Why Onix was one of the best Pokemon ever designed [Game Designer Explains]

[@CaptainKiddYT]

Personally, I've always found Onix to be pretty amazing

[@GoldenOwl_Game]

@CaptainKiddYT Enough to recommend a certain professional internet funny man to bring one to the Elite Four, and then to make an entire Nuzlocke video based around one yourself? Just Kidd-ing. Not gonna lie, I respect the commitment to the bit. Can’t have fun without doing a little bit crazy

[@basillah7650]

@@GoldenOwl_Game Onix moves where not nerfed in gen 1 even gave charmander users problems the problem was the unbalanced pokemon typing in the game why bring onix when psychic so op

[@thatyellowfellow]

@@basillah7650 don't know if they were nerfed or not, but i found his move pool pretty bad without considering his stats. I mean bind was broken back then but it still had the accuracy thing to give opponents some chance, but even the geodude family learned earthquake and even explosion, which you had to be weary of, and ryhorn and rhydon learned horn drill and had much better stats to make up for their move pool. But onix had screech, which it didn't combo with a lot of stuff as all its other moves really weren't that great, and once you were past the petit cup level of opponents, he became bad if it wasn't used as just a hard counter. But as a first gym leader's pokemon with the options given to tackle him when it's your first time playing the game, onix was bloody terrifying.

[@InsertFunnyThingHere]

Specially with a quick claw

[@ManuYoCom]

So Onyx is the personification of: "The boss when you fight him// the boss when you unlock it as a playable character"

[@unwithering5313]

And it's done in a way that makes sense.

[@M4x_P0w3r]

Question: Couldn't Onix have a reasonable Attack stat for something of it's size and compensate it by having it learn attacks that don't lean on said stat at that stage of the game, such as Bide and Counter, or even Constrict which does pitiful damage? That way, as it levels up, it starts learning better moves and then you have an actual pokemon that players would look forward to using and not one they want to avoid. Better yet, by training one up yourself, you can see it go past that pitiful gimmick to an actual fearsome battler once it has gotten rid of those weak moves that were holding it back.

[@THGMR-ox7sd]

True. Onix should have a higher attack stat in my opinion. Maybe not something crazy but just enough to be not memed and compared to tiny creatures like oddish.

[@itsvairen334]

Huh. I thought Constrict was always at 10 BP, either Bulbapedia needs some editing or there's been a crossed wire somewhere. But honestly if anything the reduction to speed, to ensure that a faster Rattata, Beedrill, Mankey, or Butterfree starts going after Onix would've been a quick lesson in the importance of maintaining your speed stat, even in the middle of battle. But mostly, that would be a nitpick and probably too much information for a first boss when we're still dealing with the lesson of "not very effective is not very effective".

[@GoldenOwl_Game]

@@itsvairen334 my mistake, you are correct. I read the data incorrectly. Constrict has 35 PP, not BP. I’d imagine this might be due to a flavor choice moreso than anything. Constrict in the original Japanese translates to Karamikku, with Karami meaning entanglement, entwinement. Meaning just an attack specifically relating to thin coiling This is backed up by the list of Pokémon that can learn it, containing things with tendrils like jellyfish tentacles (Tentacool, Inkay, Nihilego), or vines (Tangela) Onix doesn’t fulfill that criteria. So it gets a more fitting Bind instead, which refers to wrapping with one’s whole body like a snake. But that move isn’t suitable for a first boss opponent

[@itsvairen334]

@@GoldenOwl_Game Especially in Gen I where Bind means the player cannot play the game until Onix misses making the lesson extremely hit or miss because you can just lose because of luck.

[@madnessarcade7447]

think too cold and cynically about Pokémon in terms of stats There are no bad Pokémon only bad trainers who don’t know how to use the potential properly Every Pokémon has potential Pokémon is about Oh your my best friend in a world we must defend I will travel across the land searching far and wide each pokemon to understand the power that’s inside Our hearts so true our courage will pull us through you teach me and I teach you” I raise pokemon the ash way Every Pokémon has potential and any Pokémon can be good with enough compassion kindness trust and determination Y’all have been brainwashed by smogon rules and tiers so much Y’all forgot pokemon are friends first Did you guys learn nothing about his rivalry with Paul and chimchar’s arc Don’t be a Paul. Being a Paul is wrong The anime may have different rules and logic but those life lessons can be applied anywhere and to any aspect of the franchise and life in general

[@peacocca190]

I've always understood this as the reason for Onix's stat spread. What I don't understand is the reason Bruno has 2 of them. Or even 1 of them.

[@Laezar1]

I think bruno is meant as a callback to brock but executed very poorly. First it's muddled by the fact he focuses on fighting instead of rock and second he is the second trainer of the elite 4. It would have been a lot cooler if he was the first with lorelei then being a callback to misty, agatha calling back to the pokemon tower and then lance as the "ultimate" challenge of dragons, or only apparently so until you realize your rival is there and the true ultimate challenge is a balanced team. I think they should have moved him to first place in the elite 4 and either have him as pure rock with an onix as his first pokemon (and weakest, showing your progress), and then following that up with the fossile you didn't pick, rhydon, aerodactyl (but that would be redundant with lance) and then golem as his ace (showing that geodude was the stronger of the two brock pokemon once properly trained=. Alternatively make him a fighting/rock pokemon the same way lorelei isn't pure ice but ice/water and agatha is ghost/poison. And start with onix but only one, then only the hitmon you haven't picked, then primeape, then golem and then machamp (and for the love of god give fighting types a real move). Either of those would have made bruno a lot more intimidating. And a proper evolution of your first great challenge.

[@starchild3215]

Well to be fair, 1. Onix can learn fighting type moves so technically it can still fit the "fighting type" theme 2. Onix is a rock type which makes it a good counter against any flying types a challenger may bring.

[@peacocca190]

@@starchild3215 Theoretically, but not with... that stat spread. ;)

[@starchild3215]

@@peacocca190 true

[@basillah7650]

Lol do you can beat the elite 4 and champion without healing that is what i did when i played serious the 2 onix helped a lot with doing that would take more damage if had different mons

[@chaosbug7]

Onix is fascinating. If you look at it like an RPG boss, then it’s fantastically designed for the point of the game you encounter it. Where Onix falls off is when you’re attempting to use one yourself. It’s very underwhelming compared to other options you have access to in later points of the game. Onix is a really cool case study for sure.

[@toyecatm2558]

It's the same as Commander Mars's Purugly actually. At the point that you fight it it's a huge and fast powerhouse that can destroy runs, but once you can get a Purugly on your own (only in Pearl btw) at level 38, it's completely outclassed and not even remotely viable anymore.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

Nosepass is in a similar place. Except it's more about type effectiveness since it's Special Defense is also pretty impressive Steelix also serve a similar purpose as Onix, but for the newly introduced Steel type. Those two examples really shows how effective Onix is as a Boss

[@ColorHero]

4:22 Leroy Jenkins reference

[@yurei4414]

​@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 The diffence is that Steelix is pretty broken also to use in a playthrough because steel type is fair and balanced™

[@DanielisAwesome52]

That is sort of on par for most playable Boss characters, its a meme in JRPGs for a reason

[@GoldenOwl_Game]

This is my first ever video 2-3 years ago, someone on Reddit made a post complaining about Onix. I replied back explaining why Onix was actually good, and that reply in turn received many comments from people saying they'd be love to see a video about that and about Pokémon's game design. 2-3 years later, I've since graduated from university with my game design degree, worked in two game companies, and finally decided to give this a shot as a hobby. This was my first time ever working with Adobe Premiere Pro outside of 15 mins in one class, so it's quite rough and it's production took WAY longer than I'd liked (a few months, on and off). Still, for a first attempt, I'm satisfied with it. And for those who watched this, I hope you enjoyed my efforts.

[@YukiNagato60]

regarding both Brock and TMs -- I always thought it was borderline trollish on the devs part that a Water Gun TM can be found in Mt. Moon, almost immediately after Brock. especially since it's not just Squirtle, who gets the move by level up anyway, that can learn it -- Rattata and the Nidos can be found early game, and are compatible with it as well.

[@Fighting.Flower]

Wow! That's so cool. It's clear you have a ton of potential, and i can already see you getting far in your journey of video creation. I'll be happy to tag along with you on this incredible looking journey to see how much you grow and progress!

[@BBWahoo]

Game Design Degree!? Super cool!!!

