I Fixed Brock's Team in Pokémon Red & Blue

[@smithplayspokemon]

If you're watching this today, I've actually changed my mind on Brock and don't agree with this video anymore. I think Brock actually serves his intended perfectly in all 3 games.

[@ImplodingChicken]

Brock has only one purpose: to teach kids not to spam Tackle. If you spam Tackle you're not going to beat the rock types. If you use anything else, you'll push through, given how weak Brock's non-STAB Tackles are. That's why Brock's Pokemon are punching bags and have no rock moves. The game wants you to fight Brock, spam Tackle a few times, see that it's not doing anything, and try a different move. This teaches the player an important habit - next time they run into a fight and aren't winning, they'll think "I should try a different move!" As an adult that seems obvious, but for a kid, it's not uncommon to just blindly do the same thing over and over and then get frustrated and quit when it doesn't work. Brock's job is to teach you how to attack, not how to defend - you have access to very few Pokemon anyway at this point, and for some kids they haven't even caught anything besides their starter. Worrying about which Pokemon are best for *taking* hits is still too complicated. The game is teaching you offensive type matchups right now, not defensive ones. That's also why it's intentionally making supereffective hits seem even better than they are (with the 4x weaknesses). Again, for a veteran player defensive and offensive type matchups seem like the same thing, but for someone learning the game they're very different concepts and take a while to intuitively connect. Bide is obviously a stupid move and shouldn't have even been put in the game. But it makes at least some sense in this context - you need a powerful non-normal move to take the Onix down, because it will throw your Tackles back at you if you try to chip it down for too long. And yeah, I don't know what the hell they were thinking with Charmander. They should have given it a fighting move or something.

[@InfernosReaper]

The problem with Brock is he walls a *lot* of mon, including 1/3 of the starters. Also, Bide was how they taught people to not just spam tackle. Brock being Rock wasn't necessary for that. First gym leader should've been ground type or something. Hell, I suspect that originally there was only 1 type that later became the Ground and Rock types, which is why all Rock types that aren't fossils are also Ground and why the Light Years Jr Trainer is mono-Ground.

[@bongchoof]

@@InfernosReaper Without the rock type, Bide does jack shit. Honestly, Onyx is the only pokemon besides Rydon they could have out there but Rydon is too strong for the first gym. Screech has some teaching moments as well. Onyx has the typing and defense to make bide work.

[@InfernosReaper]

@@bongchoof Bide a fundamentally stupid move anyway. As you said, the only ones who can use it effectively are Rock types, but even that works against them because the reduced damage they take means that much less damage getting dished out. Worse, since it's a multi-turn move, in most games, that's free switching out a worn out mon for a fresh one or piling on debuffs.

[@peterdeckenbach1045]

When I played Fire Red for the first time, I chose Charmander, because I still knew everything from R/B and wanted a light challenge for the start. After I beat Brock, Charmander gained a new level and learned Iron Claw. My greatest WTF moment in Pokémon.

[@InfernosReaper]

@@peterdeckenbach1045 The sad thing is that thanks to their defense, Iron Claw is still worse than Ember...

[@farawaytundra008]

"You're trash Brock" -Bully Maguire

[@daveczarnik6017]

We commented this at the time same 😂

[@kristopherwillis8075]

😂😂

[@brunolinares604]

"Arceus, I want you to kill Peter Parker"

[@RealGateGuardian]

Que no emo dancing Spiderman

[@MrSkeltal268]

Look at little Brock jr

[@tylergendron535]

What he is suggesting is basically what happened to Roxanne in Gen 3. Her ace is a monotype Rock mon with a Rock stab signature move. In that one fight you can learn about type advantage, stat changes, and STAB

[@iantaakalla8180]

This change is also why if you do any sort of challenge against Roxanne, she becomes impossible.

[@thenerdbeast7375]

Or Brock in FRLG, which added more layers to learning type coverage through Charmander learning Metal Claw.

[@ernestosouza3471]

@@thenerdbeast7375 on level 15. At that level you can just beat him in gen 1 with ember

[@conansglasses2645]

​​@@thenerdbeast7375 no not really , due to how high Onixs defense is and how low his special defense is , a not very effective ember will always outdamage a super effective Metal Claw

[@DarkEclipse23]

@@conansglasses2645 metal claw also has a chance to boost atk. Not to mention it’s basically irrelevant as you can just persevere and get a charmeleon before then. It’s literally no different than getting combusken in gen 3 or monferno in gen 4 to counter both rock type gyms. Especially monferno that learns power up punch by then.

[@luizbezerra4373]

“All gym leaders are there just to hurt you” Meanwhile Blaine uses Super Potions at full health

[@robertlupa8273]

It's to hurt your brain. "Why did he do that? I'm so confused."

[@Lockirby2]

@@robertlupa8273 The trainer hit themselves in confusion.

[@PredictableEnigma]

His hand slipped

[@ploeteQ]

Being one of these people that got to experience Brock as a kid in the 90s without any online game guides: He was indeed tough! If you did not level up enough in Gen 1, independently of your starter pokémon you were left with tackle and scratch (Bulbasaur learned Vine Whipe at level 13). And both of Brock's pokémon have strong defense and resistance to normal damage meaning you would slowly run out of HP because he heavily resists your attacks. Onix's bide also could punish you hard because we did not know that it would end after two turns so we did not cheese it. It was this super cool move to use where you would suddenly hit very hard after enduring some damage. It is also worth noting that in Gen 1 you cannot find any useful pokémon for the fight beforehand. Your best bets were either letting your starter learn its first STAB move or evolving a Beedrill or Butterfree or catching a Nidoran Male that learns Double Kick at level 12. Funnily, I think this makes Charmander probably the best at beating Brock as it learns ember already at level 9 making it reasonable against Brock as he has low special defenses. All-in-all, Brock taught us something important. That we have to level our pokémon.

[@JGoldenSun]

In RG yes, but in yellow at least you had Mankey learning low kick to help.

[@solidzack]

Both Nidoran only learn Double Kick at Lv. 12 in Pokémon Yellow. In Red/Blue they learn it at Lv. 43

[@ploeteQ]

@@JGoldenSun Well, in Yellow Mankey or Nidoran male almost felt like a requirement and you somehow had to go to Route 22 to get them 😂

[@ploeteQ]

@@solidzack You are right 😳

[@Hanesboi]

Then when we grew up we learned that what we needed to do isn't just level-up per se, but just develop a good strategy. Like Bulbasaur leech seeding, or using sand attack, that sort of stuff.

