Modern Pokemon in a Generation 1 World

Imagine current Pokemon still operating under Generation 1 mechanics. Listed some mechanics below. Decided certain things for ease.

• Erases Dark, Steel, and Fairy types. Becomes Normal type if it has no types. Default to a prior acceptable type, if known (such as Togetic being Normal/Flying rather than just Flying).
• Generation 1 type chart. Notes Psychic's immunity to Ghost.
• Physical moves: Normal, Fighting, Flying, Poison, Ground, Rock, Bug, and Ghost. Special: Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Psychic, Ice, and Dragon.
• Determines critical hit chance as (Base Speed / 512). Multiplies by eight for heightened critical moves. (Maximum 255/256 chance.)
• Merges Special Attack and Special Defense. (Assume an average of the two for this.)
• No abilities.
• No weather or terrain.
• No Megas, Z-moves, Dynamaxing, or hold items.

Will keep most of the moves in, except for Dark, Steel, and Fairy moves. Leaves some Pokemon with a tiny movepool otherwise. Cannot use any mechanics not present in Generation 1, however. Means no effects like U-turn, entry hazards, Heavy Slam, Poltergeist, Attract, Protect, and so on.

Keeps regional forms in for fun too.

Who do you think would benefit the most from the changes above? Who would suffer the most?
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First thought: Helps Pokemon with hindering abilities a ton. Names Slaking, Archeops, and Regigigas as three winners.

Expects less Psychic dominance than in Generation 1 with better Bug moves. May see Ninjask, Durant, and Scyther appear as Psychic counters. Makes Pheramosa very scary too, if allowed. Crushed moves like Sucker Punch, though. Enables fast, strong psychic types like Alakazam to wreak havoc once more.

Cannot forget about Dragons rising without Fairy types around. Could be Goodra's time to shine with a good Special stat (130) and no double-weakness like Dragonite. Alternatively, a return to Kingdra's and Palkia's glory of only one weakness (Dragon)?

Spread Spore to more Pokemon than Parasect. Bets on Amoonguss doing well. Weathers hits far better with a less awful typing.

Circles back to the first Pokemon mentioned: Slaking. Picks Slaking as the biggest beneficiary. Shed its terrible ability. Carries enough Special and Hitpoints to push back against Psychics and Dragons with a nasty 160 base Attack. Lands a critical hit almost 20% of the time too.


For losers: Glances at abilities once again. Harmed Pure/Huge Power users like Azumarill badly. Sinks Contrary users. Makes Aegislash far more boring. And oh no Castform.

Does a number to Pokemon relying on the wrong offenses. Rest in peace to Darmanitan, Weavile, and Alolan Sandslash. Min-maxed too close to the sun.

Imagines some Pokemon being sad about losing their secondary typings. Feels like a lesser concern, though. Who takes the biggest hit here? Ferrothorn?

Does Smeargle even exist? Probably allows Sketch or simply deletes it for having zero moves. Assumes the former.

Hm. Who lost the most? Leaves Alolan Sandslash with 45 Special STAB Ice attacks and less Speed than Darmanitan and Weavile. Compromised Ferrothorn's defenses and entry hazard role. Robbed Castform of its entire identity, on the other hand.

Asked who lost the most, not who is the worst, so Castform for biggest loser. Becomes a basic Normal type with 70 base stats across the board. Considers the movepool nothing special in the face of Generation 1 movepool sizes.

Edit: Forgot about Shedinja. Technically could never obtain one, due to that method of obtaining not existing. Either loses unequivocally or does not exist. In the latter's case, what happens to Malamar? Loses unequivocally, then.

Too long; did not read: Slaking for biggest winner. Shedinja for biggest loser (with Castform as second worst).

Circles back to the first Pokemon mentioned: Slaking. Picks Slaking as the biggest beneficiary. Shed its terrible ability. Carries enough Special and Hitpoints to push back against Psychics and Dragons with a nasty 160 base Attack. Lands a critical hit almost 20% of the time too.

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How about Hyper Beam's broken Gen 1 mechanic where you skip the recharge turn entirely if the user nabs a KO? That's a STAB Hyper Beam coming off of Slaking's BASE 160 ATTACK STAT. Yeah, wave goodbye to your team, mate.

