TRAINER'S EYE #155 - "The Arcanine Take Down" ft. RBY Pokemon Challenges

What happens when you try to beat Pokémon Yellow with minimum battles, no items, EXP grinding, or stat boosts?

In this episode of As the Pokéball Turns, the creator behind RBY Pokémon Challenges on YouTube shares his history with the Pokemon franchise and inspiration behind his brutally difficult Gen 1 solo runs and GameShark fueled experiments. Starting with Pokémon Blue to mastering minimum battle runs, RBY Pokemon Challenges shares how nostalgia, strategy, and personal perseverance shaped his Pokémon journey. You'll also hear spicy theories about Arcanine and why Brock might be the hardest Gym Leader in the series.

This is more than a Pokémon interview, it’s a dive into the hardcore side of Gen 1 gameplay, Solo Challenges content creation, and what it means to truly test the limits of the game.

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Sources:
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay

Transcript

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 0:00

I am RBY Pokemon Challenges, and this is my Pokemon story.

David Hernandez: 0:42

welcome to, as the Poke Ball Turns, we'll interview people about their experience with Pokemon. My name is David Hernandez. I'm joined by RBY Pokemon Challenges. You can find'em over on YouTube doing the hardest Gen one solo challenges on YouTube. and he's here to share his story and how he got on into all this. RBY. Welcome to as the pickleball Turns.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 1:02

Hello. Thanks for having me. you can call me Teo, by the way, but yes, from RBY Pokemon Challenges and GSC Pokemon Challenges actually. So appreciate you having me here.

David Hernandez: 1:13

Absolutely. And you know, when I sent you the message to have you on the show, you know, I've been a big fan of yours for a while because I love how you approach your content. specifically I think I found you through either the Water Dragon REOs video, or specifically, especially for sure, me two. And before we, you know, dive in, anything, what made you kind of want to do the hardest challenges? Have you always had an affinity for it or is it just something that turned into content?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 1:37

Yeah, so what I do on my channel is really, I guess influenced by the way, I played Pokemon as a kid.'cause like I played Pokemon a ton as a child. My first game ever was Pokemon Blue and. You got, kind of sick of just playing Bulbo Charmander Squirtle from the start of the game. So I got my hands on a game Shark way back in the day, you know, when you had to like plug the game shark into the game boy. Right. and I used to just change my starters, changed my Pokemon, changed my moves. I did all this stuff just to kind of keep the game fresh and interesting. And so it translated to a lot of what I do now on my channel.

David Hernandez: 2:16

So for those who don't know, the game Sharks, the old school where you could hack the game and be able to get like infinite rare candies or get the glitches or whatever have you,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 2:25

Right.

David Hernandez: 2:26

During those times, I guess you would get like a different type of starter, like say a Spearow or get like a Nidoran or a Vulpix. Is that kind of what you would do?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 2:33

Absolutely. So, I mean, it started with that style where I would, just hack it. So the second you went to route one instead of Pidgey, for example, you'd be finding Jolteon, But after a while of doing that, I got to the point where I was like, wait, what if Jolteon had a poison type? Because it, you know, maybe just is interesting to see how the poison type Jolteon would do. I don't know. So, you know, I never liked playing the game just as it was. I liked to kind of take things further and just experiment with things to see what I could do beyond that,

David Hernandez: 3:06

It's like you wanted to test the limits of the game itself and see like how far could you push the

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 3:11

I.

David Hernandez: 3:11

boundaries of, I guess, obtainability to impossibility?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 3:15

Right. And it, it's one of those things that's very interesting now because, you know, in the newest versions of Pokemon, they've added things like Terraforms, right? Where you like terastilize. I'm probably not saying that right, but, where you can actually change the Pokemons type in these newest versions of the game. And it's just interesting to me that I was basically using a game shark to do something similar way back in the day.

David Hernandez: 3:40

So what you're saying is Pokemon should pay you because this idea 25 years ago and here we are. They're using it now.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 3:45

I know, right? I should have totally documented it and patented it back then. You know,

David Hernandez: 3:50

Yeah. Yeah.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 3:52

I, I don't think I would win against Nintendo's lawyers and the Pokemon company's lawyers, but, you know,

David Hernandez: 3:58

God bless our souls if any of us get attacked by their lawyers, and we're now, we're all screwed,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 4:03

se Seriously. Seriously,

David Hernandez: 4:05

I guess it sounds like you continued with the games. Did you go, what was the series after that? After Gen one?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 4:10

Yeah, so honestly, like I said, Pokemon Blue version was my first game ever and I had one of those old, you know, gray game boys, like the original brick game boys that you could probably use as a weapon. Right. Um, but

David Hernandez: 4:27

It's like with

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 4:28

yeah. Yeah. And you know, so it was the original and so I had one of those from my mother. She had gotten it, I don't know how, but somehow she had that in the house. And so I got Pokemon Blue version, but then for a long time I couldn't actually upgrade. I didn't have the Game Boy color or Game Boy Advance, et cetera. it wasn't until I was in junior high that I actually got Pokemon Silver, and then I hadn't played Gen three and beyond until I was in college. So for like years and years and years. My only Pokemon games were Pokemon, red, blue, yellow, of course Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Crystal. And then I had gotten, finally, eventually I got a in 64 with Pokemon Stadium but those were basically my games as a kid.

