Post by goldensandslash on Apr 26, 2022 18:50:16 GMT
There's a YouTube channel called Gamechamp3000. This is a video game-playing channel where she does challenge runs of video games. But not just any challenge runs - the most insane challenges that I have ever seen. So far (as of early-mid 2022), she has done the following:
* Beaten The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild without climbing.
* Beaten Super Mario Odyssey without jumping.
* Beaten Splatoon without firing the Hero Shot.
* Beaten Splatoon 2 without firing the Hero weapons.
* Beaten Kirby's Adventure without eating.
* Beaten Super Mario Sunshine without hovering.
* Beaten Sly Cooper and the Thievius Roccoonus without stealing any coins.
* Beaten Super Mario 3D World without jumping.
* Beaten Jak and Daxter without collecting any precursor orbs.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank with only the wrench.
* Beaten Mega Man 1 without taking damage.
* Beaten Sonic 3 & Knuckles without pressing right.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando with only the wrench.
* Beaten New Super Mario Bros. 2 without collecting any coins.
* Beaten Dead Rising without killing any zombies.
* Beaten Mega Man 2 without taking damage.
* Beaten Cave Story with 100% completion without killing any enemies.
* Beaten GUN without using any bullets except when absolutely necessary.
* Beaten Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion DLC without firing any shots except when absolutely necessary.
* Beaten Ape Escape with the minimum amount of gadgets possible.
* Beaten Mega Man 8 with only the ball.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal with only the wrench.
* Beaten Crash Team Racing without using the gas pedal.
* Beaten A Hat In Time without jumping.
* Beaten The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in Master Mode without using the pause menu.
* Beaten Pokémon Blue Version without taking damage.
* Beaten Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker without moving the camera.
* Beaten Death Stranding with the minimum number of items possible.
* Beaten Kingdom Hearts while keeping all characters at Level 1.
* Beaten Super Mario Odyssey without jumping and collecting the most amount of Moons possible.
* Beaten Ratchet: Deadlocked with only the wrench.
* Beaten The Last of Us without scavenging.
* Beaten Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories while effectively keeping all characters at Level 1.
* Beaten Stubbs the Zombie without eating any brains.
* Beaten Yoshi's Island without killing any enemies.
* Beaten Bowser's Fury without jumping.
* Beaten Bowser's Fury without jumping and collecting the most amount of Cat Shines possible.
* Beaten Super Smash Bros. Ultimate without spirits or skills.
* Beaten Professor Layton and the Curious Village while tapping the touch screen as few times as possible.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters with only the wrench.
* Beaten Uncharted with as few guns as possible.
* Beaten Metroid without killing any enemies.
* Beaten Mega Man 3 without taking damage.
* Beaten Jak II without using any guns.
* Beaten Scott Pilgrim vs. The World without any stat boosts.
While all of these are quite impressive, the one that she says she is the most proud of is beating Pokémon Blue without taking any damage. And yes, this is absolutely insane. I'm going to explain to you how she did it. I just want to stress that this is NOT MY IDEA. This is all on her. Go support her if you find this to be an interesting read. I'm effectively just taking her video playthrough and putting it into text form.
Another thing: You may be interested in doing this playthrough yourself, so I am obligated to tell you that this is a bad idea. She herself has said that while she is proud of having done this, the playthrough definitely did some serious psychological harm to her. She spent so much time afraid of taking any damage that she started having nightmares about stupid stuff, like stepping on a thumbtack and then having to delete her save file because that is technically damage.
And I also want to stress that: if you take damage at any point, you have to erase your save file and start over. A small selection of people (around half a dozen) have attempted Pokémon playthroughs on YouTube without taking damage, but not only was hers the first, but it also is the only one that has this heavy of a penalty for failure. Most people just reload a previous save. She goes the extra mile by not allowing this. (Which is one reason why I dislike the others, they seem like an inferior version of this since they don't commit all the way, which would be forgivable if they did this before Gamechamp3000 did her run, but like I said, she was the first.)
And literally ANY damage will cause the run to be forfeit. Getting poisoned is fine, but then you lose as soon as you take damage from poison, even though that wasn't from an attack. Using moves like Selfdestruct and Substitute, which cause you to lose HP yourself upon use, is also a no-go, since self-inflicted damage is still damage.
Finally, she mandated that she must defeat all eight Gym Leaders, get the badges, go through the Elite Four, beat them, and then beat the Champion. She is NOT allowed to just use arbitrary code execution to skip straight to the end credits. This makes sense, as otherwise you could just do this before you even get a Pokémon and thus, there's no risk.
