Pokémon Crystal has been confirmed for Virtual Console! It’s releasing January 2018 on the 26th. Celebi has been confirmed to be avalible without the need of Mystery Gift, at least for Japan. Check Serebii for Info!
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Pokémon Crystal Confirmed!
- Thread starter DreamPrince
- Start date
It will. You go to communication tower after defeating the Elite 4, and they will give you the GS Ball. Then you go to Ilex Forest. Not sure if I’ll pick it up. Already played Silver and have 2-3 Celebi, most moves from move tutors alre avalible in USUM.
This is exactly what I was hoping for when Crystal wasn't accounced alongside GS. I hope we non-Japanese players can finally experience a legit Celebi Event too.
I will use the remaining E-Shop points for this and get myself Crystal. Celebi was back before I dropped Pokemon until gen 5 the only Pokemon I could never get.
I will use the remaining E-Shop points for this and get myself Crystal. Celebi was back before I dropped Pokemon until gen 5 the only Pokemon I could never get.
Outside of Coin Case glitches, I consider Crystal the completely superior version and held off buying GS in the hopes they would release Crystal. I am very glad they decided to do so, although I can understand why they'd wait (would make more money, I presume). If the Celebii thing is true, then that's cool too.
They probably delayed Crystal to make more money like you suggested but it may have also been delayed due to changes they would need to do to make the GS Ball available without an event.
The best thing about the GS Ball being added is that Celebi can be Shiny legitimately for the first time since the Japanese Pokemon Crystal and for the first time since Gen 3. Unless they intentionally edit the encounter to make it none shiny that is.
So less than 3.5 days until we know exactly what changes they made to the original Crystal. Here's a list my predictions:
Confirmed:
- Being able to get the GS Ball and Celebi without an event.
Likely:
- Shiny Celebi is released for the first time since Ruby/Sapphire. I doubt Game Freak would newly program Shiny locks in GBC assembly into the game.
Sorta plausible:
- Japanese Crystal has their Mobile-only Battle Tower replaced with international Crystal's non-Mobile equivalent, to prevent it from being a permanently sealed building in only one language. If I understand correctly, this would involve porting over a bunch of teams and newly translating a bunch of Trainer names that didn't exist in original Japanese Crystal.
Extremely unlikely:
- To prevent Japanese Crystal's PCC from having permanently disabled doors and NPCs, the PCC is fully revitalized to use Wi-Fi instead of the Mobile Adapter. (At this point, there would be no reason not to port all of this over to international Crystal as well.) This is so unlikely because such a feature would almost certainly have been advertised in the press releases.
Oddities:
- The GS Ball is supposed to become obtainable right after entering the Hall of Fame, which is different from original Japanese Crystal which required 16 Badges instead.
Confirmed:
- Being able to get the GS Ball and Celebi without an event.
Likely:
- Shiny Celebi is released for the first time since Ruby/Sapphire. I doubt Game Freak would newly program Shiny locks in GBC assembly into the game.
Sorta plausible:
- Japanese Crystal has their Mobile-only Battle Tower replaced with international Crystal's non-Mobile equivalent, to prevent it from being a permanently sealed building in only one language. If I understand correctly, this would involve porting over a bunch of teams and newly translating a bunch of Trainer names that didn't exist in original Japanese Crystal.
Extremely unlikely:
- To prevent Japanese Crystal's PCC from having permanently disabled doors and NPCs, the PCC is fully revitalized to use Wi-Fi instead of the Mobile Adapter. (At this point, there would be no reason not to port all of this over to international Crystal as well.) This is so unlikely because such a feature would almost certainly have been advertised in the press releases.
Oddities:
- The GS Ball is supposed to become obtainable right after entering the Hall of Fame, which is different from original Japanese Crystal which required 16 Badges instead.
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According to a page on Serebii it's avaliable after the E4 and obtained from Golden Rods PC. I don't see any actual sorce of this information though so I'm taking it as likely rater than confirmed at the moment.
Pretty much confirmed here:
A minor thing, but there's a slight battle-related difference between VC Gold/Silver and VC Crystal: the in-battle HUD actually disappears during an attacking Pokemon's attack animation, just like it did in the original GSC. So no more weird HUD animation effects during Dig, etc.