[@ZodiacMeteor]

While your argument for why Onix is a good first boss is solid, there are several problems with the design that makes the battle a bad teaching experience. The game is absolutely trying to teach the player, the problem is only the game is leaving out extremely crucial information. First off is simply the stats, rather, the lack of explanation of. In... I think nearly every Pokemon game, not just red and blue, doesn't explain stats. Onix has a low special, but it is never explained what special is, nor ever explained that Onix having a low special until you catch one on your own. This leads to HUGE amounts of problems when it comes to the game teaching the game mechanics, especially if you picked Charmander. When fighting Onix with Charmander and use Ember, you will notice it does slightly more damage than tackle, despite not being very effective. What players get from this isn't Onix has a weak special, what players will believe is Ember is stronger than Tackle, which is only half true, because another unexplained mechanic is STAB. Which leads to the next problem Pokemon, Squirtle. Onix uses Bide, and lets say your level 8 Squirtle used Bubble and does 40% of Onix health, okay so you use Tail Whip and lower the Onix defenses and... Bubble does the same amount of damage? Oh and now you are hit by Bide, punished. Well, that just means Tail Whip is useless because it must lower like 1 point of defense or something, right? After all, you lowered the DEFENSE so why was there no change in Bubbles damage? Lastly Bulbasaur, level 13 is kinda high to grind too by the time you reached Brock. Most players will have their starters at level 10, 11 or rarely 12, so the strategy ISN'T to use super effective moves, it's to Leech Seed and trade hits until you win, why they couldn't give Bulbasaur Vine Whip at level 7 and Leech Seed at level 13 is beyond me. There are so many things that can go wrong with feedback because crucial information can only be known by the developers, stats that would only make sense if explained to the player, what is a special attack, what is physical attack, what are Onix's stats. Heck, the developers couldn't even bother to get the player a Bellsprout or Oddish for the person that picked the fire lizard. Making Brock a more difficult obstacle, punishing the player for their choice. Next issue is the 5 Full Heals, once again, knowledge only the developers would know. If anything this teaches the player to NOT use status moves as they can be cured, because there is no way for a player to have the knowledge only Brock is designed for this. This punishes the player trying a different strategy, encouraging the player to brute force with their starter Pokemon, which, many players just did for the entire game. This is absolutely unnecessary for people that picked Charmander, at this point players already know that they can beat bugs in 1 hit by setting them on fire, so why punish for using Poison Sting? It's the one excuse to raise a Weedle into Beedrill, Poison and Multihit moves to break the wall that is Onix, but the developers instead hard focused on their lesson design. While Brock does teach the importance of super effective moves, it also falsely teaches other wrong things. Ember has twice the power of Tackle, stat moves are useless, just potion up and ram into a wall until it dies, don't waste time with status moves on tanky Pokemon. This is what happens when you try to force a lesson with rules that are unexplained. But, this can be helped by say, having an NPC that explains "You want a tip to beat Brock? Brocks Pokemon have strong defenses, so attacks like Tackle won't do much. However, water, grass and even fire moves are special attacks and can break through those defenses! Good Luck!" Then the player gets a Rare Candy. I cannot imagine the developers and translation team able to do better explaining their own system so it's not perfect, but it's better than absolutely nothing.

[@BBWahoo]

@@ZodiacMeteor Counterpoint: Onyx is cool

[@FiboSai]

I agree with many points here. Onix is supposed to be a boss Pokemon first and foremost. Having low HP and attack, but very high defense makes it fulfill that purpose. Still, there are some things about the tutorial aspect of the first gym that I don't completely agree with. Firstly, the designers should realise that 2/3 of the players will be able trivialise Brock just because they picked the starter that is good against him, thus not learing the lesson that type advantage matters until later into the game. The other problem that is that if you picked charmander, you have no option to get a Pokemon with a super effective move. Mankey and Nidoran aren't available in red and blue. In my opinion, gen 5 does the type advantage tutorial much better. The first gym will always be against the leader that has the type advantage over your starter, but you also get a free gift Pokemon that covers your starters weakness. This gets around the problem of not having a super effective option available even if you know that this mechanic exists.

[@FireFog44]

Brock actually teaches different lessons depending on which starter you pick. If you picked squirtle, you should have the moves tackle, tail whip, and bubble. Thanks to tackle’s 35 base power compared to bubble’s base 20, tackle is still the stronger attack against all the Pokémon you’ve been battling pre-Brock, a fact then compounded by tail whip making tackle even stronger. This puts the player in the head space of beginning each battle spamming the stronger tackle which won’t work against Brock. Out of desperation, the player will be pushed to try the weaker bubble attack and be surprised when it one shots what had otherwise been an unbreakable wall. This teaches the lesson of type effectiveness. If you picked bulbasaur, your moveset going into Brock will be tackle, growl, and leech seed. Without a damage dealing grass attack, bulbasaur players will need to win using a strategy other than “hit it till it dies”, using leech seed and growl to stall for time and KO with passive damage. This teaches the player that there are alternative ways to win (and lose) other than brute force, a lesson especially important for bulbasaur players since they likely missed out on being poisoned until now thanks to bulbasaur’s immunity to the status. If you leveled up to 13 and know vine whip, the player is still primed to start the battle with tackle thanks to all the poison, bug, and flying Pokémon you’ve been facing till now resisting the move and making it seem weaker than it actually is. For charmander, who knows scratch, growl, and ember, the player will already have gotten a taste of type effectiveness thanks to all the enemy bug types you’ve been facing till now. Kakuna and metapod especially drive the point home thanks to their high defense and use of the move harden making the difference between scratch and super effective ember stark. This also primes players for the lesson Brock teaches: when one defensive stat is too high, go for the other one. This undermines the lesson of type effectiveness a little, but that lesson is reinforced a little later against Misty. Misty actually complements the lessons Brock teaches for all the starters. I already talked about her value in teaching charmander players, but for squirtle, players will be spamming water gun as their strongest move but should also know the move bite. Misty’s Pokémon resist water moves and have high special, so going for the unresisted physical move will be the more effective strategy. For bulbasaur players, if they didn’t have vine whip for Brock they’ll definitely have it for Misty, which will drive home the value of super effective damage. After Misty, the tutorial is done and the map opens up. Players can face the next five gym leaders in almost any order they choose (Koga needs to come before Blaine), and are free to enjoy the game in any way they see fit now armed with a basic understanding of the games primary mechanics.

[@soryabuscompany]

Nice use of the Gen I art in the video.

[@M4x_P0w3r]

@@FireFog44 If you factor Stab, Bubble is just as strong as Tackle, but without the accuracy penalty, plus Squirtle has a higher Special than Attack, plus most of the early mons have a lower Special than Defense. Sure, as a first time player, you don't know half these things, but it should be worth mentioning.

[@FireFog44]

@M4x_P0w3r After STAB, tackle is still the stronger move at 35 base power to bubbles buffed 30, and until level 10 squirtle’s attack and special are identical, and after that there’s only a one point difference so neither of those factor into the Brock fight. You’re right that the enemies have better defense, but if you ever use tail whip, tackle still comes across as the noticeably stronger move.

[@M4x_P0w3r]

@@FireFog44 Yeah, apparently I can't do math lol.

[@TheAzulmagia]

Something else you didn't point out is that Brock doesn't use any Rock-type moves just yet, to cut you a break considering how many of the early game mons would be weak to them. Then Misty comes in with her Starmie and bubbles you without mercy.

[@InsanityForce]

I remember I beat him by capturing a few Pidgeys with Sand Attack and sending them in first. Then easily won the war of attrition. I felt so proud.

[@LucianDevine]

Classic Sand Attack and Double Team! If it works against you, then it works for you!

[@sitharc]

Onix is iconic and still an awesome pokemon in my eyes, regardless of its stats and typing. In early game gen 2, the in game trade one is good for a while, least for me it was. Good ol Rocky. Otherwise as Chugga puts it, Onix should be able to beat most things just by sitting on it.

[@bobjob2514]

Given how stats are so different in Legends (the numbers barely even matter), onix having high speed (for a rock) actually gave him a small place to shine while getting those “kill with rock/ground move” objectives.

