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.

This time in Pokemon Crystal, as promised, I went straight towards Lake of Rage. Of course, I couldn’t fly there yet, so instead, I flew to Ecruteak City and went east, over Route 42, towards Mahogany Town. There was a Gym there, but I couldn’t challenge it until I dealt with the situation at the Lake of Rage.

To this day, the red Gyarados is the only “shiny” Pokemon I ever caught (and probably ever will), so I caught it again, just for fun. Of course, I won’t be using it, but it’s something I don’t mind keeping in one of my boxes.

The forest maze had some useful items.

The lake itself, I’ve managed to clear relatively quickly, but thanks to fast-forwarding everything, I missed the part where Lance tells me where to go next, so I spent some time wandering around the area, exploring the forest maze to the northwest and finding a hidden hut with a TM. Eventually, I figured out I needed to go back to Mahogany Town.

In a house there, Lance uncovered an underground passage to a Team Rocket base, so I spent the next twenty-or-so minutes fighting Rattatas and various other weak Pokemon. Eventually, I got through it and got back out, finally unlocking the Mahogany Gym.

This time, Team Rocket was more of a company than a crime organization.

The gym type was Ice, so Pikachu really kicked some ass. Overall, I can’t say I had any trouble with clearing it. I got my seventh badge and was ready to go to the next city. To get to Blackthorn City, I had to go through an ice cave filled with sliding and boulder puzzles. Luckily, the random encounters weren’t too frequent, so I managed to solve the puzzles and get through in a relatively short amount of time.

The Ice Path was actually fun to get through.

Once I was out, I got to the city, but I couldn’t tackle the gym yet. I had to unlock it by completely defeating Team Rocket. To do that, I went to the Radio Tower at Goldenrod City. Before that, however, It was time to catch my final team member – Phanpy. He appeared at Route 46 in the morning, so it took me a while to find one. Even worse, he has a tendency to run away from battles, so I had to waste a couple of Ultra Balls before I could finally catch it. I spent some time leveling it, before I finally went to Goldenrod City.

Pretty soon, the old canceling annoyance started.

Ash’s Donphan – Move List

• Tackle
• Rollout
• Take Down
• Defense Curl
• Earthquake
• Hidden Power
• Hyper Beam

Phanpy won’t be evolving to Donphan in this game, but I plan to use the stronger moves anyway, since I have no idea which moves he used in his unevolved form. The move list isn’t very interesting anyway, so I’m not sure how much I’ll like this one. Still, the plan is to keep everyone in the same level range, so that’s what I’ll be doing.

I finally got around to bringing Togepi to the Professor – I got an Everstone for Bayleef.

The Tower was a huge area I had to visit twice to completely clear. First, I had to go to the top of the unlocked area to get a key to another dungeon at the Goldenrod Underground. Clearing that dungeon then got me a Key Card which unlocked the second area of the Radio Tower. Once that final area was cleared and the new Team Rocket boss was defeated,  the Team Rocket side quest was finally over.

Next up, Blackthorn Gym.

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.

My Croatian/Slavic readers might chuckle at this one.

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.

Morty was relatively easy, but Chikorita is yet to shine.

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.

The next couple of gyms in Pokemon Crystal really went by quickly. It’s not that the span between them is much shorter than in other games. My team just wasn’t able to grow, thanks to the game being inconsistent with the anime. I expected this, though. As I said, the only game in the Pokemon franchise which remains remotely true to the anime was Pokemon Yellow.

I was advancing Pikachu and Chikorita side by side, switching to the other one as soon as the first one went a level ahead. I think I’ll try doing this with my entire team in time. It really makes things simpler and more relaxed and enjoyable.

I really need to get an everstone, one way or another.

Soon after the Violet City gym, I was forced to start cancelling Chikorita’s evolution, since she only evolves much later in the story. Luckily, my old partner, Pikachu, doesn’t have this issue. I’m seriously thinking about cheating my way into owning a couple of everstones, simply to make it less annoying.

I solved the puzzle, but I’m not interested in Unknown.

I stopped by the Ruins of Alph and solved a puzzle there, but all that got me was the option to fight and capture Unknowns, which I’m not sure Ash ever encountered in the anime. It’s an interesting side quest, but not for me or this challenge. Pretty soon, I was in Azalea Town, beating the second gym. This one was bug based, so I used Pikachu again.

After that, I finally got to Ilex Forest, where Ash catches a Noctowl in the anime. There are only Hoothoots in the game here, though, so Noctowl will have to wait. I did get one very important thing, however – Headbutt. As soon as I got it, I backtracked to the area before Violet City and used it on some trees there. After a couple of tries, I encountered and caught my Heracross. My team is now 50% larger!

