We've been wrong for 20+ years.
Eurogamer has a YouTube series called Here's a Thing, and this week, Host Chris Bratt teaches us all how we've been catching Pokemon in Pokemon Red/Blue incorrectly this whole time.
Lowering a Pokemon's health to 1/3 was something we all believed back in the 90s.
Mostly because in-game, we were told we had to weaken Pokemon to catch them, but it turns out that's not true at all.
The actual algorithm for catching a Pokemon is a bit complicated, which Chris goes into in the video. Basically, the type of Pokeball, the Pokemon's max health, and their status effect, and the Pokemon's base catch rate are all taken into consideration, but not it's current health.
The video is a bit complicated, but in the end, you'll see that whittling down (and sometimes knocking out) Pokemon like Pidgey and Pikachu in Red/Blue was ultimately a waste of time. How does your childhood feel now?
