OK, let's give this "Travel journal" thing a try... I'm playing the Red version.
I picked Charmander as a starter, and defeated Blue without a problem in Oak's lab. After a trip to Viridian City, I decided to see for myself a dialogue I have never seen before in Pokémon RBY... to this end, I did some grinding (until my Charmander was at level... 14, something like that) , curb-stomped Blue on the route west of Viridian City, and then headed back to Pallet Town. Sure enough, Prof Oak noticed I didn't have more than one Pokémon yet, so he gave me some advice and 5 Pokéballs (and the dialogue box glitched up while he was talking... I tried doing it with a French version afterwards, it glitched there as well) .
With the free Pokéballs and the ones I bought at the Poké Mart (by spending all my money) , I started filling up the Pokédex. I didn't have any trouble finding a Pikachu in Viridian Forest, but for the life of me couldn't find any Caterpies. All the trainers were easily dispatched by my Charmander.
Pewter City... the only Pokémon able to do anything so far was my Charmander, so I just went with it. After defeating the first trainer, Charmander evolved.
Brock went down easily. I used Ember on Geodude, and while it was admittedly tedious, it... just worked. But when Onix came up, I decided to be a little smarter. I started using Leer and Growl repeatedly on Onix, while he tried using Bide and failed. After that, a few Scratches and the rock snake was down.
I crossed Route 4 while avoiding as many trainers as I could. I had a plan in mind... after entering Mt Moon, I captured the next two members of my team: Geodude and Paras. After that, I went back to route 4 and fought all of the trainers, using the opportunity to level up my two new teammates. I don't usually buy potions unless I'm about to fight the Elite Four, so I travelled a lot between the route and the Pokémon center... and then between the Mt Moon Pokémon center and Mt Moon itself. After exiting Mt Moon, Geodude and Paras had almost caught up with Charmeleon.
With no grass or electric Pokémon on my team, I decided to avoid fighting Misty for the time being. Instead of that, I went north and captured an Abra... yeah, for the Mew glitch. I originally didn't want to use Mew on my team, but then remembered that Charizard didn't learn Fly in this version. I usually don't repeat types on my team, so I ended up including Mew as a fourth member of my team with the intent of using it as transportation. I kept going until I reached Bill's house, training all Pokémon on my team (and, from time to time, going back to the Cerulean Pokémon Center) and Geodude finally evolved.
With two Pokémon being weak to Misty's type, one being completely neutral and one having a type advantage but no grass-type moves, I was still wary of fighting Misty. So, I went south instead, using the opportunity to get the Dig TM and use it on Graveler. I traded a Spearow for DUX the Farfetch'd, and kept it on my team for the time being, so that I could teach it Cut. And then I headed west. After defeating all the trainers on the route (and returning to the Pokémon center only once) , I ... still wasn't confident about fighting Misty. So to the SS Anne I went.
Like a maniac, i went from cabin to cabin, making sure nobody was left unfought :) . And, get this: Paras evolved! And, frankly, its move Leech Life, at least to me, started... not sucking. Maybe it's the stats, I don't know. Anyway, I met up with Blue (and destroyed him, once again) , got to the captain, rubbed his back, learned I had no more space in my bag, threw an Escape Rope away, rubbed his back again and got my HM!
Here I was, with no more trainers to fight... I couldn't delay the inevitable anymore! I returned to Cerulean... and then remembered I'd forgot to get the Bike Voucher. So back to Vermilion I went...
So, here I am, Cerulean Gym. Misty's Staryu went down after a few Pounds by Mew, and then Starmie came on. For the longest time, ever since I started playing Pokémon, that Starmie was my nightmare. For some, it's Whitney's Miltank, for others it's Morty's Gengar. For me, it's Misty's Starmie. And then... Misty was strangely indecisive in her moves when facing my Parasect (I guess, it's the game's poor AI reacting to having a Grass-type Pokémon in front of it) . A few uses of Leech Life later, I was done and the second badge was mine.
I went back to Vermilion immediately, curb-stomping pretty much everyone with Graveler, and got my third badge.
I immediately went to Route 9, again, fighting everyone and going back to the Pokémon Center from time to time... and then remembered something. I didn't have HM05. So, back to Vermilion I went. I crossed the Diglett Cave, capured a Diglett, didn't encounter any Dugtrios (good), emerged on Route 2 and got my HM05. Completely forgot going to Pewter City to get the Old Amber, though.
Anyway, I crossed Rock Tunnel (ugh) and emerged from it with my team barely alive. After healing my Pokémon, I started thinking about adding two more members to my team, and two candidates popped into my head: Dewgong and Electabuzz, of which I had neither. And then I thought: what if... instead of waiting until late in the game to get the two, what if I used the Mew Glitch to get them earlier, even at much lower levels? After all, the trainer that I used to trigger the glitch was still unfought, and all I had to do was to get two Pokémon with the right special stat and meet a wild Ditto (and I've finished the game without using glitches in any way at least a dozen of times, so now I just wanted to have fun :P ) ! And then, I remembered: Ditto is only encountered around Fuchsia City, and to get there, I needed a Pokéflute... so, I had to deal with Team Rocket first.