David Hernandez: 5:13

That's wild.'cause usually most people would tear off after a while if they have to play the same game for, I'm assuming since middle school, we're talking four to five years.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 5:21

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 5:22

the Pokemon RBY and a little bit of GSC for four to five years. Nonstop. Well, not nonstop, but you know what I mean.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 5:29

Yeah, I, I mean it really was like that, you see, just, just a little background on me. you know, without going into too much detail, I was my parents' second kid, and I was born when they were 20. So we were broke, like, broke, broke. I remember asking my dad for video games and he was just like, what? Like, we don't have the money for that. What are you on? So it was actually my grandmother who would help me save money. And finally, once I had saved enough money, was like, you can buy a video game. So I got her to take me downtown. We went to Walmart. I remember back in the day buying Pokemon Blue version as my first game. And because of that experience, like for many years there, I didn't really get new games. I didn't have other consoles, et cetera. So Pokemon Blue version was my game. I played it religiously. I played it day and night, and like I said, eventually I got a game shark so that I could change Pokemon and this and that and the other thing. But, so I guess what it led to was me diving into that game. Deeper than I think a lot of folks would like. A lot of folks would just play the game, maybe do a catch'em all, maybe you know, some different team building challenges, but eventually they'd get sick of it and move to the next generation. Whereas for me, for quite a few years there that was what I did. I played Pokemon Blue and I would just do all kinds of crazy things in that game.

David Hernandez: 6:54

It reminds me, similar to my experience with Gen three. gen

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 6:57

Hmm.

David Hernandez: 6:57

favorite generations. And the reason why is because I was lucky enough, my mom was able to afford to gimme an Nintendo ds. I remember I went on a camping trip and I left my Ds on the chair to go use the restroom. It was like one of the moving buses. And you know, I was maneuvering through and. I am the bus driver decides to stop and I literally kid you not did a flip in that middle of the air and landed next to my chair. when I look next to me, my DS is on the ground and it's broken. So it's, it's unusable. It's basically the screen is like completely, you know, black and white and whatever. So I can't use the DS and I can't afford a new one. So this is like really fresh, right When Diamond and Pearl just launched, so we're talking like a few months.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 7:43

Hmm.

David Hernandez: 7:43

I missed out on, not missed out, but I was delayed on gen four because we couldn't afford to get a new Diaz. Those were very expensive,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 7:51

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 7:51

I had to go back to gen three and play those religiously for multiple times. I played them so many times. I could probably memorize it at this point.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 8:00

Right, right. And I mean gen three, honestly, with the larger number of Pokemon, of course, what it was like 380 or so at that point, I wanna say. But

David Hernandez: 8:10

like that.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 8:10

I. Like, obviously you had tons and tons of Pokemon, you had abilities. Natures like so many more mechanics than Gen One had. Like Gen one was so basic, but you know, it's, it's nostalgia, I guess. So probably the same for you with Gen three.

David Hernandez: 8:27

When it came to Pokemon specifically, was the games the only way you can kind of engage it with it at that age, or did you do the anime or the cards at all?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 8:35

Yeah. So I got into Pokemon cards because of my neighbor. he was, you know, one of those like only children who got everything that he wanted, right? So

David Hernandez: 8:45

Oh my gosh.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 8:46

you, you gotta remember when Pokemon cards first came out, they had like a starter pack that you could get, and I forget what the shiny that was like guaranteed in that one was. you know, so you'd buy this starter pack and then you'd buy all the, you know, like normal booster packs. Right. And he was one of those kids who had his shiny charr card, which was the thing back then. You know, like, I think I saw an auction that one of the original, first gen of Tgc Charizard cards that was in mint condition went for a ridiculous amount of money. But, At that time, he would collect them. So of course I, I was his neighbor kid and I had to try to follow what he was doing. I eventually convinced Grandma to help me get some Pokemon cards,

David Hernandez: 9:29

Oh,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 9:30

but I,

David Hernandez: 9:31

out to grandma,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 9:32

yeah, seriously, no, grandma was the whole reason I was playing Pokemon dude. Like without her, Mom and Dad were not, not gonna have it, you know? So, but I never played the card game like properly. It was more just collecting. then the anime, of course, I also watched quite a bit, but I had, I used to have it on VHS, like the first season, the Indigo League. it was one of those things where this, this is really dating myself, but back in the nineties it used to be a thing where whenever you made like magazine subscriptions. You would get these things that would come around where you had to make like X number of subscriptions or whatever, and then you could get a discount. And so same grandmother, she would get these, you know, magazine subscriptions, whatever, but somehow you could also get like music CDs and you could get VHS tapes on some of these. And I remember that she had gotten her subscription with my Pokemon VHSs coming, so It was back in the Indigo League. I had the VHS tapes and I used to just watch those religiously. Of course. it's the whole reason I was so upset when Pokemon yellow came out because my Pikachu could not use thunder shock on Brock's Onix. You know, like I was like, come on, this is based on the anime. I have to be able to beat Onyx with Pikachu, but no.

David Hernandez: 10:53

Never did, unfortunately. Tried a couple times. Trust tr here multiple times I should say.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 10:57

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 10:59

So you were in this circle of Pokemon and

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 11:02

Hmm

David Hernandez: 11:02

know, you said you eventually in college is when you finally went into the other games. Do

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 11:06

hmm.

David Hernandez: 11:06

have particular favorite region outside of the first two that you really enjoyed playing? Or is it kind of still those two that you hold fondly?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 11:12

for me, gen one is the greatest Pokemon generation of all time. And, it's not close. It's not close. Like, yes, I, I know that people will say like, but the Gen one games were buggy and they had so many mistakes and even come on, there are gen three remakes of those games, but Gen one was that generation for me, where it was all new, it was all fresh, it was all like, when. Professor Oaks says A world of dreams and adventures with Pokemon awaits right? Like that's my feeling towards Gen one. As I got to later gens, I felt they were so meticulous about trying to balance things out and add new mechanics, that for me, it actually took away a little bit from the magic of the original generation. But that's just me personally.