So... here's how you beat Pokémon Blue without ever taking damage.
Step one: take your Game Boy and your copy of Pokémon Blue and stuff them in a drawer. You're not gonna play this game right away. Instead, pull out a Nintendo 64 and do a normal casual playthrough of Pokémon Stadium 2. Why? Because halfway through the game, you unlock the Dodrio Tower. When you get this, you can connect your Game Boy to your Nintendo 64 and play the game at quadruple-speed.
Yes, speedup is a function of most emulators, but this isn't being done with emulation, so the official way will have to do. Why is speedup important? Well... let's move on to the first actual part of the game: starter selection and the rival fight.
Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle. Which do you pick? There is a correct answer here. Charmander. Here's why.
Charmander comes with the move Scratch, which has 100% accuracy. Bulbasaur and Squirtle have Tackle, which has 95% accuracy. As such, in order to make it through the rival fight unscathed, your best bet is to use a Charmander while the rival uses Squirtle.
In order to make it past this fight, you need Squirtle to waste its turn six times in a row. This can be either because Squirtle has chosen to use Tail Whip or because it uses Tackle and it missed. The odds of getting a successful rival battle here is only about 2%. If you fail, you reset the game and try again. This means you have to go through the beginning of the game over and over again until you get it. This would be a nightmare without speedup.
And after that, you're not done. You need to catch a Rattata in a Poké Ball at full health on turn 1. The odds of a successful capture here are about 36%. But once you've done that, then you're pretty much done with all the luck-based portions of the entire game. It took Gamechamp3000 a total of 73 attempts to get this far, but once she did, she then went on to complete a successful run without any further resets past this point.
At this point, spend a couple days in real-time just fighting against wild Metapod and Kakuna in Viridian Forest. They only know Harden, so they can't hurt you. This lets you level up your Pokémon as much as you want. Gamechamp3000 decided to proceed after she had a Level 42 Charizard. You may think that you can just attack any wild Pokémon at this point, but no.
Suppose you fight a Level 3 Caterpie with a Level 42 Charizard. This may seem like a one-sided battle, but there's a problem. If Charizard uses Flamethrower and misses, then Caterpie is free to use Tackle to immediately force a reset of the entire save file. You may think that this is a non-issue since Flamethrower has 100% accuracy, but that is not the case. In Generation 1, any move with 100% accuracy has a 1 in 256 chance of missing. That may seem astronomically small, but the more times you attack, the more likely you are to encounter it at least once. There's already a lot of mandatory battles in the game that carry this risk. Adding on additional risk during this level-grinding session would result in the odds of a successful playthrough approaching zero.
Luckily, fleeing from random encounters is always a guaranteed success as long as you have a higher Speed than the enemy Pokémon. This means that you can always run away from anything that you don't want to fight, namely things that aren't Metapod and Kakuna.
At this point, use Charizard to go fight Brock and get the first badge. Flamethrower is a guaranteed one-hit-KO against Brock's Pokémon, with Charizard's high stats. Then backtrack to Viridian Forest and train up Rattata using the same method. Fight only Metapod and Kakuna. Once again, Gamechamp3000 went until Raticate was Level 42.
We used Charizard for this one fight, just because Normal-type moves are ineffective against Rock-type Pokémon with high Defense, but Raticate is the true star of the show from this point on. Why? Because it has the move Quick Attack.
Route 3 is the next stop on our journey, and several NPCs here will fight you, using Pokémon that have the move Quick Attack. If you were to use Flamethrower, Quick Attack would go first and would damage you. So you need to use Quick Attack yourself in order to guarantee that you attack first. And, obviously, only fight the required battles, don't fight the optional trainers.
When you reach Mt. Moon, you can find TM12 (Water Gun). Teach this to Raticate so that it can finally have a way to deal with Rock-types.
After exiting Mt. Moon, you arrive in Cerulean City and you cannot leave until you beat the rival. The rival's Pidgeotto knows Quick Attack, so you'll need to use Quick Attack yourself to KO it. You also need to get a one-hit-KO on it, which is why you needed to grind up Raticate so high earlier in Viridian Forest: you can't go back now (there's a one-way ledge before Cerulean City).
