I never really got to like Mew that much. I mean it's adorable and all, and the countless hours spent on looking for it in the originals, whether it was under the truck, by beating the Elite 4 100 times, or whatever other methods the various rumours went by, they were still really fun, even if they never gave any result. But yeah, just the fact that it was so out of the way and pretty much impossible for me to obtain in any of my games without exploiting a bug or cheating, because no such events ever came here, it just never really grew on me that much. It's appeared a few times in the anime, but not really enough for me to consider it anywhere close to my favourite :p
I kinda blew my chance at catching it quite a few years back. Near the end in the years of my initial Pokemon obsession, I did get to learn about the bug to get Mew and naturally tried performing it, myself. Just before the final step where I'd get Mew to actually appear, I chose to save and wait to show it to my friends the next day, because even at that time, none of even thought it was possible to catch it. However, I was incredibly impatient, and after a few hours I decided to just enter battle to take a look at it. It worked, and Mew appeared, so I just tried battling it to see how good it was. Turned out it was insanely frail though, and I accidentally killed it, so I just turned it off and waited till the next day. I go to show it to my friends, and what do you know, apparently you can only get it to appear once, even if you didn't save your game afterwards. So all of my friends just thought I lied to be cool, and I never got to show them that catching it was actually a possibility :p I'm sure I could make it appear again by redoing everything, however back then I thought it was only possible once, and didn't want to try it again, just to have my friends laugh at me again. I did manage to do it on one of my friends' version though, and he was pretty happy to get a Mew :D
But yeah, just a quick story of my childhood :p Maybe that's why I don't like Mew that much :O
As for my own favourite first generation legendary, I'd have to say my favourite would be Mewtwo. Mainly because I don't really think the first generation legendaries had that much to them other than design. They lacked any background stories, and were only really memorable for being the first in my case. If Arcanine had ended up being a legendary in the final version, maybe that one could've made it as my favourite of that generation, mainly because Arcanine is pretty darn amazing, as well as it'd just be so different since it was the only Pokemon of the elemental trio to not be a bird. And yeah, for those who don't know, Arcanine was apparently supposed to be the original fire type of the legendary bird trio, but was replaced with Moltres because it'd make more sense to make it a bird trio, rather than having two birds and one dog :p Maybe that's why Moltres was so terrible in the first generation games >:O
But yeah, the reason Mewtwo is my favourite of the first generation legendaries is, not only because it's an insanely strong Pokemon, especially in the originals where Psychic types were horribly overpowered, but also because it was the only of them to have an actual backstory, some kind of indication of its origin. All the others are just there. And while Mew may be infamous for being so rare and having so many rumors on how to catch it, nothing was ever explained about that one, other than it was extinct and apparently was only found in some part of the real world that I can't remember. Mewtwo on the other hand was explained to be the result of a science experiment, where they attempted to clone Mew for whatever reason. He was confined within the Cerulean Cave because he was too dangerous and powerful for ordinary trainers, and all access was blocked for anyone who hadn't proven themselves to be exceptional trainers. It may not be as elaborate as some of the newer generations, but it's still an awesome concept, and it's still the only off of the 5 original legendaries to actually have a backstory :p
I don't believe in hacking but I do believe in shortcuts sometimes. If I ever get my Crystal version fixed, I definitely need to get Articuno, Celebi, etc. on there.
Wait, what do you mean by shortcuts? Also how are you gonna get Celebi on there? Don't think there currently is any other way than cheating, exploiting a very difficult and time consuming bug iirc, or owning a Japanese version of Crystal, where you might still need a real-life event to activate.
I'd be alright with having every legendary in the game if they were actually cleverly hidden, like with the Regis in the third generation games. But yeah, not really about first generation Pokemon.
Also guys, since I was on topic with Mew a bit earlier in my post, I'd love to hear which kind of Mew rumours you have ever heard if any. So I guess a small topic?
Have you ever heard any of the rumours on how to catch Mew? If so, which ones were you favourite/which ones did you find to sound the most tedious and craziest? :p