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I’ve always loved this game. It’s the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong, also sometimes referred to as “Donkey Kong ’94”. I talked about it more last time I played it, which I thought was maybe three years ago but it turns out it was FOURTEEN years ago. Cripes.
This time, I played it on the Switch’s Game Boy game service thingy, but it’s just the same game as it ever was before. It’s still really slick, and plays well to the Game Boy’s limitations.
After the credits, I loaded my game to find myself back at my house, where my mum offered me a rest, almost as if nothing had happened. The world seemed unchanged, as if my quest had never taken place. Sure, if I went to the gyms I’m sure I’d see my name listed, always below Quillum, but that was just a small detail.
The real prize was elsewhere, in a cave which had previously been blocked by someone warning me that it contained high-level pokémon and it was too dangerous for me to go in. Hah, no more, I’m the champion of the world, don’t you know? There is no pokémon too mighty for me to beat!
I stopped at a pokémon centre, picked up the master ball I’d been saving, and off I went.
Fighting through the cave was tricky. It was a proper maze, with multiple routes which meant that more than once I ended up back where I’d started. Moreover, the enemies in the cave were exclusively random encounters, with no trainers – meaning that when I quit out due to having sustained too much damage, I had to start again when I reentered, with only my knowledge of the route improving. In other dungeons, the trainers were the most difficult opponents, and once you beat them once, they let you past freely. No such grace from wild pokémon. Luckily, Vaporeon’s attacks were highly effective against many of the pokémon I encountered.
I collected a couple of new pokémon as I progressed, generally evolutions of those I have already captured, as well as some higher level monsters I could possibly use as trades in the future. And eventually I found an opponent standing tall on a mound in the deepest part of the cave.
The master ball actually made this a little anti-climactic. There was no attack from the level-70 opponent; no desperate juggling of revives and heals. I threw the ball, Mewtwo got in it.
And I think I’m done. There are quite a few pokémon which I could catch but haven’t, but getting those will require lots of grinding (for evolutions) or random luck (in the Safari Zone) and I have other things to be doing. Farewell, Pokémon Blue, it’s been a blast.
Going South seems to have been the right path, as I came across Cinnabar Island, the location of the seventh gym and also a large science laboratory and ruined house. I spent some time exploring the house, then went to the lab and had my fossil and amber studied and converted into pokémon – Kabuto and Aerodactyl. This gave me a couple of well-needed slots in the pokécentre item storage system, but I’m not sure I’ll actually find space for either of the new pokémon in my main team.
I went to Vermillion City, stopping in at my house on the way, and found that the gym leader had returned. It was Giovanni! Shock, amaze, horror. I am sure that the surprise would have had slightly more impact if I haven’t so easily defeated him twice already, and his pokémon roster was largely unchanged. His ground and rock monsters were defeated easily by Vaporeon and Zapdos, and I took the Earth Badge – completing my trophy cabinet – with little difficulty.
Greater difficulty was to come.
I went along routes 22 and 23, passing the guardians who checked each of the badges in my possession, until I got to the cave system known as Victory Road. Not a road, and not actually the location of victory. I battled through, with Haunter and Vaporeon doing the majority of the heavy lifting, and managed to manipulate the current in the basement to enable me to find Moltres. Tempted as I was to swap the new bird to my team, I had too much emotional connection with Charizard, and fire types aren’t actually as powerful as you’d expect. I found myself at the end of route 23 in the Indigo Plateau, and I healed up, bought a lot of revives, potions, and heals, and I set off for the Elite Four.
On Pokémon LeafGreen I managed to defeat the Elite Four, after many attempts, only to be foiled by the final battle against my rival. That was the furthest I’d ever managed to get, until I managed to complete Pokémon X. As such I was pretty anxious as I made my way into the first battle arena, and this feeling didn’t disappear since Lorelei proved herself to be a formidable foe with her water and ice monsters taking a lot of strategy to take down. Eventually, however, she fell, and the next three trainers were dispatched with comparative ease. Lance was a little tricky, with his dragon-type pokémon, but Dugtrio in particular dealt a lot of damage in each turn.
And then it was on to the champion; my rival who had beaten me to the position. I have no idea why I named him Quillum, but it mattered not. I was expecting an incredibly difficult battle, but I chose my team well so each opponent took a maximum of two hits before fainting.
I won. I beat Pokémon Blue. I saw the credits roll, I had my team entered in the hall of fame, I saw a very definite final screen before the game reset to the title screen.