At this point, go through Nugget Bridge and talk to Bill for the SS Ticket. Once this is done, you can exit Cerulean City to the south and make it to Vermillion. There, you get the Bike Voucher. Go back to Cerulean City to get the Bicycle. At this point, we have access to the Day Care, which can be used to train up any Pokémon without any risk of taking damage.
Just leave Raticate at the Day Care Center and bike back and forth with speedup and spend a couple of real-life days just gaining experience points. Gamechamp3000 in particular waited until Raticate was Level 61.
At this point, go to the SS Anne and defeat the rival to get HM01 (Cut). You can't use it until you get the second badge, so go to Cerulean Gym.
At this point, Gamechamp3000 had a scary moment occur. While fighting a Gym trainer's Goldeen, Raticate used Quick Attack, and it missed. Generation 1's infamous 1-in-256 inaccuracy struck, leaving her wide open to take damage. But luckily, the enemy Goldeen just used Tail Whip, so no damage was dealt. Quick Attack then successfully hit the opponent on the following turn.
Before you can use Cut, you need to teach it to a Pokémon. You may think that any Pokémon will do. However, this is not the case. In Generation 1, any Pokémon that knows an HM move cannot be placed in the Day Care. This means that you forfeit the right to easily grind any Pokémon that you teach Cut to. So it's best to teach it to something that won't battle. Head north of Cerulean and catch a wild Kakuna, and then use the switch-out method to train it against other Kakuna, evolving it into a Beedrill. Beedrill can learn Cut, so you're good there.
At this point, the next obstacle is Rock Tunnel. While you can go through it without Flash, it isn't recommended. You don't want to accidentally end up in a battle where you can take damage. Professor Oak's aide gives you HM05 (Flash) if you've caught at least 10 Pokémon. Catching a Metapod and an Abra will carry no risk of taking damage, and so you can do that, bringing you up to the ten that you need. And Abra can learn Flash, so there you go.
After making it through Rock Tunnel, you reach Lavender Town. South of Lavender Town, there's an NPC that will give you TM39 (Swift). This is a godsend for Raticate. Swift doesn't have 100% accuracy. Instead, it bypasses the accuracy check entirely and simply always hits. This means that you no longer have to worry about the 1-in-256 chance of a move missing.
Of course, you need to be strong enough to get a one-hit-KO against the opponent. And also the opponent needs to not use Quick Attack, so if the opponent knows Quick Attack, you do have to still use Quick Attack yourself. And there's one other problem: you can't hit Ghost-types. Luckily, you can use TM28 (Dig) to get around this problem. Because all the Ghost-types in this game are Ghost/Poison, Dig is super effective. While Dig does technically give the opponent a turn, no Ghost-type in the game knows any move that can hit an underground target. So you don't have to worry about taking damage.
And now we have to scale the Pokémon Tower. Under normal circumstances, you have to use the Silph Scope on the Ghost Marowak, which takes up a turn. But this isn't actually required. If you go to Celadon City, you can buy a Poké Doll. The Poké Doll can be used in battle to automatically end any battle with a wild Pokémon. And since the Ghost Marowak is still technically a wild Pokémon (despite being a required story encounter), it can be used here to instantly end the battle (running will cause the game to register that you haven't calmed Marowak's soul yet, but the Poké Doll is not programmed to do this, so it proceeds as though you won the battle), negating the need to even bother with the Rocket HQ dungeon to get the Silph Scope.
Once you do that, you obtain the Poké Flute.
Go to Celadon City to get yourself a free Eevee and buy a Thunderstone to evolve it into Jolteon. Then drop it off at the Day Care.
West of Celadon, you can pick up HM02 (Fly). You also use the Poké Flute here to wake Snorlax. This time, pressing the Run button is totally valid and will result in the Snorlax leaving, allowing you to proceed down Cycling Road. If you stay on the far-right on Cycling Road, you never encounter any trainers, so do that.
When you reach Fuchsia City, you have to go through the Safari Zone to get HM04 (Strength) and HM03 (Surf). Additionally, while you're in the Safari Zone, you can catch whatever Pokémon you want without any risk of taking damage. At minimum, you need a Doduo to learn Fly, a Kangaskhan to learn Surf and Strength, and a Nidorino.
At this point, we still can't use these HMs due to a lack of badges. But you should be high enough level (and have Swift) that you can just one-hit-KO any enemy trainer, so go through the entire game and fight every trainer that you can, including the Gym Leaders. Then continue to grind against wild Pokémon outside of Fuchsia City. Gamechamp3000 in particular went until Raticate was Level 95.