A friend and I were debating getting Crystal and the nostalgia factor is big for us but we also want to know if it is worth getting from a competitive or collector stand point. We came up with a list but are not sure what the efficiency of this stuff is vs. just doing it on USUM
- Obviously a legit Celebi is a big one that could possibly be shiny if you have the patience
- HA Lugia/Ho-oh (and to a lesser extent the dogs but Inner Focus is meh)
- HA Shiny Gyarados
- HA Shiny Odd Egg hatched (if you soft reset)
Those were the biggest 4 reasons we came up with. Other things you could consider: The ease of getting any kind of HA pokemon, as long as it is catchable in the game. You also have to consider how easy it is to breed for more shinies after you already have one or two shiny parents.
Any thoughts or comments?
- Obviously a legit Celebi is a big one that could possibly be shiny if you have the patience
- HA Lugia/Ho-oh (and to a lesser extent the dogs but Inner Focus is meh)
- HA Shiny Gyarados
- HA Shiny Odd Egg hatched (if you soft reset)
Those were the biggest 4 reasons we came up with. Other things you could consider: The ease of getting any kind of HA pokemon, as long as it is catchable in the game. You also have to consider how easy it is to breed for more shinies after you already have one or two shiny parents.
Any thoughts or comments?
Inner Focus may be meh for singles, but Suicune really appreciates it in Doubles. Being immune to flinches from Fake Out gives it way more opportunities to do things like set up Tailwind or get a free Snarl off.
Posting this here to hopefully help somebody. I was checking the list of useful phone numbers in Crystal at Serebii since it is different from G/S to see who to register.
https://www.serebii.net/crystal/pokegear.shtml
I am at Mahogany Town and Pokefan Beverly in National Park was bugging me because she would not give me her number. I wanted some Nuggets since I was strapped for cash. I figured the site had a mistake since the game was old and continued my playthrough. Last night I decided to get to the bottom of this and figure out if you could get her number or not. After digging through the Crystal disassembly on Github, I found you really can get her number and thus Nuggets. To do so, you must talk to her with a Marill in your party because she is always talking about them. They are pretty common in Mt Mortar at night (luckily Marill isn't a swarm in Crystal), and she finally gave me her number! Let's hope she calls me soon. 15+ years and I am still finding new things in the old gens. This was like the original side quest that led to the "show me this Pokemon" quests in S/M and US/UM. I also learned you could get Buena's number with 30 points from the password show. Pretty cool.
EDIT: Also PokeFan Derek is on Route 39 and can also call to give Nuggets if you show him a Pikachu.
https://www.serebii.net/crystal/pokegear.shtml
I am at Mahogany Town and Pokefan Beverly in National Park was bugging me because she would not give me her number. I wanted some Nuggets since I was strapped for cash. I figured the site had a mistake since the game was old and continued my playthrough. Last night I decided to get to the bottom of this and figure out if you could get her number or not. After digging through the Crystal disassembly on Github, I found you really can get her number and thus Nuggets. To do so, you must talk to her with a Marill in your party because she is always talking about them. They are pretty common in Mt Mortar at night (luckily Marill isn't a swarm in Crystal), and she finally gave me her number! Let's hope she calls me soon. 15+ years and I am still finding new things in the old gens. This was like the original side quest that led to the "show me this Pokemon" quests in S/M and US/UM. I also learned you could get Buena's number with 30 points from the password show. Pretty cool.
EDIT: Also PokeFan Derek is on Route 39 and can also call to give Nuggets if you show him a Pikachu.
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Quick question about Gen 2 breeding. If I have two Pokemon in the Day Care that both have the same Defense IV and Special IV (or it differs by 8), the two Pokemon are incompatible. However, if I have two Pokemon that have the same Defense IV but different Special IV (that also doesn't differ by 8), are they compatible with each other? (Or vice versa, with different Defense IV's but the same Special IV.)
If they have different Defense DVs or Special DVs (but not by 8), they are compatible, as the rule is to prevent inbreeding (the Defense DV and Special DV +/- 0 or 8 are passed from the opposite gender parent).
While this really belongs on one of the battle facility threads, it would feel weird making such a post when I've only made a little bit of headway in this regard...
