Pokemon R/B/Y - How to get stuck in an infinite battle
1,144As you probably know, the AI in the first generation was very poor. One of the three AI layers is responsible for encouraging super-effective moves (and discouraging not very effective moves), but the problem is that it doesn't care if the move is damaging or not when encouraging it.
Since Lorelei's Dewgong's only Psychic-type move is Rest (while the other moves are Ice or Normal-type), she will always pick it against Fighting or Poison-type Pokemon (unless they are also weak to Ice-type moves) or against some other type combination like Rock/Water. While enemy Pokemon do have PP structures in RBY just like the player Pokemon, they aren't functional, meaning that PP is never decremented when a trainer's Pokemon uses a move and that the enemies have no limit on how many times they can use any given move.
Another example is Sabrina's Alakazam. It has three Psychic-type moves and Recover, which is a Normal-type attack. If you send a Psychic-type Pokemon, Alakazam will keep using Recover.
And here's where the move Rage comes in. When Rage is used, the user gets stuck using it and is unable to switch Pokemon, use an item, or select another move, as the battle menu is skipped. In addition, Rage only consumes PP on its first use. If the Rage user is not powerful enough to defeat Lorelei's Dewgong with 3 consecutive Rages, Dewgong will keep using Rest and healing itself while the player has no other option but to keep using Rage, forever. Since the Rage user isn't taking damage, its Attack doesn't increase either. The only way to get away is turning off the game.