Pokemon Fire Red Omega - No Level Part 2: Rival @ Cerulean
• Pokemon Fire Red Omega - No Level Part 1: ... Read the rules of the run here 3rd battle against Gary Oak. The rival battles are no joke in this hack, and even though Gary doesn't immediately throw a team of six at you, like the gym leaders do, his choice of Pokemon is eventually enough to cause a headache for the player, and sometimes his starter alone is a big issue. The starters in this game are Smoochum, Elekid and Magby. You choose one, and Blue will grab whichever one isn't weak to yours, and if you pick Elekid he'll go with Smoochum. The three starters have improved base stats, learnsets and earlier evolutions, so facing any of the rival's starters is always a big deal no matter what you picked. I picked Elekid as my starter (thought Static would be a big deal early on, but it was neither necessary not exclusive to Elekid as Mareep comes before the first gym and has Static too) so I'll be dealing with Smoochum and then Jynx during my run. Jynx's ice/psychic coverage is oftentimes hard to check and counter properly (in a run with level-ups, Starmie and Houndour more or less keep it in check forever), but at least Jynx is limited to just two attack types, whereas Electabuzz runs electric/ice/fire (because of the punches) and both Buzz and Magmar get Cross Chop eventually, making their offensive coverage enormous. With Jynx, at least I know that if I cover two types I'm doing well enough. Still, I get in huge trouble with Jynx later on (even considered the challenge being impossible but stopping to think solved that). This is the third battle against the Rival and IMO the first one worth showing. He has Golbat, Snubbull, Abra and Smoochum. Golbat is handled nicely thanks to Magnemite (the go-to for many enemies with so many resistances), Snubbull isn't all that hard either, and Abra only has Teleport and is the same joke as in vanilla. We stop laughing at Abra as soon as it evolves in the next encounter though (and Kadabra also learns elemental punches by level-up). Smoochum turns out to be the only problematic Pokemon. Solrock and Lunatone are two of the new Mt Moon Pokemon who really trivialise a portion of that dungeon, but against Smoochum they can't really survive the Ice Punch and retaliate. Since wild Pichus have Thunderstones on them, I got one and evolved my Pikachu, so now I have Raichu who can take a good hit and paralyse a troublesome opponent. After that, Solrock can come in and Rock Throw Smoochum. She's no longer as frail due to high level/higher base stats, but Solrock's not a pushover either. Overall, any starter Gary will pick will probably cause some difficulty for the player. Challenge playlist: • Pokemon Fire Red Omega - No Level-up Run (...
