2nd Gen The Elite Four

[Hiatus]

In Gold, Silver, and Crystal, Elite Four members consisted of Will, Koga, Bruno, and Karen. When you'd first faced them, how did you feel--nervous, scared, or maybe confident? How hard were they for you to beat, and how long did it take you to get the job done? When you had first defeated them, do you remember what Pokémon you used? What your overall thoughts on Johto Elite Four?

 

[Khoshi]

My Pokemon were horribly underleveled, barring my Feraligatr. I only beat the E4 recently, and my Feraligatr did all of the work. It was saddening, to see my team of stars wrecked by Will's goddamn Xatu.

It took me around 5 tries to get through the Elite Four, mostly messing up on Will. My Pokemon were strong enough and type varied enough to beat the other 3 with ease, particularly Koga, but Will? All I had was Bite from my Crobat, Growlithe and Feraligatr, and sadly Psychic OHKOs the former 2. I beat them with mostly Feraligatr, Ampharos and for Bruno, my Crobat.

The Johto Elite Four were fun and varied really well in type, the only E4 that comes close to being like the Johto Elite Four has to be Unova's, but, well..who doesn't like Poison type ninja masters? I also like the whole Psychic/Poison/Fighting/Dark type line, as they all beat one another, except for Poison.

 

[Sonata]

Forretress wrecked my team the first time I beat the elite 4 as a kid. My only remaining pokemon was my extremely overleveled level 64 Magmar and she just destroyed them all. My next strongest pokemon was Feraligatr who was level 42. When I caught Magmar that ended up being the only thing I really used because I remembered it being so cool in the anime and I just always wanted to use it. But Forretress and Karen gave me (and still do give me) the most trouble. I was definitely excited but scared when I first fought them because the first member, Will, was on par with my second strongest pokemon and that really scared me.

 

[HeroesAndCons]

I don't much remember the first time I fought them, it was so long ago, though I remember Ampharos doing the most work (it pretty much beat Will, Koga and Lance by itself) with its awesome Thunderpunch - Fire Punch combo.

I bit more recently though, I remember losing my Feraligatr in a Nuzlocke run. It got OHKOed by Karen's Houndoom getting a Critical Hit with its stupidly power Crunch... and even today it still gives me trouble unless I happen to have Suicune (which I don't usually use). Does anyone else find Karen's Houndoom to be pretty much the strongest Pokemon in Gen 2's E4 + Champion lineup?

 

[umbreon1824]

When I faced the elite four, I was nervous for the fact that you cant heal in between. My team was Typhlosion, Quagsire, Ampharos and my favorite: Umbreon!

 

[AcesHigh89]

I transferred pokemon from Red, so I cheated. Charizard, Feraligatr, mewtwo, Umbreon, and 2 other cans. The first 3 were really over leveled, and smashed through everyone.

 

[LavenderTownGhost]

My Pokemon were underleveled as heck. Plus, the first time I played Crystal, I had only used my Typhlosion for the entire game, which was uncool going up against Lance.

 

[Noir]

I've never had any problems with the G/S/C E4 haha even despite being horribly underleved. I didn't really feel much apart from wondering what Will was supposed to be, and Lance was an anticlimax in this game but I think that's more in part to the elemental punches being available at such an early stage in the game :D

In terms of typing and design? I think they're quite good! Psychic/Fighting/Dark are strong types and usually give the most problems if utilized properly, with Poison being the "lol waste your full restore" type slot. I mean, if it was good enough for Unova to reuse 3/4 types for their own E4 then it must have done something right haha. The nostalga factor with Koga and Bruno being E4 members, with Lance as the champion now is also really cool; I couldn't appreciate it at first since G/S/C was my first pokemon game. But it does set you up with "what happened to Loreli and Agatha? Where's Blue at?" to lead you nicely into going back and exploring Kanto afterwards, nicely done.

 

[Auric]

I remember my initial playthroughs as a kid. I liked to level my starter over a lot of Pokemon, so my Typhlosion made easy work of the E4. I wish that G/S/C would have had a harder E4 or at least an E4 that increased in difficulty when you rematched them, because I found it the easiest of all the games.

 

[acatfrommars]

My first time playing through the Elite Four in Pokemon Gold I remember attempting to beat them completely under leveled. Back then I had no clue what levels their teams would be, and got crushed a few times before I wised up and trained at Victory Road. After a few hours of training I was ready and defeated them, naturally. In my recent playthrough I had trained my Pokemon enough prior to easily defeat the Elite Four the first time with no problem. The only challenging opponent was Lance with his 3 Dragonite, but my gyarados knew Icy Wind and we ended up sweeping them.

The hardest part fr me in G/S/C is defeating Red at Mt. Silver. Pokemon ranging from 77-81, now that is a challenge! I believe this part is solely what makes the G/S/C games harder than the others. To defeat his team you will have to put in some serious training time, I trained for about 2 hours at Mt. Silver before I even attempted to verse Red.

 

[heydudeitsmeblastoise]

My Pokemon were horribly underleveled, barring my Feraligatr. I only beat the E4 recently, and my Feraligatr did all of the work. It was saddening, to see my team of stars wrecked by Will's goddamn Xatu.