...anyways, a short telling of my experiences in the Battle Tower (to be referred to here as the Crystal Tower in an attempt to make it cooler) so far. This building was the main thrust behind me downloading Crystal to begin with, and as of a couple of weeks ago, I finally was able to begin trying my luck at it, using my in-game team and what few resources I had available at the time. I was repeatedly slaughtered, of course: even at the relatively tame Lvl.40 floor (compared to the Lvl.10-20 floors or anything above it), there are some enemy sets there that are absolutely brutal (the Water-types in particular, Wobbuffet in some cases) and don't give you an inch. You forget how much the AI relied on Hyper Beam back then; virtually every attacker has it here. The initial foray ended with me only scoring thrre or four KOs, losing every battle.
Not too long after my initial forays into the Crystal Tower, I went on my Kanto portion of the in-game run, got my team up to Lvl.50, and then challenged the Lvl.50 floor, figuring that the improved movesets and slightly better item selection would help. It did, to a very small degree: with a slapdash team of Leftovers Feraligatr/King's Rock Alakazam/Quick Claw Golem, I picked up a few scattered wins, my first ones since playing cartridge Crystal...about twelve or thirteen years ago, I think? Alakazam with Gen II elemental punches is an awesome cleaner as usual, and Feraligatr proves surprisingly bulky with Lefties equipped. But, two wins in a row was about as far as I got. (side note: Rock/Ground-types eat Zapdos50 for brunch.)
I was getting simultaneously frustrated and thrilled: Frustrated that the Tower was thwomping me so thoroughly, although I fully understood why; and thrilled to be experiencing the OG battle facility again. I can confidently say that, despite not being a fan of Singles as a whole, I have enjoyed being in Crystal Tower again more than I have being in the SuMo Battle Tree. Still, I needed to start incorporating actual strategy into the mix in order to have a chance of making any progress. So, I began to research.
As always, my bruthas and sistas on Discord were helpful beyond measure, I'll always pour one out for them. Xen immediately gave me the golden ticket to victory in the form of classic CurseLax; Giratina93 relayed his experiences with his in-game team and seemed to score slightly more success than I did, using a completely different set of 'mons than I; someone on the Battle Tree server, possibly HeadsILoseTailsYouWin , mentioned Skarmory in some stall-ish capacity. The real progress made, however, came when I starting watching Youtube vids of different Trainers using a variety of teams; lots of ideas emerged from that, most of which I hadn't considered. And then I stumbled onto:
This team instantly struck a chord with me, and I had to replicate it as best I could (within the limits of not caring about DVs or understanding how VC IVs work). So, I got to work doing so. The copy was inherently flawed, given how Misdreavus wasn't at the point where she could learn Perish Song, it's pretty much impossible for me to currently get a MiracleBerry when I have exactly one person to Mystery Gift with (if he were on Smogon, you would know him as ChocoboKing), and I have yet to find out what Gengar's hold item is. So, I had to make due with Leftovers on Wobbuffet and Quick Claw on Gengar (only Misdreavus had the correct hold item). With that, it took seven attempts on the Lvl.40 floor (the Gengar was still a Haunter for most of these) of getting comfortable with the team (really with Wobbuffet) and getting used to the opponents' behavior around it (to be referred to as Wobbehavior) before I actually scored a win with it. The team is highly dependent in its current form on Wobbuffet scoring more than one KO, and it's been a hellishly long time since I've used it on a regular team. After the cobwebs and butterflies cleared, I was able to score three wins with it. And then...
- vs. O'Brien, Forretress/Arcanine/Hypno
- vs. Johnson, Electabuzz/Lapras/Wobbuffet (a tremendous battle which ended in a 1v1 StruggleFest between the two Wobbuffets, with mine emerging victorious with a scant 20 HP left)
- vs. Crawford, Scizor/Steelix/Kingdra
- vs. Jackson, Porygon2/Snorlax/Arcanine
- vs. Morse, Charizard/Lapras/Omastar (Omastar scored an AncientPower boost right away here)
- vs. Zaborowski, Golem/Scizor/Alakazam
- vs. Diaz, Snorlax/Arcanine/Starmie (my heart was pounding here, was sweating a bit, very stressful situation)
Victory! (got HP Ups for this run) The result got me excited for more, and so I'll be level grinding this team to 50 in the future, and tackle the Lvl.50 floor with it next; we'll see how much farther I take it after that. Now that I have tackled a floor, my main focus is on replicating the sets I have beaten for myself to use in subsequent generations of facilities (except for Emerald Frontier, since I have never had too much interest in trying Gen III). The sets one faces in the Crystal Tower are outdated compared to everything that follows, but just how outdated, when in the hands of a skilled human player? I hope to find out one day fairly soon.
