Pokemon Crystal: Playthrough Part 1

Moving into Pokémon Generation 2 with Pokémon Crystal!

After my play-through of Pokémon Yellow I was itching to replay on of the Second Generation Pokémon Games but wasn't sure which version to play. I have played through Gold a few times and have played Silver quite a few times but I don't recall every playing through Pokémon Crystal so that's the one I'm gonna play!

Crystal is the Special Edition of Gold/Silver like Yellow was the Special Edition of Red/Blue.

Gold/Silver/Crystal have 100 additional Pokémon over Red/Blue/Yellow.

Pokémon Crystal is the first Pokémon game that allowed you to choose between playing as a Boy or a Girl, I chose to play as a girl and named her Crystal after the game.

After setting the time and day of the week and getting my PokéGear from my Mom, it's off to Professor Elm's lab, our future Rival is being all creepy starring in the window. 

A quick conversation with Professor Elm nets me my starter Pokémon, I choose Cyndaquil! Professor Elm sends me on an errand to visit Mr. Pokemon.

A quick romp up Route 29, through Cherrygrove City and up Route 30 gets me to Mr. Pokemon's house. He gives me the Mysterious Egg and Professor Oak (who was visiting) gives me the PokéDex. Professor Elm calls just after I leave, something bad has happened back at the Lab!

On the way back to Professor Elm's Lab, in Cherrygrove City, I face my Rival for the first time. He has a Totodile but as I've already gained a few levels he is pretty easy to beat. Back at the lab we find out his name is Gold and that he stole his Pokémon from Professor Elm. The Professor is distraught but still asks about the visit to Mr. Pokemon and is amazed at the Mysterious Egg.

Professor Elm suggests I take on the Pokémon League challenge while I try to fill up the PokéDex that Professor Oak gave me. I get some PokéBalls from the Professor's Aide (and pickup some more in Cherrygrove) and head out towards adventure! I forgot to talk with my Mom so she called me, she's going to save some of my money for me! 

I spent quite a bit of time exploring for Pokémon in the beginning, catching Pidgey, Rattata, Spearow, Sentret, Caterpie, Weedle, Bellsprout, Geodude, and Zubat. Just outside Violet City Cyndaquil hit Lvl 14 and evolved to Quilava!

After a quick healing at the Pokémon Center, I took the opportunity to trade a Bellsprout for an Onix before exploring the town!

Sprout Tower is full of trainers but they mostly just have low level Bellsprouts so Quilava is able to wipe the floor with them in short order. We get HM05 - Flash from the Tower Elder (the final battle for the Tower).

Next up we take on the local Gym. They use Bird Pokémon and even though my Quilava isn't really strong against birds, he is at such a high level at this point that Faulkner goes down quickly and we grab the first badge!

Dark Cave (just before Violet City) was completely pitch black but we were able to light it up with Flash. Unfortunately it looks like I need Rock Smash or Surf to get any further into the cave.

Time to head to the next town, Quilava is really strong for this point in the game but I know I'll need another Pokémon to cover his weaknesses so I'm training up a Hoppip to be my Grass Pokémon.

We have a little ways to go before the next town, along with Union Cave - but we'll get to that next time! The emulator I'm using elongates the time some but I have taken a few hours to get to this point (it's why I have so many Pokémon for this point in the game and my starter is getting pretty strong).

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I'm having a blast exploring Johto once again! I'm taking my time to try to catch a lot of Pokémon and train my Pokémon to be strong and it's already starting to pay off with the first Gym literally taking 5 Embers from Quilava to beat (because I faced 5 Pokémon) - hopefully I can keep ahead of the curve like this for the rest of the game as well.