Pokemon TPP Red: The Cutesy Girl Part II

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So meet our newest cute party member, the spiky Jolteon, Spike! It got the Thunderbolt TM, and immediately turned into a powerhouse as a result. Still not good at taking down Grass, at least not yet. Anyway, with Spike in-hand, Rock Tunnel was a great place for my team, which could easily handle the wild Pokemon (which were again of comparable level). The only threat was a trainer with an Alakazam, which got lucky on some critical hits.


Similarly, the Rival in Pokemon Tower was flattened. Spike zapped down the two birds, and I sent in Clefable to combat Parasect for lack of anything else. It did the job, and humorously rolled Metronome Explosion against his new Kingler (another Pokemon that saw a huge buff). With Polly to take down Flareon (with Hydro Pump, even!), I now had these fights well in-hand. A few more Pokemon couldn’t hurt, of course!


One of the big changes this hack makes: every TM in the game is purchasable in Celadon City’s mall! I was able to snap up a lot of new tools for my team: Polly, in addition to evolving to Poliwrath via Water Stone, got a Submission TM. Saura got Double-Edge and Toxic over Growl and Take Down, the latter new move enabling the devastating Toxic+Leech Seed combo. And Cleff picked up Blizzard and Psychic, the latter for lack of anything else.

Anyway, we needed a fifth party member. Mandel experimented with Rapidash and Dragonair as two candidates, though the former got up there, it suffers from a narrow movepool that doesn’t give much of what this team desires. The latter had problems actually gaining levels. In the end, I decided that everything I could get now sucked, so moved on.


Celadon Gym was easy. Cleff rolled everything in here with Blizzard and Psychic, getting a bit of help from Spike’s new Pin Missile once - with it doing 4x damage to every Grass type in this game except for Tangela (Poison is weak to it for some reason). Unfortunately, not everything in here was grass - including one girl who had a Venomoth (despite saying not to bring bugs in). This highlighted some funny results of the text being virtually unchanged, including that, a girl saying to look at her Grass Pokemon (a Porygon, which is not), and of course, acting as though you’re male.

Spike and Saura split the duties in the Game Corner basement, which I took no pictures of. Ran into no issues. Giovanni was similarly easy. He had his original team - Onix, Rhyhorn, Kangaskhan - at higher levels, which Saura tore apart.


Polly learned Earthquake over Body Slam before heading into Pokemon Tower, and it took care of business easily enough - with just about all the wilds being weak to it. Took a bit to find a Gengar, but gained a few more levels in the process thanks to the white magic healing zone. Also, man, is this a creepy dungeon for even most standards, with possessed spirit channelers spouting freaky dialogue.

There was also a funny glitch here: there are wild Marowak on the same floor as the fixed one, and they went through the same revealing cutscene, except they’re already revealed! The Rockets at the end were easy.


A quick trip into Fighting Dojo later, picking up Hitmonchan, then getting a Hitmonlee (a rare Pokemon), then it was Cycling Road time. I would’ve liked to train Saura here, but most of the opposition was Poison, so it was cumbersome. After this, Mandel went into the Safari Zone. There, in addition to a few catches (namely, Charmeleon and Wartortle) she found the Surf HM for Polly to learn; a more reliable option over its Hydro Pump. Speaking of which, this hack gives you 3000 steps in it. There’s no real way for an ordinary person to run out, but it was useful for the stream.

Using this few Pokemon kept me ahead of the leveling curve, without needing to rely on stat EXP as much (which is how it wouldn’t be that big a deal anyway). Still, there were a few annoyances/flaws in my Pokemon layout: namely, not resisting Psychic moves as well as I could. This was highlighted in Fuschia Gym. Polly was the general Pokemon of choice against Koga`s Poison Pokemon, thanks to Earthquake, but there were several Jugglers with Hypnos and the such here.


So before proceeding, I took a small detour to Cinnabar Island’s mansion catch the cutest Psychic Pokemon available to me at the time: umm, Mr. Mime. A bit of a stretch in the cute department, but hey! The original games didn’t have a wide array of options available, and this is the best we got (Starmie is another option). Otherwise, she’d be all over Renuclius.

Of course, there is one especially cute Gen 1 Psychic, but that will have to wait a while. Well, I could get it right now with glitches, but let’s not. Speaking of glitches, this game does fix the MISSINGNO. bug by removing the encounters on the coastlines, but Trainer-Fly still works. Although, MISSINGNO. now freezes the game, unless it’s a Kabutops/Aerodactyl/Ghost one.


