It's just fun to research imo. Finding out that Marowak is an objectively worse Sandslash or that the strongest Poison type attack is only 65BP just tickles my brain in the right way.
@autobotstarscream765 my first blue playthrough when I was 7 I picked squirtle. At the elite 4 I had a level 84 blastoise and a party full of level 2 and 3 Pokémon from the first couple of routes
Arcanine, Flareon, and Rapidash were all just absolute garbage until gen 4 when they FINALLY got STAB physical moves. And even then, not all that great in particular.
Low tier runs are always such a blast to play because it basically forces you to use your team as well as possible because everything else is against you. Some of my fondest memories playing these games are going in with the rare/worst ones and turning them into champions.
I've done a few of those and to an extent nuzlockes can feel the same. It's a lot of fun, but the games don't feel harder if you know what you're doing.
@@Genoci - games don't feel harder (using bad pokemon) - don't use these pokemon because it will make the game harder than it needs to be Pick one dingus
@@FartInhalerSlamPoetry I pick "It’s not my goal to bash on your favorite Pokemon. If you want to use a certain Pokemon that is on this list, then nothing is stopping you to do so."
*Mediocre Pokémon:* _(exists)_ *Genoci:* _(throws it into a pitch black room to get laughed at by the ghosts of much better alternatives, as the words "DO NOT USE" orbit its scared, shivering form.)_
I would refute your claim about Farfetch’d. If you look at him you can clearly see he is adorably holding onto a green onion which I have been informed he uses as a sword.
Swords Dance is the second best move in the game (Amnesia is obviously the best) and everything with Swords Dance is at least good. Later on Kingler was shown as a "do not use" pokemon because it's outclassed, but that isn't saying that Kingler is worse than Alakazam, trust me, it absolutely isn't. Swords Dance is just that broken in gen 1, especially with how early you can get Body Slam
Yeah lol after watching that video it was clear that Farfetch'd is obviously superior to Pidgeot and likely superior to Fearow if you don't mind Fly over Drill Peck. Only Dodrio has a claim as a better Normal/Flying type if you're not purposely exploiting glitches.
@@Genoci It being a traded pokemon also has it leveling faster, on top of having sd and agility makes people say its a good early-mid game mon so it's got some use.
with the power of overleveling and potion spam you can do anything! I remember I leveled a Kakuna to 100 without evolving it because I thought the sprite looked cool and I believed some story my friends told me that it would evolve into something else if you got it to lv 100 and beat the Elite 4 a bunch of times. So I would slowly but surely Harden and Poison Sting my way through the Elite 4 only to be disappointed.
Arbok is kinda slept on tbh. The movepool is pretty good for a pure Poison type and toxic/wrap abuse is broken in this game. There's definitely better you can use but there's way worse. In a pinch it can cheese some tough opponents, especially ones that have 'good AI' and try to spam 'psychic type' moves against it like Agility.
@pikminologueraisin2139 it can do other things. For in game: Dig/earthquake Any special tm/Mega drain Sludge bomb Glare/return Lots of tm investment but arbok is fast and strong enough to carry pretty hard if needed
Wrap is super overrated. It's one of those moves that's annoying to encounter in Gen 1, but to actually use it in a playthrough is a waste of time. It has pathetic damage and bad accuracy. Maybe you could make an argument for it being competitively viable in Gen 1 only, but for an actual playthrough, stall and chip tactics are just a monotonous slog. What kind of person wants to setup Toxic and Leech Seed with a Venasaur when you could just use Razor Leaf to win in two or three turns? And who in their right mind would waste their time setting up Glare, Toxic, and Wrap with an Arbok?
Venonat can be caught near Cerulean city in Pokemon Yellow, giving it more time to contribute than in Red or Blue. It can replace Butterfree if you were using one, as it offers much of the same tools while having better stats once it gets going. Having Psychic attacks and an immunity to being poisoned gives it some niche use. Most poison types can't do much to it and given they are the most populous type in gen 1 it is easy to capitalize on. Leech life, while only as strong as absorb, can still deal 4x damage to every grass type not named Tangela, Paras or Parasect. It also can deal decent damage against some psychic types earlier in the game. Being weak to Psychic allows you to abuse the AI of trainers like Lance, as they will be forced to use non damaging Psychic moves with certain Pokemon. The low accuracy of rock throw paired with the abysmal special and speed of most rock types allows Venonat to deal with them surprisingly frequently. Even more so if you feel like giving it mega drain. It still isn't amazing, but it has a surprising amount of favorable match-ups. It can always fill a spot while you wait to access something better further through the game.
Replacing Butterfree with Venonat is not a great idea. It doesn't learn Sleep Powder until Level 38 and has worse stats until it evolves at Level 31. In addition, getting Venonat in Yellow doesn't really help much. Lance does not have any Psychic moves he'll spam against Poison types (although Venomoth won't be weak to Ice Beam like Butterfree).
I actually used it the last time I played Yellow version it was absolutely horrible before evolving but once I have Venomoth I actually liked using it.
Ah yes, early pokémon design. "Let's give this guy Swords Dance" "Oh yeah fun! Which attacking moves will it get?" "All terrible ones, and Slash." ... ... .....
Old-ish comment, but another gen one ism that has died out are weak Pokémon needing to evolve at high levels, and your reward isn't even a Pokémon that's strong.
17:40 JUSTICE FOR SHROOMY BOI NOW. Parasect is underrated in Gen 1. He’s got the only 100% sleep move in Gen 1 in Spore, can boost either his sturdy Attack or Special with Swords Dance & Growth which trigger badge boost, it learns Body Slam or Dig for physical coverage… and Mega Drain for healing. The one thing holding it back is the lack of a truly powerful Bug move.
my dumbass just used leech life to counter psychic, grass, and poison, that last part is particularly helpful for not only the oddly high number of poison types in gen 1, but the fact that a lot of trainers have oddish and bellsprout and stuff for some reason if I'm remembering right which I'm probably not. I would go as far as to use one throughout the whole game from mt moon, and use it against the champions exeggutor or venusaur.
I actually used to use parasect lol i would use spore and then use sword dance like 3 times or something an then use leech life it worked pretty well ngl
I'd say Beedrill is an honorable mention as a pokemon that's outclassed by butterfree at an important role. Butterfree gains access to confusion at level 12 (shaved down to 10 in Yellow, so it gains it instantly on evolving) which makes it one of your options for getting past Brock. Beedrill's twineedle would be good for Brock in gen 1 but you'd have to get it all the way up to level 20 to learn. For comparison, level 20 is what you'd need to get pikachu (same level-up group) to learn slam in version Yellow, which is designed to be the fallback option for people with more stubbornness than common sense (like myself when I was young, for example) so if they adamantly refuse to use anything besides pikachu against Brock they gain a reliable way to slam one's head against a brick wall until it finally caves in.
I’d have to disagree. While yes Butterfree is better against Brock, twineedle has a lot of use in the early through mid game. It one of two usable moves (I don’t count leech life) super effective against psychic types, which is important for Misty’s Starmie. Additionally, due to Gen one being weird, it also hits poison for super effective STAB damage, which is stronger than butterfree’s confusion. This makes it quad effective against poison/grass and the exeggcutor line, making Erika an easy sweep. It falls off late game, but does get agility by level up, which if played right can give you a speedy mon with STAB super effective moves into psychic types, something no other mon can do in Gen one.
I've actually had Bedrill solo Koga, although the fight ended with Bedrill falling to Weezing's Explosion. Beedrill has a decent enough Special stat,imo.
@erikturner1465 Funny thing about leech life is I forced myself to use it on Paras/ect with sword dance (and spore for stalling). It went much better than expected, especially against psychic type trainers. I'd still put Paras/ect in the do not use pool, but you could do worse and it might not cost healing items when it goes well.
In defense of Rapidash (and Moltres to a lesser extent), a shallow movepool doesn't matter since you can just give it an X-Accuracy and either KO everything with Horn Drill bar Gengar, or permanently trap everything with Fire Spin.
Ah, there's something I never think about. I *never* use X items in PKMN. Most players don't. It's like some unspoken rule. But I only refuse to use them because I don't understand their optimal usage. Plus the game isn't very difficult anyway which means you'll end up brute forcing your way through anything you might otherwise have to think about.
@@abominationdesolation8322Thing is X Accuracy removes the accuracy check in Gen 1 with a single usage. Nidoking in the Gen 1 RB speedrun abuses this with BoltBeam coverage and the free Horn Drill TM in Rocket Hideout.
@@abominationdesolation8322 Think of X items as Howl, Harden, half a Nasty Plot, half an Amnesia, and half of an Agility that don't use up a move slot and have PP equal to the number of them in your bag.
That said, I'm glad I figured out the winning combo of Dugtrio as a kid. If it has Slash and Earthquake, then it can beat anything the NPCs throw at you.
The video is very good and well-made, but it has one big mistake which I help you to consider in the next videos of the series: Mr. Mime is actually one of the best Psychic types in-game, EXP-boost is completely broken in a lot of in-game Pokémon, that's cause that mon receive more levels, and levels are actually counted in damage formula, which makes a huge impact in any Pokémon, potentially breaking it. EXP is a thing people sleep on when comparing in-game usability, but it's very important to the point that Wigglytuff actually can be stronger than Snorlax by the time you reach it, just because Wigglytuff is part of the fast EXP group, which makes it gains a lot of more levels. So the same logic applies here, Mime being an early mon, gotten by trade, gets too much experience, and has good matchups against all gym leaders with its movepool, its stats while a bit less than Kadabra's, the levels difference put Mime on par with it. That was not widely recognized cause I think not many people actually cared to test Mr. Mime, until Smogon users decided to try every single Pokémon in-game and analyze their performance and created an in-game tier list which you can easily access and get surprised by how some underused mons are actually good (Jynx is another example). Search for "In-game tier lists" to get more info about that, I hope you can use this information in your research for the next videos!
Huh, I didn't know level was relevant to the damage calc. TIL. I actually took into account trade EXP, that's why Dewgong isn't on the list. Or in other words, it's the reason why it's not outclassed by Lapras. I compare Mr. Mime to Kadabra in the video, but I focused on those two to show off that it's on par or worse than a not fully evolved Pokemon. There's also Starmie and Jynx (in Red and Blue with boosted EXP) that are better than Mime, so it would still appear on this list.
@@Genoci If you're not taking into account level damage then I'm not sure you're *really* taking trade XP into account. Being 2x the level means more than just 2x the damage.
@abominationdesolation8322 But doesn't it only matter if you overlevel said Pokemon? A level 30 Farfetch'd will still deal less damage than a level 30 Fearow.
@@Genoci If you rate Pokemon by in-game efficiency, then you can absoultely expect a traded pokemon to be at a higher level. If that isn't the case, then you are purposely not using them the same amount as other Pokemon. Just as a reference, if you get the traded Mr. Mime as soon as possible, it will be at a higher level once you reach the elite 4 than a Kadabra that you'll have been using just after reaching Cerulean. Said Mr. Mime misses out on the exp from the routes 25 and 26, route 6 and the SS Anne, yet it still ends up at a higher level.
mime also doesn't require any grinding- if you're not playing yellow, you would need to manually level up abra through tedious switch training in order to get it to evolve, meanwhile the gigachad mr. mime can be traded for an abra caught straight from the wild ...and it's not as creepy as hypno lmao
Important to note about Raichu vs Electabuzz (and a general note about stat EXP as it relates to early/late game availability): If you were to replace Raichu with Electabuzz, you'd also lose all the stat EXP you got from all the battles. If your Raichu was the same level as the Electabuzz you caught, your Raichu would have _much_ better stats. If this were gen III+, this could actually be an advantage for Electabuzz since you could customize your EVs much better in the late game than in the early game. _However,_ stat EXP can be raised to its maximum for _every_ stat, and it takes a _long_ time to do this. This means that early game Pokemon in gens I and II have a huge advantage over late game Pokemon just because of how many incidental battles and how much incidental stat EXP they will gain during the game. So an early game Pokemon with similar or even slightly worse base stats than a late game counterpart has an advantage over said counterpart. Even moreso because early game Pokemon often gain levels faster than their late game counterparts, which means that, even if the two are of a similar level when you encounter the late game counterpart, there's a good chance that you'll be able to gain more levels with the early game Pokemon before coming to the end of the game.
