Challenge COMPLETE: Pokemon Yellow Stylish Shiny Breedlocke Tradeback Chosen-by-Committee CompleteDex Challenge

[QuentinQuonce]

Update 26

I sell all my remaining Ultra Balls and load up on Soda Pops and Lemonade at the Celadon Dept Store. I've already got a bunch of Revives and Max Revives as well as a few Hyper Potions and Full Restores I've picked up on the road, so I'm feeling good.

​

Let's do this.

I enter the first room and take on Lorelai again. She leads with Dewgong while I lead with Seadra. Knowing that this lardy blob often Rests more than anything else, I fish for flinches with Headbutt, trying to soften it up to the point where I can Dragon Rage it to death. Eventually, after it heals itself three times, I bring it to ~5% and the stupid creature uses Take Down, finishing itself off for me.

I stick with Seadra as Lorelai brings out Cloyster. Thanks to Cloyster's titanic Defence, Waterfall is the best option against it, but it retaliates by confusing me with Supersonic. Seadra hits itself repeatedly and Cloyster smacks it with Spike Cannon for an eventual KO.

I send in Rapidash hoping to put it to sleep, but I miss and Cloyster uses Clamp, incapacitating me. The attack leaves me with just a sliver of HP before releasing me, but rather than heal I decide to gamble on another Hypnosis. It works, and I strike it twice with Double Kick, knocking it out.

Next comes Slowbro. I switch to Parasect and poison it quickly as it hits with Psychic. Slowbro starts using Amnesia, but I set up Light Screen and begin using Flash over and over, intending to stall it to death. My strategy pays off - not one of its hits land, and it slowly succumbs to poison damage as I chip away with utterly ineffective Psybeams.

Lorelai sends out Jynx next. I switch Rapidash back in and heal it as Jynx uses Doubleslap. Even as a critical hit, it's not doing much. Rapidash uses Thrash and 2HKOs.

Okay, Lapras time. It's going to take more than one of my squad to bring this guy down. I start with Wigglytuff, who gets in a couple of Thunderpunches before Lapras obliterates it with Blizzard. Wukong is faster, so I use Amnesia as it fires off a Hydro Pump - and misses. I Amnesia again, narrowly tank another Hydro Pump, and strike back with Confusion next turn for the KO.

One down...

After healing, I advance to the next room and challenge Bruno. He leads with a simple Onix so I go for Aerodactyl, whose Earthquake crits and takes it down in one hit.

I switch to Wukong for his Hitmonchan. If I can get powered up with Amnesia, I can probably sweep the whole team. Bruno naively uses an X Defend and then Double Team, but I boost all the way to the max and Confusion OHKOs when it finally makes contact. His Hitmonlee goes down in similar fashion, then his Onix, and then his Machamp. Yup. Thought so.

I decide not to make things quite so easy for the next fight. I lead with Aerodactyl again as I face off against Agatha; her first Gengar survives a Flamethrower and goes for Mega Drain, but it doesn't steal enough health to prevent a second hit finishing it off. Next she sends out Golbat, which confuses me with Supersonic. I hit myself twice, giving it an opening to poison me with Toxic, but finally recover and strike back with Headbutt.

Deciding that Aerodactyl has enough fuel left in the tank to take on one more team member, I stick with it as she selects Haunter. It rather foolishly goes for Hypnosis - status don't stack, silly! - and is 2HKO'd by Flamethrower. I switch to Parasect as Arbok comes out. Hoping for a nice and simple kill, I'm dismayed when it does a massive chunk of damage with Acid then opts for Wrap the next turn, preventing me from moving. Parasect faints. Ah well, good try. I send out Rapidash and use Thrash, avoiding being paralysed by Glare.

Gengar last of all. I send Aerodactyl back out, intending to soften it up, but unexpectedly Earthquake OHKOs!

Well, this has all gone simple enough so far... let's see if Lance can put up a better fight.

 

[King Feraligatr]

It rather foolishly goes for Hypnosis - status don't stack, silly!

Maybe she's playing Mystery Dungeon... who knows?

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Update 27

I enter Lance's big, overcompensating room and try to walk past him, but he challenges me regardless.

I lead with Parasect as he sends out Gyarados. Right off the bat I go for Light Screen, but he goes for a reliable hit with Dragon Rage. Next turn, Gyarados unleashes a brutal Hyper Beam, bringing me down to a sliver of health, but I use Poisonpowder and take advantage of the resting turn to heal up.

I opt to use Flash and try to stall it out. It cunningly uses Leer and then Hyper Beams me again, taking off around 80% of my health. But this gives me a couple of turns to lower its accuracy further. Once I heal, it lands another Hyper Beam and utterly wrecks me, but by now it's weak enough for a Psybeam to almost finish it off. It tries to hit me with Dragon Rage for the kill, but my accuracy drops finally pay off and it misses, after which the poison damage brings it down.

