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.
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| 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
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