Written 2024/1/25 and 1/27
After looking back on it, I realized that I didn't really comment much on the Elite Four fights.
By that, I mean the actual Four. Not including the Champion.
If it always starts with the four battles and ends with a Champion fight, shouldn't it be the Elite Five?
Anyway, thanks to having recordings of the battles, I can fix my lack of comment after the fact.
I'm writing this part before I've actually watched the videos back, so I don't know exactly how much I'll end up adding with this.
Looking back at this one, it's obvious I had no idea that the trainers would have multiple Full Restores on hand.
Also, I made the extremely strange decision to have Gorb use Curse on the second Xatu, even though there was probably no reason I had to do that.
Also, I feel like putting in Ramelia to face the Exeggutor was maybe not the best choice.
I actually like the composition of Will's team.
I think Xatu has a phenomenal design and having two of them helps to showcase a Pokemon that I feel was easy to miss otherwise.
Slowbro, Jynx, and Exeggutor are also standout Pokemon in terms of their design.
Will's team is Psychic-type, but it manages to feel unique in a game where too many teams are composed of the same Pokemon two or three times, or otherwise fail to feel interesting.
Okay, I totally forgot that there was a crucial difference between "poisoned" and "badly poisoned" statuses.
I should have used a Full Restore on Sync III when I had used that Hyper Potion,
but the thought just didn't register because I forgot that bad poisoning only gets worse.
Then again, I only brought in two of them for some reason.
I was more worried about healing between the battles, so that's likely why I was short on those.
Having Sync III, Peep, and Super! all knocked out before the end of the battle was kind of scary,
but with just the last little bit of health on Koga's last Pokemon, it was probably going to be fine, even if he used a full restore.
I liked that Koga's team felt like a blend of Bug-type and Poison-type Pokemon.
Pokemon almost always sticks to trainers having one type of 'mon, with the only real exceptions being rivals, champions, or something along those lines.
I wish they had more of the trainers branching out into having more interesting blends of types within teams.
Even though I don't think it gets much love (blind assumption), I think Ariados actually looks pretty cool.
There's also Forretress. Awesome name, interesting design, and I think it's underrated for what it is (also a blind assumption).
I guess I don't have a ton to say about the Venomoth, Muk, or Crobat.
Compared to other teams, Koga's is actually interesting.
I don't really have much to say about the Bruno fight. Other than the Machamp being a bit of a problem, it went fairly smooth.
It was also the fight I finished the quickest out of the four.
Her Umbreon was more of a problem than I ever would have expected it to be.
Also, I have no idea why I switched in Super! on her Gengar.
It made things much more problematic when the Houndoom came out.
I'm glad I did some training for Gemini south of the Safari Zone, as I remembered Gloom being weak to Psychic attacks.
The Vileplume's Petal Dance isn't a move I've seen often, but the little jingle that plays during the second half of the animation is fantastic.
Switching in Super! on the Murkrow was something I only really did to hit it with a Yawn,
but after Surf surprised me by taking over half of its health bar, I just did it again and it finished the fight.
In a similar fashion to Koga's team, this set of Pokemon was a blend of Dark and Ghost.
Another instance of a team with two types blended together, helping it to stand out from the usual cases of teams with a single type.
I'm surprised that I made it through all of that on the first try and without saving.
I did that as a way of being able to back out if I couldn't comfortably take the first few fights and wanted the option to go train more.
I saved after the Karen fight, figuring it would be a good idea before taking on Lance.
Turns out, I should have backed out, but didn't know because it was only the very last fight that was an insurmountable obstacle.