Fixing the Gym Leaders of Gen 1 Pokémon! 

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Not only does Giovanni own a massive underground base, he also straight up owns the game corner. Which is where you get the most expensive TMs in the game. So yeah, I think Giovanni having access to every single TM he'd ever need is pretty lore-accurate

Blaine not having Magmar in Gen 1, especially Yellow, felt so wrong on so many levels! I wish there was an appropriate storyline encounter that could make use of Electabuzz as well, but c'est la vie...

I am all for adding Butterfree onto Eirka's team. It fits the vibe of Erika and the lack of any bug or flying type trainers means it's not gonna be on a major battle otherwise. Plus having three poison/grass types feels redunt and vileplume and virtbell are pretty iconic to her. I think Eggxcute could also work for her but that's neither here nor there.

I love the idea of Lt. Surge throwing out a single OP Pokémon and telling you "if you can beat this one, the badge is yours."

What I like about these videos is that the justifications presented do make a lot of sense. They are very reasonable.

I always thought that removing Bruno and adding an all normal type E4 member would’ve been good. Gen 1 had a nice assortment of normal types that were rarely or never encountered.

I'd almost like to see Misty with a wartortle if Erica and Blaine get their respective type starters. Still I think your changes will make things a lot more interesting.

Sabrina sure got stronger now, good thing Caterpie now learns Cut and can easily sweep her 😎

I'm glad you gave Blaine a Magmar. It never made sense that he didn't have one, considering you can catch one right next door.

Love these changes. Ivysaur works on Erika, but I would give my vote to butterfree instead. Both fit her theme well enough and I feel like her being forced to take so many poison types, while there being a poison gym, is weighing her down.

I am very concerned by how overly buffed you made Onix. First off, now its base stat total is higher than Rhydon and Golem. It also is given a new 100% accurate rock throw with stab for 75 BP rock throw while the ONLY pokemon you can have with a rock resist at this stage of the game is Mankey, a pretty frail pokemon. This is going to turn his onix into a Whitney's Miltank situation, but on the first gym leader while players don't yet have access to reliable grass or water type pokemon to exploit its multiple x4 weaknesses. This will be a very brutal fight now. Also its now able to take special hits better than Golem and Rhydon. For Giovonii's team, I think giving his Rhydon Thunderbolt is a total trap. This is because the monstrous 130 attack stab Earthquake or Rockslide will do more dmg than his pathetic 45 special stat thunderbolts. Using either EQ or Rockslide would do more damage against any pokemon, even the insanely high defense with low special defense cloister will take more dmg from the Rockslide than thunderbolt. However with Giovonni having good AI, he will always priortize thunderbolt even when it will do less damage than EQ or Rockslide, such as vs a Starmie. Instead, giving it Substitute or Body Slam (For higher paralysis chance) may be a smarter choice.

Onix was always a cool pokemon but it was impossible to use because of terrible stats, good job to you for making it useable

To make grass types not feel so weak in the game, i recommend removing confusion from either Misty's Psyduck or Starmie. Just one of them. By the time you get grass types, they only are good against Misty and Giovanni. And if out of 5 pokemon in Misty's gym, 3 of them have a counter to grass (goldeen's peck), that means grass types will struggle in the one thing they're good at. It may not be much, removing one move from one battle, but it might be enough to make people feel grass types were more useful in their playthrough.

I’m happy these type of videos are back, because I love videos like this.

I can already tell that Onix is definitely too strong for an early game encounter. 80 base attack and 95 base speed is insane for the first gym

New Solarbeam looks awesome, great change, and when combined with sleep will be brutal. But do we want to remove Vileplumes signature move? Its pretty good and you don't see many signature moves so showcasing them when they appear can be quite good.

As always, amazing work by Smith and the team - very excited to get to play this version of Yellow when it drops Some minor suggestions I would have for Gym Leader teams are: Misty - Change Goldeen for Horsea, as she also has a Horsea in the anime, and it ties into her Kingdra in Crystal Legacy. Erika - Change Ivysaur for a Butterfree with a STAB flying move. As mentioned by many others, a butterfly aesthetically fits perfectly for her, but it also checks someone looking to run a bug sweep. Koga - If there are dynamic levels for the Gym Leaders, maybe add a Scyther if he's fought 6th/7th? Granted, it's not a poison type but it is very ninja-like with it's speed and sword arms. Avoids him getting swept by grounds/psychics too.