At this point, you can go beat Silph Co. Note that your rival and Giovanni have Pokémon that are too powerful to one-hit-KO with Swift, so you'll have to use Bubblebeam (replace Water Gun with this) and Dig to get super-effective hits in, which means risking the 1-in-256 inaccuracy.
By now, Raticate was Level 98, but Gamechamp3000 opted to train it in the Seafoam Islands to get to Level 100. And then she beat the last gym.
At this point, use the Day Care to grind up the three Pokémon that you need to use in the endgame: Raticate, Jolteon, and Nidorino. Gamechamp3000 went for Level 100 on Raticate and Jolteon, and Level 79 on Nidorino before making her attempt. You also need to use vitamins. Raticate already has maximum stat experience, but as for Jolteon and Nidorino, you need to use ten Calcium on Jolteon and ten Carbos on Nidorino. And as for TMs, you need Raticate to know Swift, Bubblebeam, and Dig, obviously. You also need to teach Jolteon Thunderbolt and teach Nidorino Horn Drill.
On top of that, in your item bag, you need to have a whole lot of X Accuracies and X Speeds, at least two Ethers, and the Poké Flute.
Head to Route 22 to fight your rival. Here, lead with Nidorino against the rival's Pidgeot. Because Nidorino is pure Poison type (hence why it's not evolved, or else it would be Poison/Ground), Pidgeot will use Agility, a Psychic-type move, to attempt super-effective damage. Since this does no damage, you have as much time as you want. Use six X Speeds and an X Accuracy. Then just use an attack to KO the Pidgeot.
X Accuracy is broken in Generation 1. In most games, it provides an accuracy increase, but in Generation 1, it instead causes your moves to skip accuracy checks. This means that Horn Drill, a guaranteed OHKO move, can now be used repeatedly to sweep the rest of the rival's team.
Victory Road is just a quick dungeon that you can effortlessly get through. On the other side, go heal at the Pokémon Center, and prepare to fight the Elite Four.
Against Lorelei, you need to use Nidorino. Lorelei's Dewgong will use Rest repeatedly against Nidorino, again, trying for super-effective damage with a Psychic-type move. Set up six X Speeds and an X Accuracy and then use Horn Drill on her entire team. Make sure to use an Ether to restore Horn Drill's PP afterwards.
Against Bruno, lead with Raticate. Use Bubblebeam on the two Onix, Swift on Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan, and Jolteon's Thunderbolt on Machamp. These should all be one-hit-KOs.
Against Agatha, lead with Jolteon. Use Thunderbolt against the Ghost-types, and use Raticate's Swift against the Arbok and Golbat.
Against Lance, lead with Jolteon. Use Thunderbolt against Gyarados, and then send out Nidorino. Lance sends out Dragonair. Once again, because of super-effective moves, Dragonair will spam Agility. Use the time to set up six X Speeds and an X Accuracy, and then use Horn Drill to get through the rest of the fight. Then use an Ether to restore Horn Drill's PP afterwards.
And now we have the final champion battle against the rival. He leads with Pidgeot, which gets one-hit-KOed by Jolteon's Thunderbolt. Then comes Alakazam, which gets one-hit-KOed by Raticate's Swift. Then is Rhydon, which gets one-hit-KOed by Raticate's Bubblebeam. Then is Arcanine, which is one-hit-KOed by Jolteon's Thunderbolt.
And then comes Exeggutor.
Send out your Nidorino here. Your rival's Exeggutor knows three moves: Barrage, Stomp, and Hypnosis. Given that Nidorino is a Poison-type and Hypnosis is a Psychic-type move, Exeggutor will use Hypnosis. But it won't spam it endlessly. Despite preferring super-effective moves, there's another AI behavior that supersedes this. An AI will never use a status-inflicting move on a Pokémon that already has a status ailment. However, in Generation 1, the AI does not pick its move at the start of the turn like the player does. It picks it before it attacks. So you can use the Poké Flute to wake up Nidorino first. And then the AI will choose its move afterwards, choosing Hypnosis. Keep using the Poké Flute each turn until Hypnosis misses. Note that, in Generation 1, the AI doesn't have any PP restrictions, so this will keep going on forever. You don't have to worry about Hypnosis running out and the Exeggutor choosing one of its damaging moves instead.
Once Hypnosis misses, you have a free turn. Use one of your X items. Then repeat this process until Hypnosis has missed seven times and given you seven free turns. On those turns, use six X Speed and an X Accuracy.
