Return to Kanto (Part 1) | Catching 'em all like it's 1998! (2024)

A Return to Kanto: Catching ‘em all like it’s 1998! (Part 1)​

UNMARKED SPOILERS ARE PRESENT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

But this thread is about a game that's almost 30 years old so you probably know the entire story lol
Also the story isnt anything to write home about but whatever

I’m gonna assume that unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re all familiar with Pokémon, the largest grossing media franchise in history. And, well, I hope you’re familiar with the fact that the game started on the Game Boy back in 1996 for Japan, and 1998 in the West.

Basically, I was bored one day, and decided to boot up a new save file of Pokémon Blue, with one mission in mind:

Gotta catch ‘em all!

And so, I decided to head off on my journey to become a Pokémon Master, as well as catching ‘em all along the way.

Though there are some rules:

1. Trading with other games is strictly forbidden. I am only using Pokémon Blue, with one save file, and nothing else.
2. Save corruption is not permitted. If you don’t know what save corruption is, a guide demonstrating it can be found here: How to beat Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow in 0:00 - Glitchfest

Aside from that, anything goes. In fact, we will need glitches due to Pokémon such as the starters that were not selected, trade evolutions, and Red Exclusive Pokémon otherwise being unobtainable without glitches or cheating devices.

This game was played on:
Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console (will be referred to 3DS VC for the rest of this thread)
BGB (GameBoy emulator for Windows / Wine)

Screenshots will be provided throught this thread, but don’t count on them. My smooth brain didn’t take many screenshots and you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Some screenshots may also have been sourced from other locations, such as secondary save files, or from just obtaining the screenshots from Google Images. However, these are only used because I could not obtain the screenshot from the original save (likely because i never made one lol).

The same save file was played across the 3DS VC and the BGB emulator, however the 3DS VC release shows the games in black and white (with an option to change it to black and green), while BGB allows the games to be played in full colour. If you see the game switch back and forth between colour and monochrome, now you know why.

Some BGB screenshots may also contain the game’s border (the blue rectangle outside of the game), while others won’t. As a rule of thumb, if it has colour, it’s coming from BGB.
If it’s black and white, it’s coming from 3DS VC.

Keep in mind screenshots were sorted by chronological order, not the order that they were taken, in order to help the thread flow better. Don’t get alarmed if the colours randomly switches to monochrome for one image.

Anyway, without further ado, let’s go.

Chapter 1: Our Journey Begins!​

After hitting that “NEW GAME” button on the title screen, I introduce my name to Professor Oak, and my desire to become a Pokémon Master.

However, my childhood rival, Tryfle, also shares my admiration to become a Pokémon Master.

Yep, it’s Tryfle, and she’s also getting their first Pokémon today.

After getting dropped into the overworld, walking into grass and getting dragged into the lab by Professor Oak who is scolding us for trying to go for a walk, we get to choose our starter Pokémon.

You already know my obsession with dragons if you’ve talked to me on here, you know which one I’m picking.

I opted to give all Pokémon I catch nicknames on this save file, like you would do when you’re doing a Nuzlocke. I gave my Charmander the name ABBY, nicknaming her after Abby the Charmander from Twitch Plays Pokémon.

Don’t worry if you forget what species one of my Pokémon is, I’ll specify the species when I’m talking about it.

Tryfle grabs a Squirtle, obviously to get that pesky type advantage against me.

She then goes and challenges me to a battle, which I triumph over her easily, with the help of Abby (Charmander).

She apparently picked the wrong Pokémon. Nah, you just have a massive skill issue.

We then head north to Viridian City, pick up and deliver Professor Oak’s parcel, and then me and Tryfle receive the Pokédex from Oak. Off we go on our journey to become a Pokémon Master!

After venturing around Route 1, Route 2, Route 22, and Viridian Forest, and after spending all of my life savings on about 15 Pokéballs, I end up with the following party:

1. Salty-Bird the Spearow (named after Culfre)
2. Culfre the Pidgey (ok i couldnt think of a second name for the Spearow im not biassed pls dont kill me nooooooo)
3. Sig the Caterpie (named after Sig from the Puyo Puyo games)
4. Tony the Nidoran♂ (named after Tony the Nidoran♂ from this anime episode: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/EP100)
5. Abby the Charmander (named after the Charmander / Charmeleon from Twitch Plays Pokémon)
6. Wylie the Pikachu (named after Tetris/Variety streamer WylieCantTwitch, https://twitch.tv/wyliecanttwitch)

Here’s the gang.

