Onix Sucks and Why Pokémon Generation 1 Is Awesome

Check out the vide on Generation 2! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pElIJKxr1nw

Minor nitpick: in the Japanese gen1, money was just called Yen (fictional "PokeDollars" weren't invented until the localization). So the "scam" of Magikarp costing 500 whopping dollars is actually just a pet store selling you a goldfish for five bucks

The ending of "yeah porgon is absolute trash competitively but his vibes are off the charts" is the best way to end a video essay

Gen 1 is designed like an RPG. Its designed for you to pick up and retire party members as you go through and get to each gym. The pokemon are very specific to their purpose. Its easier to catch a pokemon than train one up. (though most kids would just use their starter the entire game) Its very different to later gens where every pokemon is designed to be useful through the whole game because they realized that people get attached to their pokemon and dont just replace them that easily.

One thing a lot of people seem to misremember is that Mankey was NOT available before Brock in Red or Blue. Mankey was added in Yellow, and kept in FireRed and LeafGreen to make things easier, losing its status as a version exclusive in the process.

Agatha has two Gengars because when she got her first one she traded someone her own Haunter with someone for a different Haunter, then when they wanted to trade back for sentimental value she just traded something else instead and kept both Gengars (which is why one of them has a shittier moveset)

One thing to note about Onix's stat distribution is that high defense and low HP minimizes the damage of bide, while still making him feel bulky.

This brought me back to being 5 and not understanding what type effectiveness was so I ignored it. I was overleveled getting one hit kills and seeing "it wasn't very effective," confused at the game's appraisal of my Charizard's skills. Bullshit it wasn't effective I just flamethrowered that thing to dust. My level of understanding has formed a circle to agree with my child mind so now I just use pokemon I think are cool.

The name Moltres is also another well designed part of the game. Moltres is the only one you're pretty much guaranteed to run into, and the more astute kids (or the Spanish ones at least), would see the "tres" and wonder, hey, where are uno and dos? Am I missing something?

This is an awesome video, and delves into an aspect of Pokemon that strangely often goes ignored: its design as a single-player experience. It’s a pretty well known fun fact that Multiplayer Battles were a late addition into the original RBY and that the game was designed primarily as a traditional JRPG with a monster collection twist. The social aspect of Pokemon was pretty much a marketing gimmick that was so ingenious it ended up subsuming the franchise identity. That means a lot of the ‘questionable’ design quirks and traditions of the series can be traced back to the original design of RBY.

A lot of people who get "into" Pokemon start seeing all Pokemon through the lens of either competitive or endgame and forget that a lot of the Pokedex is devoted to Pokemon that are meant to be good in the early and mid-game. Nearly every early route normal type and bug fall under this category, they are meant to be sort of like Fire Emblem Jagens, things that grow fast and although their peak strength is low in the context of the entire game they get much stronger than the challenges you'll face early on quicker than the Pokemon that evolve over three stages, usually. Even in hard-mode versions of Pokemon games like Radical Red or Blaze Black some of the best encounters early on are Pokemon like Beedrill which help you get through to the mid-game easily on the back of it's early BST advantage, and by the time it drops off you have far more options to choose from in terms of replacing it. It helps make the collecting of Pokemon relevant throughout the adventure, it's genuinely good game design, but once you realize how good Dragapult is for the E4 it's easy to dismiss Beedrill as a "weak" Pokemon, even though for the majority of the main game it's probably outclasssing your Dreepy that doesn't even have a chance to evolve yet.

I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for using the word "penultimate" correctly re. the Lance fight. I've noticed a trend lately of video essayists using that word to mean "final." As a person who is pedantic to a likely unhealthy degree, it drives me nuts.

One of my favorite design aspects of gen 1 that was taken out of future generations is for Magikarp - right after you purchase one near Mt. Moon, Mt. Moon's first item drop is a water gun TM. At this point, only Squirtle/Wartortle can learn this I'm fairly sure; and they likely already have if you beat Brock. It exists to tell the player that Magikarp is TRASH. It can't even learn one of the most basic offensive water type moves in the game via TM, and is caste into a role of splashing helplessly against other Pokemon.

as someone listening to this at work, i now believe in the 14.65 percent chance to crit and will not check if ive been misinformed. thank you

For as hard as Beedrill falls off in this game, in Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness, this thing is a monster. Get the multihit attacks linked together with Focus Energy and that's four guaranteed Critical Hits in one turn if you don't miss and TWELVE guaranteed Crits if everything hits. Heracross with Skill Link in those games is even more of a walking apocalypse, it's beautiful

Forgive me if this was brought up and I missed it but I really want to congratulate Game Freak on the original idea behind the Dragon type. It's only used by the penultimate boss. The only other way you can encounter a dragon is by finding it in the Safari zone, where you don't battle them in a normal way, so all you could possibly know about Dragon-type Pokemon is what you read in the back of the instruction manual. The starter Pokemon are explicitly designed to remain with you your entire trainer career -- being cute when you start, turning into cool monsters when you end, and having the three evolution levels timed so just as the previous form starts to fall off you get a power boost that keeps them relevant to your party until the endgame. You are all but ensured to still have your starter Pokemon (and for them to be one of the strongest on your team, if not THE Pokemon carrying you), and as you encounter these mythical creatures you bring out your starter... And Dragons are resistant to all three of those types. Not strong against them -- it's not a totally lopsided fight -- but you're going to have a much harder time just powering through them with your starter the way you probably powered through the rest of the game. They're even resistant to Electric-- less pertinent since Dragonite's Flying-type mitigates the advantage, but it still cuts down on the power of the series mascot that kids might have carried with them all through the games, too. Meanwhile, their only true weakness is Ice... a Pokemon type you can go the entire game without ever finding for yourself. The only Ice-type you're guaranteed to run across is the gift Lapras (which can be easy to forget to come back for, although I don't think that was intentional). Otherwise you have to find the Jynx trade (and remember to go back to it), explore the Seafoam Islands (completely skippable), or use the Super Rod in the waters between Vermillion and Pallet Town (Cinnabar and Seafoam inclusive). You don't NEED any of the Ice-types, of course, and in fact the type is almost deliberately set up to be weak against the endgame... except against Dragons, where it becomes a secret weapon that you had to work to find. Dragonite's secondary Flying type might even be specifically to make Ice a nuke against it to reward a player for finding and raising this rare, nigh-hidden type. Gen 1 seems so janky and weird from a present day perspective but it's fascinating to look back and really understand why the (im)balances are the way they are. I've really developed a massive appreciation for the thought that went into these games, just wonderful.

50 minute video on Onix? I’m in

Onix was designed more as a boss than a playable character

One point I want to bring up for Beedrill - in Gen 1, Bug and Poison were super effective against each other (for some reason). Which means all the Grass/Poison types you run into throughout the game are 4x weak to Twineedle, which means Beedrill has some legs later in the run, especially if you started with Squirtle. Not quite as good as Butterfree being able to learn OP Psychic moves, but still good.

The thing I lament is that Game Freak is allergic to base stats rebalance between generations. They only started doing it after Gen 6, and 99% of their "buffs" or "nerfs" are 10 more or 10 less base stats in one or two stats. While Onix got an evolution in Gen 2, it was still not as good as it could've been, so it would've been nice if Onix got a stat buff on top of its evolution in Gen 2.