Hardest Relative NPC

[Pikachu315111]

I thought of Butterfree, but reliance on grinding it so it can spam Confusion and hoping Onyx doesn’t use Bind to get free damage is risky. If it uses Screech before Tackle it can really threaten your team. Geodude isn’t much of a threat though.

Decided to check Pikachu's level-up Moves in Yellow, and saw they added Tail Whip at Level 6, so I think they also realized the problem and tried to mitigate it best they could (of course, you'd had to have kept Tail Whip cause Quick Attack is Pikachu's 5th learned Move which means either Growl or Tail Whip is going bye-bye).

Of course, we're talking as if that if you lose you're game gets deleted and you've wasted days of progress. When infact this problem is just within the first hour of the game and, if you lose, you're just sent back to the last Pokemon Center you healed at. Infact it would be a recreation of the anime to lose the battle and then have to figure out a different strategy, though unlike Ash the player's options would be to explore the surrounding routes to see what options are available and discover the karate kicking Mankey and Nidoran.

 

[Worldie]

Oooor just like 90% of the players did back then... just grind more and overpower it.

It wasn't exactly something uncommon to do in rpgs...

 

[Hugin]

They actually handled Brock decently in Yellow IMO. He was de-leveled, Butterfree got Confusion at 10 instead of 12, the Nidos both got Double Kick at 12, they moved the Nidos to Route 2 so players can find them without going out of their way, and they both gave you Mankey and gave it Low Kick. Yes, it's possible to reach Brock with Pidgey/Ratatta/Spearow/Pikachu and lose, but catch literally anything else and you beat him easily. Even with that, Growl/SA/Tail Whip spam probably wins. Given the rules they were operating under, that's almost the best they can do.

 

[Testinggg]

Decided to check Pikachu's level-up Moves in Yellow, and saw they added Tail Whip at Level 6, so I think they also realized the problem and tried to mitigate it best they could (of course, you'd had to have kept Tail Whip cause Quick Attack is Pikachu's 5th learned Move which means either Growl or Tail Whip is going bye-bye).

Of course, we're talking as if that if you lose you're game gets deleted and you've wasted days of progress. When infact this problem is just within the first hour of the game and, if you lose, you're just sent back to the last Pokemon Center you healed at. Infact it would be a recreation of the anime to lose the battle and then have to figure out a different strategy, though unlike Ash the player's options would be to explore the surrounding routes to see what options are available and discover the karate kicking Mankey and Nidoran.

Which proves how much of a challenge Brock is.

And that’s the point of this thread. Any loss results in a Pokémon Center return, but especially earlier on, this is a roadblock Bc you lose half of your in-game $, so if a player didn’t buy potions, etc. it gets harder to face him, and you would have to Grind.

The other thing is, Pikachu has low Defense, and Atk, while Onyx has high Defense and resists Quick Attack, so it wont do much damage until after a few Tail Whips, which at that point Onyx may have used Screech which is 2x as effective as Tail Whip, and then finished you off.

I think what made this NPC harder was it was pre-internet answers and it was likely many ppl’s first Pokémon game, so it wasn’t as clear like it is to us now, since it was Gen 1.

This also coupled with being the first gym you face, so it’s all new.