Day 131: Pokemon Caught:: 92 Days Left in Challenge: 234

Sorry for the posting gap, I got distracted by Dirge of Cerberus. Anyways, I’ve decided to take a break from my Black game. I’m currently working on my SoulSilver game and I must say, I love this game. I love the way that it sticks to the plot of the original Silver game, with the exception of the little tiny advancements that have been added, all of which to me are very welcome. When I turned on my game, it was so refreshing to see my Bulbasaur sitting behind me. Which—to go off on a tangent for just a second—is something I really wish they had made available in Black/White. It is so cool to be able to turn around and talk to my Pokémon and see what they are feeling. We were discussing it in my Pokémon thread on the ACC and we think it should have been an option in Unova as well. One of the ideas that was suggested was maybe that it could be a reward for becoming friends with your Pokémon. You know, as the Pokémon grew to like you, he would eventually come out of his Pokéball and follow you. Wouldn’t that be cool? It would also provide incentive to become friends with your Pokémon to those who might not really bother with it as much.

Well, to get back on track, I opened my SoulSilver to find myself in the Pokécenter Celadon City. I wandered around for a few minutes and went inside all the buildings within Celadon to make sure I’d talked to everyone—I had already gotten the badge previously—before making my way to the bike route and down to Fuschia City. I somehow remember the bike route being much longer, but it might just be that it seems less long now that I am older. Anyways, I caught a couple cool Pokémon and had a fun time battling all the trainers, nothing worth explaining though.

When I reached Fuschia City, I was a little bummed that the Safari Zone was gone, but I know that it simply moved to Johto. I do wish they’d kept one in Kanto too though. It would have been nice to have a place to catch lots of Kanto Pokémon. Maybe they could have done it so that you could only catch Generation II Pokémon in the Johto Safari Zone and left the Kanto zone for the Generation I Pokémon. However, I quickly recovered from my disappointment and began roaming aimlessly around the city discovering what had been changed and what had been kept the same. When I went into the house in front of the pond towards the bottom of the city, I smiled as remembered the man who had lost his teeth in the previous game. I always thought that was hilarious that he lost his teeth in the Safari Zone. You would think he would have noticed that before he got home.

After I’d explored every inch of Fuschia City—including the blocked route to Cinnabar, which annoyed me a little because I’d been planning to go down to Sea Foam Islands after I defeated Janine—I made my way finally to the gym. As I maneuvered my way past the invisible walls, I thought back to the first time I’d entered this gym. I’d been completely baffled by the walls and it wasn’t until I’d consulted my guide that I realized what I had to do to reach Koga. Speaking of Koga, I don’t know why I didn’t make the connection, but for some reason, it wasn’t until a girl in town told me that Janine had taken over the gym once her father had gone to join the Elite Four that I made the connection that Koga had moved. I have no clue why it didn’t dawn on me sooner. But anyways, the battles with Janine’s trainers and the gym leader herself didn’t take too long. I returned Rapidash to my party—he’d been staying with Professor Oak while I trained some of the other Pokémon in my computer—and he made short work of all the opponents Pokémon. I did have to return to the Pokécenter after each battle, but that was just because I am too cheap to use my Potions to heal my Pokémon whenever I’m close to a Pokécenter. I remember struggling to get money in the early games where once you defeated the Elite Four, there was almost no where to get money except by rebattling the Elite Four.

Anyways, now I am debating on if I want to travel back to Celadon and then up to Cerulean City or if I want to go up the waterfront to Lavender town. I’m leaning towards Lavendar town at the moment because I want to see how they arranged the music—the original music from Generation I has always been my favorite town theme. But I don’t know. I’ll pick something. Well, it’s off to work for me now. I’ll try to update again before the end of the week. Till then!

Day 123: Pokemon caught: 87 Days left in challenge: 242

I must say, I am terribly disappointed in the Unova’s Elite Four. I doubt it took me twenty minutes to beat all four of them. And the types of Pokémon I needed were decidedly fewer as well. I was expecting something that would require me to find multiple type advantages for each battle. Not battles where I could wipe out the entire team with a single Pokémon. In this regard, I must say that I much prefer the old Pokémon League’s those battles that took me hours to beat with multiple attempts obviously necessary. The only thing that seemed to make these battles annoyingly long is each trainer’s frequent—almost to the point of ridiculousness—use of Full Restores. I couldn’t believe how many Full Restore’s each trainer used, on each Pokémon! I was expecting one for each Pokémon. But three or four Full Restore’s per Pokémon? That’s twelve Full Restores for each battle!

