I was curious if people used Nidoking to speed run FRLG like they do with RBY and they don't they use Blastoise. I wondered why until I remembered that from gen 3 onwards the games are much more stingy with TMs.
Why do you think GF did this? In gen 1-2 almost all the TMs you find or get from gyms are a big deal and a massive buff to a member of your team but starting with gen 3 almost all TMS you get are weaker versions of other moves or weird status moves.
Thats probably because base movesets were improved a lot.
This is actually the main reason I prefer RB for replayed over FRLG.
Right away you're getting stuff like Mega Punch, Thunder Wave, Bubble Beam, Body Slam, Thunder Bolt, etc, and by the time you get to Celadon City you're getting stuff like Ice Beam, Rock Slide, Mega Kick, etc etc. It's honestly insane how much of an improvement TMs offer your team, they're basically mandatory to use since. Even as soon as gen 2 they started toning it down by limiting the sheer power of the TMs you're given.
The lack of powerful TMs early on actually nerfed a lot of pokemon in a casual playthrough. Raticate goes from a do it all capable pokemon to a cut slave.
>aticate goes from a do it all capable pokemon to a cut slave.
lol, lmao even.
Raticate is great in game as it has hyperfang.
the TMs are so bad in HGSS, idk if it's the same in the originals but I'm playing it right now and it's rough. no Psychic until Kanto, great moves locked behind the insane Voltorb Flip grind. it's pretty bad. especially cause even in Gen 4 some Pokemon are missing crucial moves. I forgot how bad one use TMs are too.
Gen 4 TMs are certainly the worst. Throughout your playthrough you'll find nothing but status tms like torment and sunny day then at the end of a post game dungeon you'll find flamethrower
the gen4 tm locations are fine in sinnoh its just that spreading them out over two regions leads to
issues
Why are Gf such buttholes? Why couldn't they have different tms in the remakes vs dppt?
The fact that you have access to swords dance flamethrower ice beam and thunder bolt as soon as goldenrod means you can't b***h.
It's easy as frick to grind coins on voltorb flip
but 30 minutes of voltorb flip is an UNFATHOMABLE INSANE SISYPHEAN grind oh my god save me Black personman!!!
Unironically how voltorb flip haters act.
But paying 100k pokedollars for a single tm is totally reasonable.
In what universe is grinding 100000 coins for voltorb flip 30 mins?
gen 4 has more TMs to be gotten, though unfortunate that a lot of the ones you'd want are locked to the Battle Tower instead of letting you find them and then get more in the BT.
the only notable 'downgrades' between 2 and 4 I would say is that you can pay 3k for any of the 3 elemental punches in goldenrod compared to voltorb flipping for 95 BP elemental attacks, but in crystal those moves are locked to the postgame anyway so at least you can get them as early as arriving in the remakes. Also the route above Goldenrod has a rollout TM (replaced by Payback), which was invaluable for my bug monotype run in Silver for Shuckle to roll over Lance's army of flying idiots.
>TMs are so bad in HGSS, idk if it's the same in the originals
HGSS has Solarbeam, Blizzard, Thunder, Fire Blast, Focus Blast and Hyper Beam and both Screens before Whitney at the Dept. Store. And they aren't even that expensive.
GSC has Elemental punches and Headbutt.
For the most part, Sinnoh has stupid good buyable TMs early too.
This. Going back to frlg, and I'm always reminder how much more of a slog it feels coming directly off rby.
Honestly Nidoking and Blastoise were kind of neck-in-neck in terms of usability in RBY speedruns for quite a while. Blastoise isa solid all rounder you get for free, whereas Nidoking is a time investment to get but makes up for it by having a few killer moves and better access to genwun jank like 100% fissure. Flash forward to FRLG and suddenly Nidoking loses its jank advantage, while also being harder to get a good one due to gen 3's more complex RNG.
As for the TMs, I think their power in gen 1 and to a lesser extent gen 2 is a result of the games shifting in design philosophy. Gen 1 was very definitely designed as a sort of one and done singleplayer RPG you just beat and replay, where really op one-time items like explosion or fissure make more sense. As the series shifted to a more multiplayer competitive nature, stuff like TMs had to be toned down to try and make the games more balanced from a competitive standpoint rather than a singleplayer one.
Also the starters were just buffed in gen 3 in general. I'm pretty sure there are certain speedrun categories in FRLG where Charizard is actually the best starter, which is just laughable in RBY.
Voltorb flip sucks because it's a much better game than Pokemon itself so once you get good at it you just stay there and never actually play the game anymore.