I headed back to Viridian City to battle Giovanni for the eighth gym badge. The battle was largely uneventful as he had ground and rock-type Pokémon. I made quick work of them all with my Blastoise and his water moves. After earning the Earth badge, I healed up and prepared to head to Victory Road to catch the third legendary bird, Moltres. My journey through Victory Road wasn’t bad at all– I used a strategy guide to find my way and reached Moltres in no time. I used my Blastoise to inflict enough damage to make Moltres catchable and went to throw my first Pokéball. I DIDN’T CHANGE THE BOX IN BILL’S PC SO I COULDN’T CATCH ANYTHING. Ugh. Such an amateurish mistake. I had to backtrack all the way through and sort out the Pokémon boxes. Once I made my way back to Moltres I caught him on my 12th Pokéball.

After catching Moltres, I had to find my way to the exit which was harder than expected. After the exit, I headed to Indigo Plateau to heal my team and purchase any potions for the Elite Four. Since my Blastoise was level 70 and my legendary birds ranged from levels 50 to 52, I decided to go with that team. I also had a Graveler (for Strength) and Weepinbell (for Cut) on my team. Little did I know that Weepinbell would play a crucial role in my eventual victory battling the Elite Four and my rival. My first try through the Elite Four was actually not that bad. I made it all the way to my rival, but ran out of PP for all of my Blastoise’s moves and all other Pokémon had fainted so I had to start over. It’s unfortunate that you can’t purchase any Elixirs in the game. My new strategy going in was to save Blastoise for as long as possible and use type matchups to beat each trainer. The hardest trainer to beat was Agatha due to her team of Poison and Ghost-type Pokémon, but I prevailed in the end. By the time I got to my rival, Blastoise had about half of his PP left for Body Slam. It was down to his last Pokémon, Venusaur and my Blastoise was knocked out by Mega Drain. With no options left and Venusaur at 75 percent health, my Weepinbell hopped into battle. I cast Sleep and the whittled away at Venusaur’s health with Vine Whip and Poison Powder. Sleep lasted three rounds and Venusaur’s attacks were not effective against my Grass Pokémon which was just enough to allow me to eventually knock out my rival’s final Pokémon and earn my place as Pokémon League Champion! I still had a few things to do in Pokémon Blue before I started the next step of my journey.

Generation I Living Dex Percentage: 41.06%
Generation I Living Dex Count: 62/151
National Living Dex Percentage: 9.55%
Played Time: 20 hours and 35 minutes