Kinda weird to have Starmie only have 3 moves when Brock had an Onix with 4 moves Also, that usage of the P3 Reload tracks. Nice

Please let up rematch the gym leaders. I love doing that.

So for koga, the reason i think they had so many venonats then the venomoth was to stimulate the venonat getting stronger and evolving mid fight. It was thematic because it was like fighting it until it evolved just like the anime.

I think for Koga and Sabrina, the venonats were supposed to feel like the same mon in different rounds that eventually "evolves" mid battle. For Sabrina, she has an abra that evolves into Kadabra which finally evolves into Alakazam. I think it was a thematic choice.

Hear me out, but I think Erica should have had a Parasect, it fits her gym style, and its x4 weakness doesn't really change much as you'd most likely be using a flying or fire type in this gym anyway. You then give it Spore, Toxic, Mega drain, and leech-life. This means that it would act like a parasite, slowly ebbing away at your health, and a nightmare to face for non-flying/firetypes as it would continually heal itself and either poison your or put you to sleep. Especially if you put it at a higher level.

An idea, in the anime it says that a gym leader has many teams to match however many badges the challenger has. So what teams would the Kanto gym leaders use against a trainer looking for the 8th badge at their gym?

I kind of wish Giovanni’s Nidoqueen knew surf, if only in remembrance of the time it kamehameha’d Red’s Charizard in episode 3 of Origins.

You will give Jessie & James Lickitung & Victreebel, right? 😃

Great job done. It is going to be amazing mod. My thoughts: 1)I think the biggest problem of Brock is all his pokemons have the same weaknesses, which includes 4xGrass, 4xWater. I would add Diglett with Dig or Zubat with Bite if you want to keep anime vibes. 2)In theory, Surge solo fight seems cool, however many people will have full squad of 6 pokemon and in the end, that will make fight a bit lacking. It would be better give him Electrobuzz, Magnamite and keep Raichu, so if you want, you could easily create opportunity to have Pikachu vs Raichu final fight with full HP. 3)If you want to keep Sabrina's Abra, then maybe give Confusion and Disable as proof of her superb teaching. 4)If you want to give away pokemon's starters to gym leader, then Misty also should also have Squirtle. 5) How about making the final Showdown with Giovanni with 6 Pokemons and add Kangaskhan with Dizzy Punch, Mega Kick, Submission and Hyper Beam?

I love these changes! They feel so true to the game's vision, with just the right amount of hindsight guiding the decision-making process. I especially love how you consider the lore that the game presents you as both justification and guidance.

Status changing moves are secretly great in Gen 1. Because any stat change reset the bonus that the badges provide. Therefore, the move Flash in a lategame boss battle makes a lot of sense.

Perfect timing. Just when I started looking for a video to watch while eating

surf thunderbolt is absurdly strong this gen in the level 20s. there are very few pokemon with high enough special to survive this other than ivysaur

Even in Blue version I thought Koga's team was weak, why has he got two Koffin's, and why has Agatha got an Arbok? It would have made more sense to give Koga Arbok, and then maybe give Agatha either a Marowak, due to its connection to the ghost type, or a hypno, due to its creepy lore.

Could Arcanine in Crystal Legacy be downgraded to second-in-command to Magmar, so that there's not 2 gym leaders in a row with Arcanine as the ace?

Can you lower onix stats from 540-495/480 because a pokemon with those stats on 1 first gym leader team seems absurd to me and too much of a buff

5:39 especially since in the anime, they can take creative liberties in making lower stage pokemon more powerful than normal, sometimes even more powerful than their own evolved forms when in the ownership of a strong trainer. the games cannot

I think that Persian should know a Psychic move to really make it tough....

Mixing your ad into the actual content is the kind of evil genius we shouldn't encourage

I prefer the old Thumbnail, since that appeared more accurate to the current generation.