No abilities and no Fairy-type means Mimikyu wouldn't be so special... just another Mon with just-above-average offensive power. On the bright side though, if it's a pure Ghost-type, that means it would fare better against other Ghost-types like the Gastly or Misdreavus families - though it would still take until Gen II, in which Psychic is weak to Ghost, for it to truly shine.

Another good thing is that no Ice Face would mean Eiscue is completely screwed and no better than Mons like Delibird. Good, I hate that penguin for stealing Mimi's thunder.

Some less obvious changes:

Regieleki gets a lot more staying power and is more terrifying in its own way since it while its special offenses go from 100 to 75, its special defense goes from 50 to 75 (which is fairly respectable) and it has a 40% chance to crit. It still has 100 physical offense so Hyper Beam finishers to force momentum are also a viable strategy.

Unfortunately you can't Baton Pass (if it exists) a Focus Energy to force a crit since FE quarters your crit chance in Gen I (which might be useful depending on the situation actually) but it's still a Pokemon that you don't want around.

Anything that can freeze other Pokemon becomes scarier because freezing is basically KOing in this meta since your Pokemon will never thaw out on their own. The only way to thaw is using a Fire move or having a Fire move used on you.

Galarian Darmanitan actually isn't that bad of a choice here. Between 100 BP Dig from a fast Pokemon with terrifying physical offenses, guaranteed crits with Stone Edge (if it hits) and the potential to freeze with Blizzard, it's also a fairly strong Pokémon.

Cloyster gets a niche in stall teams as a physical wall / special decent Pokemon that can freeze Pokemon and poison Poison types, since in Gen I the check for poison immunity checks the move type and not the target type (so Twineedle can poison Poison Pokémon since it's a bug move).

Glastrier becomes terrifying because even though it's slow as balls, it has 130 physical defense, 88 special, can freeze and use physical moves to use its 145 attack.

If we're allowing the Calyrexes they're also terrifying because they're Psychics with Mewtwo level stats.

Galarian Articuno has a better typing and stats than regular Articuno and can still freeze via Freezing Glare. It can also flinch hax with Air Slash and get guaranteed crits with Psycho Cut.

If we're counting in glitches, anything with Dig and Fly becomes terrifying because they can become essentially immortal.

Sleeping is also terrifying because waking up is its own action in RBY, so those Spore users are even worse now.

Great topic! I love topics like this that get me thinking.

Out of all Pokémon, I would say that Ditto would suffer the most, as it would go from being one of the best revenge killers of all time because of its Imposter ability and Choice Scarf as a held item, to a Pokémon with a base 48 in all stats that has to select the move Transform to transform into the opposing Pokémon, which it likely would never get the chance to do. Ditto would even be useless for its most valued thing, which is breeding, because even that wasn't a thing in generation I.

As for what Pokémon would benefit the most from it, this is harder to think of because there are so many Pokémon to unpack, but off the top of my head right now, it would be my good friend Regigigas, who would finally get the chance to be a major threat. Regigigas could finally be rid of Slow Start, making it strong right off the bat. If its Special Defense and Special Attack would be combined and the end result would be based on averages, then its Special stat would be a whopping 135. I believe this makes Regigigas the better beneficiary of this change than Slaking, who would only have a Special stat of 80. Also, under generation I gameplay, physical and special moves were decided based upon type rather than individually. Because it has the ability to learn many powerful moves of several different types, it can do a lot of special and physical damage. Also note that, in generation I, the EV spreads were completely different as well. Pokémon didn't have a maximum of 508 to spread in between stats, nor were one or two EVs given in a specific stat based on what Pokémon you defeated in battle.

In generation I, a maximum of 65,535 EVs existed for each stat and the amount your Pokémon was given was based upon the base stat total of the Pokémon you defeated. It was also possible to max out every single stat unlike today. This means that Regigigas would not only hit very hard, but would also be the ultimate tank as well because even its high defenses would be maxed out too. Offensively, it can not only learn Powerup Punch to increase its Attack each time it lands and serve as good coverage against Rock-types and other Normal-types, which would be much more abundant under this gameplay, but it can also learn Darkest Lariat, which ignores the opponent's stat changes and becomes a Normal-type move under this gameplay, allowing Regigigas to get STAB from it. This allows it to break practically any wall, especially since Steel-types would become Normal-types. Slaking cannot learn this move. Combine that with the fact that Pokémon are more likely to land critical hits based on their Speed stat, at 100 base Speed, Regigigas would likely be landing critical hits a good amount of times, doing massive damage. That makes it an even better wallbreaker.