3 other Pokémon were also caught, listed below:

1. Barry the Weedle
2. Digrat the Rattata (named after digrat from Twitch Plays Pokémon)
3. Maria the Nidoran♀ (also named after the same anime episode where Tony’s name originates from).

After beating up Tryfle (which surprisingly took 4 of my Pokémon, yeah i’m not good at this game) on Route 22 and evolving Sig into a Metapod (pretend theres a screenshot here), we head off to Pewter City and attempt to defeat the Gym Leader, Brock.

problem number 1: i picked charmander as my starter

Why is this a problem, you may ask? Well, if you’re familiar with Pokémon (which i hope most of you are), you’ll know that Brock uses Rock Type Pokémon, specifically Geodude & Onix. (technically this makes him a rock/ground type trainer because geodude and onix are also ground type but whatever). Fun fact: Fire Type Pokémon are weak to Rock/Ground Types. Another fun fact: Squirtle and Bulbasaur have moves that deal 4x damage to Rock type pokémon.

So why did I pick Charmander, you may ask? Well, fun fact, what are the best mythical creatures? See attached image:

If you don’t play Pokémon, I’ll just let you know that you’ll understand during Part 2.

I opted to use Tony (Nidoran♂) to beat up both Geodude and Onix, and it worked. Culfre (Pidgey) did apparently have to come out to finish up the job though.

With that, we’ve gotten the Boulder Badge and can head off to Route 3, after a long trek.

Chapter 2: Oh god Misty & Mt. Moon are a pain in the butt​

With a brand new shiny badge on my Trainer Card, I head off onto Route 3, and beat up all the trainers on the route.

Around this time, Sig evolves into Butterfree (pretend another screenshot is here i didnt take enough screenshots ill take more for thread 2), it’s final stage evolution.
I also head into the grass, finding and catching Candyfloss the Jigglypuff.

Taking a quick break in the local Pokémon Center, we find this man trying to scam me sell me a swell Magikarp for the low, low price of ₽500!

(ignore the low res, stole this from the internet)
I take him up on his deal and give my Magikarp the name Hydra, replacing Salty-Bird (Spearow). One problem with this Magikarp: It only knows Splash, a move that does nothing.

That’ll change at Level 15, I promise!

Anyway, onto Mt. Moon!

While we’re in Mt. Moon, I go and catch the following Pokémon:

Cinderella the Clefairy, and:
Paris the Paras (you can tell im very good with names!)

I opted to replace Sig (Butterfree) with Paris (Paras) because we’ll need a Grass type Pokémon for the next Gym battle. There’s only one problem…

Paris only knows Scratch. It got replaced very quickly by another Pokémon that I’ll talk about later.

However, Mt. Moon wasn’t a quick rush in and out. Nope, Team Rocket is up to no good, trying to nick the fossils in Mt. Moon and sell them for money!

Luckily I beat most of them up, however this grunt… was a real pain in the ass.

This little bugger has a Level 16 Raticate as their only Pokémon. While that doesn’t sound like a big deal, did you know this Raticate knows Hyper Fang (a move that just rekt all my pokémon) and Quick Attack? Did you also know that my Party was weakened a lot from getting through all of the previous trainers?

Yeah we blacked out and got sent kicking and screaming back to the pokecenter because i suck

He also nicked half of my money because gen 1/gen 2/RSE game overs are much more punishing than FRLG / Gen 4+ game overs, you always lose half of your money upon blacking out! fun!

After heading back and whooping his ass (only to not get all my money back), and also beating up the greedy scientist, we are left with two options.

The Helix Fossil, or The Dome Fossil?

Let’s pray to Lord Helix, because we’re picking the Helix Fossil.

And now finally we’re out of Mt. Moon, and now we’re heading off to Cerulean City!
Also Culfre (pidgey) managed to get poisoned and died on the way to the pokemon center so f in the chat to them

Nothing a Pokémon Center can't fix!
After healing up my Party at the Cerulean City Pokémon Center, we head to Nugget Bridge and battle Tryfle.