Parasect in the don't use category? What...? It literally has one of the best moves in the game in Spore, a 100% chance to sleep is absolutely amazing in gen 1, and if nothing else, greatly helps you catch other Pokémon. So even if you don't actually want him on your team you should still keep him around for his utility in helping you catch other Pokémon. It can also be obtained very early on, so availability is also amazing.
to give parasect a little credit - it's great against misty, surge, erika, and sabrina! leech life is a bad move but it has enough attack to make it work against psychic types or grass/poison types.
I will absolutely always use a Chansey if I find one. I will even go as far as to use the glitch on the side of the seafoam islands to get it in a normal battle instead of with the safari zone mechanics. Softboiled let's you heal other pokemon outside battle then you can heal yourself against a wild pokemon saves many trips to the pokemon center during grinding and long cave sections. Because screw repels I am going full pokegenicide for those XP points. Plus that special stat with it's coverage options are so good.
Chancy is also one of the top 3 strongest pokemon in the game period if you aren't counting Mewtwo and Mew. Extremely high special, extremely high HP, access to boosting moves, and insane special coverage is... hard to beat. Obviously Tauros beats it 1 on 1 because of the low defense stat, but you can just... use both?
These guys are so much fun to use on repeat playthroughs for a lot of these factors just because it is fascinating how much it can change the nature of your run and which parts are challenging. Also, I can't help but notice almost every Pokemon featured here got a huge glow-up in later generations, some as soon as gen 2
Well, if you accidentally do the first half of the LV100 Nidoking glitch and get a Lvl7 Lickitung in Viridian Forest, maybe consider it. At that point its stats are better than a lvl7 Ratata and helps with bulk against Brock. However, if you do happen to do this, don't do what I did back when Yellow first came out. See, the glitch was not known or at least not talked about as it is now, and I didn't know I performed the first half of it. So, foolishly, I spent dozens of hours in the forest trying to catch another one figuring the guide (that was notoriously attrociously wrong) had missed a 1% chance for it or something. But at least Pikachu and Likitung got bulky enough to breeze through Brock, Mt. Moon, Misty, Rival, and the Rocket Bridge, lol.
I think one of the great strengths of RBY is that, in a truly casual playthrough, any of these pokémon can become the cornerstone of your team, even Ditto. Every mon is someone’s favorite, and those favorites can power them all the way through the League. I happened to luck into Snorlax & Vaporeon as my favorites, but I also have a real affection for Golduck (Water + decent Special with access to Psychic? Yes please!) I know intellectually that Slowbro does everything Golduck does, but better. But I have a blue duck who’s taken his migraine meds, and that makes him awesome.
No Psychic for our duck in RBY :( Slowbro is objectively better, but I dislike getting outsped by everything. In FR/LF Golduck would be my pick over Slowbro.
You can say that about any pokémon game, and I'd argue in fact that later gens make it easier to have bad pokémon shine a lot more because of infinitely reusable TMs and stuff like the exp share so the mon doesn't get left in the dust, or how some mons can have funny niches thanks to abilities. Gen 1 with its terrible level-up movepools pretty much neccessitating TM usage imo punish using "your favourite mons" way harsher.
No shot this guy said “Don’t use Tauros”, despite the fact that it’s considered one of, if not THE strongest Pokémon in RBY (excluding Mew and Mewtwo) Incredibly high crit chance, huge attack and speed, STAB on Body Slam and Hyper Beam (completely OP moves on their own in RBY) It’s absolutely worth the hunt
Snorlax is significantly buffed in campaign compared to OU. Longevity matters more because you have to fight so many battles between Pokecenters, and on top of its bulk, Snorlax comes with Rest pre-learned (which functionally only has one sleep turn in PvE due to the Pokeflute having unlimited uses). Given that Snorlax comes earlier as a guaranteed encounter, I think it's fair to consider it as basically outclassing Tauros.
@@globalistgamer6418 - Plus Snorlax comes with Amnesia the best move in the game. So it's possible to run Snorlax as a viable special attack sweeper. And this is the voice of experience here since I did that in a mono normal run in Pokemon Blue.
That could be very interesting to watch, as the viability rankings in Gen 2 can become very harsh, because of the scarce EXP. Johto has enough EXP to train just around 3 Pokémon to a decent level without excessive grinding before the Elite Four, instead of the usual 6 in other games.
RSE would be the most interesting I feel, just because so many of the available mons aren’t super far apart from other available options in terms of general power level just having availability as their biggest weaknesses, like for grass types the only ones that could be considered actually bad are Roselia and Gropius due to middling stats.
To be fair, the Marowak, Dugtrio, and Golem lines are the only ones who can learn Ground moves by level-up. Golem has 2 x4 weaknesses so it makes him not too bulky because of it, and Dugtrio dies in 1 hit normally anyways. I used to use Marowak because you only get 1 dig and 1 earthquake TM, which is then used up after their use. Bonemerang is the same strength, so you can save those TM's on a better pokemon for coverage, since Ground moves are such good attacking moves.
Funnily enough, Pinsir is the best bug type in the game and has actually had a place in gen 1 OU because it is a good sweeper with a decent defensive typing in the tier because most fire and flying types don't function very well in the tier and resisting ground while not being weak to ice is very valuable. I know the video is based on a playthrough, but its still funny to me.
I used a Parasect in my first full play through of Blue. While it was terrible for most of the game, it's the perfect wall for the champ's Venusaur and I will never forget its one heroic moment.
I survived my first encounter with Sabrina thanks to Spore and Leech Life. Virtually every other Pokemon with bug type moves is dual poison and thus weak to Psychic.
Impressive you even kept it up to champ. I wish they buffed it in modern games together with other gen 1-2 bugs. Parasect is such a cool design and concept bogged down by being an early gen bug
The gen 2 version of this will really just be don't use 90% of the new pokemon because they are bad and don't evolve and when they do evolve they are still bad
Irony is a lot of the new Johto pokemon can only be found in Kanto. Would've loved to train up a houndour or larvitar before the E4 but Game Freak says no.
Reminder that Aerodactyl didn't learn a single Rock move in gen I, could only use Ancient Power in gen II, and it took until gen III to get Rock Slide (and even then only via tutor). GF just really did not want the poor thing to have usable STAB for whatever reason
I love videos like this because all 3 Kanto Starters are strong enough to solo the entire game but the deep dive like this is fun. One error I noticed is that you failed to take into account that many Pokémon are available much earlier in Yellow version such as Venonat & Ponyta.
Glad you liked it! I only took the ones into account that were notable, since most differences in availability were either not worth mentioning (Venonat) or just straight up worse (Growlithe). On the top of my head Kangaskhan, Tauros and Poliwrath are more viable in Yellow than in Red and Blue, but there are others like Magneton and Lickitung that get pushed to the late or post game.
I'm good with Yellow not being included. Yellow was made so easy that it takes a lot of fun out of the original games. If we're going to include Yellow then why not include tradeback moves as well? You can have an Abra with Thunderpunch before Misty, for example. I have no problem with it though; it's all arbitrary.
I feel like the gen 2 games list will be twice as long. I legitimately cannot understand how the phy special split wasn't a thing from the beginning. Great video!
It was an extremely different time for RPGs. And for as much as RBY are called broken, every other rpg had items that didn’t work, stats that were switched around, etc.
Among the bug types, scyther is the most useless imo. Its swords dance is useless because it has a greater chance of doing critical hits due to its speed, which cancels the attack boosts. It doesn't have STAB, and learns nothing but normal moves so it gets countered easily... the only thing going for it is slash, which is learned by a kajillion other mons. Like, you're better off with beedrill or even parasect. At least they're useful against guys like misty, erika, koga, sabrina etc, and agatha of all trainers.
Thanks, that means a lot! I really try my best to keep it short, since an intro is the part of a video that gets skipped the most. People just wanna get to the meat of the video and it shows in the comments.
@19:24 Pinsir learns Seismic Toss, which can still damage Ghost in Gen 1. Seismic Toss/Rest/Body Slam (or Slash)/Swords Dance (or Submission) covers the entire game.
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."- Karen, Pokemon Gold/Silver.
If you're a fan of the gen 1 games, then try out the Fakemon ROM hack "Star Beasts: Meteor Version"! Patch download: www.romhacking.net/hacks/7026/ Pokedex and important fights: ua-cam.com/play/PLga6v_fZGZ1pRqoBGyPBf_0gPUFgcbhiv.html
Bro really said Chansey is not worth using😂 I get that stall-happy Chansey isn't very fun to use, but with those stats it simply works. And on top of that you have a cool gimmick pokemon in your party.
@@ldmtag i mean if you want to use it, its fine. However, you have to use tms to make it work, since chanseys only attacks by level up are pound, double slap and double edge (at level 54), with a base attack of 5. a lot of the safari zone encounters suffer from this issue tbh, but none is as ridiculously useless as chansey without tms. the rhyhorn line only learns normal moves by level up, so does tauros, exeggutor doesn t get psychic except by tm etcetc. however, these at least "do something" with it. chansey does not. so if you want to use chansey, no other team member gets ice beam and/or thunderbolt, so that s quite some commitment at least. technically soft boiled is also a tm, but only chansey and mew can learn it so using it has no real downside. so chansey deserves an asterisk at least. especially with how hard it is to obtain. For comparison: snorlax gets body slam and hyper beam by level up, tauros is stuck with horn attack and stomp and takedown. rhyhorn only learns normal moves by level up, whereas the geodude line or sandslash line get earthquake by level up and geodude gets at least rock throw instead of rock slide. i think the level up movepool was not really taken into account. if it was, there is no way electrode is not the worst electric type, because it literally doesn t even learn an electric move - so you have to use the thunderbolt tm to even have a semblance of justification in using it.
I'm glad you didn't put Butterfree in that list. Butterfree is defnitely MY niche up to Gen IV, as like you said, it evolves really fast, has pretty good stats overall, and also, have access to all the powders really early on (Sleep Powder is the lastest at I think 15), and Confusion that allows you to steamroll, then just as the damage output becomes lackluster, it learns Psybeam, and it's still good enough to carry you up to the point you get Psychic. Plus, in addition to that, it has a decent enough speed to literally outspeed like 80% of everything. It's always in my party, no matter what. Venomoth can be granted as a little bit better overall than Butterfree, but it doesn't share the OP movepool Butterfree has, or at least not as fast. Plus, in Gen III they introduced a whole ton of good Bug-type moves, like Silver Wind (60 base power w/STAB, and has 10% chance to pop a +1 stage to all stats), and it also gains access to Shadow Ball, which gives an amazing coverage. In Gen II it gained access to Sunny Day, which is amazing for a SolarBeam / Psychic combo. And it also can learn Hyper Beam, which is really good with the Pink Bow, if you're into that. It can also learn Mega Drain / Giga Drain, just like Venomoth, and also Toxic, has access to Reflect as well as Double Team, Mimic and Substitute, which can make a decent moveset in pretty much all situations. Overall, I absolutely LOVE Butterfree.
This is obvious to most people but it just dawned onto me that Butterfree is a pseudo-psychic type because butterflies are *really* hard to catch with your hands. Like they know what you're going to do before you do it and they're great at confusing predators. Funny there are no wild Butterfrees with insanely high catch difficulties.
@@abominationdesolation8322 I totally agree. Butterflies tend to be really elusive - I think that's the word you wanted to use here - and most of them are able to melt into the environment to escape predators, or even use mimicry. I learnt a lot about butterflies over the years, and despite the fact I'm not a huge bug fan in real life, butterflies are really fascinating. That being said, I can somehow put my finger on why Butterfree is pretty OP despite its lack of defense overall - keep in mind that Tajiri Satoshi, the creator of GameFreak, was, and still is to this day, a bug maniac - or bug catcher - and always had a little fondness for butterflies in particular. That is also why there is, in Crystal's Battle Tower, a trainer called Bug Catcher Tajiri. I guess another reason why I'm so fond of Butterfree is the fact that I once caught a shiny Caterpie with Pokérus in Crystal (yeah I know, the odds were slim to none but hey, I can't complain since I'm really unlucky in real life) and with that little fucker I was able to literally obliterate Red's lvl 77 Snorlax, with my Butterfree at that point being only lvl 71. The trick is, if you're able to hit a sleep on his Snorlax before it uses Rest, it can't heal. :) Sure it can still use Snore or Sleep Talk, but even then, Butterfree can still tank 2 or even 3 of them. Ahhhh that little mofo haha 🤍
Butterfree is bonkers in Gen 3 Kanto remakes, as in addition to all the buffs you mentioned, it also gains the Compoundeyes ability that boosts its accuracy by 20. Meaning that the powder moves it learns now have *95* accuracy instead of *75*. 95% accurate Sleep Powder? Yes please.