From there, use Horn Drill to one-hit-KO the Exeggutor and the Blastoise, thereby winning the game without ever taking damage.
* Beaten The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild without climbing.
* Beaten Super Mario Odyssey without jumping.
* Beaten Splatoon without firing the Hero Shot.
* Beaten Splatoon 2 without firing the Hero weapons.
* Beaten Kirby's Adventure without eating.
* Beaten Super Mario Sunshine without hovering.
* Beaten Sly Cooper and the Thievius Roccoonus without stealing any coins.
* Beaten Super Mario 3D World without jumping.
* Beaten Jak and Daxter without collecting any precursor orbs.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank with only the wrench.
* Beaten Mega Man 1 without taking damage.
* Beaten Sonic 3 & Knuckles without pressing right.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando with only the wrench.
* Beaten New Super Mario Bros. 2 without collecting any coins.
* Beaten Dead Rising without killing any zombies.
* Beaten Mega Man 2 without taking damage.
* Beaten Cave Story with 100% completion without killing any enemies.
* Beaten GUN without using any bullets except when absolutely necessary.
* Beaten Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion DLC without firing any shots except when absolutely necessary.
* Beaten Ape Escape with the minimum amount of gadgets possible.
* Beaten Mega Man 8 with only the ball.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal with only the wrench.
* Beaten Crash Team Racing without using the gas pedal.
* Beaten A Hat In Time without jumping.
* Beaten The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in Master Mode without using the pause menu.
* Beaten Pokémon Blue Version without taking damage.
* Beaten Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker without moving the camera.
* Beaten Death Stranding with the minimum number of items possible.
* Beaten Kingdom Hearts while keeping all characters at Level 1.
* Beaten Super Mario Odyssey without jumping and collecting the most amount of Moons possible.
* Beaten Ratchet: Deadlocked with only the wrench.
* Beaten The Last of Us without scavenging.
* Beaten Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories while effectively keeping all characters at Level 1.
* Beaten Stubbs the Zombie without eating any brains.
* Beaten Yoshi's Island without killing any enemies.
* Beaten Bowser's Fury without jumping.
* Beaten Bowser's Fury without jumping and collecting the most amount of Cat Shines possible.
* Beaten Super Smash Bros. Ultimate without spirits or skills.
* Beaten Professor Layton and the Curious Village while tapping the touch screen as few times as possible.
* Beaten Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters with only the wrench.
* Beaten Uncharted with as few guns as possible.
* Beaten Metroid without killing any enemies.
* Beaten Mega Man 3 without taking damage.
* Beaten Jak II without using any guns.
* Beaten Scott Pilgrim vs. The World without any stat boosts.
While all of these are quite impressive, the one that she says she is the most proud of is beating Pokémon Blue without taking any damage. And yes, this is absolutely insane. I'm going to explain to you how she did it. I just want to stress that this is NOT MY IDEA. This is all on her. Go support her if you find this to be an interesting read. I'm effectively just taking her video playthrough and putting it into text form.
Another thing: You may be interested in doing this playthrough yourself, so I am obligated to tell you that this is a bad idea. She herself has said that while she is proud of having done this, the playthrough definitely did some serious psychological harm to her. She spent so much time afraid of taking any damage that she started having nightmares about stupid stuff, like stepping on a thumbtack and then having to delete her save file because that is technically damage.
And I also want to stress that: if you take damage at any point, you have to erase your save file and start over. A small selection of people (around half a dozen) have attempted Pokémon playthroughs on YouTube without taking damage, but not only was hers the first, but it also is the only one that has this heavy of a penalty for failure. Most people just reload a previous save. She goes the extra mile by not allowing this. (Which is one reason why I dislike the others, they seem like an inferior version of this since they don't commit all the way, which would be forgivable if they did this before Gamechamp3000 did her run, but like I said, she was the first.)
And literally ANY damage will cause the run to be forfeit. Getting poisoned is fine, but then you lose as soon as you take damage from poison, even though that wasn't from an attack. Using moves like Selfdestruct and Substitute, which cause you to lose HP yourself upon use, is also a no-go, since self-inflicted damage is still damage.
Finally, she mandated that she must defeat all eight Gym Leaders, get the badges, go through the Elite Four, beat them, and then beat the Champion. She is NOT allowed to just use arbitrary code execution to skip straight to the end credits. This makes sense, as otherwise you could just do this before you even get a Pokémon and thus, there's no risk.
