Yay! first current post!
By dint of sheer stubbornness and too many wild battles to contemplate, I finally got Sheepish and Cynder caught up to the rest of the team. With everyone at lvl 50, I finally went for the Elite Four.
The funny thing is, the trouble was not where I'd anticipated. I'd been thinking that Lance's lvl 50 Dragonite would be the Poke to beat, but instead it was Bruno's Machamp and Lance's Aerodactyl that gave me the most trouble (along with a few tense moments during the battle with Karen's Dark team).
Machamp was a problem mostly because it hit so dang hard. But Aerodactyl exposed a real weakness in my team: none of them can stand up to Rock-type attacks. And with Vermillion down, no one else had something super-effective. I was reduced to using hasty Max Revives just to stay in the fight, as one after another of my Pokemon were one-shotted. Also, Chet really must have crap IVs, because his stats are far lower than everyone else's at lvl 50, and he wasn't nearly as much help as I'd have liked.
Still, once I finally got Aerodactyl down by reviving Vermillion, the rest of Lance's team went down to Ice Beam, and it was over. I hit the Hall of Fame with something between 85-90 hours on the game (I blame this on the lack of easy trainer rematches).
Following the credits, the game took me back to New Bark Town. Mom told me to go see Prof. Elm, who gave me the SS Ticket for Kanto.
Except, I was strangely reluctant to depart for Kanto. Instead, I bred me that Murkrow. Took a few tries to get a male with Super Luck. I named him Rotti -- for Rotti Largo from Repo the Genetic Opera -- and set about raising him. I also pulled my Larvitar Tremor out of storage to raise him as well, and put away Peya and Chet. [and I forgot to say, I spent a truly stupid amount of time chasing around to get the whole team their three Shiny Leaves; except Tremor who was put off by the rain on Rt. 33.]
The next task was to get a Dusk Stone for Rotti. Research said that one could buy one at the Pokeathlon Dome, or get one by winning the Bug Catching Contest. However, it turned out that this was only after one has the Nat'l Dex, and a tiny little, easily-missed superscript on Bulbapedia's Pokeathlon page was the only indicator of this.
So I spent a good bit of time trying the Bug Catching Contest. From Bulbapedia, I found out that the Bug Catching Contest is about only two things: the stat total, as inferred by rarity and level, and how undamaged the captured Pokemon is. I'd had no idea that the amount of damage even mattered. Sure enough, I was able to catch a lvl 15 Beedrill with max HP, which won first place.
Right after that, I stupidly fainted Raikou on a chance encounter on Rt. 32. D'oh. I couldn't find whether the roaming beasties reappear if you faint them, so I was forced to turn off the game and do the Contest again. I didn't win that time, but since I'd also learned that the Sun Stone was the only pre-Nat'l Dex first prize, it didn't really matter.
Finally, I bit the bullet and flew to Olivine, to see if I could get the Nat'l Dex without boarding the ship to Kanto. And sure enough, up came Prof. Oak, before I could even talk to the guy at the boarding gate. So I was able to go back and buy the Dusk Stone from the Pokeathlon Dome. I just have to check if Rotti gets any more good attacks as a Murkrow -- he's currently got Fly, Sky Attack, Wing Attack, and Night Shade -- because it'll be a LONG while before he learns Night Slash or Dark Pulse.
Only problem is, this leaves all of my current games basically finished, except for after-game stuff. I mean, I know I still need to do Kanto in SS, but we'll see if I can keep up my motivation.
Monday, August 30, 2010
In retrospect: SS - Drive for the Enigma Stone
(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(8/23/2010)
According to Petty, the Enigma Stone isn't needed to catch whichever of the Lati@s pair roams in your game version -- it's needed to catch the OTHER one of the pair.
Technically, since I've already caught a Latios in Emerald, I don't strictly need the Enigma Stone; but no self-respecting Pokemon fan should pass up a chance at a legendary. So, just in case, I went over to the Pokeathlon Dome and got my Aprijuice Blender and my jersey, and gave the whole thing that ol' college try.
And, as I expected, it was a pain in the ass. The Apricorns don't blend by the same rules Berries do, so a juice that raises one performance stat can unexpectedly lower another. And there's several of the minigames that require you to control multiple Pokemon at once. So I failed to get any medal except Stamina.
With that done, however, I headed out towards Kanto, as Petty has assured me that my legendary beasties will happily continue to roam Jhoto until I return. So, while it was too late to attempt Victory Road last night, I'm in position to make a go of it.