[@RyuseiiTheCrimsonKing]

It makes it way harder for Charmander if he has rock throw. Bide is a good teacher of not to spam attacks and to think outside of the box. It'll make people think "maybe I should try to growl instead of using scratch or ember endlessly while I'm getting my butt handed to me. "

[@jofujino]

Yes, I agree. If anything I think the problem isn't with Brock but with the pokemon options up until that point. Because your only method of getting special attacks is basically your starter (and physical attacks are resisted and face a strong defense stat) none of the early route pokemon help, and if you got Charmander as a kid you just had to grind a ton. It would have been better to offer a method of getting at least one grass type like a paras in Viridian forest with absorb, or have a special move appear earlier than Butterfree's confusion at level 12 (I believe pokemon yellow even fixed this by having Butterfree learn confusion at level 10).

[@ShiningJudgment666]

@@jofujino Charmander is honestly just slower. It still does decent enough damage with Ember due to Brock's Pokemon having weak Special stats.

[@minionofgruumsh]

@@ShiningJudgment666 And don't forget the chance of Burn on Charmander's Ember. Being resistant like they are means you're *probably* going to see at least one Burn and how helpful that status condition can be. (The damage per turn tick is super small in Gen 1, but the reduction in their attack power is nice when you're basically in a slug fest!)

[@ShiningJudgment666]

@@minionofgruumsh True. Though I think he has Full Heals but they become free turns. Yellow made it so you couldn't take that road and brute force your way past with your starter by preying on their weak Special stats. It forced you to catch other Pokemon (and there's no shortage of options) to deal with Brock or you grind an unreasonable amount to brute force past or you get lucky with a strategic approach (spam Tail Whip and Quick Attack and pray you don't get KO'd first).

[@minionofgruumsh]

@@ShiningJudgment666 Now that you bring it up, maybe the burns were cured. I played through relatively recently and can remember it both ways now, so no idea which is the fabrication. 😅 But yeah. For Yellow, they HAD to change the order of Nidoran's move learning and put Mankey in the route west of Viridian city. There's no magic anime logic that doesn't work that way you can use to turn on the sprinklers and suddenly make Onix vulnerable to electricity. 😆

[@starjake]

Type under-representation was a big problem in general in Gen I. Ice, Flying, Rock, and Ghost didn't have any monotype representation at all, most types had five or fewer damaging moves (while Normal had 40), and plenty of pokemon didn't even learn moves of their type. I wish more thought had been put into that.

[@mattwalker5689]

Rock and ghost got one monotype apiece in gen 2 (though both trash single stage mons), Ice didn’t get a mono type until gen 3, and flying took until gen 5.

[@GuyDude-hk8uy]

>quota for poison types *well* exceeded >eh why not slap 'em on the only ghost types in the game too, disadvantaging them for practically no gain and making psychic even more OP I will never understand. I would make the Gastly line pure ghost without hesitation. Instant balance improvement and actual representation for a *severely* under-represented type. Don't get me wrong I don't think there should be a plethora of ghost types, but considering there's an entire town devoted to them, come on, at least give us a pure typing if there's only going to be a single evolutionary line of 3 Pokemon.

[@peterlyon367]

I quite enjoyed that his TM had been changed to Headbutt in the Let's Go games. It still has the issue of not matching his type, but it is a decently strong early game move that can be learned by almost every Pokémon.

[@tabbender1232]

What's hilarious to me is that this whole fight alone convinced an entire generation of casual players that rock was a good defensive type What's scary to me is that GF themselves took way longer than they should have to realize it wasn't

[@Rusty_Spy]

It is a good defensive type in Gen 1 where most Pokemon learn mostly normal type moves.

[@vaiyt]

They created steel in gen2 just to be the uberdefensive type rock failed to be. Now to be fair, rock's resistance to normal does make rock/ground mons useful physical tanks in gen1, but they wouldn't be remotely as good without the immunity to electric.

[@EcoReck]

"A LOT of kids probably had issues with Brock growing up if they picked Charmander" I'm gonna be honest, as a kid my Charmander got fed exp out the whazoo due to Viridian Forest without even grinding to where I simply bruteforced Brock with Ember until it worked.

[@EcoReck]

You're given an earlier advantage with Charmander due to ember being super effective to all the bug types there.

[@TheLanceUppercut]

I think it's been really overrated how 'difficult' Brock is for Charmander. Charmander still bodies Brock once it has Ember. It just doesn't one hit KO his pokemon like Squirtle and Bulbasaur can. Misty is the real oppressive matchup against Charmander.

[@Thefelstalker]

I swear the reason Onyx has such a low base HP stat is strictly because Brock with Bide Onyx was oppressive in testing and back then they didn't really think through the decision. Bruno over there as Brock 2.0, using Onyx twice in the late game really suffered for that decision.

[@N12015]

Ahhh, the hiker lost in the elite 4.

[@rainbowskin3379]

It's literally the only thing that makes sense for why onix has such terrible stats. The developers were set in making onix Brocks ace, and just kept lowering his attack and hp stat until it wasn't oppressive. Then they just raised it's speed and defense stats until it had a semi decent stat total.

[@theoreticallyinsane5]

While there are definitely points I agree about, I do feel like you've glossed over a lot of important points in this analysis. For one, the way I see it, Brock doesn't make a lot of sense until you've done a 0xp challenge, I feel. See, the thing Brock teaches you is that it's actually important to *train* your Pokemon. That's why he crumples like paper to the Starters first STAB move. It feels *so* intuitive that you didn't even bother mentioning that your starter had to gain levels to take on the gym leader, but I can tell you my first instinct when I first played Pokemon was to catch basically everything I saw and try it out as soon as I did. Thankfully, training happens pretty naturally as a process of making it through Viridian Forest, but it is still totally possible to get to Brock underdeveloped. Second, giving Brock an actual Rock move would have severe consequences for anyone choosing Charmander. For one, outside the Starter, there are basically NO good choices for taking Brock on, so if Charmander just dies to Rock Throw, you've given them no real out. Even Butterfree with confusion, the best choice outside the starters, absolutely folds to a Rock move. You absolutely don't want a player feeling like they made a wrong choice this early into a game. And third, Brock isn't meant to *be* a challenge. He's just meant to *feel* like one. Being a rock type trainer is core to this. It even makes sense within the logic of the game's world: all the surrounding trainers are bug catchers or youngsters with rats and pigeons. Rock happens to be exactly situated to be good against all of those Pokemon. The point *isnt* for Brock to actually be a challenging fight, but rather to be a *New* challenge to the player: Their first encounter with a brand new type they've never seen before. Personally, the thing I disagree with most about his fight is his emphasis on the Starter pokemon. Later entries even fix this (Nidoran gets double kick at 12 in Yellow, Mankey is added before Brock in FRLG), but it genuinely seems like a large point of the fight is to denote your starter as uniquely special (almost literally, because of having a special attack) to other Pokemon, and incentivize players to grow and train their starter Pokemon. I'd even hazard it was done in part to help players feel like they had a more personalized experience, that the pokemon *they* chose was the key to victory. If I were to fix Brock, while still keeping his constraints in mind (must be a unique type to make trainers feel like they're challenging something new, should still be fairly easy, must have a fully evolved Pokemon as his ace, should emphasize starter Pokemon), the truth is... They already did it. Many first gym leaders after Brock are some improvement or twist on Brock's formula, from Roxanne basically being the equivalent to your solution (but with the added benefit of having a multitude of other Pokemon that can actually assist in the fight that aren't your starter), to BW's Cress/Cilan/Chili making your starter feel significant, except by making it harder on them instead of easier (while still giving you an easy out in monkey form), to Cheren's Normal gym that foregoes the Brock formula entirely because BW2 is a sequel and assumes you already know Pokemon, and just decides to give you a much more even fight in its place. Even the constraints I listed for Brock, constraints that the Gen I team felt they had to follow, were absolutely scrapped or revamped even as early as Gen II. Heck, Gen II specifically went with types the player *would* recognize as their starting gym leaders, types that were passed up as gym leaders in Gen I because in Gen I they wanted the Gym leaders to feel a cut above the pokemon that regularly populate the routes between them, but instead Gen II went with giving you types the player would be familiar with and understand more intuitively how to strategize around them, which conveniently makes later gym leaders feel *less* intuitive and harder to strategize around as you run into types you're less familiar with. Pryce is a, well, funny example because he's actually a pushover, but the intuition to an Ice Gym Leader is to bring fire types, only to realize all of his mons have a Dual type that's strong to Fire (even if they only have Normal and Ice type attacking moves, but shh, don't ruin the moment). I don't know, this got away from me a bit, maybe I just wanted an excuse to ramble and lay out some thoughts I had, but I just wanted to highlight some oversights I feel this analysis had.

