Last time in Pokemon Crystal, my way forward was blocked by a Sudowoodo. The game made it very obvious I need to get a watering can from a flower shop in Ecruteak City. I guess that’s how the game introduces me to the berry growing feature at the same time, but I’m not really interested in that part since, thanks to fast forward, there’s no way I’ll keep playing this game for days. I needed the gym badge to get the can to, so the whole Sudowoodo thing also served as a type of checkpoint, stopping me from moving on before I do everything that needs doing in Goldenrod City. Since I had the badge, spoke to the girl next to Sudowoodo and found out about the water thing, I got the can faster than it took me to write all of this.
I got past Sudowoodo and caught it for my collection (just as I did with all the legendaries in Pokemon Yellow) and moved on past Routes 36 and 37, to Ecruteak City. The Ecruteak Gym was ghost type, so none of my Pokemon were especially useful, but all of them were able to do decent damage to the enemy Pokemon. I ended up using all three of my Pokemon equally, with Pikachu taking the final battle against Morty. I got the badge and a TM, so I was no ready for the next gym. Before that, though, I can finally evolve my Chikorita, so that’s what I’m going to do next.
There’s one more thing I also need to do. I need to go back to Route 37, or move on to Route 38 and catch a Noctowl. I believe Ash caught it earlier in the anime, but Route 37 was the earliest I could get one in the game. I think it only appears at night, though, since I haven’t encountered one yet. In any case, Noctowl will be a critical part of my team, since I’ll be learning Fly relatively soon. After that, there’s only Phanpy left, really. I could possibly get Larvitar, but not permanently, and I don’t think there’s even a way to catch one before completing the game.
So, it turns out, if I did my research right, there’s only five Pokemon, including Pikachu, that I can get in Pokemon Crystal if I follow Ash’s story as closely as possible. With trade or cheats, I can get all of them, but the annoying part is, ash get’s all three of the starters as well as an excellent bug type before he gets to the first two gyms, so I think that would really take the fun out of the game. This is why I decided on only picking one starter. I keep saying this, but it’s quickly becoming obvious the game and the anime aren’t very related. It’s the same world, but it doesn’t even follow the exact same rules. I mean, Pikachu beat Onyx.