Now if I could only remember what the heck I was doing with my team! Looking over the target movesets in an earlier entry, I think Izzel, Sheepish, Vermillion, and Chet are basically in final form (Chet just hit lvl 50 and learned Poison Jab) so it's just Cynder who needs to level up to 46 to get Rollout, so I can let him evolve. He may have to do without Blast Burn for the E4, though, since once I get through Victory Road I won't be able to Fly back to Blackthorn to have him learn it.
So tonight's agenda is just to make it through Victory Road, doing the complete run of trainers and items. Hopefully that'll get Cynder to 46, and catch the rest of the team up to Chet somewhat. I think the levels of the Indigo E4 are lower in HG/SS, so getting the team up to lvl 50 should be enough. ...I hope.
To be sure, getting past the E4 gets me more than just the Enigma Stone -- it means more Pokewalker courses, and access to Pal Park once I reach Fuschia. More courses will be helpful, as I've indicated my intent to sign up for the Shape Up the Nation walking program, and it'll be good to have that extra motivation. At my last allergist appointment I was actually down to 244, from a high of 262, and that's just from watching portions, 'cause the weather's been WAY to hot for walking.
But sadly, I'm still not in much of a Poke-mood; not in much of a mood to do anything, in fact. Otherwise I'd be tempted to bring forward all my Emerald Pokes into GIV and restart Emerald...
(8/25/2010)
Petty was right, the Enigma Stone triggers an event that lets you fight and capture whichever of the Lati@s pair that doesn't normally appear in your game version. Unfortunately, though, I looked this up at Bulbapedia, and it seems this is my only try at a Latias! It's Latios that roams in SS.
So I've been training like a mad thing the past couple nights. Victory Road was something of a let-down -- it wasn't all that hard, more like annoying because the constant encounters kept interrupting my Itemfinder. And there were NO trainers, except for the one rival battle at the end. Now that, I had not counted on. Every other Victory Road has always been a long-haul ordeal of encounters and trainer battles to get you properlly levelled up to face the E4. But not here. Not at all.
That leaves me with no ready source of Exp, since you have to wait for folks to call you for trainer rematches, which means it's wild battles or nothin'. Even so, I got all the team up to at least lvl 45/46, with Chet at lvl 50. And Cynder finally learned Rollout, so I let him evolve at last. Better yet, I discovered that you CAN Fly back to Indigo Plateau, as well as to the start of Victory Road. So I went back to Blackthorn, got Cynder Blast Burn, and found that only Peya still needs her Effort Ribbon. I also collected a crapton of Apricorns, and discovered that blending longer actually makes Aprijuice worse. Fought a few trainer rematches, but nowhere near enough.
Where this leaves me is, if I want to get the whole team to lvl 50 before taking on the E4, I've got a LOT of wild battles to fight, and not much time to do them in. I'm debating using up my Rare Candies to save me at least a little time; or just making a go of it with the team at lvl 46 (since most of the E4's Pokemon are well below that, except for their standouts, and Lance). At this point, I think everyone's got their final attack sets. I guess it'll depend on my level of impatience with the whole thing, when I get home tonight.
(8/26/2010)
Argh.
Via Exp Share, the team is now up to lvl 50 for Chet and Izzel, and up to lvl 47 for everyone else. And everyone's got their Effort Ribbons. If there is time/patience, I may try and get Cynder to 50 as well. But otherwise, levelling properly is simply too time-consuming without trainer rematches. LOTS of rematches.
So tonight's plan is grind Cynder through those last three levels as quick as possible (i.e. without Exp Share on anyone else), then maybe feed one Rare Candy to the other three to get them to lvl 48. And then just save and GO for it.
After the E4 are down and I'm on my way to Kanto with the Nat'l Dex in hand, I should sync over the Pokewalker to get all those new courses. Broke 5000 steps already today by walking to Pratt St and back for the Shared Services training; it'd be nice if that could have gotten me some new Pokemon. I should probably do some Item Dowsing before syncing over, just for the heck of it.
(8/27/2010)
Well. Apparently there was no need at all to go through all this trouble, because Dave had left a message last weekend that one did NOT have to have the Nat'l Dex in order to download the Enigma Stone. And sure enough, I was able to download it last night with no trouble at all. D'OH.
