LogFAQs > #969110219

I'm feeling fine and the baseball game was postponed to tomorrow, so I did get the chance to play some more tonight. I went around Silph Company and its teleporters, searching for items and fighting enough random grunts to get Porygon to level 48 before the two big battles in this area.

On the way to Giovanni, there was also the fifth rival battle, or as Jrose affectionately calls him, Rival Fivel. His Pidgeotto is now a Pidgeot, but this thing still knows Sand Attack and I dont have Swift anymore. I only had Porygon use Agility once before 2-shotting Pidgeot with Tri Attack, but it did land a Sand Attack before it went down. His Gyarados did massive damage with Hydro Pump (it would have KOd if it got a crit) but it was also 2-shotted by Tri Attack, then Porygon thankfully outsped his Alakazam after a single Agility and 1-shotted it with Tri Attack. If Porygon missed any Tri Attacks against Gyarados or Alakazam, I probably would have lost. After recovering off the damage that Gyarados did, the rivals Growlithe and Venusaur were trivial to beat, even with a couple of misses due to Sand Attack. After that battle, a random guy gave me a free Lapras, who is now my HM mule for Surf and Strength, then I healed up and went to the top to kick Giovannis ass. He was super easy compared to Rival Fivel. All I did was just set up 3 Agility on his Nidorino, everything went down in a couple of hits from either Tri Attack or Psybeam, and none of them could do much damage back to Porygon.

And with that, the Team Rocket subplot is officially dealt with! The fact that the "evil team" subplot ends so early in the Kanto games compared to other Pokemon games (most people normally have 4-5 gym badges when they complete it, where it usually extends beyond the 7th badge in other games) is sort of refreshing after playing other gens for so long. I believe it's actually possible to complete the Team Rocket subplot with only 2 badges earned in normal gameplay, since you only need Cut (for the one bush that blocks the route to Rock Tunnel) to access this part of Kanto and you can use that as soon as you beat Misty.

Actually, that gives me an idea for a future playthrough: a gen 1 run, but I play the game completely out of order. What do you guys think?