Neither of Lance's two Dragonair are too difficult. Rapidash sees the first off with Thrash after eating a Hyper Beam, while Aerodactyl is able to 3HKO the second with Headbutt.

But Lance's own Aerodactyl is a force to be reckoned with. It gets two crits with Wing Attack and Swift, knocking out my own Aerodactyl. I hope Rapidash will outspeed, but it's too slow and Wing Attack finishes it off. I send out Nidoking next, but it OHKOs me with Hyper Beam. When I send out Seadra, Aerodactyl - ignoring the rest turn thanks to the KO - uses Hyper Beam again, which Seadra narrowly survives. I strike with Waterfall and finally revenge kill it.

Dragonite is last of all. I opt for Wigglytuff since it has Ice Punch. Dragonite hits first with Thunder and then Fire Blast, tanking two Ice Punches in return. Lance heals it and it hits me again with Thunder, knocking Wigglytuff out. My kingdom for a Fairy-type.

Parasect is still conscious but unlikely to survive contact with Dragonite, so I sacrifice him to revive Rapidash. Sure enough, Parasect takes a Blizzard to the face and dies. I send out Rapidash and clinch the fight with Thrash.

Phew. Refreshingly, that was actually pretty tough. And I used up my last Revive. Thankfully, I have several Max Revives on hand.

Lance informs me Nadger is waiting in the next room, so I proceed inside. And here we go. Last fight of the game.

He leads with Sandslash, and I with Aerodactyl. It tanks several Earthquakes and does some unexpectedly severe damage with Slash. Fortunately, in the end, I prevail over it. He chooses Alakazam next so I opt for Rapidash intending to slaughter it with Thrash, but it hits me with Psybeam and confuses me. Rapidash fails to attack, and Alakazam eventually uses Psychic for the KO. I switch in Seadra and 2HKO with Headbutt.

Nadger sends out Exeggutor next. I switch back to Aerodactyl, whose Flamethrower does a piddly amount of damage. Goddammit, I expected more than that. Exeggutor gets in a Leech Seed and then puts me to sleep with Hypnosis, but I opt for Headbutt once I wake up and eventually bring it down.

Next comes Magneton. I exchange for Nidoking and boost with Amnesia while it Screeches at me and almost KOs with Swift. I get the KO, but when Cloyster comes out it drops me with Ice Beam.

I send out Rapidash and use Hypnosis. Double Kick looks like it'll be a 4HKO, but of course Cloyster wakes up after the second move hits and uses Clamp, sealing Rapidash's doom. I send out Parasect and use Light Screen to reduce the damage of Cloyster's Ice Beam, then heal and chip away with Psybeam for the win.

Just Flareon left. Parasect won't be able to deal with that, so it's Buzzer's turn. Flareon uses Reflect and then Quick Attack in an attempt to stop me, but two uses of Waterfall are enough to secure the KO.

And that's it. We're done. All 151 Pokemon caught and the game beaten in well under 60 hours!

Professor Oak comes in, nearly wets himself with excitement at my magnificent achievement, and takes me into the Hall of Fame.

Thanks for reading, everyone! I'll do a retrospective shortly.​

 

[shadowpea]

that took...all of two days. wow. you're really good at this "completing the dex" stuff, huh. congrats!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Final update and thoughts

Wow, this was a ride. I wasn't sure if I could do this, and this morning I was pretty convinced I wouldn't. But luck was on my side, especially when it came to getting the right Pokemon for the LRTG-Ditto trick. Yellow's missing Pokemon are all fairly easy to get via the LRTG so that wasn't too awful.

Regarding the "breedlocke tradeback" as I termed it, it was fun but never really posed a problem. Even though my team's moves were far from optimal, most offensive moves are sufficient to get by on in Gen I and I had a moderately decent range of types to choose from.

I wish there'd been some way to stymie the trade experience issue. Pokemon obviously can't hatch in Gen I, and since so many tradeback moves are Egg moves you have to breed them in Gen II. Even without battling a good chunk of trainers, I ended up quite beefy. This was kind of unavoidable since I had to do a lot of grinding in the lategame to switch-train all the species I needed to evolve. I wasn't ever really overlevelled, because early 50s is about right for the end of the game. But it would have been a bit more challenging to be a few levels lower.

Thoughts on my team members

Wigglytuff
Mainly useful for its bulk rather than its impressive moveset. Dizzy Punch never once inflicted confusion, and even super-effective hits did piddly damage. Ironically, I don't think I ever actually used Fire Punch. Oh, well. Pulled its weight very much when catching Articuno, Zapdos, and Mewtwo.