[@robertlupa8273]

Good analysis.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Honestly, that is a good point; very few Pokémon in Gen 1 (much less the selection given to you before Brock) can nicely handle Brock before overlevelling him. Brock, for all his silly movepools, is a challenge assuming first playthrough. This sort even carries through even now: Scarlet and Violet’s first gym leader is Katy, and while most of her Pokémon are weak Tera Bug Teddiursa is strong given the weakness of many Pokémon you can get before Katy assuming you don’t go out of your way. A similar hard-hitting theme is true with Brassius. For the Titans, there is Klawf. Klawf, if you don’t have a strong enough Pokémon with a Water or Grass move, will get to Anger Point range and screw you team over. For the Team Star challenge, there is Giacomo, who has the great Pawniard and the Dark Revavroom gimmick. The best part is that all these apply while still giving you a huge amount of Pokémon to choose from.

[@robertlupa8273]

@@iantaakalla8180 Case in point: a lot of solo runs with replaced starter either take out Brock with no problem or have to grind to power through him.

[@jpcsdutra]

Yes, but also no. If you were a kid that was catching everything on the way, your team comp was probably two bugs, a pidgey, a rattata, maybe you've got a Nidoran and your starter. A team full of untrained fodder agaisnt Brock will also teach a ton of things. If you've got a Weedle or for some reason trained your Nidoran, you'll learn to poison your enemy (something you'd have picked up intuitively if you fought in Viridian Forest). If you got bodied once or twice you might think to do the other moves that don't do damage to see what they do for you, and guess what, lowering accuracy, defense, attack, are all pretty viable things in this trainer fight, as Brock has always 50-50 or less chance of actually doing damage to you (specially if you picked up how Bide works after a bit). As is, right there, the game already taught you about NVE, stat and stalling (specially if you still have your potions), status enhancing and reducing, brute forcing not being the solution to everything, and your luck might so just be that you've leveled enough in this gym that you get to try your very first SE after learning a new move (and even Charmander's Ember will be a reward because Onix's Special stat was laughable). This fight is almost more rewarding/teaching to a new comer to RPGs in general than it is for a newcomer to pokémon specifically. I don't think that there was a single kid that could read that took more than 2 fights to understand how to beat Brock, regardless of team comp. (There's also the fact that the only other time Brock's fight is revisited in the anime, in Origins, Red beats him with a team full of fodder, which more or less seems to tell me that's what was intended/envisioned) If you didn't catch Pokémon your starter would absolutely be at a level that would crush him regardless of typing, unless for whatever reason you were blessed by RNJesus and haven't gotten into that many battles, even trainers (You only have to level Charmander up 4 times to get Ember; 3 if you beat your Rival in the tutorial). This one fight is also why people to this day claim that Charmander is for whatever reason the hard mode of this game, which is laughable to me. You at most got beaten once, if that, before you put two and two together about levels and other strategies. I for one agree with Rock Throw for the simple fact that Rock types deserved better than they got in Gen 1. I don't know that I agree with changing its power or acc. But if that change came to accomodate, there's absolutely nothing stopping the lower levels of Nidoran learning Double Kick like they did in Yellow, or even a different encounter table. Changing Onix's type to pure rock also feels kind of out of place specially with hindisght. This now makes Pikachu viable in his gym which completely changes the direction of the anime, and it either co-opts Steelix out of Ground/Steel for a pure Steel or a Rock/Steel which isn't great for it either. The better solution for this Gym was probably for Brock to have a very low level Onix without rock moves first, and then have a strong Geodude as his ace with Rock Throw. It's probably the best of both worlds where Onix still comes out intimidating and teaching about everything I mentioned, and Geodude can still deliver a punch to the player while seemingly being a challenge that can be overcome. It also retroactively removes Onix as an ace, which is weird, because it loses the Rock type later and leaves Brock in a pickle, because Jasmine steals Steelix, and Golem is well... a better overlooked pokémon than Eviolte Onix.

[@TheGhostFart]

Giving Brock a rock type move making it harder for charmander pickers is moot point when they literally give his onix rock tomb in the remakes

[@obits3]

Counter arguments: Your rival teaches you opponent type advantage from the start. Brock punishes people who rush. Bubble is only 20 base power and vine whip is 35, but it requires you get to level 13. Brock is literally teaching people that they need to bide their time and train their Pokémon to win. Anyone who rushes and only has Bubble or normal moves will get hit hard by bide, leaving them with route mons that are likely untrained.

[@danielquinlan2457]

In the first two rival fights (and the second one is optional), you're rival's starter isn't going to have a Stab move. At best, your starter might have it's stab move for the second fight, so you'll learn about not very effective moves.

[@domdude64dd]

Bide their time you say

[@InfernosReaper]

The rock move as-is was fine. Making it 40 power at 100 accuracy only serves to make it *worse* for those who picked that sad fire lizard.

