Pokemon Red Week 1 Update
Part I of The Great Pokémon Playthrough of 2024
Welcome, one and all, to the Great Pokémon Playthrough of 2024! Back in January I conducted a poll with the goal of having you all help me decide which games to play as we spend the year going through one main-line Pokémon game from each generation. I will be adding a new tab to the menu for the play through with the list of games we’ll be playing, along with links to each of the updates as they come. So, if you’re ready, dust off that old Game Boy or load up that ROM file and let’s play Pokémon Red!
Progress Map
Getting Started
In case you’re somehow not acquainted with the Pokémon video games, I’ll give you a quick and dirty rundown of the game’s main premise. You live in a world filled with these creatures known as Pocket Monsters, or Pokémon for short. They are like animals but many have some sort of elemental type (fire, grass, water, electric, etc). At the beginning of each game you get a starter Pokémon and from there you explore and catch wild Pokemon to build your team. Your Pokémon gain experience through battles with wild Pokémon and other trainers' teams. As Pokémon gain experience they will learn new moves, and many will “evolve” or transform into their next form which gives a noticeable stat boost.
The goal is to become the Pokémon League Champion by defeating all 8 bosses, known as Gym Leaders, and finally defeating the Elite Four in a gauntlet-style run culminating with a final showdown with the current champion. A simple concept, but a solid game.
Now I’m not sure how long it should take to go through these games, but I tend to play them pretty slow. I enjoy the process of random encounter battles to slowly grind my team to a higher level, and I don’t worry too much about how long it takes. That said, I was a little surprised at just how long I took to get to through the second gym battle which I will reveal at the end of the article.
Pallet Town and the Early Game
Starting off in my bedroom, the first course of action was to hop on the PC and grab the Potion (heals 20 HP) that I randomly discovered years ago because no one ever told me it was there. I don’t usually need it, but depending on how the stats line up with the first trainer battle, it might come in handy.
To trigger the next story beat I ran up into the tall grass north of the town. Because wild Pokémon are found in tall grass, and because I have no Pokémon to defend myself with, Professor Oak comes out and leads you back to his lab where you get to choose your starter. Every Pokemon has three, and they are always a fire type, a grass type, and a water type. In the first generation games, these are Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle respectively. Now every time I play red, I choose Charmander even though it’s the objectively worst possible choice for the early game. I just don’t care because it’s adult form — Charizard — is awesome and is my favorite Pokemon.
Once you get your starter, you have to face off against your rival. Now, if you’ve only played the newer games, you might be surprised here because this game pulls no punches. Your rival always chooses the Pokémon type that you’re weak against unlike the modern games where they choose the one you’re strong against.
Now the way the stat draw happened in this playthrough, my Charmander was struggling so I was glad to have that potion I mentioned earlier. Once victorious, Charmander grew to level 6!
Once the battle was over, I could leave Pallet Town and head north through the tall grass. This path is Route 1 and it leads to the Viridian City. There is a guy on this route who says he works for the PokéMart (the shop where you buy supplies) there and he gives you a Potion as a free sample. Once there, I popped into the PokéMart and grabbed the parcel that was delivered there for Professor Oak and headed back to Pallet Town to deliver it.
Once Oak had his package, I got the Pokédex to start the quest to catch all of the Pokémon in the game. I’ve done this once before, but won’t be pursuing that this time. Besides, with certain Pokémon being exclusive to each game, it’s not possible without someone to trade with — or a second Game Boy, a link cable, the other game, and a lot of time. Next up, I went to my rival’s house directly above Oak’s lab to get a Town Map from my Rival’s sister. I then head back up to Viridian City where the PokéMart is now open to us to stock up on Pokéballs so I could start catching critters.
Team Building
Now, I’ve played Red and Blue enough to know exactly what team I want so I’m going to be pretty strategic in which ones I keep in my party. While I caught quite a few early on, I only kept a few in my team and worked on leveling them up. I caught a Pidgey on Route 1 and a Nidoran male on Route 22 before heading up into Viridian Forest and getting myself a Caterpie.