So... here's how you beat Pokémon Blue without ever taking damage.
Step one: take your Game Boy and your copy of Pokémon Blue and stuff them in a drawer. You're not gonna play this game right away. Instead, pull out a Nintendo 64 and do a normal casual playthrough of Pokémon Stadium 2. Why? Because halfway through the game, you unlock the Dodrio Tower. When you get this, you can connect your Game Boy to your Nintendo 64 and play the game at quadruple-speed.
Yes, speedup is a function of most emulators, but this isn't being done with emulation, so the official way will have to do. Why is speedup important? Well... let's move on to the first actual part of the game: starter selection and the rival fight.
Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle. Which do you pick? There is a correct answer here. Charmander. Here's why.
Charmander comes with the move Scratch, which has 100% accuracy. Bulbasaur and Squirtle have Tackle, which has 95% accuracy. As such, in order to make it through the rival fight unscathed, your best bet is to use a Charmander while the rival uses Squirtle.
In order to make it past this fight, you need Squirtle to waste its turn six times in a row. This can be either because Squirtle has chosen to use Tail Whip or because it uses Tackle and it missed. The odds of getting a successful rival battle here is only about 2%. If you fail, you reset the game and try again. This means you have to go through the beginning of the game over and over again until you get it. This would be a nightmare without speedup.
And after that, you're not done. You need to catch a Rattata in a Poké Ball at full health on turn 1. The odds of a successful capture here are about 36%. But once you've done that, then you're pretty much done with all the luck-based portions of the entire game. It took Gamechamp3000 a total of 73 attempts to get this far, but once she did, she then went on to complete a successful run without any further resets past this point.
At this point, spend a couple days in real-time just fighting against wild Metapod and Kakuna in Viridian Forest. They only know Harden, so they can't hurt you. This lets you level up your Pokémon as much as you want. Gamechamp3000 decided to proceed after she had a Level 42 Charizard. You may think that you can just attack any wild Pokémon at this point, but no.
Suppose you fight a Level 3 Caterpie with a Level 42 Charizard. This may seem like a one-sided battle, but there's a problem. If Charizard uses Flamethrower and misses, then Caterpie is free to use Tackle to immediately force a reset of the entire save file. You may think that this is a non-issue since Flamethrower has 100% accuracy, but that is not the case. In Generation 1, any move with 100% accuracy has a 1 in 256 chance of missing. That may seem astronomically small, but the more times you attack, the more likely you are to encounter it at least once. There's already a lot of mandatory battles in the game that carry this risk. Adding on additional risk during this level-grinding session would result in the odds of a successful playthrough approaching zero.
Luckily, fleeing from random encounters is always a guaranteed success as long as you have a higher Speed than the enemy Pokémon. This means that you can always run away from anything that you don't want to fight, namely things that aren't Metapod and Kakuna.
At this point, use Charizard to go fight Brock and get the first badge. Flamethrower is a guaranteed one-hit-KO against Brock's Pokémon, with Charizard's high stats. Then backtrack to Viridian Forest and train up Rattata using the same method. Fight only Metapod and Kakuna. Once again, Gamechamp3000 went until Raticate was Level 42.
We used Charizard for this one fight, just because Normal-type moves are ineffective against Rock-type Pokémon with high Defense, but Raticate is the true star of the show from this point on. Why? Because it has the move Quick Attack.
Route 3 is the next stop on our journey, and several NPCs here will fight you, using Pokémon that have the move Quick Attack. If you were to use Flamethrower, Quick Attack would go first and would damage you. So you need to use Quick Attack yourself in order to guarantee that you attack first. And, obviously, only fight the required battles, don't fight the optional trainers.
When you reach Mt. Moon, you can find TM12 (Water Gun). Teach this to Raticate so that it can finally have a way to deal with Rock-types.
After exiting Mt. Moon, you arrive in Cerulean City and you cannot leave until you beat the rival. The rival's Pidgeotto knows Quick Attack, so you'll need to use Quick Attack yourself to KO it. You also need to get a one-hit-KO on it, which is why you needed to grind up Raticate so high earlier in Viridian Forest: you can't go back now (there's a one-way ledge before Cerulean City).
At this point, go through Nugget Bridge and talk to Bill for the SS Ticket. Once this is done, you can exit Cerulean City to the south and make it to Vermillion. There, you get the Bike Voucher. Go back to Cerulean City to get the Bicycle. At this point, we have access to the Day Care, which can be used to train up any Pokémon without any risk of taking damage.
