Charizard ain't running a (Char)ity, thank$ for all the feedback on the ads! It looks like as I feared, some folks were getting (to quote another Gen 1 guide) H A M M E R E D by every single ad, so I've gone ahead and culled their numbers. ...See if you can hit by every single ad that still remains! If you get all four, you win!

All of the Pokémon in Brock's gym are ground type and not all of them are rock type, so

Of the Pokémon in Pewter City gym only 50% of them are part rock type, whereas 100% are ground or part ground type

"Cut-throat prices" means their prices are so competitive that the sellers are almost at each other's throats. It's hyperbole, meant to say that 2+ companies have driven their prices well below what they should be at just because they don't want to lose business to the other(s), so for the consumer it's good.

What the guide should say "Use X accuracy, X speeds until you're faster then the opponent's team and a OHKO move, they will always connect, and a few PP restoring items to beat every major battle in the game, and you're guarunteed to win!"

I think every audio book should start with "acknowledgements: do I need to read all those? I'm not reading all those" 😂

Since the author had played the original JP versions prior to the English one, she was ironically one of the few in a western audience who could have known the region was called Kanto. Prior to Gen 3, the only mention of Kanto is by viewing the Town Map in Blue's house before you receive it, but only in Japanese.

"you can put this on in the background like an audiobook" Me, playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game (VC version) on my 3DS: oh Charizard, I am WAY ahead of you

I really appreciate that everytime you mention Koga you note that he is both a ninja, and very cool.

No lie, I'd like to see more of these. Just going through the guide books and seeing how they've held up. It's sorta amusing how the writer gets the Japanese and English terms mixed up (that or the editor missed them); quite relatable. But, man, as far as guide books go, it's lacking. It's akin to a 1st edition guide off gamefaqs because the better one comes along. Me thinks, Elizabeth was too busy playing the game and not enough working on the guide.

When choosing your starter, Oak gives a short description of all 3 pokemon you can choose. He literally sais that Bulbasaur is the easiest to raise. I guess the author took this literally. I can't really blame them for that, the claim sounds believable and unless you closely monitor the exp gains, you won't notice that they all level up equally. It might also be that this line was poorly translated, or they might have been refering to Bulbasaur evolving into its final stage earlier than the other two.

Tbh I wish we did call pokemon stuff like "the Charmander". It's kind of charming.

Hey Charizard, Bettermost is a word! I understand not knowing that, given that you burn dictionaries when you hold them too long.

Hey Charizard! I came back to this video after seeing 9 ad breaks and not watching. I only see 3 ad breaks now. Excellent to see you sticking to your word. I dropped 25% HP to set up a sub. I've got some leftovers from dinner, so I'll have it back in a couple turns anyway.

I'm wondering if she was playing the original Japanese version when she wrote the guide? When she calls Technical Machine a "Skill Machine" it sounds like the Japanese term (わざマシン) e: watching further into the video, the fact that she calls a Great Ball a Super Ball is further adding to this theory

Mr. Charizard, what's it like being one of the most popular Pokèmon?

Ay Prima guides are infamous! Super Mario Sunshine one comes to mind. If it's comparable, I'm expecting a shitty walk-trough that suggests worse than intended strategies.

When she mentioned the type of evolution affecting how often a Pokèmon shows up in a game, I think she meant other actual people. You're probably not going to see a ton of Alakazams if you don't know anyone with a cable to use for trading, but a lot of people would probably have Raichus or Beedrills because they're stone or level evolutions. I don't think she meant NPC trainers would be affected by evolution methods.

every time you upload a vid this length I get so excited, they're perfect for bedtime

This guy could literally make a video called "an in-depth analysis of every dump I've taken since 3rd grade" and I'd still be here like ＼(°o°)／

I'm guessing "Awakening" is the proper name of the item in the game (as the word otherwise doesn't refer to tangible items), while antidote and potion are simply regular nouns that coincide with the names for items in the games.

I love the way this guide is written. Has that personal gamefaqs-esque touch

You know what would be interesting? Doing a pokemon red/blue playthrough following the official walkthrough steps in order. Also, I think some of the typos like "Moltos" or "Super Ball" would be because they originally wrote it based off the Japanese release and later tweaked names after the localised game came out.