I love hearing how bad parasect is, especially since just last year I played yellow for the first time and not only destroyed Sabrina with my parasect, but took it all the way to the elite 4 with nothing but good results!
I will have to disagree regarding Farfetch'd. It is still very valuable as an HM slave. And I would also like to emphasize what you said at 24:07 - Fire types are redundant in Kanto, that's the sad truth, the "pill that is hard to swallow" as some would say. Even Charizard is pointless. Fire is super effective against Bug (which is irrelevant), Grass (which also becomes irrelevant after Erika) and Ice (which is a rare type, out of which only Jynx and Articuno take super effective damage). You are better off using Ice types against Grass (well, what few Grass types are left after Erika) or more so, the Ice Beam TM that you can easily obtain in Celadon City's Department Store. Furthermore, Ice type moves can cause the Freeze status, which is a free KO unless you hit them with a Fire move and cause them to thaw out. Psychic is also a great choice, as every relevant Grass type is part Poison type. Against Ice types, you are better off using Electric types, as most of them are part Water anyway; or Grass types, since the Ice type does not resist Grass. Fighting is a horrible type in Gen 1, I wouldn't recommend it.
You _can_ reach Cinnabar Island with only three gym badges without glitches (Pewter, Cerulean, and Fuchsia), so you can get Fossil Pokémon early if you want to. You can get exactly five Moon Stones in the Gen I games without glitches or more if you use the infinite items glitch, so you don't need to worry about running out of them-especially since two are in Mount Moon, two more can be obtained with access to Cut, and the last can be had with access to Surf. You can run both Wigglytuff and Clefable if you really want to, which isn't a bad thing since Normal is one of the best types in Gen I given how terrible most Fighting-type moves are and how good Hyper Beam is. Game Freak missed an opportunity to make Krabby and Kingler good answers to Psychic-types: had they been given Water/Bug typing and their signature move Crabhammer been Bug-type, they'd have been great for taking on Sabrina. Likewise, Ponyta and Rapidash should've had Fire/Normal typing for STAB Normal moves, and Pinsir should've been Bug/Fighting.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Dewgong. Not only is it completely outclassed by Cloyster and especially Lapras, you are given Lapras for free and not too long after you get access to Dewgong.
This is false. Seel/Dewgong comes at a great time for the next two Gyms at appropiate Levels. Meanwhile, Lapras is at Level 15 at Gym 6. No thanks. FRLG changed this by buffing Lapras to Level 25 when you get it.
You would typically get Lapras SIGNIFICANTLY before Seel becomes available (Silph Co versus Seafoam Islands). Not only do you have time to level up Lapras, it will have even higher effective stats in the long term due to additional EV gains.
Or you could just not baby a Pokemon that can barely fight and pick up a higher leveled one later. No one is saying that it isn't an option, but to suggest that Lapras is the only good option because you choose to ignore reasons that exist to use something else is stupid, especially when "completing Silph Co" and "Seafoam Islands" are not only generally right next to each other in progression, but you can do Seafoam Islands BEFORE Silph Co to begin with.@@globalistgamer6418
Porygon: Hey I got mentioned as one of the other normal types you can catch before Lickitung at 2:05! That means I'm safe right? 2:57 Next up is Porygon. Porygon: oh...
Man... the time you need to use to evolve Abra to Kadabra through EXP leeching you can already sweep through half of the game with Mr. Mime. And this is not because evolving Abra takes time (it's not that much), but because Mr. Mime is an absolute beast. AND, it receives boosted Exp. It's literally one of the best Pokémon to use on the game, if not *the* best, but Top 10 at least.
I have a bad(?) habit of being set on my team by the third or fourth badge, and rarely change out any new captures, so the 'too late to have an impact' section really hits home with me 🤣
Early Pokemon will always have an advantage because of stat EXP or EVs, but there are still lots of cases where it's worth switching over to a late game mon. On the top of my head I'm thinking of Swellow -> Skarmory in gen 3.
loved the video, you explained it so well, like "this is why it sucks, and here are better options" also the visuals are very nice too, greatly expecting the gen 2 version
I'd argue Twineedle is overall better than Pin Missile for Beedrill. Also how frustrating that Pinsir and Scyther never got Twineedle, even at a high level, in spite of having 2 scythes/pincers lol. Parasect overall is not good but all it needs to do is tank one hit for the Spore and then get to work. Great vid though
I would never understand why a common pokemon like tentacruel is 100 times more viable than rare Pokemon like Pinsir or lickitung. Is just insane how much gen one was unbalanced
@gabrielmarchena1755 Yeah I wanna take a shot at GSC, but other commenters have made it pretty clear to me that it's general knowledge how bad Johto mons are haha.
Common pokemon. Magikarp literally every body of water and a glass of water. Turns into an absolute monster. At least you have to train it. Unless it's later in the game. It's also funny there's a quote prof oak says about using your master ball on a powerful Pokemon like tentacruel or fearow 😂
You can catch safari zone pokemon really easily by using a similar glitch to how you encounter Missingno. every area that you can catch pokemon in the game has an ID that determines what pokemon can be encountered there, EXCEPT the water to the right of Cinnebar Island. Cinnebar Island will just use the ID of the last area (in which you could catch pokemon) you were in. All you have to do is pay to get into the safari zone, immedietly fly to Cinnebar Island and surf on the left bank, and it will allow you to catch safari zone pokemon using normal catching mechanics
Imo, the case for using lickitung or farfetched is the fact that they are traded mons and thus grow so much faster. Sure, lickitung is gonna be utterly outclassed by a snorlax at the same level, but the same amount of xp will net you a much higher level traded lickitung than slow growth rate snorlax. Fearow vs farfetched is similarly nuanced, especially with farfetched learning swords dance
also i think rhydon deserves to be on this list, since it's far later in the game than golem, is only in the safari zone, has a horrible level up movepool, and is slow to raise to boot
Hmm maybe you're right. It's very strong, but with Dig and Rock Slide, it has many great matchups left. Though, Graveler, Sandslash and Dugtrio can also take care of Blaine, Silph Co. and Koga with ease.
@@Genoci fair! also, much enjoyed the video and would be very excited for a look at gen 2. i think in RBY, any pokemon except ditto/lickitung? is at least usable, but in gen 2 there are a lot of mons who you really REALLY get punished for using lol
There's one thing you're forgetting about in this video: the badge boost glitch. In gen 1, every 2nd badge would apply a small multiplier to a stat when received (ie. The Boulder Badge boosts your attack by 1.2x, and the Volcano Badge boosts your special by 1.2x). There was a glitch that occured thanks to this mechanic. Whenever a Pokemon would use a boosting move, it would reapply the boosts from the badges that you'd already obtained as well as the stat buff you just used. This makes moves like Agility, Swords Dance, or even Harden and Defense Curl downright amazing in gen 1, and so ability to learn a boosting move immediately makes a Pokemon much MUCH better than they otherwise would be.
You are definitely sleeping on Chansey. Chansey should not be used as a Snorlax but as a special attacker. I like to use it over Clefable and Wigglytuff because of the HP. It tanks hits a lot especially in its special.
The main problem is that it will likely take hours to catch just one Chansey when you can catch it during the main story. It's stuck in the Safari Zone where it will run away after a few attempts of catching the Pokemon. The easier option only unlocks after the champion is defeated. So unless you trade a Chansey, maybe one bred in generation II, you're not getting one easily during the story. Maybe that's why he doesn't think it's a good option. Maybe he thinks people like me who will go out of their way to get a Chansey during the story is a rarity.
@@TimBeimer Yeah, use special stat based attacks and you're good to go. No need to use physical attacks on Chansey. Also use Soft-Boiled for self healing with no items, as well as healing your other Pokémon outside of battle.
I submit that Lickitung is even *worse*. To get a Slowbro you must first procure Slowpoke, which is not available until you get SURF any way you look at it, which you don't get until just after where you'd trade for Lickitung. And then you have to hunt for it and then also evolve it. And this is the point where you're entering the last half of the game. Fun side note, in Yellow, you can trade one to someone (instead of teading for) on Rt. 11 for... A dugtrio... A pokemon you can not only evolve, but also find in the wild, before the the third gym. It's literally right by the trader. For a pokemon you can't even get until you beat the E4. I just thought that was funny.
I had a Prima strategy guide that recommended using Parasect with Spore, Growth and Leech Life, as a Pokemon dedicated to countering Psychic types, specifically Mewtwo. And I believed it because I was eight years old. So stupid. Especially when Mewtwo has Blizzard
I remember that... It was actually better than other guides at the time in terms of what they thought the competitive meta would be like, but on this point they just tried too hard to find some kind of build that could actually leverage Bugs being 'strong' against Psychic instead of just accepting that Bug was completely under-realized to the point of being useless.
I think a video like this exemplifies the flaws with early pokemon balancing. The big draw, the whole marketing campaign, is about the vast array of creatures to capture. But when you really analyze it, so many mons are redundant, poorly made, and worthless. They have no substance under their fun design. When you put the kids game under a strict lens of min-maxing your run, you remove a lot of the personality from it. Its a shame that so many mons are just downgrades of eachother, but luckily the game is easy even for children to beat, so im sure no one noticed their pidegot was subpar.
One other thing that made it seem impressive is that other RPGs at the time had even worse balance (by a lot). Many of the RBY Pokemon tended to outclass each other, but within relatively close parameters that you wouldn't really be able to analyze until you had already beaten the game, and nearly all of them other than Mewtwo had some kind of reasonable check or counter. Whereas contemporary Final Fantasy games would often have build options that were blatantly OP or almost no drawback (like should I use Materia to double my HP or not?), or just generally fail to design encounters where you really need to use anything other than the universal Attack option and some kind of healing spell.
A few notes here: - You can get Rapidash earlier in Yellow by catching a Ponyta on Cycling Road. - Chansey is fucking busted and it's 100X better than Wigglytuff. It's HP and Special makes it a brick wall and it has a fantastic movepool with a hard-hitting Ice Beam and Thunderbolt. Soft-Boiled gives it great sustain. - Muk isn't as bad as you make him out to be. Minimize gives it great cheese opportunity. - Mr. Mime isn't the best option as a special attacker, but it can be a great tank if it can set up with Barrier and Light Screen. It can use Seismic Toss to attack. - Pidgeot's access to Quick Attack, where Dodrio and Fearow does not, should not be understated. Additionally, if you have a Pideot in your team, by the time you have access to Dodrio, your Pideot will already be fully EV trained in a casual playthrough and if you ditch it for a Dodrio that late, it likely won't be as strong.
The Missingno glitch makes any Pokemon into a maxed out beast. Just do the infinite item glitch for rare candy, along with all the stat boost items like iron and calcium, then boom: you got a level 100 maxed out Pokemon that'll one hit anything.
It's been said many times, but Onix is more or less strictly in the game as a boss pokémon. It's a stat check for a special move or a fighting move. It's faster than any of the early pokémon except Mankey, which it speed ties in absentia of stat experience and overleveling. It resists normal, which all of the starters have as their first move with scratch and tackle, and its defense is so high that leveling up only does so much for the physical moves of the early game. And crucially, there is not a lot of money in the game between Pallet Town and Pewter City before you're walled off by the guy who blocks the next route. In short, you're forced to fight Brock when you're pretty weak, and unless you've unlocked your first special attacking move or caught a 'mon with a fighting move, you're completely screwed because it knows bide, and that can be pretty bad if you can't take it out before the bide counter reaches 0. You also have 0 TMs or HMs to use at that point. Once you beat him, you gain access to the rest of the game and are free to level a lot, make lots of money, and explore a lot of the map. If Brock just spammed Bide on his Onix, Charmander would have a LOT of trouble soloing the fight at a reasonable level. On the subject of Hitmonchan, though. I think it suffers from "pokémon RBY are incredibly unfinished games" syndrome. I think it's a relic of a proposed expanded use of the speed stat which likely included things like how many times a multi-hit move hits, accuracy, and crit chance that's based off of speed differentials of the 'mons in battle instead of base speed. Look at its starting set. Comet punch and Agility. I can imagine a world where Hitmonchan came out as a lead, set up agility and you just never hit it while it drops 5+ hit combos on you every turn that almost always crit. Almost every unfinished system in the game was thrown into one place: The Celadon Department Store. Why is submission trash? Unfinished. Counter? Unfinished. Stat Experience vitamins and the systems around them? Unfinished, *obviously*. Why is Double Team so busted and available to every Pokémon that can learn TMs? Because it was thrown in last second to mimic the effect speed differentials would have had on the game, it's unfinished.