David Hernandez: 12:01

I guess I could see that because, I mean, it's kind of ironic when you consider B Two's the most broken Pokemon of all time in general one,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 12:08

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 12:09

But I guess I get from your point, because you know, when you talk about Gen one and gen two, It's a very simple mechanic. There's no EVs. All IVs, I believe are maxed, by default. And then you come into Gen three and gen four, now they're having to be more conscientious of, well, what kind of Pokemon do we want to put out there?'cause it's gonna affect our VGC. It's like, at that point, I think it went from discovery to where Pokemon's more now established and now they're having to make sure that they're I guess, doesn't. short circuit stuff, I guess, if that makes sense.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 12:37

Yeah, I think they started to realize after. Nintendo Cup back in Gen one that they needed to do something to actually make competitive balanced. It seems like from there onward there was much more of a focus on competitive balance in the games, whereas Gen One is just so inherently imbalanced. it's more about the story and about the experience for me, I guess in that sense. But There's a lot of fun challenges that I can foresee doing in later gens, but for now, gen one, that's, that's just because it's my, it's my OG favorite, you know.

David Hernandez: 13:11

I was curious, do you have a favorite Pokemon at all?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 13:14

of course my favorite Pokemon of all time is Arcanine. people who watch my GSC channel will know because I'm doing this big. Minimum battles series where we're finding every Pokemon that can beat the game without any optional battles whatsoever. And every time that we get to Arcanine, I scout ahead to the next gym, the next section to show'em that section is Arcanine. He's, he is the legendary Pokemon. Okay. Like, I don't, I don't want to hear about any, you know, other Legendaries. No, he's the legendary Pokemon. So, you know, fight fighting words.

David Hernandez: 13:50

OG before the OGs

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 13:51

Well, I mean, it was episode two of the anime. He was shown next to the three legendary birds of Kanto in the, uh, Pokemon Center in Viridian City. So originally, I'm pretty sure Arcanine was actually supposed to be the ultimate Pokemon that Mewtwo became, but that they retconned it and made me two instead. That's, that's my, my, you know, tinfoil hat theory here.

David Hernandez: 14:15

That is such a spicy take. I've never would've thought of that because I remember that was Arcanine was one of the first ones, and I even thought it was legendary'cause it's called the legendary Pokemon for a reason, you know?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 14:24

Right, right. Exactly. So, I'm just saying, I'm just, just throwing that out there that maybe just maybe Arcanine is actually supposed to be the best Pokemon.

David Hernandez: 14:33

So when we come to talking about you starting YouTube, your YouTube journey, what led you to want to start into YouTube. What made you wanna start creating content?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 14:43

so I didn't actually intend to make a YouTube channel for quite a while. And what had happened is, so I live in Japan, and during Covid of course, everything shut down here, just like I think it did for a while over there in the States. And I was working for these English conversation schools here at the time. Of course they were losing students like crazy because of covid. Uh, nobody wanted to go to these, you know, optional after school things, you know? Right. So my boss basically came to me and said, Hey, we're gonna start making content for things like YouTube. So you gotta figure it out. for me personally, whenever I have to learn something new, whether it's programming, whether it's, video production and editing, things like that, I always like to do projects of my own that I'm actually interested in. That's how I motivate myself to learn new skills. So I actually started the YouTube channel. as a way to learn about it, editing and learn about, you know, video production basically while just doing something that I personally found interesting. So that's why I started the channel originally. It wasn't just because I wanted to, you know, make videos about Pokemon. That was just kind of a byproduct. Of course, it eventually took on its own thing and. I was watching my, works YouTube channel, you know, sit there with like 20 subscribers and I was starting to get hundreds, and I was like, oh, wow, you know, I can actually do this. You know, and I was starting to, you know, make advice to my boss, like, maybe we should make content more like this. And they wouldn't listen to me. I, it's like, okay, well, you know, like. You know, but I mean, that, that is how it goes. But, so when I started the channel, of course I wanted to do something that I was interested in Pokemon, but I also wanted to not just repeat what everybody else was doing. because that's not very interesting. Like, you know, my favorite YouTuber at the time in the Pokemon space was J Rose 11, I if you don't know J Rose 11 and you're listening to this, like, what are you doing, you know?

David Hernandez: 16:44

he's a very good str. Similar content to what you were doing actually.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 16:48

Yeah, but I, I mean, I didn't want to just copy what he was doing, but I latched onto something that he had done a couple times, but he hadn't really taken it all the way, in my opinion, which is minimum battles, right? So he did minimum battles with like teams and changing Pokemon, and then he did two solo runs at the time that. Were minimum battles. It was his Poliwag run and his Gastly run. He had done his minimum battles full game solo runs with a single Pokemon. And that just got me thinking, well, if he can do minimum battles with first stage Pokemon, then there must be a massive number of Pokemon that can do minimum battles. Right? So. That's how I actually started out was a minimum battle series, just trying to find every Pokemon that could possibly beat Gen one on minimum battles. Turns out that it's about 78 Pokemon give or take.