[@aruretheincomprehensible20]

The only real problem I have with Brock's fight is that it basically punishes you for picking Charmander. Leveling Bulbasaur and Squirtle high enough to learn their STAB moves literally trivializes the fight, while Charmander's STAB moves are special but still not very effective, making it significantly harder to fight Brock (and by extension Onix) when you start with Charmander. From my limited knowledge Red and Blue, the only way to deal a neutral special hit to Onix with a Charmander is to catch and evolve a Caterpie into Butterfree and teach it confusion, and there's only a 5% chance to find Caterpie in Red version. By contrast, Yellow gave Mankey low kick and gave both Nidoran double kick at an earlier level, giving you more options to fight Brock with a Charmander start. Similarly, the gen 3 remakes gave Charmander a coverage option in metal claw in spite of removing both Nidoran from being available pre-Brock, the gen 3 and gen 4 games giving multiple water and grass types like Wingull and Shroomish, letting you evolve your fire starter out of its rock weakness and into STAB fighting type moves, giving the gym leader rock type moves to better teach its lesson on type advantages, and giving the fire starter a slight advantage against the second gym (Gardenia is a grass-type trainer while Torchic/Combusken learn peck for coverage against Brawly) to offset the rough first gym. Roark is especially important as a lesson, as he basically adds a Cranidos to Brock's team to guarantee that you won't succeed through attrition: his Onix will wear you down, and attempting to outlast it will just get you blown up by Cranidos.

[@pokenutter]

It's punishment for picking Charmander if and only if the player's response is to keep grinding just Charmander against Brock. Diversifying the team is the end goal anyway, and Squirtle players will be forced to learn this against Misty anyway. Leveling a Butterfree is one way to do it, but my preferred method has always been Sand Attack until Onix's accuracy can't be lowered, then Switch in Charmander for Ember and a potential Burn. I've never actually seen Brock heal off Burn, and even if he does, the attack stat decrease sticks around in Gen I.

[@TheCoolerDrilis]

I feel like the Starters were almost meant to be like difficulty settings. Bulbasaur being Easy, Squirtle being Medium/Normal, and Charmander being Hard.

[@Dubanx]

@@pokenutter " keep grinding just Charmander against Brock" Keep in mind that we're talking about a base that's mostly between the ages of 5-12 years old, and have never played a pokemon game in their lives before. Some of the older players may have been able figure that out, but that's a lot to ask of five and seven year olds.

[@pokenutter]

@@Dubanx This is also true, but having Charmander at L15 almost always works if you're spamming Ember. Before I started learning how to optimize playthroughs, that was my default strategy, after I got frustrated with how long it took to level Butterfree.

[@emerald7810]

​@@Dubanx I figured it out pretty quick when I was a seven year old, and so did a lot of others. IIRC, the game drops hints that you should diversify your team before you even reach Pewter City. Even if it doesn't, most kids are smarter than you think.

[@rockowlgamer631]

With Body Press being added to Onix and Steelix's moveset in Gen 8, they can now use that Defense for damage which is great. So technically you could make a offensive Onix/Steelix with Body Press Gyro Ball Earthquake Rock Slide/Head Smash While wearing a assault vest. IVs in HP/SpDef/ and atk.

[@SnoFitzroy]

don't you mean evs

[@zeoxyman]

I think you definitely have some good points, but it's not a perfect fight. Charmander players, even if they figure out to start using Ember, are going to have a hard time because Bide works on it as well. And the Full Heals have the unintended effect to turn off burn, they probably should've been antidotes. Lastly, I do not think it's that hard to get Butterfree before the gym fight, brand-new players will probably get a couple of levels just from wandering in the forest. It would be anticlimactic, but I almost feel like Onix should've been Brock's lead. Then it can certainly test the player's ability to break rock type defense. And to follow it, you get Geodude, who could've actually had Rock Throw to hurt Butterfree or Charmander users. Though, unfortunately the fight is still free for the other two starters, so the second Pokemon doesn't add anything. Brock is also hurt by the single gym trainer having ground types for some reason, they teach the player nothing about the boss fight. I think Roxanne does a much more refined version of the same fight in gen 3, so I'd call Brock and Onix a work in progress basically.

[@jaernihiltheus7817]

Yeah, i would agree about roxanne. Specifically in emerald where her trainers force you to get aquainted with double battles more, as prior to that you have 1 forced double battle and then your next one is between slateport & mauville. Rock tomb also can teach players about the importance of speed via rock tomb and nosepass knows block - which can potentially force the player into a bad situation if they need to switch out for whatever reason. Said nosepass being pure rock also helps make it a bit tankier vs super effective hits, which all 3 starters have access to (not to mention several water & grass types being accessible in previous areas). Her team isn't as menacing as brock's, but it is a bit more well thought out for teaching the player about some of the intricacies of battling while also teaching them basic type match ups.

[@intergalactic92]

Again, it was their first effort, of course it would be more refined by the time you get to Gen 3.

[@LucianDevine]

The bugs do evolve at level 10 though, and you can always just train them off of the other bugs in the forest. If you decide that you want one, it's not hard to figure out how to get one. The harder part as a new player is deciding early on to commit to a Butterfree, because it is a good choice.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

I think they should have allowed you to get Water Gun before this fight, instead of after. It makes it really easy, but it would be another good teaching moment as well.

[@wmzer0mw]

You can but getting the bugs to lvl 10 is way harder than gettin ember, and charmander at lvl 13 (the lvl he needs to win consistently). Charmander, and the starters get to use tackle backed by good stats. Caterpie and Weedle take much longer to do so.

[@robertlupa8273]

Some things in Gen 1 was made with AI opponents in mind and it's not just Onix. Rock Throw's hilariously low accuracy is one of them.

[@aceclover758]

Many Pokémon since gen 5 got a buff to their base stats No excuse Onix or Steelix can’t at this point

[@ScorpMatoro]

Onix really helped me understand the typings, i grew up in the netherlands so playing games in english was confusing when i was younger

[@lasercraft32]

Onix is basically that meme of the boss when you fight it vs. the boss when you play as them.

[@assemblyrequired7342]

Onix USED to be an iconic Pokemon? Steelix and Onix are still iconic Pokemon! That's why it received a Mega Evolution in Gen 6 (which sadly enough was still lacking enough to recall it's competitiveness in Gen II, and should have become a regular evolution for Gen 8. The poor thing really needs it). For that matter, Onix and Steelix could probably use a buff. 45 Atk is ridiculous, but he WAS given that to prevent him from potentially one-shotting in the first gym. Truth be told, a stat of 90 probably wouldn't have been unreasonable. We all see what happened when they did the opposite with Starmie (which was also OU up to Gen 3. Or was it 4? Could have even been as far up as 5 before Gen 6's power creep). It's movepool isn't bad either, but it's lack of reliable recovery and terrible speed means it can be outsped by even your grandma (unless you can get Trick Room up). Even Mega Steelix languishes in RU to this day, and the poor thing can't be used in game either. But yeah, big kaiju rock snake, that's always going to be fun, even if it's terrible in competitive battles.

[@skeetermania3202]

“Lack of reliable recovery” As if that on its own is a dealbreaker…

[@assemblyrequired7342]

@@skeetermania3202 True enough, but it can be if one or both of the attack stats aren't high enough. Curse is no longer a very good set-up move, and Dragon Dance (did it even learn that in Gen 8) doesn't work on mons that lack enough speed to take advantage of it. The Onix family has always been defensive more than offensive by nature, and unfortunately, the Mega didn't change that.

[@xxscrublordxxx5652]

Give the snake Coil.

[@86jpw]

They should give him an unique item. or give him a move that does damage based on his defense.

[@idklol4197]

as a young kid, i had no idea why my feraligatr's hydro pump did less damage than its slash lol

[@Ryouski]

Keep making videos like this and your channel will blow up in no time! Glad to be here early on in your youtube career!

[@lucaslopes1260]

To expand further on the benchmark hypothesis, Giovanni (1st fight) and Bruno also have Onix. By fighting Onix in the beginning, middle and end of the game, it shows how much the player has progressed.

[@nicolasenne]

Great job on the analysis! It's good to see some fresh content with a new perspective. The "Brock is there to teach the player" makes even more sense now with his role in Pokémon Origins.

[@badamph2026]

what's even funnier about Brock having 5 full heals for Onix, is he actually also can use 5 seperate full heals on his Geodude too, meaning he's got like 10 on him when you go into the fight

[@bvd_vlvd]

Been saying this for years, thank you. It's also pretty decent for a first form pokemon, since it does pretty well in the first three gyms in Johto where you're most likely to use it

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

And if you keep it around (and have someone to trade with...), you get the opportunity of evolving it and using another Boss.

[@bvd_vlvd]

@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 Yeah! Steelix is pretty solid! People still don't like its attack stat for whatever reason but honestly it's there for the type and overkill defence.

