1st Gen Psychic type was broken

[Palamon]

Like almost everything in generation one, the Psychic type was incredibly broken.

Ghost was supposed to be super effective against Psychic, but it was instead ineffective in these games.
Bug while super effective, sucked. And the special attack & special defense stats were just one stat, making Pokemon like Alakazam who had a high special stat extremely powerful.

It wasn't until Generation II Psychic type was balanced.

 

[Sydian]

i think a lot of people assumed that psychic was super effective on ghosts bc the only ghosts there were then were part poison, which psychic was super effective on. i mean i know that was the case for myself. but uh. yeah. that sure did happen.

 

[DragonKing48]

The way Gen 1 was and with stuff like that and other similar things, I really wonder if it would have blew up like it did and lasted as long if we were all 20 something at the time instead of 8 or less and actually realized how full of crap it actually was.

 

[Nah]

I have to wonder how something like a type being ineffective instead of super-effective like it was intended to be even made it to release at all. Like, Gen 1 is a whole mess of bugs and glitches, but something like that sounds like something that should've been easy to spot and fix.

 

[Ragengar]

Psychic Type was designed to be a Sweeper Type and a Legendary one, its my love/hate relationship cause even if is overpowered in first gen, two of my favorite pokemons are Mewtwo in Uber and Alakazam in OU, through generations are great for it, along with Latios and Latias and Cresselia, I said, I hate them as a common pokemon type but are my favorite for legendaries or competitive play

 

[Duck]

I have to wonder how something like a type being ineffective instead of super-effective like it was intended to be even made it to release at all. Like, Gen 1 is a whole mess of bugs and glitches, but something like that sounds like something that should've been easy to spot and fix.

Ghost only had two moves in that generation: the fixed damage Night Shade which does hit Psychic types, and Lick - which isn't exactly great. It's likely that the playtesters just got rid of Lick before Sabrina or other Psychic Pokémon.

The fact that effectively only three Pokémon learned Lick - Gastly, Haunter and Jynx - and by the time you got those you had access to the Celadon TMs didn't really help either.

 

[Corveone]

On top of that, you didn't have any decent damage move for the two types that were supposed to be strong against Psychic... and they also made the only Ghost types and many Bug types in the game part Poison so they're actually weak to Psychic :O

Gen 1 had no notion of type balancing whatsoever. Basically certain types were garbage you'd better pretend they didn't exist, while a few others were a power fantasy. Most insulted type was probably Fighting, with their terrible Sp. Attack translated into also a terrible Sp. Defense, their best stab move being literally Submission (lmao) and much less use since Dark and Steel types didn't exist.

 

[PageEmp]

I believe there was only one creature in gen1 who could hit Psychics (which is misspelt in the title, sorry but it bothers me) and wasn't weak to it was Jolteon using Pin missile. I never tried it out, but I assume it would be okay since most Psychics had low defense, and usually lower than Jolteon has attack.

Never tried it out, though.

 

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

No idea what you're talking about man, unless maybe that's a regional difference thing, but I played pokemon blue and ghosts destroyed psychic types.
There weren't even that many psychic types in first gen, what was it, just the abra line. drowzee.

 

[Palamon]

(which is misspelt in the title, sorry but it bothers me)

I fixed it.

No idea what you're talking about man, unless maybe that's a regional difference thing, but I played pokemon blue and ghosts destroyed psychic types.
There weren't even that many psychic types in first gen, what was it, just the abra line. drowzee.

I mean, there was only one Ghost type in generation I and they were also part Poison type. But not everyone's experience is the same, I suppose.