Just leave Raticate at the Day Care Center and bike back and forth with speedup and spend a couple of real-life days just gaining experience points. Gamechamp3000 in particular waited until Raticate was Level 61.
At this point, go to the SS Anne and defeat the rival to get HM01 (Cut). You can't use it until you get the second badge, so go to Cerulean Gym.
At this point, Gamechamp3000 had a scary moment occur. While fighting a Gym trainer's Goldeen, Raticate used Quick Attack, and it missed. Generation 1's infamous 1-in-256 inaccuracy struck, leaving her wide open to take damage. But luckily, the enemy Goldeen just used Tail Whip, so no damage was dealt. Quick Attack then successfully hit the opponent on the following turn.
Before you can use Cut, you need to teach it to a Pokémon. You may think that any Pokémon will do. However, this is not the case. In Generation 1, any Pokémon that knows an HM move cannot be placed in the Day Care. This means that you forfeit the right to easily grind any Pokémon that you teach Cut to. So it's best to teach it to something that won't battle. Head north of Cerulean and catch a wild Kakuna, and then use the switch-out method to train it against other Kakuna, evolving it into a Beedrill. Beedrill can learn Cut, so you're good there.
At this point, the next obstacle is Rock Tunnel. While you can go through it without Flash, it isn't recommended. You don't want to accidentally end up in a battle where you can take damage. Professor Oak's aide gives you HM05 (Flash) if you've caught at least 10 Pokémon. Catching a Metapod and an Abra will carry no risk of taking damage, and so you can do that, bringing you up to the ten that you need. And Abra can learn Flash, so there you go.
After making it through Rock Tunnel, you reach Lavender Town. South of Lavender Town, there's an NPC that will give you TM39 (Swift). This is a godsend for Raticate. Swift doesn't have 100% accuracy. Instead, it bypasses the accuracy check entirely and simply always hits. This means that you no longer have to worry about the 1-in-256 chance of a move missing.
Of course, you need to be strong enough to get a one-hit-KO against the opponent. And also the opponent needs to not use Quick Attack, so if the opponent knows Quick Attack, you do have to still use Quick Attack yourself. And there's one other problem: you can't hit Ghost-types. Luckily, you can use TM28 (Dig) to get around this problem. Because all the Ghost-types in this game are Ghost/Poison, Dig is super effective. While Dig does technically give the opponent a turn, no Ghost-type in the game knows any move that can hit an underground target. So you don't have to worry about taking damage.
And now we have to scale the Pokémon Tower. Under normal circumstances, you have to use the Silph Scope on the Ghost Marowak, which takes up a turn. But this isn't actually required. If you go to Celadon City, you can buy a Poké Doll. The Poké Doll can be used in battle to automatically end any battle with a wild Pokémon. And since the Ghost Marowak is still technically a wild Pokémon (despite being a required story encounter), it can be used here to instantly end the battle (running will cause the game to register that you haven't calmed Marowak's soul yet, but the Poké Doll is not programmed to do this, so it proceeds as though you won the battle), negating the need to even bother with the Rocket HQ dungeon to get the Silph Scope.
Once you do that, you obtain the Poké Flute.
Go to Celadon City to get yourself a free Eevee and buy a Thunderstone to evolve it into Jolteon. Then drop it off at the Day Care.
West of Celadon, you can pick up HM02 (Fly). You also use the Poké Flute here to wake Snorlax. This time, pressing the Run button is totally valid and will result in the Snorlax leaving, allowing you to proceed down Cycling Road. If you stay on the far-right on Cycling Road, you never encounter any trainers, so do that.
When you reach Fuchsia City, you have to go through the Safari Zone to get HM04 (Strength) and HM03 (Surf). Additionally, while you're in the Safari Zone, you can catch whatever Pokémon you want without any risk of taking damage. At minimum, you need a Doduo to learn Fly, a Kangaskhan to learn Surf and Strength, and a Nidorino.
At this point, we still can't use these HMs due to a lack of badges. But you should be high enough level (and have Swift) that you can just one-hit-KO any enemy trainer, so go through the entire game and fight every trainer that you can, including the Gym Leaders. Then continue to grind against wild Pokémon outside of Fuchsia City. Gamechamp3000 in particular went until Raticate was Level 95.
At this point, you can go beat Silph Co. Note that your rival and Giovanni have Pokémon that are too powerful to one-hit-KO with Swift, so you'll have to use Bubblebeam (replace Water Gun with this) and Dig to get super-effective hits in, which means risking the 1-in-256 inaccuracy.