To keep things on-topic: getting Apricorn Balls the old-fashioned way plucks and tickles the nostalgia with quite some force. None of this weird "oh, here's a Ball for making it to this point!" nonsense you get in Gen VII. Yes I'm old, shoot me.
Details of the Tower team being used to be shared later, perhaps with some elaboration of the winning round and the battles therein.
...anyways, a short telling of my experiences in the Battle Tower (to be referred to here as the Crystal Tower in an attempt to make it cooler) so far. This building was the main thrust behind me downloading Crystal to begin with, and as of a couple of weeks ago, I finally was able to begin trying my luck at it, using my in-game team and what few resources I had available at the time. I was repeatedly slaughtered, of course: even at the relatively tame Lvl.40 floor (compared to the Lvl.10-20 floors or anything above it), there are some enemy sets there that are absolutely brutal (the Water-types in particular, Wobbuffet in some cases) and don't give you an inch. You forget how much the AI relied on Hyper Beam back then; virtually every attacker has it here. The initial foray ended with me only scoring thrre or four KOs, losing every battle.
Not too long after my initial forays into the Crystal Tower, I went on my Kanto portion of the in-game run, got my team up to Lvl.50, and then challenged the Lvl.50 floor, figuring that the improved movesets and slightly better item selection would help. It did, to a very small degree: with a slapdash team of Leftovers Feraligatr/King's Rock Alakazam/Quick Claw Golem, I picked up a few scattered wins, my first ones since playing cartridge Crystal...about twelve or thirteen years ago, I think? Alakazam with Gen II elemental punches is an awesome cleaner as usual, and Feraligatr proves surprisingly bulky with Lefties equipped. But, two wins in a row was about as far as I got. (side note: Rock/Ground-types eat Zapdos50 for brunch.)
I was getting simultaneously frustrated and thrilled: Frustrated that the Tower was thwomping me so thoroughly, although I fully understood why; and thrilled to be experiencing the OG battle facility again. I can confidently say that, despite not being a fan of Singles as a whole, I have enjoyed being in Crystal Tower again more than I have being in the SuMo Battle Tree. Still, I needed to start incorporating actual strategy into the mix in order to have a chance of making any progress. So, I began to research.
As always, my bruthas and sistas on Discord were helpful beyond measure, I'll always pour one out for them. Xen immediately gave me the golden ticket to victory in the form of classic CurseLax; Giratina93 relayed his experiences with his in-game team and seemed to score slightly more success than I did, using a completely different set of 'mons than I; someone on the Battle Tree server, possibly HeadsILoseTailsYouWin , mentioned Skarmory in some stall-ish capacity. The real progress made, however, came when I starting watching Youtube vids of different Trainers using a variety of teams; lots of ideas emerged from that, most of which I hadn't considered. And then I stumbled onto:
This team instantly struck a chord with me, and I had to replicate it as best I could (within the limits of not caring about DVs or understanding how VC IVs work). So, I got to work doing so. The copy was inherently flawed, given how Misdreavus wasn't at the point where she could learn Perish Song, it's pretty much impossible for me to currently get a MiracleBerry when I have exactly one person to Mystery Gift with (if he were on Smogon, you would know him as ChocoboKing), and I have yet to find out what Gengar's hold item is. So, I had to make due with Leftovers on Wobbuffet and Quick Claw on Gengar (only Misdreavus had the correct hold item). With that, it took seven attempts on the Lvl.40 floor (the Gengar was still a Haunter for most of these) of getting comfortable with the team (really with Wobbuffet) and getting used to the opponents' behavior around it (to be referred to as Wobbehavior) before I actually scored a win with it. The team is highly dependent in its current form on Wobbuffet scoring more than one KO, and it's been a hellishly long time since I've used it on a regular team. After the cobwebs and butterflies cleared, I was able to score three wins with it. And then...
