As promised, my next goal in Pokemon Crystal was Blackthorn City and the local dragon type gym. The way the story goes is that the gym actually belongs to Lance, the cool NPC I helped deal with Team Rocket, but while he’s away, his younger sister Clair is running it. It also turns out she’s kind of bratty, since she “couldn’t believe I beat her” and made me jump through hoops to get the badge. I actually had to go clear an extra dungeon before I finally had eight badges.
Clair was mostly a pushover, thanks to Noctowl and Heracross.
Clair was easy to beat, by the way, even though she used dragon Pokemon. Her three Dragonairs weren’t able to touch me damage-wise and her Kingdra soon fell to Heracross and Noctowl. I couldn’t use most of my Pokemon, though, since the dragon type is highly resistant to most common types.
With that out of the way, I could finally go to the Pokemon League, but before I did that, I decided to go to the Tin Tower, since it was unlocked now that I beat Team Rocket. In there, after some trainer battles, I encountered Suicine, but I wasn’t able to catch it and instead ended up defeating it. I don’t think I’ll work on getting all the legendary Pokemon in Pokemon Crystal, since the only legendaries that truly feel legendary to me are the three birds of the first generation and maybe Lugia.
The entrance to the Kanto region is right next to the main character’s house.
To finally get to the league, I had to go to the Kanto region first, and the road towards it was right next to my house in New Bark Town. Soon enough, I got to the Victory Road. Compared to Yellow, the place was basically a hallway, which I welcome with open arms. I never liked long twisting passages in my dungeons. Give me optional areas, but let me know they’re optional areas.
Eventually, I got to the league and the training started. I took some time to get my entire team to around 45, which was simply with most of my Pokemon. Pikachu handled the rock types of Victory Road with Iron Tail, Kingler used Surf, Bayleef dominated with Razor Leaf and even Noctowl started kicking ass once it learned Confusion. Heracross and Phanpy had some difficulties, but nothing Exp. Share couldn’t handle.
Level 46 is probably the low end of the recommended level group.
My team was trained and I was ready. Or not!
Apparently, level 45 with my team composition was nowhere near enough to beat the Elite Four of Pokemon Crystal. I didn’t even get to see all of them.
Will, the first of the four used Psychic Pokemon, so I had to train up Pikachu to at least one-hit knockout some of them, but even so, Exeggutor and Jynx would usually ruin my team. Eventually, I got through it and after a few attempts, I was able to beat Will on a regular basis, but that didn’t help.
The Pokemon League building quickly turned into a respawn area.
Koga, the gym leader of Pokemon Yellow and a user of Bug Pokemon sounded easy, but I apparently have insanely bad luck with poison, so he would usually finish me off before I could get to Bruno, user of Rock and Fighting types. I actually didn’t get past Bruno yet. The Elite Four really are the Elite Four in Pokemon Crystal, apparently.
Next up, training. Lot’s and lot’s of training.
