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[ifbench]

Pokemon Firered Retrospective, from the perspective of someone whose primary experience with Kanto was Pokespe

To preface this, I have never seen Kanto outside of Pokespe, and brief clips from stuff like "Beating Pokemon without getting hit" or Pikasprey's softlock videos. I knew the general story of it, but I didn't know the details.

If you'd like to read my other mainline Pokemon retrospectives, you can read Emerald here, and X here.

Pokemon Firered was one of the most mixed quality gaming experiences I've had in recent memory.

It was mostly fun, sure, but I had to take extensive measures in order to make it not unbearable.

I chose Charmander as my starter, named him Burhalla, and caught a Pidgey and Ratatta on Route 1. I named them Linne and Jifa respectively. Jifa would become my HM buddy.

First few routes weren't too bad...until I made it to Brock.

Then everything went downhill.

Brock was brutal. His Onix was 3 levels higher than any I had encountered thus far, including his gym trainer. With both my main Pokemon weak to rock, and all of my attacks NFE against rock, it seemed like my only choice was to grind.

So I activated an infinite rare candy cheat instead, and leveled up Burhalla until he learned Metal Claw.

Even then, that wasn't quite enough. I had to level up him even further until he evolved into a Charmeleon, and then I finally beat Brock.

At this point, I was rather miffed, but I decided to press on. Maybe things would get better soon?

Mount Moon was fine. Not bad, not good, just...fine.

Then was Cerulean City, and Misty, who was my biggest roadblock in the entire run.

Burhalla was right out, leaving only Linne the Pidgey to battle her.

And it took so, so many tries. Even more than Brock.

But eventually, with the right luck, and the right timing of usage of healing items, Linne the Pidgeotto defeated Misty.

That battle tanked my enjoyment of Firered severely. It was frustrating, hard, and I began to start disliking Firered.

But I pressed onwards, up through Nugget Bridge (Which, I gotta say, I did not expect the nugget guy to be a Rocket grunt), to Bill's house.

It was cool seeing stuff from Pokespe in-game, like the stuff with Bill, but backtracking back across Route 25 was annoying.

Then there was the SS Anne.

It was a maze to navigate without a guide, and it got really frustrating.

But I continued pressing onwards, even as much as I was getting tired of Firered.

Surge was thankfully much easier than Misty or Brock, and I pressed onwards through Route 11.

Then I arrived at the sleeping Snorlax, realized I had no idea where to go or what to do from here, and gave up.

For over a month, I didn't touch FIrered again. I played some X, some Sun, some Shield, and some Violet, but Firered was on hold.

After growing a bit bored with my Violet replaythrough, though, I decided to return to Firered. Maybe, with a month's break, it'd be less painful than I remembered.

First order of business was where to go next.

I asked for advice, and apparently I had to backtrack to Cerulean City to get to my next destination.

I made my way through Diglett's Cave to get back there, and caught my third team member: Dirir the Diglett.

And after taking the long way around, I finally went into the house at the top-right corner, and made my way across the northern edge of Kanto, Route 9.

Then was Rock Tunnel.

See, I hadn't gotten Flash. And I had no idea where it was.

So like with Emerald's Victory Road, I had to navigate through Rock Tunnel with extremely limited visibility. And I was going Repel-less as an additional challenge, since I was imagining that my protagonist was a Zorua.

Not an experience I wish to repeat. But eventually, I made it to Lavender Town.

Lavender Town was both unlike and yet exactly like the stories I've heard of it. It was spooky, creepy, and eeire, but I felt safe, and the music felt calming instead of terrifying.

Perhaps it was simply that I had simply outgrown creepypastas? Or maybe it was just that my interests had shifted, or my standards had changed. I did attempt writing a PMD creepypasta once, after all.

Whatever the case was, I didn't spend too much time in Lavender Town. I remembered from a small clip I saw years ago, that I needed a Silph Scope in order to make it up the Pokemon Tower.

So I set out west, towards Celadon City, in search of the Silph Scope, and perhaps a new friend or two.

After passing through yet another underground tunnel that bypassed Saffron City, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps something similar to the manga was happening: A psychic bubble that enveloped Saffron City, preventing anyone from entering.

But soon I made it to Celadon City, the home of Kanto's Game Corner.

I had learned my lesson from Emerald: These places were rigged.

So I decided to cheat a little in turn.

