gen-one

[gen-one]

the Electric type!

gen one has 9 Electric types in total: the Pikachu family, the Voltorb family, the Magnemite family, Electabuzz, Jolteon, and Zapdos. All of them are pure Electric type, excepting Zapdos.

Electric types are extremely insular; most can only be found in the Power Plant after you get Surf near the end of the game. The only exceptions are Pikachu (which has a 5% encounter rate) and Voltorb (found only in Route 10)

this also gives the player little reason to use most Electric types, as by the time they can catch them they also have access to Zapdos; and besides that, there's not much reason to use Electric types by that point anyway, as the only notable trainer weak to them is Lorelei (which is on paper an Ice-type trainer, in practice 60% of her team is also Water-type)

in addition, the Electric type is another victim of gen one's weird move distribution. Voltorb doesn't learn any Electric-type moves, and Magnemite learns nothing stronger than the 40-Power Thunder Shock. At least Pikachu, Jolteon, Electabuzz, and Zapdos can hold learn a decent move, albeit with their levels on the 40s or 50s.

the Thunder Stone is another oddity; it can only evolve Pikachu and Eevee! so unless the player catches the rare Pikachu or decides to make their Eevee into a Jolteon, there's no reason ever to buy one.

[gen-one]

the Flying type!

the Flying type is not so much scuffed mechanically so much as it has weird distribution, possibly due to it being conceived more as a "Bird type" during development

gen one has seven bird Flying pokémon families - the pidgey, spearow, and doduo lines, as well as Farfetch'd and the three legendary birds - plus 7 non-bird Flying pokémon - Charizard, Butterfree, Zubat, Scyther, Gyarados, Aerodactyl, and Dragonite.

thing is, in original Red/Blue, none of the non-bird-like Pokémon could actually learn any Flying moves. all Flying moves are exclusive to birds exclusively.

this to me very much feels like they originally developed it as a "Bird type", then changed it into "Flying" and added it to a few extra pokémon, without bothering to change the movesets.

[gen-one]

the Fire type!

the Fire type sounds like it should be very strong on the offense right? and in most future games it's pretty reliable. in gen one, not so much.

first, let's talk moves. there's five Fire-type moves: ember, flamethrower, fire blast, fire punch, and fire spin.

Fire Spin is a special case, having the very useful gen one incarnation of moves like Wrap and Bind, making the opponent unable to fight back until they're finished. that said, while it has higher power than other moves of its kind, it also has the lowest Accuracy, so it's not the most practical.

Fire Punch is okay on its own, but limited to the rare-and-version-exclusive Magmar and the very-low-Special Hitmonchan

Fire Blast is a high-power, low-accuracy move; the biggest problem on a casual playthrough is that it's unique to a late game TM.

Flamethrower would be a good, reliable Fire move... if it weren't for most Fire pokémon only learning it at a high level. Vulpix learns it at level 35, Charmander at 38, Growlithe at level 50, and they go up from there! and note that you need to keep your Vulpix or Growlithe from evolving before then, so they'll be weak unevolved pokémon relying on Ember. until level 38 or 50. yeah.

now let's talk the Pokémon themselves!

your options are Charizard, Ninetales, Arcanine, Rapidash, Flareon, Magmar, and Moltres. of those, only Rapidash is widely available. the rest are all version-exclusive, legendary, or part of a three-way choice.

Charizard and Magmar are overall unimpressive stat-wise. Rapidash can't learn Flamethrower. you could use an Arcanine or Ninetales or Flareon, but in all cases you'll really need the Fire Blast TM to get anywhere.

as a final point, let's look at the reasons to use a Fire type in the first place!

they're not very impressive defensively, so you're definitely looking for attack here. Fire is super effective against three types: Grass, Bug, and Ice.

Bugs are pretty common, and Grass isn't too rare. the Ice thing isn't too useful though, as Ice types are very rare and many of them are part Water, negating that weakness.

the big issue though is that, if you want something for Grass and Bug... Flying is right there. way more widely available and less reliant on TMs. and you'll want a pokémon with Fly anyway, so Fire doesn't really add much to the team.

[gen-one]

now to cover some Fighting-type moves!

now. if you think Fighting, your first thought is probably a big punchy move. I know mine is! so let's see how well gen 1 matches those expectations, shall we?

gen 1 has eight fighting-type moves, all of which deal damage: - 5 kick moves: Double, Low, Rolling, Jump, and Hi Jump. - 2 grappling moves: Seismic Toss and Submission. - Counter

(Karate Chop already existed, but was classified as Normal).

most of these have very limited distribution!

Double Kick is learnable only by Nidorans, Jolteon, and Hitmonlee. Low Kick is unique to Machop and Mankey. Counter is unique to Hitmonchan and a TM, and Submission is similarly only available to Machop and a TM. and Hitmonlee has a whole three moves unique to it - Rolling Kick, Jump Kick, and Hi Jump Kick.

so Hitmonlee gets unique STAB access to half the movelist, and several of the other moves are either weak or very niche. the "best" widely available Fighting move is Submission, and...

as a general rule, moves can have 80~90 Power before getting any drawbacks. any move stronger than that has low accuracy, uses up two turns, or has some similar drawback.

Submission has 80 power, and only 80% accuracy, and the user takes recoil damage. It's really not good or reliable. you could instead use any of a plethora of 80-power, 100% accuracy, no-drawback moves available to other types.

[gen-one]

this one's a classic but I figure it merits figuring in the blog

the weaknesses of the Psychic type

Psychic was supposed to have two weaknesses: Bug and Ghost.

neither of them... really works. and in both cases, it's a multifaceted not-working.

in the case of Bug, most Bug pokémon are... not very strong. The two strongest ones, Scyther and Pinsir, don't actually learn any Bug-type moves (and in Scyther's case, no Flying moves either).

and speaking of Bug-type moves, there's only three that deal damage. one of those is Leech Life, and with its 20 base power, it only deals damage by technicality. even if it's super effective, any decent move will deal more damage than it, specially since only Golbat, Venomoth, and Parasect learn it

the other two Bug damage moves are Twineedle and Pin Missile. Twineedle is unique to Beedril, and Pin Missile is learned by Beedril and Jolteon. neither has high power either, so you're still better off using a normal move of another type, specially because Beedril is weak to Psychic too with its secondary Poison typing.

now for Ghost-type. there's of course only one Ghost family, the Gengar line, but also only one standard Ghost damage-dealing move, Lick. and with its base power of 20 and running off Gengar's 65 Attack, it's not really going to do anything. literally, actually, as the Psychic type was only supposed to be weak to Ghost, and is immune to it instead. and of course, Gengar is also part Poison and thus weak to Psychic.

all this means there is no practical way to deal super effective damage on Psychic-types in gen 1

[gen-one]

DISCLAIMER: I love Pokémon, and I enjoy the gen 1 games! I just think it's fun to look at all the silly things they have.