26/06/2018

Pokemon LeafGreen: The Charizard Solo Run


After 50 hours of Ultra Sun&Moon's bloated story and tutorial galore, I suddenly found myself craving some simplicity. What I wanted was a quickie Pokemon solo run, with as little narrative fluff as possible yet metric tons of grinding. The only entry in my collection that seemed to fit the bill perfectly was Blue and its endless rows of idle Trainers; but alas, I just couldn't see myself suffering through that glitchy mess again, even for the sake of grinding. But then came the illumination, as I suddenly remembered the existence of the FireRed and LeafGreen GBA remakes. I had never bothered hunting for them because of the battery hassle and the ever-present risk of landing a bootleg; but now, that pair suddenly seemed like the most desirable games in the world to my hungry gamer's soul. (Like pretty much every single game I covet, until the next one comes into the picture — but that's another story.) The gaming instinct had spoken, and there was nothing to do but cave in and order a copy of LeafGreen from a reliable seller. A couple of days later, the precious cartridge was mine and I dove into a Charmander solo run with gusto.

The next best thing to a Legendary.
I have to admit that Charmander's insane popularity amongst Pokefans always eluded me that is, until I roamed revamped Kanto with that first and most beloved Fire Starter of them all. Oh boy, is Charmander utterly, totally, ludicrously broken. He boasts ridiculously high stats, and has access to the most insanely enormous Move Pool I've ever had the pleasure of being granted access to. Moves were raining on me so consistently that I started making lists, in the hope of conveying the sheer enormity of that Move indulgence. First, here's the list of all the offensive Moves my Charmander wielded over the course of my run: Amber, Scratch, Mega Punch, Metal Claw, Flamethrower, Brick Break, Secret Power, Wing Attack, Slash, Return, Earthquake, Dragon Claw and Overheat. And then, here's the list of the Moves I could have learnt yet decided to renounce for various reasons: Mega Kick, Dig, Rock Slide, Seismic Toss, Dragon Rage, Fire Spin, Fly, Cut, Steel Wing, Fire Blast, Blast Burn, Rock Smash, Strength and Double-Egde. Pretty outrageous, ain't it? I never had access to that many Moves in a solo run ever, and I totally lapped up that insane Move pampering. Although I'm still not fond of the looks of the whole Charmander family, I'm definitely on board with the Charmander aficionados out there when it comes to the kantonian Fire Starter's battle prowess.

Mind you, little Charmy here is supposed to act as a hard mode of sorts for the Kanto games, being weak to the types handled by the first two Gym Leaders; but honestly, this famed hard mode was no sweat at all in my run. My Charmander learnt Metal Claw right before the Rock Gym; with Rock being weak to Steel and my Charmander being much faster than basically any Rock 'Mon, that engagement was easy-peasy. I got Mega Punch right before the Water Gym; a bit of extra grinding on route 24 and 25's Trainers, and I was pretty much set. As for the rest, well... Once I got rid of these two typing roadblocks, it was pretty much one-shooting till the end. The original Red/Blue games were probably a bit harder, since Metal Claw wasn't a thing back then; but I have no doubt that Charmander's high Attack and Speed, combined with the overlevelling inherent to running solo, could take care of the Rock Gym no matter what. Not that I'm planning to put that theory to the test, mind you: now that I discovered those amazingly good Gen I remakes, there's no way I'm ever going back to Blue.

