So, another super quick note before we can really start:

Unfortunately, I found out a little too late that the emulator I'm using has a weird way of saving screencaps. If you take a screencap (automatically saved as something like "img_01"), and then close and reopen the emulator, it won't remember you taking any screencaps in previous sessions and will number the images starting at 01 again, overriding any older screencaps you have saved. Because of this, I don't have screencaps of some of the earlier stuff in the game and will just have to explain via text. I was still able to get screencaps of some later stuff, though.

We start the game as usual. We name ourselves and our rival (I just used my own name and "Blue" respectively, because I'm uncreative) and we're offered to take one of the three starter pokemon. I chose Bulbasaur as our starter and named them Amaranth.

Bulbasaur is a really good pokemon for the start of the game. The first two gyms are rock- and water-type, which are weak to grass. We'll also have to eventually deal with Mt Moon, which has a lot of Geodudes, and it'll be much faster to get through the cave if we have something to kill them in one shot. By the time we pass all of that, we should've caught a handful of pokemon that can help us with the later battles that Bulbasaur might struggle with.

The first rival battle goes well, and we go through the whole thing with Oaks parcel and whatnot. Once we have our Pokedex and town map, we're finally able to buy some pokeballs at the Viridian City pokemart and catch our first pokemon.

We capture Bordeaux the Rattata on Route 1, followed by Burgundy the Pidgey on Route 2, and Claret the Caterpie at the very start of Viridian Forest.

Most people would fight the rival before going through the forest, but since my pokemon are a much lower level than his, I do a little grinding first.

Once I'm done, I move on to route 22 to fight him, only to realize that the battle trigger isn't where I thought it was. This whole time, I was avoiding catching anything in that area because I thought that the rival battle triggered as soon as I reached this part of the map, but apparently, he's actually above this patch of grass. In this patch of grass, I catch Carmine the male Nidoran. Once again, I go grind so that he's the same level as the rest of my team. You're very lucky that I'm doing this in a text format and not a video because watching me grind would be very boring.

Also, now the screencaps are here! Yay!

At some point, while grinding, Carmine learned Horn Attack, which is pretty strong for the early game, and Claret evolved into a Metapod!

With that done I'm finally able to fight Blue.

The fight goes pretty well and all my pokemon survive.

We proceed to Viridian Forest without anything of note happening, until we finally get to Brock's gym. Unfortunately, Amaranth still doesn't have a grass-type move to use against him, so once again have to grind a little bit to get them to level 13, where they learn vine whip.

After that, the gym goes by pretty quickly. Amaranth's able to kill everything there in one hit, so it's not much of a challenge.

While fighting some of the trainers on Route 3, Claret evolves again!

This string of trainers is the first time so far in the game that I've actually been scared of one of my pokemon fainting. One trainer has a level 14 Spearow, and I couldn't switch to Amaranth because it knows peck. Another trainer later on in the route has a level 14 Jigglypuff. Thankfully, these trainers only have their one pokemon, and with some careful switching, I'm able to bet them pretty quickly.

After defeating the trainers, we catch Falu the Spearow. Since we already have a Pidgey on our team, I just put them in the PC.

We stop for the day at the Pokemon Center at the base of Mt Moon, and My team currently looks like this:

Next entry, we're moving on to Mt Moon!