Current Events > Hitmonchan in Gen 1 is so funny

(+) Yeah! (+)

Before the types got split into physical and special type attacks right.. Fighting in general sucked in gen 1. Submission had 80% accuracy with like 1/4 recoup damage. High Jump kick wasn't great, but it was a step up with higher accuracy.

Definitely improved in gen 2 with being super effective against dark, but we had to wait until gen 4 for fighting to really kick off.

Arcanine2009 posted...

Before the types got split into physical and special type attacks right.. We had to wait until gen 4 for that too. I forgot how bad Hitmonchan had it.

Honestly it remains shocking to me how many people today still play gen 3. Anything prior to gen 4 is painful to go back and play after experiencing the physical special split.

I'm not sure how the special/physical types being non-split is "different" from say, stealth rock, in that it arbitrarily makes certain pokemon suck because of typing.

Arcanine2009 posted...

Before the types got split into physical and special type attacks right.. We had to wait until gen 4 for that too. I forgot how bad Hitmonchan had it.

I don't know if there's a single Pokemon that was helped by the physical/special split more than Hitmonchan. I'm not talking competitively, obviously, that's an entirely different beast, but just in game, Hitmonchan went from useless to kinda broken. I feel like that was their intention all along, Hitmonchan was the utility choice, Hitmonlee was the pure attack choice, and they just didn't think it all the way through, back then.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Honestly it remains shocking to me how many people today still play gen 3. Anything prior to gen 4 is painful to go back and play after experiencing the physical special split.

Emerald is just that good, and I hold that Fire Red/Leaf Green is by far the best way to experience Kanto.

DarthEnvoy posted...

Emerald is just that good, and I hold that Fire Red/Leaf Green is by far the best way to experience Kanto.

To be fair, its only competition is Gen 1, which is just fundamentally broken, and Let's Go, which is good, but extremely limited/held back by its very nature. It's absolutely the best way, sure, but if you consider what could be, it's still basically the best of bad options.

I had the reverse happen to me in Silver when I taught my Alakazam Shadow Ball thinking it was going to wreck everything because Mewtwo used it in the movie so its probably good for psychic types but only did tickle damage off of Alakazams pitiful attack. Thats what helped me learn about the physical-special split.

Ghost being physical is a legit crazy choice.

I have to assume it's a translation thing.

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

Ghost being physical is a legit crazy choice.

I have to assume it's a translation thing.

And they made Dark special despite the only dark type attacks in gen 2 were physical sounding ones like Crunch and Faint Attack

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

Ghost being physical is a legit crazy choice.

I have to assume it's a translation thing.

i dont remember what it was, but recently a hack of I think it was Crystal came out and did not implement the physical/special split, but made Ghost a special type and Dark a physical one

it is unbelievable how much more sense it makes. it would take until Gen 3 for them to introduce an actually physically-oriented Ghost-type. (and ironically, physical Ghost-types were among the few things initially hurt by the split, because their best STAB became a special move, and options for physical Ghost moves were horrible at the time). Dark at least had Houndoom initially for a Dark-type that could really hurt with special Dark-type moves.

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

Ghost being physical is a legit crazy choice.

I have to assume it's a translation thing.

Ghost was made Physical because of Lick, which was the only normal damaging Ghost move in Gen 1. Night Shade also existed, but Night Shade is set damage and, in Gen 1, did not actually have the Ghost typing applied to it, so it even hit Psychic and Normal.

That's the entire reason. Ghost only had one normal attack in Gen 1, and it was physical. More Gen 1 wonkyness.

And then Shadow Ball is released in Gen 2 with a chance to lower SpD despite being physical...
Ghost being physical and Dark being special were clearly a mistake.

Rock and Fighting were poorly balanced around the main game. Normal is the most common attack type in early gens, it's like clicking Fight in old FFs. Rock resists Normal and Fighting is the only type to hit it SE. Fighting was probably over-estimated and given moves that suck too much. Rock has its uses.
Aerodactyl Gen 3 is honestly a menace who wins or loses games based on 10% chances in either direction and 50/50 speed ties between itself or Jolteon. Even Rhyperior is seeing a bit of a resurgence in Gen 4 on para spam teams.