David Hernandez: 17:37

I guess just to get some clarity, for those who may not know, what does it mean to beat Pokemon RBY on minimum battles?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 17:43

Yeah, so again, I, I think I mentioned it a little bit earlier, but that means that you take no optional battles whatsoever. You do no grinding whatsoever. You can't fight wild Pokemon. You can't fight any trainers that are not required to move on in the game. I. So in Pokemon red and blue, that turns out to be 68 required trainer battles. Assuming you don't poke at all, glitch or use any other glitches to move around. And in Pokemon yellow that turns out to be 65 required trainer battles. So basically you're essentially saying, if I only fight these 65 trainers, can I beat the game?

David Hernandez: 18:19

And basically, you said 78 Pokemon can only do it

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 18:22

Yeah, so I did it in Pokemon yellow and I did it with 78 Pokemon. But you gotta keep in mind that of those 78, there are some that are really reasonable to do it with and there are some Pokemon that are really marginal, and I was really doing a lot of resetting to get it to work. So.

David Hernandez: 18:41

a different type of shiny hunting where you're not soft resetting for the shiny hunter. You're software setting open. The odds of the moves of the,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 18:47

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 18:48

AIs actually used.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 18:50

yeah, it was much later than that, that I started using the overlay that I use now. I now basically. wrote a, computer program that will track things like resets and and whatnot in real time. And. I know for a fact that I have one run that I've shown on the channel where I literally reset a thousand times in order to just demonstrate to people clearly this is not reasonable, this is not reasonable.

David Hernandez: 19:16

times

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 19:16

It is possible, but it is not reasonable. Like'cause Gen one is different from later gens in that there's what's called the one in 256 glitch. Any move can miss one in 256 times. So. Essentially, there is no such thing as a truly impossible run in Gen one, as long as you can hit ghost types, which is another discussion. But basically nothing is impossible in Gen one outside of that one limitation of not being able to hit ghosts. Otherwise, you will eventually beat the game with any Pokemon. It's just a question of is it reasonable to do so? and. That's, I guess one of the charms to me of Gen one is that you can actually get these incredibly lucky situations, whereas in later gens, of course, they made it where a hundred percent accuracy means a hundred percent accuracy,

David Hernandez: 20:10

Mm-hmm.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:11

suddenly there are actually completely impossible battles. Right. So it's just kind of an interesting quirk of Gen one, I guess to me.

David Hernandez: 20:19

So just to give an idea of your rules. So this is the rules you have listed on your YouTube. You have no zero dvs, which means the lowest possible stat.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:27

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 20:28

no items in battle, which obviously it's Gen one. Oh. Or basically you wouldn't use healing items. You wouldn't use like X attacks, X defends.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:34

Right?

David Hernandez: 20:34

have no stat boosting vitamins, so you don't boost any of the Pokemon stats.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:38

Yes.

David Hernandez: 20:38

have no other Pokemon in battle except for the hm Pokemon, like I guess a Pidgey or Paras is usually the ones you go to.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:45

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 20:45

then your timer starts when you select a new game. Right.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:47

Right.

David Hernandez: 20:48

so what I wanna ask,'cause you also have a scoring system, and I

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:51

Yes.

David Hernandez: 20:51

you came up with this. So the

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 20:53

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 20:53

it starts with a score of a hundred points. It's minus 0.1 points for a reset. You have a minus 0.25 per optional battle and so forth and so forth. How did you come up with that scoring system?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 21:04

so this was in summer of 2022 that I introduced that, and I was basically trying to find a more objective way to compare Pokemon in minimum battles, because the difference between minimum battles and say a speed run, right, is that. the challenge is different, right? When you're in a speed run, your whole point is like, how fast can I execute? You know, knowing the, correct places to escape rope from knowing exactly when to open the menu, when not to open the menu. There are all these little intricacies there, but in minimum, battles content. It's more about can you beat the game within the constraint of just these few trainers, And. So nothing is necessarily going to be completely consistent there. So you need to have a system where, you know, sure, you maybe take more resets with this Pokemon, but how does that compare to a few other things? Right? for me personally, based on the fact of trying to beat the game on minimum battles as my go-to, I consider it worse for a Pokemon to take optional battles than to just reset. If I can reset within reason, if I can see like a logical way to win the fight, then I'd rather just reset and try to get through. That's my opinion. nobody else has to agree with that. That's just my approach. And so I always felt like, okay, resets aren't really worth that much unless we're taking tons and tons of resets, at which point, sure, you know, this Pokemon is terrible, but, um. I, I would rather in general, take a couple resets rather than fight an extra battle. Then I also limit TMS as much as possible in my runs. And the reason for that is because in Gen one in. Particular, there are very few good moves, if I'm being honest. Like, you know, when you look at competitive Pokemon in gen one, it's like, you know, ice beam, blizzard, thunderbolts, earthquake, you know, hyper beam, body slam. You know, like there's only a few moves that are actually considered like top tier and viable in gen one. The problem that I see in again, this is just my personal opinion, but when I watch a lot of solo challenge content, is that they end up just using the exact same strategy with multiple Pokemon, because those are the only viable moves. that's good and fine, but for me personally, it just gets to be a bit repetitive as the runner. Like, okay, so every time I'm just gonna add these same moves on. I found it just to be a bit more interesting to try to beat the game with a Pokemon without using those tms, or at least as much as possible without using those tms. so by doing that, like I've had some really bizarre and interesting runs come out of that. For example, Tentacruel in Pokemon Yellow. I beat the game on minimum battles with a Tentacruel without using a single tm in spite of the fact that it doesn't learn a single strong move until it gets to hydro pump at like level 50 something. The rest of the game. I was running, poison sting, I was running rap, I was running water gun at one point. I was, I actually used constrict in order to slow down kogas Venomoth enough that I could use Wrap in order to defeat it. So basically like I've had runs that came out that were really interesting because of the fact that I tried to beat the game without using those moves and without level grinding and without using vitamins. Like just some kind of crazy hardcore, like, you know, we're almost going like Kai level of craziness here and we're staying in vanilla, Pokemon, red, blue, and yellow.