Still, as long as I'm so close, there's no point in just putting the game down again. So, with the Enigma Stone safely bagged, I kept on training. Got Peya up to lvl 50 via Exp Share, and the remaining team members all up to lvl 48.
As luck would have it (or unluck, because Joni and Kaye are both sick, poor things) there is no gaming tonight. Without Exp Share active, getting everyone up those last couple levels shouldn't be nearly as time-consuming. Some stupid, stubborn part of me wants to get everyone to lvl 50 without resorting to the Rare Candies.
And then it'll be time to take on the Elite Four at last! Hopefully my levels will be high enough that even Lance won't be TOO problematic. I'm hoping for a nice satisfying trouncing, if not exactly an easy battle.
From there, it'll be maybe one more sweep of Johto for Apricorns, and then onward into Kanto. The guidebook ends at the Elite Four, so I've no idea at all what to expect. Should be fun.
I'm seriously thinking about changing the team up somewhat, though. Maybe I just haven't given Peya the right moves, but I'm finding Xatu somewhat underwhelming. I'd really like to train the Murkrow from the Pokewalker, see what they're like. Plus I should train up my two Dratini (and breed them for a third one, to trade). I'm also not feeling the Ariados vibe as much as I'd hoped, so maybe there's room in the team for something else there.
I dunno. I'm fairly certain about swapping Murkrow in for Peya (heeee, if it's a male I should name it Sayik), but the other slots will likely depend on how well they do against the E4.
Oh, and I should likely run up to the Shinjo Ruins with Arceus, and get me my lvl 1 dragon legendary. Get a Dialga (since that's my only chance at a self-caught Dialga) and name it Tardis. 8D
further -- research shows that Honchkrow learn Night Slash and Dark Pulse at lvls 45 and 55 respectively. Murkrow can get Drill Peck by breeding, and learn Night Shade fairly early, at lvl 21. With Fly, this'd make for a really awesome moveset. They can also learn Shadow Ball or Psychic by TM, plus the usual heavy-hitting Flying type TMs. Abilities include Insomnia or Super Luck. Super Luck would be especially nasty, as it doubles the normal critical hit ratio to 12.5%. On top of that, moves that have an increased crit ratio like Night Slash and Sky Attack (also an Egg Move) would be particularly vicious. Sky Attack is also available from the Frontier Access tutor for 64BP, or can be relearned by Noctowl for a Heart Scale. ...I think that gives me a breeding project!
(note: this entry catches me up to the end of the "pokeplans" file -- finally!)
(8/23/2010)
According to Petty, the Enigma Stone isn't needed to catch whichever of the Lati@s pair roams in your game version -- it's needed to catch the OTHER one of the pair.
Technically, since I've already caught a Latios in Emerald, I don't strictly need the Enigma Stone; but no self-respecting Pokemon fan should pass up a chance at a legendary. So, just in case, I went over to the Pokeathlon Dome and got my Aprijuice Blender and my jersey, and gave the whole thing that ol' college try.
And, as I expected, it was a pain in the ass. The Apricorns don't blend by the same rules Berries do, so a juice that raises one performance stat can unexpectedly lower another. And there's several of the minigames that require you to control multiple Pokemon at once. So I failed to get any medal except Stamina.
With that done, however, I headed out towards Kanto, as Petty has assured me that my legendary beasties will happily continue to roam Jhoto until I return. So, while it was too late to attempt Victory Road last night, I'm in position to make a go of it.
Now if I could only remember what the heck I was doing with my team! Looking over the target movesets in an earlier entry, I think Izzel, Sheepish, Vermillion, and Chet are basically in final form (Chet just hit lvl 50 and learned Poison Jab) so it's just Cynder who needs to level up to 46 to get Rollout, so I can let him evolve. He may have to do without Blast Burn for the E4, though, since once I get through Victory Road I won't be able to Fly back to Blackthorn to have him learn it.
So tonight's agenda is just to make it through Victory Road, doing the complete run of trainers and items. Hopefully that'll get Cynder to 46, and catch the rest of the team up to Chet somewhat. I think the levels of the Indigo E4 are lower in HG/SS, so getting the team up to lvl 50 should be enough. ...I hope.
To be sure, getting past the E4 gets me more than just the Enigma Stone -- it means more Pokewalker courses, and access to Pal Park once I reach Fuschia. More courses will be helpful, as I've indicated my intent to sign up for the Shape Up the Nation walking program, and it'll be good to have that extra motivation. At my last allergist appointment I was actually down to 244, from a high of 262, and that's just from watching portions, 'cause the weather's been WAY to hot for walking.