Man I just got the Stadium games off the backlog recently so this is still fresh in memory.

Another weirdly terrible thing is Razor Wind. Two turn charge for a 75% accuracy normal move. Beside, by the time it becomes available you already have lots of better moves.

On the opposite end, some insane OP stuff...
- Blizzard was a 120 BP move with 90% accuracy. (And in the original JP version, a 30% chance to freeze! But they at least nerfed that to 10% even before gen1 ended.)
- Dig was a 100 BP move, and you could get it around the second gym.
- Crit rate was tied to speed, making fast pokemon (including staples like Tauros, Alakazam, and Starmie) insanely powerful, speed control (especially Paralysis) very important, and moves like Slash basically just guaranteed crits.

And those are all just *intended* mechanics...

Relm_Arrowny_87 posted...

Man I just got the Stadium games off the backlog recently so this is still fresh in memory.

Another weirdly terrible thing is Razor Wind. Two turn charge for a 75% accuracy normal move. Beside, by the time it becomes available you already have lots of better moves.

On the opposite end, some insane OP stuff...
- Blizzard was a 120 BP move with 90% accuracy. (And in the original JP version, a 30% chance to freeze! But they at least nerfed that to 10% even before gen1 ended.)
- Dig was a 100 BP move, and you could get it around the second gym.
- Crit rate was tied to speed, making fast pokemon (including staples like Tauros, Alakazam, and Starmie) insanely powerful, speed control (especially Paralysis) very important, and moves like Slash basically just guaranteed crits.

And those are all just *intended* mechanics...

I can somewhat understand the logic behind speed, because speed dictates who starts first but if you're not the fastest the stat is kinda "useless" on the battlefield. So characters that have average speed (not enough to be the fastest, but enough to not be completely irrelevant) could have something worth investing it even if you couldn't win.

But crits are absolutely busted so it was a no-brainer to have it removed lol.

As for Blizzard, I think it was mostly because Ice as a type has some pretty shit weaknesses so I guess they wanted to compensate with proper moves I suppose. It isn't like Bug which they were made to suck on purpose.

Oh yeah, I forgot that frozen = dead. Although one time, I tried to sacrifice my frozen Charizard to Lance's Dragonite, who used Fire Blast, and Charizard thawed out. I was very shocked.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

the next part is even better

in Gen 1, crits do double damage and ignore your opponent's stat changes, which is normal so far...except it also ignores your stat changes. so if you use Swords Dance to double your attack, then use Slash for an auto crit, you do just as much damage as you would if you didn't use Swords Dance.

stat buff moves can also remove the speed drop from paralysis, and the attack drop from burn, completely. So paralysis normally quarters your speed, but if you use Agility, it doubles your speed...after returning your speed to normal. Effectively making it just as fast as an un-paralyzed Pokemon using Agility would be.

Oh here's two more fun dumb things about gen1.

Almost everyone knows of the 1 in 256 bug, right? Almost any attack has a 1 in 256 chance of failing.
They "fixed" this in Pokemon Stadium... by just checking the 1 in 256 twice.
So instead, Pokemon Stadium has a 1 in 65536 bug. Any attack has a 1 in 65536 chance of failing.
Great job, guys. XD

Also, Swift? The perfect accuracy, never miss move?
Yeah, in the JP original Red/Green, it's glitched. It's only perfect accuracy if the opponent is behind a substitute. Otherwise, it acts as a normal 100% accurate move and could miss. Lol.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Again, the game was balanced practically 100% around the main story. Ghost is immune to normal, the main attack type. It only had one line and existed mainly in one dungeon.
Bugs are little loser Pokemon meant for you to grind for experience. They evolve quickly and fall off quickly.
Psychics are basically the pinnacle of mages. They were probably meant to be glass cannons weak to physical attacks, but missed the mark (opposite issue of fighting/rock).

totalnerdken posted...