A couple things to note here for those of you who’ve only played the newer games. Pidgey is a normal type. Yes, he’s a flying type as well, but “flying” wasn’t a real type in gen 1 so there is no type advantage as we would eventually get in later titles. In fact, almost all of the early game Pokémon you can find are either normal or bug type which are very unhelpful against the first Gym Leader, Brock. His Rock type Pokémon are sturdy and normal type attacks don’t do much against them, and neither do fire type moves which is why I said that Charmander kind of sucks early on. If you want an easier time against him, go with Squirtle or Bulbasaur as he is weak against both water and grass type attacks.
Disadvantages aside, that’s why I got Caterpie. It evolves quickly and at level 14 it’s adult form learns a decent psychic attack called Confusion which helps to level the playing field against Brock.
I spent the next several hours grinding in and around Viridian Forest trying to level up my team and looking for an elusive Pokémon that I always try to get early in the game. Before long, Caterpie hit level 7 and triggered it’s second form, Metapod and eventually got to level 10 and became Butterfree.
It took forever, but after a long time roaming the tall grass in the forest, I finally got my Pikachu. Many of us, growing up in the 90s, didn’t even know Pikachu was available this early in the game. I remember stumbling upon it on my second playthrough as a kid and thinking that the game had glitched or something. I spent a few minutes grinding it up from a level 3 to about level 8, but didn’t waste too much time as Pikachu is completely useless in the first gym battle.
Pewter City and Mount Moon
Now I feel real dumb, but I forgot to take pictures of my battle with Brock, but I won earning the Boulder Badge. Moving on.
Next I headed down Route 3 battling the trainers along the way including this absolute legend of a Youngster…
Next I made my way through Mt. Moon where I caught more Pokémon and blasted through more trainers. This is also a great place to grind if you have a Pikachu because it seems like every 4 or 5 steps you take you encounter a wild Zubat which is weak to electric attacks. You need this if you chose Charmander because the second gym is a water-type and once again, Charmander isn’t going to have a good time. Also, Mt. Moon has two Moon Stones in it. One is a visible item to the left when you enter the cave, and the other is hidden toward then. These are necessary for evolving certain Pokemon including my Nidoran from its second form to its final form Nidoking later in the game.
This was also the point where I started getting tired of playing on the Game Boy’s tiny little screen so I pulled out some of my retro tech.
Cerulean City
Mt. Moon was actually much shorter than I remembered, and before long I was out and coming into Cerulean City. I went up to see the “Pokémaniac” Bill to complete that side quest and caught an Oddish (a grass type) which would be helpful in the gym battle to come. While working my way through the trainers on Route 25 north of the city, my Pidgey reached level 18 and evolved into Pidgeotto.
Once I saved Bill, and got the ticket to the S.S. Anne I decided to go ahead and tackled the Cerulean City gym. Misty, as mentioned earlier, is a water-type specialist so I took down the two trainers in the gym and challenged her .
Historically, this has been one of the bigger pains in my side when playing through Red but this time it went really smooth and I defeated her in a matter of minutes. Pikachu defeated her Staryu with just a couple of thundershock attacks, and damaged her Starmie. I decided to pull him out though because Starmie is really quite tough and it’s attacks pack a punch.
I brought out Pidegotto but it got knocked-out after a few hits, so I brought out Oddish, leaving Pikachu in reserve. Thankfully, Oddish’s absorb attack was super effective and was enough to bring Starmie earning me the Cascade Badge.
With that, I finished up week one of Pokémon Red. I earned two gym badges and spent a total 8 hours and 53 minutes playing. Like I said, I take my time. However, the early game with Charmander is always a slog. Now that I’m through the hardest part of the game I’m able to move a bit faster and really have more fun.
That’s all for this week. I’m planning to share update posts as I go along. If you are playing along, I’d love to hear from you as well. Tell me about your team and your experiences with this game over the years. You can leave your thoughts in the comments, join us on Telegram, or hop onto the Substack Chat thread here.