Silph Co. sucked. To the exploding Electrodes and Weezing were annoying. All of Mandel’s Pokemon got some time. But the Lapras gift is still only Level 15, and it’s for some reason not catchable in the wild. Otherwise, I’d use it in place of Polly...aside from the fact that Polly is one of the few dedicated physical attackers.

Saffron Gym was notable for being the first gym that I didn’t roll with just one Pokemon. I usually used Cleff, as its Body Slam was damaging on the physically frail Psychics, and Blizzard worked wonders on Exeggutors. But sometimes, I swapped in Saura or Spike when grass or electricity was wanted.


The Power Plant seemed like a good side-trip next, to fill out the Pokedex a bit as well as getting Zapdos. It was mostly Saura who got to train in here, though Polly got some action too with its Earthquake.


I thought Saura was really going to be able to gain levels in the Water routes up ahead. But unfortunately, all the wild Pokemon are level 20! Of course, it did destroy every trainer’s Pokemon, which got it some, but not as much as I was hoping. Seafoam, was unfortunately, also a bit stingy on the wild’s levels. I did catch a lot of Pokemon in here that I needed, including Articuno.

By the end of it though, my team was a mess, thanks to that ice bird. Only Saura and Polly were up. Had to go to Cinnabar to heal before beating the rest of the trainers


On the subject of catching Pokemon, there remained only 14 to obtain. Mandel crossed off Hypno and Ninetales in Cinnabar Mansion. Nicest thing to see, by the way: Roar failing to affect your Pokemon. Worst thing to see: that message. At least Ninetales isn’t rare.


Blaine was laughably easy. Polly may not have the best Special stat, but what it did have going was Amnesia. A few uses of that and a bunch of Surfs, and that was all she wrote. His AI will humorously sometimes try to use Super Potions at max health, making this fight even easier.

Spike got to handle the next water route. A few more Pokemon were crossed off the list here, including Dewgong, Kingler, and Vaporeon. After going back to previous locales catch Flareon and Beedrill, only a few remains: Charizard, Blastoise, and Moltres were coming up on Victory Road. Mewtwo and Mew are postgame Pokemon, and it’s much easier to get Alakazam and Dragonite in the postgame too, instead of looking in the Safari Zone/for another 1% Pokemon or leveling up and evolving a Dragonair all the way.


Giovanni was similarly easy. Amnesiaed Surf wiped the floor with his entire team. His gym had a variety of Pokemon, though most of them could be handled by Polly itself, if I recall correctly.


No one specific Pokemon saw use in Victory Road. I lucked into two Chansey encounters here, the first giving an option for later use, and the second paying out a decent amount of experience. After reaching the Indigo Plateau and returning to catch Moltres, the fiery bird proved quite annoying to capture. Mandel stocked up on items, gave Molty some moves, and went into the final gauntlet.



None of the Elite Four managed to pose a threat. All of Lorelei’s Pokemon were zapped down by Spike, except for Jynx who got Pin Missiled. Mimester’s Psychics one-shot all of Bruno’s Pokemon except for Machamp, and he wasted the one turn he got using X Defend. Mimester also rolled through Agatha’s Poison Pokemon, though Polly had to pick up the slack at the end. Finally, Spike ran through all of Lance’s Pokemon in one hit except for Dragonite, who Cleff hit with Blizzard, failed to one-shot, but froze.

As an aside, in the original Red 151, he has the legendary birds, but the TPP hack replaced them with Charizard, Seadra, and Aerodactyl due to the infamous incident where their original playthrough rolled him with their Venomoth due to the “smart” AI using the Psychic-type Agility repeatedly on the Poison Venomoth. They had a Muk on their team this run for the first part.


Finally, Gary. He was even easier than before, since Parasect came second-to-last, allowing Spike to run through Pidgeot, Fearow, Kingler, and Tauros before having to switch out. Molty got its only action of the playthrough here, splattering it with Fly. Polly came in to clean up Flareon, and that was that!


Mandel finished the first part of the game with 147 Pokemon in her Pokedex. Her roster lineup at this point:

Spike the Jolteon: Level 84
Mimester the Mr. Mime: Level 81
Polly the Poliwrath: Level 83
Saura the Venusaur: Level 82
Cleff the Clefable: Level 83
Molty the Moltres: Level 75

Now, TPP Red version adds in a postgame beyond the Unknown Dungeon. Turn the page to read on about it, because you gotta catch’em all~

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