10 QOL Tips for Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow

Wednesday, 6th December 2023

I've replayed Gen 1 countless times. And over the years I've learned some tricks and tips which I think overcome some of Gen 1's quirks, and make the game more enjoyable.

I thought others might find these ideas useful, so I've decided to share them in this blog post.

1. Preserve item space by leaving items in the world

In Red, Blue and Yellow you can only carry 20 items in your bag, and store 50 items in your PC. That sounds like a lot. But consider that there are 50 TMs. By the time you get near the end of the game, you might find that you're having to decide which items to throw away or sell to make space.

So, here's a tip. Save before you pick up an item, and decide if you really need to obtain it right now. If not, leave it in the world. Once you get Fly you can go get it any time you want.

Let's say you come across TM24 Thunder Wave while you're on Route 24, and right at this moment you don't have any Pokemon you want to teach it to. Well, just leave it right there. When you do decide you want to teach a Pokemon Thunder Wave, just fly back and pick it up (although bear in mind #4 on this list).

If you want to be a REAL minimalist you could leave every item in the world. But if you don't want to go that far, just leave TMs in the world. That'll leave you plenty of space for everything else.

Note: You should make sure to pick up everything on the SS Anne, or at least check each item to decide whether you want it or not. Since the SS Anne goes away.

2. Preserve "Pokemon" space by not keeping every Pokemon you catch

Do you really need boxes and boxes full of Pokemon doing nothing when you can go catch them any time you want?

Once you obtain a Pokemon and get its Pokedex entry, consider if it's really worth keeping or not.

You'll most likely want to keep if it it's a one-off Pokemon, like a starter, fossil or legendary.

You'll probably want to keep any opposite-version exclusives or trade evolutions you've obtained.

And you'll probably want to keep any Pokemon you plan on evolving for Pokedex purposes.

But wild Pokemon you can go catch any time? Set them freeeee! And then your boxes will only contain Pokemon that have a purpose, or that you might want to train up some day.

3. Don't teach HM Flash to a main team member

Well, unless you actually think it's a useful move, personally I think it's garbage. At least for the story.

The only place where Flash is needed as a field move is Rock Tunnel. Once you've been in there, defeated all the trainers and caught an Onix and a Machop you'll never need to go in there again. There are no items there.

So unless you particularly like Flash as a move, teach it to a Voltorb or something, clear out Rock Tunnel, box (or release…) the Voltorb and move on from HM Flash.

4. Don't use TMs until you reach Cinnabar + Missingno (Red/Blue only)

Warning: This one could mess up your save, use at your own risk.

So, TMs break after use in Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow. This was always a completely stupid idea. Despite normally being very anti-cheating in games, I make an exception for this.

As you probably know, on Cinnabar Island, if you surf up and down the east coast, you'll encounter a Pokemon called Missingno.

You may or may not also know that when you encounter Missingno, the 6th item in your bag will be increased by 128!

This means you can have more than enough of each good TM to last a lifetime.

Personally I recommend doing this with the following 12 TMs:

Everything else can either be bought with money or Coins, or is junk. Although you might wanna Google a Pokemon Gen 1 TM list in case there are some others you might like.

So, in short don't use any TM you like until you've done the Missingo item boost trick on them.

Additional: You may also want to boost Moon Stones, since they're limited quantity.

5. Don't encounter Missingo after defeating the Elite 4

Warning: Missingno can mess up your save. Encounter at your own risk.

Get your Missingo shenanigans out of the way before you defeat the Elite 4. Otherwise, your Hall of Fame gets messed up.

Considering the item boost trick adds 128 to TMs, there shouldn't be any reason to encounter Missingo again once that's out of the way.

6. Deal with Brock

If you picked Bulbasaur or Squirtle, you won't have an issue. But I actually think, if you picked Charmander, or are playing Yellow, Brock is actually a pretty tough challenge at the start of the game.

So what are we dealing with exactly? Brock has a level 10 Geodude, and a level 12 Onix. Neither of them actually know any Rock or Ground type moves! Geodude only knows Tackle. Onix knows Tackle, Screech, Bide and Bind. Both Pokemon have a low special stat.

If you're playing Red/Blue with Charmander, and want to be fairly certain of a victory. The following Pokemon are viable. You don't need all three, but I recommend training any two of them to level 14:

So basically we're taking advantage of our opponent Pokemon's low special stats. Even Ember does decent damage despite the type disadvantage.

If you're playing Yellow, Pikachu is useless against brock. The following Pokemon are viable. Once again pick any two and train to level 14.

Nidoran and Mankey can make use of their Super effective attacks to take the enemy down. Butterfree as before.

In terms of the actual battle, your Pokemon will be faster than your opponent's. This means if Onix uses bide, you can stop attacking and use Growl, Leer, String Shot or Sand Attack. A couple of Potions would also be useful in case of an unlucky Critical hit. You may also want to consider switching if Onix gets too many Screech's in. With that, Brock should be pretty easy to defeat!

7. Open up the world and gain access to more Pokemon

You can actually open quite a lot of Kanto up quite early.

Once you get to Lavender town, go West, go underground, then go to Celadon.

Defeat Team Rocket in the Game Corner, and you'll acquire the Silph Scope.

Go to the roof of the Department Store, and buy a drink from the vending machine. Take it to the guard in the building east of Celadon, and you'll gain access to Saffron City.

Return to Lavender Town, complete the Ghost Tower, acquire the Poke Flute.

Now go South from Lavender or via Cycling Road by Celadon, deal with Snorlax, and you can make your way to Fuchsia.

You've now opened up all of Kanto except Cinnabar! This means you can choose from a ton of Pokemon to add to your team for the rest of the game.

If you'd like to continue prioritising opening up the world, and gain access to Cinnabar, then you'll need Surf.

You can get Surf at the Safari Zone, and to be able to use if on the field, you'll need to beat the Fuchsia City gym. Then you can Surf south from Pallet town, and congrats, you've opened up more or less the entire game!

8. Get Rid of Junk

Each time you reach a new town, go to the Pokemon Center and deposit any items you're not going to need. And go to the Pokemart and sell anything you want to sell (like Nuggets).

This prevents being half way through a quest and not having enough item space to receive some item.

The only items you really need on hand are Potions, status healers, PokeBalls, the Bike, and maybe the PokeFlute if you like to use that to heal sleep.

9. Choose the best training spots

If you're training a full team of six, defeating all the trainers in the game probably won't be enough to keep your level up.

The best training spots throughout the story are:

10. Have an "adventuring team" made up of Pokemon you like

Don't stress too much about building the ultimate competitive Pokemon team during the story. There's no in-game opponent so difficult that they can't be overcome with a few more level ups. So pick Pokemon you like and enjoy the game.

The only HMs you'll really want permanently on your adventuring team unless you want to go insane are Surf and Fly. So you'll need a Water and Flying type. It's definitely somewhere between convenient and recommended to have Cut and Strength permanently on your adventuring team. But you can get by with swapping Pokemon in and out of your PC if you'd rather do that.

If you're trying to train a team for Stadium or to battle friends, consider saving that for the end of the game.

Enjoy the adventure.

The End

There we have it. 10 tips for Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow. I hope that helps someone on their next playthrough of the games!

- Box art images from Bulbapedia.

- Pokemon screenies and all that copyright/trademark/whatever Nintendo/Game Freak/The Pokemon company and so on.