Berry forest right before battling Lostelle. (In hindsight this was also incredibly lucky to encounter Hypno right at the end as it can't lean cut which I'm sure is needed to progress through the forest to Lostell). Returned to Cinnabar with Hypno.
So now I have two options, use one of the fossils to escape or use the old rod to catch Magikarp and grind. So in the spirit of the challenge I threw out a line and encountered a lvl 23 Gyarados… wtf I didn’t even realise they appeared with a super rod, also lucky I forgot to switch to the old rod. This has saved me literal hours, the thing I also wasted on Bill's bullshit subplot. Glad I never used the fossils, while technically allowed I just feel this is more in the spirit of the challenge.
Anyway I taught Gyarados surf and headed back to Pallet Town, since Gyarados cannot learn cut I have to find a new Pokémon which will, I decided to head over to Fuschia and see what was nearby cause I figured they would be a relatively high lvl. I captured a Doduo on route 18. Fucker can’t learn cut either. After about half an hour of trying various routes I couldn’t find any new encounters. I decided to save outside safari zone and enter with the condition of any new encounters I must capture and if they escaped I’d reset. On my first attempt I captured a lvl 28 Scyther, jackpot. I assumed it could learn fly but it can’t, luckily it has wing attack to deal with Erika.
After going back through cycling road and defeating two trainers in Erikas gym Scyther was lvl 28 and swept her team easily. Now I have Giovanni and realise after him I will need a Pokémon that can learn surf to make it to Victory Road and while on Victory Road I will need something that can learn strength. I remember Onyx appearing there in gen 1 so hopefully it will be the same here. I back track to Fuschia and fish around and eventually, after many Gyarados, and Horsea, I capture a lvl 25 Goldeen. Goldeen can’t learn cut or fly so there’s no way back to Viridian other than going through Seafoam Islands. Upon entering Seafoam I quickly realise/remember I need strength to progress so I try and get some encounters and soon capture a lvl 30 Seel… which cannot learn strength. No new encounters after that, spent half an hour checking and eventually whited out.
So I’m back at Fuschia and need to find a Pokémon that can either fly, cut, or can learn both surf and strength… just going to wander around and see what I find.
May have to head to Safari Zone in hopes of a Pinsir or Nidoran Female encounter. After trying for a short while every couple of days I realised I could surf to Cerulean Cave which is blocked but by doing so I could make my way to Viridian through mt moon.
Thank God.
Seel was too weak to take on the trainers in Giovanni's gym initially but with surf could quickly gain xp against Cooltrainer Yuji who has 2 Gravelers, an onyx, Sandslash, and a Marowak. Marowak always came out last and finished me off but Seel quickly grew to lvl 38 where I realised it could probably evolve if it survived a lvl up so I just used a rare candy to evolve into Dewgong.
After evolving, Dewgong easily defeated all the trainers in Giovanni’s gym and after a few losses defeated Giovanni at lvl 45 due to a lucky quick claw activating allowing Dewgong to out speed the Dugtrio and one shot it with surf.
Initially lost to the rivals Alakazam but on the second try he used and failed disable three times in a row, (cannot believe the luck) Blastoise took a while to take down but was no real challenge.
On entering victory road captured a lvl 43 Onix, honestly it took about 30 balls to catch it. After teaching Onix strength and pushing the first boulder twice I captured a lvl 44 Arbok. I was absolutely gutted because I was convinced Arbok couldn’t learn strength, but thankfully it can, and it’s got to be better than Onix. Because Onix fucking sucks.
On the next floor, I encountered a lvl 48 Marowak. I captured it before realising that not only can it learn strength but I had also already captured Cubone, so I could not use it in battle or for HM's. Eventually made my way through to the elite four but took a while since I haven’t played in years. and that's where I'm at now.
Tried Lorelie multiple times with various strategies. Went in as I arrived at the elite four at level 45 and got abused.
Taught a toxic rest combo. got pumped.
Done the same with rare candies taking me to lvl 52. Still pumped.
Noticed there was a new move I could learn after using the candies. Learned the stock pile/swallow/spit up combo. Really interesting moveset, fun to use. Still couldn't make it past the fucking Dewgong.