Idk if it's true, but I've read before that due to how the math works, for legendary Pokemon specifically, the Master Ball doesn't actually have a 100% chance to capture them. It's like 99% or something close to 100%. Meaning the master Ball could miss on legendary Pokemon.

That is incorrect. While there is some weird shit going on with the catch rate formula in gen 1 (IIRC, the Great Ball is actually better than the Ultra Ball, at least in some situations), the Master Ball in all generations completely skips the check and auto-catches the pokemon no matter what.

You might be thinking of the glitch that causes moves with 100% accuracy to miss 1 in 256 times due to them using less-than instead of less-than-or-equal-to in the check. Though guaranteed hit moves like Switft still function because they also bypass the check.

012yArthur0 posted...

I think it was mostly for PvE design. It would explain why the bug monsters are so garbage since you're be finding them in the hundreds and level up quickly just as a quick crutch that lose relevance at lvl 30 tops.

A lot of gen 1 weirdness doesn't make sense for single player either, though. Like, you go through all this trouble to get this big, rare Dragon type...but its only Dragon move does weak, fixed damage that makes no use of the pokemon's typing or stats? Or adding a unique pair of pokemon players must earn by beating the dojo, and one is themed around punching, and yet almost all the punch moves are special attack moves while the punch pokemon is a physical attacker? How does that kind of stuff benefit kids going through single player?

JustaSandwich posted...

A lot of gen 1 weirdness doesn't make sense for single player either, though. Like, you go through all this trouble to get this big, rare Dragon type...but its only Dragon move does weak, fixed damage that makes no use of the pokemon's typing or stats? Or adding a unique pair of pokemon players must earn by beating the dojo, and one is themed around punching, and yet almost all the punch moves are special attack moves while the punch pokemon is a physical attacker? How does that kind of stuff benefit kids going through single player?

The parts of stats I genuinely think it might have been some design philosophy that he needs to learn punches but he couldn't have any special atk (or def for that matter). The designs were at odds and Hitmonchan took the most of the impact. Maybe the devs thought that chances are that you would pick one element for coverage and focus on fighting moves, idk.

I'm not saying the logic isn't flawed, but it must have been some logic there.

Honestly, I don't get it why it took to Gen IV to finally have physical/special attacks not being linked to typing. Hardware limitations? I can see it being the case for GB and GBC, but maybe GenIII could have it.

JustaSandwich posted...

A lot of gen 1 weirdness doesn't make sense for single player either, though. Like, you go through all this trouble to get this big, rare Dragon type...but its only Dragon move does weak, fixed damage that makes no use of the pokemon's typing or stats? Or adding a unique pair of pokemon players must earn by beating the dojo, and one is themed around punching, and yet almost all the punch moves are special attack moves while the punch pokemon is a physical attacker? How does that kind of stuff benefit kids going through single player?

Dragonite is the second highest BST Pokemon you can get legitimately after Mewtwo. He naturally learns Hyper Beam (again, whole game revolves around Normal), a host of TMs, and Agility, Wrap, Thunder Wave which is pretty broken. That's the big payoff, mainly Hyper Beam. He is designed to give you a huge pile of stats for leveling one of the slowest pokemon possible and to be Lance's ace. Dragon resists Grass, Water, and Fire - the three types you probably have over-invested into.
I get calling it Gen 1 weirdness and seeing the pay off not worth the investment, but the vision is there.

ChocoboMogALT posted...

Dragonite is the second highest BST Pokemon you can get legitimately after Mewtwo. He naturally learns Hyper Beam (again, whole game revolves around Normal), a host of TMs, and Agility, Wrap, Thunder Wave which is pretty broken. That's the big payoff, mainly Hyper Beam. He is designed to give you a huge pile of stats for leveling one of the slowest pokemon possible and to be Lance's ace. Dragon resists Grass, Water, and Fire - the three types you probably have over-invested into.
I get calling it Gen 1 weirdness and seeing the pay off not worth the investment, but the vision is there.

