The Weedle Controversy

I was recently ranting about how "back in my day" we didn't have online game FAQs and walk-throughs. We just had to figure out games by ourselves, or shell out cash for a game guide. The first game guide I had was an unofficial guide for Pokémon Red & Blue. It actually belonged to my brother, and we read the shit out of that thing. Last I saw of it, it was literally hanging together by a thread, every page frayed and worn.

While I'm sure I could have gotten through the game by myself, it WAS a handy guide (particularly the maps of Silph Co.), and, for being unofficial, it was mostly accurate. Mostly.

I've already mentioned in my first post on this blog that I was never able to trade in the early games, due to lack of a link cable. Since I would never be able to have a complete PokéDex, I placated my sorrow by—with the help of the game guide—making sure to capture every creature possible inside of Blue. Or so I thought.

Like most guides, this book had a list of the "version exclusives", that is—as I am sure you are all aware—Pokemon from the same generation that only exist in one version of the game. On the list of "Red only" Pokémon was the stupid, stupid, ugly piece of crap worm-mon Weedle. It was no stretch to make the assumption that—since they were found in the same areas—Weedle was Red's token bug Pokémon, and Caterpie was Blue's.

Except that it wasn't. Weedles were NOT exclusive to Red; they were found in Blue in the bug-and-occasional-Pikachu-filled Viridian Forest just as they were in Red, only at a very low rate. A rate so low that neither I nor the jerkhat who wrote the game guide that was my only access to Pokémon information for several years ever encountered one.

To add insult to injury, I only found this out a couple months ago. I have long-since erased my original Blue game (sorry Charizard), so I can't even go back and troll Viridian Forest hoping for the 1-in-25 chance encounter with a Weedle.

Meh. I'm mad, but not so mad that I'm going to track down the author of the game guide and shove a rabid weasel through his mail slot. Anyway, it wouldn't have really made much of a difference if I had had a Weedle; I would have evolved it into a Beedrill and then buried it in my PC, never to look at or touch it again. In a way, I suppose it's better that all the Weedles in my Blue game got to enjoy the freedom that Zubat and Geodude never did.