Beautifully written. I always resorted to Butterfree with Confusion to beat Brock whenever I picked Charmander. Using a Special move is pretty much mandatory, I kinda wish there were more than 2 viable options to catch in the wild. Also, interesting thoughts on Hitmonchan. They could've been lazy and switch its Special and Attack around, but they didn't. In GSC it gets 110 Sp.Def, so it would've been perfect to give it 110 Special in RBY and take it away in the next game.
@@Genoci that woulda been classic gamefreak with the spatk spdef split. There's a ton of evidence that speed was originally meant to govern accuracy, but my biggest piece of evidence is the accuracy of the non-grass elemental capstone moves. Hydro pump, fire blast, thunder, and blizzard. If you take the average speed of the gen 1 Pokémon of each of those types compared to the average speed of all Pokémon, you'll see that at base values, those moves with their gen 1 accuracies would hit the average pokémon 100% of the time. The reason thunder has such garbage accuracy is because electric pokémon are very fast and they were prematurely balancing the moves for a world in which speed governed accuracy. But we never got that world where Aerodactyl would have been an evasive, offensive beast. It also explains why so many fast pokémon learn agility as one of their capstone skills. It's why farfetch'd has such terrible stats and why most of the birds suck. Pidgeot makes probably the best lead in the game if accuracy and speed are linked and if whirlwind actually worked.
@@ZerglingOne1 Very interesting theory I never heard about. I do think an extra stat like dexterity, which influences accuracy, crit, multi hits etc, would be interesting and give more ways to balance the mons.
@@RyumaXtheXKing But that's almost exactly what Dexterity does in for example, D&D. It is your hit chance, your initiative (who goes first), and your dodge chance. The only one it doesn't cover is crit, but as stated before, in gen 1, base speed *already* governs crit chance. Plus, looking at a dodge as a negative-crit is one way of looking at it. When you crit in pokémon, you basically deal 100% extra damage...in gen 1 not so much, but still. A miss is -100% damage. I also surmise this is why the slow, but strong 'mons feel so absolutely powerful a lot of the time. Think Slowbro and Snorlax. They hit like trucks, have great move pools, and their speed barely hinders them at all. They also both happen to get Swift because Swift can't miss. And in a world where a fast 'mon dodges more, the move that can't miss is important.
Theres a few games where Scyther is good in game. Scyther is top tier on game in HGSS. Technician boosted Wing Attack/Pursuit, high Base Attack and Bugsy provides U-Turn for chip damage. Outclasses its evolution with matchups considered. Also is a good Pokemon in Legends:Arceus where base forum is usable for a long time and its two evolutions are top tier battlers.
I think he underrated Pidgeot too much. You basically have to teach Fly for convenience anyway, so it's not bad to have to rely on it as an attacking move, being slightly worse in attack than Fearow to have superiority in all other stats is not ideal but is usable, especially since Mirror Move can use Special offensively, and being available super early is an effective stat buff relative to Dodrio, etc due to more EV gain. I think Fearow is easier to exploit and probably overall better across the game, but Pidgeot is probably more stable to maintain in the endgame and certainly a viable option rather than clearly outclassed.
Since we are aknowledging the glitches of gen 1, I think Safari mons and any Pokemon that requires grinding to be useful need reevaluation, these being: a glitch allowing you to encounter Safari mons by surfing along east coast of Cinnabar Island, and of course MissingNo, allowing you to duplicate Rare Candies, skipping any grind you'd need to do. Both glitches are well known (especially MissingNo) so a player might be coerced to use them even in a casual playthrough. Oh, and shout out to the Mew glitch. You bet I'm gonna use Mew in casual playthrough.
I would say this, finding the pokemon in the safari zone is not as bad as some may think, though catching still remains just as annoying. All you really gotta do is keep turning your character around without leaving position and you will still encounter pokemon that way. do that in each zone that contains a rare mon and you'll be set. Of course the main drawbacks to the rare ones are that they either need tms (if capable) to make up for their shallow movepool, or they will be around late game for when they can evolve. Nice break down, overall. The only thing I would disagree with are machamp and hitmonlee for being useful, and chansey for not being worth it. fighting types are worthless and by the time you come across most of them, they're either ok at best, or terrible at worst. that coupled with terrible movepool for their type makes them useless. As for chansey, I still find it worth it if lucky enough to catch one. It's THE go-to special wall (and bruiser thanks to special being one stat) in a game that's predominantly special type. the only ones that are not special are mainly ones that are not a threat, at least not due to their type. Also, it has one of the more reliable means to recover.
I am not sure how EV’s or DV’s (or whatever they’re called) work in Gen 1, but in Growlithe’s case you can teach it dig (Arcanine has great attack, so it won’t be wasted) and keep knocking out gastly in the tower. It levels pretty quickly and if I am not mistaken, killing gastly boosts your special stat.
Loved the video. I agreed with most of what was said here and as an avid Gen 1 player (RBY and FRLG) it's actually surprising how much better a lot of these Pokemom got in Gen 3. Arbok getting access to Intimidate, for example, makes it a lot better. Grimer being available in Celadon makes it a lot more useful as it is a pretty reliable answer to Erika's gym, stuff like that. I'm also surprised that you didn't have a segment for Dewgong. It's entirely outclassed in it's role by Lapras, who is available in Saffron City while Dewgong is locked all the way in Seafoam Islands.
I find videos like this kind of strange yet still informative. People should use whatever they want in casual playthroughs. Using the same best Pokemon every playthrough is incredibly boring.
Lickitung has a fun niche of being the only Pokemon to learn both Swords Dance and Hyper Beam with STAB. It's not exactly *good* at weaponizing this as it has the Attack of wet toilet paper, but it's something cool.
![Slow Snakeblock Ride? Impatience Troll. [Road to #1 Super Expert Endless] [507]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BfHqY4Ga0mQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I just made a follow-up video about the Gen 2 games! Watch it here: ua-cam.com/video/6j1v88NPtJY/v-deo.html
Tkk k j ty j I I🎉
Based
I swear something about this franchise turns people into data scientists
Pokemon is just a colorful collection of statistics and formulas. You can basically "solve" early gen Pokemon and that's a very attractive challenge.
It's just fun to research imo. Finding out that Marowak is an objectively worse Sandslash or that the strongest Poison type attack is only 65BP just tickles my brain in the right way.
Very true and weirdly enough because the spirit of pokemon was to use the pokemon that you like. Not just focus on the strongest
The game is so luck based that the only thing you really have to take advantage of is the math
Pokémon Professors, if you will.
The only proper strat is to catch every pokemon you see but exclusively use bulbasaur until he one shots every pokemon
Now this is how you play Pokémon!
That's why Pokemon is only fun with level cap
Then there's the spicy strat using Squirtle instead.
@autobotstarscream765 my first blue playthrough when I was 7 I picked squirtle. At the elite 4 I had a level 84 blastoise and a party full of level 2 and 3 Pokémon from the first couple of routes
@@thomassmartphone7125that's only because you are not a 6 years old anymore
Only in Gen I could you seriously say "Don't use Arcanine, use the much better Flareon."
Gen II really massacred my poor fluffy boi.
The "legendary" Pokemon, outclassed by a small fiery fox creature. Pathetic.
fluffy gorl
My bro Arcanine was a staple on my Gen 9 team. But that was partially because Paldea lacked good Fire types.
Arcanine, Flareon, and Rapidash were all just absolute garbage until gen 4 when they FINALLY got STAB physical moves. And even then, not all that great in particular.
@@ZerglingOne1gen 1 flareon was a bit better
Low tier runs are always such a blast to play because it basically forces you to use your team as well as possible because everything else is against you. Some of my fondest memories playing these games are going in with the rare/worst ones and turning them into champions.
I've done a few of those and to an extent nuzlockes can feel the same. It's a lot of fun, but the games don't feel harder if you know what you're doing.
@@Genoci
- games don't feel harder (using bad pokemon)
- don't use these pokemon because it will make the game harder than it needs to be
Pick one dingus
@@FartInhalerSlamPoetry I pick "It’s not my goal to bash on your favorite Pokemon. If you want to use a certain Pokemon that is on this list, then nothing is stopping you to do so."
@j.b.5422 So Dewgong
@@Genoci Spoken like a true politician.
*Mediocre Pokémon:* _(exists)_
*Genoci:* _(throws it into a pitch black room to get laughed at by the ghosts of much better alternatives, as the words "DO NOT USE" orbit its scared, shivering form.)_
You have to admit, it's evocative and impactful.
I would refute your claim about Farfetch’d. If you look at him you can clearly see he is adorably holding onto a green onion which I have been informed he uses as a sword.
that's a leek my man
@@geldofpunk32fr
@@geldofpunk32A leek is a type of onion if you believe hard enough (or google it)
@geldofpunk32 Well, leeks are an onion, so they're pretty close
@@Neko_Necromancer same family, different species
Jrose showed me that despite Farfetch'd's horrible stats, having sd and agility makes it surprisingly good
I also used Farfetch'd once in a challenge run, it's a fun mon to use, but I think Dodrio and Fearow are more reliable.
Swords Dance is the second best move in the game (Amnesia is obviously the best) and everything with Swords Dance is at least good. Later on Kingler was shown as a "do not use" pokemon because it's outclassed, but that isn't saying that Kingler is worse than Alakazam, trust me, it absolutely isn't. Swords Dance is just that broken in gen 1, especially with how early you can get Body Slam
@@Genoci my brother loves Fearow and I will tell him about this video that finally shows, that he was on to smt back in the days :D
Yeah lol after watching that video it was clear that Farfetch'd is obviously superior to Pidgeot and likely superior to Fearow if you don't mind Fly over Drill Peck. Only Dodrio has a claim as a better Normal/Flying type if you're not purposely exploiting glitches.
@@Genoci It being a traded pokemon also has it leveling faster, on top of having sd and agility makes people say its a good early-mid game mon so it's got some use.
Don't tell me what to do man!
*proceeds to solo run with Beedrill*
-arin hanson
I agree.
Beedrill is overpowered.
Last moveset is pin missile.
Pin missile is powerful attack
YEAHHH DEWIT
my lickitung will be cheering them on skdfjhgsd
with the power of overleveling and potion spam you can do anything! I remember I leveled a Kakuna to 100 without evolving it because I thought the sprite looked cool and I believed some story my friends told me that it would evolve into something else if you got it to lv 100 and beat the Elite 4 a bunch of times. So I would slowly but surely Harden and Poison Sting my way through the Elite 4 only to be disappointed.
Guzma travelling to Kanto
Bro has the same editing style as a murder mystery
Lol
Kid me thought that using a Ditto to copy the foe's strongest pokémon was a genius strategy
That's what it does in RBY Ubers. And every other Ubers tbh.
well kid you is kinda right, it has a great niche there
Arbok is kinda slept on tbh. The movepool is pretty good for a pure Poison type and toxic/wrap abuse is broken in this game. There's definitely better you can use but there's way worse. In a pinch it can cheese some tough opponents, especially ones that have 'good AI' and try to spam 'psychic type' moves against it like Agility.
