u/TheStoryTeller666

About 10 days ago I saw someone else had their daughter pick their team in Yellow. It was such a cool idea, that I jumped straight on the bandwagon and showed my own daughter a poster of the gen 1 pokemon and told her to pick any 6 she fancied for me to do a run with.

She immediately picked Pikachu as it is the only pokemon she really knows. Then Charizard as she recognises it too. The rest were all ones she liked the look of. Ekans because she likes snakes. Zubat because she likes bats. Jolteon and Drowzee just jumped out in the moment.

To my complete surprise, every pokemon pulled their weight at times. All the way to the Champion. I had to cheat Ekans in, and caught it in Cereulean. Every other pokemon I encountered naturally.

This was a fun challenge. Anyone with kids, especially young kids, should try it! Other than a Doduo for Fly and Lapras for Surf, I used no other pokemon.

Hey Everyone!

As my own personal challenge of soloing Yellow with each pokemon line draws ever closer to completion - I have nearly finished Porygon, just got to get through the Elite 4 - I thought it would be cool to showcase the gen 1 Eeveelutions.

All three shared the exact same run up to Celadon so the first 3rd was an Eevee run, which was quite cool. It was actually better than I expected. Brock did take a few attempts but Sand Attack is great early game.

The hardest fight, and the only other loss, was Rival 2 in Cereulean. After Brock, I was managing levels as I didn't want Eevee to get over level 29 by Celadon so Jolteon could get Double Kick at 30. So I was going into the battle with a slight disadvantage. I would get to his own Eevee, but it would take me out each time with just a small amount of health left. I had to wait for a battle with good luck.

After this, I left Lt. Surge for later and the Hiker in Rock Tunnel who I was worried about was a first try victory as I once again just spammed Sand Attack. Annoyingly, Eevee levelled up to 30 on the last trainer I had to battle before Celadon, so Jolteon missed out on Double Kick.

Eevee got to Celadon (right in front of the guy you buy the stones from) at level 30, a time of 4:54 and with 12 resets. So that is where each evolution starts from.

Vaporeon:

As you would probably expect. Vaporeon, being a water/ice pokemon, sailed through the rest of this game. Lorelei was the only trainer that Vaporeon lost more than once to. This was more my fault as I had to figure out when to use Body Slam and when to use Surf.

Vaporeon finished the game at level 64, with a time of 9:07 and with 39 resets.

Jolteon:

It was regrettable that Jolteon missed out on Double Kick. I don't know for certain if it would have helped out much in the run, but it probably would have saved a few resets. Nevertheless Jolteon did very well, until it got completely walled by Giovanni in the 8th gym. Not even Mimic saved me initially and I had to and train which wasted a lot of time.

Sadly, Jolteon got walled a second time by the Champion's Sandslash. Earthquake was terrifying - even with Sand Attack. It owned the Elite 4, but failed on the only pokemon that really posed a challenge. To add insult to injury, the first time I did beat Sandslash, Alakazam ruined my accuracy by spamming Kinesis.

As such, Jolteon finished the game at level 75, a time of 12:16 and with 48 resets.

Flareon:

So... Flareon was odd. It didn't really struggle until Lance, but did rack up more resets than Jolteon. I am not sure I'd call it bad luck, it just randomly lost once against quite a few trainers or gym leaders, but then would proceed to win each time.

But Lance was hard, as was expected to be fair. Gyarados had to not hit me at all, for Flareon to have a chance in this fight. Then Aerodactyl had to not use Fly. The 1st Dragonair always managed to paralyse me with Thunderbolt (not even Thunder Wave) and Dragonite, on the attempts I did get to Dragonite crit me every single time except for the time I won. Flareon had extraordinary bad luck in this fight and arguably with more average luck would have had probably 20 less resets from this match alone.

As such, Flareon finished the game at level 66, with a time of 10:08 and with 81 resets.

So Vaporeon is best by a country mile. It wins.

To work out which should take second place out of Jolteon and Flareon I compare the levels of both pokemon, then subtract the difference between levels from the resets. I subtract the resets of one from the other, then the remaining resets are converted into time (I say 1 reset = 5 minutes of in game time). This amended in game time is what decides who is 2nd and who is last. I do this for every run when comparing in the tier list.