As for my overall impressions of LeafGreen, they can be summed up in one sentence: The Gen Oners have a point. Indeed, when you peel off the glitches, cumbersome gameplay mechanics and graphical blotches of the Kanto entries, you suddenly uncover mighty fine games. LeafGreen delivers the essence of the Pokemon experience and does away with all the bloating and fluff that was added in subsequent gens: it's compact, straightforward and perfectly wholesome. It's a lovely, soothing game with a cute pint-sized world and a comfy vibe; and yet, it's not afraid of roughing you up all the way through. LeafGreen is probably the grindiest Pokemon entry I've ever played, with so many Trainers lounging around that I routinely ran out of PP when cruising between towns and as you may imagine, I lapped the whole thing up. I'm especially fond of the fact that most Trainers have at least 3 'Mons, and often up to 5; I just hate challenging Trainers only to discover that they have one measly Pokeball in their arsenal, which is something that happens way too often in recent instalments. (Why do you even engage me with your pet 'Mon, you amateur?) And after a slew of wishy-washy rivals, it was deliciously refreshing to be pitted against Gary and with dirty mouth. (I'm getting bored of friendly rivals in Pokemon: give me aggressive twats again, so I can rejoice in wipping the floor with them!) Last but not least, I just love the simple yet charming graphics, and most especially the stylized battle backgrounds, which in my opinion are much more unique and pleasing to look at than those figurative, 360-degree battle arenas the series has forced on us since X/Y.

At the end of the day, LeafGreen is the game that made me fall head over heels in love with Kanto so much so that I promptly ordered FireRed, as well as a GBA link cable to trade 'Mons and expand my solo run horizons. But those are stories for future posts, dear fellow gamers; for now, I'll wrap things up by saying that my Charmander solo run of LeafGreen was one of the most excellent runs I've ever had with a Fire Starter. It was just as hectic, intense and satisfying as my Tepig solo run of White 2, with the added benefit of a huge Move pool. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

2 comments:

  1. We gen. oners might have point, but I still despise how GF has tried to use this love against us in games that have completely abandoned the philosophy of this game. From stuff like only Kanto pokemon getting Alolan forms to the newest atrocity that is let's go pikachu and eevee (especially that last one. It's literally an inferior version of this remake that's almost 3 times as expensive IF you don't get the dumb pokeball controller).

    I still prefer the HeartGold/Soulsilver remake, since that generation still has a lot of the positives this generation had (no cliched story with legendary, a jerkass rival, etc), plus all the improvements generation IV brought along, plus Kanto is included in that game. And there's a few dumb pet peeves I don't like in this game, like the mandatory teachy TV and that ONLY generation one pokemon are available before the elite 4, when most people want the new eeveelutions, crobat and the new generation 4 evolutions as well. Something let's go is also copying. Hooray.

    But yeah, the original games made pokemon popular for a reason. BTW, Charizard got a huge update in this version because he was so popular, as he was definitely the suckiest in the originals. Venossaur was the best one in red and blue, and I believe Blastoise was the best in Yellow. But it's not as blatant favouritism as in generation VI where he got two mega evolutions, a spit in the face to the other starters, so I'm fine with this. Do try out the other starters though; Venossaur is a legendary staler and Blastoise has his charm as well.

    Honestly, if the franchise has a poor future like we're predicting, I recommend you look into emulators for the PSP and try out some of the romhacks of this game; many of them update it to give features from the later generations, like unlimited TMs, physical/special split, fairy type, etc, and at this point, even roms with bad stories are still better than sun and moon, since in this gen at least you can skip the story fast. But most are tolerable or at least try something different.

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    1. I'm actually quite surprised to see how GameFreak tried to capitalize on Gen I nostalgia in the 3DS games, especially after they so boldly renewed the whole bestiary in Black and White.

      That Gen I indulgence was a teeny-tiny bit understandable for X and Y, because the series was moving to 3D and it kinda made sense to acknowledge its own roots in the process - although they really shouldn't have given us the Kanto starters for free, let alone with Mega Evolutions included. Those should have been Kalos' fauna's turf alone.

      However, seeing GameFreak try to pull off the exact same trick in Sun and Moon with those darn Alolan form was annoying, and completely uncalled for to boot. Like, who cares about a boring Alolan Rattata, an ugly Alolan Persian, or a weak Alolan Raichu that can't even hold its own on the Alolan battlefield? We know these 'Mons by heart already, and a few tweaks here and there won't do the trick and make them look like brand-new creatures. In the end, Alolan forms were just a way for GameFreak to get away with designing fresh 'Mons while exploiting nostalgia for Gen I. And Gen-Oners are about to be milked even more with the release of the Let's Go games.

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