It even comes at the right time to be useful
using toxic and wrap make me not want to play the game
@@pikminologueraisin2139fair lol
@pikminologueraisin2139 it can do other things. For in game:
Dig/earthquake
Any special tm/Mega drain
Sludge bomb
Glare/return
Lots of tm investment but arbok is fast and strong enough to carry pretty hard if needed
Wrap is super overrated. It's one of those moves that's annoying to encounter in Gen 1, but to actually use it in a playthrough is a waste of time. It has pathetic damage and bad accuracy. Maybe you could make an argument for it being competitively viable in Gen 1 only, but for an actual playthrough, stall and chip tactics are just a monotonous slog. What kind of person wants to setup Toxic and Leech Seed with a Venasaur when you could just use Razor Leaf to win in two or three turns? And who in their right mind would waste their time setting up Glare, Toxic, and Wrap with an Arbok?
Venonat can be caught near Cerulean city in Pokemon Yellow, giving it more time to contribute than in Red or Blue. It can replace Butterfree if you were using one, as it offers much of the same tools while having better stats once it gets going.
Having Psychic attacks and an immunity to being poisoned gives it some niche use. Most poison types can't do much to it and given they are the most populous type in gen 1 it is easy to capitalize on.
Leech life, while only as strong as absorb, can still deal 4x damage to every grass type not named Tangela, Paras or Parasect. It also can deal decent damage against some psychic types earlier in the game.
Being weak to Psychic allows you to abuse the AI of trainers like Lance, as they will be forced to use non damaging Psychic moves with certain Pokemon.
The low accuracy of rock throw paired with the abysmal special and speed of most rock types allows Venonat to deal with them surprisingly frequently. Even more so if you feel like giving it mega drain.
It still isn't amazing, but it has a surprising amount of favorable match-ups. It can always fill a spot while you wait to access something better further through the game.
Replacing Butterfree with Venonat is not a great idea. It doesn't learn Sleep Powder until Level 38 and has worse stats until it evolves at Level 31.
In addition, getting Venonat in Yellow doesn't really help much. Lance does not have any Psychic moves he'll spam against Poison types (although Venomoth won't be weak to Ice Beam like Butterfree).
Venonat can't be caugh near Cerulean City in the Kanto games, only in cristal you can catch it at near cerulean city
@@patonosequecosa Incorrect, you can absolutely find Venonat on routes 24 and 25 in Yellow.
You probably won't replace Butterfree, because its high speed in combination with a sleep move makes it great for catching.
I actually used it the last time I played Yellow version it was absolutely horrible before evolving but once I have Venomoth I actually liked using it.
Can confirm, I used a Chansey once in a Blue playthrough and it was so fun as a team member. But wow... catching the pink blob took literal days
Chansey in early games is a laser beam.
it took me less than two hours. skill issue
@@SuperM789Rng issue
Ah yes, early pokémon design.
"Let's give this guy Swords Dance"
"Oh yeah fun! Which attacking moves will it get?"
"All terrible ones, and Slash."
... ... .....
Old-ish comment, but another gen one ism that has died out are weak Pokémon needing to evolve at high levels, and your reward isn't even a Pokémon that's strong.
@@LuwiigiMasterwhich ones are you thinking of?
@@brotbrotsen1100 psyduck in particular.
@@LuwiigiMasterfun fact: golduck can learn confusion but cant learn psychic
Golduck can learn Psychic via tm.
Surf, Ice Beam, Psychic, and Dig. Gen 1 Golduck is just fine for a playthrough.
17:40 JUSTICE FOR SHROOMY BOI NOW.
Parasect is underrated in Gen 1. He’s got the only 100% sleep move in Gen 1 in Spore, can boost either his sturdy Attack or Special with Swords Dance & Growth which trigger badge boost, it learns Body Slam or Dig for physical coverage… and Mega Drain for healing. The one thing holding it back is the lack of a truly powerful Bug move.
my dumbass just used leech life to counter psychic, grass, and poison, that last part is particularly helpful for not only the oddly high number of poison types in gen 1, but the fact that a lot of trainers have oddish and bellsprout and stuff for some reason if I'm remembering right which I'm probably not.
I would go as far as to use one throughout the whole game from mt moon, and use it against the champions exeggutor or venusaur.
@@alecrutz956There is one video series on YT from Annoyed Lily White/SilentFlygon beating Pokémon Red including Elite4 with only using bug types.
I'd say its bigger problems are its abysmal speed and typing, even with badge boosts there's so much it still gets outsped and wrecked by
You're better off just using an inaccurate sleep move on a pokemon with actual stats
I actually used to use parasect lol i would use spore and then use sword dance like 3 times or something an then use leech life it worked pretty well ngl
I'd say Beedrill is an honorable mention as a pokemon that's outclassed by butterfree at an important role. Butterfree gains access to confusion at level 12 (shaved down to 10 in Yellow, so it gains it instantly on evolving) which makes it one of your options for getting past Brock. Beedrill's twineedle would be good for Brock in gen 1 but you'd have to get it all the way up to level 20 to learn.
For comparison, level 20 is what you'd need to get pikachu (same level-up group) to learn slam in version Yellow, which is designed to be the fallback option for people with more stubbornness than common sense (like myself when I was young, for example) so if they adamantly refuse to use anything besides pikachu against Brock they gain a reliable way to slam one's head against a brick wall until it finally caves in.
That's quite poetic; never realized that myself.
I’d have to disagree. While yes Butterfree is better against Brock, twineedle has a lot of use in the early through mid game. It one of two usable moves (I don’t count leech life) super effective against psychic types, which is important for Misty’s Starmie. Additionally, due to Gen one being weird, it also hits poison for super effective STAB damage, which is stronger than butterfree’s confusion. This makes it quad effective against poison/grass and the exeggcutor line, making Erika an easy sweep. It falls off late game, but does get agility by level up, which if played right can give you a speedy mon with STAB super effective moves into psychic types, something no other mon can do in Gen one.
I've actually had Bedrill solo Koga, although the fight ended with Bedrill falling to Weezing's Explosion. Beedrill has a decent enough Special stat,imo.
@erikturner1465 Funny thing about leech life is I forced myself to use it on Paras/ect with sword dance (and spore for stalling). It went much better than expected, especially against psychic type trainers.
I'd still put Paras/ect in the do not use pool, but you could do worse and it might not cost healing items when it goes well.
Bulbasaur gets passed the 1st 3 gyms alone
*Clicks video explicitly intending on making a team out of these*
Oh it did? Oh okay
Tell us more!
Don't tell me how to live my life.
Yeah if I want a gang of snubull named winston I will!
Only reason i never used a Pinsir is cuz i could never catch one cuz the Safari Zone hated me
The game was secretly just looking out for you
@@Jlaps941dont sleep on pinsir bro
Sweet scent?
@derrfes I don't think that was available in gen 1
In defense of Rapidash (and Moltres to a lesser extent), a shallow movepool doesn't matter since you can just give it an X-Accuracy and either KO everything with Horn Drill bar Gengar, or permanently trap everything with Fire Spin.
Ah, there's something I never think about. I *never* use X items in PKMN. Most players don't. It's like some unspoken rule. But I only refuse to use them because I don't understand their optimal usage. Plus the game isn't very difficult anyway which means you'll end up brute forcing your way through anything you might otherwise have to think about.
@@abominationdesolation8322Thing is X Accuracy removes the accuracy check in Gen 1 with a single usage. Nidoking in the Gen 1 RB speedrun abuses this with BoltBeam coverage and the free Horn Drill TM in Rocket Hideout.
@@abominationdesolation8322 Think of X items as Howl, Harden, half a Nasty Plot, half an Amnesia, and half of an Agility that don't use up a move slot and have PP equal to the number of them in your bag.
Or just click fireblast and 1 hit ko everything in the game *anyway* because it's Moltres.
@@ceulgai2817 Free buffs that spend a turn and at endgame will most likely still have you get OHKO'd before you can fully buff
That said, I'm glad I figured out the winning combo of Dugtrio as a kid.
If it has Slash and Earthquake, then it can beat anything the NPCs throw at you.
The video is very good and well-made, but it has one big mistake which I help you to consider in the next videos of the series: Mr. Mime is actually one of the best Psychic types in-game, EXP-boost is completely broken in a lot of in-game Pokémon, that's cause that mon receive more levels, and levels are actually counted in damage formula, which makes a huge impact in any Pokémon, potentially breaking it.
EXP is a thing people sleep on when comparing in-game usability, but it's very important to the point that Wigglytuff actually can be stronger than Snorlax by the time you reach it, just because Wigglytuff is part of the fast EXP group, which makes it gains a lot of more levels. So the same logic applies here, Mime being an early mon, gotten by trade, gets too much experience, and has good matchups against all gym leaders with its movepool, its stats while a bit less than Kadabra's, the levels difference put Mime on par with it.
That was not widely recognized cause I think not many people actually cared to test Mr. Mime, until Smogon users decided to try every single Pokémon in-game and analyze their performance and created an in-game tier list which you can easily access and get surprised by how some underused mons are actually good (Jynx is another example). Search for "In-game tier lists" to get more info about that, I hope you can use this information in your research for the next videos!
Huh, I didn't know level was relevant to the damage calc. TIL.
I actually took into account trade EXP, that's why Dewgong isn't on the list. Or in other words, it's the reason why it's not outclassed by Lapras.
I compare Mr. Mime to Kadabra in the video, but I focused on those two to show off that it's on par or worse than a not fully evolved Pokemon. There's also Starmie and Jynx (in Red and Blue with boosted EXP) that are better than Mime, so it would still appear on this list.
@@Genoci If you're not taking into account level damage then I'm not sure you're *really* taking trade XP into account. Being 2x the level means more than just 2x the damage.
@abominationdesolation8322 But doesn't it only matter if you overlevel said Pokemon? A level 30 Farfetch'd will still deal less damage than a level 30 Fearow.
@@Genoci If you rate Pokemon by in-game efficiency, then you can absoultely expect a traded pokemon to be at a higher level. If that isn't the case, then you are purposely not using them the same amount as other Pokemon.
Just as a reference, if you get the traded Mr. Mime as soon as possible, it will be at a higher level once you reach the elite 4 than a Kadabra that you'll have been using just after reaching Cerulean. Said Mr. Mime misses out on the exp from the routes 25 and 26, route 6 and the SS Anne, yet it still ends up at a higher level.
mime also doesn't require any grinding- if you're not playing yellow, you would need to manually level up abra through tedious switch training in order to get it to evolve, meanwhile the gigachad mr. mime can be traded for an abra caught straight from the wild
...and it's not as creepy as hypno lmao
Important to note about Raichu vs Electabuzz (and a general note about stat EXP as it relates to early/late game availability): If you were to replace Raichu with Electabuzz, you'd also lose all the stat EXP you got from all the battles. If your Raichu was the same level as the Electabuzz you caught, your Raichu would have _much_ better stats. If this were gen III+, this could actually be an advantage for Electabuzz since you could customize your EVs much better in the late game than in the early game. _However,_ stat EXP can be raised to its maximum for _every_ stat, and it takes a _long_ time to do this.
This means that early game Pokemon in gens I and II have a huge advantage over late game Pokemon just because of how many incidental battles and how much incidental stat EXP they will gain during the game. So an early game Pokemon with similar or even slightly worse base stats than a late game counterpart has an advantage over said counterpart. Even moreso because early game Pokemon often gain levels faster than their late game counterparts, which means that, even if the two are of a similar level when you encounter the late game counterpart, there's a good chance that you'll be able to gain more levels with the early game Pokemon before coming to the end of the game.
Parasect in the don't use category? What...? It literally has one of the best moves in the game in Spore, a 100% chance to sleep is absolutely amazing in gen 1, and if nothing else, greatly helps you catch other Pokémon. So even if you don't actually want him on your team you should still keep him around for his utility in helping you catch other Pokémon. It can also be obtained very early on, so availability is also amazing.
to give parasect a little credit - it's great against misty, surge, erika, and sabrina! leech life is a bad move but it has enough attack to make it work against psychic types or grass/poison types.
Spore is actually pretty great as well
This. I demolished Misty's Starmie with a level 20 Paras once.
Don't let Leech Life fool you, you are better off using Spore + Slash.
I remember my Parasect once saved my team in Pokémon Stadium from an Alakazam that kept one-shotting everything, turns out Leech Life one-shotted it.
Because of a glitch, leech life is great against ghost and poison. This made it great against the ghost pokemon.
I will absolutely always use a Chansey if I find one. I will even go as far as to use the glitch on the side of the seafoam islands to get it in a normal battle instead of with the safari zone mechanics. Softboiled let's you heal other pokemon outside battle then you can heal yourself against a wild pokemon saves many trips to the pokemon center during grinding and long cave sections. Because screw repels I am going full pokegenicide for those XP points. Plus that special stat with it's coverage options are so good.
