How Psychic Type Was OVERPOWERED in Generation 1 | Pokémon

In Generation 1, Psychic type Pokémon were incredibly powerful, to the point where they kind of broke the game. Psychic was weak to only Bug types, resisted itself and Fighting, and was immune to Ghost. This meant that powerful Psychic type Pokémon, such as Mewtwo, Hypno, and Alakazam were unstoppable. Watch to learn about how specific Psychic attacks helped, how it made gym battles easier, how it made the Elite Four and Blue easier, and how they fixed it in Generation 2.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro & Type Matchups
0:52 Psychic vs. Bugs
2:04 Psychic-type Moves
3:42 Gym Battles
4:46 Elite 4 & Champion Battles
6:17 Changes in Generation II
6:50 Conclusion
Pokémon Red gameplay from @NintendoUtopia
Video link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/norGoKd6fa5jmsk
(Move animations not from this video, those are from Bulbapedia)
Red, Blue and Yellow box art from Wikimedia, Type Charts from Pokémon Database, No sign from Pngtree, Pokémon Yellow box art from Amazon, Question Mark from Gallery Yopriceville. All other images from Bulbapedia.
Music used in this video (in order):
Battle! (Trainer)
Viridian Forest
Battle! (Wild Pokémon)
Battle! (Gym Leader)
Final Battle (Rival)
Violet City
Hall of Fame
All music from Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow (except Violet City, which is from Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal)
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#pokemon #gen1 #kanto #poketuber #pokemonred

[@Naul6892]

You should make a video about how Fire was rather underpowered in gen 1.

[@iMatt1801]

Thanks for the idea, I might add that to my list! I feel like whenever I pick up a Kanto game and pick Charmander I have a really tough time.

[@SabreLeonheart]

Yes like Flareon with all that Attack but no physical fire moves to make use of her STAB.

[@aeiouna]

Should have included that Blue won't have Exeggutor if you picked Squirtle in Red or Blue and instead have Venusaur, which due to being part Poison, is yet another one weak to Psychic

[@iMatt1801]

Good point! That's an oversight on my part, I didn't look at all of Blue's party for each starter choice figuring only the starter would be switched out. Thanks for watching!

[@ModernVintageTV0]

Also. Sabrina was gonna be the final Gym Leader, until Game Freak cut The Original Veridian Leader, changed the Gym Leader order, and made Giovanni the "Mysterious" Veridian Gym Leader.

[@iMatt1801]

Cool fact, I didn't know that. Thanks for watching!

[@guntherhemmrich9876]

In addition the stat "Special" was not split yet. So they had high offense and defense. Nearly all physic attackers had low special, meaning low defense against the Psycho Pokemons high special/special attacks. Even if these Pokemon are not hit super effectiv by Psycho attacks, the "neutral" damage dealt with Psychic moves was quite high. Chances were also very good, that a Psychic Pokemon you catched eaely in the game and leveld all the game, has outleveld Sabrinas Psychos, meaning both of you may not attack very effektiv, but you are just stronger by level.

[@iMatt1801]

That's a good point! I didn't want to get too much into stats since I think they can sometimes be confusing for some people but yeah Psychics definitely had an advantage here.

[@guntherhemmrich9876]

@@iMatt1801 And I didn't want to play the smart a** - great Video!!

[@iMatt1801]

Thanks, I appreciate it!

[@andreivaldez2929]

Psychic might be OP in a vacuum, but Normal is arguably the best overall Type to be in Gen1.

[@kevindudson2344]

And the only Ghost move that existed back then sucked. And Mew might be the most powerful Pokemon in the entire game. I mean run it physical and watch it shred the entire game. Run it Special and watch it shred the entire game. Here are the move sets if you are interested. Swords dance, Rock slide, Earth quake and then a free move slot for anything you want. I personally ran it with Soft boiled. And if you want to run it Special: Ice beam/Blizzard, Psychic, Thunderbolt and Fire blast.

[@armorbearer9702]

I did not think about it before, but Team Rocket does have a lot of squishy poisons that psychics can easily destroy.

[@iMatt1801]

Good point! I didn't think about it either. That also definitely makes the game easier if you are using psychics.

[@blub-tf6rt]

Im replaying all gen 1 on GBC atm and fr they are even better then i remembered

[@iMatt1801]

Yeah, playing with them makes the game so much easier. Thanks for watching!

[@trapez77]

I think the multiplayer battling wasn’t a big deal for the gen one games until stadium came out. The vast majority of people that played red and blue didn’t ever try the multiplayer battling so every pokemon being perfectly balanced wasn’t the goal. Certain pokemon that weren’t legendary were still meant to be special and more powerful. the gengar line being the only ghost type and the dragonite line being the only dragons in the game made them feel special. And the pokemon that evolved from stones or evolved from trading were meant to be better than the ones that evolve normally.

[@monk3110]

Right. They were rewards for exploring. If I recall you had to go pretty far off the beaten path for a dratini or it was a pain. Super fishing rod in a specific place with low spawn chance or something

[@trapez77]

@@monk3110 yeah and Taurus was really hard to catch in the safari zone

[@blub-tf6rt]

​@@monk3110i got it from the casino

[@therealegr]

Psychic was broken, but if Psychic didn't resist Psychic it would have been even more broken

[@trapez77]

@@therealegr if psychic was so broken then why didn’t the pokemon tournament champion in 1997 use more psychic pokemon on his team? He only had 2 psychic moves out of 24. The idea that psychic was overpowered as been blown out of proportion

[@therealegr]

@@trapez77 The champion of the NC ´97 using only 2 Psychic moves dosen´t mean the type wasn´t overpowered, just that relying on one type isn´t a good strategy even if it is Gen 1 Psychic, and competitive players often tend to diversify to not get countered by popular strats of their time. Also, they would still agree with Psychic being broken maybe because their weaknesses were bad types like Bug or because their high Special stats, with a Psychic resistance to Psychic being the only thing that dosen´t make it completely broken.

[@veghesther3204]

However I still used kadabra in the games up the Gold and Silver DS remakes that was the LAST Pokemon games I played before giving up the series completely.

[@iMatt1801]

Kadabra is still a solid Pokemon. The Gold and Silver remakes were incredible games. Thanks for watching!