Well, anyways there was one member of the Elite Four that I had slightly more difficulty with. Even though I had a Dark Pokémon that was invulnerable to Psychic moves, Caitlin almost defeated me. I entered the battle thinking that it would be easy given that my Krookodile is invulnerable to psychic attacks. However, Caitlin’s Pokémon were the same level or higher than my Krookodile so she just used her non Psychic moves and knocked Krookodile out. I spent most of the battle reviving and healing Krookodile while attempting to find other Pokémon in my team who were suited for a psychic battle. I finally finished with two Pokémon remaining conscious—and this battle is where I used the most Full Restores and Revives that I used for the whole excursion.

Anyways, after beating the Elite Four, I entered the platform that would take me to the Champion, readying myself for the types of Pokémon I knew were in his team. So, imagine my surprise when instead of fighting him, I get a barrage of cut scenes instead. I have to say, I really liked N in this game. It was a nice change to have a single person who was completely unknown who was traveling around just like you were. I was just sad I didn’t get to name him. I always loved naming my rival in Silver “Dufus” or “Idiot.” It made me laugh every time I looked at it.

So, I’ve heard several people rave about how much they love whichever dragon they got for the battle with N, but I just don’t like them. The main reason I picked Black (and from what I’ve seen it was the deciding factor for most people) was because to me, Zekrom just looks like an idiot. He would look alright, but his tail. His tail looks just so ridiculous that to me, Zekrom loses all his credibility. But the sad thing is, I don’t really like Reshiram either. But that seems to be a pattern with me. I prefer the older Pokémon. And I realize that I’ve said that a lot so let me clarify that I don’t have anything against the newer Pokémon games. I’ve enjoyed playing through my copy of Pokémon Black, I just can’t turn it on without thinking about the last time I played through Yellow or when I spent almost four hours trying to catch Lugia for the first time.

Well, anyways, now I’m just meandering around Black city, checking out the local Pokémon and figuring out where all the little pathways go. I did some trading with a friend of my brother’s yesterday. I was kinda shocked by the difference in Pokémon intel from my generation to his. We were talking about the apparent lack of any good water Pokémon in Unova. So, I told him that that’s why I got Vaporeon. And he said “Who?” And then I told him that since he missed the Eevee event that I could give him an Eevee so that he could evolve it into a Vaporeon and he could have a water Pokémon of his own. He didn’t know who Eevee was either!

I’m going to play some more tomorrow. At the moment I’m trying to play through three games at once—one of my friends let me borrow Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (the Kingdom Hearts series is one of my favorites and so I was seriously excited to finally get to play through the newest game)—and I’m also watching the first season of Pokémon on my computer. I just finished watching the episode where Ash saves Erica’s gym and she gives him a Rainbow badge. I absolutely love that show, I’m so grateful that my friend found the whole series online for me to watch.

Wow, so when I went to post this entry and I began computing the days in the challenge and the number of Pokémon I’ve caught and whatnot, I realized that my challenge is over one third over, but I’m nowhere close to having caught all the Pokémon. I’m going to have to step up my game.  So, I have another challenge for myself. By the end of this week, I’m going to try to catch at least fifteen, but preferably more than twenty, Pokémon. Let’s see if I can get it done! Wish me luck!

Let's Try This Again

Alright, so I realize that this blog sort of died…but I have a good reason. I graduated from college at the beginning of May, so up until then I was completely swamped with finishing all my work for my classes and coping with the influx of hours given to me at work. Because of this, I was unable to play ANY video game, let alone write about one. So, you would think I would have time to play once I graduated right? It would make logical sense except…there was a problem. I had a summer class. See, my college has this policy where if you are only short three credit hours of graduating (which I was) they will allow you to walk at the graduate in May and then you can complete your summer class afterwards. So, I took my class and of course, still had twenty to thirty hours of work every week. Anyways, I just finished my class last week—which was on Beowulf and the Arthurian legends and I absolutely loved it—so now, maybe I can actually devote the proper time this blog deserves. I’ve gotten pretty far in my Pokémon Black game, but first I want to show you the blog entry I began around the middle of April:

So, I’ve been meaning to update as a LOT has happened, but my new boss at work has decided that I can have more hours….a lot more hours. So, between that and my classes, which I have been falling behind in thanks to work, I haven’t really had any time to myself in which to write a post. But I did have some time to play when I was quarantined for shingles last week and then a little today—I’m staying with a friend of mine from college this weekend—so I thought I would catch everyone up on my latest adventures.

