Tuesday, June 5

Ranking the Pokemon: #78- Gastly

Ugh. Remember when I said I'd try to finish these within a year? Yeah, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, Joey. But we will continue to make the effort until it's been 365 days and I still have like 56 more Pokes to go. Oh well.

There is some progress, however! With Gastly here, we have now gotten through all of the first-years, and even some of the lesser second-years and unevolveds. This is very exciting stuff.

I remember tearing through Pokemon Stadium's Petit Cup, which only allowed you to use first-years (and possibly unevolveds, I don't remember). But the rental Gastly was just a beast. You could easily sweep teams using just this noxious ball of, well, gas. It has amazing Special and Speed for a first-year, so much so that they're decent even if you're fighting someone that's completely evolved. Then you find out that the gasbag can learn all sorts of awesome moves, like Confuse Ray, Psychic, Thunderbolt and Explosion; and decent moves, like Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Night Shade and Mega Drain. And then it's game over. Sometimes it really is as simple as that.

The biggest issue I have with Gastly (and all the Ghost types, for that matter), is that all sorts of official Nintendo documentation (the player's guide, for instance, and even the game itself) seem to suggest that Ghost types are super-effective against Psychics, which would make Ghosts possibly the second best type, right? Well, in Generation I, that's not true. It legitimately may be a bug in the game--Ghosts ARE in fact supposed to be strong against Psychics, and are from the second series of games. But in Gen. I? Nope. Granted, there are only three Ghost moves in the whole game (and just one that can actually do variable damage, and that move, Lick, is bad), but still, it would have been nice if Nintendo and Game Freak weren't liars.

The other problem is that every Ghost in Generation I is also Poison, so...Psychics own them anyway. But Ghosts will handle everyone else, especially Normal and Fighting types, who can't even damage Ghosts. Fantastic.

Battling Grade: B

No comments:

Post a Comment