My Favourite Boss Battles Part 5: Blue (Pokémon Red and Blue)

I have already gushed in previous posts about what Pokémon represented to me as a gamer. The first games in the series crafted an emotional coming-of-age tale that hit me at just the right moment to be a significant part of my development as a gamer. The first games in the series are a big hit with nostalgia fans and many would argue that the series has never quite managed to get back to the lofty heights that these two games reached. With that in mind, two of my favourite boss battles in mind came from Red and Blue; the fight against Brock and the final fight against Blue for the Championship of Kanto.

The reason I picked Blue for this list was, because while Brock was a suitable and challenging first gym challenge, that forced players to learn about the advantages of Pokémon elemental typing, Blue was the one fight that held the most significance for the game as a whole.

I spoke in my previous blog post how Red and Blue were emotional coming-of-age tales told in the form of an accessible RPG-lite adventure. With that in mind, the final battle represents the climax of that adventure, the moment you overcame that final obstacle that stood in your way through the whole game. Throughout your journey in Kanto, Blue was always one step ahead of you; whenever you read a gym sign you would see that Blue had beaten the gym before you had even arrived. Whenever you would feel at your least prepared, your rival would come sauntering up to you with a mischievous eye for battle, to push you that bit further and make you feel that bit more vulnerable. Blue was always ahead of you.

Beating him as the final boss was so much more than just finishing the game. It was the culmination of your journey and the moment you finally surpassed your rival. This annoying force that spent the whole game ahead of you was now behind you, leaving you prepared to take on the world once more to complete your Pokédex. You were now the pioneer, not the follower.

It helps that the battle is suitably built up. Before there was a formula behind Pokémon, it was a big surprise that after beating the Elite Four you were told that someone had come before you to be crowned champion. When I found out that my rival was the last challenge standing between me and glory, I felt equal parts annoyed and overwhelmed. I was down to my very last few items, and my Pokémon were almost all out of their most powerful attacks. I felt like there was no chance.

I chose this battle because this boss is the one that I have always remembered. The one that I can still, to this day, describe the exact moment I became champion of Kanto. It was a thrilling fight; left with only his Blastoise, Blue had almost wiped out my whole team. I was on the edge of losing with only a Fearow that I had caught in victory road standing between me and a bitter loss. In resignation for the blast that I knew was coming, that I knew would knock out Fearow in one hit and consign me to defeat, I arbitrarily picked ‘Mirror Move’ as my choice for battle.

Then Blastoise attacked with Ice Beam. It was a devastating attack, but one that left me with HP in single digits. Somehow, through luck, my Fearow scraped through to fight for one more turn. Then it hit back with Mirror Move. Given that it was Ice Beam, and that Blastoise had more than half of his HP I wasn’t holding out for a knock-out hit. But then, Blastoise was frozen solid! I was half-stunned as Blue had used his last Full Restore and was now helpless to the final blow. At the very moment when doom seemed assured, through sheer luck I had won. Fearow knocked out his adversary and I was champion.

What made that boss battle so memorable was the adversity. Knowing that Blue, by this point, was the strongest challenge I could face, with strong typing advantages to boot, I thought that I was well-and-truly defeated but by a sheer stroke of minute luck I had come out the other side. The end result was a thrilling battle fought to the bitter end.

Other people wouldn’t have had the same experience as I did on this boss, and in all fairness, there was nothing that made this single battle stand out other than the meaning that I put to the game, which is a personal interpretation more than it is anything unique. I think that the battle system is one of the weaker aspects of the first Pokémon games, in fact. But for me, the game struck gold with its story being so perfectly timed, with the lucky fact that the final battle happened to take place the way it did, that it bottled lightning and managed to become that one fight with the most personal significance to my introduction into the world of gaming.

Thanks to all of that, Pokémon’s final boss battle is my personal pick for this list. It is that one battle that, despite not being technically masterful on its own, stuck with me because of all of the elements outside of the game that made it so memorable to me as a gamer. I think every gamer will have their own version of this battle, the one that meant the most to them and the one that would be hard to critique in an objective way without telling others what that battle meant to them. I think that is what makes this battle a fitting conclusion to my list of personal favourite boss battles.