The first Pokemon I ever trained to level 100 was not my first starter, or even in my first Pokemon game. Technically, it wasn't even mine: it was a Kingler that my friend had caught in a copy of Pokemon LeafGreen that he'd given me early in the story. That Kingler led my team through Victory Road and past the Elite Four, into Cerulean Cave to face Mewtwo, and then to FireRed and LeafGreen's endgame on the mysterious Sevii islands.
Making my way through this archipelago of seven islands was slow work. I was held up not only by the need to fill out my National Pokedex by catching the many Gen 2 Pokemon that lived across the islands, but also by having to bust out the Braille skills I'd honed in the mainline third-generation Pokemon games. Finally, I made my way to the southernmost tip of Seven Island, the very edge of this updated section of Kanto.
There's very little to explore on Seven Island. Most of the players who spent any significant amount of time there would head north as soon as they arrived to check out the Trainer Tower. But as a younger Pokemon fan I rarely engaged with any aspect of the games that would be understood to be competitively viable, and quickly tired of getting my but kicked by the tower's inhabitants. Instead, I headed South.
XP: Gonna give it to 'em
There, right before Seven Island gave way to LeafGreen's strangest wild area – a collection of ruined caves home to nothing but an entire alphabet of Unowns – were a pair of trainers. Cooltrainer Leroy and Cooltrainer Michelle were camped out in the remote Sevault Canyon, each accompanied by a team of five powerful endgame Pokemon. In most games, I'd have fought each one of them once and then never given them a second thought. But in LeafGreen, a single item turned them into a cash and XP farm the likes of which I've never seen anywhere else in the series.
FireRed and LeafGreen gave players the VS Seeker, a key item that could be used to challenge defeated NPCs over and over again. Your chosen foe wouldn't always accept the invitation for a rematch, but if they passed, you could simply run 100 steps to throw the gauntlet down again. It was so useful that I set it as a quick-use item ahead of my bike or fishing rods. In a series where the vast majority of trainers you beat will never battle you again (or will only do so extremely slowly), the ability to force a do-over on a whim was a total game changer.
On their own, Leroy and Michelle weren't the most lucrative trainers in the game, but together they were a powerhouse. Stood close enough together to be triggered by the same call of the VS Seeker, and each boasting a roster of five high-level, fully-evolved Pokemon, each pair of battles would yield more than 20,000 EXP. That's the biggest pool of experience in the entire game, for two trainers stood right next to each other. But that's not all – Leroy and Michelle are also posted up next to a small house, inside which is an NPC who'll encourage you to dance along with his Chansey, healing your entire party.
It's an impromptu Pokemon Center positioned next to the most effective XP farm in the game, and it turned Leroy and Michelle's little slice of Seven Island into a spot I spent dozens of hours training in.
It was Leroy and Michelle who ticked my Kingler over to level 100. And then they did the same with the Venusaur that I'd inherited as my LeafGreen starter. Eventually, I had a full roster at the level cap, including a Rayquaza and my beloved Blaziken traded over from my Sapphire save. In all, that tiny patch of Pokemon LeafGreen drew me in for hundreds of battles against those two trainers, yielding millions of XP fight by fight over dozens of hours of play.
Looking back, it's the kind of grind I'd never commit to nowadays, but it's probably part of the reason that my old Game Boy Advance is still on my shelf, that bright green cartridge still lodged neatly inside. As I prepare to step back into the Gen 1 remakes this Pokemon Day, I can't wait to find the coolest pair of trainers in Kanto waiting for me at the end of my journey.