There should be gym rematches were you can just go all out with the teams of these leaders.

Let's be fair here, I think Koga's Yellow team is actually a pretty substantial upgrade on his Red and Blue team. That team was two Koffing, Weezing, and Muk. It might sound better at first, since it's got two fully-evolved Pokemon rather than one, and Koffing is a little stronger than Venonat, but it's mostly in their movesets. See, Yellow Koga actually knows that TMs exist. All three of his Venonats know Psychic and Toxic. The strongest one knows Double-Edge, and two of them have Sleep Powder. This means that they can actually deal some pretty substantial damage, or just status your team into oblivion, despite their low stats. Meanwhile, Red and Blue Koga has two identical Koffings: they know Sludge, Smokescreen, Tackle, and Smog. Smog has a base power of 20 and 70 accuracy, and even that 40% poison chance isn't gonna save it. Tackle is Tackle. Smokescreen is basically Sand Attack. The only passable move here is Sludge. Muk has Poison Gas, which inflicts poison and has 55% accuracy, Disable, which in Gen 1, chooses the move it disables randomly rather than disabling the last move you used, and also has 55% accuracy, and Sludge and Minimize, which allow it to be slightly annoying. Weezing swaps out Smokescreen and Tackle for Selfdestruct and Toxic--and since he usually sends out Weezing last, that means it's likely that he'll blow up and instantly forfeit the battle. Plus, because his whole team is pure Poison rather than Bug/Poison, that means they're weak to Dig, which is a very powerful move that's easy to get. And he's got no coverage besides Normal and Poison. Haunter absolutely destroys this gym, Graveler doesn't do much worse, and let's not even talk about Psychics. Add in the gap in levels (Yellow Koga is in the mid-40s, Red and Blue Koga is in the high 30s), and you can probably see what I mean.

1:30 why would you let Bruno keep using Onix? You have enough fighting types to fill his team without onix

I think these choices are solid, but I think my picks could improve these teams even more - Brock, Lt. Surge, and Giovani is fine with your changes. -Misty should have a team of Psyduck, plus the edition of Seadra, as this line barley has any representation in the Gen 1 games. _ Erica should have a team of Tangela, Victribell, and Exeggcute to avoid doubling up on Psychic weakness -Koga team should be Venomoth, Golbat, and Bedrill. Beedrill included to deal with Psychics -Sabrina team should have Hypno, Exeggtour, Kadabra, and Mr. Mine -Blaine team should consisted of Ninetalies, Arcinite, Rapidash, and of course Magmar.

One thing I never understood about Yellow, which you have kept in this mod, is the weird level jump in the mid-game from around 30 to 50

Yellow Legacy is LIVE May 4th! Go watch the video ‘I made the Perfect Yellow Romhack’ to get the download the patch link!!

I'd love to see vulpix added to Brock's team as a little nod to the anime

To be fair about Gen 1 bug types, it is super effective against 34 individual Pokémon, and quad super effective against 11. It's tied for 3rd place with Ground for being at least super effective against the most pokemon in gen 1, under ice (47) and electric (48). And it is quad super effective to the most pokemon in the game. No one noticed back in the day because it was either on Jolteon with its poor attack, beedrill which is outsped and one shot anyway, or it's base 20 power.

I’m so pumped for Yellow Legacy! I absolutely loved nuzlocking Crystal Legacy. Live streams and relays have been awesome too to get a sneak under the hood of what you and the team are cooking up!

Onix having an effective BST of 540 (475 in Gen 1 terms) feels wrong. 540's already greater than every single fully-evolved starter in the series and its evolution Steelix, while 475 BST puts it in the top 10 of everything in Gen 1. With those stat changes, I think Onix arguably ends up outclassing Rhydon and Golem too. It lands crits far more often than the other two, can trap with Bind, and can still go boom just fine. Keeping its base Speed at 70 (still quite fast for the early game) makes the total a more reasonable 515 (450 in Gen 1 terms), still a touch higher than Steelix's 510. Cutting the Special by 10 I think makes the most sense, this would push Onix down to an effective BST of 495 (440 in Gen 1 terms), which I think is just fine for a Pokemon of extremes like Onix. At that point adjust the rest of its stats around the 495 total, maybe even give it a slight Defense nerf since the total is still quite high for a Gen 1 Pokemon

You do realize Sabrina's team was "abracadabra alakazam" before you changed it, right??? So you had to kill the joke... and thus, making the team worse...

