I chose Bulbasaur, haven't kept track of my levels but did catch a Pichu and buy the Magikarp, only struggled with the Cerulean City Rival battle so far, to name my specific progress and stuff.
I found a bug that went unnoticed. If you lose to the rival before Route 25, you get soft locked after the usual post-win speech with an endless loop of the rival encounter theme.
Would be interesting to see scripts for some recent things such as Noble Pokemon, Strong/Agile Style Moves, and so on after PLA releases in other parts of the world.