David Hernandez: 24:41

So just to give some context, just since you used Tentacruel as example, you start out with acid supersonic and wrap.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 24:47

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 24:47

You don't get a new move until level 18 with poison sting

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 24:50

yeah,

David Hernandez: 24:51

and then you got water gun constrict, God forbid,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 24:54

yeah,

David Hernandez: 24:55

and that's really all you're working with and

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 24:57

yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. So the, the whole point is you don't have a single move that is stronger than like 40 power until you get to hydro pump at the very end of the game. And. It's a slow level up group Pokemon, so you're also not getting to level 18, for example, very quickly. So, you know, you're beating Brock basically with, supersonic strats and Wrap strats basically. Like it's, it gets ridiculous. It gets ridiculous quick,

David Hernandez: 25:26

And I

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 25:26

hey,

David Hernandez: 25:27

talking about because I think the other option, usually people, they go for the badge boost. the badge

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 25:30

yeah.

David Hernandez: 25:31

who don't know, it's where if you use a status move such as sword dance, agility, whatever have you, in gen one. If you have the badges and you get all the boosts, they all get a plus one, I believe, or a plus two if I'm not mistaken. So eventually becomes to the point to where you're just using those moves and those Pokemon that had those moves or have access to those moves are the ones who come out on top.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 25:51

Yeah, it's, it's related to the badges, but it's, it's not quite a plus one or plus two. What it is, is it's a plus 12.5%. So if you've got Brock's Boulder badge, for example, that's a 12.5% boost to your attack stat. So if you use a move like withdraw after that, that boosts your defense. The games programming has this error where it also raises your attack by 12.5%. So. You can get some crazy stuff going with the badge Boost Glitch, like I have only seen Jay Rose 11, for example, use the badge boost. Glitch up to six times intentionally in a battle. But I had to run way back in the day where I showed using 18 badge boosts in a single battle in order to overcome an opponent. Yeah. So I was running squirtle. and basically what I was showing was that Squirtle was really struggling to beat Lance because it's just a, you know, not very strong Pokemon. So I was all, all the way at the end of the game, I'm playing on minimal battles. I can't backtrack, I can't go get more rare candies, I can't go, you know, fight more trainers. I have to beat him with what I got. So what I was showing was that basically by using withdraw. Six times and then using double team six times, which I know people hate double team, but it was for the badge boost. That was the point. and then also getting Lear from the Gyarados six times. I had 18 badge boosts on that Pokemon and.

David Hernandez: 27:19

crud.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 27:20

That and that turned that situation where six badge boosts effectively doubles your stats. So by the time you have 18 badge boosts, you have doubled and doubled, and doubled. You are now eight times your original stat. So at that point, even a Squirtle is just basically a one hit KO machine, you know, using, surf or using, you know, blizzard, whatever it's using. It doesn't matter. You're just destroying everything at that point.

David Hernandez: 27:48

Right.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 27:49

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 27:49

18. Can you imagine 18 boosted escort,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 27:53

yeah.

David Hernandez: 27:53

anything? Could probably be the, the belief for.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 27:56

Right, right. Exactly. I mean. I have runs, one of the nice things of this live overlay that I use is that you can see my stats in battle in real time. So I've had runs where I've shown, like all of my stats are literally 999 at this point. So you know, I should be one shotting anything at this point, even with some sort of ridiculously weak bog.

David Hernandez: 29:06

One thing I wanted to ask, because I've, I've seen your overlays. You always use Pokemon yellow. Why just Pokemon yellow? Do you not wanna go to Pokemon, red and blue, or you just prefer that game?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 29:14

I do play Pokemon Red and blue as well. Like the video on my channel is actually a ROM hack of Pokemon Red and blue that I put together where all the AI trainers are using the Smogon competitive move sets.

David Hernandez: 29:26

Yes.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 29:27

Which is a whole, fun, interesting challenge in and of itself. And I'm looking to play with that a little bit more. But, yellow is my base game because of the fact that overall, there are nitpicky places where we can argue, but overall, Pokemon yellow is a harder game than Pokemon red and blue. And it has to do with two factors. Number one is the fact that they revamped all of the gym leaders. Teams move sets in that version of the game, and in some cases, they just outright changed their Pokemon to be better. just to give a very clear example, when we look at the Koga fight in Pokemon red and blue, he's using two Koffing, a Muk, and a Weezing. Well, the final Weezing can basically be cheesed in that fight by just using dig or fly against it because it has. At least a one in four chance of using self-destruct. So you can have a Pokemon that has no business winning that fight, but as long as you get the dig or the fly off, you're at least one in four to win. Once you get to the Weezing in Pokemon Yellow, on the other hand, he's rocking three Venonats and a Venomoth, and they're using, of course, the Move toxic, but they're also using Psybeam and Psychic throughout the. Battle and the Venomoth has double team to be extra trolley against you, so it's actually a lot harder to beat Koga in Pokemon yellow than in Pokemon Red and blue.

David Hernandez: 30:51

Now you've done so many different ideas by the Hmm. my idea, which I was flattered you did the Venomoth bug and psyche type. So definitely

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 30:58

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 30:58

'cause that was my idea. That was my

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 31:00

yeah, yeah. Thank you.