You know how I had a ton of rare candies from the infinite rare candy cheat? I decided to sell about a hundred, so I could get one of the Game Corner prizes: A Dratini.

I had read a wonderful fic a long time ago called Dragon Dance, detailing Lance's rise to champion, and I decided to take inspiration from Lance freeing a Dratini from the Game Corner. I named them Darnod.

In flavor, I imagined this as busting up the Game Corner, freeing all the Pokemon, and a Dratini and Eevee follow my protagonist into the Rocket Hideout, becoming part of xyr team.

Yes, an Eevee too. I got the Eevee from the Celadon Department Store, and named them Voivick. I also acquired a water stone, and evolved Voivick into a Vaporeon.

Burhalla, Linne, Dirir, Voivick, Darnod, and Jifa would comprise my final Kanto team.

But before we get there, I had to infiltrate the Team Rocket Hideout.

I had heard of spin tiles before, from reading an Undertale AU sprite comic called Inverted Fate, but actually experiencing them was a fun puzzle! It was also silly watching my character spin around and around and around.

Eventually, I made it through the hideout, to Giovanni.

He was no slouch, and I had a pretty tough time with him! But thanks to my new team members, I pulled through, and acquired the Silph Scope.

After a quick detour to defeat Erika, who was a relatively easy opponent, I made my way back to Lavender Town.

Pokemon Tower was a bit more spooky than Lavender Town itself. It wasn't quite as terrifying as its manga incarnation, but still pretty eerie, especially with the possessed trainers, and the spell tag circle.

Soon, I made it to Marowak's ghost, and put the restless spirit to rest.

And after defeating a few Rocket grunts and rescuing Mr. Fuji, I obtained the pokeflute. Finally, I could bypass the Snorlax that had frustrated me into giving up for a month.

I went south from Lavender Town, across the docks, and battled the Snorlax there. It was a tricky battle, but I eventually won.

The long walk to Fuchsia City was arduous, but before too long, I made it to the home of the Safari Zone.

I originally wasn't planning on going in, until I heard from a friend that I needed to go there to get an HM.

And so I went in, trying to find my way to the fabled house at the end of the Safari Zone.

It was tricky, but I found it, and someone's gold teeth while I was at it!

With my new HM in hand, I challenged Koga for my next badge. It was another tricky battle, but thankfully, none of my team were weak to poison.

Next...I went to Cycling Road, having no idea that I was going the complete wrong way.

Cycling Road, as far as I can tell, is meant to be ridden downhill. I went uphill.

I was very confused at first, but kept making my way up the now-tedious Cycling Road, and eventually came out the other side, now with HM Fly. No more backtracking for me, I could now quickly return to any Pokemon Center I've been to.

Then, finally, with nowhere else to go, it was time to enter Saffron City.

While there was no psychic bubble around the city like in the manga, the city was certainly overrun by Team Rocket.

And so, like Red, Blue, and Green did in the manga, it was finally time for me to storm Silph Co.

Silph Co was a maze. Over 10 different floors, each connected by warp tiles, with no indication of which ones led to the path forward.

It was brutally confusing, and filled to the brim with trainers itching for a battle.

But I eventually found the keycard, and navigated my way to the hidden side of the top floor. It was time to face Giovanni again.

He was just as tough as when I encountered him in the Rocket Hideout, but Voivick pulled through, and I acquired the master ball.

Compared to Giovanni, Sabrina was relatively easy, though still pretty difficult. I had to work for that win, but I got my sixth badge.

Then it was time for me to go Surfing, along the southern edge of Kanto.

The Seafoam Islands were a tricky puzzle to figure out. It took me a few rounds of falling through holes and climbing up ladders to realize that I had to use Strength to push boulders down the holes, and change the flow of the water.

Soon, though, I made it to Cinnabar Island...and was immediately taken from there to Firered and Leafgreen's exclusive sub-region, the reason I decided to play this before Let's Go: the Sevii Islands.

For the Sevii Islands, I had absolutely no idea what the game version was like. I hadn't even seen any snippets of footage about them. My only experience with them was the Firered and Leafgreen arc of Pokemon Adventures.

But this time, there were no repossessed pokedexes, or "three Team Rocket beasts". Instead, I simply had to go on a variety of fetch quests.

It wasn't anything too special, but I'm glad it was there. It was fun! And I look forward to returning here in the postgame someday, once I find the drive to catch enough Pokemon for the Rainbow Pass.