By now, Raticate was Level 98, but Gamechamp3000 opted to train it in the Seafoam Islands to get to Level 100. And then she beat the last gym.
At this point, use the Day Care to grind up the three Pokémon that you need to use in the endgame: Raticate, Jolteon, and Nidorino. Gamechamp3000 went for Level 100 on Raticate and Jolteon, and Level 79 on Nidorino before making her attempt. You also need to use vitamins. Raticate already has maximum stat experience, but as for Jolteon and Nidorino, you need to use ten Calcium on Jolteon and ten Carbos on Nidorino. And as for TMs, you need Raticate to know Swift, Bubblebeam, and Dig, obviously. You also need to teach Jolteon Thunderbolt and teach Nidorino Horn Drill.
On top of that, in your item bag, you need to have a whole lot of X Accuracies and X Speeds, at least two Ethers, and the Poké Flute.
Head to Route 22 to fight your rival. Here, lead with Nidorino against the rival's Pidgeot. Because Nidorino is pure Poison type (hence why it's not evolved, or else it would be Poison/Ground), Pidgeot will use Agility, a Psychic-type move, to attempt super-effective damage. Since this does no damage, you have as much time as you want. Use six X Speeds and an X Accuracy. Then just use an attack to KO the Pidgeot.
X Accuracy is broken in Generation 1. In most games, it provides an accuracy increase, but in Generation 1, it instead causes your moves to skip accuracy checks. This means that Horn Drill, a guaranteed OHKO move, can now be used repeatedly to sweep the rest of the rival's team.
Victory Road is just a quick dungeon that you can effortlessly get through. On the other side, go heal at the Pokémon Center, and prepare to fight the Elite Four.
Against Lorelei, you need to use Nidorino. Lorelei's Dewgong will use Rest repeatedly against Nidorino, again, trying for super-effective damage with a Psychic-type move. Set up six X Speeds and an X Accuracy and then use Horn Drill on her entire team. Make sure to use an Ether to restore Horn Drill's PP afterwards.
Against Bruno, lead with Raticate. Use Bubblebeam on the two Onix, Swift on Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan, and Jolteon's Thunderbolt on Machamp. These should all be one-hit-KOs.
Against Agatha, lead with Jolteon. Use Thunderbolt against the Ghost-types, and use Raticate's Swift against the Arbok and Golbat.
Against Lance, lead with Jolteon. Use Thunderbolt against Gyarados, and then send out Nidorino. Lance sends out Dragonair. Once again, because of super-effective moves, Dragonair will spam Agility. Use the time to set up six X Speeds and an X Accuracy, and then use Horn Drill to get through the rest of the fight. Then use an Ether to restore Horn Drill's PP afterwards.
And now we have the final champion battle against the rival. He leads with Pidgeot, which gets one-hit-KOed by Jolteon's Thunderbolt. Then comes Alakazam, which gets one-hit-KOed by Raticate's Swift. Then is Rhydon, which gets one-hit-KOed by Raticate's Bubblebeam. Then is Arcanine, which is one-hit-KOed by Jolteon's Thunderbolt.
And then comes Exeggutor.
Send out your Nidorino here. Your rival's Exeggutor knows three moves: Barrage, Stomp, and Hypnosis. Given that Nidorino is a Poison-type and Hypnosis is a Psychic-type move, Exeggutor will use Hypnosis. But it won't spam it endlessly. Despite preferring super-effective moves, there's another AI behavior that supersedes this. An AI will never use a status-inflicting move on a Pokémon that already has a status ailment. However, in Generation 1, the AI does not pick its move at the start of the turn like the player does. It picks it before it attacks. So you can use the Poké Flute to wake up Nidorino first. And then the AI will choose its move afterwards, choosing Hypnosis. Keep using the Poké Flute each turn until Hypnosis misses. Note that, in Generation 1, the AI doesn't have any PP restrictions, so this will keep going on forever. You don't have to worry about Hypnosis running out and the Exeggutor choosing one of its damaging moves instead.
Once Hypnosis misses, you have a free turn. Use one of your X items. Then repeat this process until Hypnosis has missed seven times and given you seven free turns. On those turns, use six X Speed and an X Accuracy.
From there, use Horn Drill to one-hit-KO the Exeggutor and the Blastoise, thereby winning the game without ever taking damage.