Seadra
I thought Dragon Rage would make Horsea absolutely fearsome in the early-game but it becomes underwhelming much quicker than you'd expect. Even at around level 10, it's not always a OHKO, and by the time you've reached the mid-30s you're generally better off just attacking directly. Waterfall did roughly as much as Dragon Rage against Lorelai's Cloyster, for example, and her Dewgong was a 5HKO with it. Still, Horsea did well. Water and Normal is more or less what it'd have anyway.

Nidoking
Not so bad. Confusion sucks but Kanto is so full of Poison-types that it coped very well, often even without needing to prep with Amnesia. Disable was rarely used but Defense Curl came in handy once or twice.

Parasect
I was singing Parasect's virtues on a different thread a while back and I'm pleased to have been so nicely validated because it did incredibly well. Outlasted all sorts of bulky stuff. Lorelai's Slowbro was an easy kill, for instance. Psybeam was a pretty dependable option considering few moves in the main stretch of the game are over 80 BP.

Rapidash
Ngl, Ponyta found itself struggling. Quite a few times it was lagging behind the rest of the team in level. But it was able to take down loads of Normal-types with Double Kick. That Fighting coverage frequently came in very handy. Really missed having a Fire move. I expected Hypnosis to be great but Sleep in general fucking sucks in Gen I, if the opponent doesn't wake up on the same turn you put it to sleep it's only asleep for one turn. I'm astonished to learn that sleep can last for up to 7 turns in Gen I because I was never that lucky.

Aerodactyl
Aerodactyl is always good.

Given that I have a lot more Pokemon with exclusive moves bred and chilling in my PC in Gen II, I'd like to do a similar sort of run on Crystal, but I'm not sure it'd work given Gen II's generally lower difficulty level - especially when it comes to Pokedex completion, as Gen II's equivalent to the LRTG is exceedingly dull and doesn't actually involve catching the Pokemon. If anyone has any suggestions on how to tweak it (or just ideas for Gen II challenges in general - Unown-only run anyone?) please feel free to suggest them.

Overall this was a lot of fun though! Gen I hasn't got any far-out crazy evolution methods so getting everything together was relatively simple. Thanks to everyone who contributed and for your encouragement. I'm currently thinking up my next challenge (I've got a pretty solid idea...) so stay tuned for that, but it won't be for a while yet. Till then, I'll see you in other threads.

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

this has been a good read! nice seeing an update basically every time i opened smogon lol. cool to see you using those glitches to optimise your run too.

great job on this challenge, and i look forward to the next!

 

[King Feraligatr]

I must say, green, you are an absolute mad lad for pulling this off... congrats on finishing this!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I must say, green, you are an absolute mad lad for pulling this off... congrats on finishing this!

Getting this feedback for most of the challenges I've done on here... starting to think they might be onto something

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

Congrats on finishing this challenge!

There are a few things I want to comment on.

So you know how the Long-Range Trainer Glitch can occasionally cause NPCs and items to despawn from the map, like how one of the Snorlax vanished earlier on?

...that's happened to the Moltres that was in Victory Road. It's gone. Blinked out of existence. That was unforgiveably careless of me.

Wow. I know some glitches are risky, but this sounds terrifying. Glad to see that you managed to get it through the LRTG instead.

And that's it. We're done. All 151 Pokemon caught and the game beaten in well under 60 hours!

I saw your playtime and at first, I didn't understand how you could have played the game during 49 of those hours... then I remembered that you said that you had left your game on while you were doing other things, letting your player character auto-walk to gain Exp. for your Pokémon in the Day-Care without the need for you to play. So that's cool.

Parasect
I was singing Parasect's virtues on a different thread a while back and I'm pleased to have been so nicely validated because it did incredibly well. Outlasted all sorts of bulky stuff. Lorelai's Slowbro was an easy kill, for instance. Psybeam was a pretty dependable option considering few moves in the main stretch of the game are over 80 BP.

Pretty much the opposite of my experience with Parasect. I used it on my Grass and Bug Challenge teams in B2/W2 and it sucked, despite being EV-trained, RNGed to have perfect IVs, a good Nature and Dry Skin, as well as a decent moveset. My overall impression of using Parasect
(in Gen 5 at least) is that it feels very niche, it suffers from 4-moveslot-syndrome and I found it to have far too many things going against it, the most notable being that it was slow and had a ton of weaknesses to common offensive types. But it is cool to see that you had a better experience with it during this challenge.

