Team Rocket Storyline #

Pokémon contains mandatory quests involving the game’s antagonists, Team Rocket. These events require defeating trainers, obtaining special items, and solving in-game puzzles. Thankfully, these quests must be accomplished in a linear order. For completeness, here are all the tasks required to to complete the Rocket storyline:

• Defeat the Rockets blocking the exit to Mt. Moon (post Brock).
• Defeat the Rocket at the end of Nugget Bridge north of Cerulean City.
• Defeat the Rocket at the exit of Cerulean City.
• Defeat the Rocket guard in the Celadon City Game Corner.
• Press the poster switch in the Celadon City Game Corner and enter the Rocket hideout.
• Solve the Rocket hideout spin tile puzzle on basement floor (BF) 3 to get to BF4.
• Beat the Rocket grunt in BF4.
• Pick up the dropped elevator key from the BF4 Rocket Grunt.
• Solve the spin tile puzzle on BF2.
• Use the elevator key to enter the elevator on BF2.
• Go to BF4 using the elevator key.
• Beat Giovanni in Rocket Hideout.
• Pick up the Silph Scope Giovanni drops.
• Save Mr. Fuji at the top of Lavender Tower.
• Find the card key in Silph Co in Saffron City.
• Defeat Giovanni in Silph Co.

Unlike the gym leaders, the difficulty of the Team Rocket puzzles are highly variable, but brute-forceable. From these quests, we concluded the player needed a desire to either explore the whole world or spend extra time building a policy capable of reading and interpreting text. We decided to focus on the former.