David Hernandez: 31:02

you're welcome. what's one of, I guess, one of your favorite videos that you've enjoyed or one challenge that you enjoyed that you were surprised by?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 31:10

So one of my favorites, I guess, of all time. So I'll, I'll, I have to give you a top three because I've done so many at this point.

David Hernandez: 31:16

yeah, yeah. Go for it.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 31:17

So, so my first favorite video that I ever did was when I did a full game, level five, no experience run with Gyarados in Pokemon Red and Blue. And the point of that video is that every trainer in Pokemon Red and blue, except for Misty, has at least one Pokemon that uses a non-damaging move against the player. And what that means is that. Even a level five Pokemon with the right moves is theoretically capable of beating the entire game. Of course, you end up using completely op, broken strategies, like substitute double team toxic rest, right? But it's still possible is the point. So. When we talk about solo challenges in Pokemon Red and blue in particular, it's not a question of can the Pokemon beat the game? It's just more a question of. How consistent is it or what level do you have to get to? Pokemon Yellow, on the other hand, actually has more trainers that always attack you. Misty's first Pokemon always attacks you. Erica's first Pokemon always attacks you, and the champion's first. Pokemon the Sandslash always attacks you, so that changes the calculus quite a bit. Where now in Pokemon Yellow, it's not actually possible to just cheese the game with any Pokemon. There are actually a lot of situations where if you are at a low enough level, you're guaranteed to be knocked out by the opponent. I love that run just because of that, that's what I was trying to show with that. the second run that I love is the Mewtwo with no repeat TMS run. This is like a really oldie on the channel, but I was trying to not use the same moves in any boss battle that I had used in the previous run. So like the second I used psychic in a battle, psychic is off the table, I ended up beating rival six. So the rival just before you go to the Pokemon League with the move set of rage, substitute and reflect, and basically. What happens there is rage in gen one is not like later gens. The second you use rage. You cannot stop using that move. You're locked in permanently. But by using reflect. You cut the physical damage against you in half and then you set up a substitute and now you're also able to tank a bunch of physical hits, and it turns out that the rival's first Pokemon the Sandslash loves to use Fury swipes against you. So it's hitting you like two to five times with this incredibly weak move, especially after it's cut in half with reflect and it builds up rage to the maximum amount. And it turns out that rage when it boosts your attack in gen one also causes the badge boost glitch. So all of your other stats are also increasing your speed, your defense, your, special are all going up. So you're actually becoming more and more defensively bulky every time he does that and rage turns out to be enough to win that fight. That one was just insane to me. Like it's such a ridiculous strategy, but I was trying to keep the good moves for the Elite Four and the Champion, so it was like, oh, I guess I can use rage here. It worked. Yeah.

David Hernandez: 34:26

I think this is also, if I can, intercede real quick.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 34:28

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 34:28

a good example of how diverse your rules have given you.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 34:32

right.

David Hernandez: 34:33

anybody who listens, when's the last time you've ever used rage in a Pokemon battle? Do you even know what rage does nowadays? How many

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 34:40

I. Yeah.

David Hernandez: 34:40

that move, you know?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 34:42

Yeah. Well, and in Jed one, they made rage, like a level up move on. A lot of Pokemon, like char art, I remember would learn rage, but it was at such a high level. You'd think it was a really good move. And so as a kid, the first time I played, I always thought the newest move was the better move, right? So I'd replace the older moves with the newer moves,

David Hernandez: 35:00

Mm-hmm.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 35:01

and then you get to rage and you're like, wait, what?

David Hernandez: 35:04

Especially for me, especially when you see the animation on Pokemon Stadium specifically, you see it red. I'm like, oh, this is a strong move. And it's like, no, it's not just.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 35:12

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 35:12

Very liable. It's tackles even better, I think,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 35:15

Yeah, exactly. At at least before it boosts up. Yeah, tackles significantly better. so that's one of the things in Pokemon Red and Blue, if you're up against the Charizard team of the rival, like the champion will end up sometimes using rage at the end. You know if you have any Pokemon that isn't weak to fire, basically he's got at least a one in four chance, a lot of times a one in two chance of using rage. And then you're just kinda like, ah, come on. Like this is supposed to be the champion battle, really like.

David Hernandez: 35:43

Right. And you gotta Pokemon that knows Rage that's locked in and we'll never switch it again.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 35:48

Yeah, but it, it's just hilarious when the AI uses it against you and you're just like, okay, free win. you know, might take multiple attempts on this fight because he, he just has a chance to punt the fight basically. So, you know, but anyway, so, so that was just, it tickled me so much to be able to actually win. A serious battle in a Pokemon game with rage. That, that just was so funny to me. so I loved the No repeat Moves Mewtwo, I loved, of course, the level five Gyarados. And then the third one I would say was that Tentacruel run with no tms, just because of the fact that what I find in these no TMS runs when I do them is that it puts more pressure on you to actually think about how moves could interact with certain situations. Right. So The Tentacruel using constrict in order to lower opponent's speed enough that now it can use wrap, which worked differently in gen one. It actually locked your opponent out of moving, you could create these like, you know, strategies where constrict is now a useful move, which I don't think anybody's ever said in the history of Pokemon.

David Hernandez: 36:54

I time ever in a podcast history has been ever said.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 36:57

Yeah. So, uh, constrict is useful if you're trying to beat the game with no tms, with a Tentacruel. you know, so,

David Hernandez: 37:07

Only that situation. That's it.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 37:09

it, it's, it's a very niche situation, but it does work.

