Pokémon Gen 1 Living Pokédex Journey: Boulder Badge
As mentioned in the previous blog post, I am creating a Living Dex in Pokémon Yellow. Currently I possess a total of 40 Pokémon from previous games, but this number is of course going to increase starting now.
Planning the Route
For encounter data I am mainly looking at serebii.net. The site is not made for modern monitors, but it looks fine at above 160% magnification.
First, we need to plan out the route to Pewter City. Before receiving the Boulder Badge, the exit to Route 3 is blocked off. Similarly, we can’t proceed to Route 23 yet since we don’t have any Badges. Therefore we can catch Pokémon in the following locations:
Route 1
Like in other Gen1 games, Route 1 consists entirely of 
Pidgey and 
Rattata. Unlike Red and Blue’s 50/50 split, Pidgey appear 70% of the time here however. I already caught Pidgey and there is a better encounter rate for Rattata on Route 2, so this Route is only good to train 
Pikachu.
Route 22
Route 22 offers a great variety of Pokémon this early on, with 35% 
Nidoran♂, 25% 
Nidoran♀, 20% 
Mankey, 10% Rattata, and 10% 
Spearow.
Most important here is the Mankey of course, since it is the only Pokémon that has a very effective attack on Brock’s Pokémon in the early game (Before water or grass Pokémon become available). It is therefore important to obtain it here. It learns Low Kick at level 9, and it’s a good idea to get past that for Brock anyways. The alternative to training up Mankey is using 
Lapras, which doesn’t yet obey without the Cascade Badge.
Nidoran♀ is more readily available on Route 9, and Spearow is far more common on Routes 3 and 4, and so I will not block the hunt on these Pokémon (although it is likely I get at least one of them).Another Pokémon of note here is 
Poliwhirl, which requires the Super Rod to acquire. It is only available here and on Route 23, but more common there.
Route 2
Route 2 only offers Pokémon we have seen before. 40% Rattata, 30% Pidgey, 15% Nidoran♂, 15% Nidoran♀.
It is the best place to catch Rattata.
We have to go back here after receiving Cut to trade a 
Clefairy for a 
Mr. Mime.
Viridian Forest
Unlike Red and Blue, Viridian Forest is the only place 
Caterpie (55%) and 
Weedle (20%) appear. Unlike those games, Pidgey (24%) and 
Pidgeotto (1%) appear there too, although of course Route 15 is the best Route to get the latter.
We need to get a Caterpie and a Weedle here, as well as another one of them at the highest level possible (6) for 
Butterfree.
Pewter City
The one Pokémon of note here is the Old Amber, which can be revived into 
Aerodactyl on Cinnabar Island. However we are not able to receive it yet, since we need Cut to receive the item from a scientist in the Museum.
The Journey
As always in Pokémon Yellow, I start out in Palette Town and receive my starter Pikachu as the only option. Unfortunately, I failed to defeat the rival’s 
Eevee, and so I’m left at Level 5 with a Pikachu that hates me. Leaving Palette Town, I first need to do a fetch quest for Oak’s Parcel before I receive the Pokédex and can start catching Pokémon.
Having unlocked catching and trading, now is as good a time as any to transfer over all of the Pokémon from the previous games. To significantly speed this process up (I would have to catch 40 Pokémon and then trade them over one by one), I decided to use PKHeX to move all of them over, and then manually performed the evolutions in the editor as well.
Before I started catching Pokémon I leveled up my Pikachu a bit, up to level 7. Then I headed out to Route 22 where the real journey began.
Route 22
Route 22 treated me extremely well. It gave me all Pokémon I needed or wanted in rapid succession.
The first Pokémon I encountered on that route was Spearow, however due to its low level and Pikachu’s only attacking move being Thundershock, I needed to use 
Pokéballs at max HP. This only took two tries, giving me my 42nd Pokémon:
Since 
Fearow is readily accessible on Route 17, I do not need to train this Pokémon up.
Shortly after I encounter the Mankey I was looking for and catch it on the second try after reducing it to 1hp ( Pokéball odds stop increasing after 1/3 health but Pikachu was too strong to hit 1/3).
Primeape, as well as Mankey above the evolution level are available on Route 23, so I only need to train it for Brock.Directly afterwards I encountered a Nidoran♀, which i quickly caught:
Nidorina are available on Route 23, so I do not need to train this Pokémon up either.And, as luck would have it, I received a Nidoran♂ right afterwards, for which I use my Spearow and Nidoran♀ to weaken it.
Like Nidorina, 
Nidorino is available on Route 23, so we do not need to train it.
With that, I have caught all of the Pokémon I want from Route 22 and we can move on.
Route 2
Before I catch more Pokémon, I first deposited all of the Pokémon I just caught into Box 2, sans the Mankey.
The hunt for the Rattata was of course very quick, and after just one encounter I was able to add the 46th Pokémon to the ‘Dex:
Raticate is available in Pokémon Mansion most frequently, so we also don’t need to worry about training it up.Before entering Viridian Forest, I decided to train Mankey a bit here for Viridian Forest, and placed Rattata into Box 1, where it will stay for the rest of the run.
Viridian Forest
Viridian Forest is the first place with Trainer Battles. I’ll primarily update on major trainer battles here, such as Rival Fights, Gym Leaders, Giovanni, etc. There are Pokémon to catch here too, so let’s get going. Naturally, the first encounter on the route is Caterpie:
After 2 encounters, I find the next Pokémon I need, 
Metapod:
Butterfree is not found in the wild, and so we need another one of them to evolve into Butterfree. For that, one of the Level 6 encounters is most appropriate, as Metapod evolves into Butterfree at level 10.
One tip for catching Pokémon in Viridian Forest is to avoid the grass tiles with a flower in the bottom right corner. These will never result in encounters, so if you want those avoid these tiles.
After 5 encounters, I find the level 6 Caterpie i was looking for. Unfortunately, due to a crit I defeated it instead of catching it. So the search goes on.
On the second to last trainer, I leveled Mankey up to Level 9, at which point it learned Low Kick.
Three encounters later I did find a level 6 Metapod, and I caught it after 2 Pokéballs.
Pewter City
With all of the catching done, it is time to tackle Brock. My lead Mankey is Level 10 after the gym trainer fight.
Brock starts out with his lead 
Geodude, which falls to two Low Kicks. He then sends out his ace 
Onix, which fell similarly after 3 Low Kicks. He also didn’t cause Mankey damage thanks to a flinch, a missed Screech, and a Bide.
And with that we are done with this article! I caught 8 Pokémon here and increased my Pokédex total to 48 (31.8%). The next post will be about the Cascade Badge, and Route 3, Mount Moon, and Route 4.