Thanks Lizardon for this great review! I've had this guide my gen-1-obsessed childhood, and it's falling apart despite all the tape on it. I love it dearly, and it was great to revisit it through your eyes. Just some comments that came to mind along the way... You're right that "walkthrough" is one word, but here it's not being used that way! Liz is taking us on a literal walk that goes through the world of Pokemon, like "a walk through the woods". Aha, this guide fooled me into thinking captured Pokemon wouldn't obey me too! I wonder if Nintendo wanted us to think that? Considering that it has the Nintendo seal and that the game kind of acts as if the level limitation applies to all Pokemon, I wonder if they wanted to subtly scare kids away from over-levelling too early. I think this book and others like it are actually how I learnt words like "squeamish" and "stipulate"--their meanings are clear from the context! and as a kid I appreciated being addressed as the serious trainer I was. Yeah, the Giovanni reveal is indeed super weird. For whatever reason, Liz and/or Prima decided to organize the guide by place rather than by stage of the game, and so all the Viridian City stuff had to be together (aside from Lt. Surge, of course!). The non-Brock trainer in Brock's gym actually is a Junior Trainer! But yeah, using "Junior Trainer" (capitalized, even) as a generic term is pretty weird, especially since in Misty's gym she refers to the Swimmer as a capital-S Swimmer AND as a "Junior Trainer"! She never mentions the quizzes in Blaine's Gym, so I never knew about those as a kid! I practically didn't believe my friend who told me about them, because I figured that the only things not in the guide were _super secrets_ like the Mew under the truck that moves only if you push it with a Machamp, or the Pikablu that you get after beating the Elite Four 1000 times. I think cutthroat prices *should* mean that they're cheap because they're competing with other stores, but honestly I have no idea what she meant here. In fairness, guide does tell you which balls in the Power Plant are Voltorbs! It's just that they're the ones on the map without numbers on them, which totally could have been communicated more clearly. Here's the weirdest thing about this guide: all of the maps and screenshots in it are from the Japanese version! You can tell this from the way the signs, the water, and the flowers look, as well as the signs on the shops ("SHOP" rather than "MART"). Super weird, and a cause for the Japanese versions to look less weird to me (and surely lots of other kids who didn't grow up in Japan) than they might otherwise have.

Only 5 ads within an hour segment- that's fair, I can live with that. The content is worth it Also, I'd just like to say that this is definitely one of your "bettermost" vids!

Good Helix, look at that Save by the bell intro backgrounds...!

My brother and I had this guide when we were kids. Back in the days before the Internet had matured, strategy guides like this were the best way to get this type of information. Back then, it was definitely well worth the price.

The Versus Books guide on RBY was really, really great and quite funny (as most of their guides were). Had info on missingno and some fun and funny ideas for PVP teams. I can hook you up with it if you can't find it and want to do a video on it.

Technically the 1st gym you come across is the ground type gym (even if closed), however Brock gym is technically a ground gym, since the light-year trainer has ground Pokemons (and not rock) and Brock has all ground (and rock) types, and doesn't even use rock attacks and his tm isn't even rock

Just got here a day or so ago from you Starter Gen 1 video. It was quality work, a good laugh and I shared it with some friends. Hope you do Gen 2 for Gold and Silver some day.

I'd love to see you do more of these game guide reviews someday.

Seeing as you had asked about ad frequency, I had 4. The first of which was when you were talking about the ads, which was excellent timing. I didn't feel like it was too intrusive overall though

I still have my copy of this guide. In my copy, there must be a typo cause in the unknown dungeon the guide says there's a pokemon called lucky in there.

I am in absolute shock & awe at the disclaimer they put at the start of the guide. It's almost as if they knew about all their "glitches" *(cough Mew cough)* + "protocols" (Missingno) in the game's coding + Iwata was like " How do we master the art of catching without being caught" ? 🤔

I had this exact guide. Oh nostalgia.

Prima made a weird guidebook. Glad I had the Nintendo Power version when I grew up. Love your voice Charizard. Also fire type is best starter.

I don’t always agree with your opinions but your point of view on one of my favorite franchise is so intriguing that I watch your videos and become so engrossed I lose track of the time.

I had this guide, but I so don't remember it being so 90s so so 90s.

Moltuno is my favorite but artictres is a close second. Im not hating on zapquadro though.