David Hernandez: 37:13

Tangela.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 37:14

Tan it too. Yeah, tan it could get it done. the problem with Tangela of course, is that you got Tangela so late in gen one, right? It's just on that little patch of grass just south of Palette Town. So. I remember playing the game and getting Tangela and seeing its moves and just being like, Nope, this Pokemon just goes into the box. It's there for the catch'em all. That's it.

David Hernandez: 37:37

I think Tangela doesn't learn a new move until thirties either.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 37:40

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 37:41

if you did tangle, no tms, it would be, you'd be worse than Tencor, honestly. Lemme

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 37:46

yeah. Yeah.

David Hernandez: 37:47

Yeah, your first, oh God. So if you did Tangela, you would actually get a new move blind at level 24, but you'd be stuck with constrict for 24 levels

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 37:57

Yes, exactly. Which is why we don't do Tangela runs. Come on. I,

David Hernandez: 38:05

coming soon to a video near you on YouTube.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:07

seriously. Seriously. But I, I mean it, you know, even Shuckle gen two, right?

David Hernandez: 38:13

Right.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:13

It's rocking, constrict, but at least it has that massive defense and special defense. But Tangela doesn't have any of that,

David Hernandez: 38:19

It

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:20

you know?

David Hernandez: 38:20

dude, you'd have to rely on struggle at that point. I don't even know

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:23

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 38:24

get through the game with that.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:26

yeah. I mean, like, you could get through the game once you actually got moves, but in the early game, oh my gosh.

David Hernandez: 38:32

Yeah,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:32

pain, pain.

David Hernandez: 38:33

was just thinking Brock. Yeah, Brock would beat us. You wouldn't be able to do it.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:36

Yeah. Nah, it's, it's not pretty, I'll tell you that much. It's not pretty.

David Hernandez: 38:41

It sounds like, you know, from experience, do you have like flashbacks going in your mind right now?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 38:45

Oh yeah. Like I'm of the opinion, and this is another one of my hot takes, but I've, I've put it out on the channel quite a few times that Brock is actually the hardest trainer in the game, in solo runs. the reason is because he resists normal and flying type moves. And basically that's everything that you have in the early game for most Pokemon. So like when you do a solo run. my good friend Scott's thoughts, I'll pick on him because, you know, I'm sure he is fine with this, but he tears Pokemon based on speed, based on time through the game. And what I found in watching his runs is that if you just watch the first Brock section, how long it takes him to beat Brock, if he beats Brock in sub four minutes, the Pokemon's gonna be top tier. It's at least going into top two tiers. If he takes more than about six or seven minutes to beat Brock, that Pokemon's like straight down to the bottom.

David Hernandez: 39:37

And I think that was kind of intentional when you think from a game design perspective, you know, they wanted

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 39:41

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 39:42

be kind of that gateway for people to understand types. You know, there's so many types early on that don't do well against, Brock specifically to when you see later rock type gym leaders. You think of Roxanne, you think of, I think it's Roark. They're not as challenging compared to Brock. I'd say Roxanne's probably as close because of rock, tomb, and nose passes a pain in the butt,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 40:02

Right, right.

David Hernandez: 40:03

there's ways around it to where it doesn't restrict a Pokemon.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 40:07

Yeah. And I mean, in gen three they started actually adding TMS before the first gym and whereas in gen one you had nothing to work with, like, you grind to a higher level. That's the answer for getting through Brock.

David Hernandez: 40:20

and a poker ball and a wish, that's about it.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 40:22

Yeah, exactly. So I mean it would, that's kind of the beauty of Gen one in a way. But it's also, the big. hurdle in these solo challenges and it's, it's why you'll see a lot of solo challenge runners redo the same Pokemon rather than like trying the Pokemon that they know are gonna be nightmares to get through. Brock. I think the bigger guys have generally done everything, but I sometimes see, you know, YouTube will recommend to me newer Pokemon, you know, challenge runners and smaller channels, and I see a lot of the, oh, that, that Pokemon's pretty easy to get through Brock. I see why you chose that one.

David Hernandez: 40:58

They're just trying to put their toes into the

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:00

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 41:00

Don't let, they gotta just, they gotta, they gotta swim before they can, surf.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:04

Exactly. Exactly. But you know, it's, it's one of those where you're, sometimes you load up a run and you say, okay, this one's gonna take a while, sweetie. You know, take, take the kid to bed and, you know, I, I might not see you for a couple days,

David Hernandez: 41:20

A couple days.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:22

dude. I'm not kidding. Ditto runs, come on.

David Hernandez: 41:25

Oh my gosh,

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:26

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 41:27

I said, y'all, you're on the same level with shiny hunters. You're a different breed. I can't do

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:30

Yeah. No, I mean, shiny hunting for me is, is where I, you know, couldn't do it anymore either.

David Hernandez: 41:37

really of all the

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:38

Yeah, yeah,

David Hernandez: 41:38

shiny hunting's, your hard no-go and you're

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:41

yeah.

David Hernandez: 41:41

on Brock and trying to do minimum battles.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:44

Well, so, so the thing about shiny hunting is that, of course, my first introduction Tohin was gen two.

David Hernandez: 41:50

Sure.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 41:50

in gen two, shinies are kind of bad. Like they can't have the best dvs and they can't be zero dvs. They have to have like these random. Numbers in between, So like a solo runner is generally gonna be like, I either want the best of the best or they're me and they want the worst of the worst, you know? So, Chinese like, don't really do it for either of those in gen two, you know. Later gens. Of course, they, they changed that up where it's not directly attached to IVs anymore, but back in the day, that's how they were originally introduced, was based on IVs or dvs as they were.

