April #4 YESHeartGold first time

 I got it to work so played Heart Gold!

I picked Cyndaquil. Though Totodile is usually who I picked almost every other time I played Silver or Gold etc, my original choice back in 2002 or whatever was Cyndaquil. Probably piggybacking off my usual choice of Charmander. I like that line so was grand!

I got the Slugma egg off the dude early on, looked up the correct phrase to say. I hatched it alongside Togepi and considered switching out Cyndaquil for Slugma but it was so weak and levelled so slowly I will save that for a challenging future run

So this became a Greatest Hits run. Get all of my faves. Optimal as possible but not excessively so.

The other 5 party members

Got a Mareep-Flaafy-Ampharos early on as usual and used it for first time in ages. One of my all time faves. Thudner Punch came in very handy later.

I cycled through a bunch of mons early but decided to take Geodude-Graveller again. He levels quick and is solid enough. I will replace him later with Tyranitar (my beloved all time fave) but for now he will do.

Quagsire got back in as a good water type with a unique ground pairing. I 'discovered' Quagsire in the previous run of OG Silver a few weeks ago so decided to use him again.

I ran Bellsprout>Weepinbell as I usually do but my gods is he underperforming. Other than being used to Vine Whip Swimmers and Hikers into oblivion he was tough to use. Natures, meta moves like Safeguard... all made for a tougher time for my designated Grass mon.

Who else... got a Jynx later on as they were great in my recent OG playthrough so why not again. Ice Punch and Powder Snow etc, Psychic from Saffron... great stuff!

What else

I managed to clear the Elite 4 after grinding for a bit in Victory Road. The only other major grind was killing Tauros over by the new Safari Zone before taking on Clair. Kanto is way tougher than before, I've hit a few roadblocks, I don't have Fly and I don't have a Bike so feel a bit soft-locked. No, I think it's fine I'll just grind a bit more and beat Misty and everything should be fine.

I'll come back to it later; I'll try to beat Red and the revamped Elite 4 this time, but not looking forward to the grind. I caught Ho-Oh with a Dusk Ball so that was cool. 

April #3 Various Britannia musings

Managed to play the 3 player variant recently enough. I thought it was balanced-ish, but then the Blue Side (Blue 4 factions + Welsh) won by almost 100 points. Blue usually scores 200-250 points anyway so add the Welsh 100 to it and it makes sense. Blue had 355 points.

The Red-ish player (4 red factions + Cals and Norway) let the Brigantes die early on so was hamstrung. I've strongly advised both times this has happened with two different people not to let it happen and they just insist on fighting to the death even with one last territory. Idk. The Saxons can salvage a decent Red score but not in this game. Norway scored their 50ish and Cals another 50ish to bring a red score of 159 to 248 total.

The Yellow-ish player (me) scored 288 in total; I did mostly OK, good Roman play, survived and expanded as the Scots. I had the Jutes and Danes as well so did what I could, even managed to get Cnut to be King. The 'bounded math' of the Yellow score in Britannia prevented a surprise here that not even the Danes and a surprisingly long-lived Juto could save. So I had 195 points from my Yellow sides (124 Romans) and 93 more from Danes and Jutes combined for 288.

By colour:

248

222

159

262

^ Interesting as Red was crippled by a lack of Brigantes (usually worth 50-80 points) and a poor Saxon game (66 points!). Irish were wiped too. It's the best I've seen Green score as a colour on its own, best normally was by me 215 before. It only took 3 people. Second best Yellow score too (I had 257 in our first game in 2023). Worst Red score ever. Best Blue score (bravo Royce for making Blue so good more than once).

By player

288 (+Dan/Jut)

248(+Cals/Nor)

355(+Welsh)

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Hoping to play again soon, I try to rotate my players to keep them fresh but everyone has played at least 2 games now.

I'd love to win with a colour not called Red, having done that twice, once in 2007 or whenever and once in 2025. Blue is much more powerful now so that'd be cool. I almost won as Yellow in the first game in 2023, losing to a now tainted Red (pre-Saxon nerf/burh rules correction). Green I have no idea how to win as, everyone else has to fail in some way.

I have a lot to say about Brit but I fear I may get obsessive again. I must buy and try out the Steam game as quicker way to test strategies and whatnot.

April #2 Pokemon NotSoulSilver (909593595th time)

 Could not get Soul Silver to work so decided to just blast through OG Silver again.

I managed to get all 16 badges and beat Red so called it a day after that, all while using a not-so-good selection of critters.

Graveller, Jynx, Quagsire, Noctowl, Eevee (all between levels 45-55) and a level 15 Bellsprout did the job. 

Jynx alone solo'd a lot of the Elite 4 with Ice Punch. Red was very easy even with level 70+ mons as I just type advantage'd him.

Did not catch faves like Larvitar or Mareep and boxed my starter early on.

Quagsire was fun, extra weak to Grass but that's avoidable.

Noctowl was very weak for a long time, only kind of a niche use/Fly slave.