I Made my way back to route 23 to see if there where any new encounters available. After some time in the grass I decided to try fishing and surfing and eventually caught a lvl 25 Poliwhirl with the master ball, because why not use it?.This could be great, but will take a lot of training. Poliwhirl has the ability water absorb which changes any water attacks into HP. This could be good for Lorelei, Bruno should be a squash, and good for the champion who I’m sure starts with Gyarados and should end with Blastoise. After taking the leftovers from Arbok and going to give them to Poliwhorl I noticed I had a water stone so now I have a Poliwrath. It looks like Poliwrath will be my final Pokémon so I’m giving him all the stat boosting items I have collected (2 calcium, 2 protein, 3 zinc, 2 carbos, 3 iron, 1 HP up) I went all the way back to Fuchsia to learn substitute and eventually returned to Indigo Plateau lvl 38 with these moves: surf, hypnosis, focus punch, and substitute. Attempted elite four just to gauge how much damage I might put out. Poliwrath missed 9 hypnosis in a row against Dewgong and died. Fuck me.
Next try hypnosis hit first turn. Set up a substitute then a focus punch which done around 80% damage. Amazing I think considering the 14 lvl difference. Next turn I used surf which did negligible damage and while setting up a focus punch Lorelei switched to Lapras who went down to two focus punches. This is the first time I’ve KO’d any of her Pokémon. Next she sent out Slowbro who I put to sleep and hit with a focus punch which done very little, potentially a five hit KO with good ranges. After Slowbro used amnesia and failed several yawns he eventually fell after 7 focus punches and a surf. Dewgong came out and broke my substitute after being hit with a focus punch then went down. Cloyster was sent out next and I set up another sub after 2 punches the big clam fell. Last up is Jynx which used attract but wrath still punched her and almost KO’d. Lorelei used a full restore so I used a surf then a punch to end the fight. Surprised at how well Poliwrath did but I suppose it does get STAB with focus punch and ice is weak to fighting.
I’ve had to leave it there as I have work to do but will likely destroy Bruno and hopefully the rest in the next few days.
After several attempts against Bruno I just could not get past his Hitmonchan, it hits too hard and too fast for Poliwrath at the moment. Time to white out and train on Victory Road. Came back to the elite 4 at lvl 49. Lorelei went the same as before, and with a lot of hypnosis luck we best Bruno on the first try since we now out speed his first onyx and speed tie with Hitmonchan.
After 2 attempts at Agatha I took her down after using my rare candies to get me to lvl 55. However, it was a long battle with many stalls from hypnosis and substitute from me and many confuse rays and double teams from Agatha. I did also have to use 2 full restores. I was hoping to avoid using items in battle for the elite four but honestly not worth it since I have already used them in battle previously.
On to Lance who sent out Gyarados who I put to sleep and set up a sub. Focus punch does very little damage with surf doing even less. After whittling away at him for an age Lance uses a full restore then switches to dragonite. I realise I’m doomed, none of my attacks are doing much of anything. Might go and train some more but I think realistically this moveset just isn’t working. I have the TM for Blizzard but it’s inaccurate and only has 5 pp, ice beam would be ideal but I’ve no way to get past Victory Road unless I teach Poliwrath strength, and that just does not seem worth it. Maybe use toxic in combination with substitute and leftovers?
Toxic was useless and in hindsight stupid. Replaced Hypnosis with blizzard and after a few attempts managed to defeat lance but used a lot of hyper potions and spent most of the battle behind a sub playing very conservatively. I stepped through the door and didn’t realise it immediately draws you into a battle. I had little health, little PP, and little hope. Didn’t even manage to take down the Pidgeot, and I hadn’t saved after Lance so I’m back to battling him…
After several dozen attempts over the next week or so I get the farthest I’ve been. So I set up a sub on Pidgeot which fails sand attack and land a crit dynamic punch for the KO. Alakazam follows and sets up light screen, sets up future sight, misses psychic and fails a future sight to finally get KO’d by all the dynamic punches. Exeggutor is next and I spam hyper potions as it spams giga drain, it must run out of PP as it jumps between using light screen and sleep powder it also eventually falls after a blizzard, punch, then a critical blizzard which saved another few turns wasted. Next up is Rhydon which falls to a single surf. Arcanine is out and outspeeds and hits the sun with flamethrower which doesn’t even break, it takes about 70% damage from surf then breaks the sun with extreme speed then goes down to another surf. Blastoise is out next and heals Poliwrath with its hydro pump but I’m not taking any chances and set up a sub as Blastoise sets up rain dance. This fight takes an absolute age, the champ keeps stalling with full restores and with only 2 pp left on dynamic punch I get a crit and finally complete the game.