David Hernandez: 42:28

The last thing I wanna talk about is, you know, you were originally in the States and you went over to Japan, and that's where

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 42:32

Yeah,

David Hernandez: 42:33

at. Now

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 42:33

yeah,

David Hernandez: 42:34

I want to talk about the culture of Pokemon, because

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 42:37

yeah,

David Hernandez: 42:37

from Japan, it's different your

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 42:40

yeah,

David Hernandez: 42:40

you know, being both in the states and now of course overseas. how is the feelings of Pokemon different from your experience?

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 42:46

yeah. So I mean, the first thing that you notice in Japan is that most Pokemon names don't translate. So like Pikachu? Yeah, sure. Pikachu is Pikachu in Japanese. Eevee, they would say Eevee. So yeah, I mean it's the same basically. But if you try to say Charizard, they're gonna look at you like, what? Because it's in Japan, right? and there are tons and tons of Pokemon that have different names here. So that's the first thing that you notice, And sometimes the names actually make more sense. In Japanese than they did in English. in other cases they seem to make significantly less sense. Like Venomoth in Japanese is more fun. So it sounds like a power ranger sort of thing. Mor fun, right? Like, you know, and that's, that's cool at all. But it, it removes any like. Connotation of like poison on the Pokemon, which is one of the reasons why I was joking around that clearly this Pokemon was never meant to be a poison type when I did the psychic bug, Venomoth. Right? Clearly it's meant to be psychic. but, you know, there, there are differences like that. It, other thing that I noticed here is that it's much more, you know, like. Compared to my day, right when I, when I first got into Pokemon, it seemed like Pokemon was kind of its own niche, especially amongst boys. Whereas here there doesn't really seem to be any sort of gender separation. Like boys and girls, they both love Pokemon, they both love different characters. and I think that's super cool, like. What I would teach in public schools here in Japan. I could go with Pokemon related, games and whatnot, and everybody would get into it. So it was, it was super cool in that aspect. but the only other thing I guess I would say is that because Pokemon's from Japan, you find a lot more random Pokemon stuff all over the place. when you come into the main airport to enter Japan, NATA Airport in Chiba Prefecture, it's just outside of Tokyo. They have this whole like mural of all the Pokemon generations on the wall. Like as you're walking between terminal two and terminal three, it starts with, Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Charmander, and it shows them as they like, evolve into their, final forms. And then it goes to, okay, now it's Pikachu with Chikorita and Cyndaquil and Totodile and evolving. And it goes all the way to the, you know, Scarlet Violet, know, starters now where you see.

David Hernandez: 45:12

Yeah.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 45:13

just huge mural, right? So like when you come to Japan, like Japan themselves are like, look at our Pokemon, look at this wonderful thing that we have created. But like Pokemon was the start of my journey towards getting interested in Japan and you know, I wouldn't be where I'm at today without Pokemon. So you know, there is that like I'm sure there are tons of other people here who have that same similar story of. When they were kids, they, like me, loved Pokemon, loved Dragon Ball, loved, you know, sailor Moon, whatever it was that they were into from Japan.

David Hernandez: 45:48

Mm-hmm.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 45:48

eventually, you know, kind of builds this bridge between two completely different cultures, two completely different, societies. And yet you can come here and you start talking Pokemon and you get people like, well, you know, you know, like we, we can have those relationships. So it's, it's kind of cool, you know.

David Hernandez: 46:07

Well, Teo, I have one last question to close off this interview, and it's gonna be a fun question.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 46:11

Cool.

David Hernandez: 46:12

what six Pokemon you would bring to a battle.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 46:14

So I've talked about this before. My strategy back in the day when I used to do link battles on the playground.'cause that's how it used to go. We actually connected with cable, right? what I learned. Way back when, you know. So 1996, you know, when this was all going down was that speed is the most important stat in the Pokemon Games. I think that's actually true. Basically in every game that has, you know, the standard band battle mechanics, that speed is the key. So I was running back in the day, a team that included Jolteon, because it's fast. Mewtwo obviously was fast. I loved Venomoth because it was fast. I loved electrode because it was fast and it could go boom. what else did I have back in the day? I had Zapdos because it was fast My last Pokemon, what was I running? Oh, I had an Arcanine because it's my legendary Pokemon of course. and then my Arcanine, of course was cheated with a game shark to be level 255 and no earthquake. So, you know,

David Hernandez: 47:21

Good luck against battling against him, man.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 47:23

yeah, no, no. I mean, that was gen one though, you know, and I mean, like. It wasn't competitive. Guys, don't, don't worry. I wasn't like cheating, you know, competitive battles with a 255 leveled Pokemon, But it was just like, that's how we used to, to play. But I just knew speed, speed, speed, speed, speed. So it was kind of crazy. My team building was not logical like most people would be, probably. But hey, I, I always hit first. That was my strategy.

David Hernandez: 47:53

Yep. Hit first and then, we'll see what happens afterwards.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 47:56

Exactly.

David Hernandez: 47:57

But Teo, thank you for coming on As the poker ball turns. Before you go, if people want to check out your content, if they want to connect with you, where can they go? By all means, please plug away.

RBY Pokemon Challenges: 48:05

Yeah. So I have two channels currently. RBY Pokemon Challenges. Of course, you can look it up on YouTube and GSC Pokemon challenges where we're doing a Gen two challenge series. I also have a discord that's always linked on my. Videos. So if anybody wants to directly contact me, that's a good way to do it.