[@kokioen]

If we are going the original available gym leaders, I think Koga would be a good candidate for a first gym leader. All starters can hit for neutral damage, and no one is weak to it, making it a decent starter boss fight for all starters. Toxic can be used by any pokemon, and also teaches about status moves, the third core move type, that wasn't explained in the starter battle. Finally, there are plenty of low level poison types, that can be reasonable to fight against this early

[@danikirk5774]

Toxic can only be learned by the final evolution of a Pokemon if I remember correctly

[@pamoon_]

Koga as gym one sounds perfect Imagine a lineup of Zubat, Venonat, Tentacool, Grimer & Beedrill as an ace since all of them can be L10 or lower

[@iprobablysuck9107]

Toxic is way too strong to be giving away in gym 1 lol

[@JacktheRah]

Any gym leader aside from Brock as the first one would have been a good idea.

[@lancedabomb123]

Omg this reminds me when I thought Brock was a super difficult gym leader back then, because I remember him being a major pain in the butt when I used Charmander as my starter in Pokemon Red. Good times. But replaying Fire Red, Charmeleon with metal claw slapped Brocks gym

[@troybailey9524]

My first game was Yellow version in 1999, and I remember being stuck on Brock for weeks because I had no idea what to do when Pikachu's Thundershock wouldn't work. So I just ended up levelling up Pikachu to level 20 in the Viridian Forest and then used quick attack to brute force myself past Brock. I had no idea that I should've caught a Mankey or anything like that. So for me he was super tough as a kid.

[@Mammel248]

Man I did the same with Red. Was my first pokemon game and picked Charmander as my starter because dragons are cool. I just trained my Charmander until it evolved and then Brock wasn't really a problem. And neither was any other trainer until Misty lol

[@Tx432]

In terms of the basic concepts, some are gone over in the printed trainers’ manual you would get with the cartridge games. Probably they didn’t give Brock rock moves because if you chose Charmander and had a team of bugs from the forest and/or Pidgey then Brock would destroy you with super effective. Butterfree is 4x weak to rock. They wanted kids to enjoy the game instead of rage quitting it.

[@InfernosReaper]

To be fair, that rock move did have godawful accuracy, so it wasn't gonna be super strong. If made into a 40 power 100% accurate move as the video suggests would make it a bit too strong, because the power gap is only 15 and it's gonna hit a *lot* more often. EDIT: Moreover, if they didn't want kids to rage quit, they wouldn't have had a dude who resisted normal moves as the first gym leader.

[@DarkEclipse23]

@@InfernosReaper there’s a difference between being a dick and giving a challenge. The company nerfed Brock’s move pool but still presented the challenge of finding a way to overcome its defenses. You are literally given multiple options before fighting him and they let the kid decide how to tackle it. Either with their starter, butterfree, mankey, or nidoran.

[@DarkEclipse23]

People are fucking 40 yo losers whining about a kids game that was created how it was intended and then whine about its complexity. The pokemon fandom is disgustingly filled with pathetic losers. They place pokemon in the area if your pkmn doesn’t have an advantage. They’re not sadists. It’s about finding your own way through the game. That’s why multiple types account for other types. Don’t have fire? Try ground or flying. Don’t have water? Try electric or whatever. That is also why pokemon can learn different type of moves. Yeah they don’t have stab but fuck it’ll get you through the base game. The only real challenge was Sabrina and that’s because they buggered up the coding. But then again usually you’ll be fine as people have beaten her without dark types existing.

[@InfernosReaper]

​@@DarkEclipse23 That's one way to look at it, I guess, but when it comes to starters, it's not exactly a great start when the first gym walls the likes of Charmander, Pikachu, and almost everything you can get, but gets steamrolled with ease by Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Butterfry, and Mankey(Yellow-only) I guess if you over-level everything or bring out a full team, sure, whatever, but it still would probably be more reasonable if the first gym leader didn't wall some things and get easily destroyed by others

[@cmck362]

@@DarkEclipse23 Mankey is only in yellow. Nidoran learns double kick in the 40s in red/blue so it's not an option. Literally the only thing you're given early game to beat brock is butterfree if you chose charmander. He also has tons of full heals so you can't use burn or poison to whittle him down either. There are 3 ways to beat brock outside of squirtle or bulbasaur start in red/blue. Overlevel until ember does enough, get a butterfree, or throw a full team of pokemon at him all spamming normal moves. They give you very little to work with in the first game. Yellow expands your options out of necessity since there's only pikachu as a starter which is even worse against brock than charmander.

[@Hanesboi]

Rock Throw change makes sense. Also like every Rock type in this game is also a ground type and that's just dumb, most of them would be better as only Rock type, like Geodude line and Rhyhorn (but Onyx being pure rock makes more sense for the balance here) I'd like to see you balance the other gym leaders!

[@smithplayspokemon]

thanks Heath!

[@jonconstant3914]

fossils are not part ground, but since you get those so late they almost don’t matter

[@InfernosReaper]

it's honestly as if the Rock/Ground split was an afterthought, which would explain why the Light Years Jr Trainer has nothing but mono Ground

[@robertlupa8273]

Onix makes sense to be Rock/Ground because it's a earthworm (not a snake) that's made of rock.

[@nezzivancic3644]

I get what they wanted to do with Bide. Looking at gen 1 as a whole, the rock type is really geared towards defense. I believe that rock moves have such low accuracy to reinforce this idea of "rock types are not meant to be damage dealers". So bide is there to show how these defensive mons can do damage. Couple this with most pokemon besides your starter having normal moves, which rock resists, kind of showcases the best case scenario for bide being useful, and it really stresses to the player that you need to use super effective moves, IE, level up your starter, to get past Brock. Now, that all being said, I am not saying they pulled this concept off perfectly, or even well. Bide was dumb, Brock's mons should have had rock moves. I know. But I think something like that is what the devs had in mind when they gave Onix Bide. Also, I 100% support making Onix pure rock. Great video!

[@JcDizon]

You're so right about the move Bide. I actually forgot that it even exists at all until you talked about it. It's such a forgettable move that I only ever see it during the fight against Brock's Onix and after beating Brock and he gives the TM, it either goes straight to the PC storage or sold to the Pewter City Pokemart. I don't even remember seeing the move Bide in the other games and I have played generations 1-5.

[@noisetank15]

I placed it on a lvl 15 Dratini that I brought in from another copy of the game. Works OK early on for a Dragon type.

[@robertlupa8273]

I remember it because it's Kricketot's only attacking move for a while. :/

[@tmr3volver]

I think Brock's purpose, and Bide specifically, was to teach new players to not just spam normal moves over and over, like just blindly selecting the attack option in a more standard rpg. I actually lost the first battle against him as a kid because my Bulbasaur's Vine Whip wasn't noticeably stronger than Tackle when fighting random encounters, so I simply didn't use it. It was only after experimenting with my options did I come to understand that I could avoid taking damage from Bide using non damaging moves, and that Vine Whip dealt super effective damage that could end the fight quickly. In that regard I think Brock fulfills his role just fine. Time marches on, though, and now even complete noobs probably know what is super effective against what. That's probably why he stole Roxane's gimmick in the remakes with Rock Tomb.