That was really fun overall but the elite 4 was an absolute slog. In hindsight I should have trained Poliwrath more but I'd already used most of the ethers and saved by the time I got to the champ. Anyway give it a try yourself, I'd love to see other people's attempts at this, especially different generations. In the unlikely event anyone has actually read through this. Thank you. This has been a fun challenge to do while looking after my newborn son in the short time he sleeps.
That is dedication
Missed the premiere but im going to make my predictions anyway just for fun. I think you might have to reset multiple not because of how bad Smeragle power if not because you accidentally sketched something awful. If you can get the right moves it has great coverage so if you need to learn a new move, you will have to find a wild pokemon or save a trainer battle you know have that move and learn it. Which will be frustrating. Bottom tier just so much can go wrong. The only moves you know you can easily sketch is if the pokemon has one fighting move
Man I love this little guy. He’s GOTTA be in Scarlet and Violet, even if he doesn’t get a new evolution. With all the inspiration drawing from Spain, our little guy has gotta represent famous painters like DaVinci and Van Gogh.
I wonder if Smeargle was intended to be a counterpart to Ditto in that Ditto gets any mon and Smeargle gets any move. Have you thought about making a Missingno run? Maybe for Halloween?
Missingno one day!
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon hopefully you dont stop there, loads of glitchy abombanations can await... could be neat seeing you run thru with a team of em... esp given misingno's err stats.
@@someguy4252 He'd have to watch out for Super Glitch, though. Maybe he could pick 6 Glitchmons that can't learn it.
We should get a Pokemon that can get any ability to finish off the trio. Give it a special move that switches its ability to the opponent's permanantly.
It's a good thing you can't run into Shedinja in the wild or trainer battles, because otherwise...
@@kingofcrap4414 the name they give these things. makes me think of a glitch flying around with a cape but yeah it could be a problem if its a one off then yeah could be a funny landmine anything else after that would get old fast... that and most glitch mons got some real jacked up stats
Amazing to see how far the overlay has come. Im a very consistent viewer and i remember when this run came out. Its amazing to see how far the layout, scott, and the channel has evolved.
I thought that Smeargle would suffer way more through the run, but I guess that when the world is (literally) your canvas anything is possible.
Beating Red on the first attempt and not even a single rare candy used to boot? It definitely overperformed big time and then some (one of those cases where you can't judge a pokémon by its BST).
Yeah, I really judged it with the base stats and that was a big mistake. Honestly it was way smoother to use than even Lanturn. The variety of moves is just so powerful.
love how thorough and well put together this playthrough is. and i love to see the odd pokemon used in challenges. the fact it only learns sketch and you work around it is amazing. keep it up!!
This was one of the most interesting videos to date, I also thought it would perform much differently than it actually did (no spoilers here). But, one question, slightly spoiler-ish so I will post it lower
Did you want to learn both Swords Dance and Spore from the Parasect? Because you could have sketched Spore at lvl 60, let the Parasect kill you, then re-fought the Parasect at lvl 61 to sketch Swords Dance? I thought you blacked out at the peck Spearow and other places just to learn moves?
The only moves he’s had would have knocked out the parasect
@@rachaelbeth3119 hmm that makes sense, I didn't see the moveset! Would have been more trouble than it was worth, or just impossible then.
A really satisfying run: the Sketch mechanic adds a lot of dynamic and interest in the run, together with the fast-levelling curve, and the absence of the classic combo of Return+Rest that makes every run the same (and kinda boring). Thank you also for the math deepening in the core of the video. Great content, great work!
You’re welcome!
As expected, Smeargle just gets better and better with its moves instead of falling off. I really want to see it in other games, so much so that I might do it. If you're up for another race, I'm free in the coming month. This is the most fun pokemon to race with since the possibilities are infinite. Oh, by the way, no need to rush, you probably have the next 40ish days occupied so we can race later. I'd just really love if you considered this exact pokemon for a race in any game.
I like how the smeargle’s eyes open and close on the smeargle picture on the side above the stats
The run seemed to go so smooth but it still it ended at the end of the tier list. I am curious to know the reason for this.
It's very easy to make a plan work, but there's no fast plan for Smeargle due to it's stats.
Tier list is based on real-time completion.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon That's what I am curious about, if the run was so smooth, where was the time loss?
