I apologize again for not doing this post last week. But I’m back now, and for this week I’ll be doing another three-pack of Legendary Pokemon. Presenting the Legendary Beasts of Johto, Raikou, Entei, and Suicune.
According to the legend, when the old Brass Tower (original Tin Tower/Bell Tower in the anime) burned down, three nameless Pokemon perished in the inferno. Using its own power and the powers of nature, Ho-Oh resurrected the three as incredibly powerful Pokemon. There has been some speculation of what the Legendary Beasts were before Ho-Oh revived them. My theory is that Raikou was a Jolteon, Entei was a Flareon, and Suicune was a Vaporeon. Anyway, in the games it is said that Raikou represents the lightning that struck the Brass Tower, Entei represents the fire that burned it down, and Suicune represents the rain that put the fire out.
Hangout: This is where things get a little complicated. In the second-generation games and their remakes, Raikou, Entei, and Suicune can be found in the basement of the old Burned Tower, but they can’t be caught there. That’s because the Legendary Beasts are the very first Roaming Pokemon. In the original Gold and Silver Versions, and in FireRed and LeafGreen, all three of the beasts were Roaming Pokemon, but in Crystal, HeartGold, and SoulSilver, Suicune can be caught as a stationary Pokemon. But you have to chase it around a little first.
After being awakened in the Burned Tower, Suicune is first spotted at the end of the beach of Cianwood City. It’ll run away across the water before you can approach and then you’ll have to battle that guy, Eusine (who needs to get a life). Later on, Suicune will be spotted on Route 42 between Ecruteak City and Mahogany Town, outside of Mt Mortar. Here’s where things get a little different between Cyrstal and HeartGold/SoulSilver. After beating Team Rocket in Goldenrod City, the Radio Tower’s director will give you the Clear Bell, allowing you to go to the Tin Tower. Then after proving yourself to the three sages guarding the tower by beating them, you’ll find Suicune on the ground floor of the Tin Tower. This next part is pretty cool. Entei and Raikou will run off once you enter the tower, but Suicune will suddenly jump at you like it’s going to pounce on you and tear out your jugular. At that point, you can battle Suicune and capture it.
In HeartGold and SoulSilver though, the chase goes a little further. The next Suicune sighting occurs in Vermilion City, where it runs off yet again. At that point, Suicune runs away yet again. Suicune is then spotted again on Route 14 in Kanto before running away for the last time. Finally, after pretty much circling Kanto, Suicune can be found and caught on Route 25 outside of Bill’s house. Now if you accidentally beat Suicune at that point, don’t panic. You can find it back in the basement of the Burned Tower waiting to be captured, though I think you have to beat the Elite Four a second time first.
So, what about Entei and Raikou you ask? Unfortunately, those two are Roaming Pokemon in all of the games they’ve ever appeared in, which is extremely annoying in Crystal, because you need to catch them in order to get to Ho-Oh. In Generation Two, these two cats were way easier to capture. Back then you could use a move like Hypnosis to get them to stay in one place long enough to weaken and perhaps capture them. But since Generation Three that no longer works, because for some reason they can still run away while asleep (which make no sense). And both Entei and Raikou know Roar, which make abilities like Shadow Tag useless. So when it comes to the best way of capturing these two in Generation Three and beyond, your guess is as good as mine.
Gen. Two Capture Method: Back in the good old days of Generation Two, all that was needed to help capture Entei and Raikou (and Suicune in Gold and Silver) was a Pokemon with a really good speed stat and a reliable sleep-inducing move. And after years of banging my head against walls, I discovered that the only way to get the perfect Pokemon for this job was to breed it. While looking through one of my strategy guides one day I discovered two things. The first was that the cat Pokemon, Persian, had a really good speed stat, and the second was that Persian and its pre-evolved form, Meowth, could learn Hypnosis as an egg move. It dawned on me right away that such a Pokemon would be perfect for hunting the Legendary Beasts.
The first step was getting a female Meowth/Persian and a male Stantler that knew Hypnosis, easy enough to do. After that all that needed to be done was leave the two at the Daycare to let them “get it on” and hatch the resulting egg. You know, whenever I did this, the resulting Meowth was always female for some reason. I could never figure out why. Anyway, next step was to evolve the Meowth into a Persian, train it to level thirty-nine, and then have it hold the Quick Claw to give it an extra speed boost. Then it was just time to begin the hunt.
Raikou: All three of the Legendary Beasts are favorites of mine, which is why I’m covering all three of them in one post. But it seemed like whenever I played the Generation Two games, the first of the Legendary Beasts that I always seemed to encounter was Raikou. In fact the last time I played Silver I kept running into Raikou before the Elite Four. This happened like two or three times, and each time I think I did a little damage to it with a Pokemon that knew Quick Attack. After the last encounter I just decided to hunt Raikou down and capture it before going to face the Elite Four. So I bred my special Persian for the job, and then chased Raikou around until finally catching outside Blackthorn City. Then it was on to the Elite Four.
That covers it for this week. Next week I’ll be covering another one of Hoenn’s Legendary Pokemon. So until next week, stay tuned.