- vs. O'Brien, Forretress/Arcanine/Hypno
- vs. Johnson, Electabuzz/Lapras/Wobbuffet (a tremendous battle which ended in a 1v1 StruggleFest between the two Wobbuffets, with mine emerging victorious with a scant 20 HP left)
- vs. Crawford, Scizor/Steelix/Kingdra
- vs. Jackson, Porygon2/Snorlax/Arcanine
- vs. Morse, Charizard/Lapras/Omastar (Omastar scored an AncientPower boost right away here)
- vs. Zaborowski, Golem/Scizor/Alakazam
- vs. Diaz, Snorlax/Arcanine/Starmie (my heart was pounding here, was sweating a bit, very stressful situation)
Victory! (got HP Ups for this run) The result got me excited for more, and so I'll be level grinding this team to 50 in the future, and tackle the Lvl.50 floor with it next; we'll see how much farther I take it after that. Now that I have tackled a floor, my main focus is on replicating the sets I have beaten for myself to use in subsequent generations of facilities (except for Emerald Frontier, since I have never had too much interest in trying Gen III). The sets one faces in the Crystal Tower are outdated compared to everything that follows, but just how outdated, when in the hands of a skilled human player? I hope to find out one day fairly soon.
To keep things on-topic: getting Apricorn Balls the old-fashioned way plucks and tickles the nostalgia with quite some force. None of this weird "oh, here's a Ball for making it to this point!" nonsense you get in Gen VII. Yes I'm old, shoot me.
Details of the Tower team being used to be shared later, perhaps with some elaboration of the winning round and the battles therein.
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Since I've been name dropped, I might as well share a few details on my in-game team's success.
The lv. 40 challenge was the one I attempted to take down, and I knew going in I was going to be having a rough fight ahead of me. I needed the three best mons I could use, and they were Fearow (Return, Fly, Drill Peck, and Hyper Beam), Feraligatr (Surf, Ice Punch, Slash, Bite), and Arcanine (Fire Blast, Dig, Bite, Dragon Breath), with each holding the best item I could give them (Pink Bow, Quick Claw, and Kings Rock respectfully.) Fearow and Arcanine with their primary nukes put in a lot of work, and helped get me to four wins into the lv. 40 challenge.. but that was the farthest I could go, before a relic from the broken days of Gen 1 would rear its ugly head and bulldoze my team. The two biggest offenders were Alakazam who had the coverage and firepower to one shot everyone but Arcanine, and Tauros, who's Hyper Beam also one shot everyone that wasn't Feraligatr. Facing off against either of these two mons, or any powerful water or psychic type in general usually left me with only one mon against whatever two backup dancers the enemy had, and I just couldn't do it.
Still, to claim actual victories over the Crystal Tower, even if I got no rewards for it, was enough for me. And MVP would definitely be Arcanine with the flinch haxes and Fire Blast nukes when needed. If it weren't for him, I'd be lucky to get ONE win through the Battle Tower.
The lv. 40 challenge was the one I attempted to take down, and I knew going in I was going to be having a rough fight ahead of me. I needed the three best mons I could use, and they were Fearow (Return, Fly, Drill Peck, and Hyper Beam), Feraligatr (Surf, Ice Punch, Slash, Bite), and Arcanine (Fire Blast, Dig, Bite, Dragon Breath), with each holding the best item I could give them (Pink Bow, Quick Claw, and Kings Rock respectfully.) Fearow and Arcanine with their primary nukes put in a lot of work, and helped get me to four wins into the lv. 40 challenge.. but that was the farthest I could go, before a relic from the broken days of Gen 1 would rear its ugly head and bulldoze my team. The two biggest offenders were Alakazam who had the coverage and firepower to one shot everyone but Arcanine, and Tauros, who's Hyper Beam also one shot everyone that wasn't Feraligatr. Facing off against either of these two mons, or any powerful water or psychic type in general usually left me with only one mon against whatever two backup dancers the enemy had, and I just couldn't do it.
