How about we each list 1 mistake per game we each made in Early Pokemon Games

[James Marshall]

How about we each list 1 mistake per game that we nearly always made in early Pokemon Games that we played. Here's mine

On Pokemon Blue as you could use Cut without beating Lieutenant Surge I often forget to beat him and wouldn't remember until I was on the way to Victory Road and was turned away by 1 of The Gate Guards

On Pokemon Silver as I wasn't used to A Gym Leader not giving me A Badge straight after beating him/her, which was why I would beat Whitney and forget to get her badge, unlike in The Remakes you can progress by beating her but without getting her badge and I often only remembered to pick up her badge when I got to Victory Road and was turned away by The Gate Guard

[vanguard333]

I didn't start playing the series until Fire Red, so I'll start there:

For Fire Red, I was so focused on making sure my starter Pokémon could survive fighting in the early game, especially against my rival's starter, that I levelled it up at the expense of my other Pokémon. I somehow made it to the elite four with a Blastoise somewhere around level 60 and my other five Pokémon being somewhere between level 25 and 35! 

The worst part is that it was a mistake I repeated in multiple playthroughs (because of course I restarted from scratch; I was a kid and I didn't fully understand the game, and I had no way to get my team up to level without lots of level grinding). Things started off well; this time I chose a charmander and my two main fighting Pokémon early on were Charmander and Pikachu. I levelled up Charmander enough to learn metal claw before taking on the first gym, while making sure to keep my Pikachu around the same level. But then I slid back into old mistakes on my way to the 2nd gym; because lightning could deal with water but not ground or rock, I also caught a paras to help survive the cave and because I thought it looked interesting, and I rarely used it after the cave and the 2nd gym. Similar story for the rest of my team. 

Then I got Pokémon Diamond. In that game, my first team wasn't actually that bad: Torterra, Dialga, Luxray, Rampardos, Staraptor and Bibarel. My mistake, as you can probably guess from Bibarel being right there at the end, was that I actually thought Bibarel could be useful for more than just being an HM-user despite all four of his moves being HM moves. 

[sinfonic18]

My first was Diamond when I was 7 and I remember putting HMs on all my main pokemon without knowing you could delete them.

[Original Alear]

I played almost exclusively with Venasaur in Pokemon Blue, getting all the way to Gary's Charizard. Gary's Charizard was the first pokemon that could 2HKO my Venusaur.

My brother supplied me with mewtwo... 😕

I wonder if more leveling and an x-special could have won the day, instead of grinding another pokemon up to fight charizard exclusively.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Original Johan Liebert

[Shrow]

My very first Pokemon game was Gold, as I kid didn't read dialogue so I got stuck often.
I think I got stuck behind the Sudowoodo and I think I just never learned surf because I didn't know where to get it.

While playing HeartGold I was much older and made it to Elite Four. I was grinding my pokemon lvl's in a secret patch of glass only accessed via waterfall.
When returning to challenge the Elite Four, I forgot to switch out the HM Slave used to get to the grinding spot. I ended up fighting and beating all the Elite four and champion with my 5 best Pokemon and a random useless low lvl HM slave. I'm guessing I didn't reset because I just considered it a practice run, but then ended up beating the game.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

In Silver, I read "SAVING... DON'T TURN OFF THE POWER", and interpreted that as not being allowed to turn the game off AFTER saving.

[Lord_Brand]

In Pokemon Red, I wasted a bunch of Ultra Balls catching Rattata and named one of them "FART". Suffice to say, I ended up restarting that file.

[Sooks]

My first game was Black 2, I think I was six. But my six year old self didn’t solo the game with one Pokémon, I had 2 and some deadweights. I picked Snivy as my starter (Serperior was one of the 2 that was always the right level) not because I liked it the most, but because I assumed I would be able to get all of the starters later and wanted to get them in what I thought of as the “Zelda Order” which was grass -> fire -> water because Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess have their first three dungeons in that theme and order. Big brain time.

After that I went to the ranch and caught the other Pokémon that would actually see regular use on my “team”, a Mareep (that eventually became an ampharos). This is why Ampharos is my favorite Pokémon, because when I barely knew how the game worked Ampharos was my best Pokémon and the one I used the most, along with an awesome design. I didn’t use my starter for a majority of battles like others did, O think because the grass type isn’t great for the gyms and such in Black 2, but I did still use Serperior often. Anyway, I had this Ampharos that I loved a lot, and I strolled into the battle subway (I think that’s what it was called?) and was on the PC in there for whatever reason. I looked at all the buttons other than store/deposit and realized I had no idea what they did, so I experimented with them on my favorite, Ampharos. I got to the release option and... yeah. I said yes and watched its sprite disappear as the text said “Bye bye Ampharos!” or whatever. And then I cried. A lot. My mom came in and I wouldn’t tell her why I was crying because I thought it was stupid...

There is a happy ending though. Through a divine miracle, six year old me was smart enough to quit without saving, even though I was stupid enough to press release and then yes on my favorite ‘mon without thinking. After I was back on that save with Ampharos I saved a bunch of times and then preceded on that file, where I got stuck on the seventh gym because dragon resists both grass and electric. Good times, good times...

[Lightcosmo]

Well playing Pokemom Yellow as a kid, against Koga, I tried to use the poke flute every time he sleep powdered me, not realizing that he couldn't ever run of out PP for it.