Pichu Only - Pokemon Crystal

Rules:
1. Only my starter in battle
2. No items in battle, except held items
3. No glitches, exploits, save states, or RNG manipulation
4. No evasion moves before level 100*
Rule details:
-- *In gen1, evasion boosting is allowed if the Pokemon does it through means other than learning the move by level up or TM. For example, using Mimic or Mirror Move to boost evasion is allowed. (This exception is to keep ranking consistent with my legacy videos.)
-- I am allowed to manipulate my starter
-- I play the game at 4x game speed
-- For fair comparisons all my Pokemon have perfect (or near perfect) DVs / IVs
-- I am allowed to catch HM users - I can use all field moves
-- All in-battle glitches are allowed in generation 1
-- In generation 1, I'm allowed to skip Marowak with the Poke Doll
-- Surge's trash-can-puzzle is automatically solved
-- The bike is allowed in gen1, banned in gen2, and allowed for bypassing terrain in gen3
-- Saving between league members is allowed
-- If the solo Pokemon faints and I choose to blackout it counts towards my reset counter
-- I can pause the game and timer to take breaks
-- The footage is sped up / slowed down to match the pace of my narration
-- The ability Pickup can only be used if the starter has it
Patreon: / scottsthoughts
KZbin memberships:
/ @scottsthoughtspokemon
Twitter: / psychicflying
Twitch: / scottsthoughtspokemon
Illustrations by / sarinavail
Thumbnail art by / brianlsart
STAB: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...
DVs / IVs: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...
Damage Calculations: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...
Gen1 Stat Calculator: pycosites.com/pkmn/stat_gen1.php
Gen2 Stat Calculator: pycosites.com/pkmn/stat_gen2.php
Gen1 Crit Rates: www.smogon.com/rb/articles/cr...
Learnsets: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...
Base Stats: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...)

[@austinsager912]

You know the challenge is next-level hard when we get footage of the Kanto gym leaders

[@Math.Bandit]

I don't think I've ever seen Pichu's Crystal back-sprite before and it might be the best back-sprite I've ever seen.

[@yaziyo]

Gen 2 Pichu is RIDICULOUSLY cute

[@lorddelibird]

Watching Pichu para into triple flinch the Miltank solved my childhood trauma

[@Duothimir]

And that is how you milk Whitney.

[@banditrests]

The baby Pokémon really demonstrate the massive power jumps with Red and to a lesser extent, Blue and Lance. Have you seen Pimanrule’s gen 2 tournament video? It’s wild. Over half a million attempts and even Blue can’t beat Red.

[@browncow5210]

Watching this series made me realize that Electabuzz of all Pokemon might take home the top time. Feraligatr is still very solid. Alakazam struggles with Karen. Mewtwo gets slowed down by his growth rate. Electabuzz has enough speed to almost never go last, all 3 elemental punches on good enough special attack, and even decent physical attack for normal moves and beating Snorlax.

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

Yup. I think it might be one of the best...

[@agentblackbird9435]

Considering Elekid was pretty good for a baby, definitely excited for Electabuzz

[@connordarvall8482]

Neat! Electabuzz recently became my favourite Pokemon and Crystal was the first proper Pokemon game I owned.

[@alaranarmstrong3718]

Imagine an Electivire backport

[@frankieinjapan]

Putting in 9 hours specifically playing one Pokemon, not to mention the massive time spent researching a mon and routes/changes, the voice over, and editing is insane. I've spent lots of time doing tedious work on a computer, so I know how aggravating and tough it must be. Thanks for putting in so much work for us. This baby pokemon series has been a highlight of my month 🤣

[@qinaxin7107]

So reason you might feel like this playthrough has more bad luck than others: Since battles are lasting more turns due to Pichu being less capable of knocking things out, enemies have more turns to do stuff which means they are more likely to roll a crit/other bad thing. So while bad things/turn is probably about the same as other runs (with a little variance), bad things/fight is higher which makes it feel like more bad luck.

[@mahnameisj]

27:40 Ah yes. I had trouble with Koga's Ground type Magneton too. Really a tricky ninja pulling out all the stops 😂

[@Pikachutwo2]

Watching the first playthough, I can tell Hidden Power Ice is gonna be a huge improvement for Pichu.

[@qgame4941]

After your ending i was just thinking: If you think a move pool is better than the best stats, how about doing a run with a third of a mew. So basically modding the game to give mew 35 or 30 in every stat instead of 100 but obviously keeping the movepool. Would be really interesting to see the difference between the other babies and baby mew as well as to the difference between baby mew and mew to show how much overkill affects the game. Cool series. Thank you the ton of uploads recently. It really helps me relax in a stressful time!