Ah, back when the pink whore's blizzards put you to sleep.
As I've gotten older, I've found Chansey to be one of my favorites
Chancy is also one of the top 3 strongest pokemon in the game period if you aren't counting Mewtwo and Mew. Extremely high special, extremely high HP, access to boosting moves, and insane special coverage is... hard to beat. Obviously Tauros beats it 1 on 1 because of the low defense stat, but you can just... use both?
These guys are so much fun to use on repeat playthroughs for a lot of these factors just because it is fascinating how much it can change the nature of your run and which parts are challenging.
Also, I can't help but notice almost every Pokemon featured here got a huge glow-up in later generations, some as soon as gen 2
Totally agree, it's so boring to just always pick the best Pokemon.
Well, if you accidentally do the first half of the LV100 Nidoking glitch and get a Lvl7 Lickitung in Viridian Forest, maybe consider it. At that point its stats are better than a lvl7 Ratata and helps with bulk against Brock. However, if you do happen to do this, don't do what I did back when Yellow first came out. See, the glitch was not known or at least not talked about as it is now, and I didn't know I performed the first half of it. So, foolishly, I spent dozens of hours in the forest trying to catch another one figuring the guide (that was notoriously attrociously wrong) had missed a 1% chance for it or something. But at least Pikachu and Likitung got bulky enough to breeze through Brock, Mt. Moon, Misty, Rival, and the Rocket Bridge, lol.
I think one of the great strengths of RBY is that, in a truly casual playthrough, any of these pokémon can become the cornerstone of your team, even Ditto. Every mon is someone’s favorite, and those favorites can power them all the way through the League. I happened to luck into Snorlax & Vaporeon as my favorites, but I also have a real affection for Golduck (Water + decent Special with access to Psychic? Yes please!) I know intellectually that Slowbro does everything Golduck does, but better. But I have a blue duck who’s taken his migraine meds, and that makes him awesome.
No Psychic for our duck in RBY :( Slowbro is objectively better, but I dislike getting outsped by everything. In FR/LF Golduck would be my pick over Slowbro.
For real. My team as a kid was basically Charizard, Butterfree, Pidgeot, girados, Dugtrio, and Kadabra. Random AF
You can say that about any pokémon game, and I'd argue in fact that later gens make it easier to have bad pokémon shine a lot more because of infinitely reusable TMs and stuff like the exp share so the mon doesn't get left in the dust, or how some mons can have funny niches thanks to abilities. Gen 1 with its terrible level-up movepools pretty much neccessitating TM usage imo punish using "your favourite mons" way harsher.
No shot this guy said “Don’t use Tauros”, despite the fact that it’s considered one of, if not THE strongest Pokémon in RBY (excluding Mew and Mewtwo)
Incredibly high crit chance, huge attack and speed, STAB on Body Slam and Hyper Beam (completely OP moves on their own in RBY)
It’s absolutely worth the hunt
Imo it's worth in Yellow
Snorlax is significantly buffed in campaign compared to OU. Longevity matters more because you have to fight so many battles between Pokecenters, and on top of its bulk, Snorlax comes with Rest pre-learned (which functionally only has one sleep turn in PvE due to the Pokeflute having unlimited uses). Given that Snorlax comes earlier as a guaranteed encounter, I think it's fair to consider it as basically outclassing Tauros.
@@globalistgamer6418 - Plus Snorlax comes with Amnesia the best move in the game. So it's possible to run Snorlax as a viable special attack sweeper. And this is the voice of experience here since I did that in a mono normal run in Pokemon Blue.
Yeah. Snorlax might not be the most optimal target for special TMs, but since it's easy to dupe them in RGB, that's a very reasonable option as well.
I prefer Body Slam Dodrio line which you get just next to the Fly TM house.
You DEFINITELY should do this with GSC and RSE
DEFINITELY doing it!
@@Genociplease!! I had so much trial and error growing up with those games, but now I wanna see a deeper analysis. This is great lol
Seviper
That could be very interesting to watch, as the viability rankings in Gen 2 can become very harsh, because of the scarce EXP. Johto has enough EXP to train just around 3 Pokémon to a decent level without excessive grinding before the Elite Four, instead of the usual 6 in other games.
RSE would be the most interesting I feel, just because so many of the available mons aren’t super far apart from other available options in terms of general power level just having availability as their biggest weaknesses, like for grass types the only ones that could be considered actually bad are Roselia and Gropius due to middling stats.
To be fair, the Marowak, Dugtrio, and Golem lines are the only ones who can learn Ground moves by level-up. Golem has 2 x4 weaknesses so it makes him not too bulky because of it, and Dugtrio dies in 1 hit normally anyways. I used to use Marowak because you only get 1 dig and 1 earthquake TM, which is then used up after their use. Bonemerang is the same strength, so you can save those TM's on a better pokemon for coverage, since Ground moves are such good attacking moves.
.... doesn't the dugtrio line learn some ground moves?
@@alecrutz956 yes. Editing now. Lol
I kept porygon on my team because his sharpen ability's description is hilarious. Reducing one's polygons to inflict more damage... in a 2D game...
Funnily enough, Pinsir is the best bug type in the game and has actually had a place in gen 1 OU because it is a good sweeper with a decent defensive typing in the tier because most fire and flying types don't function very well in the tier and resisting ground while not being weak to ice is very valuable. I know the video is based on a playthrough, but its still funny to me.
I used a Parasect in my first full play through of Blue. While it was terrible for most of the game, it's the perfect wall for the champ's Venusaur and I will never forget its one heroic moment.
I used it for Spore support
I survived my first encounter with Sabrina thanks to Spore and Leech Life. Virtually every other Pokemon with bug type moves is dual poison and thus weak to Psychic.
Impressive you even kept it up to champ. I wish they buffed it in modern games together with other gen 1-2 bugs. Parasect is such a cool design and concept bogged down by being an early gen bug
Lickitung has great value in the Japanese versions! The trainer named it after an "adult" artist in Red/Green. Worth it for that on its own.
The gen 2 version of this will really just be don't use 90% of the new pokemon because they are bad and don't evolve and when they do evolve they are still bad
I've already done a bit of research on it and this is true.
"Oh boy, I can't wait to explore Johto and catch one of those new Dark or Steel type Pokemon!"
And even the good ones are a pain to get.Heracross needs a fucking guide.
Heracross isn't even good for a playthrough, it gets no fighting stab at all, and no bug stab until endgame levels
Irony is a lot of the new Johto pokemon can only be found in Kanto. Would've loved to train up a houndour or larvitar before the E4 but Game Freak says no.
Pinser should totally have been able to learn Twin Needle. It has two pointy protrusions on its head after all.
Drives me insane that they decided to give the only decent STAB Bug move to an early game Pokemon that's weak to Psychic.
Karen: "Use your favourites!"
Actual data: "I don't think I will"
You can get a Dratini in Celadon Game Counter, for cheap enough to be able to afford it immediately.
That's true, but it's still not early enough to make it worth the hassle of training one imo.
Reminder that Aerodactyl didn't learn a single Rock move in gen I, could only use Ancient Power in gen II, and it took until gen III to get Rock Slide (and even then only via tutor). GF just really did not want the poor thing to have usable STAB for whatever reason
I love videos like this because all 3 Kanto Starters are strong enough to solo the entire game but the deep dive like this is fun. One error I noticed is that you failed to take into account that many Pokémon are available much earlier in Yellow version such as Venonat & Ponyta.
Glad you liked it! I only took the ones into account that were notable, since most differences in availability were either not worth mentioning (Venonat) or just straight up worse (Growlithe).
On the top of my head Kangaskhan, Tauros and Poliwrath are more viable in Yellow than in Red and Blue, but there are others like Magneton and Lickitung that get pushed to the late or post game.
I'm good with Yellow not being included. Yellow was made so easy that it takes a lot of fun out of the original games. If we're going to include Yellow then why not include tradeback moves as well? You can have an Abra with Thunderpunch before Misty, for example. I have no problem with it though; it's all arbitrary.
I feel like the gen 2 games list will be twice as long. I legitimately cannot understand how the phy special split wasn't a thing from the beginning.
Great video!
I just don't have any motivation to go back to work right now
It was an extremely different time for RPGs. And for as much as RBY are called broken, every other rpg had items that didn’t work, stats that were switched around, etc.
RBY were only 8-bit games
Probably something to do with it being impossible to program for a Game Boy game?
Among the bug types, scyther is the most useless imo. Its swords dance is useless because it has a greater chance of doing critical hits due to its speed, which cancels the attack boosts. It doesn't have STAB, and learns nothing but normal moves so it gets countered easily... the only thing going for it is slash, which is learned by a kajillion other mons.
Like, you're better off with beedrill or even parasect.
At least they're useful against guys like misty, erika, koga, sabrina etc, and agatha of all trainers.
Its gets Wing Attack in Yellow, but in that game, its 35 BP, so pretty bad even then. 😢
Your intro is a pitch perfect. Thesis, disclaimer, criteria. Within in a minute we’re already chomping in.
Thanks, that means a lot! I really try my best to keep it short, since an intro is the part of a video that gets skipped the most. People just wanna get to the meat of the video and it shows in the comments.
@19:24 Pinsir learns Seismic Toss, which can still damage Ghost in Gen 1. Seismic Toss/Rest/Body Slam (or Slash)/Swords Dance (or Submission) covers the entire game.
Seismic Toss is extremely weak though since it deals damage equal to your level. You can't even influence the damage with swords dance.
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."- Karen, Pokemon Gold/Silver.
If you're a fan of the gen 1 games, then try out the Fakemon ROM hack "Star Beasts: Meteor Version"!
Patch download: www.romhacking.net/hacks/7026/
Pokedex and important fights: ua-cam.com/play/PLga6v_fZGZ1pRqoBGyPBf_0gPUFgcbhiv.html
Itd be nice to see other hacks shown off. I remember one that was Gen 2 coded in Gen 1.
Lickitung is the only Pokémon that can swords dance in to STAB hyperbeam so it does learn something that sets it apart from its competition.
Bro really said Chansey is not worth using😂 I get that stall-happy Chansey isn't very fun to use, but with those stats it simply works. And on top of that you have a cool gimmick pokemon in your party.
@@ldmtag i mean if you want to use it, its fine. However, you have to use tms to make it work, since chanseys only attacks by level up are pound, double slap and double edge (at level 54), with a base attack of 5. a lot of the safari zone encounters suffer from this issue tbh, but none is as ridiculously useless as chansey without tms. the rhyhorn line only learns normal moves by level up, so does tauros, exeggutor doesn t get psychic except by tm etcetc. however, these at least "do something" with it. chansey does not.
so if you want to use chansey, no other team member gets ice beam and/or thunderbolt, so that s quite some commitment at least. technically soft boiled is also a tm, but only chansey and mew can learn it so using it has no real downside. so chansey deserves an asterisk at least. especially with how hard it is to obtain.
For comparison: snorlax gets body slam and hyper beam by level up, tauros is stuck with horn attack and stomp and takedown. rhyhorn only learns normal moves by level up, whereas the geodude line or sandslash line get earthquake by level up and geodude gets at least rock throw instead of rock slide. i think the level up movepool was not really taken into account. if it was, there is no way electrode is not the worst electric type, because it literally doesn t even learn an electric move - so you have to use the thunderbolt tm to even have a semblance of justification in using it.
Use Magikarp.
Lol
I'm glad you didn't put Butterfree in that list. Butterfree is defnitely MY niche up to Gen IV, as like you said, it evolves really fast, has pretty good stats overall, and also, have access to all the powders really early on (Sleep Powder is the lastest at I think 15), and Confusion that allows you to steamroll, then just as the damage output becomes lackluster, it learns Psybeam, and it's still good enough to carry you up to the point you get Psychic. Plus, in addition to that, it has a decent enough speed to literally outspeed like 80% of everything.
It's always in my party, no matter what. Venomoth can be granted as a little bit better overall than Butterfree, but it doesn't share the OP movepool Butterfree has, or at least not as fast.