It took me around 5 tries to get through the Elite Four, mostly messing up on Will. My Pokemon were strong enough and type varied enough to beat the other 3 with ease, particularly Koga, but Will? All I had was Bite from my Crobat, Growlithe and Feraligatr, and sadly Psychic OHKOs the former 2. I beat them with mostly Feraligatr, Ampharos and for Bruno, my Crobat.

The Johto Elite Four were fun and varied really well in type, the only E4 that comes close to being like the Johto Elite Four has to be Unova's, but, well..who doesn't like Poison type ninja masters? I also like the whole Psychic/Poison/Fighting/Dark type line, as they all beat one another, except for Poison.

well i got stock by freakin slowbro its like your punchin a rock

 

[Pepperton]

I felt pretty confident going in. Silver was my first ever Pokemon game, so I didn't really know what to expect, but I guess I just assumed the game had prepared me well for the final battles. I was wrong, and got destroyed at least five or six times before deciding to train my Pokemon a little more. Something I notice now is how low-leveled your Pokemon are for you get to this point of the game in Johto compared to other generations. Maybe that's just me though d:

The member I had the most trouble with was probably Koga. Of course, not knowing a single thing about Pokemon when buying this game, I had no idea how powerful and useful Psychic types were in the oldest generations. That cost me once I took on the poison maestro, and let me just say that Toxic caused me various splitting headaches back in the day, haha.

I finally beat the elite four after taking an extra month or so to train my Pokemon up to ridiculously high levels. Still, it wasn't a cake walk due to my ignorance with any type of strategy back then. Somehow, I managed to get the job done and take the title 'Champion of Johto'. I was fond of this elite four group though; I felt the characters were nicely designed and had some purpose to them. I wish they had a new Champion instead of repeating Lance, though.

 

[Yato]

When I was much younger, I found them to be extremely difficult because I wasn't good at battling. Heck, the only reason I beat the Pokemon League the first time in Gold was because someone older traded me a Houndoom and Ho-oh and battled for me. I know I had a Feraligatr on the team, too, but I forgot the rest of my members. Anyway, after that victory, I found them easier and easier to deal with. By the time I got Crystal and Silver, I had already played through RS and maybe FRLG and Emerald, so I was much better at battling and found them to be much easier. Fast forward to today and I managed to beat them in a Crystal ROM with my highest leveled Pokemon being at level 43.

As for hardest, I'd have to go with Karen. Her Houndoom is nasty, her Umbreon is a pain in the butt to defeat if you don't have a Fighting or Bug move (and Bug moves weren't too common then), and her Gengar and Vileplume could be annoying if you didn't have a way to easily deal with them. Koga's also a bit of a pain with his Poison types and Forretress, but three of his Pokemon can be taken down with Fire type attacks, something I definitely had with me often.

 

[Altairis]

I think I absolutely crushed them, since I don't remember struggling to beat the E4 as I remember doing for Sapphire. I think its because when I was little I would always use a max of 3 Pokemon, so they were all pretty high leveled. Once you get 20+ levels higher, there really isn't much the other side can do.

 

[Arylett Charnoa]

Oh my God. My heart was pounding in my chest as that epic 8 bit music played. Can't remember what Pokemon I had except for Meganium and probably Espeon, because I've played these games so many times that all the playthroughs kind of mash together into one. But I tried so many times against these guys in so many playthroughs and never managed to beat them when I was younger except for one time.

Some terrors I remember are Karen's Houndoom and basically Lance's ENTIRE team. @_@ There was a Charizard of his I remember facing and feeling like my heart was going to rip itself right out of my chest. But I beat them, all right. I finally managed to beat them and then I went to Kanto. After that, I most likely sighed a breath of immense relief. Being that young, I was probably too stupid to think of grinding or just didn't feel like it because in these games, it's VERY tedious.

They also gave me a good run for my money in HeartGold as well. :3 It felt a lot like a repeat that I can remember much better of this event. In there, I tried to replicate my team from memory and struggled with the same exact Pokemon (especially Lance) kicking my ass. Only won because my Lanturn used Blizzard and froze several of his dragons. Ah, it was just like old times.

 

[thebaum64]

I always thought the Elite Four was easy :P

 

[nesinomics]

I remember having trouble with Lance.

 

[Imperator161]

I recall feeling nervous the first time I challenged them, and they certainly weren't easy for me the first time. I had an unevolved Totodile (didn't want to evolve it because I thought its evolved forms looked ugly) plus a bunch of level 20-30ish Pokémon that I pulled out of my PC for the occasion (Red Gyarados, Sudowoodo, etc.--I didn't make much of a team till after I beat the game). I recall beating Lance with 2 HP left on my Totodile (it might have been paralyzed, too?). It was a close battle, but things got much easier from there on out.

Later, I was even more surprised by my relative ease beating Red--I did that on my first try. Admittedly, I think I had more of a team by then, but it still wasn't great.

I beat the Elite Four many more times, and eventually inadvertently memorized the dialogue. I recall deciding to beat it single-handedly with each of my team members without items. Using my Pikachu against Bruno's Onix, when Slam was my only move (all of my other moves were electric-type back then), wasn't too fun, but I eventually did it with everyone on my team, plus a few others.

 

[nesinomics]

I remember I had trouble with Will. I actually don't remember much of the first time I beat them. I was really young the first time I played.