I think for Brock just give Onix rock throw and give players the opportunity to catch water and grass types beforehand

What's more unacceptable about Erika not having fully evolved teams, she lives in Celadon City, right near the store that sells the necessary stones!

This video is really awesome. I've had my own ideas for Gen I Romhacking before and I'm so happy someone who has a similar respect for flavor vs. gameplay is finaly doing a big Romhack. That being said, I have a few suggestions: 1. Give Misty's Starmie Confuse Ray or Recover. Confuse Ray would be a great way to give Misty more options while keeping her offensive theme, while Recover would give her a healing option at a point in the game that isn't terribly common. 2. Give Lt. Surge more Pokemon. I know the whole "keep the spirit of the original fight intact" thing, but Surge really needs more than a single mon to even stand a chance against a Nidoking or a Dugtrio, both of which the player has access to at a high level by this point. My reccomendations would be Voltorb and Magnemite, since they can at least do some damage to them with Sonic Boom and offer Thunder Wave support for everything else. 3. Ditch Koga's Golbat for Tentacruel. Coverage in general is honestly super important in Gen I, and STAB Surf would be way better than whatever Golbat can offer. I would also give Sabrina Slowbro and Jynx (which she already had in LGPE) for similar reasons. Ultimately, it's your hack, so do whatever you want. Thanks for hearing me out though. :)

Giovanni's team is missing one Pokémon lol...but if he had that you werent getting that badge ever

Bro really 'cooked' with Giovanni's team! 💀

Something to be wary of when giving boss mons Agility in gen 1 is the potential of making Poison/Fighting mons an auto-win. If they don't have a damaging super-effective move for either of those types, and they have gen 1's "good AI," they'll see Agility as a super-effective move and spam it, which will essentially neutralise them. Given that the only other existing AI in gen 1 randomly picks its moves, I'm hoping there's a plan to make better AI for a true new experience.

Can't wait for this. Crystal legacy was one of the best balanced rom hacks out there.

Personally, I always thought it was stupid they never had 6 Pokemon.

Seeing how you've given Blaine a Charizard and Erika an Ivysour, I think it would be cool if Misty had a Squirtle.

I'm kind of a Yellow hater, but I'm still really looking forward to this romhack. I'd also just like to voice an opinion that maybe you should rethink working with Hello Fresh in the future. They're well known for treating their workers poorly and are aggressively anti-union.

For Brock, I would switch out Bide with Rage. If the player lets Onix hit Rage too many times, then Onix may build up too much attack for the player's counters to work. This will teach new players to not let their opponents buff themselves beyond what they can handle.

Love those changes!! You’ve been doing so many great stuff with those projects man

You should have given Giovanni Mewtwo, and after he loses, when you talk again with him, change the dialog when he dissapears, to reflect that Mewtwo escaped or something like that.

Pikachu always eats his breakfast, a breakfast of POKEMON LEAGUE champions.

Can you make the AI Hard on all these Gym Leaders cause LT Surge and Sabrina had bad AI which meant easy wins I'm glad you removed items cause Guard Spec what where they thinking for Giovanni The Ai doesn't have to be Radical Red Hard just make it challenging