Plus, in Gen III they introduced a whole ton of good Bug-type moves, like Silver Wind (60 base power w/STAB, and has 10% chance to pop a +1 stage to all stats), and it also gains access to Shadow Ball, which gives an amazing coverage. In Gen II it gained access to Sunny Day, which is amazing for a SolarBeam / Psychic combo. And it also can learn Hyper Beam, which is really good with the Pink Bow, if you're into that. It can also learn Mega Drain / Giga Drain, just like Venomoth, and also Toxic, has access to Reflect as well as Double Team, Mimic and Substitute, which can make a decent moveset in pretty much all situations.
Overall, I absolutely LOVE Butterfree.
This is obvious to most people but it just dawned onto me that Butterfree is a pseudo-psychic type because butterflies are *really* hard to catch with your hands. Like they know what you're going to do before you do it and they're great at confusing predators. Funny there are no wild Butterfrees with insanely high catch difficulties.
@@abominationdesolation8322 I totally agree. Butterflies tend to be really elusive - I think that's the word you wanted to use here - and most of them are able to melt into the environment to escape predators, or even use mimicry. I learnt a lot about butterflies over the years, and despite the fact I'm not a huge bug fan in real life, butterflies are really fascinating.
That being said, I can somehow put my finger on why Butterfree is pretty OP despite its lack of defense overall - keep in mind that Tajiri Satoshi, the creator of GameFreak, was, and still is to this day, a bug maniac - or bug catcher - and always had a little fondness for butterflies in particular. That is also why there is, in Crystal's Battle Tower, a trainer called Bug Catcher Tajiri.
I guess another reason why I'm so fond of Butterfree is the fact that I once caught a shiny Caterpie with Pokérus in Crystal (yeah I know, the odds were slim to none but hey, I can't complain since I'm really unlucky in real life) and with that little fucker I was able to literally obliterate Red's lvl 77 Snorlax, with my Butterfree at that point being only lvl 71. The trick is, if you're able to hit a sleep on his Snorlax before it uses Rest, it can't heal. :) Sure it can still use Snore or Sleep Talk, but even then, Butterfree can still tank 2 or even 3 of them. Ahhhh that little mofo haha 🤍
Butterfree is bonkers in Gen 3 Kanto remakes, as in addition to all the buffs you mentioned, it also gains the Compoundeyes ability that boosts its accuracy by 20. Meaning that the powder moves it learns now have *95* accuracy instead of *75*. 95% accurate Sleep Powder? Yes please.
Aweodactyl is actually better than you think, crits are based on speed, so it does do a lot of damage
Yea, but its moveset is really terrible in gen 1. No rock slide or earthquake really hurts.
I love hearing how bad parasect is, especially since just last year I played yellow for the first time and not only destroyed Sabrina with my parasect, but took it all the way to the elite 4 with nothing but good results!
I will have to disagree regarding Farfetch'd. It is still very valuable as an HM slave.
And I would also like to emphasize what you said at 24:07 - Fire types are redundant in Kanto, that's the sad truth, the "pill that is hard to swallow" as some would say. Even Charizard is pointless.
Fire is super effective against Bug (which is irrelevant), Grass (which also becomes irrelevant after Erika) and Ice (which is a rare type, out of which only Jynx and Articuno take super effective damage).
You are better off using Ice types against Grass (well, what few Grass types are left after Erika) or more so, the Ice Beam TM that you can easily obtain in Celadon City's Department Store. Furthermore, Ice type moves can cause the Freeze status, which is a free KO unless you hit them with a Fire move and cause them to thaw out. Psychic is also a great choice, as every relevant Grass type is part Poison type.
Against Ice types, you are better off using Electric types, as most of them are part Water anyway; or Grass types, since the Ice type does not resist Grass. Fighting is a horrible type in Gen 1, I wouldn't recommend it.
You _can_ reach Cinnabar Island with only three gym badges without glitches (Pewter, Cerulean, and Fuchsia), so you can get Fossil Pokémon early if you want to.
You can get exactly five Moon Stones in the Gen I games without glitches or more if you use the infinite items glitch, so you don't need to worry about running out of them-especially since two are in Mount Moon, two more can be obtained with access to Cut, and the last can be had with access to Surf. You can run both Wigglytuff and Clefable if you really want to, which isn't a bad thing since Normal is one of the best types in Gen I given how terrible most Fighting-type moves are and how good Hyper Beam is.
Game Freak missed an opportunity to make Krabby and Kingler good answers to Psychic-types: had they been given Water/Bug typing and their signature move Crabhammer been Bug-type, they'd have been great for taking on Sabrina. Likewise, Ponyta and Rapidash should've had Fire/Normal typing for STAB Normal moves, and Pinsir should've been Bug/Fighting.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Dewgong. Not only is it completely outclassed by Cloyster and especially Lapras, you are given Lapras for free and not too long after you get access to Dewgong.
This is false. Seel/Dewgong comes at a great time for the next two Gyms at appropiate Levels. Meanwhile, Lapras is at Level 15 at Gym 6. No thanks. FRLG changed this by buffing Lapras to Level 25 when you get it.
good to see a little bit of common sense somewhere on this page@@RinaShinomiyaVal
You would typically get Lapras SIGNIFICANTLY before Seel becomes available (Silph Co versus Seafoam Islands). Not only do you have time to level up Lapras, it will have even higher effective stats in the long term due to additional EV gains.
Or you could just not baby a Pokemon that can barely fight and pick up a higher leveled one later. No one is saying that it isn't an option, but to suggest that Lapras is the only good option because you choose to ignore reasons that exist to use something else is stupid, especially when "completing Silph Co" and "Seafoam Islands" are not only generally right next to each other in progression, but you can do Seafoam Islands BEFORE Silph Co to begin with.@@globalistgamer6418
@@globalistgamer6418 Lapras is a decent pokemon, but Dewgong outclasses it in speed and defense.
Porygon: Hey I got mentioned as one of the other normal types you can catch before Lickitung at 2:05! That means I'm safe right?
2:57 Next up is Porygon.
Porygon: oh...
Man... the time you need to use to evolve Abra to Kadabra through EXP leeching you can already sweep through half of the game with Mr. Mime.
And this is not because evolving Abra takes time (it's not that much), but because Mr. Mime is an absolute beast. AND, it receives boosted Exp. It's literally one of the best Pokémon to use on the game, if not *the* best, but Top 10 at least.
I have a bad(?) habit of being set on my team by the third or fourth badge, and rarely change out any new captures, so the 'too late to have an impact' section really hits home with me 🤣
Early Pokemon will always have an advantage because of stat EXP or EVs, but there are still lots of cases where it's worth switching over to a late game mon. On the top of my head I'm thinking of Swellow -> Skarmory in gen 3.
loved the editing. nice to look at and easy to follow. id love to see this for some other older games
GSC will be the follow-up video!
@@GenociGSC will be the entire dex 😂😂
I'll try to make it somewhat interesting to watch 😅
It's cute and built good
25:04 "Don't use Magmar. It's better to use Arcanine. Speaking of Arcanine, this good boy has it really _ruff."_
loved the video, you explained it so well, like "this is why it sucks, and here are better options" also the visuals are very nice too, greatly expecting the gen 2 version
I'd argue Twineedle is overall better than Pin Missile for Beedrill. Also how frustrating that Pinsir and Scyther never got Twineedle, even at a high level, in spite of having 2 scythes/pincers lol. Parasect overall is not good but all it needs to do is tank one hit for the Spore and then get to work. Great vid though
I would never understand why a common pokemon like tentacruel is 100 times more viable than rare Pokemon like Pinsir or lickitung. Is just insane how much gen one was unbalanced
yeah they really messed bug moves up. But they learned and got better :D
@gabrielmarchena1755 Tentacruel actually stays surprisingly good in the upcoming generations.
@KarlaO711 U-Turn intensifies
@@Genoci can you do a version on GSC ? I think this situation of later availability for some pokemon is even worse in gen two
@gabrielmarchena1755 Yeah I wanna take a shot at GSC, but other commenters have made it pretty clear to me that it's general knowledge how bad Johto mons are haha.
Common pokemon. Magikarp literally every body of water and a glass of water. Turns into an absolute monster. At least you have to train it. Unless it's later in the game.
It's also funny there's a quote prof oak says about using your master ball on a powerful Pokemon like tentacruel or fearow 😂
Nidoking is my top pokemon to use in a speed run
Earthquake
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Surf
all great moves
I WATCHED THIS VIDEO 4 MONTHS AGO?!
@@Patrious_WoWI feel you bro. Happens to me all the time
@@RyumaXtheXKing dude my brain is turning to mush and i dont know why. i use to have the sharpest mind and quick reflexes, now i am just "derp"
The production value is insane, really good video. You earned a sub.
You can catch safari zone pokemon really easily by using a similar glitch to how you encounter Missingno.
every area that you can catch pokemon in the game has an ID that determines what pokemon can be encountered there, EXCEPT the water to the right of Cinnebar Island. Cinnebar Island will just use the ID of the last area (in which you could catch pokemon) you were in. All you have to do is pay to get into the safari zone, immedietly fly to Cinnebar Island and surf on the left bank, and it will allow you to catch safari zone pokemon using normal catching mechanics
That applies to all areas too! I got two extra Mewtwo with that method.
@@AudioGAWD I can't believe that works with legendary pokemon also. No way. Is that right?
@@guilhermebmagalhaes It did with me anyway, I never tried it from anywhere else besides the Safari Zone or Unknown Dungeon
Imo, the case for using lickitung or farfetched is the fact that they are traded mons and thus grow so much faster.
Sure, lickitung is gonna be utterly outclassed by a snorlax at the same level, but the same amount of xp will net you a much higher level traded lickitung than slow growth rate snorlax. Fearow vs farfetched is similarly nuanced, especially with farfetched learning swords dance
Dude never stop making these videos, they are so entertaining
Just getting back from lunch, pepper steak fixed in a lil bit different way
also i think rhydon deserves to be on this list, since it's far later in the game than golem, is only in the safari zone, has a horrible level up movepool, and is slow to raise to boot
Hmm maybe you're right. It's very strong, but with Dig and Rock Slide, it has many great matchups left. Though, Graveler, Sandslash and Dugtrio can also take care of Blaine, Silph Co. and Koga with ease.
@@Genoci fair! also, much enjoyed the video and would be very excited for a look at gen 2. i think in RBY, any pokemon except ditto/lickitung? is at least usable, but in gen 2 there are a lot of mons who you really REALLY get punished for using lol
There's one thing you're forgetting about in this video: the badge boost glitch. In gen 1, every 2nd badge would apply a small multiplier to a stat when received (ie. The Boulder Badge boosts your attack by 1.2x, and the Volcano Badge boosts your special by 1.2x). There was a glitch that occured thanks to this mechanic. Whenever a Pokemon would use a boosting move, it would reapply the boosts from the badges that you'd already obtained as well as the stat buff you just used. This makes moves like Agility, Swords Dance, or even Harden and Defense Curl downright amazing in gen 1, and so ability to learn a boosting move immediately makes a Pokemon much MUCH better than they otherwise would be.
The creator literally mentions this multiple times
Fixed in a lil bit different way
No he didn't @@findling1
Great video, very useful. Can’t wait for GSC.
I'll try my best for GSC, since GameFreak thought it was a good idea to make 90% of Johto mons unviable.
I know right, what were they thinking lol
In Mr. Mime's defense, it can better take advantage of the badge boost glitch since it actually has boosting moves.
You are definitely sleeping on Chansey. Chansey should not be used as a Snorlax but as a special attacker. I like to use it over Clefable and Wigglytuff because of the HP. It tanks hits a lot especially in its special.
The main problem is that it will likely take hours to catch just one Chansey when you can catch it during the main story. It's stuck in the Safari Zone where it will run away after a few attempts of catching the Pokemon. The easier option only unlocks after the champion is defeated. So unless you trade a Chansey, maybe one bred in generation II, you're not getting one easily during the story.
Maybe that's why he doesn't think it's a good option. Maybe he thinks people like me who will go out of their way to get a Chansey during the story is a rarity.
@@MatthewCenance I agree on that one, but Chansey IS a beast in gen 1.
@@TimBeimer Yeah, use special stat based attacks and you're good to go. No need to use physical attacks on Chansey. Also use Soft-Boiled for self healing with no items, as well as healing your other Pokémon outside of battle.
right as i was watching this, you reached 10k !! congrats !!