I would probably to say Ghost-Rider Calyrex would benefit the most as a close second, if he counts. In generation I, Mewtwo completely dominated generation I because of his massive stats and the lack of balance that resulted in Psychic-types being too powerful. Enter Ghost-Rider Calyrex, a Pokémon that statistically hits harder and faster than Mewtwo with two types, one being Ghost, allowing it to get STAB from two types instead of one. It would still have a rather big Special stat of 133. He loses his ability to get stronger after each knockout, but he doesn't care too much. However, because of how generation I's gameplay was because of developer's oversight or possible glitches, its move Astral Barrage wouldn't have any effect against Psychic-types, but it can learn the powerful Bug-type move Pollen Puff to defeat every other Psychic-type and land critical hits many times with its 150 base speed. In addition, its biggest fear, the move Sucker Punch, would be Normal-type under this gameplay, meaning that it would be completely immune to it. Other Ghost-types also won't be able to hit it with Ghost-type moves either because it's part Psychic-type.

As for Smeargle, yes, he does exist and he can still do his thing under this gameplay. In fact, generation II gameplay was very similar to generation I and Smeargle still did his role well, even back then. Sketch allows him to copy any move he wants to permanently, making him the ultimate wildcard that is great for support. I really miss Smeargle and I desperately want him back. lol

Well Slaking and Archeops are already mentioned for the ones that benefit most.

For ones that would suffer I'll add Eelektross.
Eelektross would become a sitting duck to any and all Ground type moves when it loses Levitate, since it's kinda slow.
Mold Breaker already kinda ruined it's no weaknesses, but without levitate literally anything that can learn Ground moves will became a major threat to it.

Vielleroue said:

Another good thing is that no Ice Face would mean Eiscue is completely screwed and no better than Mons like Delibird. Good, I hate that penguin for stealing Mimi's thunder.

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Ice Face and Disguise are not completely the same though.
Ice Face only blocks a physical hit, whereas Disguise blocks a hit, whether it's physical or special.
Basically you can just melt Eiscue with a Flamethrower without it's ability ever triggering. You can't do the same against Mimikyu.
Yes Ice Face can be restored in hail, but you can circumvent the entire thing by just attacking with special moves.

I'd personally prefer Disguise between the two abilities.

Well, if Lunala and Hoopa were in a Gen 1 environment, they would have zero weaknesses (no 4x to Ghost due to programming mistake, and no 4x to Dark because no Dark type), plus two resistances, and two immunities. They also wouldn't have to worry about Steel resisting their Psychic moves.

I imagine Zoroark would be a big loser, becoming a Normal type and losing its Ability, plus it's supposed to be a Special attacker and Normal moves were all physical.

Bruxish would be ruined for being a physical Pokémon while its two STABs are special, similarly to what happened to Sneasel in Gen 2.

Salazzle would lose its great usefulness against Steel and Fairy types and its Poison moves would become all Physical, while also being more vulnerable to Psychic types presence, and losing its resistance to Ice.

Avalugg... well, a pure Ice type with 44-46 Special and 28 Speed doesn't look good in a Gen 1 environment.

Corveone said:

I imagine Zoroark would be a big loser, becoming a Normal type and losing its Ability, plus it's supposed to be a Special attacker and Normal moves were all physical.

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I'd imagine Hisuian Zoroark would also be a loser despite being part Ghost-type. Sure, its Fighting weakness is still negated and there's no Dark-types to worry about, but it has even less offensive power than its Unovan counterpart on top of no ability.

...Contrast that with its possible presence in the Gen IX metagame, where, according to a lot of competitive players, it's almost certain to become a killing machine. To be honest, I'm glad I dropped out of that. Saves me energy from detesting this thing more than I already do.

an normal type Sylveon would likely just feel like an extesion of Eevee, especially with a likely limited movepool lol
Lucario would probably benefit from the other hand, being only fighting means no fire or rock weakness, and it wouldnt have to worry about fairies without them around.