Three vs. Two: Breaking the Psychic Deadlock

THE PROBLEM

The first generation pokemon games, monumental pieces of video game history to be sure, are mired in gameplay issues and inconsistencies.  The calculation for critical hits, the absolute broken-ness of "wrap", the complete ineffectiveness of the ghost type in general (which couldn't hit normal, nor psychic types): the list goes on and on.  Of all of these issues, the Psychic Deadlock is the most widely known.

It is also the most substantial.

I like to describe Pokemon to those who don't play the games (nonbelievers, infidels, whatever you want to call them) as "extended rock, paper scissors".  It's a game of traits and how they interact with one another.  Choose any trait--it would be strong against some things and weak against other things.  For example, trees would be strong against rain, but weak against axes.  Humans are strong against dying alone, but weak against drain cleaner.  In Pokemon you have your standard fire/water/grass sort of thing going on: fire consumes grass, grass drinks water, water puts out fire, blahblahblah.  The way it worked was intuitive, for the most part.  Fire moves would deal double damage to grass pokemon and grass moves would deal halved damage to fire pokemon. There were many types that interacted in weird and sometimes silly ways.  As a matter of fact, in the first games there were 15 different types of Pokemon:

Grass, Poison, Ground, Flame, Electric, Water, Rock, Flying, Ice, Normal, Bug, Ghost, Fighting and Dragon.

Don't forget about Psychic.

While it was mentioned specifically and repeatedly in both the anime and the games that there was no "universally powerful" type, this was frankly untrue.  As it were, barring the existences of Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and Jesus, this is the first lie that I remember being told.  That type was "psychic".

Theoretically, the Psychic type had the same strengths and weaknesses as any other type.  It was listed as being strong against the fighting and poison types.  It was listed as being vulnerable to bug and ghost types.  On paper, it had the same shortcomings as any other type of pokemon.  The problem was in the execution.

There were 14 psychic pokemon in Generation 1 and even more that could learn psychic moves.  There were only 12 bug pokemon and 3 ghost pokemon in that same generation.  Furthermore, neither of these types had any resistance to psychic moves.  As a matter of fact, no pokemon in generation 1 would receive reduced damage from psychic moves except psychic pokemon themselves.

Sorry Ash, you can never win against a Psychic Pokemon

Here are a few facts.

1) There were 14 psychic pokemon in Gen 1.
2) There were 12 bug pokemon.
3) There were 3 ghost pokemon.
4) There were 33 poison pokemon.
5) There were 7 fighting pokemon.



This means that there were 39 pokemon that had a weakness to psychic moves and only 15 pokemon that had types that were listed as super-effective against the psychic type.

Also, there were only three moves that were introduced in total that dealt extra damage to these psychic pokemon.  These moves were "Twinneedle" (bug type), "Pin Missile" (bug type), and "Lick" (ghost type).  Only five pokemon in the game could learn these moves.  This means that of the 15 pokemon that, theoretically, would be strong against psychic pokemon, only 5 would actually be so effective.

Also Also, four of those pokemon were dual-type pokemon with the poison type.  This means that only one pokemon learned a move that would deal extra damage against a psychic pokemon without receiving extra damage from psychic attacks.  That pokemon was Jolteon and it was not even a bug, nor poison type.

Also Also Also, due to a glitch in the game, the only ghost type move in the game, "Lick", actually dealt zero damage to psychic pokemon.  Wow.

THE GENERATION 2 FIX

Clearly, there was a problem.  Gen 2 fixed this problem by adding two new pokemon types.  These were the "Dark" and "Steel" types.

Dark type pokemon are characterized by being sneaky or ruthless.  This type is called "evil" in Japan and for good reason: some of the first dark pokemon revealed were "witchy crow", and "devil hound". Psychic moves would be ineffective against the dark type.  Dark moves deal increased damage against psychic pokemon.

Steel Pokemon are pokemon that are made of iron or that have some affinity for iron.  Often these pokemon have high physical defenses.  Examples include "metal rock snake" and "magnet".  While steel pokemon do not deal increased damage to psychic types, they are resistant to psychic moves.

With the psychic deadlock finally broken, the pokemon franchise took huge steps towards rebalancing in such a way that made the game more playable.  There really wasn't any one type that was the best--and finally the gameplay reflected this.  I would stop short of saying that it was fixed.  There were some types that were still severely underpowered compared to others and many of these balance issues would persist well into the franchise history.  But by adding two new types, Gold and Silver fixed what was most broken and did so with style.