[@philiphunt-bull5817]

...why 30 or 35 instead of 33???

[@qgame4941]

@@philiphunt-bull5817 because other than cradilly i don't know a pokemon that has base stats not ending in 0 or 5. Obviously 33 in everything would be closer to a third.

[@GKoopa]

​@@qgame4941there's actually tons of Pokemon with weirdly uneven stats. Hell, lots of the starters have numbers like 83.

[@qgame4941]

@@GKoopa i actually did not know that. In that case 33 on all is obviously the call there giving it 200 base stats, while 35 for a bit more would pout it more in line with the other babies

[@Lightshock16]

Scott: Kanto gym leaders are easy Brock and Blaine: Hold my Beer

[@GoikOShea]

Metapod is probably canonically a chrysalis.

[@Kahadi]

It's the Cocoon Pokemon, like Kakuna, Silcoon, and Cascoon. But the design is likely based on a chrysalis. So it is both a cocoon and a chrysalis

[@Neogeddon]

Is there a valid distinction between the two or is it a squares/rectangles or frogs/toads sorta deal?

[@Medabee8]

They're the same thing smh

[@Zwub101]

Cocoon is the colloquial term for pupa stage structures for insects. Technically it seems like all “cocoon” Pokémon should actually be chrysalis Pokémon as a chrysalis is an exterior shell that is the insect essentially a modification to their exoskeleton to develop into the next stage, though it’s hard to tell since Pokemon biology is wild. A cocoon is instead an external structure spun or created by the larva stage for the pupa to then develop in. Butterflies are chrysalis in their pupa stage and things like silkworms and moths produce silky cocoons that the pupa stays in. Kakuna and Metapod seem to be hard exoskeletons (though kakuna is based on bee pupa that don’t actually develop an external structure as they develop within the hive structures) so would be chrysalis. Silcoon and Cascoon could very much be actual cocoon Pokémon further indicated by their names. However like I said above Pokémon biology is weird, so it would be like an Applin situation where we don’t actually see the true pupa stage of the Pokémon and only see the cocoon and the eyes of Silcoon and Cascoon are the pupa Pokemon looking out of their cocoons.

[@lazypaladin]

It's _based._

[@TheOriginalJphyper]

40:40 Correction: the repeatable battle occurs at the Indigo Plateau, just before you enter the first chamber to battle the Elite Four. It's every Monday and Wednesday. He does appear in the Dragon's Den on Tuesday and Thursday, but he won't battle you then.

[@MichaelSotoCE]

so what does he do there?

[@TheOriginalJphyper]

​@@MichaelSotoCE Level grinding, apparently.

[@hyperdir]

Extra note: in HGSS, there's a double battle in the Dragon's Den where you battle with Silver against Lance and Clair.

[@TheOriginalJphyper]

@@hyperdir I figured that was what he was thinking of.

[@darlhiatt8136]

Huh, cool! Never found those encounters before, I'll go look.

[@SnowyTotodile]

5:29 The reason why Pidgeotto picked Mud Slap is because you dropped Pidgeotto's attack so low that the damage from Mud-Slap and Tackle became the same due to rounding (6 damage). I'm fairly certain that Gen 2 AI doesn't actually directly factor in critical hits, damage rolls, or accuracy when doing damage tests - I'm still not 100% sure how it works, as I'm still in the process of fully reverse engineering it to hopefully gain a full understanding of it. But yeah, effective base power at such low levels often doesn't actually fully equate to the actual damage being dealt, especially with single-digit stats, because supereffective non-STAB moves will always do +1 more damage than neutral STAB moves with the same effective base power.

[@joshuaenns-wind9851]

This was a really enjoyable series, Scott! I know it’s probably a long ways away, but I look forward to you eventually backporting all the baby Pokémon introduced in later gens. I’d love to see how they compare to the Gen 2 babies.

[@pjanderson4876]

When you actually have a baby announcement, you should back port all the other babies, Wynaut, Mantyke, Happiny, etc. to Crystal and do them too haha

[@a.r.4822]

Azurill is gonna be terrible lol

[@iantaakalla8180]

Toxel, surprisingly, is a baby Pokémon

[@pjanderson4876]

@@iantaakalla8180 That’s cool, I didn’t know that! I think you can probably skip out on Toxel, Budew and Chingling since their evolutions aren’t available in Gen 2 anyways. I think Wynaut’s gonna be hard too, there might be some impossible trainers before you get access to recovery options.

[@34autobot]

I just gotta say, you are probably one of the most professional youtubers out there. Your transparency, dedication to your work, work ethic, and passion show through each video you produce. It's mind-blowing to me that you had this video going since September, and yet have a video planned for every day in December. Keep up the awesome work man, and I hope you'll be giving yourself a break after the holidays!