Just throwing out there but I don't think the 50 ultra ball per Legendary is an exaggeration. On my last Fire Red playthrough I went into the Zapdos fight with 75 ultra balls and a dozen great balls. I got it down to red health, kept putting it to sleep and still went through every single ball I had without catching it. I burned through literally 87 balls trying to catch it in ideal conditions, reset and had the same thing happen. I used up all 87 balls while it was in the red, then reset to try again 3 times before I actually caught it. So almost 270 balls over the course of 3 resets to catch Zapdos in Fire Red. Throw in the fact that balls could straight up miss in Gen 1, I can see it being potentially much worse in Gen 1. From what little I can remember of my childhood Gen 1 playthroughs, Zapdos was a nightmare in both Gen 1 and its remakes. That said, even with the chance for balls to miss in Gen 1, still less infuriating than roaming Legendaries without question.

also. papasea has a great series using different strategy guides called "beating X (game) as nintended" where he goes through the game following the guide to the point and trying to not let his prior knowledge interfere. I'm only mentioning this so that you know it exists

This isn't the strategy guide I owned growing up and I haven't found anybody on KZfaq who has done a review of the one I had. It was a Red/Blue/Yellow guide and had Pikachu on the cover in the middle and a faded Charizard and Blastoise on either side of it. The back of the guide had the entire Pokedex, their learnsets and base stats, and the move data for every move in the game, as well as a list of every item. And it had encounter tables for every Route and every version, and every trainer and their teams. Edit: The base stats aren't all entirely accurate and I *think* were formed from an average on level 100 members of the species, though I'm not completely sure. It does still give a fairly good idea of when their stats are like compared to other species.

My favorite type of reading

23:40 This is probably talking about how trade and stone evolutions aren't found in the wild.

"It's your boi, Charizard, one of the top three starters from gen one" I mean you're not wrong 😂😂😂

This guide is like 90s overload.

Pretty weird they talk about Sabrina as the 5th gym leader before you even go into Silph Co. you can’t access her until you finish the Silph Co event. I always fought Koga first before her.

"You'll need stronger balls" -imported cheese

I had the Prima guide for Yellow. They copied and pasted the text from the Red and Blue guides to make it. I can’t believe I still have some of these mistakes and misprints memorized 20+ years later…

1:01:00 The Game Manual in the box actually does have a checklist you can use to track witch pokemon you can catch, and a walkthrough all the way to Brock. The checklist is mostly empty squares for you to draw the Pokémon you catch in yourself, like making your own pokedex!

With Brock's gym, the trainer is a Jr. Trainer in gen 1. I think that class later became Camper in later gens. He does have a Diglett and Sandshew which are both mono-Ground-types. Brock's Geodude and Onix are both Rock/Ground. Therefore, even though Brock is labeled as the Rock gym, he is really a Ground gym. Much like how Lorelei is labeled Ice, but is really Water and how Agatha is labeled Ghost but is really Poison.

Subscribed for Moltoes

"Ground and rock type, like machop"

I used to have this exact guide and it was thoroughly useful for me back in the day. The most fascinating part of the book for me is how everything was written before the fanbase and anime gave a preconcieved notion of what things were supposed to be called and lead to a rather interesting interpretation of the pokemon world that has been rendered non-canon. One thing I wanna mention in defense of some of the weird wording is that oftentimes strategy guide authors are given builds of the game before the final release, so from the build the author had, some things may have been accurate to her prerelease build. On top of that, she had a Japanese copy of the game as well.

I felt myself identified with this kind of phrasing in the guide.

"In a world that's as challenging as it is fun" That's not true at all, the game is fun to playthrough, but it's really easy

"don't think for a minute you be able to avoid the junior trainer swimming in Misty's gym"...... But you can just go around him.. lmao

Today I learned of the word "bettermost"

Do a followup on the yellow prima guide. It's like 30 more pages or so and it's probably refined quite a bit from the red /blue and it includes relevant red and blue info

i had a different guide that i think was actually made by nintendo power, you i mean charizard should consider reviewing that on stream!!

Will we finally learn how to evolve Arbok into Seviper?

So weird seeing Charizard on the cover when the one I had growing up was the Blastoise one.

19:10 'I don't think it takes up to 50 ultra balls to catch a legendary bird' _Cries in SoulSilver Articuno killing itself through paralyzed struggle after throwing literally that many Ultra Balls_

I played Pokémon since the very beginning, but I still wish I have an original copy of that guide...