[@Be0mqyu]

I feel like steelix should represent it’s appearance. A giant iron snake that can hit like a truck: steelix isn’t a first boss anymore and should have a higher attack than 85

[@TheReZisTLust]

Ok ok .. how about 96...

[@saadabdullah3225]

Base 200 defense is unnecessary. 180 was more than enough. The 20 points being put in attack would've made it much more viable

[@theserpent8667]

​@@saadabdullah3225Or give it both 200 defence and 105 attack. That way it's actually somewhat threatening in competitive.

[@NerdKing2nd]

@@theserpent8667 this is till gen 2 the competitive aspect of pokemon really didn't start to factor into designing the pokemon until Gen 3 or 4 when the designers started putting in moves that would see far more use in competitive play then a standard playthrough

[@IgnitedQuils]

Actually Pokemon Red and Green came out in 1996, the first ever Pokémon games. Pokémon Blue came out in Corocoro later that year as a prize and then officially in Japan in 1999. People in the west got Red and Blue in 1998.

[@huyphan7825]

AKSHUALLY

[@MrCheeze]

Also, spdef didn't even exist in Red. Onix had an even worse special of just 30 at the time, making him even more vulnerable to water and grass moves.

[@tabbender1232]

This video resonates with me a lot and i'm glad it exists. My first pokemon game was Diamond in 2007. And something i loved doing in it was just encountering and beating wild pokemon, especially with my starter Turtwig, which by the way i evolved into a Grotle and then a Torterra before i figured out how to use Rock Smash outside of battle; i remember taking out these two twins with Pachirisus with Earthquake. And so i was in Oreburgh Mine beating up some small Geodudes and Zubats. When suddenly i see it. This HUGE snake that just looks like it's gonna eat my pokemon up. I remember letting out a "WOW!" at that point. I caught it and nicknamed it Galactus, because it reminded me of the planet-eating long, black cloud Galactus was pictured as in that fantastic four movie that came out the same year. And well, you know what? Despite its terrible offensive stats on paper, this Onix, alongside my Torterra, actually carried me through the game. According to my first HoF i beat the league with a lvl 87 Torterra, a lvl 80 Onix, an average-leveled Dialga and then everything else was underleveled. I have no idea how, maybe just due to overleveling, but this crappy 45 attack stat ended up being enough to take out most opponents. In early game i was actually convinced Rock Throw was an OP move because my Onix was overperforming with it. Funny seeing now that it only has 50 base power. Actually, in that double Pachirisu battle i mentioned earlier, the two pokemon i sent out were Torterra and Onix. Onix also fainted to Torterra's Earthquake, and i was confused as to what made it faint considering opponents didn't get a turn.

[@PotatoVariety]

(you could design Onix to be better overall and maintain his purpose) The problem with Onix is that he doesn't take in mind the viability of taking it till the end of the game casually. The longer you use an Onix, the worse he feels.

[@doomyboi]

Every time I look at Onix I find myself wishing that Gamefreak had given it an attack stat buff in Gen 4 when it stopped being use for a boss pokemon.

[@tadferd4340]

I agree with your analysis of why Onix was designed terrible, but I disagree strongly that it was a good design decision. It's a terrible tutorial. Two starters will roll it over without teaching anything. Squirtle specifically can literally demolish Onix with a base power 20 move. This won't teach the why these moves are super effective or that the moves are special versus physical. The final starter, charmander, teaches the opposite lesson than intended, which is to brute force Onix with levels and Ember, again without really teaching why Ember is better than Scratch. Onix also didn't need to have terrible HP and Attack stats. It can have low base power moves to reduce it's damage output, and it's incredibly low special, if taught properly to the player, can easily overcome Onix having adequate HP. This is a far better design choice as it makes the fight a good set piece, but still at the appropriate difficulty with the ability to teach the lessons outlined in the video. Furthermore, it means when the player encounters Onix later in the Rock Tunnel, the will be excited to catch it and then be happy with their cool and powerful new giant rock snake that they overcame earlier. Instead the get one of the most disappointing pokemon in the franchise. Onix is badly designed for all intended purposes. What's even worse is that thier attempt to fix it was a trade evolution, instead of making changes to Onix in addition to the evolution.

[@vidux6289]

I get your point but I think this boss and its goal could be done better. First off, I believe that a boss should test your knowledge, not teach it. That should come before. Pokemon did it better in later games by having NPCs explaining things or act as mini boss. Regarding Pokémon, since you get the choice of any creature you want, I'd rather they make every Pokemon somewhat viable, and then choose some to be bosses by addind special circumstances or handicaps. In Yellow it's easy to learn the wrong lesson, like believing that Electric does no damage to Rock. Countering the idea of Poison is also kinda cruel. You're not rewarding the player for a clever solution.

[@BaneHydra]

As a fellow game designer, I disagree with this video on pretty much every point. 1. Pokemon Red/Blue were innovative, well designed games in their own right, but it's pretty clear that in many wears, Gamefreak were shooting at the hip. I struggle to believe that Gamefreak purposely tried to teach players how to deal with type disadvantages and then proceeded to not give Charmander players any super effective options. That seems like a comical oversight. If they really had thought it through like that, it would've been very easy to just put Oddish or Bellsprout on Route 2 or in Viridian Forest. 12:02 Please elaborate how the game rewards you for raising any of the Pokemon on screen to fight Onix. None of these will feel significantly better or worse to use than Charmander. 2. Adding to point 1, if the gym fight really had that much thought put into it, they would've put a roadblock in there for Squirtle/Bulbasaur players. They want only Charmander players to adapt by grinding levels or catching a variety of Pokemon, while Squirtle and Bulbasaur players get to just oneshot both Geodude and Onix and won't face any hurdles until the rival fight in Cerulean? Why would the tutorial be so drastically different? 3. Seriously: How many people learned how stats worked on their first playthrough of a Pokemon game? Let alone the first boss fight? Did you really use Confusion with Butterfree as a 10-year-old and think "Aha, this did a lot of damage, clearly Onix has a low special stat and I need to use special type attacks to succeed!" No, nobody has ever learned that from this fight. If that was Gamefreak's intention, they failed at it. Because you're certainly not gonna get rewarded for using Butterfree against against a Rock type and your only other special options are your starter, each of which is either super effective or not very effective, thus blurring the impact of the stats next to the type effectiveness. I don't even think the game has told you about physical/special moves by this point. 4. 6:17 This really sums it up. You say "You know just from looking at it that this thing is on a whole different level than what you've seen before". But here's the thing: It's not. There is a huge disconnect between Onix' visual design and its actual gameplay capabilities. It *looks* really powerful, but it's barely stronger than the other Pokemon you've encountered at this point. You even bring up examples of players being disappointed about how terrible Onix is to use, which is a clear indicator of bad design as I see it. No other Pokemon has this disconnect in Gen 1. Roxanne's Nosepass in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald is much better in that regard, its design matches its gameplay capabilities much better. All in all, I think you're making up purposeful design choices where there aren't any and you're not applying enough scrutiny to your own arguments. Red and Blue were pioneers, but they were very messy from a design perspective, largely because they were the first to do many of these things. There are many things to praise about those games, but Onix is absolutely not one of those.

[@GoldenOwl_Game]

I must say, it is nice to meet another fellow game designer! And I totally understand and respect your points too. 1. I do feel that this was a purposeful tutorial on type advantages, because those are such a foundational concept to Pokemon games as a franchise. And while Onix was absolutely NOT perfect, it was probably one of the better solutions they could've devised at the time. To the designers' credit, they did at least improve on this super effectiveness tutorial in the FRLG remake, as Charmander there would learn Metal Claw at the same approximate level as the other two starters. As for the mention of assorted Pokemon, I only brought them up as an example of the general mindset of raising multiple Pokemon. 2. Brock is still actually a roadblock to Bulbasaur and Squirtle too. Until you raise your starter to a level where they learn Vine Whip or Bubble, the other starters are also equally as roadblocked as Charmander. And Charmander with Ember still clears Onix just about as easily. 3. It's not perfect, but the boss did ultimately teach us that Elemental Move > Normal moves quite successfully, considering numerous kids would go on to happily use typed based moves throughout the playthrough. It also teaches us to not bother using Normal moves against Rock types. Again, it is certainly not a perfect lesson, but it's the best Pokemon could do for that early era of gaming. 4. I disagree. Compared to the numerous Pokemon prior to Brock, Onix is absolutely on a separate level. It's huge defense means that players can't blindly Tackle it down like with every other Pokemon before it, and enforced requirements to overcome it. It created an impression of being a powerful boss, but as soon as the condition to overcome it is met, it goes down extremely easily. As for Nosepass, it has the benefit of being created 2 games later, giving the franchise time to mature and for the mechanics to become more established in the player's minds. I feel that what makes Onix so special is the fact that it was pretty much the first ever Pokemon boss, and thus didn't have the luxury to fall back on player's being familiar with the mechanics at that time. It certainly isn't the perfect tutorial, but it was a pretty good one for a game where nobody has ever played before. I do admit that my arguments are far from perfect. After all, I'm making a hypothesis based on a game more than 20 years old, so there's no realistic way to definitively confirm what exactly the designers were truly thinking. But things in games are rarely ever created without intention, and early tutorial bosses are crucially important, so I cannot accept the notion that Onix was created with no purposeful design choices at all. I took an educated guess on what Onix's design intention was, but I wholly accept that the hypothesis can be wrong. I believe many things in the early Pokemon games were created with detailed design intent in mind precisely BECAUSE they were the first games to do so many things. Thanks for sharing your own insights too. While our conclusions might differ, you've raised a good number of points yourself. It's pretty fun to read and discuss design with another game designer.

