Mystery Gifts ("Gold" and "Silver") Quiz

Answer: AncientPower

AncientPower is a middling power Rock type move with very low PP. It famously has a 10% chance to boost all of the user's stats by one stage on use.

Unfortunately, this move is a Physical attack in the second generation, whereas the Bulbasaur line is more effective with Special moves. It isn't completely unusable, it simply would have been better suited if the line had receive the move in the fourth generation, where it became Special.

Answer: Cyndaquil

Chikorita came with Petal Dance, Totodile came, shiny, and with Submission, while Cyndaquil also got Submission, but received Double Edge as well. It is not possible for any of these Pokemon to have these moves in these games unless received in 2001 from a PCNY distribution.

Sadly, none of these moves are useful on their respective recipients. Submission is just a horrible move in general, featuring a low base power, imperfect accuracy and recoil damage on use to the user. Double Edge doesn't do anything too useful for Cyndaquil, being a Normal type move that doesn't offer it any coverage. Finally, being Grass type, the Chikorita line already has access to moves which are better than the risky Petal Dance.

At least Totodile came shiny, for those interested in that sort of thing.

Answer: Zap Cannon

Zap Cannon is an extremely inaccurate move with low PP but huge power and the 100% chance to afflict the target with paralysis on hit. It was not particularly useful for Blastoise, but since Blastoise doesn't have access to any other Electric move other than Hidden Power Electric, it could be useful if it needs to fight fellow Water types.

Answer: Amnesia

Amnesia doubles the user's Special Defense on use. Onix has very bad Special Defense, so this perhaps could be of mild, novel use on it for a casual playthrough.

Answer: Mind Reader

Mind Reader, when used, guarantees that the next move used will hit no matter what the target does. Hydro Pump is a powerful but inaccurate move. It is the strongest move Staryu and Starmie have available to them. As such, Mind Reader could help guarantee their payload when using Hydro Pump.

Answer: Horn Drill

All moves listed are moves which only hit a putrid 30% of the time, but when they do, they deliver guaranteed one-hit KOs against the target. The only exception are Pokemon with a type immunity to the move. In Dunsparce's case, Horn Drill is a Normal type move, so it cannot hit Ghost types. Anything else has a 30% chance to go down immediately when choosing this move.

Answer: Town Map

The Town Map is obtained through normal gameplay, very early on in one's playthrough. It is a Key Item, and is indeed important for navigating the Johto region, so it's good that it wasn't locked behind an exclusive, time-sensitive event.

Answer: Night Shade

Night Shade deals damage equal to the user's level unless targeting a Normal type, in which case it does nothing at all. Hoothoot, with a weak attack stat, will typically be better off with a move that deals fixed damage. This would make it easier to train and eventually evolve into Noctowl.

Answer: Splash

On use, Splash literally does absolutely nothing. In a way, this has become a signature move of Magikarp due to it being a fish capable of doing little but flopping around haplessly. Sunkern is really not much stronger than Magikarp, so the move fits it thematically.

Answer: Growth

Growth doubles the user's Special Attack on use. I can't lie, this move is incredibly useless on Ariados. I still keep it for the novelty, but Ariados is a physical attacker. Not even a very great one at that, but certainly better than trying to be specially offensive. Growth doubles the user's Special Attack on use, but Ariados has little to make use of the boost.

Its Bug/Poison typing, in the second generation, can only operate off of its Attack stat. In terms of moves it could try to use Growth with, it pretty much just has Psychic and a Hidden Power, neither move getting STAB.

As such, Growth is unfortunately very useless on Ariados. It would've been a whole heck of a lot better to receive Swords Dance, but it would sadly have to wait five whole generations to get this move.