[@giacomobongrazio]

I played my 1st Pokémon game back in 2001, Pokémon Blue. I was 11. I can ensure you that this battle wasn't that easy at all! I had a slight idea about the type advantage, but I didn't know that I had to grind for example (I even had Squirtle as a starter).

[@iRazenrak]

A simple fix is having the game have different text for 4x effective moves. Instead of "it's super effective!" it can be something like "It's hyper effective!!" or something, especially since it relates to hyper beam being the most powerful attack and hyper ball (ultra ball in english) being a top tier pokéball.

[@Brianraymond581]

My first game was Pokémon yellow and I thought I could use thundershock because of the anime. Needless to say it took me probably 100 times before I beat Brock. It meant more to me than winning the Pokémon league lol

[@silversonic1]

You did forget to mention that Brock's Pokemon are going to resist Normal moves. New players will not know this and run up against this early on. I know, because I did in the beginning. Not to mention the gym is your first real experience in the games with ground and rock types. And back when the games came out, the internet was young and strategy guides were your big source of information. Sorry. Tired.

[@goosel9347]

I like the changes but giving Onyx a Rock move would also hit Butterfree (the other option for hitting Rock for not resisted damage) for 4x damage. I guess because Onyx’s stats are bad it could probably still work just a thought I had when thinking about this change.

[@InfernosReaper]

The proposed change to the move actually makes it worse since it will almost always hit verses almost never hitting Otherwise, a slightly better than 50/50 hit isn't too bad, considering the arsenal Butterfry gets. That said, really hate the 4x multiplier for double-weakness. I know it's the product of poor coding ability, but still.

[@StealthArcher]

A part some seem to be missing is that not only was Brock meant to be extremely introductory, the Gen 1 games were barely Pokemon games as we now conceive of them anyway. The whole concept of this turning into a gigantic world shattering hit and becoming an ongoing franchise, and the whole use everything, it's all viable, weren't a thing. Brock is the Garland of pokemon, Rock type was that "Ooh see, the Boss doesnt die easy like the others, you'll need to hit him with something different!" which is why it got 2 moves and all of them aside the fossils are 4x against the two starters the manual to the game recommends you use, hell, the fossils are *still* 4x weak to Bulbasaur. It was a starter enemy in an RPG and little was really given to it.

[@BAIGAMING]

I'm wondering something, is the Japanese versions of Pokemon, Pokemon Red and Green, is Brock's moves different? Could it be possible that they changed it for the Western audience if he was too tough originally? I heard Japanese Red and Green had substantial changes when localizing it to the West.

[@InfernosReaper]

There was also a Blue in Japan, but I too wonder if anything changed gym leader wise.

[@bewearstar9462]

Nope I checked on bulbapedia but he had the same team.

[@EmeralBookwise]

I think you might have over corrected on Rock Throw. One of the signature traits of Rock-type moves, especially in the early generation, is that it's almost never 100% accurate. Not to mention, giving Bock any Rock-type attacks makes the challenge for anyone who picks Charmander go from hard to nearly insurmountable. That said, I do agree Onix should have been pure Rock-type, and actually, so should Geodude.

[@SquattingxBear]

Brock's team is perfectly fine when you rematch him in Gen 3 or Gen 4. You can also choose to fight him later on if you play Crystal Clear.

[@robertlupa8273]

...you can't rematch Brock in Gen 3.

[@MrMeowstic7]

Fun fact: brock also has 5 full heals for EACH of his pokemon. He can heal status contitioms 5 times on EACH of his pokemon

[@JayHeezy]

The Persona songs just make these already great videos even better! Keep up the good work

[@momoTAMAGOTCHI]

I have to disagree on bide. I think it's an excellent choice because it forces pacing. When you watch him use bide, you are discouraged from using damaging moves for the first time in the game which changes the dynamic of the fight

[@uselessbottom1187]

Mankey on the route before entering the badge checkpoint heading towards victory road: "Am I a joke to you?"

[@richardkirkland6805]

We know from Pokémon Origins that Brock isn't using his full team, the geodude and one x are his "zero badge" team

[@renatoramos8834]

Brock should also have a paras. It makes geographic sense, since you can catch it near pewter. It resists the pokemon that are strong against geodude and onix while being weak to the ones that fair badly against those.

[@rsaettone]

There are some great ideas here. Can't wait to see the SmithPlays ROMhack of Pokemon Red!!!

[@SummonersOfficial]

Brock is fine. Bide teaches you that there's more to battles than straightforward attacking at an early stage of the game, it's a perfect move for his Pokemon's types due to their resistances and you are able catch his Pokémon soon after to test the tactic. They already fixed his gym in Yellow with making Nidoran/Mankey and their Fighting attack moves available alongside Butterfree for counters.

[@caylacomix]

growing up i thought geodude was fighting type because ash could hit it with thunderbolt and brock used it in the fighting type tournament...

[@RoninCatholic]

Brock's team is designed to teach you about your Starter's Special Attacks. Rock is resistant to Normal, which all your starters use for their physical moves (and most Pokemon use for most of their physical contact moves in general), but your starter isn't Normal type like the Pidgey or Rattata you likely caught along the way. These Rock types further have very high Defense, making it harder to brute force them with resisted Normal attacks even further. But after just a few levels, your starters learn Ember, Vine Whip, and Bubble which do significantly larger damage (via being 4x effective in two cases, or resisted but targeting Geodude and Onix's terrible Special stat as their defense). Ember might be the worst of the three in this fight, but it's leagues better than your resisted non-Stab physical moves. With its very high Defense, very low HP, and Rock typing to resist normal moves Onix is actually...one of the _least_ dangerous Bide users, allowing you to figure out how Bide works in a relatively safe way. You then figure out, from this, how to stall out Bide and similarly telegraphed moves and take advantage of your own stat boosting/reducing moves during the turns where it's building up. At the end of the game, Lance is there to hard wall you if you took the wrong lesson from this and brute forced the rest of the game using only your starter's main elemental attacks, via resisting all three starter elements. Rock and Dragon, mechanically, are two halves of the same lesson in Gen 1.

[@demi-femme4821]

In LGPE, you can find Oddish before Brock's Gym, and that makes the whole experience better because Brock in LGPE is designed around the fact that your Starters are useless against him, so the point is "you can't rely on Pikachu/Eevee to demolish everything, you need to diversify your team." Oddish is right there as an easy answer.