I love how, on the page with the extra-disgusting front and colors, there's literally a crying Cubone. Its eyes too are aching. xD

surprised you didn't point out that it says you can fish for krabbys and shellders in the vermillion gym. also, the intro specifying that the writer played on a japanese copy makes me wonder if that's why she didn't know the correct terms for moves, tms, hms, etc.

Slowbro science. Subscribed.

Oh boy instant like

Lizzy knew about X-accuracy Fissure... OG Speedrunner.

Uh oh another Pokemon guidebook. We're going in dry. Edit: The "how often they appear in the game" thing I think is saying "Pokemon that evolve by leveling up are almost always in the wild, as opposed to the trade evolutions."

This guide must have been primarily written based on a mid-level proficiency translation of the Japanese versions, and then updated to fix a couple of terms once the English release officially happened. That's the only way to explain the weird things like skills and flight type

12:00 Can confirm "bettermost" is a word; and a good one, at that. 23:37 "You'll never encounter a wild Golem," in other words. 37:40 "Avail yourself of the ability of the grass to continually generate more little men." Pidgey is versatile and everyone loves Rattata: catch three of each! 40:16 What's a Pikachu? Can it beat a Stantler? I don't think it can best the mighty Stantler-sounds like a lame, gimmicky walletbeast. 44:35 When the choice is Tackle or Mega Punch... 46:12 She's spoiling Houndour. Lizzy Hollinger confirmed from the future. 55:24 This is the "(X) os not normol, but on meth it is" meme. Further evidence of time travel shenanigans. 55:55 "Cutthroat prices" are very, very bad. Think "highway robbery."

Can we get Lizardon reviewing the other "guides" for each generation?

What's the sound on the background at 1:01:46?

No advertisements for me. I pay for KZfaq Premium, I'd use AdBlock but I want to support the creators I watch.

"I don't want there to be that many" *First two ads play*

youtube premium for the win. no ads here

Yoo shoutout to Mekkah 😳

One of the top 3 starters from Generation 1. Man, why can't Blastoise get any love?!?

Omfg. Prima's guide really explains you EVERYTHING but it still didn't learn Synthesis.

how could you forget the most awesome move Mewtwo has "Stupidsta!" (that's spelled wrong, I know, but it's in this guide)

I have that still, lol.

19:10 Actually, 50 Ultra Balls in gen 1 is pretty normal to catch Mewtwo if you have it at 33% HP or less and haven't used a Status move on it. It's WAY easier if you just use Sleep and a Great Ball (because Gen 1 jank), but yeah. With the methods described, 50 balls is kinda tame (95% catch would be somewhere in the ballpark of 70-80 ultra balls).

Mannnn, reading old Pokémon guides is a trip. None of the wording was consistent and people generally didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. It’s kind of charming, I guess??

Coincidentally i have this on in the background while working on my gains irl!

"You'll fight many rivals, including the one that was your best friend" Is she talking about Blue? The guy that is presented by Oak as "He was you rival since childhood"? XD

49:14 sorry for the two comments but... the guide goes straight from the Lavender tower guide to the ghost of Marowak? WHERE IS THE ROCKET HIDEOUT PART? Where is the rescue of Mr. Fuji?

You’ll never manage to put as many mid-roll ads on an hour video as Mystic Umbreon manages on a 15 minute video. Rumour has it, he is renaming his Channel “Midroll Umbreon”.

Kanto is indeed not referred to as "Kanto" until the Gen 3 remakes.

i feel... early

Elizabeth mentions importing the game in the introduction. So I'm certain the reason a lot of the terms she's using are wrong is simply because she wrote the guide with an import copy before the game was done being localized into English.

my favourite interesting sounding character is ö

23:40 I think they’re saying that you will never find evolved Pokémon in the wild that required a stone or trade to evolve.

In the french great balls are called super balls too

Tfw Gust was flying in the guide before Gen 2 change it

Fun fact: because of the spaghetti code it's significantly better to use a status move and great balls on low capture rate pokemon compared to ultra balls in Gen I

Well Charizard, we _could_ pump everything into you...but Venusaur and Blastoise have better stat spreads, typings, and move pools for Gen 1 specifically.

Watching on youtubevanced...I get no ads

30:28 Ah yes, Pokémon generation 1, those classic games known for their impeccable "checks and balances". Nothing could possibly go wrong in those games. 😂

I ended up having 9 ads by the way. Just wanted to let ya know!