[@rafilosofo]

33:57 for a moment the Rollout displays an attack power of 3840, and I found it beautiful

[@perkypenguin1663]

I know Pichu is supposed to be a baby, but it feels plain mean that it doesn’t learn ThunderPunch. I wonder how much better it would be with that move in its arsenal. Even so, I commend you for sticking to this baby marathon and I’m excited for the next video!

[@TheGamingCamel22]

Was so funny (and expected) to see so many resets on the Onix, it took revenge on all the times Scott called it bad 😂

[@wideright7567]

I feel like this series just started and now it’s over and wow. you’ve earned a break from these. these were all so good to watch. can’t wait for december!

[@DinosaursSayRarr]

Scott, just wanted to say your videos are a huge comfort zone for me. As an almost 32 year old man, i grew up when pokemon first released. Got red the year it came out for Christmas in the US and have loved it ever since. The older games will always be my favorite! I love optimizing as well, in every game i play, so your videos are a perfect combination. I like jrose and others, but yours are my favorite. Keep it up, and thanks for the consistant content!

[@GamerzBeHatin]

I love how you sync the arrow on the champion's text box to the music at the beginning of the battle. Probably one of my favorite small details you add 😄

[@devinmiracle7680]

You are awesome for this series Scott! I know it was a ton of work, but you keep the content coming somehow. I love Pokemon, and I can hear it in your voice that you do too.

[@Nathannbo]

I feel like this would make a really interesting race. This run was a lot of fun for me because you had lots of challenges other mons just don’t have. Each challenge had their own solution and that was so charming for me

[@Deez-Master]

Lol the brock fight really elevated this run to legendary status

[@dunst1438]

32:21 He made the little down arrow blink to the beat of the song. I love this dudes editing.

[@discgolfwes]

I just finished watching Igglybuff when this was posted! Let's go!

[@theking100sb8]

I have binged your content recently, great video as always, keep up the good work my guy. we appreciate you.

[@loomisam9913]

I'm so happy I could watch this series unfold, it was excellent!

[@MattDRT0358]

Well done on this series! Must have been an epic slog to work through. Also, great production quality as always!!!

[@lamiaprincess6371]

This was a really fun series to watch. I know I can be a little annoying at times but truly stuff like this is why I keep coming back to the channel. This Pichu run was really good, and honestly I'm not sure if I really have any notes on it. It's just super well done. A well done run for a Pokemon that is just really bad most of the time lol. Really excited for December~ I hope there are more snakes in my future :3

[@yugiboomer1326]

I really enjoy when the pokemon and/or their moveset is bad and there's a struggle. Much more satisfying to watch.

[@arckrokosz3123]

Man, i love Seel. He is going to possibly be a mascot of sorts for me in the future when i start uploading pokemon content. Thank you for the amazing content, you really are inspiring! ❤

[@jimmiewoodsjw]

Great series Scott, been perfect for my house chores after work! Hope all is well with your voice and your family life.

[@Erranteumbra]

Absolutely the one I was waiting for ❤ love pichu and can’t wait to watch the pain

[@Tjaty]

Been waiting on this...lol

[@CMZneu]

11:27 Actually neither are cocoons, long story short, they are pupa. It goes larva

[@maismann]

Never have i ever been this early😂 Let's gooo 🍿

[@CharmCityGamer]

Scott you are my hero. Pichu is my all-time favorite Baby Pokémon so I'm thrilled you took the little guy all the way!

[@jakobandersen3210]

Hey Scott i am having a stressfull time at school atm, these videoes have been great to listen to for the purpose of calming down before bedtime :D

[@TheAnalyticalEngine]

Gligar is still sobbing that everyone and their grandmother can learn Mud Slap...except for it

[@danielrobinsonchangemyvisi3195]

Lol, the way you said it Scott and talking about this Pokemon makes you lose your breath by even not thinking about how not exciting this Pokemon really is at all ,keep it up ,like the enthused energy 👍

[@NativeGolfer10]

Love seeing the graphs you added in your videos Scott! Hope you stay sane through December bud! 😅

[@jod8722]

What a great series this has been. Would love to see runs based on the 'swarm' pokemon

[@nightfan1983]

What a fun series that was. On the upside for Pichu, it has a cute backsprite (and didn't finish last) :)

[@miguelnovais3878]

Love the way you said that you don't assume you are unlucky, you assume you are doing something wrong. I think you would be such a good combat sports athlete, and find patterns and order in the chaos

[@888Grim]

Excellent video as always

[@ma.2099]

Sure you get this a lot but your challenge vids are the best having all the stats to place next to ranking and an actual tiering method. Huge fan of all of it!