[@BaneHydra]

@@GoldenOwl_Game I appreciate your friendly response despite my pretty snide tone. KZbin comments just bring out the worst in people, I guess. I agree with pretty much everything you said in this response, this is a very succint analysis of the first gym battle. What bothered me in the video was that you left out all the "it wasn't perfect, but..." parts that you highlighted here and kinda made it sound like they nailed everything right from the start. Personally, I would've liked to see a section where you talk about the lessons they learned and implemented in the later games, like Charmander learning Metal Claw in the remakes.

[@GoldenOwl_Game]

​@@BaneHydra Don't worry, I understand. Being a game designer is a tough job, with a lot of tasks to constantly think of, little time to execute them, and a lot of clashing egos around. It results in an environment where there's a lot of snappy responses, even if people don't really intend to be rude. Add that to the general anonymity of the internet... and yeah it's not a nice combination. I'm guilty of acting like that too in the past (though without the internet part). You've got a point regarding me having left out the "it wasn't perfect-" disclaimer. I'll make sure to explicitly clarify these are hypotheses for future videos, and that they aren't to be taken as absolute gospel. After all, nobody truly knows what that game's designer was thinking except the designer themself. We can merely hypothesize based on what's left behind. The subject of Metal Claw was admittedly something I... completely overlooked in the original video. I was a bit too fixated on the original RBY's version of Onix, and I didn't pay much consideration to the remakes when I initially prepared the script. This one is my own oversight. Come to think of it, I might consider making a video on remakes in general in future... it's certainly food for thought.

[@ccggenius]

My only bone to pick is that the wild ones are exceptionally rare. It feels bad to go from "wow, I got this neat, super rare pokemon that was housing me earlier in the game" to "wow, Onix is terrible".

[@victzegopterix2]

Fun Onix fact: It's actually not really a snake. It doesn't learn glare nor coil and given it's burrowing tunnels while eating soil behaviour and segmented body, it's more likely to be a giant rocky earthworm, the more snake-like feature like the eyes and mouth being just for anthropomorphism.

[@nicodalusong149]

Anthropomorphism? Do you even understand the word you used? Anthro = "man"/"human". What exactly about onix is human-like? Having eyes and a mouth just gives it a face like other creatures.

[@victzegopterix2]

@@nicodalusong149, do YOU understand what is anthropomorphism? 😂 I didn't even said it was anthropomorphic but "for anthropomorphism". It's not because humans aren't the only animals to have eyes and mouth that putting those on creatures that normally lack them can't be due to anthropomorphism. Sure it can not be but we're talking abot Pokémon. All of those creatures are anthropomorphised. Onix is angrily frowning in its artworks godamnit. How is that not anthropomorphism? X^)

[@nicodalusong149]

@@victzegopterix2 Anthropomorphism is objects or creatures having human characteristics or behavior. Onix has a face but does it look human? No, it does not. Does it exhibit behavior similar to humans? No, it does not. Having a seemingly frowning face is not anthropomorphism. Furthermore, it is a kaiju.

[@victzegopterix2]

@@nicodalusong149, bruh, nearly all pokemons have human-like behaviours, emotions and facial expressions. Saying that it's not anthropomophised because the face is not exactly human-like or because a big part of its behaviours are still not human-like is stupid. Like obviously a giant monstrous earthworm made of worms won't look and act like a human as much as many other pokemons, that doesn't mean it does not at all. All the pokemons are anthropomorphised to a certain degree.

[@nicodalusong149]

@@victzegopterix2 Then onix are sentient. It's a living creature so it would naturally have a degree of sentience and be capable of feeling emotions. That's still different from being anthropomorphised. You can also argue onix have a level of sapience since they understand human language. But again, that is still different from being anthropomorhpised. Anthropomorphised characters are the likes of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker. You could swap them out for humans and there would be barely any difference. You can't do the same for onix or any pokemon really. Remember the main premise is that all pokemon are essentially animals. They are wildlife whether fauna or flora or something in between.

[@michaelwoffindin]

I never struggled with Brock's Onix because in GEN1 I never picked another start other than Bulbasaur. I also always leveled him to level 11 as a minimum before fighting him. So I just vine whipped my way through the first gym with ease. Then I went on to clap Misty the same way. Leveling my (always grass) starter to at least level 11 is a little tradition I still do to this day in any Pokemon game I play. I love rock types though and I think it's high time Onix got a well needed and much deserved buff.

[@SwerveStarEx]

I absolutely adore the prospect of looking at Onix from this lens. I would love to hear if you have more to say about Pokemon serving a specific gameplay role moreso than just as a collectible Pokemon.

[@GreenJuiceGuy27]

One last thing you could have talked about in more detail is the charmander line in relation to onix. Amazing video though! Here are some thoughts. It can be argued that pokemon red and blue did have an unofficial easy, normal, and challenge mode. If the player chose Bulbasaur their starter had a type advantage against the first 3 gyms thereby playing the game in easy mode. If they chose squirtle their starter had a type advantage against the first gym, neutral against the second. and a disadvantage against the 3. This means that the type match-ups against the first 3 gyms balance out resulting in the "normal mode" playthrough. If the Player chose charmander it would have a type disadvantage against the first 2 gyms thereby playing the game in challenge mode. Since, charazard was seen as the coolest most marketable starter it was the highest difficulty highest reward starter making it the most rewarding starter to level up to its final form. This was especially prevalent when facing onix as at that early stage in the game players had few if any good opinions to battle onix with. The same is NOT true with misty as at that point in the game players could have caught an electric or grass type.

[@albertduggan4695]

Charmander does have a more tedious time against Brock, though the game isn't only about gym battles. Bulbasaur has a much harder time getting through Mt. Moon with the endless Zubats and their super effective Leech Life. The Charmander is hard mode, Squirtle is normal and Bulbasaur is easy mode narrative is overly simplistic.

[@GreenJuiceGuy27]

​@@albertduggan4695 I know, but back then they did not have the resources to make levels of difficulty so they had to implement it in more subtle ways. Plus Mt. moon is also filled with geodudes which bulbasour can one shot and the geodudes can beat the zubats. At the end of the day it is just a thought. We have no confirmation.

[@byeguyssry]

I disagree. How would a new player know that Onix had a low Special stat until they've finished grinding for moves that deal Special damage? Players would be grinding for the sake of grinding, not specifically because they know Onix's Special stat is low and that their starters can get a Special move soon. Not only that, how would players know which types deal Special damage? They might think Poison type moves are Special and therefore grind a Butterfree. And as you mentioned, Charmander doesn't deal super effective damage against Onix, therefore it isn't even a way of teaching type matchups. I think Onix is good only if your starter is Bulbasaur or Squirtle as you learn type matchup that way and coincidentally also get more damage than expected due to their moves being special, making the effect of the super effectiveness exaggerated. However, I didn't bother running the numbers but if Charmander's Fire moves deal enough to beat Onix, that teaches the player that Not Very Effective isn't actually THAT bad, you just need stronger moves. If it isn't then... well I feel like that just teaches the player nothing. Furthermore, some smart players might realize that poison deals damage over time; meanwhile, Onix can't be defeated quickly, but also doesn't defeat your mons quickly, hence poison would theoretically be the best counter up until Brock uses his Full Heals. Even then you don't know how many Full Heals he has. (Iirc Bide doesn't even count in poison damage, might be wrong tho) Onix seems to be teaching the player that grinding is necessary if your starter isn't Squirtle or Bulbasaur. Don't bother trying out different moves. We've hard-countered any poison strategies, and even upon getting a new move, you're not winning because that new move allowed you to gain a new strategy, it's just because you grinded so you and your move's numbers are higher.