Still, to claim actual victories over the Crystal Tower, even if I got no rewards for it, was enough for me. And MVP would definitely be Arcanine with the flinch haxes and Fire Blast nukes when needed. If it weren't for him, I'd be lucky to get ONE win through the Battle Tower.
I bred a Larvitar with perfect DVs yesterday and boy was it tough because of the required steps for the eggs to hatch. Back in October, I bred a perfect DV Skarmory in Silver and it was so much faster, as Larvitar eggs require almost double the steps.
Quick question about the Odd Egg Pokemon. A couple weeks ago, I got myself a shiny Pichu from the Odd Egg and it is now a Raichu. According to Bulbapedia, all shiny Odd Egg Pokemon have Hidden Power Grass with 31 base power. However, according to Psypokes.com Hidden Power calculator (which was the only one I could find) the 2/10/10/10 DV spread (which all shiny Odd Egg Pokemon have) results in a Hidden Power Grass with 50 base power, which wouldn't actually be that bad of an option for this Raichu against Ground types.
So, which one is correct?
Quick question about the Odd Egg Pokemon. A couple weeks ago, I got myself a shiny Pichu from the Odd Egg and it is now a Raichu. According to Bulbapedia, all shiny Odd Egg Pokemon have Hidden Power Grass with 31 base power. However, according to Psypokes.com Hidden Power calculator (which was the only one I could find) the 2/10/10/10 DV spread (which all shiny Odd Egg Pokemon have) results in a Hidden Power Grass with 50 base power, which wouldn't actually be that bad of an option for this Raichu against Ground types.
So, which one is correct?
99.9% of the time that something contradicts Bulbapedia, Bulbapedia is wrong. You could calc it against something to test the power, but that's the only way to figure it out in gen 2.
On Bulbapedia's Odd Egg page, they state that the power of Hidden Power is 49 (Fighting) for non-shiny and 31 (Grass) for shiny. However, if you calculate it manually using Bulbapedia's listed formula for Hidden Power's power, it's actually the reverse: shiny is 49 and non-shiny is 31. This is more sensible in the case of non-shiny since its IVs are 0/0/0/0, which is obviously going to give you the minimum power Hidden Power of 31. In any case, it seems likely that whoever contributed that information to that page calculated the powers and types using the above formula but got the powers mixed up.
Psypoke uses a slightly different formula that gives the shiny Odd Egg Pokemon a power of 50 (non-shiny matches with 31) and I'm fairly certain that Psypoke has the correct approach.
Note that the Bulbapedia page on the Odd Egg also says that its happiness is set to 20 which doesn't seem to be correct either, so it wouldn't be the first time Bulbapedia got something wrong about this topic.
Psypoke uses a slightly different formula that gives the shiny Odd Egg Pokemon a power of 50 (non-shiny matches with 31) and I'm fairly certain that Psypoke has the correct approach.
Note that the Bulbapedia page on the Odd Egg also says that its happiness is set to 20 which doesn't seem to be correct either, so it wouldn't be the first time Bulbapedia got something wrong about this topic.
All y'all worrying about hidden power mechanics could just go here:
https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/rby_gsc_stats#hiddenpower
Much of the technical information was compiled by omegadonut, who is an expert on Pokemon RNG and took over RNG Reporter after mingot disappeared. Trust this before everything, especially bulbapedia.
https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/rby_gsc_stats#hiddenpower
Much of the technical information was compiled by omegadonut, who is an expert on Pokemon RNG and took over RNG Reporter after mingot disappeared. Trust this before everything, especially bulbapedia.
I beat the lvl 30 challenge twice today in Battle Tower. It was my first time ever playing the Crystal Battle Tower, as I never had Crystal before the VC version. I have quite a lot of experience from other Battle Facilities and I've beaten the Gen IV Batte Frontier completely (twice, in both Platinum and SoulSilver), but this was still extremely tough.