Sure, there's still a lot of payoff, but the point is that not having an actual Dragon type move on Dragonite is still weird even for single player.

ellis123 posted...

To be fair, it wasn't until Gen 4 that the champion wasn't an embarrassment, and Gen VI for the normal gym leaders.

Whitney in gen 2 was annoying if all your pokemon were male and you had no fighting type.

012yArthur0 posted...

Honestly, I don't get it why it took to Gen IV to finally have physical/special attacks not being linked to typing. Hardware limitations? I can see it being the case for GB and GBC, but maybe GenIII could have it.

Fun fact: The first physical/special was technically in gen3. But only the shadow moves in Pokemon XD.

Didn't Hyper Beam skip the recharge if the opposing Pokmon fainted? Or am I misremembering?

teep_ posted...

Didn't Hyper Beam skip the recharge if the opposing Pokmon fainted?

Yes

teep_ posted...

Didn't Hyper Beam skip the recharge if the opposing Pokmon fainted? Or am I misremembering?

It did, which was why Tauros was such a monster.

Hits hard already, STAB, strongest attack in the game, and (I believe) fast enough to make it crit like half the time.

And yet Rocket's Hitmonchan can do more damage than any card in the TCG.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c5b177a6.jpg

DarthEnvoy posted...

Gen 1 in general just has a ton of garbage.

Pidgeot's only level up flying move is Wing Attack at lv 31 which only has 35 power in gen 1. Gust is a goddamn Normal type move because reasons. Ponyta doesn't ever learn a better fire move than Ember. The only Ghost type moves in the game are Lick at 20 power and Night Shade which does fixed damage depending on your level. Dragon also only has 1 move in Dragon Rage which always does 40 damage no matter what.

Idk wtf they were cooking back in the day.

Gen 1 always struck me as still being stuck in a more traditional RPG mindset where the vast majority of critters were just meant to be enemies / obstacles on your road to beating the game; and if you wanted to battle your friends it would probably just boil down to who had the stronger Mewtwo. After the game and PvP really took off they started putting more thought / balance into the metagame accordingly.

Also, everyone's forgotten one of the truest joys of genwunjank:

Telling someone about the Missingno glitch and watching them go from "why is this idiot wasting my time with this obvious bullshit" to "yooooooooooooooooooo"

DrizztLink posted...

It did, which was why Tauros was such a monster.

Hits hard already, STAB, strongest attack in the game, and (I believe) fast enough to make it crit like half the time.

The other day I was made aware that Dragonite's meta set up in gen 1 was Agility into Wrap spam. That's so fucking hilarious with how Wrap/Bind worked in Gen 1. As long as you outspeed and don't miss you just endlessly skip your opponent's turn lol

If you played Pokemon Stadium, you knew about that bullshit.

DrizztLink posted...

If you played Pokemon Stadium, you <u>knew</u> about that bullshit.

To be fair, Stadium did fix some of the more egregious nonsense.

Like fixing Focus Energy, fixing the stat reapplication glitch, allowing you to safely swap out of Wrap without taking a new attack, severely nerfing the length of Sleep, allowing Substitute to block statuses, always forcing the recharge turn after Hyper Beam, and leveling out crit rates a little (speed is still king though).

As a result it plays a little differently than actual RBY competitive.

Relm_Arrowny_87 posted...

always forcing the recharge turn after Hyper Beam,

They made it so Hyper Beam requires a recharge even if you miss, making it basically unusable.

DrizztLink posted...

Also, everyone's forgotten one of the truest joys of genwunjank:

Telling someone about the Missingno glitch and watching them go from "why is this idiot wasting my time with this obvious bullshit" to "yooooooooooooooooooo"

Even crazier when the Mew glitch was discovered like 15 years after the games came out. We were all ready to dismiss it as just another made up way to obtain Mew, then people tested it and it actually worked.

Relm_Arrowny_87 posted...

To be fair, Stadium did fix some of the more egregious nonsense.

True, but I just mean the Elite 4.

If I remember correctly, Lance has two Dragonaires that both use Thunder Wave/Wrap.

