So I'm hanging around in the Game Corner when I see a shady looking man guarding a poster. You know the rest. I enter the basement after beating him and sweep my way through the place without much hassle, stopping to collect all the items, as quite a few of the things you can pick up in here have a high sell-on value. The Rockets here are really lame apart from the odd annoying Golbat. Generally
Fly deals with them and evolves, meaning it can now
only use Fly.
When I get to Giovanni I have to solo him with
Random which is easy enough considering that it has Dragon Rage and his Onix and Rhyhorn are ridiculously weak. Dragon Rage + Body Slam FTW. I get the Silph Scope and head to the dept. store to sell all the lovely stuff I got. By now I'm on around 5200/7700 coins required for the TM50 I'm required to teach
Random.
After this I make my way to the Celadon City gym, where
Opera absolutely excels. To be fair, this gym would have been really easy for any of my pokémon, especially
Fly but
Opera was a few levels behind and could heal itself of status and recover HP with Rest, so it was quite a nice option to have. By the time I got to Erika,
Opera was out of PP in Sing and Rest, so I switched to
Fly who dealt with Erika in five hits. Three badges!
After Celadon my journey took me back to Lavender Town where lots of elderly women had been possessed by Gastlys and the occasional Haunter.
Bulbapedia battled heroically through, defeating them with not-very-effective Razor Leafs and the odd Leech Seed. It was tough going, as whenever I had to use
Random a combination of paralysis and confusion made progress a lot slower.
Opera couldn't hit anything and
Fly was my highest levelled pokémon so I was hesitant to overuse it. Eventually we made our way past Marowak, and
Opera cleared all of the Rockets on the top floor.
After obtaining the Pokéflute, which is going to make
Opera even more immense, I sold the rest of my stuff, bringing me up to 7710 coins - just enough for Substitute. I leave you just in front of the doors of the Silph Company, ready to go in and bring down Team Rocket.
The team, (now not ranked in order, as they're pretty much exactly equal <3):
Opera the
Jigglypuff
Level 34
-Sing
-Pound
-Body Slam
-Rest
With Rest and Body Slam,
Opera is a solid member of the team again. She swept everyone apart from Erika in the Celadon gym and beat all the Rockets at the top floor of Pokémon Tower. When she reaches level 39 and learns Double-Edge over Pound, she'll evolve and be even better still. Whether that'll continue to the pokémon league remains to be seen, but I'm really looking forward to single-turn Rests thanks to Pokéflute.
Fly the
Pidgeotto
Level 34
-Quick Attack
-Sand Attack
-Wing Attack
-Fly
I haven't used it enough to tell whether only being able to use Fly is a bad thing so far. It soloed Erika and was valuable when I had to resort to it in Pokémon Tower. Sadly I can't use Fly outside of battle as I skipped Surge's gym, so at some point between here and Cinnabar Island
Fly is going to get really annoying. Not yet though.
Random the
Gyarados
Level 33
-Body Slam
-Leer
-Substitute
-Dragon Rage
Maybe would have taken the title of MVP if Dragon Rage wasn't such an annoying attack to use against things that inflict status. Gastly and Haunter nearly always use Confuse Ray straight away, then start using Lick and that meant I had to return to the purified protected zone in Pokémon Tower more often than I would have liked. Having Substitute and Leer in-game in Gen 1 feels a bit pointless. I can't imagine a circumstance in which Subs is going to be helpful, but when I get access to Surf (not long - I could go and get it now if I wanted, actually...) I think
Gyarados will shine.
Bulbapedia the
Ivysaur
Level 33
-Tackle
-Leech Seed
-Poisonpowder
-Razor Leaf
Getting a little annoying now, as Grass + Normal aren't great together as attacking moves. They're what I'm going to be stuck with for the rest of the game though, I think, so I'll have to deal with it. I suspect
Bulbapedia could go from being my MVP in the first half of the game to my LVP by the time I get to the E4. Time will tell.