My team was:
Scizor
Item: Leftovers
Moves: Agility / Baton Pass / Hidden Power Bug (70) / Metal Claw
DVs: 15 / 13 / 13 / 15 / 15
Espeon
Item: Gold Berry
Moves: Psychic / Bite / Charm / Sand Attack
DVs: 15 / x / 15 / 15 / 15
Feraligatr
Item: Quick Claw
Moves: Surf / Ice Punch / Bite / Return
DVs: 10-15 / 15 / 6-15 / 12-15 / 7-15
I bred Scizor and Espeon in Crystal and they are my in my in-game team. Feraligatr is in it too and he's my starter. Feraligatr's DVs are not accurate (except for Attack), as I had no means to check the exact DVs when soft resetting Totodile in Elm's Lab, but his stats were the maximum ones for a lvl 5 Totodile. In addition to these three, I have Eevee (7 / 14 / 13 / 15 / 15, Hidden Power Water 70) that will become Jolteon once I get a Thunderstone, Charmander (15 / 15 / 15 / 15 / 15) with Belly Drum and Rock Slide as egg moves and finally Larvitar (15 / 15 / 15 / 15 / 15). I bred all of these myself in Crystal. I got all of them in a relatively short time, but Larvitar took quite a while due to its huge Egg steps requirement for hatching and I guess I was a bit unlucky with it too in the beginning.
About the Battle Tower and the lvl 30 challenge. I think it was extremely tough mainly because at this point of the game, the player can't possibly have access to vitamins, good TMs or items, as most of them are obtained in the later parts of the story. I traded Espeon to my Silver save with the help of my friend (as he owns 3DS and the VC Pokemon games as well) and taught him Psychic, as he had Confusion before that as a STAB move, which was pathetic in the Battle Tower. I also have a lot of money in my Silver save, so I bought as many vitamins as Espeon would take (except Protein for obvious reasons). I also had three Leftovers in Silver, so I traded one to Crystal with Espeon.
I think Scizor and Espeon were pretty good in the lvl 30 challenge. Scizor was especially useful if it was against something that couldn't really hurt it, so I could set up Agility and then potentially Baton Pass it to Espeon. Even though Espeon was already fast, Jolteon, Electrode, Gengar, Starmie and Battle Tower's Espeon outsped it. Out of these, Jolteon, Electrode and Starmie were really tough to deal with if Scizor was on low health (and even if he wasn't, the two Electrics were really annoying). Feraligatr was just bad. It was really only good against Marowak. It should have maximum happiness, but Return did laughable damage to everything, are the link battles and Battle Tower programmed in a way that Return/Frustration always do minimum damage?
Blissey was kind of annoying to face, as she was extremely bulky, even on the physical side, but her only form of offense was Toxic, which meant that she was just setup bait for Scizor and all of the encounters with Blissey ended with Scizor having +6 in Speed and +2/3 in Attack (due to Metal Claw).
Houndoom was probably the most dangerous threat, as Feraligatr couldn't safely switch in to Flamethrower. If it did, Houndoom's Crunch would be an easy 2HKO, while Surf was only a 2HKO against it and Feraligatr was slower.
Lanturn, Jolteon and Electrode were all really annoying, but beatable.
It's also interesting and kind of questionable how much stat experience the lvl 30 Battle Tower Pokemon have. Before giving Espeon the vitamins, Battle Tower's Tentacruel always outsped my Espeon, even though Espeon has perfect DVs in everything except Attack and he also had a relatively good amount of stat experience, as I beat mostly just low level Pokemon with these three to get as much stat experience for the Battle Tower as possible. Also, after giving the maximum amount of vitamins to Espeon, all of the Battle Tower's base 110 Speed Pokemon (Espeon, Gengar) outsped it, which means that they must have over 25600 stat experience in each stat, which is a huge amount for lvl 30 Pokemon (and not really achievable without the heavy use of vitamins and a lot of stat exp. grinding).