Some fun changes in here. Here are some ideas from me~ - The idea of one overlevelled, strong for that point of the game, boss pokemon is really good for the earlier gyms before you have strong pokemon yourself and it might work for Starmie itself. I'd drop one of Misty's mons and raise the Starmie level by 4. Would really encourge you to keep Pikachu with you just so you can Thunder Wave this beast for the rest of your squad to whittle down. - Exeggutor would be a really cool choice for Erika and an early indicator to how dangerous Psychic types are before the Sabrina fight. It gives the player more reason to want to bring a Bug Type to the gym too! - Tentacruel is another cool choice for Koga, that mon lives in the sea right outside his house and its nice special might prevent him getting completely bowled over by anyone using the Psychic TM you just picked up in Saffron. Koga having 5 mons for one of the most repped (and bad) types in the game seems fine to me too. - A stat buff for Magmar would be needed otherwise the 7th gym leaders ace is weaker than the 1st gym leaders ace. The moveset it's using doesn't allow it to use its solid 95 base attack either, which is higher than its base 85 special. I would drop Confuse Ray for a physical move like Body Slam or Submission. Magmar is so frail it can't really afford to be using a turn for a luck based move. Maybe making it the ultimate glass cannon by lowering its terrible defenses further but give it boosts to attack, special and speed is the play? - Normal Type not having a boss rep despite it contesting the Psychic type as the best type in Gen 1 and having a ton of good mons feels wrong. What could be fun is utilizing Giovanni as a Ground AND Normal gym where he can use Persian, his RBY Kangaskhan that mysteriously goes missing, & another fercious looking normal type like Snorlax or Tauros. Normal also encourages the use of a Fighting Type, one of the most neglected types in Gen 1, and Normal types learn a bunch of crazy moves which supports Giovanni having access to all the TM's even more.

What is your obsession with giving Pikachu and Raichu Surf? I get that surfing Pikachu was a thing, but come on!

I’m sorry I’m only to Onix with Brock and Onix was the right level strength for gym 1. Now it outclasses middle stage evos as a first gym

I really like the Onix buffs! Makes me excited to use it.

I'm playing Kanto Expansion Pak after it was mentioned in the live stream. And while I enjoy it, it really makes me appreciate your minimalistic intuitive design that doesn't require documentation to understand on a fundamental level.

Misty: "I'm going on an all out offensive." Me as a kid: "Those *astards lied to me." - meme

Brock's looking kinda scary. Are you adding more early-game encounters that are strong against Brock?

I mean, just give Brock some non-ground rock typed pokemon. Like both of the unevolved fossils. He's right next to a history museum it's perfect sense, just give them rock throw and maybe add a machop because they get used in mining operations or a Zubat from mount moon.

I am not sure I fully agree with the Sabrina choices. To me it seems like Abra was designed as bait to trick an opponent they had to only worry about over-leveled damage sponges before getting nuked by the other two. The game design intent seemed more around the intent to using Abra's useless moveset to set up against, thus teaching the player the true benefit of stat boosting moves, as most of us just ya know, punched everything as hard as possible with no finese I would keep Abra as is as the lead and make Sabirina slightly more dangerous and have an NPC in the gym say something like "SABRINA likes to toy with her opponents at the start of her matches. Maybe if your POKEMON could increase their stats during battle would give you a better chance at taking her down when she starts getting serious." As post battle text. It would also be a nice nod to the anime and how welll...kinda pyschotic Sabrina originally seemed and traping her opponents as toys in her doll house to "play" with when they lose.

I'm not sure I like the idea of Blaine having a Charizard with Seismic Toss. I get that it's an anime reference, but it's not Blaine using the Charizard with Seismic Toss in the anime. It feels very bizarre to have on his team even with the reasoning that it's an anime nod. I like most of the other changes though

There was actually a battle royale done recently of all the trainers, ironically the Kanto trainers held there own despite the poor moves. It was actually the Johto trainers that were worst on average, with the Falkner being by far the worst of them.

A beautifully intergrated sponsor. I wish more channels did it like that. Love the work you're doing on Yellow!

Why does he keep calling a move set a "learnset"? The learnset is all the level up and TM moves a Pokémon can learn. Not the 4 that they currently know... That's just their move set. Lol

I'm sorry but the whole changes to Onix and Brock are a bit missing the point. Onix is *meant* to be all defense and not much else to teach people about physical and special attacks. Just buffing him so much misses the point of it being a sort of tutorial boss that can be beaten if you know what you're doing

Man, you have to put a fire TM before you get the Eevee, part of the reason that makes Flareon so awful in comparision with the other eeveelutions is that you don't have a STAB to teach him, like bubblebeam for vaporeon and thunderbolt for jolteon, before level 31, which is Ember

Didn’t expect that change to the poison/bug effectiveness, but that honestly makes sense!