Thanks a bunch!
I submit that Lickitung is even *worse*. To get a Slowbro you must first procure Slowpoke, which is not available until you get SURF any way you look at it, which you don't get until just after where you'd trade for Lickitung. And then you have to hunt for it and then also evolve it. And this is the point where you're entering the last half of the game.
Fun side note, in Yellow, you can trade one to someone (instead of teading for) on Rt. 11 for... A dugtrio... A pokemon you can not only evolve, but also find in the wild, before the the third gym. It's literally right by the trader. For a pokemon you can't even get until you beat the E4. I just thought that was funny.
Sick edits! 😮
May your channel grow! 👍
Great video, subbed. I hope your channel grows!
I had a Prima strategy guide that recommended using Parasect with Spore, Growth and Leech Life, as a Pokemon dedicated to countering Psychic types, specifically Mewtwo. And I believed it because I was eight years old. So stupid. Especially when Mewtwo has Blizzard
I remember that... It was actually better than other guides at the time in terms of what they thought the competitive meta would be like, but on this point they just tried too hard to find some kind of build that could actually leverage Bugs being 'strong' against Psychic instead of just accepting that Bug was completely under-realized to the point of being useless.
This is an awesome video. Very useful!
I think a video like this exemplifies the flaws with early pokemon balancing. The big draw, the whole marketing campaign, is about the vast array of creatures to capture. But when you really analyze it, so many mons are redundant, poorly made, and worthless. They have no substance under their fun design.
When you put the kids game under a strict lens of min-maxing your run, you remove a lot of the personality from it. Its a shame that so many mons are just downgrades of eachother, but luckily the game is easy even for children to beat, so im sure no one noticed their pidegot was subpar.
One other thing that made it seem impressive is that other RPGs at the time had even worse balance (by a lot). Many of the RBY Pokemon tended to outclass each other, but within relatively close parameters that you wouldn't really be able to analyze until you had already beaten the game, and nearly all of them other than Mewtwo had some kind of reasonable check or counter. Whereas contemporary Final Fantasy games would often have build options that were blatantly OP or almost no drawback (like should I use Materia to double my HP or not?), or just generally fail to design encounters where you really need to use anything other than the universal Attack option and some kind of healing spell.
A few notes here:
- You can get Rapidash earlier in Yellow by catching a Ponyta on Cycling Road.
- Chansey is fucking busted and it's 100X better than Wigglytuff. It's HP and Special makes it a brick wall and it has a fantastic movepool with a hard-hitting Ice Beam and Thunderbolt. Soft-Boiled gives it great sustain.
- Muk isn't as bad as you make him out to be. Minimize gives it great cheese opportunity.
- Mr. Mime isn't the best option as a special attacker, but it can be a great tank if it can set up with Barrier and Light Screen. It can use Seismic Toss to attack.
- Pidgeot's access to Quick Attack, where Dodrio and Fearow does not, should not be understated. Additionally, if you have a Pideot in your team, by the time you have access to Dodrio, your Pideot will already be fully EV trained in a casual playthrough and if you ditch it for a Dodrio that late, it likely won't be as strong.
The Missingno glitch makes any Pokemon into a maxed out beast.
Just do the infinite item glitch for rare candy, along with all the stat boost items like iron and calcium, then boom:
you got a level 100 maxed out Pokemon that'll one hit anything.
It's been said many times, but Onix is more or less strictly in the game as a boss pokémon. It's a stat check for a special move or a fighting move. It's faster than any of the early pokémon except Mankey, which it speed ties in absentia of stat experience and overleveling. It resists normal, which all of the starters have as their first move with scratch and tackle, and its defense is so high that leveling up only does so much for the physical moves of the early game. And crucially, there is not a lot of money in the game between Pallet Town and Pewter City before you're walled off by the guy who blocks the next route.
In short, you're forced to fight Brock when you're pretty weak, and unless you've unlocked your first special attacking move or caught a 'mon with a fighting move, you're completely screwed because it knows bide, and that can be pretty bad if you can't take it out before the bide counter reaches 0. You also have 0 TMs or HMs to use at that point. Once you beat him, you gain access to the rest of the game and are free to level a lot, make lots of money, and explore a lot of the map. If Brock just spammed Bide on his Onix, Charmander would have a LOT of trouble soloing the fight at a reasonable level.
On the subject of Hitmonchan, though. I think it suffers from "pokémon RBY are incredibly unfinished games" syndrome. I think it's a relic of a proposed expanded use of the speed stat which likely included things like how many times a multi-hit move hits, accuracy, and crit chance that's based off of speed differentials of the 'mons in battle instead of base speed. Look at its starting set. Comet punch and Agility. I can imagine a world where Hitmonchan came out as a lead, set up agility and you just never hit it while it drops 5+ hit combos on you every turn that almost always crit. Almost every unfinished system in the game was thrown into one place: The Celadon Department Store. Why is submission trash? Unfinished. Counter? Unfinished. Stat Experience vitamins and the systems around them? Unfinished, *obviously*. Why is Double Team so busted and available to every Pokémon that can learn TMs? Because it was thrown in last second to mimic the effect speed differentials would have had on the game, it's unfinished.
Beautifully written. I always resorted to Butterfree with Confusion to beat Brock whenever I picked Charmander. Using a Special move is pretty much mandatory, I kinda wish there were more than 2 viable options to catch in the wild.
Also, interesting thoughts on Hitmonchan. They could've been lazy and switch its Special and Attack around, but they didn't. In GSC it gets 110 Sp.Def, so it would've been perfect to give it 110 Special in RBY and take it away in the next game.
@@Genoci that woulda been classic gamefreak with the spatk spdef split. There's a ton of evidence that speed was originally meant to govern accuracy, but my biggest piece of evidence is the accuracy of the non-grass elemental capstone moves. Hydro pump, fire blast, thunder, and blizzard. If you take the average speed of the gen 1 Pokémon of each of those types compared to the average speed of all Pokémon, you'll see that at base values, those moves with their gen 1 accuracies would hit the average pokémon 100% of the time.
The reason thunder has such garbage accuracy is because electric pokémon are very fast and they were prematurely balancing the moves for a world in which speed governed accuracy. But we never got that world where Aerodactyl would have been an evasive, offensive beast.
It also explains why so many fast pokémon learn agility as one of their capstone skills. It's why farfetch'd has such terrible stats and why most of the birds suck.
Pidgeot makes probably the best lead in the game if accuracy and speed are linked and if whirlwind actually worked.
I agree with the first section with Onix.
@@ZerglingOne1 Very interesting theory I never heard about. I do think an extra stat like dexterity, which influences accuracy, crit, multi hits etc, would be interesting and give more ways to balance the mons.
@@RyumaXtheXKing But that's almost exactly what Dexterity does in for example, D&D. It is your hit chance, your initiative (who goes first), and your dodge chance. The only one it doesn't cover is crit, but as stated before, in gen 1, base speed *already* governs crit chance. Plus, looking at a dodge as a negative-crit is one way of looking at it. When you crit in pokémon, you basically deal 100% extra damage...in gen 1 not so much, but still. A miss is -100% damage.
I also surmise this is why the slow, but strong 'mons feel so absolutely powerful a lot of the time. Think Slowbro and Snorlax. They hit like trucks, have great move pools, and their speed barely hinders them at all. They also both happen to get Swift because Swift can't miss. And in a world where a fast 'mon dodges more, the move that can't miss is important.
find myself subbing and liking pokemon videos more and more everyday, i really love the editing done
I _always_ use Scyther in every generation. Nothing wrong with keeping my favorite Pokemon in, regardless of it's typing.
Theres a few games where Scyther is good in game. Scyther is top tier on game in HGSS. Technician boosted Wing Attack/Pursuit, high Base Attack and Bugsy provides U-Turn for chip damage. Outclasses its evolution with matchups considered. Also is a good Pokemon in Legends:Arceus where base forum is usable for a long time and its two evolutions are top tier battlers.
Growlithe is available route 8 i think. Right in the grass next to Erika.
I've beaten the game so many times, I intentionally use these kind of Pokemon just to spice things up.
Exactly!
Almost 30 years after release people still find interesting stuff to make a good and entertaining video of. Good work!
Amazing video, you turned up at my recommended feed and now I’m subscribed
Oh it did? Oh okay
Wow, cant believe most of my favorite pokemon are also the weakest,
Pidgeot, Venomoth, Golduck, and Rapidash
I think he underrated Pidgeot too much. You basically have to teach Fly for convenience anyway, so it's not bad to have to rely on it as an attacking move, being slightly worse in attack than Fearow to have superiority in all other stats is not ideal but is usable, especially since Mirror Move can use Special offensively, and being available super early is an effective stat buff relative to Dodrio, etc due to more EV gain. I think Fearow is easier to exploit and probably overall better across the game, but Pidgeot is probably more stable to maintain in the endgame and certainly a viable option rather than clearly outclassed.
@@globalistgamer6418 I use all these pokemon in my lets go pikachu playthrough and it works well, ESPECIALLY pidgeot
This guy's goin places
keep up the good work
Since we are aknowledging the glitches of gen 1, I think Safari mons and any Pokemon that requires grinding to be useful need reevaluation, these being: a glitch allowing you to encounter Safari mons by surfing along east coast of Cinnabar Island, and of course MissingNo, allowing you to duplicate Rare Candies, skipping any grind you'd need to do. Both glitches are well known (especially MissingNo) so a player might be coerced to use them even in a casual playthrough.
Oh, and shout out to the Mew glitch. You bet I'm gonna use Mew in casual playthrough.
I think it’s more fun to get other mons with the mew glitch, personally. Early lapras is dope.
Also as I recall...by the time you can get an Electabuzz, you can keep going and get a Zapdos right?
I left out the legendary birds on purpose, but yes. It's even possible to reach Zapdos without encountering Electabuzz.
@Genoci That's fair! I went to the power plant just for Zapdos and didn't even run into an Electabuzz the first time lol
I would say this, finding the pokemon in the safari zone is not as bad as some may think, though catching still remains just as annoying. All you really gotta do is keep turning your character around without leaving position and you will still encounter pokemon that way. do that in each zone that contains a rare mon and you'll be set. Of course the main drawbacks to the rare ones are that they either need tms (if capable) to make up for their shallow movepool, or they will be around late game for when they can evolve.
Nice break down, overall. The only thing I would disagree with are machamp and hitmonlee for being useful, and chansey for not being worth it. fighting types are worthless and by the time you come across most of them, they're either ok at best, or terrible at worst. that coupled with terrible movepool for their type makes them useless. As for chansey, I still find it worth it if lucky enough to catch one. It's THE go-to special wall (and bruiser thanks to special being one stat) in a game that's predominantly special type. the only ones that are not special are mainly ones that are not a threat, at least not due to their type. Also, it has one of the more reliable means to recover.
I am not sure how EV’s or DV’s (or whatever they’re called) work in Gen 1, but in Growlithe’s case you can teach it dig (Arcanine has great attack, so it won’t be wasted) and keep knocking out gastly in the tower. It levels pretty quickly and if I am not mistaken, killing gastly boosts your special stat.
Loved the video. I agreed with most of what was said here and as an avid Gen 1 player (RBY and FRLG) it's actually surprising how much better a lot of these Pokemom got in Gen 3. Arbok getting access to Intimidate, for example, makes it a lot better. Grimer being available in Celadon makes it a lot more useful as it is a pretty reliable answer to Erika's gym, stuff like that.
I'm also surprised that you didn't have a segment for Dewgong. It's entirely outclassed in it's role by Lapras, who is available in Saffron City while Dewgong is locked all the way in Seafoam Islands.
I find videos like this kind of strange yet still informative. People should use whatever they want in casual playthroughs. Using the same best Pokemon every playthrough is incredibly boring.
I say near the end of the intro that you should just use what you want. I made this video because I like to research stuff about Pokemon
Love all the work you put into the visual effects
I wonder how the developers decide on such saturated movepools, useless types, and janky unbalanced stats...
Lickitung has a fun niche of being the only Pokemon to learn both Swords Dance and Hyper Beam with STAB. It's not exactly *good* at weaponizing this as it has the Attack of wet toilet paper, but it's something cool.