I tried to get Eevee to evolve into Umbreon or Espeon but no bueno.

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It's just classic Silver so no surprises here. These games were infamous for weak trainers and wild mons plus the overuse of Kanto stuff in Johnto. 

Jynx was amazing. Instead of doing my old 'keep trying Elite 4 until I win clean' I instead just bought a to of Revives and had everyone around level 50-55. Was grand. The Kanto aftermath was a breeze too, then Red was super easy. Stopped playing as soon as I beat him.

April #1 Pokemon FireRed ('first' time)

I had never played Fire Red;

I have played OG Red MANY MANY times. Maybe 2-3 times (or more?) on GameBoy, 4-5 times (or more?) on Pokemon Stadium with Dodrio mode for triple speed, maybe another 2-3 times on PC (ahem).

So I got FireRed and cleared it in a couple of days in March 2026.

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I chose Charmander. They would end up in a box fairly soon.

I decided very early (Route 1) this would be a ‘sub-optimal’ run wherein instead of my usual great team of say, Charizard, Raichu, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Pigeot and whoever else (maybe Alakazam) I’d go with monsters I don’t usually use. I’d been doing this a lot in recent runs; I got great mileage out of Starmie in a 2016-2017 playthrough.

This all would have been easier with better monsters, oh well!

So yeah

When Fearow swept Erika I knew I was doing good and would finish the game.

Koga was way harder, had to stop and change the party and grind a bit.

VS Seeker is so good. I used the top of cycling road for money and anywhere else I could think of.

Blaine and Sabrina were so easy after Koga; 

Giovanni was easy too;

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Rhydon provided some much needed bulk and has always been one of my fave mons ever. I never ran him full time in a serious party due to the double water/grass weakness but was valuable here.

Next time: Graveller was fantastic in my Silver run after this, so could be a good substitute for the next time. Or Marowak with the club item!

Fearow started kind of weak but is ALSO one of my fave mons of all time from Gen 1, but never ran due to my belief that 3-stage evolution Pigeot was better. Fearow is probably better! Just a good sweeper when I've been deprived of good sweepers.

Next time: I like to have a flyer. Running out of options. I think I ran Dodrio before, Pigeot a million times. Farfetch'd maybe?

Vileplume provided some bulk but was not exceptional. I prefer Victreebel as my Gen 1 grass mon. I think I used Executor in my quasi-sub-optimal run previously.

Next time: I think I'm running out of options for a grass monster. I am down to Parasect or Tangela I think.

Wigglytuff was a bit bulky and had a good movepool. Had never ran them before (usually a Clefable guy if I ever bothered) but was a good addition. Also, Psychic.

Next time: Not sure of a Normal/Fairy/Psychic adjacent monster that could work in future. Porygon?

Seaking was decent; not having Peck anymore kind of sucked but was a decent Water type. I love spamming Surf so was perfect.

Next time: Still plenty of water options, Tentacruel might be fun I always liked it.

Primeape was probably the worst of the bunch, I was going to replace him with the next option:

Electabuzz was going to be my sixth mon but never played long enough; if I go back for the revamped Elite Four maybe?

Next time: There are plenty of Electric-adjacent UnderUsed/NeverUsed options I could try (I've almost always used Raichu in Gen1) so it doesn't matter what I pick. Magneton, Electrode...

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Elite Four Lorelai wiped me out with one of her monsters, so it was back to drawing board. Basically just grinded in Victory Road for ages.

Took about 4 attempts but the last 2 were serious/correct level/moves etc. I went to the Game Corner for some useful moves. I needed a bunch of Revives but my guys made it. Lance and the Rival were probably the easiest to beat after all that.

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Postgame Islands: knocked them out in a couple of hours. Was a neat little extra I guess.

Caught Mewtwo with Master ball after clearing the islands. I guess I only did the Islands to get to Mewtwo in Cerulean Cave!

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I still have Suicune and Elite Four + to do but not interested. And 151+ dex obviously. I did it once not rushing to do it again!

I think I'll do the E4+ in another playthrough in a couple of years; maybe utilise meta moves combined with bad mons.

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Observations on this remaster:

Meta moves being pushed a lot; I'm a basic bitch playing Pokemon I don't bother with Protect and Light Screen and all that stuff; I prefer to just sweep with (usually good) mons but was harder with sub-optimal team. I guess that's where moves like Swords Dance and so on would have been useful. Almost 30 years later and I still know the various Fire beats Ice, Ice beats Flying etc combos so that gets me pretty far.

 If I play even more sub-optimal runs,  I guess I better strongly consider these meta moves. Also, just with natures and whatnot they were being pushed a lot on me - also a lot of TMs you find on the map are mostly what I am calling meta moves.

Farfetch'd, Porygon, Parasect... sounds like a good terrible core to build around! I'll allow myself the traded one in Vermillion to level faster (the only one) and master what I'm calling meta moves like Safeguard.

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HeartGold/Soul Silver? I couldn't get it to work so just did Silver again for the billionth time. Then went onto Sapphire!