#zettel #gaming/pokemon-team sourced from: [[Pokemon Heart Gold]] # General Thoughts on my Heart Gold Team from the 2022-2023 Playthrough Ultimately, I got a really interesting perspective in this playthrough because I was able to use 6 Pokemon I had NEVER used in a playthrough before and still managed to have a relatively painless playthrough, which is a rarity. ##  Meganium (September) When you only get grass moves, of course you're going to have limited utility. It's rough that Meganium is just bad against literally any Rocket trainer, and there are SO MANY Poison types in the middle late game. This game is not kind to Chikorita / Bayleef / Meganium users, is it? - [[The Johto Pokemon Games are Not Nice to players who choose Chikorita as their starter]] ##  Slowbro (Lyle!) This is where the move pool coverage comes in. Slowbro gets so much useful coverage: Surf, and Psychic for STABs and then Shadow Ball and Fire Blast so that I can touch Grass types pre Ho-oh and so that Pryce doesn't completely run through me. the exclamation point is required btw ##  Golem (Shaley) Actually really useful against Rockets between the Zubats, Grimers, Magnemites, and other poison types I can hit with Earthquake. Even Koffing and Weezing are manageable with the Rock STAB, which has been useful. A female geodude also puts in a TON of work against Whitney's Miltank, so unironically a really good teammate if you can get the trade :] ##  Umbreon ([[Penumbra]]) I WISH this mon were better, but it's really not that good from a single player perspective. Its strongest physical STAB is Faint Attack and it just gets a bunch of not so good utility moves. But then again, being a dark type is really useful for switching into ghosts and psychic types with ease. It's also very tank so I can at least use it to absorb hits and heal others. ##  Forretress (Baguunta) Pineco is hell to raise to level 31, but once you get Forretress things get a little easier. Bug/Steel is really useful, I just wish I could get Gyro Ball on Forretress since the only Steel STAB it has before then is Mirror Shot, which is quite bad on Forretress. I like how it can sort of just sit there and absorb hits while I end up healing the rest of my party, and it was an instrumental way to beat Red's Lapras (the hardest foe in the game IMO). Still, it has a pretty high bar to clear before it gets really effective. ##  Ho-oh (Birefall) After 8282 [[Soft Resetting for Shiny Pokemon as a Concept feels absurd|soft resets]], I finally got one and I caught it in a Fast Ball, which rocks. It's really really good. Obviously really good, though I tried to make sure it never carried me. I am never doing a soft-reset shiny hunt ever again, or at least not for a very long time. I tried it, I did not enjoy it. Birefall is a good mon, obviously, I just wish it weren't one of the only options for a fire Type, as having a good Fire and Flying type be compressed into a single mon is good.