[@nunyabiness181]

This was awesome and well made. I’ve watched every video ever made on the subject of gen 1 including trivia vids, “facts you didn’t know” vids, glitches and unused/hidden content vids, and not once has anyone ever mentioned that broke has 5 full heals! Or how well thought out this seemingly simple fight is

[@happygol-lucky5938]

Onix should have the same stat total as Steelix, the way Scyther and Scisor parallel each other.

[@Merchantic]

i get it for gen 1. but they really could have buffed Onyxs base stats later on so he is viable...especially since we can trade for Rocky so early on in Gen 2

[@soundrogue4472]

4:11 again, you could teach the player about the different typing mechanics BEFORE going to the gym leader! Edit: great example here, you could have the trainer before facing off against Brock use a rock type move or moves instead of Scratch! You know, introduce the concept before hand?

[@wouterW24]

It's also interesting Bruno uses Onix twice, and by that point the player is reminded how incredibly weak Onix is to them now.. A strange aspect of the fight is that geodude packs a lot more of a punch then Onix does. If you don't pack the proper counters he goes down a bit faster but your team will be quite weakened. It's a challenge to beat Brock in Yellow intentionally ignoring double kick/low kick though. Stat debuffs in pokemon are quite powerful and if you have a sand attack pidgey that provides an opening to systematically dismantle them with with growl and leer before proceeding with normal attack chip. Although new players likely won't be very proficient to do that without taking to much damage, or switch their own pokemon to clear out the effect of Screech. Geodude also remains the bigger threat with his attack power and not wasting his turns in passive Bide mode.

[@noukan42]

That ia actually one mor epiece of Onix brillance in term of boss design. The best counterplay of bide is to use moves like growl or leer in thw turn it stores energy, and doing so open a second(third kf we count grinding) pathway to victory. Growl makes his tackles hit for very little, and leer makes possible to deal morr than 1 damage. It teach the player how powerful debuffs can be. And this btw is also the why Whitney Miltank is a very well designed boss. The best strategy againist Rollout is to use the buildup turns to make it weaker or less reliable. This is why Falkner give Mud Slap(wich in general is great on several bosses) this is why the game corner Dratini get Thunder wave and so on. Early bosses were always used to teach mechanichs in smart ways, many people are just too used to hyper agressive strats to figure.

[@wouterW24]

@@noukan42 Miltank very amusing to break down, a single accuracy drop already cripples it. As a kid it took me a while to learn because of poor English, but Quilava’s smokescreen is very handy. Ekans Intimidate also is foolproof. (I always wondered what the big deal with Cynthia’s Garchomp is since everybody has a Staraptor to do the same). Pokemon is somewhat unusual with debuffing being powerful, stackable, and outside of switching it doesn’t expire. Even other rpgs with strong debuffs limit them more.

[@Masahane]

Before watching: is it because Onix, as a rock type, helps teach the player that they can't rely on tackle and pound for the whole game, its low offenses meaning the player gets time to learn the match-up, while also having a little synergy with bide? Edit: yeah basically. Joke's on you though, I won through leech seed stall

[@hankboog462]

A lot of the idiosyncrasies in gen 1 can be explained by the fact that they were exclusively designing a jrpg without pvp being even a little bit in mind yet. Another thing is that there might be only one set of ghost types because a lot of pokemons movepools are near exclusively normal and fighting attacks so itd be too hard if there were ghosts all over the place instead of only 3 unique pokemon that are restricted to one area and one boss fight, meaning you always know when theyre coming and can prepare accordingly.

[@johnsanko4136]

Never thought of Onix in terms of being designed as a tutorial boss, but it makes a lot of sense. Just kinda sad his design is so great but got neutered into an otherwise bad mon.

[@erosennin4444]

As a steel type user myself, i love Steelix. I also do like Onix's design as a pokemon. So naturally, i think he's a great Pokemon like you said. 😁

[@doomgirl5341]

The ghost trick transition and music is very much appreciated

[@intergalactic92]

Great video. Would you be interested in explaining the other boss battles and their purpose because they are also designed as tests for the trainers. Misty is almost a mirror of Brock I.e. high special, the challenge being finding a special match up that resists her high attacks. Lt. Surge does the same but teaches you immunities I.e. find a ground type. Erika teaches you about stone evolutions (she use two fully evolved pokemon you might have but are unable to evolve yourself), and Koga teaches you about status effects, specifically toxic poison. The last 3 and the elite 4 are supposed to be tests of all your knowledge I think….. but it would be cool to hear your perspective.

[@_anj_]

this is a really well done video and a really interesting take on Onix. as a fellow game designer, id love to see more game design content from you

[@stevengreene879]

None of this explains why they wouldn’t have bothered to improve its stats in a new generations. They’ve changed how entire type matchups work and stats of other Pokémon, they could have thrown poor onix a bone by now.

[@Ditidos]

While I agree. I think Onix should have an evolved form from the first game. It is a well designed early game boss, sure, but it's quite bad outside that specific context and giving it an evolution from the very beggining helps solving all the problems people have along with the impression for veteran players that it doesn't need to be that good since it just an early form. After all, Nidoran is arguably worse than Onix all around but no one says anything because it evolves. Onix should have been the same from the beggining, it also doesn't help that every time we revisit Kanto Steelix is not avaliable and it really should be. It's even more important to the line than Crobat is for it's own, there is also the problem of Bruno having two Onix, which make no sense (Golem would have been better if they still wanted to give him a rock/ground type since it is an actual late-game Pokémon).

[@drosberg3680]

While I can appreciate Onix's design from a tutorial perspective, it fails horrifically in its other in-game appearances. You kind gloss over the role of Onix's appearance in Rock Tunnel, because it really doesn't have that intended impact of being able to use an awesome boss monster yourself. If someone does catch it and decides to use it, Onix will be a massive disappointment. Its low stats aren't even its biggest problem, its movepool is even worse. Its strongest moves on level-up are Rock Throw (50 BP 65% accurate) and Slam (80 BP 75% accurate). These moves are far behind the power curve by this stage of the game, and their low accuracy makes them incredibly frustrating to use. Even if Onix had a high attack stat, it would still require the use of some of the most highly prized TM's in the game to make it usable. Onix's appearance on Bruno's team just doubles down (no pun intended...) on how horrifically outclassed it is by the standards of the late-game. Its defenses are nothing special by the end-game (with Cloyster appearing in the previous fight), and its offenses mean it's incapable of presenting a credible threat to a player who has made it that far. Onix deserved to be more than an early-game boss monster who is quickly forgotten and falls behind the power curve before you can ever obtain one. Onix may very well be an immaculately designed tutorial Pokemon, but it's one of the most heartbreaking disappointments of a potential teammate.

[@TheOnlyTherazan]

That makes a lot of sense. Actually, it's just now that I realize that there's a reason my version Yellow Pikachu didn't get DESTROYED by Onix while we wittled down its health 1HP at a time. Only a few caveats: Since we didn't know about Mankey or Nidoran's move at the time, I'm pretty sure we DID brute force Onix with physical not-effective attacks back at the time, so it's definitely possible, although painful. Second, didn't Brock's Onix also know Bind or a variant of it? It made the fight especially harrowing if you didn't have super-effective moves, because in Gen 1 this move made your Pokemon unable to do any action, even being switched out! (The distress of being caught in that move is even portrayed accurately in the anime during Brock's own fight!)

[@todayidraw]

They could have given onix good attack stat and give Brock's special moves, it wont hurt nobody with onix's special base stat

[@roberte.o.speedwagon6043]

My argument. It's not an iconic Boss anymore. Swap it's HP and Speed (so it's 70hp/160def), give it 80 Attack. It's served its purpose, so, it's time to do that "old Mon get buffs" thing me thinks.

[@junichiroyamashita]

1:55 just for that you have my vote.

[@sethmann5964]

The funny thing is that geodude is a better rock type Pokemon than onyx.

