100%ing pokemon crystal

updates

challenge cup pt. 1 [01/01/24]

hello everyone, happy new year! i've been busy lately, but i'm back and better than ever ^__^

i haven't played stadium battles before, and i'm going in blind. i've had these games for a while now, but i've always been a bit intimidated by the battling aspect. i've decided this is my training arc, though :3

i decided to start off with challenge cup since i wouldn't have to teambuild, and it'd get me familiar with the game. of course, i started with poke ball class. my first match really set my expectations higher than they should've been, when my wooper OHKO'd all three of camper marcus' pokemon. maybe this game isn't hard after all! (yeah no, i just got lucky.) for my first attempt, i made it to semifinals, but i didn't take home the trophy just yet.

in all of my attempts, with how strong psychic types are, i found the 6th battle against medium peggy to be more difficult than the semifinals or finals. she ended my second run, and in my third, she was the first to faint even one of my pokemon.

the battle against her in my third run was interesting. i was under the assumption that the opponent wouldn't switch unless they had to, so i used thunder into her slowpoke, only for her to switch out into geodude. then, when i switched out, she switched back into slowpoke! i was pleasantly surprised, even if it put me in a tough spot. i did end up winning that fight, though, and the rest of the cup was a breeze. the winning team from my third attempt consisted of tyrogue, hoppip, magnemite, larvitar, venonat and shellder.

(three of those six tries are from the previous owner of this game lol)

my first impressions of the game were that it was fun and cute: the announcer's reactions were funny but kind of awesome, the models and animations were fun and lively, and i was getting the hang of the gameplay, maybe.

it sure seemed that way, at least. i beat great ball class on my first try, with the team of ivysaur, voltorb, houndour, corsola, butterfree and phanpy. now that i had the hang of it, it felt like the rest would be easy.

that has... not been the case so far. ultra ball class has been difficult, forcing me to actually rub my braincells together rather than just click earthquake 3 times in a row. i've had two or three failed attempts, losing my last one to the rocket grunt's mono normal team in semifinals.

will luca overcome challenge cup before winter break ends? find out next time on tohjo falls!

(or, if you're in the future, just scroll up.)

surprise! [11/03/23]

"if i get the suicune fast enough i might use it in a team, lol."

so, about that... i got it in 144 SRs, under an hour after posting the last update.

guess i get to use shiny suicune in stadium 2 real soon!

fighting red [11/03/23]

i got my team into the level 50-55 range, so dorayaki finally evolved, meaning i can use fly without dragging a random level 11 hoothoot out of my PC. i got the 16th badge, so i could finally go to mt. silver!

my team was kinda scuffed. i didn't want to make the fight boring by grinding for xp, but dango almost one-shot pikachu with earthquake despite being nearly 30 levels below. i was feeling confident as my underleveled team members easily took out his, but then he sent out snorlax.

snorlax was super bulky and would constantly use rest as soon as it woke up. manju would've been my counter if he had any decent fighting moves, but i was stuck using triple kick. i used monaka's toxic to try and get some chip damage, but it kept using rest to heal the poison and damage, and then we were back at step zero. i came up with plan B: i still used toxic, but switched out to dango before it would possibly think to use rest, planning to either KO it with earthquake or toxic damage, and... he got paralyzed by body slam on the switch in, unable to move as snorlax healed and knocked him out with snore.

so... you know that saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? yeah, i used the same strategy again, but it worked the second time.

now i'm soft resetting for shiny suicune, and i also need to decide on my stadium 2 team plans. if i get the suicune fast enough i might use it in a team, lol.

i love pokemon crystal so much... [10/29/23]

i really love how this game actually makes it fun to talk to NPCs.

i came back to saffron since the magnet train was up and running again. i hear copycat lost her poke doll. i go talk to her and she mimics me to say "oh yeah i'll go help you find your poke doll". i go "hey, dont put words in my mouth," and she's like "but i'm really worried!!"

so i go to vermillion to get the doll back. i walk into the pokemon fanclub and this guy is like "i always wanted a clefairy, but i found a poke doll of one and i'm happy with just this," but then i tell him the little girl it belongs to is sad it's gone. he apologizes, says he can just catch a real clefairy and gives it back to me.

while i'm there, the chairman tells me all about his rapidash and how cute and awesome it is, and apologizes for rambling by giving me a rare candy.

then i challenge the gym. lt. surge says he'll zap me like he did to his enemies in war?! sir i'm 10.

after using the sophisticated strategy of clicking earthquake 5 times, i come back to saffron. copycat gives me her train pass as thanks, mentioning that she got it as compensation when they tore down her old house to make the station.

this game is just like, mwah! the devs did such an amazing job at conveying how things changed in the past two years. copycat's poke doll is the same one you give her in RBY, but it's been torn and sewn back together. she still lives in saffron, but had to move to make room for the station. copycat, the person who found the doll, the chairman... they all have their own life that i catch a glimpse of in passing.

i really enjoy getting immersed in the world like this... i love talking to the NPCs, but they don't really say anything interesting about the world after gen 5. i don't like being too negative online, so i'll just say i wish TPC would change their release schedule and i'm glad i can still play the older games.

first shiny! [10/29/23]

behold, the first shiny on this save file! i decided to use the first shiny i hatch from the odd egg, and i ended up with a tyrogue.

it took three hours to evolve him into hitmontop because he kept getting extra stat experience in defense while i was battling. rare candies probably would've helped but i couldn't access them yet lol.

once i caught my dratini and trained it up to the levels of my other pokemon, i beat lance.

my team:

species
nickname	MOCHI	DANGO	MANJU	MONAKA	KONPEITO	DORAYAKI

on to kanto!

what i mean by 100%

the reasonable part

basically what you'd think of when you hear 100%. i want to get all 16 badges, defeat red, complete the pokedex including unown forms, beat the battle tower and pokemon stadium 1 & 2, collect all the items and room decorations, have the maximum amount of money, etc.

the not-so-reasonable part

...it's actually possible to get every shiny pokemon in gen 2 without using hacks, glitches or rng manipulation to force the pokemon to be shiny. i still have to use at least two glitches to get access to mew and celebi, but i still have to hunt them, so i think it's fair.

since i sort of have a life, i might not finish this part, and definitely not within a reasonable amount of time. this is more of a love letter to my favorite game than a quest for internet clout, so i don't mind.

i'm only using cheats to back up my save, i'm inevitably going to use some glitches, and i might try rng manipulation for fun, maybe for stadium teams. i don't consider it cheating to use the dodrio game boy and egg color preview in stadium 2 either, so that's one thing that will make my life easier.

ditto will probably take an absurd amount of time without being able to use the glitch everyone uses to make it shiny, but maybe one of the legendaries will take longer?

wish me luck! :3