• Bulbapedia’s Link to Ash’s Heracross

List of moves Heracross uses in the anime

• Tackle
• Horn Attack
• Endure
• Leer
• Take Down
• Fury Attack
• Megahorn
• Sleep Talk
• Focus Punch
• Hyper Beam

I spent some time helping Heracross catch up in experience and then moved on towards Goldenrod, passing through Ilex Forest and leaving my newly hatched Togepi at the Day Care Center along the way. The owner gave me another egg to carry with me, though.

Rival battles are always worth it.

Goldenrod City was the big city of the game. It had a bike shop, a flower shop, a gym and a department store, a game corner as well as an underground area full of trainers. Most of it didn’t interest me, but I spent some time at the underground area to train and to at least pick up the coin case, even if I won’t use it.

You actually need to talk to Whitney twice to get the badge. Evil!

The gym was normal based, so this time, all three of my Pokemon were able to contribute. The only difficulty I had with the place was with the gym leader’s last Pokemon, a Milktank. That thing is basically an overpowered Chansey. Well, I’m not sure if it’s overpowered, but it’s at least as powerful and annoying as Chansey was.  By the way, is it just me, or the gym types in Crystal a bit “different” compared to the other games?

I moved on north of Goldenrod but soon found a Sudowoodo was blocking my way. A nearby NPC said it hates water, so I’m guessing I’ll need to go to the flower shop. More on that later, though. This is where my session ended.

You won’t believe it, but it actually happened. I actually got around to actually playing Pokemon Crystal. Let’s get some things out of the way first.

Pokemon Crystal Looks Awesome!

Well, no it doesn’t;not really. Compared to Pokemon Yellow, though, it might as well be a next-gen game. It really says something about the programmers achievement when you go back to an ancient sequel of an ancient game and it manages to impress you with technological advancements.

I’m loving the new Pokedex!

Pokemon Crystal is not Pokemon Yellow

The further I go with this challenge, the harder it will probably get to actually, properly, follow the anime.  Pokemon Yellow was the only obvious choice, since the game was basically made to follow the anime. From that point on, the game protagonist had very little to do with Ash.

That being said, I’ll continue to do everything I can, within reason, to follow the TV show as closely as possible.

A grass type was very unsuitable for the early game.

The Road to the Violet City Gym

As I already said, I couldn’t really transfer my Pokemon to the Crystal in any reasonable time period, so I opted for a sort of worthy alternative. I “transferred” my Pikachu and added Pokedex entries to all the other Pokemon I caught. If i need any of them during the game, I’ll add them individually.

Now, in the anime, Ash obtains all three of the starters, but there was no way for me to do that in Pokemon Crystal or any of the other two Generation II games without cheats, so I decided to just pick Chikorita, since that was the first of the starters Ash obtained. This means I started the game with Chikorita and Pikachu. Pikachu started at level 2, to simulate the apparent reduction in strength he often goes through in each new region, but thanks to his attribute experience (similar to Effort Values of the later games), he quickly outgrew Chikorita by a large margin.

Rule Expansion!

When I started Pokemon Crystal, I decided to try to expand on the rules a bit. From now on, I’ll aim to also only use moves Ash’s Pokemon have used in the anime. I probably won’t be able to follow this absolutely, but I’ll do my best to make it as close as possible. Of course, I’m limited to four moves per Pokemon, so I’ll have to pick which four I’ll be using:

Chikorita’s Moves in the Anime

• Razor Leaf
• Vine Whip
• Tackle
• Sweet Scent
• Body Slam
• Headbutt

Pikachu will be sort of an exception, since his repertoire constantly changes throughout the series, so I’m having a hard time finding his move set for the Johto region. I’ll mostly use his signature moves, which means Slam and Light Screen need to go away as soon as possible.

Thunder vs Flying? No problem!

I was supposed to catch Heracross right away at route 29, but the only way to encounter it was by using Headbutt on trees in mountain regions. Route 29 is a mountain region, but I won’t get Headbutt until Illex forest, so Heracross will have to wait. The other two Pokemon Ash obtains before the gym in Violet City are the starters, so Chikorita and Pikachu ended up being my Violet team and will probably remain the only members of the team for a while.

Speaking of the gym, it was a flying type gym, meaning that, just like in the anime, Chikorita wasn’t at all suited for it. On the other hand, Pikachu had absolutely no issues with defeating the two trainers and the gym leader.

The first badge is mine! I got an egg from one of Professor Elm’s aides at the Pokemon Center and was ready for my next gym. The egg will hatch into a Togepi, by the way.