So, the three days following my last post I was consumed with one task, winning a Vaporeon. In case you are unaware of the “Play to Befriend a Pokémon” game and the prize you get for completing four levels in one try, I will explain. On Pokémon.com, there is a game called “Play to Befriend a Pokémon” where you attempt to bounce a ball against a little platform in order to break all the blocks on the screen. Also, when some of the balls break, they release these orbs that symbolize the different Eevee evolutions as well as some that give you an extra life, change the size of the platform or the speed of the ball. So, while breaking all these blocks, you have to watch the falling orbs so that you can catch only the orbs that you want. At the end of the game, if you succeed, you are given the Eevee evolution that corresponds to the color of orb you gathered the most of. Sounds easy enough right? Well, let me tell you, it’s not. I have a laptop, which makes that game exceedingly hard to play. My mouse did not want to cooperate with me at all. On top of that, although the falling orbs move significantly slower than the ball you are bouncing, it is quite difficult to watch both the falling orbs and the bouncing ball to make sure you can try to get both of them. There are often several different types of orbs falling at once as well and it becomes difficult to catch only the type of orb that corresponds to the Eevee evolution that you want. Anyways, the first day I played, I didn’t even get past the first level. The second day I was a little more successful. I managed to get all the way to level four twice, however most of the time I died during level two. But then, on day three, after hours and hours of unsuccessful attempts, I did it. I beat the game!  And I had succeeded in gathering more Vaporeon orbs than any other, which is what I wanted. See, at the moment, the only two water Pokémon that I have are Panpour and Tympole, neither of which I feel a real connection to. Therefore, I currently feel that my team is being weakened because I do not feel connected to my water Pokémon and I am therefore less likely to use him in battle. So, I decided to catch myself a Vaporeon. And I succeeded after much frustration and pulling of hair.

So, that was the entry I started…nice right? I think so. Well, anyways, since then I have walked through Unova all the way to the Pokémon League. I made it through Victory Road rather quickly…here I was expecting the mind boggling frustration of previous Victory Roads, but while this one took me a while to get through—mainly because of the INSANE number of Durant that kept ambushing me at every turn—it was decidedly less frustrating than previous excursions through Victory Road. But anyways, I got through Victory Road and now I’m debating on what I want to do. I’m not sure that I want to battle the Elite Four yet. And it’s not even that I’m worried—because I’m really not—but I think I might want to work on my Pokédex for a little bit first.

Which is something else I need to discuss—my Pokédex. I have decided that instead of playing through my Crystal version for my video game challenge as I was originally intending to do, I am just going to complete my Pokédex completely on my SoulSilver. I have around 150 Pokémon on my SoulSilver, so that still leaves 100 left, which will account for the 100 new Pokémon in the Johto region. So I will still be catching 649 Pokémon, just in a different way. Anyways, my Pokédex is coming along great. So far I have caught seventy-nine Pokémon in the Unova region. As soon as I finish writing this blog, I intend to begin the process of leveling up the Pokémon I already have.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. I hope I don’t disappoint you this time around. Hopefully since I have some time on my hands now—although I can already tell you there will be no posts from the July 5^th through the 11^th for personal reasons. Anyways, I am going to try to post as often as I can.

Day 29-- Pokemon Caught:19, Day's left in Challenge: 325

I know, I know, two posts in two days. It’s a record for me! Today I did some major exploring in Castelia City. I always love going into all the buildings in every city and I love seeing what all the people have to say. I find the roads with all the people running around very fun. I love getting in people’s way and seeing how fast they can get around me. But anyways, after walking around as much as I could, I went to the Battle Company and battled my way through each room. Lots of visits to the Pokécenter were required. ^_^ I also found the three dancers, but I haven’t battled all three of them at once yet. I plan on doing that tomorrow.

So, I registered my location on the GTS and I had a thought. I’m really interesting in interacting with other people through my game. I’m not big on battling as I have said before, but I LOVE trading Pokémon and just seeing how other people interact with their Pokémon. So, if you would like to trade with me or I will battle—but I’m not promising anything given that I am not very far into the game—just send me a message and we can trade friend codes. If you email me though, be sure to write that you found me through my blog otherwise I won’t open the email. I get a lot of spam and so I don’t open emails unless I know who they are.

And now, on to why I began typing earlier.

