Revisiting Kanto: Pokemon's Human Stories Are What Keeps It Going

thegamer.com:

So far, my adventure through Kanto has been easily divided into neat little sections. If you're wondering 'what adventure, what are you talking about, I only clicked this because it came up on my phone', then first, thank you, and secondly, I'm currently replaying Pokemon Blue trying to experience Kanto as a tourist - you can catch up on it here. Anyway, because Pokemon Blue is all about going from town to town, each week I've been able to write about any given down in turn. The most complex it has gotten has been spending two weeks in Cerulean, first focusing on the surprisingly soulless city itself, and then on the surrounding area that is likely responsible for why Cerulean is held in such high regard. This week, like any good Nickelodeon award show, we're gonna get messy.

I don't have a neat name for this week's travels. It's kind of Diglett's Cave, but it's mainly going to be my journey through Routes 11, 9, and 10 - in that order, because Pokemon is silly sometimes. This feels from the outset like a little bit of filler ahead of the Rock Tunnel, Lavender Town, and then on with our insatiable quest for badges. It feels even more like filler for a journey like this one, where battling is unimportant to our story. But surprisingly, I found this to be one of the most human episodes in my story so far.

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Diglett's Cave is just a straight line and it's empty. The only interesting thing is when you encounter a Dugtrio, which is invariably too high levelled and will therefore disrupt your team. You catch it anyway because everyone wants that advantage in a game as monstrously difficult as Pokemon Blue (Pokemon fans struggle with sarcasm so let me just take a second to point