But that's for later. For now, having defeated a biker gang, I returned to Cinnabar Island. Before I could face the gym, though, I had to traverse through the decrepit Pokemon Mansion.

Pokemon Mansion was like Silph Co, only much smaller, but the random encounters, statue puzzles, and eerie atmosphere made it feel just as long.

This was where Team Rocket conducted many of their experiments. It was where Mewtwo was created. And it lived up to that atmosphere.

Although some of the journal entries clearly had some of the dubiously canon stuff from Pokemon's very early days, such as references to real-life locations.

Still very neat, though.

Blaine wasn't as difficult as Misty, but was much more difficult than Erika. He specialized in the same type as my starter: Fire.

But with help from Voivick, I defeated him, and got my seventh badge.

I had just one stop left before Victory Road: The very first gym I encountered, whose gym leader was absent for so long.

Viridian City's gym leader had finally returned, and I was going to take him on.

The gym puzzle was my favorite yet of Kanto's, with the combination of spin tiles and trainers creating a genuinely neat maze.

And then I made it to Giovanni, for our final battle...until Soulsilver, Ultra Moon, and Let's Go Eevee, at least.

This battle with him was the trickiest against him yet. It took several tries for me to win.

But win I did, and Team Rocket, supposedly, was no more.

With all eight Kanto badges under my belt, it was time to go to Victory Road.

Before that, though, another battle with Blue. It was another tough one, but then again, all the major battles at this point were tough.

The badge check gates were really cool! The only comparable one I had seen so far was in Kalos, as Hoenn didn't have any. And Kalos' was more just inscriptions of the badges on the walls. Still cool, but not like Kanto's.

And then it was time for Kanto's Victory Road, my third Victory Road.

It was tricky, but in a different way from Hoenn and Kalos'.

Hoenn's was a test of navigation. How well could I navigate this maze in near-complete darkness?

Kalos' was a test of strength. So many powerful trainers, with nowhere in between to heal besides usage of items.

Kanto's was much shorter than both, fully lit, and its trainers weren't as tough as Kalos', but what it lacked in navigation and strength, it made up for in puzzles and endurance.

There were boulders scattered around, and I had to maneuver them sokoban-style onto switches in order to progress.

Oh, and the entire thing was filled with random encounters. At this point, I gave up on the "no repels" rule, and bought a bunch of max repels for this.

It was tough. It was confusing. It was my final test before the Indigo Plateau.

And eventually, I passed the test, making it out.

All that was left, was five battles. The Elite Four, and the Champion. The toughest the Kanto region had to offer.

At this point, all my Pokemon were fully evolved, save for my HM buddy Jifa. I was functionally going into this gauntlet with five Pokemon.

But I had conquered Hoenn in a similar way. Five battlers, and an HM buddy. I had hope that I could do this.

Healing up, and stocking up on healing items, I proceeded towards my first of my final battles, against Lorelei.

It's been a while, so I don't quite remember how these battles went. I do remember, though, that even Burhalla's fire wasn't enough to melt her ice. Linne, Dirir, and especially Darnod were weak to ice, so it was tricky.

But I pulled through, and next up was Bruno, fighting-type master.

Linne was vital here. Her Fly was invaluable in avoiding moves while still dealing damage. But a Hitmonlee knocked her out, leaving Voivick, Darnod, Dirir, and Burhalla to take on the rest.

Next was Agatha, and her ghost-types were no joke...even if she was more of a poison specialist. All my normal-type moves were out of the question. But with patience and strategy, I did it.

And last of Kanto's Elite Four was Lance, who had influenced this journey in his own way, back at the Celadon Game Corner. Darnod helped me a lot here. It was dragon vs dragons, and Darnod's Dragon Claw took many of them down. But the same went in reverse, and Darnod fell, leaving Voivick to finish things off with their Aurora Beam.

One battle left. Healing up my team, I progressed into the champion's chamber, to face Blue one final time.

This was by far the most difficult late-game battle I had. All the others had specialized in one or two types. But Blue was like me, with a rounded team.

It was tough. It was arduous. It took every member of my team, even Jifa, to win.

But win I did, and I had become champion of Kanto.

I had completed Pokemon Firered.

While my thoughts on this one are more mixed than Emerald or X, I did truly enjoy it, especially once it hit its stride around Lavender Town.

It has its flaws. Extreme difficulty in the earlygame, lots of grinding necessary, and much confusion on where to go next.

But I had fun, despite it all. I cherish this victory all the same.