Yep, she’s back. And… oh no that’s a Level 18 Pidgeotto.

I’ll spare you the details and just tell you I soft resetted.

Back into the grass to train up my Pokémon!
After a bit of training, we head off to the gym to battle Misty.

Her Staryu wasn’t that challenging, being defeated quickly by Wylie (Pikachu) hitting it with a Thunder Wave and a massive ThunderShock spam, however her Starmie…

I initially tried the same strategy with Wylie, however before I could even get the Thunder Wave off, Wylie got crit’d and got KO’d.

Aware that there was nothing any of my other party members could do, I ended up taking the loss and blacking out. Back into the grass we go to train!

After some training in the grass, we end up evolving Abby into Charmeleon and Culfre into Pidgeotto!

Ignore the snipping tool notification lol
We head up to Route 24, defeat the 5 trainers on Nugget Bridge, and grab the Nugget at the end from the Team Rocket Grunt who I then immediately beat up.

We head into the Route 24 grass to find and catch Agent Pea the Bellsprout (nicknamed after my main plant in PVZ GW2), replacing Paris the Paras. Yep, Paris didn’t last long on the team. However, something notable about Agent Pea is that he knows the move Wrap.

Wrap works a lot differently in Gen 1. Instead of just trapping the opponent and slowly decreasing their HP for a set amount of turns, it PREVENTS them from attacking, and continues your attack for 2-5 turns. This makes it so that having faster speed ensures that your opponent is practically unable to do anything.

The only downside of Wrap is that it has an 80% chance of landing. However, this only applies to the first Wrap in the series of attacks. Land it, and the rest of your Wrap’s have a 100% chance of hitting until the move ends.

Another fun fact: If you get a critical hit, all of the rest of your attacks in your move will be critical hits. Do I need to explain further why this move is overpowered?

Off we go to Route 25 to get to Bill and unmerge him with that Pokémon he “accidentally” merged himself with! (and also get the s.s anne ticket but no one cares about that)

We head off to train the team, and decide to take a second attempt at fighting Misty, now that we have a Grass Type Pokémon. Well…

…yeah it didn’t go great, I blacked out again.

(swear words were blocked out due to forum rules)

A little bit of training later, we beat Misty, getting the 2nd Gym Badge and the TM for BubbleBeam. Pretend theres a screenshot i didnt screenshot this ok

Off we go to Vermillion City!

Chapter 3: Local Trainer whoops the butt of War Veteran, more at 7​

But before we can get to that, let’s talk about the journey to Vermillion City!

We head off to Route 5, and end up finding a Meowth, which I nickname Twerp (after the nickname the meowth in the anime calls ash and the gang) and promptly shove it into the PC Box. I’ll probably evolve it into a Persian soon.

We take the Underground Tunnel to Route 6, and battle some trainers (including some couple that was mad at me for interrupting their conversation or something idk), and head off to Vermillion City.

Firstly, we pick up the Old Rod from the Fishing Gru who likes to fish. So now I can fish up… only Magikarp, and nothing else.

But then I pick up the Bike Voucher which allows me to get a Bicycle without having to pay a whooping ₽1,000,000!

After picking up the Bicycle in Cerulean, cycling back to Vermillion, then healing up the team and heading into someone’s house, I decide to trade away Salty-Bird the Spearow for the home owner’s Farfetch’d named Dux.

And as you expected, Dux is going straight into the PC lol

After healing up our party, we shove the S.S.Anne ticket into the guys face and get onboard the S.S.Anne, and the passengers are wanting to battle me because idk they don’t battle or something idk. Then guess who shows up? Tryfle.

We get into a battle, and all of my Pokémon are KO’d, except one last Pokémon.

Hydra, my Magikarp.

Everything seems lost, it looks like Hydra is going to go down, but then…

Hydra’s Tackle lands a critical hit, defeating Tryfle’s Wartortle.

Then the Captain gives us HM01 (Cut) for helping him recover from Seasickness and we go on with our merry day’s, getting of the boat before it sets sail.

You might think I now go and battle the Gym Leader, but nope, he’s got Electric type Pokémon. My team isn’t gonna cut it.

