It’s been a while. Let’s talk about Terrible Johto Decision #527: Morty!
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First thing though: WHY does Morty not have Misdreavus? It was literally the only Ghost type introduced in Johto, but no, let’s put it in Mt. Silver originally because THAT makes sense (yeah remakes it is Cliff Cave but like…still a Misdreavus so…). But I digress.
Morty is very weird in terms of traditional difficulty for a few reasons. He’s not danagerous offensively, a rare trait for a boss, nor is he hard to counter defensively, as Normal types are readily available and useful regardless which incarnation of Johto you are playing, be it GSC or HGSS.
Anyway, onto the actual battle. We have four fast Ghosts who love to spam Hypnosis and Curse. A 60% chance of not getting to move unless you have certain berries:
isn’t that fun kids? The only truly threatening mon here in both games here is Gengar as it has Dream Eater in GSC which it swaps out for special Shadow Ball in HGSS. What makes this hard is that strategies to win here are very lopsided: you either have a Psychic who rips right through, or a Normal who walls Shadow Ball but gets haxxed by Hypnosis (in HGSS, most can get Shadow Claw or Crunch or Pursuit or something, I have literally swept with Furrett). Even if Shadow Ball is physical in GSC it doesn’t make sleep any less annoying.
Otherwise? You’re likely slower and are forced even more into Morty’s RNG hax, and I hate it. The only reliable counter in HGSS aside from a Psychic is Insomnia Noctowl, and when was the last time a Johto runner picked that for their Flying type?
Like, I hate Morty more than Whitney and Clair. At least those battles have some element of
strategy to them. Honorable mention to Chuck too, but he’s not nearly as bad since his weaknesses are widely exploitable, he only has 2 mons and your mons should be evolved by that point.