Of course, that’s not quite the end. I’ve only caught 70 different pokémon of the 150 available, and even if not all of them are going to be obtainable (since I have no friends with the 3DS games) there’s at least one I have my sights on …
Going South seems to have been the right path, as I came across Cinnabar Island, the location of the seventh gym and also a large science laboratory and ruined house. I spent some time exploring the house, then went to the lab and had my fossil and amber studied and converted into pokémon – Kabuto and Aerodactyl. This gave me a couple of well-needed slots in the pokécentre item storage system, but I’m not sure I’ll actually find space for either of the new pokémon in my main team.
I then tried to head to the gym, only to find out that it was locked and the key wasn’t nearby. It was, in fact, nearby – but in the ruins of the Pokémon Mansion, evidently in an area I hadn’t found. I went exploring again, and almost by coincidence I fell off the edge of one of the upper floors and landed in an area that was otherwise inaccessible. Working through the rest of the mansion – with regular attacks by ponyta and other fiery pokémon – meant that Vaporeon was catching up with Dugtrio as being massively overpowered. I got the key, went to the gym, and Vaporeon killed everything with a mixture of surf and bubblebeam. Seven badges!
The route number to go south of Pallet Town was 21, and usually I would then assume I should be following 22 – which is a route West from Vermillion City. However that route is the path to the Elite Four, and there were parts of the map that I hadn’t explored. In particular, the power plant up in the North East corner; and routes 19 and 20 in the water along the South side. Both of these required a surfing pokémon. I decided to fly1 to Lavender Town first, to visit the power plant.
Unsurprisingly, there were hordes of electric pokémon waiting for me, which would have been scary were it not for Dugtrio, who merrily absorbed attack after attack while digging its way to victory. I collected Raichu here, because my own Pikachu seemed to be taking forever to evolve, as well as a few other electric types. At the end of the power plant I found Zapdos, who took ages to capture; I had to reduce its health slowly using normal attacks, to prevent it fainting, and then I used Weepinbell to send it to sleep to maximise capture chances. Even with a small sliver of health, paralysed and asleep, it still took multiple ultra balls to capture.
A level 50 Zapdos quickly replaced Pikachu in my party, particularly because it could learn fly and as such overcame one of the key weaknesses of electricity (against ground). At its next level, Zapdos learnt thunder, making it invaluable.
I then flew back down to Cinnabar Island, and set off to the East, with Zapdos and Weepinbell faring well against the water-type enemies. I came to the Seafoam Islands, and thought I needed to battle through the cave to get to the next route. Instead I found Articuno, who again put up a significant resistance to the pokéball before finally being caught. I decided not to add Articuno to my team, however, since it significantly overlapped with Vaporeon, and the quick attacks of the latter were useful for capturing.
Two of the legendary birds caught, then, and I’m not sure where I’ll find Moltres – the obvious place would be around Cinnabar Island, but it’s not there. I think my next stop needs to be the mystery eighth gym leader, in the newly reopened Vermillion City.
︎I have a feeling I am now at the point where I lost interest in Pokémon Yellow, and I recall feeling a little uncertain when I reached this point in Pokémon LeafGreen. When I last wrote, Pikachu was several levels higher than my other pokémon due to him fighting and defeating every enemy in the caves; I now have a similar problem with Dugtrio whose Dig (and now Earthquake) moves proved invaluable when scaling Pokémon Tower, and fighting the electrical enemies. I have progressed through the underground passages, obtained a silph scope (which allowed me to identify the ghosts in Lavender Town), fought Giovanni – the boss of Team Rocket, routed the inept baddies from Silph Co, woken Snorlax1 with a poké flute and then captured him, and found a mansion containing the programmers of the game.
My team is all around the high 30s, other than Dugtrio who is at 47, and I am having to resist the urge to just use him over and over again. I am fairly settled with a team of Dugtrio, Charizard, Weepingbell, Vaporeon, Haunter and Pikachu – waiting for a couple of them to evolve – but I’m aware that others may come along to replace them at some point.
Indeed, I’m not sure where I’m off to now. I have just obtained the SURF and FLY moves, but currently there’s no pokémon in my party who can learn FLY so I’m taking the opportunity to journey by foot and level up my companions some more. There are large areas to the south with oceans which were previously unreachable, so I’m heading home to see my mother and then onwards to the southern islands.
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