Pokemon Propitiation: Day 87

I finally had a few minutes to pick Pokemon Blue back up. It was a triumphant day.

This guy here is a jerk. 
This guy here is a jerk.

I found myself walking through Veridian Forest, minding my own business, and reading signs filled with useful tips for catching Pokemon. Suddenly, while making my way towards a stray pokeball I saw laying in the grass, this kid comes up to me and says something to the effect of “you have Pokemon, and are clearly in the middle of something, but I’m a complete jerk, so stop whatever it is you’re doing and battle me and my weak ass Pokemon.” Having no choice otherwise, I obliged.

I sicked my recently acquired Rattata on his green caterpillar dude, and all was going well until he poisoned him. Dick move, caterpillar dude. Dick move. I tackled him to unconsciousness, and called my Rattata back into his ball for safe keeping. I called out my Nidoran, as she was the Pokemon with the next lowest power level, and things started going very poorly for the competition. Either this prick’s Pokemon were incredibly stupid, or he’s the worst trainer in the history of the world. All they would do is hit me with something that decreased my speed. Sure, I occasionally lost a hit point or two, but in a game where there is little to no animation during the fight scenes, losing speed doesn’t really have the effect you might think.

Having crushed this kid’s hopes and dreams, and sending his Pokemon to the nearest Poke-center for healing, I continued on my way. And wouldn’t you know it, ANOTHER bug catcher, looking remarkably similar to this other kid comes out and challenges me. Okay, Let’s do this.

I may have forgotten to mention earlier that for whatever reason, my Nidoran was immune to the Caterpie’s poison attack. I made short work of the first Pokemon, but then he called out some sort of other bug Pokemon. I have no idea what it was called, but no joke, the only thing it did was harden its shell. It never attacked, it only raised its defense. So, this little jerk takes a break from his day of catching bugs to challenge complete strangers, and when he does, he throws a Pokemon who is so not into fighting that all it does is hide? I had to keep hitting this thing until it was knocked out, and all it wanted to do was be left alone. I felt like a jerk for beating the thing up, but this bug catcher was the real villain. I sincerely hope he tripped and fell into a pit of wasps. (Do they have wasps in this world? Or are they some sort of Pokemon-wasp creatures?)

Anyway, I made it to Pewter City. My Rattata eventually passed out from the poison, but I did manage to capture myself a Caterpie. I’m sorely tempted to let my Rattata repeatedly beat the shit out of it just to even the karmic balance, but I think that would make me a bad person. Clearly, this game brings out the worst in me. I should just focus on healing my Rattata.

Kris Randazzo

Kris is the Content Supervisor of Geekade. As an avid consumer of all things video game, Kris spent his formative years collecting cartridges, CDs, discs, and assorted paraphernalia in an effort to amass a video game collection large enough to kill an elephant. He works with Stone Age Gamer, writing for their blog and hosting the Stone Age Gamer Podcast right here at Geekade. He's also the host of the WaveBack Podcast, co-host of This Week's Episode, and can occasionally be found in the pages of Nintendo Force Magazine.

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