[@dannigro8794]

The thing is with Brock also is that it’s not about the rock moves because they give bide as a TM he’s the first gym they probably didn’t want to make him too hard since you’re unlikely to have too many Pokémon. He’s easy with Bulbasaur and Squirtle but hard with Charmander and Pikachu. Even with some Pokémon you would get with Viridian Forest. If they had any rock moves it would be very tough. Fighting rock Pokémon without a type advantage is very tough and takes a lot of strategy and it made me realize that if you could beat him you could build up your team and beat anyone.

[@MrZrbrownie]

Valid points around the 4:30 mark. I believe they originally intended the first gym leader to be in the Viridian gym, and the guess is that would have been a normal type, youngster Joey kinda gym leader.

[@GamingtheOtter]

Bide is like an early game counter/mirror coat. A concept that is about teaching the player about if you don't plan ahead you get punished. Although bide sucks if you can ohko your opponent.

[@michaelasmitty]

I’m surprised you didn’t suggest making nidoran with double kick or bellsprout with vinewhip obtainable as Yellow or Let’sGo did. It would help Charmander trainers find the weakness and realize not every Pokémon matches well into every other

[@ChiNOo2211]

Smith i think they gave bide to onix as brocks signature move simply becuz brock defeated ashes pikachu with bide in the anime in a very iconic episode

[@maximilianoabarca]

It'd be great to see a "How it should've been" Pokemon red hack rom, fixing a lot of issues with the original release. Good content man.

[@fakename2890]

I wanted Brock to have the three fossil pokemon each at level ten along side a Ryhorn at level eleven a geodude at 12 and an onix at 14 that had no weaknesses at all and a buffed specal defense stat for a full six mon team, that would have been a fun challenge no mater what pokemon was on your team.

[@ottav69]

Back in the Gen 1 days I didn't even know double weaknesses existed, let alone that they were the reason Brock was so easy.

[@robertlupa8273]

6:30 I love how you actually hacked the game to show off how strong Rock Slide would be at this point of the game. I don't think it's particularly hard to do, but it's still something that takes some effort to do.

[@TheGodKingOfMusic]

I remember always picking Charmander as a kid playing these games for the first time. I did not understand type advantages at all back then, and thought I could beat brought by capturing a bunch of Caterpie. Because of that, it wasn’t until I got older that I finally saw the rest of the game

[@L-Thatcher]

I think Geodude makes more sense as a pure rock type then Onix.

[@strawhatrore2072]

I thought bide was a lesson in tail whip when I was a kid playing for the first time. Remember, as a kid, on the first Pokémon game EVER, we didn’t even have any concept of how much to level up. We might have ran from every encounter. We might have taken the games advice to level all our Pokémon equally too literally and come in with 6 level 8 Pokémon. The context was so different back then. I remember as a kid I got smacked hard by bide once, then learnt I could lower onix stats while he does it. Then started trying to calculate if I thought I would kill onix before bide would be unleashed. It was an interesting move in its time and for the context of a child playing the first Pokémon game

[@VGMusicExplorers]

After hearing all this "aboat" and "oatside" and so on, I'm just wondering, how does it sound when a Canadian says he'll "take the oats out of cupboard"?

[@Sliiinky_]

An 8 minute video that only does what the title suggests in the last 2 minutes. He got us boys, He got us :')

[@The_One_In_Black]

Brock's team is why I thought Rock types were immune to Electric for years.

[@stumpedtroper]

Pokemon mark rober with subtle genshin music, delightful!

[@CloudedMind07]

Picking Charmander allowed me to discover my love of Fighting Type Pokémon. By picking Charmander I was forced to think outside the box found a Mankey and trained it and ran up on Brock like a collection agency

[@ponyboy9765]

I think the way gen five handled the first gym was perfect. You face a different member of the gym depending on the starter you picked and you also get an elemental monkey to compensate for your starters weakness. It teaches the player a ton in one battle and always gives a balanced challenge no matter who you picked.

[@N12015]

And if you don't like the Monkey you can always use a Lillipup who can just sweep due to how oddly busted the puppy is in Black/White. I've played Black lately and I've noticed the game has a very lock-and-key design for their gym leaders, not only the first one; Timburr and Throh/Sawk for Lenora, Tranquill and Darumaka for Burgh, Sandile, Rock tomb and dig for Elesa, A basculin and Swadloon for Clay, Chargestone cave and Zebstrika for Winona, Gurdurr and Mienfoo for Pryce and Vanillish and Pawniard for Drayden/Iris (Altough I've found Dragon claw Druddigon/Fraxure also works because Dragon tail is awful on sweepers like Haxorus). Basically they're giving you a patch for your team if necessary, which I appreciate and improves the game flow, but it makes the second half of the game a bit too easy and you might sleep on the brutal yet reasonable elite 4 powerspike.

[@rsaettone]

Don't you dare call Charmander the wrong starter. So what if I like more of a challenge?? 🤣

[@leon-zt7wu]

i think onyx makes more sense as a pure ground type. sure its made out of rocks but i think thematically it fits more as a fast stone, dirt and earth eating snake. still has that 2x weakness and steelix doesnt become a poop mon in gen 2 with steel/rock being a terrible mix type. also makes that charmander match up easier as rock throw wont get stab and ember hits neutral, still teaches a new player to be careful around super effective moves from opponents without just one shotting their little fire lizard.

[@nevenpatrk9661]

Oh trust me, if you think this fight is bad, Brock's Gen 2 team is even worse. Once you get to Kanto, every single gym leader has fully evolved Pokemon for Gen 2 standards, except for Brock, who has 3 unevolved mons in a post-game fight, including the useless Onix. Better yet, every single mon he has is 4x weak to Grass, so if you have a mon with a grass move on your team, you essentially get a free win. This man is so bad he makes the grass type look good.

[@robertlupa8273]

Seriously, why doesn't his Omastar have Blizzard or even Icy Wind? Or why his Kabutops (which is already at a disadvantage due to being Gen 2 Kabutops) doesn't have Fury Cutter or something? It still wouldn't help because Fury Cutter sucks, but at least it would show that they _tried_ to make him not die to Grass.

[@burritoman2k]

5:25 Correction: Nidoran does learn double kick in red and blue... at level 43

[@OhNoMrKoolaidMan]

Mistys bubblebeam will humble you right away after this

[@mr.humblecup8229]

My personal take on Brock is that he is supposed to teach about the difference between physical defense and special stats. I the the player is supposed to understand that some types of pokemon(such as rock and ground types) have strong physical defenses but will take more damage from special type moves. The problem is that while each starter learns a special type move, both geodude and onix resist fire type moves, making them all the more difficult if you picked charmander.

[@HistorV]

As someone who played this as a kid, I'll tell you I never thought that Brock was bad. Consider that you (probably) wouldn't have vine whip on bulbasaur by the time you got to brock unless you spent time grinding in viridian forest. That means that unless you took squirtle, this fight wasn't overly easy. You also wouldn't bother to try poison strats on him because he had full heals.