Onix stat buffs are huge! Speed makes him scarier, but it doesn't make sense to be the FASTEST mon of the area.

Sabrina and Erica are both terrifying now

i'm really happy about the new feature, i'm sneaking to your file you share with us. I hope to see very soon the new victory road and E4.

Arcanine not being Blaine's ace because of the rival makes no sense. The same could be said for Alakazam and Rhydon.

Hello fresh is just expensive And you can cook the same food for far less

I dunno' man. Be careful buffing Brock and Misty. You're already pretty limited with your options to beat them. Confusion lets Starmie destroy the only good grass types available at that point, since they're half poison. Granted a buff to the starter Pikachu might solve the latter. Maybe Paras with actual STAB might help too.

I never understood why gyms didn't have a progression system that challenges the player to learn new strategies. Each gym should be giving players an experience that makes them strategize. This is a very good step in that kind of direction.

Okay Giovanni.. is actually scary now lol

To be honest, I enjoy Bug's unique status in Gen1. There's just no other type that hits so many things in its generation for 2x or 4x damage, balanced by low power moves and generally low stat pokemon. That's one of the Gen1 quirks I like, so if I had any say in it, I'd rather not tamper with the type chart, but just not have high powered bug moves. Adding more low power bug moves so more bug body types can have sensical STAB (right now you need to either have needles or be a blood sucker) seems like a buff that buffs the type's presence while not breaking it. I know that's not the point of this video, but since you're making hacks (really nice ones I might add) I thought I'd chime in because I think it'd be sad to see Gen1's quirkiness go for balance in Yellow Legacy.

Happy Raichu got buffs one of my fav Electric types of gen 1. Also 180 powered Solarbeam is crazy O-O.

Wait, were all the grass types in gen I's early game given poison type just so Misty had a way to counter them? I always thought that made no sense for the Bulbasaur line and Oddish and I guess this would explain it.

I've always had a soft spot for Onix, so I'm glad to see it get more respectable stats. Gonna use it on my team for my first playthrough. I'm really looking forward to what else you have in store for Yellow Legacy!

My only complaint is that you used 2 of the starters and no squirtle for Misty, even though it's not super appropriate for her. I think you could slide a cheeky squirtle in there. Everything else is super solid and I love your changes to Giovanni. I am now scared of Brock though

I dunno, I feel like Mr. Mime felt closer to Ash's mom than to Sabrina.

Kind of wish they’d boost Onix’s stats now. I understand not wanting the first gym to be too hard back in the Red/Blue/Yellow days but that doesn’t mean it needs to be weaker than several Pokémon that are no where near as intimidating as a giant rock snake. How does an 8 inch, 4.9 lbs Dedenne have a higher base stat total than 28’10”, 463 lbs Onix? I know the bigger Pokémon isn’t always the strongest but Dedenne, a mouse, has a higher attack stat than a giant rock snake.

Honestly a big fan of these videos. It’s always so interesting to go back at the older games and see just how awful movesets were. Thank Arceus TMs were made reusable in Gen 5:

Wow. The menu sprites lol awesome. Bravo to whomever had that on their to do list 👏🏻

holy shit onix has been immenstly buffed just started watching this and already like the vibes

I like the buff to Brock, but I can’t help but feel that Onix’s BST is overkill. As it’s 50 BST points higher than the Final form starters. (Final Form Starters: 425. Onix: 475) (Special is one stat, remember.) I suggest lowering its Speed to 90, Special to 60, Attack to 70, and Defense to 120. This brings it to a powerful, but more reasonable 415. It’ll also make it a very fast Rock Type. Which paired with Rock Slide’s flinch chance, will keep it good. It’s just a suggestion, and you don’t need to listen to me, but I hope you’ll read my suggestion.

I don't like the stat changes on Onix. Onix now has more HP and more Attack than Steelix! Just change his movepool and keep Onix's Stats the Same as his Crystal Legacy counterpart! Crystal Legacy won't feel like a "sequel" to Yellow Legacy if You start changing some Pokemon Stats. Its fine to change Pokemon Stats, but at least keep it consistent throughout all Legacy Games.