Smeargle is one of my favorite pokemon designs, but boy oh boy I'd assume is it a rough one to actually use in battle. These results were definitely a huge surprise to me! Well done little painter! Watching his paint change on the overlay with the different move types was a cute touch 🥰
This is probably the funniest video I've seen you do. That insta-fail at the very beginning had me in tears. Mixing his paints = dead. Good job man.
Wow. The brainpower required for this gameplay is on another level. I didn't get how smeargle worked as a kid so this is so new to me. I understand how you could force through with a bellsprout or something but this is something else. And it feels so smooth! What an episode!
I did not expect Smearagle to perform this well! Good job leading the painter doggo to victory!
Scott I really appreciate all the effort you put into this vids always a pleasure to watch
I’m genuinely impressed at all of your improvements, not just in the video but in all of your videos in general. You’re doing incredible work, Scott! Keep it up!
Thanks Jeremy! Hopefully I'm going to keep the improvements coming! I've got a lot of new ideas.
Probly the most intriguing 1-mon playthrough. Stats and movepool allow for a satisfactory challenge.
You sir and jrose are the goats, I always have you guys on whenever I can even when I’m busy with something
Scott, this was one of your most, if not the most, impressive solo runs yet. This almost felt like watching a RPG game of some sort where you have to carefully choose your primary character's abilities and evolution tree while navigating the game's mechanics. It's a shame that this pokemon is the only one of its kind of with this type of a moveset, unless you can also do a run in Gen 3 of course :)
There will be a gen3 Smeargle run soon, but not by me. ;)
Honestly, a game centered around choosing your own moves from what others have is a real neat mechanic to base a video game around.
Gotta say, Smeargle really knows how to paint an interesting challenge
You are rapidly becoming my favorite solo runner…quality quality content my friend. Love the gen 2 videos more than anything
Thanks so much!
That was some aggressive primeape art. I love it. I enjoy the Pokemon content, and I love your engagement :-D artwork, commentary, re-run, :-) all of it is great.
My god first attempt with full HP.
This was such a satisfying solution for Smeargle! I thought this was going to be a terrible experience but this was an awesome challenge and really fun to watch
This is the most badass run you've made this far. Absolutely amazing strategy. Congratulations.
I'd like to suggest fishing for a lv 40 poliwag with the super rod instead of breaking your balls with the bird keeper ai. If you're using spore anyway, belly drum would allow you to setup in 2 turns with recover instead of 3, or even in 1 turn if you're set to sweep.
Cannot wait for this run, you absolute madman. Don’t have time to watch right now but dropping a cheeky comment to help the algorithm
I’m impressed by how resourceful you were in the first part of the game! I thought for sure you’d have to use Struggle for much longer, but hey, you and Smeargle pleasantly surprised me!
Just want to say how much I appreciate how thorough you are, Scott 😊
Glad you enjoy it!
I was a little surprised at the end when it turned out that Smeargle had such a slow time after all. It seemed to go pretty smoothly overall, especially with the straightforward Red fight. I guess Sketch meant that after the early game you always had good enough moves, but the low base stats meant there was more time leveling than usual for those moves to hit the right ranges.
Absolutely loved this run. This is definitely a pokemon I've never used or even considered so it was nice to see just how versatile it can be may be in d tier, but it did well for itself.
It was in the fall of 1998, almost twenty-four years ago, that I first saw Ken Sugimori's artwork of the original 150 Pokémon. From that very moment, I was hooked. Thanks for giving Ken a shout-out!
P.S. Venomoth had a different color palette in the original artwork.
Ken’s work is incredible. I was trying to learn how to intimate the old water colour style. I love it so much. Made my childhood so much better being able to imagine and see these fantastic designs!
Wow you really painted the world of Pokémon red with this one! A nice picture of the future too. I’ll look forward to the next one as well!
I love the lengthy explanation/justification of fighting Pryce before Jasmine, as if anybody who ever played through a Johto game with knowledge of the options available would battle Jasmine first voluntarily :D
I'm so glad you did this run. Such a fun Pokemon conceptually, and you're using him in the best gen 💙
This was super entertaining. I honestly didn't know that Smeargle was even a Pokemon in Gen 2 when I was a kid, because no enemy trainers ever used it and it was REALLY out of the way to go and encounter one. Once I found out about it years later, it became really obvious how crazy powerful it is
For me, one of your best videos. The strategy around sketch was really entertaining👍
Yeah, I think it’s my favourite video I’ve made. Really happy with it!