[@gambleralex5083]

Here we go more pain 😂 Scott is a champ with these babies

[@llSuperSnivyll]

You claim it was scary to face Chuck as a Normal-type, but for Pichu it wasn't. I'd say that Pichu's 20/15 physical defenses means it's unofficially weak to Fighting. 59:05 It's really nice that you can actually see tiers in the splits alone. Elekid beats Red before anyone else even gets to see him. Smoochum and Magby beat Red before the remaining five even get to see him. Cleffa, Togepi and Igglybuff beat Red long before Pichu and Tyrogue do. 1:00:50 And you can see it again. Elekid beats Red before Smoochum gets to see him. Elekid, Magby and Smoochum beat Red before everyone else even gets to beat Karen. Cleffa, Togepi and Igglybuff beat Red long before Pichu and Tyrogue beat Blue. And finally... Lance is always the shortest split.

[@charlessegale6493]

Man, you really suffered through this particular video. I'm just glad it was as least able to get a better time than Tyrogue! Great job, Scott and Team. Take Gym Leader Matt's advice and sit back, relax and grab yourself a Sodie Pop; you've all earned it after this baby Pokémon marathon!

[@samson5034]

Scott you are an absolute beast and continue to entertain with each one of these great videos. Congrats again on your marriage!

[@Nick_Slavik]

Scott: Tyrogue is, by far to this point, the worst baby. Pichu could be worse, but I'd be surprised if that's the case Me, who's seen a few different Pichu only runs: Buckle up Scotty! This is gonna be one HELLUVA RIDE! lmao

[@4252119]

At 42:58 Scott was actually thicking of evolving the little trashy baby to stand a better chance 🤣

[@LTDextel]

Cant wait for them to make the lets go series for Johto: Let's Go Pichu Let's Go Togepi

[@KRACKSMACK]

Ohhhh boy. Been waiting for this one. Namaste 🙏 Scott!

[@EventideBlackFox]

I grew fond of Pichu when it was a static encounter in a ROM hack. I farmed a bunch for a few hours for the fun of it (you'd get knocked out if you got beat by a trainer after if I remember right)

[@miqvPL]

congrats on the series completion, I could really see the pain in this video, getting ohko'd by Quagsire half your level

[@UnderstandSoccer]

Congrats on the Nuptials! 🎉

[@TheMoogleKing93]

Pichu's art is peak "does this look like the face of mercy"

[@notmyrealnameify]

Thanks for this great series, looking forward to december=)

[@stevenpetrillo9527]

Aw, the baby theory was cute, lol. Glad you weren’t weirded out by the fans thinking that, lol. It… DID kinda make sense 😂

[@red-eyessolares1817]

Respect for putting in the time and patience do these Baby runs. As I mentioned in the Elekid video, I can’t wait for when we get to see how the evolutions of the babies will fair.

[@PeTeThEgOtH]

I love this video i have been waitong for so long! #scottsthoughts thank you for keeping the content amazing as always !

[@Pepega580]

Man, this playthrough was ruthless.

[@DarthNoshitam]

Can't wait for the backports of Azurill and Wynaut 🤣

[@gamer19191]

Gligar: "what do you mean I don't learn mud slap!! I'm literally a ground type!!" 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞: "Allow me.."

[@Aaron.Seabolt]

Me watching the series thinking it was about time you did the baby playthrough. Everyone else took it as a secret message hinting towards a baby announcement. Lol.

[@JayFnkay]

Yes! Been waiting for this!

[@YoshiMinion]

Saved the best for last. Love seeing my favorite Pokemon get to shine(even if it is very bad in terms of stats and moves).

[@chikodusty]

"Aaand...yeah...Pichu felt like Seel." I felt that.

[@d.a.d.-ohgosh]

Scott: And with that, I am ready to face *insert main trainer* Me: Oh no

[@dafsvad5517]

Oooo let the pain watching begin!!!

[@ChaosWindScar99]

Well , pichu was a run... kudos to you for sticking it out, at least it wasn't Tyrouge...

[@LegendRed01]

imagine being Red here and some random dude comes up to you with a Pichu... makes you regret having a Pikachu

[@claus3337]

You know when Scott monologs for 4 minutes is gonna be rough

[@gweddillionerail791]

Congrats on finishing! Now do Sunkern :D.

