With all the craziness surrounding COVID-19, my school district has been shut down for a month. During this period of "social distancing," I have had time to: move some firewood, learn a bunch of magic tricks, work on some coding projects, work out, and play video games. When I don't feel like sitting in my game room and playing on a large console, I switch to my handheld games. I grab my Yogibo bean bag and move to the family room where my wife will paint and we watch some movies together. I don't even want to get into the list of movies that we have watched since being isolated to our house, but while she is painting, I will often put a game in one of my handheld systems and enjoy some time in one of those worlds.
Out of nostalgia, I keep switching between Pokemon games. I've played some of Yellow, Blue, and Crystal on my Gameboy Color, some Ruby on my Gameboy Advanced, and then Pearl, Black, Y, and Moon. As I progressed through each game, I noticed that I usually stick to the same team in each generation or a similar style team. I've always loved having all three of the starter Pokemon. Starting back on Yellow, Blue, and Red, my best friend and I would use the long silver trading cable to give each other the three starting Pokemon. It took time because one person would have to keep resetting his game and picking a different starter each time. Then we would have to wait as Professor Oak and every other adult in the Pokemon world talked. Finally, my friend would be able to get to the Pokemon Center and we could trade. He would have to do that about 5 times (that way we both could have a set of the three starters) and then we'd finally have our team.
As each new game has come out, I have continued seeking the starter Pokemon as core members of my team. I don't know if it's because I feel bad choosing one of the adorable starters over the other two or I just know that they are going to be some of the better characters in the game, but either way, I collect the starters. As I have been going through each game and my PC boxes and looking through my assembled teams, I realized that I play each game with a very specific team. I collect as many Pokemon as I can, and can proudly say I have officially "collected them all," but I definitely use a specific group.
When I played with my friend, he usually picked the team that was used in the cartoon. My sister always picked a team that had the cutest water Pokemon. Some of my friends now pick teams because of their type, cuteness, and/or mega evolutions. Every one of my teams is based on:
1. The Pokemon's look (sorry Slowbro but you look lame so you're not on my team).
2. The Pokemon's move set versatility.
Since a trainer can only, for some bizarre reason, hold six Pokemon at a time, I like to be prepared for any situation and have a team that can utilize a move from every power set (i.e. fire, water, electric, ground, poison, etc). My teams are super versatile and a lot of the time I am able to quickly win matches because I always have someone with a move that is super effective.
Since I still have three weeks left, at least, of this social distancing and school closure, I have decided to test out some fan-made Pokemon challenges. The first one, I will be playing through one of the games (probably Sun) with a team selected from a random generator. This challenge requires me to use only the six Pokemon that were selected by the random generator. If one of the Pokemon is a first-level evolution, it has to remain at that stage for the entire game. I think it will be a super fun challenge and if the generator is generous and I somehow get lucky with my team, I will have six Pokemon who can be taught a bunch of different types of moves so we can be prepared for any opponent.
Below are my top teams from each generation. I have used each team in their specific generational game (i.e. Gen. 1 team in Yellow, Red/Blue) but I have also used them in Pokemon Y and Pokemon Moon to experiment with how they handle the newer characters and moves. Teams are picked based on Pokemon look (sorry Jynx but you don't make the list) and move diversity. The older generation games required players to play with only a few Pokemon because of what was available. The newer games allow players to catch most Pokemon from any generation, which makes the games so much more fun (in my opinion). Because the newer games allow you to more easily transfer Pokemon from one game to the other, I have been able to use each of these teams from the beginning of the game all the way through to the end. A friend purchased me an Action Replay for the 3DS as a gift, so I have been able to use that to reset the level of my teams and start out the game with low-level characters and then progress as they normally would. The following teams are all ones that I have taken to the Elite four and come out victorious.
Generation 1
Team 1:
Venusaur: Petal dance, solar beam, synthesis, earthquake
Charizard: flamethrower, flare blitz, dragon claw, aerial ace
Blastoise: water pulse, hydro pump, ice beam, dark pulse
Nidoking: thunderbolt, megahorn, earth power, sludge wave
Alakazam: psycho cut, psychic, shadow ball, dazzling gleam
Pikachu: thunderbolt, thunder, brick break, dig
Team 2:
Starmie: psychic, bubble beam, scald, brine
Arcanine: flamethrower, outrage, flare blitz, heatwave
Sandslash: aerial ace, brick break, slash, magnitude
Gengar: poison jab, dark pulse, dazzling gleam, shadow punch
Snorlax: body slam, solar beam, shadow ball, psychic
Jolteon: thunder, thunder fang, thunderbolt, last resort
Team 3:
Dugtrio: shadow claw, dig, earthquake, sludge wave
Gyarados: dark pulse, hydro pump, hyper beam, dragon tail
Lapras: surf, waterfall, ice beam, thunderbolt
Dragonite: dragon claw, outrage, aerial ace, extreme speed
Machamp: cross chop, brick break, flamethrower, poison jab
Kangaskhan: surf, ice beam, earthquake, solar beam
Generation 2
Meganium: magical leaf, grass knot, petal dance, aromatherapy
Typhlosion: lava plume, flamethrower, aerial ace, swift
Feraligatr: crunch, dragon claw, surf, ice beam
Ampharos: thunderbolt, discharge, electroball, signal beam
Espeon: psybeam, shadow ball, psychic, dazzling gleam
Tyranitar: shadow claw, brick break, dark pulse, earthquake
Generation 3
Sceptile: aerial ace, slam, leaf blade, x-scissor
Blaziken: poison jab, sky uppercut, flare blitz, blaze kick
Swampert: scald, hammer arm, ice beam, earthquake
Salamence: aerial ace, dragon claw, shadow claw, zen head butt
Aggron: brick break, dark pulse, iron tail, earthquake
Manectric: dark pulse, thunderbolt, flamethrower, discharge
Generation 4
Torterrra: leaf storm, Giga drain, earthquake, crunch
Infernape: close combat, flare blitz, poison jab, flame wheel
Empoleon: bubble beam, drill peck, ice beam, hydro pump
Luxray: spark, thunder, crunch, dark pulse
Garchomp: shadow claw, dragon rush, dig, crunch
Lucario: aura sphere, earthquake, psychic, extreme speed
Generation 5
Serperior: aerial ace, Giga drain, leaf storm, wring out
Emboar: poison jab, flare blitz, blast burn, head smash
Samurott: water pulse, aqua tail, ice beam, hydro cannon
Krookadile: foul play, shadow claw, earthquake, dig
Haxorus: brick break, outrage, dragon pulse, guillotine
Reuniclus: thunder, psychic, shadow ball, psyshock
Generation 6
Chesnaut: poison jab, wood hammer, seed bomb, hammer arm
Delphic: flamethrower, shadow ball, dazzling gleam, psychic
Greninja: scald, night slash, dark pulse, extrasensory
Tyrantrum: aerial ace, crunch, dragon claw, earthquake
Aurorus: freeze-dry, aurora beam, avalanche, bulldoze
Heliolisk: thunderbolt, surf, low sweep, parabolic charge
Generation 7
Decidueye: brave bird, leaf blade, sucker punch, spirit shackle
Incineroar: darkest lariat, cross chop, flare blitz, flamethrower
Primarina: ice beam, sparkling aria, moonblast, disarming voice
Melmetal: brick break, ice punch, solar beam, thunder punch
Zeraora: plasma fists, brick break, aerial ace, discharge
Golisopod: liquidation, sucker punch, poison jab, surf
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