Your videos are such a pleasant part of my Sunday relaxations
Really interesting video picking and choosing what to use sketch on across the game must have been tough. Smergle being "TM the pokemon" does help with getting a good movepool. Video does a great job at showing how broken Spore is
Fantastic video; the results were surprising and there was lots of fascinating information mentioned such as the Johto Gym Leader strategy analysis and the AI trainer strategy modifications. VanGogh/Sugimori certainly had a tendency to get paralysed but the artist certainly did an outstanding job and truly showed off his artistic vision, "Spore is so broken."
I haven't commented in a while but I still watch every week, keep living the dream bro
I love how Smeargle’s color keeps changing! Btw what kind of music did you do? Always awesome to find another musician Pokémon fan!
Classical Music
I really love the community speed run idea! Sounds like a lot of fun and I'm going to try to participate.
Also, keep up the great work, I love watching your videos!
Looking forward to your submission!
I love the attention to detail inside the UI, like the Happy eyes when Bugsy is beaten :D
It's always worth the wait for you Scott. Now let's get some Nidoran action on the Go! I'll watch this video now while I wait
Nidoran stuff coming soon!
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon I would offer to name my first born after you; but my brother in Law is also named Scott already
Another amazing video - keep up the good work! I've enjoyed pokemon videos for a few years now, but you've become my favorite creator. No doubt.
Wow, thanks!
Love that little nod to your Gen 1runs where you still briefly show us what type Venanoth is during Koga battles. XD
Damn, when you went over the base stats at the beginning I was expecting it to be a lot worse. Little painter man is surprisingly good.
This painting pooch packs a punch! Great vid scott...I love Gen 2!!....would love a houndour/houndoom run.
"What da dog doin?" I'll tell you what he's doing. He's doing math in the middle of a Playthrough
Exactly. Math is the best :)
Very cool! I did this challenge awhile back and wish I thought of spore or recover. The moves I learned in order were scratch, rock throw, magnitude, night shade (for high defense mons, and admittedly baited out with an HM pokemon, also was basically only used against Jasmine's Steelix), hyper fang, tri attack, swords dance (also PP stalling Jose), and earthquake. It was one of the most fun runs I've ever done!
Noctowls for the blood god. Dennis for the Skull throne.
I think that Farfetch'd knew u were going after it's Swords Dance so it tries to fight and prevent on using Swords Dance and then it gave up and like "OK OK U WIN U WIN!"
I really adore Smeargle only runs. Sketch is such an interesting (if kind of bad) move that really rewards a lot of research and planning and really helps to highlight which moves a runner thinks are useful too.
This said, was not expecting Red to be that much of a breeze. That has to be perhaps one of, if not the easiest, Red fights I've seen in a long time. For a Pokemon that always struggles so much in the early game, Smeargle's late game performance is really scary huh.
Definitely gonna listen to this whole episode tommorow thanks Scott
You're welcome Alex!
I'm excited to see where you take this. He was interesting in the standard playthrough and basically existed for me to game it with Spore, Lock On, Horn Drill, and something else. That was however with other Pokemon, so a completely different deal.
24:22 TBF, Pryce's strategy is using Icy Wind to remove your speed advantage over his slow glacial mons and then go to town. It's actually pretty solid, he's just stuck with the worst type. That said, he could have thrown in a Jynx or Lapras.
For real though, pryce was in desperate need of a power boost.
"Smeargle doesn't damage itself... this isn't that Historically accurate" I'm dead xD
Scott: Magnitude is the ultimate dice roll move.
Me: Yeah you're right about that one.
59:43 I'm so used to random poketuber ad reads that I thought scott was gonna say, "you know what else is sketchy? ... NordVPN"
Hahaha - maybe one day!
I just wanna say, I know I gave you a somewhat negative comment on the Lanturn challenge run but it wasn't out of malice. I really do enjoy your content, I just had some stuff I wanted to say about that one that wasn't entirely positive.
This run was great, definitely made more interesting by all the planning for which moves to sketch.
Keep up the great work man!
Smeragles are pretty much made for SUPER interesting and varied runs. WAY TO GO!
Loving the background music. I just did a playthrough of dragon quest 3 on the switch, the Morty music was 🔥