Countdown to Pokemon Black/White 2 - (Part 1) My Gen. I Team

Okay, let's try and make this blog thing happen. Last year I got swept up by my family life, then got bogged down by work, and gave up the rest of my free time working on a project for someone else.

But, that's enough excuses, if there's one thing I've heard gets your page view up, it's talking about Pokemon, and the past few months I've had Pokemon on the brain. I loved Gen. V, so I'm excited that we're getting a sequel in less than a month, and what better way to while away the hours than to lie back and think of Kanto.

I'll never forget my first reaction to Pokemon, I called up my friend and described it to him. "It's called Pok-eh-mon, it has an overhead view like in Zelda, but the battles are all turned based, like in Final Fantasy. And it's going to have a cartoon."

I got Pokemon Blue, because of the awesome Blastoise on the cover. Sure, Charizard is cool looking, but so is every other dragon ever. But, a giant turtle with canons coming out of it's shell, you don't see that everyday. Despite this, I took Nintendo Power's advise and started with Bulbasaur, and thus began my very first, and quite possibly worst Pokemon Journey.

I made a bunch of rookie mistakes. Firstly, I used Bulbasaur in all my battles, so much that he was at lv 84 when I got to the Elite Four. Second, I had a redundant move pool. My final set up was Tackle, Razor Leaf, Vine Whip, and Solarbeam. I didn't know how the moves worked back then, all I knew was that Vine Whip could KO all rock types like Geodude, Onix, Graveler and Machop (I thought he was a Rock Type back then). Razor Leaf always worked, no matter if I was paralyzed (cause I went through all of Sliph Co. with a paralyzed Venusaur). All Pokemon need to have a normal attack, my justification to keep Tackle. Solar Beam was the last thing he learned, so it must be good.

I tackled the Elite Four with Venusaur, a Machoke and Staryu from Victory Road, Articuno (who I used my Master Ball on), Dugtrio, and Haunter. I think Machoke and Staryu might have been lv 35. Despite this, I managed to beat Gary, though Articuno was the only one to survive. Later I took on Mewtwo, who destroyed my Venusaur, but I was lucky enough to Freeze it with Articuno and catch it. Again, only Articuno survived.

So yeah, I so ashamed of my first Pokemon Journey that I've never trained a Bulbasaur again.

Should Have Picked Squirtle

Afterwards I had to "Catch'Em All" and I started giving them nicknames and I built a team. Instead of trying to be effective, I wanted Pokemon that looked and sounded cool. So I basically nicknamed all of them after Dragonball Z characters. I had a Raichu named "Goku." My Dugtrio named "Turles" "Tien" the Machamp (Cause of the 4-Arms Technique, I even gave him Fissure to stand in for the Kikōhō) Stone Cold, my Articuno, Gangrel, my Gangar, and Freezer (Mewtwo). It didn't stop there, I had a Omastar and Sandslash named Zarbon and Dodoria, respectively, and a Poliwrath named Krillin. I could go on.

Sure, I eventually played with Squirtle and Charmander, but I never had that much fun with the first generation of Pokemon. It was never as fun as the Anime made it seem. I wouldn't have know, that it was really all my fault. That all started to change as I got a little bit older and Pokemon got a lot more competitive.