Due to this, I head off to Diglett’s Cave to capture a Diglett, which I nickname Mantle, and replace Tony (my Nidorino).

Now we’ve got the stuff to take on Lt. Surge.

Off to the gym!

And before we can battle the leader, we have to solve this stupid puzzle… so yeah.

So basically, the first switch is randomly placed in a tile that is located in a checkerboard pattern, beginning from the top left bin. Once you manually check all 8 bins, then the 2nd switch is somewhere around that first bin, and you have to guess. Guess wrong? Too bad, you’re checking all 8 bins again, and the cycle repeats until you guess correctly for the 2nd switch.

After checking the bins for like 2 minutes, we go and battle Lt. Surge.

I lead with Mantle (Diglett), and considering I’m sending out a Ground Type Pokémon against a bunch of Electric Types.. you can imagine how well that went for Lt. Surge.

Yep, Mantle (Diglett) whooped his butt six ways from Sunday, and I get my 3rd Gym Badge: The Thunderbadge.

Chapter 4: Gambling is Fun!​

According to some people, it’s fun.

But before we can begin our gambling addiction, we need to get to the casino.

Obviously we have to head to Route 11, where we have to beat up a bunch of gamblers who have been clearly doing what we are trying to do. While we’re beating up the gamblers, Hydra evolves into Gyadaros!

I also catch a Drowzee that I name Orbitor (no screenshot because I kept it in my party and its already evolved), replacing Culfre (Pidgeotto). Orbitor which is going to be really useful because in Gen 1, Psychic types are only weak to Bug Type moves (of which there are only 3 damaging moves, all three of them are rubbish)

(ignore the border, was messing around with the 3DS VC settings)
We get to the end of Route 11 and… there’s a Snorlax blocking my way to Route 12.

I’ll catch it later, but we need to get to Celadon City so that we can gamble.

Forced to head back up to Cerulean City, we head right and cut down the tree with Agent Pea the former Bellsprout (iirc now Weepinbell) and head onto Route 9… and we’ve already beaten all of the Trainers there, and now we’re at the Pokémon Center outside of Rock Tunnel.

We get the HM for Flash, and I opt to teach it to Wylie (Pikachu), mostly because iirc he was the only member on the team that could learn Flash, but also so that he has a status move that isn’t Thunder Wave. Off we go into the Rock Tunnel!

As we beat up all of the trainers in the Tunnel, I go and capture the following Pokémon:

Karate Man the Machop, and Vision the Zubat.

Off they both go into the boxes!

We arrive at Lavender Town where there’s a massive tower, and a Pokémart which sells Great Balls and Super Potions. Don’t mind if I do!

We can’t enter the Pokémon Tower, due to not being able to ID the ghosts. Well, we can, but we just can’t battle any of the ghosts. Oh well.

I instead opt to head west onto Route 8, and catch Cdv the Vulpix (nicknamed after u/Cdv3, really like his r/PokeMedia storylines, yep im a redditor lol).

And finally, after taking the underground path, we finally reach Celadon City, where I promptly heal up my Pokémon and rush to the Game Corner to find… I don’t have a Coin Case and can’t gamble.

However, a guy in the local restaurant wasted all of his money at the casino and has decided to give me his Coin Case so that we can gamble. I would like to mention at this point that the playable character in Pokémon Red / Blue / Yellow is canonically under 11=8 years old.

So yep, a minor is just casually walking into a casino and gambling while none of the people there bat an eye. Doesn’t make sense but ok.

Picking up the coins left on the ground, we begin with about 300-ish coins. Now to begin gambling ft. a lot of save scumming!

Now, you’re probably asking the million dollar question: Why are we gambling?

Answer: By gambling in the casino, you can obtain prize Pokémon by earning enough coins from the slots. One of those prize Pokémon being…

Dratini!

If you don’t know why Dratini is important, well…
Dratini evolves into Dragonair. And Dragonair evolves into…

DRAGONITE!

And you should know that I LOVE Dragonite. Don’t believe me? There’s like 3 pages of search results if you look up my posts that contain the word “Dragonite”.

Anyway, there’s a big mistake I made: Playing Pokémon Blue instead of Pokémon Red.