My team was:
Scizor
Item: Leftovers
Moves: Agility / Baton Pass / Hidden Power Bug (70) / Metal Claw
DVs: 15 / 13 / 13 / 15 / 15
Espeon
Item: Gold Berry
Moves: Psychic / Bite / Charm / Sand Attack
DVs: 15 / x / 15 / 15 / 15
Feraligatr
Item: Quick Claw
Moves: Surf / Ice Punch / Bite / Return
DVs: 10-15 / 15 / 6-15 / 12-15 / 7-15
I bred Scizor and Espeon in Crystal and they are my in my in-game team. Feraligatr is in it too and he's my starter. Feraligatr's DVs are not accurate (except for Attack), as I had no means to check the exact DVs when soft resetting Totodile in Elm's Lab, but his stats were the maximum ones for a lvl 5 Totodile. In addition to these three, I have Eevee (7 / 14 / 13 / 15 / 15, Hidden Power Water 70) that will become Jolteon once I get a Thunderstone, Charmander (15 / 15 / 15 / 15 / 15) with Belly Drum and Rock Slide as egg moves and finally Larvitar (15 / 15 / 15 / 15 / 15). I bred all of these myself in Crystal. I got all of them in a relatively short time, but Larvitar took quite a while due to its huge Egg steps requirement for hatching and I guess I was a bit unlucky with it too in the beginning.
About the Battle Tower and the lvl 30 challenge. I think it was extremely tough mainly because at this point of the game, the player can't possibly have access to vitamins, good TMs or items, as most of them are obtained in the later parts of the story. I traded Espeon to my Silver save with the help of my friend (as he owns 3DS and the VC Pokemon games as well) and taught him Psychic, as he had Confusion before that as a STAB move, which was pathetic in the Battle Tower. I also have a lot of money in my Silver save, so I bought as many vitamins as Espeon would take (except Protein for obvious reasons). I also had three Leftovers in Silver, so I traded one to Crystal with Espeon.
I think Scizor and Espeon were pretty good in the lvl 30 challenge. Scizor was especially useful if it was against something that couldn't really hurt it, so I could set up Agility and then potentially Baton Pass it to Espeon. Even though Espeon was already fast, Jolteon, Electrode, Gengar, Starmie and Battle Tower's Espeon outsped it. Out of these, Jolteon, Electrode and Starmie were really tough to deal with if Scizor was on low health (and even if he wasn't, the two Electrics were really annoying). Feraligatr was just bad. It was really only good against Marowak. It should have maximum happiness, but Return did laughable damage to everything, are the link battles and Battle Tower programmed in a way that Return/Frustration always do minimum damage?
Blissey was kind of annoying to face, as she was extremely bulky, even on the physical side, but her only form of offense was Toxic, which meant that she was just setup bait for Scizor and all of the encounters with Blissey ended with Scizor having +6 in Speed and +2/3 in Attack (due to Metal Claw).
Houndoom was probably the most dangerous threat, as Feraligatr couldn't safely switch in to Flamethrower. If it did, Houndoom's Crunch would be an easy 2HKO, while Surf was only a 2HKO against it and Feraligatr was slower.
Lanturn, Jolteon and Electrode were all really annoying, but beatable.
It's also interesting and kind of questionable how much stat experience the lvl 30 Battle Tower Pokemon have. Before giving Espeon the vitamins, Battle Tower's Tentacruel always outsped my Espeon, even though Espeon has perfect DVs in everything except Attack and he also had a relatively good amount of stat experience, as I beat mostly just low level Pokemon with these three to get as much stat experience for the Battle Tower as possible. Also, after giving the maximum amount of vitamins to Espeon, all of the Battle Tower's base 110 Speed Pokemon (Espeon, Gengar) outsped it, which means that they must have over 25600 stat experience in each stat, which is a huge amount for lvl 30 Pokemon (and not really achievable without the heavy use of vitamins and a lot of stat exp. grinding).
It's assumed that the Tower's sets have all been completely maxed out in terms of vitmain usage and have perfect DVs across the board (similar to how the facility sets of today are all 31 IVs by the fortieth battle), so there is that to consider.
https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal/blob/master/data/battle_tower/parties.asm#L1147 shows the raw data for the L30 section; most opponents are filled out with 50000 (the equivalent of 223 modern EVs) in most if not all of their stats by this point, and while there are only four opponents who get the flat FFFF IV treatment in all the tower (Unown 10, Steelix 20, Starmie 30/50), they're generally within a point or two of max in all of them, except for three designated "weak sets" at the bottom of each level grouping, where you get stuff like 7745 or 4556.
Thanks for the list! It was clear to me otherwise, but how do you read the DVs, e.g. "db $db, $ed ; DVs" on Jolteon's page?