All right, it's about time I headed to Pewter City.
North frim Viridian City lies Route 2, a fairly ordinary road aside from the rather large forest running through it. Clearly someone at Kanto's road planning department needs to be fired for this. Technically there are two new Pokemon to catch here, but they're incredibly rare outside of the forest itself.
So, Viridian Forest. This place is a bit more complex than your regular routes, and it's full of Bug Pokemon. Therefore, there are new things to catch!
- Caterpie
: A Bug-type Pokemon. This here's the model for all early-game Bug-type Pokemon. It's not too strong, but it evelves very quickly, reaching its final form at level 10. I name mine Eyvel. She has a Gentle nature (Special Defense up, Defense down) and her ability is Shield Dust, which causes the secondary effects of damaging moves to sinply fail to go off. Her initial moves are Tackle and String Shot (a Bug-type move that lowers Speed by one stage).
- Weedle: A Bug/Poison-type Pokemon. It serves as a counterpart to Caterpie and is more physical-based. Weedle and Caterpie are both fairly similar, and both are designed to help players out in the early game—they evelve into their final forms early and are quite capable at this stage of the game. Anyway, I name my Weedle Stabby. He's got a Naughty nature (Attack up, Special Defense down—that's not bad for Weedle). His ability is Shield Dust. His available moves are Poison Sting (a weak Poison-type attack that can potentially poison you) and String Shot.
- Pikachu: Get Equipped with: Mascot Character! Pikachu's pretty tough to find in Viridian Forest, but the only other place to get one is much later in the game and I don't think I'm willing to wait. Anyway, Pikachu's a totally decent Electric-type Pokemon with very good Speed. I name mine Alessandro and immediately drop Flint for him. He's got a Hasty nature, which increases his Speed at the cost of his Defense. His ability is Static, which has a chance of paralyzing anything that uses a contact move on him (this got Monkeyball when I was catching him). His moves on capture are Thundershock (a basic Electric-type attack that can paralyze targets) and Growl.
I should note that while I was looking for a Pikachu, I took the opportunity to train Monkeyball up a bit. At level 6 he learned Low Kick, a Fighting-type move that does more damage the more the target weighs. This should come in handy soon enough.
Anyway, there's Pokedex entries to list now.
Caterpie: Worm Pokemon
"It is covered with a green skin. When it grows, it sheds the skin, covers itself with silk, and becomes a cocoon."
Weedle: Hairy Bug Pokemon
"Often found in forests and grasslands. It has a sharp, toxic barb of around two inches on top of its head."
That one's rather alarming, seeing as the Pokedex lists Weedle's height as one inch.
Pikachu: Mouse Pokemon
"It has small electric sacs on both its cheeks. If threatened, it looses electric charges from the sacs."
I could've also caught Metapod and Kakuna (Caterpie and Weedle's respective evolved forms), but they evolve early enough that I can just level them up normally instead.
Anyway, now to go through the forest. There are plenty of Trainers who challenge me along the way, though. They're mainly Bug Catchers who presumably just caught their teams—great experience for Alessandro. The best are the ones who use Metapod and Kakuna, because they only know Harden due to being caught in the wild rather than raised—that move increases Defense, and since Electric attacks are Special up until gen 4, Alessandro can zap them with no issues for plenty of experience. Not much money, though (you have to remember that these are kids so they're rather poor).
Rampaging through the forest rounds out Alessandro's moveset a bit. At level 6, he learns Tail Whip, which is rather useless since his attacks don'e even target the opponent's Special Defense. Level 8 gives him the much more useful Thunder Wave, which paralyzes any target that Electric attacks can hit—this one sees plenty of competitive use.
Anyway, after going through the forest I arrive in...
Pewter City -A Stone Gray City-
There are a few interesting things in Pewter City. The big one's the first Pokemon gym I can actually challenge, but there's also a museum to check out.
First, though, I fill out a survey at the local Poke Mart. This survey's the method to activate the Mystery Gift feature, which is how Pokemon taught kids everywhere to hate downloadable content and all it stands for. Therefore, instead of entering "LINK TOGETHER WITH ALL" (the Mystery Gift activation phrase), I enter "I DISLIKE EVENT POKEMON".
Next, it's time to check out the museum. Admission is only $50, so I might as well. Inside I can check out the fossils of a couple of extinct Pokemon, a meteorite that's believed to be a Moon Stone, and a model space shuttle that was originally labelled as Columbia in Red and Blue until...
With that out of the way, I may as well take on the gym, which is led by Brock, "the Rock-Solid Pokemon Trainer!" I think you can already guess what type he uses.
Inside the gym, I find a guy who would normally give me advice if it wasn't so painfully obvious what type I'm up against here. There's also one trainer in my way who claims that I'm "teh thousand light-years from facing Brock." He starts off with a Geodude, a Rock-type Pokemon that's weak to Monkeyball's Fighting-type attacks. Quite weak, in fact—two hits do it in. His next Pokemon is a Sandshrew, which isn't actually Rock-type—I switch to Orville to deal with it, but he does so little damage that I immediately send out Furnace to roast it instead.
With that done, I come face to face with Brock, who has a decent amount of stuff to say.
[quoteblock]So you're here. I'm Brock. I'm Pewter's Gym Leader. My rock-hard willpower is evident even in my Pokemon. My Pokemon are all rock hard, and have true-grit determination. That's right - my Pokemon are all the Rock type! Fuhaha! You're going to challenge me knowing that you'll lose? That's the Trainer's honor that compels you to challenge me. Fine, then! Show me your best![/quoteblock]
So, now it's time to face Brock! He's the main brick wall for players who start with Charmander—Fire-types are weak to Rock-type attacks, you see. Luckily, I have Monkeyball around!
Brock's first Pokemon is a Geodude, which Monkeyball kicks around easily. He then sends out his Onix, which is a fair bit more intimidating. Luckily, while Onix is a powehouse, it's a defensive powerhouse that can't keep up with Monkeyball's attacks. It's also got rather low HP, so it falls fairly quickly.
With my victory, I receive the Boulderbadge, the first of the eight Badges I'll need to challenge the Pokemon League! It also has the secondary effect of letting me use Flash outside of battle, though I'll need to have something that knows Flash first.
Brock also hands out a TM, which I can use to teach a move to one of my Pokemon, though all TMs are single-use until gen 5. The TM he hands out here is TM39, which comtains Rock Tomb. This move does damage to the enemy and lowers their Speed, and Brock would've used it if I hadn't used a Pokemon that resists Rock-type attacks.
Incidentally, in Red and Blue, Brock hands out a TM containing Bide, a move that makes the user wait 2 turns before inflicting twice the damage they received on their opponent. Not the best move around, to say the least (which is why it isn't a TM anymore).
Next time, we'll head east from Pewter City, with the goal of reaching Cerulean City.