I just caught Victini! And my oh my was that a difficult battle, but not for the reason you might think. When I got to the island, I battled my way through rather easily and went to battle Victini. I have to say though that I did take advantage of the man who offered to heal my Pokémon before I went into the basement. This is something that I have not yet discussed so far, but I rather like the strategic placement of people who can heal my tired Pokémon. It is so much easier than having to walk all the way back to the Pokécenter or having to use all of my Super Potions.

Anyways, back to my story. I quickly entered the battle, excited to see what Victini could do. However, I was so excited, that I forgot to save before I entered the battle. Actually, now that I think of it, I did think about saving, but I naïvely thought that I didn’t need to. The fight itself wasn’t too difficult. Purrlion easily got his HP into the red zone and I was feeling very sure of myself. I threw a Great Ball to start with and was a little shocked when the ball didn’t even move. Almost as soon as I threw it, Victini was out and attacking me. I tried several more times to catch him using various balls. I threw my Ultra Balls. I threw a Heal Ball. I threw a couple Timer Balls. And then I tried numerous Great Balls. Nothing worked.

It was around this time that I decided to look online and see if there was a reason that he wouldn’t stay inside the ball. And I discovered that most of the people who had successfully caught Victini did so by lowering his stats and inflicting status conditions. Unfortunately, at this time, I do not possess a single one of these on my team. I have been so excited to see all the different moves available that all of my status afflicters have been replaced. And so, a little annoyed with myself for not saving before the battle, I decided to just keep at it and hope that maybe I would eventually wear him down. And about seven Great Balls later, I got my wish. Victini is now safely within my PC. I didn’t get a chance to play with him yet though because I had to finish some work for class. But tomorrow I fully intend to see what he can do. Oh and because of the certain luck that allowed me to capture him, Victini shall henceforth be referred to as HUZZZAH!!!   

Day 28 --Pokemon Caught: 18, days left in challenge: 326

Ok, so I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that I will have loads of time to play the next few days. The bad news is that the reason I will have so much time on my hands is that I have somehow contracted shingles. Last Wednesday, my back began to itch like crazy. Now, I have eczema so I’m used to my body itching. But this felt different. So, Friday, I decided to look at my back and see if there was a bug bite or something causing the itching. But when I did, I discovered a rash in the very center of my back. So, I showed my mom and she said she thought I had ringworm. Then today, when I went to Quick Care, they told me it wasn’t ringworm but shingles. Actually, they said that they weren’t sure what it was. They scraped at it and are doing a test to see what it is and until they know for sure, I have to stay in my house. I am not thrilled. So, anyways, because I am not allowed to leave my house for the next three days, I will have lots of time to play Pokémon.

I have to say I really like the way that the gyms are set up in the new games. The addition to another aspect of the gym reminds me of the original first generation anime. I like the fresh look this gives the game. Although, I have to say, choosing the right book in the second gym was nowhere near as difficult and annoying as the trashcan switches in Lt. Surge’s Gym in generation one.

I’m currently debating on changing out one of my Pokémon. I caught a Sewaddle over the weekend in Pinwheel Forest and I really like him. However, I don’t like who he evolves into. So, I can’t decide whether to trade him in now for my Servine, or if I should wait until I have an Everstone so that I can keep him at his current evolution state. I nicknamed him Feireag, which is the name of a plant in Gaelic of which I cannot remember the exact name. Anyways, I have a feeling he will be in my team at some point. I just haven’t decided whether to do it now or later.

So, most of my friends are all through with this game. But I have to say, I am less interesting in battling my way through the game as fast as I can and more interesting in exploring. I spent over three hours in Pinwheel Forest just wandering around finding all the little hidden items. I find exploring the new areas exhilarating. I have never been much of a battler. In fact, I battled a friend of mine just the other day and I lost terribly. I knew I would though. I don’t really care though if I win or lose. I’m more interesting in catching all the Pokémon and exploring all the different areas.

I’m in Castelia City right now and it’s HUGE! I am seriously in shock at how huge this city is. However, I have to say, I’ve already noticed that I really don’t like it when the camera adjusts all willy-nilly. It was very annoying. All these awesome graphics don’t mean a thing if the camera is so jerky that you cannot focus clearly on the image. I love the extended world, but I still prefer the older games. I don’t need fancy graphics. It’s the story and the concept that are important to me.

Well, here’s to another successful entry. I’ll try to write another in a couple of days. I plan on lots of hours playing over the next few days.