[@ChamblesRNG]

Are you sticking to this for your Yellow Legacy romhack? I like it a lot, especially Onyx becoming pure Rock type

[@MaximusHawkwing]

As someone who had to deal with siblings saving over his game and almost always picked charmander as his starter getting up to and then getting stuck on brock is what I remember the most of this game. That being said there are counters, nidoran male's double kick and mankey's low kick if you're playing yellow. The lesson I took was that sometimes your starter just isn't the answer and you need to find other pokemon that can deal with the opponents your starter can't.

[@scarletletter6836]

I remember repeating the fight in yellow until i finally won by using all my potions and almost all my tackles (rattatas, pidgey, pikachu,..) - what relief it was finding out about nidoran in the 2nd playthrough 😂

[@ninecatsandaboxofwine]

onyx gets a rock move in FRLG. RB was first games they made, chill. they got a lot wrong. Kanto is still the best.

[@danielle_vandress]

0:35 I don't have to imagine too hard xD I still remember being a 7 year old playing Blue version for the first time haha.

[@Irixion]

How did they approach this in Fire Red and Leaf Green?

[@InfernoFireStyle]

Both Geodude and Onix were given the move Rock Tomb (as well as that being Brock's TM). To make it fair for Charmander players, they gave it Metal Claw to compensate, as well as the fact you could catch a mankey on route 22.

[@matthewsmith8727]

They gave onix a moustache

[@el_dank_sinatra]

Geodude: Level 12 Tackle Defense Curl Onix: Level 14 Rock Throw (make this the TM) Bind Screech I would love to give Geodude Rollout, but that wasn’t introduced until Generation 2.

[@wherethetatosat]

I can actually hazard a guess. Having watched enough Jrose videos and Brock being a roadblock for 50% of single pokemon runs, its to reinforce type advantages and leveling your pokemon. Gen 1's biggest problem is that most moves are normal types. Despite Brock being the rock type gym leader, none of his pokemon use rock type moves. But they do resist normal moves. They also resist bug, which you just encountered a lot of, and poison as well (also super abundant in Gen 1). Of course, they kind of goofed because the two best counters of water and grass are only available to you at this point in the game if you picked the correct starter. By being a much higher level than anything you've encountered so far, it drives home that sometimes having 1-3 more levels will turn the tide of battle.

[@Lacaras21]

I don't think Rock Throw needed to be changed. Another interesting note is that removing the Ground type from Onix opens up Pikachu as a decent option for those who picked Charmander.

[@ryanderenbecker8837]

Brock teaches type resistance, turn timing, and defense vs special.

[@LongfellowLP]

I'm not super versed on older JRPGs but both Final Fantasy IV and VI have a first boss just like Onix's Bide where there's a phase where it goes defensive, and if you attack it, it'll counterattack really hard. This must be the idea with Onix's Bide. I'm really curious about Pokémon gen 1 not only as the beginning of its franchise, but as a game inspired by JRPGs before it, and this seems like one standout data point there.

[@DragonairOG]

You could catch nidoran line, or Mankey (double kick)

[@nopecopter]

It’s really fun to see people theorycrafting Generation 1! However, I’m not really sure if I agree with you here on most of these issues, either. Regarding the issue of Brock not having Rock moves, I honestly think it’s not a big deal. The main reason is because giving Onix a Rock move makes Charmander an even worse pick, because now not only can Onix resist anything you can throw at it without Bulbasaur or Squirtle, but it can also easily knock you out. This also makes Onix more punishing toward Bulbasaur and Squirtle with its STAB boost and a 100% accuracy move, but the Charmander issue is the main problem. Charmander DOES still have the ability to beat Onix thanks to Onix’s pathetic Special stat, but if it had Rock Throw the player would stand no chance. Speaking of Rock Throw, though, I have a theory that it’s so bad BECAUSE Brock’s Pokémon were originally supposed to have it. The developers probably didn’t want to put the player up against a reliable 50 base power STAB attack this early on, especially if they had poor Charmander, and so they gave the move a huge chance to miss so that Brock and Mt. Moon would be less of a nightmare. But then, after deciding against giving Onix and Geodude a Rock move entirely, they just… forgot to fix the accuracy. I’ve also seen a really interesting theory that each physical type in Generation 1 has a sort of “theme” to its moves - most strong Fighting-type attacks have recoil or require the user to get hurt, the strongest Flying-types attacks take two turns, Bug-type attacks hit multiple times, Poison-type attacks usually have a debuff attached, Ground-type attacks are alls trying but simple, and Rock-type moves… all have a chance to miss. This might be why the developers didn’t want to simply weaken the move (or maybe they just figured it made more sense for throwing a rock to miss a lot, who knows). It’s also worth noting that a Rock move would remove Butterfree as an option for getting past Brock. I also disagree with the idea that Onix’s 4x weakness to Grass and Water is a bad thing. You can argue it gives the player a distorted sense of how good super-effectiveness is, sure, but because of that, it also encourages the player even more strongly to actually prioritize super-effective moves. Showing the player an extreme case of the correct strategy working extremely well helps to get the player to internalize the value of the type chart, so that even when the bonus isn’t as huge later, the player still has that strong impression to go back to. (And this in turn helps motivate the player to catch more Pokémon!) Onix’s Ground typing also helps to balance out another early-game Pokémon: Pikachu. Pikachu is pretty ridiculous in the early game with its early elemental attack and high speed and power for this stage in the game, so Onix serves as a nice reality check to the player that they can’t rely on Pikachu for everything (though of course Pokémon Yellow makes this a big problem). Of course, Geodude helps mitigate this, but that’s another thing: even if you remove the Ground typing from Onix, Geodude still has that 4x weakness. Personally I don’t have any strong opinions on whether or not Onix should have a Ground typing, but I definitely don’t think it’s a cure-all to remove it. (And besides, Misty sort of serves as that reality check instead of Brock - Brock teaches the player to use super-effective moves, Misty teaches the player that they still need to strategize. It’s a basic lesson followed up by an elaboration on that lesson.) As for Bide… honestly, I’ve come around on it, because I think it DOES work really well on Brock, given what he’s trying to teach the player. If the player DOESN’T use their elemental attacks and sticks to using Normal moves, then Onix can easily fire off a Bide and deal hefty damage to the player, further disincentivizing them from trying to slowly break through with not-very-effective moves. It also helps to discourage players from hitting Brock with a super-effective move and then switching back to something else instead of continuing to use it, if a player would ever consider that. I also feel like the complexity actually kind of works here. Firstly, it gives you a taste of what’s to come - the player is still learning the basics, sure, but they’ve probably kind of gotten the basics down by now, and Brock using a more complex move shows the player that there’s more to the game than just attacks and stat debuffs. It’s also really intimidating to see this move slowly being built up to, which makes Brock seem a bit more imposing and puts pressure on the player to figure out a way to knock out Onix before it uses Bide. Most importantly, however, it gives the player another strategy to use. This was before every single Pokémon had an 80 base power STAB move for their preferred attacking stat, after all - battles were slower on average, and many Pokémon could survive several (neutral) hits, which made Bide a decently viable toy to play around with in tough fights. I think Jrose11’s videos demonstrate that Bide can work, even if it’s definitely still not good. The developers probably expected fights to be longer affairs in a lot of cases, which would have made Bide more useful in singleplayer. I do agree that it’s still pretty silly, though. (That said, Brock isn’t the only Gym Leader to give out a TM of a different type - Faulkner does the same thing with Mud-Slap in Gold and Silver.) Speaking of which, though, my final point is just that Brock’s main goal is not JUST to teach the player about type advantages, but also to teach the player to level their Pokémon up. If the player ignores all the trainers in their path and only fights the mandatory opponents, then they won’t have a super-effective move for Brock and they’ll be doomed. But if they DO train, then they’ll have a way to easily get past Brock’s scary Onix. Brock is a puzzle boss, and that puzzle doesn’t need to overstay its welcome once it’s solved… at least, that’s probably what the developers were thinking. Charmander can’t beat Onix, of course, but it turns out that the developers still teach the same lesson to players who pick Charmander in Viridian Forest! A Charmander with Ember turns the normally tedious Kakuna and Metapod into free EXP (which conveniently also makes it easier to level up high enough to get past Brock). I do think Brock has flaws, though - you pointed out that there aren’t enough Pokémon the player can catch that can beat Brock, which I agree with. I’m thinking maybe the developers didn’t want to have a Fighting-type early on since it would be too strong against all the Normal-types the player could catch, and they didn’t want a Water- or Grass-type too early to make the player’s starter feel special. Thankfully this was fixed in Yellow and Fire Red/Leaf Green. The other problem in my opinion is Brock’s Full Restores, which actively DISCOURAGE the player from experimenting with status effects! I guess they didn’t want a player to accidentally cheese a fight without learning about type advantages, but Bide makes this less of a worry since Poison is so slow, Onix can’t be Paralyzed by any available moves, and Charmander’s Ember being able to burn Onix would make the fight much more fair. The other change I might make (aside from removing the Full Restores) would be to move the Water Gun TM from Mt. Moon to Pewter City, probably in the museum. This seemingly useless TM actually provides Charmander players with a way to beat Rock-types early on, which is useful for Mt. Moon but would also be nice as an alternate strategy for Brock. I can see why the developers didn’t do this, since Brock introduces the players to the idea of a TM, it might allow players to avoid learning the value of training their Pokémon, and it lets Squirtle get Water Gun early (which the developers clearly didn’t want, hence why Water Gun is available one level higher than Brock’s Onix), but it could also reward exploration and make the fight more fair while still encouraging players to train (a Rattata with Water Gun isn’t going to beat Brock without leveling up first). I hope that all makes sense! I’ve actually really come to appreciate some of the design choices Game Freak made in Generation 1, so I wanted to mention why I don’t think the fight is as terrible as you’ve suggested.

