The Kanto Diaries: Teatime in Kanto

Pokémon games are meant to be easily accessible for all ages but every now and again there crops up a puzzle that is suck obtuse bullshit you have to consult the internet.

There is a hut on the Route between Celadon City and Saffron City with a guard who tells you the road is closed and that he's thirsty. After returning to Celadon and turning the Team Rocket Hideout upside down in search of drinkables I broke and brought up a the Bulbapedia walkthrough.

Turns out there's a random NPC sitting at a table in the Celadon Mansion (which is actually a hotel) who just gives you some tea. For some reason Drake, my trainer, decides to simply pocket a cup of tea for later like she's Doctor Who and uses it to bribe the guard who shares this tea with the other guards and leets you through.

The road that is closed, by the way, is six steps long. It isn't even a Route you step out onto, you just exit the building and you're in Saffron City.

The current team:

Shelby the Wartortle, my bashful starter. (Lv32)

Lucretia the Nidorino, who has a female name because I don't remember those symbols right. (Lv33)

Karai the Arbok, whose Bite is worse than her bite.(Lv28)

Digby the Dugtrio, whose probably getting dropped in the near future. (Lv27)

Faraday the Pikachu, bane of all Flying types. (Lv26)

Floof the Growlithe, a serious fellow and my newest acquisition. (Lv20)

The Kanto Diaries: Vermillion City (dickishness in game design)

Most of the times I find the Pokemon games to be pretty fair. After all, there's no in-game fail state and the only strategy guide you really need is the type chart. However, FireRed just pulled a spectacular dick move on me when I reached Vermillion City.

Now, Electric-type gyms are difficult at the best of times but never more so than when you haven't even had the chance to get a Ground-type on your team. Like, for instance, if you play FireRed because seemingly the only Ground-type before Vermillion City is Sandshrew which is LeafGreen exclusive.

My team when I went into the gym to fight Lt. Surge “The Fighting American” (no seriiously) was a Wartortle. A Rattata, a Nidorino, a Pikachu, an Oddish and a Butterfree. Of that list two are weak to Electric attacks, my Oddish was absolutely useless, a Pikachu is basically useless against other Electric-types and that left me with two passingly effective fighters who nevertheless kept getting paralyzed.

I got beat. Twice.

So, in a funk I decided to pursue the route of the screwed over: power levelling. I stomped my way back the way I came and leveled for a bit then returned to the gym.

Where I was beaten a third time.

Fuming, kicking my Pokeballs down the street in front of me as I went, I decided to try and get some decent EXP by skipping ahead to the next route and picking on some trainers. This was when I passed Diglett's Cave.

Yers, “Diglett's Cave”. Literally a cave named after and infested with a Ground-type Pokemon, five or six steps outside the city of the Electric gym.

Dick move, Game Freak. Dick move.