MC_BatCommander posted...

Even crazier when the Mew glitch was discovered like 15 years after the games came out. We were all ready to dismiss it as just another made up way to obtain Mew, then people tested it and it actually worked.

? I had a friend show me how to do it well before then and Bulbapedia lists it as having been discovered in 2002.

ellis123 posted...

? I had a friend show me how to do it well before then and Bulbapedia lists it as having been discovered in 2002.

Ugh nevermind my awful memory IDK what I was thinking lol

It is hilarious how bad the original games were. I absolutely love how most of the new pokeballs added in gen 2 do nothing or even the opposite of what they say.

Like the love ball only increasing the catch rate of same gender pokemon

Or how the fast ball only has increased odds on Magnemite, Grimer, and Tangels

And my favorite how they got the item ID wrong in the code so the Moon Ball only has increased catch chance for pokemon that evolve using a Burn Heal

firedoom666 posted...

Like the love ball only increasing the catch rate of same gender pokemon

To be fair that's pretty based.

Or Roman. Hard to say.

Kami_no_Kami posted...

Friendly reminder that Psyduck and Golduck STILL TO THIS DAY arent Psychic types and dont have any exclusive Psychic forms despite the psychic headache being Psyducks whole deal.

Plus the name

Rantman posted...

in Gen 1, crits do double damage and ignore your opponent's stat changes, which is normal so far...except it also ignores your stat changes. so if you use Swords Dance to double your attack, then use Slash for an auto crit, you do just as much damage as you would if you didn't use Swords Dance.

This might've been the most common way speedruns died back in the day.

You'd set up your 2 or 3 X-Specials on Blastiose to sweep with Surf/Blizzard and then you crit and the enemy survives since it ignored your special boosts and they kill you.

Kami_no_Kami posted...

Friendly reminder that Psyduck and Golduck STILL TO THIS DAY arent Psychic types and dont have any exclusive Psychic forms despite the psychic headache being Psyducks whole deal.

Psyduck and golducks names shouldve been swapped

firedoom666 posted...

It is hilarious how bad the original games were. I absolutely love how most of the new pokeballs added in gen 2 do nothing or even the opposite of what they say.

Like the love ball only increasing the catch rate of same gender pokemon

Or how the fast ball only has increased odds on Magnemite, Grimer, and Tangels

And my favorite how they got the item ID wrong in the code so the Moon Ball only has increased catch chance for pokemon that evolve using a Burn Heal

To be fair, this problem solved itself because you had to wait 24 whole goddam hours just for one ball.

Neither I nor anyone I knew even tried to use the apricot balls lol.

firedoom666 posted...

It is hilarious how bad the original games were. I absolutely love how most of the new pokeballs added in gen 2 do nothing or even the opposite of what they say.

Like the love ball only increasing the catch rate of same gender pokemon

Or how the fast ball only has increased odds on Magnemite, Grimer, and Tangels

And my favorite how they got the item ID wrong in the code so the Moon Ball only has increased catch chance for pokemon that evolve using a Burn Heal

Yeah, it's crazy how Pokemon was able to take off as a craze considering how wackily coded the early games were. I know there's a lot of gripes nowadays with companies that release games that are really only 80% done on launch day and they have to release a ton of patches and updates to get it to become what it's supposed to be, but the Gen 1 and Gen 2 games had some serious serious issues and yet the game still became part of the public consciousness despite not actually being particularly well-polished.

I still do take some umbrage with moves like Dragon Rage and Night Shade not finding a way to tell you what they did. Because there weren't many Ghost or Dragon moves in Gen 1 (I seem to recall Dragon Rage being the *only* Dragon-type move), you wanted to use them, but you had no idea what exactly they did, and of course the Dragon Rage move got worse as I got stronger. Always wondered why. It wasn't until Gen 3 came out and I was like "OHHH it does *FIXED DAMAGE*"

Stuff like psychic being super effective against ghost, ghost not having any real damaging moves besides Lick and Night Shade...yeah, yikes.