This and other small mechanics changes would cause major changes in the way the metagame was structured for Generation 2 games.  No one could have foreseen what would happen next...

Next: Breaking the Stall

Three vs. Two: Introduction to Gen 2

I was thinking the other day (fool that I am) and I have come to the conclusion that Gen 3 (Ruby/Sapphire) is better than Gen 2 (Gold/Silver).

Because I’m an older millennial who’s been doing this way too long, it should come as no shock that my favorite game in the series is Pokemon Silver version.  Partly, this is because it has my favorite starter of all (evidence shown), but I want to say that the bulk of the love I have for this title is due to all the things it fixed from the Generation 1 games.  

Okay, if we’re being honest, it’s probably mostly the nostalgia thing.  There is no denying that this game sparks strong feelings in Pokemon trainers my age because of the timing behind it.  Nostalgia is a devious sonuvabitch: often the memories that are remembered the most fondly turn out to be ones wherein the wait was paid off.  Put another way, the things that you remember with the most childish whimsy are those things where you waited for days and weeks and months patiently—that then lived up to the hype.

It is said that when "Pikablu" opens its eyes, the famines will begin...

I would argue that Pokemon 2 was that sort of memory, the kind of experience where the buildup was worth the wait.  The year 2000 was a time distinctly before the explosion of the internet: information about Pokemon 2 (or anything, for that matter) was scarce.  All we knew in America was that the game was out in Japan—and that it was awesome.  Some lucky ones of us had a friend who was a subscriber to “Beckett Pokemon Collector” because they were trading card collectors (I was this person in my circle of friends), so we were able to glean some little bit of honey from the information contained within.  A rare few of us had a friend with a Japanese copy of the title (often this friend was that rich prick you only hung out with because this person had BOTH a Playstation and a Nintendo 64, the bastard).  We knew that it was out—we even knew the Japanese names of some of the monsters— Otachi, Arigetsu, Redian— it was a wait unlike any other.  

Everyone knew a guy who knew a guy who worked for Nintendo and everyone had heard from a very reliable source that etc. etc.  It’s no wonder that the fan theories that erupted were so widely believed: “Pokegods" like "Nidogod" and “Pikablu”.  Who was “Houou” (eventually Ho-Oh)? Why was he in the anime already?!  All we could do was suppose.  And wait.

And as it were, Gen 2 was fantastic.

The games, Pokemon gold and silver versions, improved upon everything in the red and blue versions.  They offered a much more balanced and nuanced experience at both the technical level and the world-building level.  

But we must still address the elephant in the room. There is a large caste of the pokemon community collectively referred to as “gen one-ers” that is so fanatically devoted to the original installment that they refuse to see the positives in any other titles.  Along with this, they fail to see the negatives in their own favorite game.  Red version was phenomenal, but it had a lot of issues (which I would love to get into—some other time).  As a matter of fact, a lot of things about Pokemon that are currently taken for granted amongst current fans of the series can trace their origins back to the second or third generation, not the first.  

Taking the “Gen One-ers” out of the discussion (because fuck those guys, amiright?), the bulk of the rest of the pokemon community—especially those around my age (those in their twenties)—tends to favor Generation 2: Gold, Silver, and Crystal.  Their rankings of the titles in the series often manifest as some transposition of “Gen 2, Gen 1, 'all the rest’”.

I can’t deny that I am a member of this very same crowd.  This is something that actually causes me physical pain.  I am a contrarian and I hate being “just like everyone else”.  Alternatively, I cannot deny that Generation 2, the second game in the series, is undoubtedly my favorite.

However, because I am, above all else, a critic, I feel it important to come to terms with a few things about Generation 2 that maybe aren’t so great.  I was thinking about this this morning and I came to a startling conclusion that, while Silver version may be my favorite game in the series, it may actually be one of the weaker ones.  

I think that, on this the 20th anniversary year of pokemon, it might be a good idea to look back at my favorite game in the series with a more critical eye.  I will do my best to stay grounded and to give a fair assessment of the title.  I will also try my hardest to keep this from becoming one of those unbearable buzzfeed “Top X Things that are Awesome about BLANK” lists wherein everything is rationalized with “…because it’s awesome”.