But at first, i decided to give my team an extra boost. I started a new game on my other 3DS, and traded Graveler back and forth to evolve it into Golem.
I went to Celadon City while avoiding all trainers (still had to fight one, though) and after getting there, stealing an Eevee from some dude's desk, getting an HM02, using HM02 on Mew and giving a drink to a guard, I got my Coin Case and headed to the Game Corner. There, I checked whether the slot machines still worked (they did :) ) , fought the team Rocket grunt and... well, cleaned up the entire hideout, leveling up my Pokémon along the way. Golem was clearly the most useful Pokémon on my team, and, thanks to the weird weakness to Bug-type moves Poison types have in this gen, Parasect was a great help as well... when it got the opportunity to attack first, that is, otherwise its double weakness to poison was a huge hindrance. Mew knew no psychic-type moves (yes, I know about the TM I can get in Saffron, I just want Mew to learn it on its own) and Charmeleon didn't get much use neither due to its type not being effective.
With the Sylph Scope was in the bag, I flew back to Lavender and went to the tower. Again, due to an abundance of poison types, Golem and Parasect were kings, and since Parasect isn't weak against ghost-type moves, this is where it really got to stretch its legs. But a lot of battles were slowed down by the ghosts using Lick and paralyzing a lot of my team. Parasect at least got to retaliate with Stun Spore, so there's that. By this point, I started feeling a bit underleveled, I have no idea how I managed to get to the top of the tower without losing any battles, and reaching Fuji was a huge relief.
With the goal of glitching an Electabuzz and either a Seel or an underleveled Dewgong into existence still on my mind, I immediately headed west and woke up the Snorlax by the Cycling Road. Parasect knew Spore, so I kept putting Snorlax to sleep, but Parasect's other moves barely made any dents in Snorlax's hide, so I gave up on trying to lower its HP, and just threw Great Balls, hoping to get lucky, all while using Spore whenever it woke up. I got lucky, Snorlax was caught.
I managed to cross the Cycling Road without fighting any trainers, and got to Fuchsia. Browsing through the stats of my Pokémon and the list on Bulbapedia, I noticed that Charmeleon's special stat matched Electabuzz's index number. I flew to Cerulean, freaked out the lone unfought trainer by flying away from him, defeated another trainer, met a Ditto, allowed it to become my Charmeleon and knocked it out, but in the meantime, between the trainer and the Ditto, my Parasect had fainted. Not thinking much of it, I returned to Cerulean, triggered the wild battle with a level 7 Electabuzz... and then threw a Great Ball at it and my ball "Missed the Pokémon"! Meaning I absolutely had to inflict a status on Electabuzz. Only two of my Pokémon could do this: Charmeleon could try to inflict a burn on it, but even Ember from a level 30 Charmander would obliterate a level 7 Electabuzz, and Parasect had fainted. So I gave up.
I realized then that I was at a point in the game where I could get the two Pokémon legitimately with only two obstacles in my way. The first one was the Safari Zone, where I got the Surf HM, and that was quite simple. The second one, however was Koga's Gym. My Pokémon were all around level 30, and only one of them was 100% good against Poison types... oh well. Might as well give it a try.
Needless to say, I returned to the Pokémon Center after each and every fight. The difficulty was in large part self-inflicted: not only was I underleveled to begin with, I also wanted to use the opportunity to level up my Charmeleon (yup, I was at a point where my starter was lagging behind the rest of my team) , and tried the switching tactic. The fight with Koga went... rather well. Golem took a beating, but still knocked out three out of Koga's four Pokémon, and then he sent out Weezing. Sensing danger, I switched to Mew. Mew still didn't know any psychic moves, so I decided to weaken Weezing in another way: by lowering its accuracy. After three Flashes, Weezing used Self-Destruct... and missed! The badge was mine.
Immediately, I used HM03 on Snorlax and headed to the Seafoam Islands, where I caught a Seel. A Seel that had the same level as my team! So yeah, I was really underleveled for this place. Then I went to the Power Plant and caught myself an Electabuzz, which, again, was around the same level as my team.
Now, I have my full team:
- Charmeleon
- Parasect
- Golem
- Mew
- Seel
- Electabuzz
DUX and Snorlax went back to the PC, Parasect ended up being the unfortunate recipient of the HM01, and Seel obviously was given the Surf HM. Electabuzz knew no electric-type moves, so I used the Thunderbolt TM on it.
And that's pretty much where I'm now. My plan now is to bring my reign of terror to the route between Lavender and Saffron, get Erika's Badge, take on the Team Rocket, demolish Sabrina with my Parasect, and then, since I'm not in a hurry and want to have a powerful team by the time when I reach the Elite Four, battle every single trainer on mainland Kanto before heading to Cinnabar Island.