[@MadMalMan]

I'm really loving your changes from Crystal excited to see more on that. Could disagree harder about Brock. Other than the x4 weaknesses to 66% of the starters

[@drkinferno72]

Brock is where i learned nidoran learns double kick and butterfree kearns confusion 😂

[@rifasclub]

Bide teaches you to alternate between offensive and status moves. If you didn't choose Squirtle, you will need to use Growl and Tail Whip, and Bide teaches you that concept.

[@edwardnowakowski5990]

Started the series with yellow… Brock was brutal as a kid XD

[@eduardobranco8349]

Did you make it harder to beat brock with charmander?

[@intergalactic92]

You need to watch Golden Owl's video on this subject because he explains the purpose of Onix much better than I can. In a nutshell Brock is designed to be a rock solid defensive trainer. He's supposed to resist the predominantly normal type moves you will have at your disposal at this point, and teach you to use your elemental/special moves instead. Bide is designed to punish players that spam tackle. Giving him high damage output on top of that is counterintuitive to the lesson that the player is supposed to be learning in this fight.

[@Angelofdeth20]

why not make oddish/poliwag available early?

[@Eluthane]

Was rock actuly imune to elextric in Gen 1? Like I know there was a whole anime episode about it, but in any of the modern Pokemon games I've played Electric does normal damage to rock type, or is there some dule ground typing here I'm not familer with?

[@InfernoFireStyle]

No, Rock has never been immune to electric. It's just that almost every Rock type in gen 1 was also part Ground type, which are immune to electric.

[@robertlupa8273]

@@InfernoFireStyle Funnily enough, every Rock type in Gen 1 is either immune to Electric, or _weak_ to it.

[@dankester5607]

From what I remember reading... The starters and initial stages of the game is meant to serve as a built in difficulty setting. Bulbasaur is easy Squirtle is medium. Charmander is hard.

[@dannigro8794]

Misty is worse, there’s like more water Pokémon than anything and she only uses one and it’s evolved form. At least use a couple.

[@basnaspe4578]

Also, about super effective moves, it is even worse: In the gen 1 games, the second type gets calculated properly, but you are showing a message that is completely ignoring the second type (for instance, it shows grass being super effective again Gyarados). So we start the game of with seeing how insane good super effective moves are but then are later seeing normal effecive "super effective" moves later on.

[@trapez77]

He took it easy on red because he saw his potential

[@knightoumi3831]

"Onix is trash" Captain Kidd is mad rn

[@donovanbradford8231]

I get the gripes with Brock and his gym not being great at teaching in game strategy, but that only holds water in Red and Blue because in Yellow which is a Gen 1 game that issue isn't there. In Red and Blue while it is possible to defeat Brock while picking Charmander you would still either need a Buttrefree or train your Charmander to a high level, a Ratatta to learn hyperfang, or a Nidoran ale to a higher level also. The biggest issue was the pokemon choices in Red and Blue's early game play which was fixed in Yellow as you have some pokemon that learn low kick and double kick early to help with type advantage. Plus Brock has the chance of beating you more easily than say Flakner in Gen 2.

[@koltensmith3974]

Can't you also catch a mankey before Brock, or is that in yellow only?

[@arrowblade_1238]

The idea of the move bide isn’t bad, but it’s execution could be better

[@danielpayne1597]

How about adding mon options that the player can access in ALL VERSIONS before the fight? Picked Charmander in Blue? You're SOL on Mankey, Double Kick Nidoran, Butterfree, and all your hopes and dreams.

[@jukenryu8127]

I do like the change, but I feel the kids picking Charmander would have been Even more shafted by giving Onix a SE move against you

[@brentrobinson3275]

Imagine water gun was a tm in mt moon so what was stopping them from making rock throw a tm?