>>35627590I ended up grinding on the way to Cinnabar, killed my encounter in the Mansion, but the fight against Blaine went fine. Was a little annoyed that I was required to answer the tedious quiz boxes rather than just fight the trainers head on. Headed back to Viridian and things went alright, for the most part anyway. Giovanni actually proved to be tougher than I thought - I'd forgotten that his Nidoqueen and Nidoking had Thunder, so Bluestreak got zapped something bad. I swapped Trailbreak in to cover while I healed him back up, but he got done in on a crit Double Kick. And the fight with the Rival nearly went horribly - forgot also that Sandslash is pretty bulky so Air Raid's attacks weren't proving as effective. That tripped me up and my team took some nasty licks, but we managed to pull through okay. Not looking forward to the final match-up.
So with one teammate down, I decided I needed something of a ringer to fill the gap. Stocked up on Repels and plumbed the depths of Victory Road 'til I found Moltres. Thought I was going to bungle it as all my balls kept missing the mark somehow, but I finally caught it on the last one I had in my bag.
So for the rest of the game, this looks to be my final party line-up. Once again, it's time to grind.