Rapidash
Ngl, Ponyta found itself struggling. Quite a few times it was lagging behind the rest of the team in level. But it was able to take down loads of Normal-types with Double Kick. That Fighting coverage frequently came in very handy. Really missed having a Fire move. I expected Hypnosis to be great but Sleep in general fucking sucks in Gen I, if the opponent doesn't wake up on the same turn you put it to sleep it's only asleep for one turn. I'm astonished to learn that sleep can last for up to 7 turns in Gen I because I was never that lucky.

When I gave you a Pokémon, I was considering Nidoran-M at first since I thought it was going to be hardest to use... but then I read what you had written about Amnesia and changed my mind, so I gave you Ponyta instead. Then Wukong ended up giving you Nidoran-M, so you got to use it anyway. I am happy to hear that Rapidash wasn't the best, but at the same time, I am also happy to hear that it was useful at times as well. I also recall Sleep working differently in Gen 1 than in the later generations, but I didn't know it could last for as long as 7 turns! Crazy.

Aerodactyl
Aerodactyl is always good.

Say that to the people who are nominating it for E-tier in the FR/LG in-game tier thread

Getting this feedback for most of the challenges I've done on here... starting to think they might be onto something

I think all of your challenges so far have been very interesting, unique and creative. I have only been following this and your last one in full detail, but I really liked your other two as well even if I didn't read everything you wrote in every single post you made for them.

After reading your challenges, I feel sort of inspired to try a challenge of my own... but I really don't have the time to make one, and I can't come up with anything as creative as you, which will probably just make it a very boring and uninspired read for other members here... if anyone were to read it at all. Looking back now, I sort of wish I had made a challenge thread (or some kind of thread at all) for my project In Wonder when I started on it back in March, but since I am unsure about how deep I am allowed to go regarding the details for that project, maybe it wouldn't have worked in the end anyway. And making a thread about it now wouldn't work either since I have forgotten a lot about specific details for it and I haven't written down everything for it either. Oh well. At least I have my personal documents to look back on whenever I feel like it.

Once again, congrats on completing this challenge! I will probably not follow your next one (though that's what I said last time as well), it all depends on how things go regarding my current plans for real life and my activity here on the forums... but I wish you the best of luck with your next challenge either way!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Congrats on finishing this challenge!

There are a few things I want to comment on.

I always enjoy your feedback. :)

Pretty much the opposite of my experience with Parasect. I used it on my Grass and Bug Challenge teams in B2/W2 and it sucked, despite being EV-trained, RNGed to have perfect IVs, a good Nature and Dry Skin, as well as a decent moveset. My overall impression of using Parasect
(in Gen 5 at least) is that it feels very niche, it suffers from 4-moveslot-syndrome and I found it to have far too many things going against it, the most notable being that it was slow and had a ton of weaknesses to common offensive types. But it is cool to see that you had a better experience with it during this challenge.

I was going to say "Gen I was kinder to Parasect" but then remembered that no, it isn't - it's doubly weak to Poison in Gen I, and that's especially punishing in Kanto. I think it's more that the bar for success is much lower in Gen I. Enemy sets and the AI are so bad that if you have a decent offensive move, you're mostly fine. So many enemies that in any other game would slaughter you play abysmally and give you ample free turns to beat them, even when they're being used by bosses who are supposed to have good AI.

I think all of your challenges so far have been very interesting, unique and creative. I have only been following this and your last one in full detail, but I really liked your other two as well even if I didn't read everything you wrote in every single post you made for them.

That's what I'm aiming for so that's wonderful to read.

After reading your challenges, I feel sort of inspired to try a challenge of my own... but I really don't have the time to make one, and I can't come up with anything as creative as you, which will probably just make it a very boring and uninspired read for other members here... if anyone were to read it at all. Looking back now, I sort of wish I had made a challenge thread (or some kind of thread at all) for my project In Wonder when I started on it back in March, but since I am unsure about how deep I am allowed to go regarding the details for that project, maybe it wouldn't have worked in the end anyway. And making a thread about it now wouldn't work either since I have forgotten a lot about specific details for it and I haven't written down everything for it either. Oh well. At least I have my personal documents to look back on whenever I feel like it.

If you can find the time I'd say definitely do it! You'll have one guaranteed reader in me. I didn't have the time for months since I was quite busy with uni, but now that's finished I determinedly blocked out three days for this challenge since I'd wanted to do it for ages. It's a really fun process and it inspires a great level of motivation in me to do as well as I can and get to the end.

If you want to steal my idea of an Unown-only run in GSC feel free, very curious to see how that would play out. Or there's the Dexit challenge others are doing, which hasn't been tried on various titles. Alternatively, I tend to avoid Nuzlocke challenges as I feel they're overdone, but that's not to say you shouldn't give one a try.

But thanks for your support either way! I hope you'll be around for the next one I do, whenever that is.