So Flareon was 9 levels under Jolteon when it finished the game, so I subtract 9 resets from Flareon's total. Leaving it with 72. Then subtract Jolteon's resets from Flareon's, leaving 24. I then add 5 minutes for each remaining reset to Flareon's time as it had the higher amount. This adds exactly 2 hours to Flareon's in game time and gives Flareon a finishing time of 12:08, meaning it just pips Jolteon to 2nd place by only 8 in game minutes.

So after posting my Ditto run a couple of days ago, which has seen a lot of love, thank you so much by the way, I have also had a fair few questions regarding how I did it. As I will be posting more of my runs here over time, I figure if I make this post, I can direct people here in future.

Before I start each run, I see what moves the pokemon can learn and when, this is particularly relevant for pokemon who evolve through stones.

I start every single run from the exact same save file, shown in the picture and I play at 4x speed. Pikachu defeated Eevee, I have done the package for Oak and I have the ability to buy pokeballs. I have also cheated in 3 Masterballs. One to catch the pokemon I am after when I cheat it in, a second to catch either a Pidgey, a Spearow or very occasionally a Pidgeotto (whichever I encounter first) to use as my flyer, and a third for 5 special occasions which I will detail a little later on.

I catch my desired pokemon in the grass you can see in the picture between levels 3 and 6 then the run starts. I have made battling the optional rival mandatory as I think his Jolteon team is the most difficult to defeat.

Moving forward, I always pick the Dome Fossil, and then I keep Pikachu on me until Cereulean City so as to get the Bulbasaur. It hates me though, so I have to give him about 15 potions to get him happy enough for the woman to hand over my HM slave for Cut. Pikachu then gets boxed immediately as he refuses to evolve into my favourite pokemon of all time.

I also grab Charmander for Dig and Squirtle for Surf and Strength. I don't use repels, and I don't cheat extra rare candies in, so I have 12 to play around with during the run. Like Jrose, I don't use items in battle and none of my other pokemon are involved in battles. I also don't get Flash for Rock Tunnel and Double Team is banned unless the pokemon learns it via level up.

During the E4, I don't save until after Agatha (except in the Ditto run), to make it a bit more difficult.

Going back to the extra masterball, it is kept for the trade evolutions, Golem, Alakazam, Gengar and Machamp. I cheat them in and catch them when Geodude, Abra, Gastly and Machop evolve. I actually forgot with Kadabra until it was level 20, but it didn't affect the run as Kadabra OHKO'ed everything. Also, I have to cheat in Raichu. You cannot catch it in Yellow. So once I am in Celadon and have access to the Thunderstone, I catch Raichu then, and give it the same moves as Pikachu had.

And that's how I do it. The run ends when I beat the champion, and I log level, in game time and resets, which I use together to create a league table.

Hey everyone!

I am doing a solo run with every single pokemon line in Yellow. I am allowing evolutions, so Charizard starts as a Charmander, rather than doing 3 separate runs for the line. Once I finish I will compile the data and make it look beautiful but until then, I just finished the hardest run I have ever done... Ditto.

It actually took me two attempts. What is most maddening is I actually got pretty far in the first run, but I fell into the trap of accidentally using transform on a Fearow with Mirror Move and so eventually I couldn't use Struggle as Ditto any more. I needed that for Sabrina. I initially tried to continue but it felt that Ditto was being unfairly punished for my fuck up. So I had to start again.

So to beat the game, Ditto had to be level 100, took 54 hours and 30 minutes (in game) and 476 resets. I don't add in Rare Candies so I had to train to level 88 before using my 12. As such, I beat every single trainer available to me in the game.

At the Elite 4, I usually go without saving until I beat Agatha. Sort of a Jrose lite, if you will. But there was no way I was trying that with Ditto. Although... Bruno did turn out to be a first try victory, and it wasn't even close. I lucked out that Hitmonlee just used Meditate, and Hitmonchan did not freeze me with Ice Punch.

Also, unlike Scott's Thoughts, Jolteon was my rival's last pokemon, so I had no Magneton to badge boost me. As such, Cloyster was a pain in the arse. I had to wait for two Clamps to miss in a row. But after that Ninetails and Jolteon were essentially free.

I am never doing a Ditto only run in gen 1 again.