[@OtrTrash]

Brock taught me three lessons over the years. Two of which you mentioned. Type match-ups and that special attacks are good against physical walls. The third, however... Is the power of stat modifications. Using Bulbasaur's leech seed to turn the fight into a DPS race for Onix, you can use stat reducing moves to make victory an inevitability. String Shot gives you back speed advantage, letting lower level pokemon move before Onix. Growl reduces his already abysmal attack, so even a low level rattata can tank a hit. Sand Attack can cause Onix to miss outright, serving as an effective replacement for paralysis. Harden lets Kakuna or Metapod tank hits so well that Leech Seed keeps them topped off. While it isn't a fast victory, it's possible to take out a level 12 Onix with a level 7 Bulbasaur and a couple of extra pokemon acting as little more than speed bumps to keep him from rolling your team while it's HP empties. Crits can make things weird, but for the most part it's a pretty safe fight.

[@harperna3938]

This is definitely something that could've been addressed by either harshly restricting Brock!Onix's movepool, or by just "cheating" and giving Brock!Onix a much lower attack than he would normally have. Throw in a line about Brock "going easy on you" or even creating a rematch for Brock specifically and you suddenly get a unique story beat that tells you a bit more about the role of the gym leaders. As it is, it kind of sucks that such an iconic pokemon is stuck being an unusable poopoodoodoogarbage pick for the whole-ass franchise.

[@AfamiliarSword]

These have been just my thoughts! I love seeing videos like these, building up design choices that might seem odd at a first glance.

[@1YCARADOFACAO]

Despite agreeing that Onix was designed to be a first boss, i still think he's a badly designed pokemon in general. To the point that it bleeds onto steelix and makes it worse

[@GomureX]

I wanted to see more of your videos but realized this is your first one on this channel. I hope you get more attention because I like your style and this video was awesome! :)

[@bradrobertson4995]

Frankly I see a lot of flaws in the logic here. Please understand that the following comment is not an attack on your professional or personal opinion, but a series of counterpoints because I feel calling Onix good game design just because it has clear elements of intentionality is misleading. There is more to good design than intent. (1) Misty's Starmie is living proof that you can balance a high BST mon with bad moves and AI (Harden, X Defend, etc). The low HP and Atk are provably unnecessary. (2) Onix still would have taught all the same lessons about typing if it were Mono-Rock instead of being QUAD weak to 2 out of 3 starters. (3) Onix fails as a test for most players who can read. They're going to try their newly learned elemental move anyway because of new toy syndrome. Discouraging Normal-spam is fairly pointless since jRPGs are inherently designed for players old enough to read. (4) Onix fails as a playable unit of the game. Even if this isn't its main role, it must be taken seriously. (5) Onix fails in the role of a reprised boss later because of how poorly it scales. Even giving it an optimal moveset would do NOTHING with those stats. Sorry, but I personally believe you're lying to yourself out of love for the concept. Onix is well-intentioned game design but I would argue that it's still BAD game design by nearly every metric. (We all trick ourselves in a vacuum, so I'm not questioning your integrity as a game designer. I just STRONGLY disagree with your main thesis on this one isolated case.)

[@mhiggs8001]

This was a really cool, informative video! Great job! Also, I just love og pikachu design. It’s so cute and rotund. Lll 12:24

[@TheLanceUppercut]

I've never considered Onix from this perspective, and you're absolutely right. Great video, thanks for the explanation. Especially the part about why Brock has five full heals (per pokemon). I NEVER understood why they did that.

[@Amalgam03]

They really made a Pokémon that couldn’t be any worse for bide with high defense and low HP

[@KLGB76]

And then, there is Crystal Onix...

[@bongosmcdongos4190]

One thing that they could have done though, is buffed onix's lategame move pool, to compensate for the bad stats.

[@ihaveacookie4226]

Or just have Brock's oix's be weak aka holding back for new trainers

[@rapidriver]

The rowlet images are so cute :3 very entertaining video!

[@onekoff8480]

I'm recently playing Crystal ROM Hack "Polished Crystal", with new franchise mechanics added (abilities, physical/special split, gen 4 evos of gen 2 mons), and some pokemon/move type and stat adjustments. Like so, Sunflora became a great offensive Pokemon, as it got Fire typing, respective move and bonus Speed. And Onix got quite a lot for it. First of all, its' Attack is buffed to 80, making it a very solid attacker, considering the insane type coverage his stab moves present (8 super-effective types in 2 moves!), and it also gets insane moves early on: Rock Blast, Body Slam, and Sandstorm with early learned Curse is what you get at level 18. Insane? Yes, probably a bit too much. But still, Onix is the fastest Rock/Ground type from gen 1 with 70 base Speed, and it just needs a bit more firepower to utilize his great offensive typing and, ironically, avoid getting wet from Bubble or sucked with Absorb and dying.

[@phantomviper211]

Ok but then why dose Bruno have two of them, you would think that you wouldn't want to give one of the finale bosses two intentionally weak Pokemon, unless he's supposed to be garbage

[@GoldenOwl_Game]

Well… you’ve stumbled onto the right answer. Game Freak likely expected Fighting to be powerful. Possibly one of the more powerful types in the game. So they went and handicapped him Of course, history shows that Fighting was never that powerful for various reasons. A good case of designer expectations differing from practice

[@ebonysoldier]

I will always love pokemon origins (I think) shorts where red meets Brock and Brocks says "your at about this level and selects the appropriate level for your challenge. Such a cool way to combine game dev logic and the narrative

[@patricklynch4074]

Doesnt this just mean its only properly assigned stats are its defense and special? Its hp and attack both could and should be higher, because completely going against suspension of disbelief isnt good design. Geodude's stats could teach the lesson, and onix's should necessitate the utilization of the lesson

[@saparapatepete]

it's interesting to know that Onix's low special defense was designed to make charmander a viable counter when he learns ember.

[@Filsantos86]

There are two places Onix is actually somewhat good: Pika Cup (Pokémon Stadium) and Little Cup (Pokémon Stadium 2). Because Little Cup only allows unevolved Pokémon at Lv 5, Onix stats aren't a problem there, it's typing is very useful, and the movepool is good enough. Pika Cup allows any Pokémon from Lv 15 to 20; Onix and Rhydon are the only rock types that qualifies for the cup; although Rhydon is obviously much better, Onix typing and speed allows it to use a very fun set: Substitute, Fissure, Rock Slide and Explosion. Fissure will OHKO any non-flying type if it hits, so the attack doesn't matter; Rock Slide deals with the flyers, and despite Onix bad attack, STAB + Super effective damage makes up for it; and Explosion is naturally very strong. Even if you land a single Fissure and the explode, that's still very good as you're likely to trade one Pokémon for two.

[@Darbzila]

Love little cup

[@MattCalvert]

Never thought of Onix like that, goes to show how well these games have been designed through the years. Good video 👌🏻

[@Arkaskas1]

Pokemon logic: Slightly large rock, Attack of 80, Huge rocks forming a huge rocky snake, Attack 45

[@GermanK13]

You have your point and I respect it. I have my point and it is that the game shouldn't force you to use specific Pokémon, if you don't want to and don't like over-leveling. Although Rock being the first Gym is a good challenge for newcomers to understand how the game mechanics work, and it fits in perfectly for a Gym Leader mindset for those unexperienced, Rock/Ground dual-type resists too many stuff for the low availability of RGB's early game and I don't even mean just for super-effectiveness. The only types who hit Rock/Ground neutrally in Gen 1 are: - Bug, which the only available moves are Twineedle and Pin Missile, both on Beedrill and at Levels 20 and 30, respectively; - Ghost, which you can't before Brock; - Psychic, with Butterfree's Confusion being reasonably early, fair enough; - Dragon, which you can't before Brock; For super-effective in RGB you can't, outside of Squirtle/Bulbasaur, Ember deals fair enough damage (and the Rock-Type Gym Leader doesn't know any Rock-Type moves), you can't inflict the Poison status due to Brock's comic amount of Full Heals and because of Gen I funny, Poison Sting may deal zero damage because it has pitful base power + the rocks insane defense + 1/4 effectiveness. All of this to say: What if I don't want to use my starters? More over, what if the only Pokémon I want to have before Brock are Nidoran and Rattata? (yes I beat Brock with those two because they were the only ones I wanted to use on that run) Well, it sure is possible, Jrose11 showed that several times, but he also had to overlevel several times, which is something I feel cheap. Yes, this contradicts my point of the game forcing you to use specific Pokémon, as you can beat Brock with whatever, just give it enough levels, but giving enough levels to my Pokémon in that section of the game isn't the most fun thing to do. Heck, I don't like leveling to the point where I tend to beat RGB's Elite 4 + Champion with my whole team being at low to mid 40s.