[@TheCBbrothers]

I'm at the Lance battle right now, and I'm wondering: Did you test the Thunder-ranges on his Dragonites? If Gyarados sets up rain dance for you, you won't miss, and then you can spend one turn setting up a defence curl. If you can one-shot the dragonites, that seems like the best strategy

[@lenlimbo]

The result was more or less what I expected. Pichu had a good start among the weak babies (to differentiate them from the likes of Elekid, Magby and Smoochum) thanks to thundershock, then lags behind because it is made of wet paper tissue and anything looking at him funny could take him down, but ultimately it has a decent (at least compared to Tyrogue) movepool that helps him beat the fighting baby's time. In this competition, the surprise for me was Igglybuff. I didn't expect to be on par with cleffa until almost the end of the run, to be honest. That should teach me to not underestimate the power of having so much hp. And I remembered Togepi being better, but that's probably because since gen 4 that line is VERY good, with a good movepool and a great coverage, specially with tthe physical and special separation. Also I'm used to waste, if needed, time and resources into reducing as much as posible the time it stays as a togepi.

[@justinsims655]

"WELCOME TO KANTO, BOI." - Brock

[@LeiosLabs]

"Psywave in the early game really holds any pokemon back." Psywave is a signature move of Misdreavus in gen II (technically egg move for koffing and ghastly)

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

Oh I know. I made a Misdreavus video in gen2, backported it into gen1, and then did a stream with it in Crystal and backported Mismagius because I hadn’t suffered enough.

[@LeiosLabs]

@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon I do a misdreavus solo run in every generation as my first playthrough, so I know it can be a challenge. Thanks for making such fun videos!

[@Skipatronic]

This is gonna be good

[@rooislangwtf]

29:07 YEP Hitmonchan sure did survive that I̶r̶o̶n̶ T̶a̶i̶l̶ Return

[@aLime404]

Pedantic “cocoon” fact (unasked for): While both Kakuna and Metapod are called cocoon Pokémon, neither are really cocoons. Both, however, are pupae. The cocoon is just the silken wrap around a bug, so Metapod is a technically an obtect chrysalis and Kakuna is an exarate, adecticus pupa!!

[@thebisexualbomber]

I would love to see a Pichu run in Platinum 😎

[@SmashMath151]

The Grand Finale! Knew it would be a hard one just based on the video's runtime (and Pichu's bad stats and weak movepool). Any thought of extending the series in 2024 or 2025 with backports of Azurill, Wynaut (if it's even possible), Bonsly, Mime Jr,. Happiny, Munchlax, and Mantyke?

[@Karaseri]

+ Riolu and Toxel

[@NevG27]

Video over an hour long. Sorry for the struggle :(

[@wiseguise5960]

Omg this run is going to be rough! talk about a squishy Pokemon 20 base hp and terrible defenses oof. When using the DC/Rollout combo, when Rollout ends its combo(weather full 5 hits or not) do you have to use DC again to get the damage boost or does the previous DC still count towards the damage boost?

[@kaan-kaant]

To my knowledge you only need to use DC once and it will stay active for rollout for until the end of the battle as long as it doesn't get phased by roar/whirlwind

[@Gungho73]

Question for your program you use; can the program evaluate the time you gain/lose over time due to battles as a result of having a different name?

[@heartnet40]

Scott, seeing the runtime of this video on my feel caused me to physically flinch in pain. Good lord, this is going to be a *ROUGH* playthrough, isnt it?

[@ChrrolloDI]

No he just really likes spending time with Pichu.

[@thecriticalghost4626]

It's a medium fast lenght video

[@rojachan]

Curious about the graph making - are you using R? Some of the colors really feel reminiscent of sone of R's default color sets. (As a previous microbial ecologist, i am way too familiar with R and making various graphs with it.)

[@BlahLab]

First, you can always do this again for HeartGold/SoulSilver if you wanted to do a real announcement Second, you're crazy! This series followed by daily December?! I hope you have plans for a vacation or a few weeks off after this!

[@samzito8067]

a fun vs idea for crystal might be poliwrath vs politoed it’d be really interesting too see the physical tadpole thing vs the special frog

[@Lockirby2]

I wonder if a Berry would have solved your problems against the random grunt with those Rattata? Regardless, it's impressive to see an optimized run of even something that JRose made an Impossible Challenges video on. And it isn't even the most difficult run you've done by any means.

[@emeraldbeedrill]

28:21 he really say "Brock sending Onix" Lololololo

[@21eeveevulpix]

... Oh god... It's Pichu in Crystal with no help or Evos... Well, strap in people, this ones gonna be a long one.

[@Chronoflation]

Art for the RattatRocket stepping on a Pichu!

[@misterschifano]

I feel like we need an overlay bar for cuteness. 🥰

[@OlafderPirat]

yooo daily december. what a treat for the end of the year