Pokémon Red and Blue: Cerulean City

If you are playing on a Super Game Boy or Game Boy Color, then the first thing you will notice about Cerulean City is its eponymous blue color.

Starting right off, the man in the northwestern house will tell you the unique benefits of each of the region's gym badges. The BoulderBadge you already have increases your Pokémon's Attack by 10% and allows you to use the HM move Flash outside of battle. The next badge, the CascadeBadge, will allow the use of Cut outside of battle, and will make traded Pokémon obey your commands up to level 30, where they might otherwise refuse to attack, use the wrong move or go to sleep in battle. Go through the back door of this house and examine the area behind it to find a hidden Rare Candy.

The house next to the gym contains a man who wants to trade the only Jynx in the game for your Poliwhirl. Both of these Pokémon will be explained when Poliwhirl becomes available.

The southwest building is a steeply priced bike shop. You can never have more than P999,999, so the P1,000,000 bike is off limits to you for now.

The Pokémon Mart sells the following items:

• Poké Balls - P200, be sure to stock up.
• Potions - P300
• Antidotes - P100
• Awakenings - P250
• Burn Heals - P250
• Parlyz Heals - P200
• Repels - P350, these would have been most useful before the cave, because they prevent you from encountering Pokémon of a higher level than the one at the top of your party for 200 steps a can.

You have two options here. You can enter Cerulean's Gym Gym (which is really just a Gym) or you can head north onto Route 24. You can get as far as the next town without collecting Cerulean's Gym Badge, but you won't be able to advance to the third badge until you get this one.

Enter Cerulean Gym

Proceed to Route 24

Pokémon Red and Blue: Route 4 II

Route 4 is a short route connecting Mt. Moon with the next town in the game. There are a couple of gems to be found here.

On the small plateau east of the exit of the mountain, examine the empty space to find a hidden Great Ball, which is 1.5 times more likely to catch a Pokémon than a Poké Ball. Use this one wisely, because you cannot buy them in bulk for a while. If you're looking for a Clefairy, it can make the capture much less tedious, but be sure to lower its health first.

On the large plateau further east, you can find TM04 Whirlwind, which will allow you to flee from a wild Pokémon by blowing them away, but does absolutely nothing in trainer battles.

Note that when you jump down the ledge near the grass, you will not be able to return to Mt. Moon, Pewter City, or any past locations for a while. When you're satisfied with your perusing all of the locations so far, hop down the ledge and catch one new Pokémon, depending on the version you're playing.

	Rattata	Normal	L8-12	40%
	Spearow	Normal/Flying	L8-12	35%
	Ekans	Poison	L6-12	25%	0%
	Sandshrew	Ground	L6-12	0%	25%

Ekans and Arbok
Ekans specializes in Attack and Speed. It evolves into Arbok at level 22. It's stats are bad and it is weak to Psychic.
It's only potential is to train it for Speed in single player and use Wrap, but this is a time consuming strategy and it is outclassed by other Pokémon in every aspect.

Sandshrew and Sandslash

Sandshrew has decent Defense for an unevolved Pokémon, which makes it a good companion for beginning Blue players. Parallel to Ekans, it evolves at level 22, into Sandslash. It's Defense increases to a decent level for an evolved Pokémon and its Attack is okay.

Competitively, Sandslash is outclassed by the staples, Golem and Rhydon. Anecdotally, however, it can defeat them both. It makes good use of Swords Dance and Earthquake and has access to Hyper Beam, Rock Slide, Body Slam and Substitute. Swords Dance gives it an edge against its biggest counter, Exeggutor.

As its Attack stat is not great, Swords Dance and lucky Body Slams are required for its competitive use.

When you're satisfied with your perusing all of the locations so far, head east into Cerulean City.

Advance to Cerulean City