[@Chugargonfan]

They could have not given it tackle and given it a normal attack stat and the tutorial would have been the same. It’s just a badly designed Pokémon for no reason

[@nollkokossus7446]

I love Onix Not just by design but stats wise it’s so interesting. It’s supposed to be this physically wall with decent speed Funnily enough the main reason I dislike Steelix is because it turns into a steel type and loses all of that speed Now I don’t want them to change Onix since it has a decent place in Little cup. However I would love a split evolution for Onix. My idea for that would be, just like Steelix, it would be a trade evolution with an held item. Trading it with a dragon scale would evolve it into Ohkix (named after the Dragon Stone) . It would be a Rock/Dragon type and would resemble something like a lindwurm. It would keep its defence stat and gain a bunch of attack and speed Onix already learns a bunch of dragon attack like Dragon Dance and Dragon Pulse so I feel like this wouldn’t be too farfetched

[@tabbender1232]

Yeah a split evolution that keeps rock/ground typing and good speed would be very cool. Honestly just buff it's attack and HP, that would be enough to make it decent imo. Basically make it a fast Golem

[@BlueNinjakoopa553]

I used to think Onix was awful until I actually used it in my runs of LeafGreen and SoulSilver. Even neglecting its evolution, it's very usable as a wall against Flying, Bug, Fire, Poison, and Normal-type Pokemon. Not to mention being faster than other Rock-types lets it 2HKO them if you have a powerful enough move. Even after Onix was redeemed in my eyes as usable, I still didn't understand its design until I looked back at Paper Mario (my favorite game of all time). It turns out that in many RPGs, there's a trope (not sure if it has a name) involving a powerful-looking monster with surprisingly weak stats (or one surprisingly weak stat). You can see this trait in the Bill Blasters, Chain Chomps, Tubba Blubba, and probably most notably, the Goomba King, the game's first actual boss (a colossal Goomba with weak stats in hindsight).

[@Dastreus]

In blue version, i didn't have access to mankey and picked charmander as a starter. My literal only option to beat onix was butterfree spamming confusion.

[@JaxMax-p9z]

I always found it fascinating how "Crystal Onyx" was seen as a potential "shiny" (everyone knows now that shiny Onyx is green) and yet even the devs confirmed that it was just a one off appearance, and NOT a shiny Onyx.

[@SnoFitzroy]

*Onix

[@JaxMax-p9z]

@SnoFerret_85 did I spell it wrong? Didn't mean to... all the hype behind crystal Onix was real, though 😅

[@romarisrogers8005]

Crystal onix should've been featured many more times in the pokeverse

[@MegamanStarforce2010]

the ghost trick music and references on top of the great ace attorney tracks is giving me the good feels. great taste

[@saparapatepete]

Oooh, i see. The rock type gym was assigned as the first gym for the resistance to normal (which is most early attacks) to encourage to try other elements.

[@bigowl2542]

Ngl when I first played Pokemon Blue I struggled to get out of my bedroom let alone understand battling.

[@artistfloor9]

Onyx functions as a good first boss of the game. The failure lies in the fact that it is a boss that is also catchable and therefore we can see how its stats do not match its design. It is an enormous rock snake that is weaker than a tiny bird. They needed to design it differently so that it doesn’t come off as completely pathetic outside of its role as an early game obstacle.

[@bloodytyran9245]

It even translates in the anime. It’s quite a shock the first time we learn that a pokemon can be immune to certain type attacks

[@LordEmpyreal]

I wonder how much of this tutorialized philosophy can be seen in Gen 1 just looking over gym leaders' aces. Misty showcases evolution, by both having a powerful later-game pokemon in Starmie, but also it's earlier evolution Staryu. LT. Surge directly showcases evolution stones, since he uses a Raichu and at this point players *could* have a Pikachu and it would prompt them to wonder how to evolve it. Erica used a lot of version exclusive pokemon. With both Victreebel and Vileplume on her team. Sabrina shows of trade-evolution exclusive Pokemon with her Alakazam. I kind of think Koga and Blaine don't really have a tutorial though. They just stick to their gym type. And don't even use any Pokemon you couldn't have acquired by the time you face them. Same can be said for Giovanni as a gym leader, though in his earlier fights he does show off some Moon Stone evolutions, and Safari Zone pokemon before you get access to it.

[@coldeed]

5 mins in and i think this is wrong. The rival battle if you head straight to the league teaches this better than the first gym. It also doesn't teach type matchups well, pretty much everything thats not Bulbasaur and Squirtle can't hit brock right. Mankey is the only other pokemon that can, and he hits the wall with physical damage worst than I assume ember would in the original and maybe even thundershock from Pikachu.

[@villageflippinidiot]

I still feel onyx could have been more. Better moves later, or a better attack stat could have gone measures. Maybe it only has bide as an attacking move but actually has a stat. Or it could have counter to teach about phys/special moves. I think its a tutorial boss is a cop out for a poorly designed pokemon. Despite all of this, this video goes a long way to ahow their intent. Great job!

[@spellbladeoff-hand7662]

I honestly think fighting Onix with Charmander is one of the best fights in the series, because its one of the very rare occasions where spamming SE moves isn't the optimal strategy.

[@Silcoonsixx]

Really been enjoying your videos now that i've found them! Found myself thinking back to a fire red nuzlock I played, there was something incredibly satisfying about beating brock with an overleveled (for the area) pidgeotto that had been... the lone pidgey i'd had left after some bad luck paired with a lack of new areas to catch pokemon in. I also just unironically love Onix. Really cool to see this perspective!

[@tigerlover2853]

What I find most surprising is that Onix learns Dragon Dance.

[@Dubanx]

not in gen 1.

[@GreenMonkeySam]

While what you're saying is true, that doesn't explain why Onix is STILL bad. Especially given many other Pokémon have had their stats and/or moves readjusted over the generations.

[@GoldenOwl_Game]

Because they invented Steelix. There’s no need to improve Onix anymore. It did get an indirect buff via Eviolite at least. Brock actually brings an Eviolite Onix into BW2 World Tournament

[@GreenMonkeySam]

Evolving into Steelix requires a Metal Coat and a trade. During the main game that's pretty tough to do. Getting Eviolite early enough is also hard. So during a playthrough, Onix is still unusable. I would argue they still need to adjust Onix a bit.

[@RobotnikPlays]

Interesting analysis. I wonder if something like Ledian's stats are chosen for a similar reason. It gets Iron Fist + a lot of punch moves (or used to, not sure of the current generation), but has woeful Attack stats. I've always thought that the big thing that Pokemon needs is a Singleplayer/Competitive split, giving Gamefreak the ability to buff/debuff stats or abilities mid-generation, while leaving the singleplayer side of things untouched. But they treat online/competitive as an afterthought, so it'll never happen haha.

[@pmnt_]

I'm not convinced. I get it's supposed to be the the type advantage tutorial, but it fails miserably. If you chose Squirtle, you have nothing to learn. Bubble is your strongest move against everything else. Water remains the most spammable type throughout the game. If you chose Bulbasaur, you actually get a move that is strong against Rock types, but weak against the flying types and bug types you saw earlier. But you have to be overlevelled (lvl 13) to be able to learn that lesson. If you chose Charmander, you learn to ingore type effectiveness and spam your strongest move: Ember. It's too early to grasp the concept of physical and special attacks and defense. I thought for a long time that Confusion is strong because it's neutral. No it's not. It's because of the laughable special stat, special defense in the later games. And it gets worse in the remakes. In Yellow, you have access to super effective Fighting type moves, but they deal no damage due to the comically high defense stats of Geodude and Onix. The neutral confusion from Butterfree comes to rescue. In FR/LG, Charmander gets access to Metal Claw. A neutral move, but due to the high defense, it's much weaker than Ember. Pikachu end Eevee get Double Kick in the Let's go series. Again, they fall in the category "better than nothing", but seeing "super effective" after the weak Double Kicks doesn't seem to be a worthwhile lesson to learn. The culprit are Onix' uneven stats. The factor 4 between physical and special defense overshadows the super effective muliplier of 2. Gamefreak tried to fix the Onix problem, but failed. A type advantage tutorial Pokemon should have equal defenses, so that the player really sees the difference of type effectiveness, unaffected by more obscure and advanced concepts like physical and special damage.

[@sirkirby4135]

stubborn pokemon players? who would have thought... on a comoletely unrelated note, in Pokemon Yellow, to solo Brock with Pikachu and without items you would need to grind Pikachu to lvl 21 and learn/use slam... dont ask me, why i know this