Why is this a big deal? In Pokémon Red, you only need 2,800 coins to obtain a Dratini from the prize corner. In Pokémon Blue, this goes up to a whooping 4,600.
Yep, this is gonna take a while…

Pictured above: Hont getting ready to shove money into the slot machine after they reloaded their save, 2024

After a lot of gambling, I get bored and walk up to a poster to find… a Team Rocket Grunt guarding it. Then we promptly get into a battle in the middle of the casino while no one even bats an eye.

The grunt flees, and we follow him after unlocking the secret door and me and my party promptly go and beat up Team Rocket, obtaining the Silph Scope in the process.

Back to the Lavender Town, and time to enter the Pokémon Tower!

While I head up the Pokémon Tower, I go and capture a Gastly named Methane, and a Cubone named Patella (one of the bones on the kneecap).

After defeating Tryfle in a battle, calming down the deceased Marowak, and beating up the Team Rocket grunts at the top floor, we rescue Mr. Fuji from the grunts and head back down to his house, and receive the Poké Flute.

Heading back to Celadon City, I make a pit stop at the Pokémon Mansion in Celadon to grab an Eevee which I name Current. Judging by the name, can you guess what I’m evolving it into?

Artwork of the Eevee by me that was uploaded to Juxtaposition (Pretendo Network Miiverse)
before I gave it a Thunder Stone.

I then decided to replace Wylie (Pikachu), due to his role mostly being taken by Current when I gave it a Thunder Stone, causing Current to evolve into Jolteon.

WylieCantTwitch (the person the Pikachu is named after)’s reaction to the news:

And now back to gambling…

I’ll just spare you the details and tell you it took about 4-5 hours of gambling and save scumming to get to 4,600 coins.

All I did was just sit at the slot machine, mashing A (which is the best strategy for some reason), and hoping for the best.

After hours later… I got it.

I finally got the totally not illegally smuggled Dratini with only 3 Badges to my name. I nicknamed it Draco after my Dragonite Pokésona. (yeah you can tell how much i love dragonite lol)

I decided to replace Mantle (Diglett) and instead taught Abby (Charmeleon) Dig via a TM.

But there’s one last thing to do before we end off this thread, and that's to obtain the Rainbow Badge by defeating Erika.

The Celadon Gym (where Erika is located) is a Grass Type Gym, so I decided to let Abby (Charmeleon) take on the Pokémon by just spamming Ember and Dig.

I also let Agent Pea (Weepinbell) and Draco (Dratini) get some XP via Wrap Spamming. Dratini was especially useful for this, as it starts with Agility as one of its moves, allowing me to easily outspeed opponents and make me practically untouchable.

With the help of Abby, Agent Pea, and Draco, I defeat the trainers and Erika, obtaining the 4th Gym Badge, the Rainbow Badge.

What a way to end off the thread!

Wait, you’re ending it now? There’s still half the game to complete!​

Ok, calm down, calm down. I know that we’ve still got half the game left to do + the rest of the Pokédex, but due to sheer length of this thread, I’ve decided to split the thread into 3 parts:

Part 1: Badge 1-4
Part 2: Badge 5-8 + Elite 4
Part 3: Pokédex Cleanup

This is to ensure that I can actually finish a thread, and so that I don’t forget about the contents of my playthrough that I missed out or forgot about. This thread is already about 4,000 words long, I don’t want to type more please

Now it’s time for the short ping list.

@Espeon- (Rival)
@Culfre (Salty-Bird the Spreaow and Culfre the Pidgeotto)
@shji (pokémon that I caught in Part 2, just adding for consistency)

and that’s the ping list!

If you want to get added to the Ping List, or want a Pokémon named after you, please just make a reply / dm me on discord / post on my profile / anyway of contacting me really. Please note that the following Pokémon are taken:

If a pokemon isn’t on this list, assume it’s available and request it. Keep in mind I will likely be fully evolving the Pokémon you request.

Lastly, before you go, you should consider voting for me in my Forumer Showdown match against avydragon!

The link will be added when the match starts, so just wait.

Anyway that's all from me, thanks for reading the entire thread (I hope that you read it all), good luck out there, and catch ya later!

FINAL WORD COUNT: 4,129 words