But sadly, I'm still not in much of a Poke-mood; not in much of a mood to do anything, in fact. Otherwise I'd be tempted to bring forward all my Emerald Pokes into GIV and restart Emerald...
(8/25/2010)
Petty was right, the Enigma Stone triggers an event that lets you fight and capture whichever of the Lati@s pair that doesn't normally appear in your game version. Unfortunately, though, I looked this up at Bulbapedia, and it seems this is my only try at a Latias! It's Latios that roams in SS.
So I've been training like a mad thing the past couple nights. Victory Road was something of a let-down -- it wasn't all that hard, more like annoying because the constant encounters kept interrupting my Itemfinder. And there were NO trainers, except for the one rival battle at the end. Now that, I had not counted on. Every other Victory Road has always been a long-haul ordeal of encounters and trainer battles to get you properlly levelled up to face the E4. But not here. Not at all.
That leaves me with no ready source of Exp, since you have to wait for folks to call you for trainer rematches, which means it's wild battles or nothin'. Even so, I got all the team up to at least lvl 45/46, with Chet at lvl 50. And Cynder finally learned Rollout, so I let him evolve at last. Better yet, I discovered that you CAN Fly back to Indigo Plateau, as well as to the start of Victory Road. So I went back to Blackthorn, got Cynder Blast Burn, and found that only Peya still needs her Effort Ribbon. I also collected a crapton of Apricorns, and discovered that blending longer actually makes Aprijuice worse. Fought a few trainer rematches, but nowhere near enough.
Where this leaves me is, if I want to get the whole team to lvl 50 before taking on the E4, I've got a LOT of wild battles to fight, and not much time to do them in. I'm debating using up my Rare Candies to save me at least a little time; or just making a go of it with the team at lvl 46 (since most of the E4's Pokemon are well below that, except for their standouts, and Lance). At this point, I think everyone's got their final attack sets. I guess it'll depend on my level of impatience with the whole thing, when I get home tonight.
(8/26/2010)
Argh.
Via Exp Share, the team is now up to lvl 50 for Chet and Izzel, and up to lvl 47 for everyone else. And everyone's got their Effort Ribbons. If there is time/patience, I may try and get Cynder to 50 as well. But otherwise, levelling properly is simply too time-consuming without trainer rematches. LOTS of rematches.
So tonight's plan is grind Cynder through those last three levels as quick as possible (i.e. without Exp Share on anyone else), then maybe feed one Rare Candy to the other three to get them to lvl 48. And then just save and GO for it.
After the E4 are down and I'm on my way to Kanto with the Nat'l Dex in hand, I should sync over the Pokewalker to get all those new courses. Broke 5000 steps already today by walking to Pratt St and back for the Shared Services training; it'd be nice if that could have gotten me some new Pokemon. I should probably do some Item Dowsing before syncing over, just for the heck of it.
(8/27/2010)
Well. Apparently there was no need at all to go through all this trouble, because Dave had left a message last weekend that one did NOT have to have the Nat'l Dex in order to download the Enigma Stone. And sure enough, I was able to download it last night with no trouble at all. D'OH.
Still, as long as I'm so close, there's no point in just putting the game down again. So, with the Enigma Stone safely bagged, I kept on training. Got Peya up to lvl 50 via Exp Share, and the remaining team members all up to lvl 48.
As luck would have it (or unluck, because Joni and Kaye are both sick, poor things) there is no gaming tonight. Without Exp Share active, getting everyone up those last couple levels shouldn't be nearly as time-consuming. Some stupid, stubborn part of me wants to get everyone to lvl 50 without resorting to the Rare Candies.
And then it'll be time to take on the Elite Four at last! Hopefully my levels will be high enough that even Lance won't be TOO problematic. I'm hoping for a nice satisfying trouncing, if not exactly an easy battle.
From there, it'll be maybe one more sweep of Johto for Apricorns, and then onward into Kanto. The guidebook ends at the Elite Four, so I've no idea at all what to expect. Should be fun.
I'm seriously thinking about changing the team up somewhat, though. Maybe I just haven't given Peya the right moves, but I'm finding Xatu somewhat underwhelming. I'd really like to train the Murkrow from the Pokewalker, see what they're like. Plus I should train up my two Dratini (and breed them for a third one, to trade). I'm also not feeling the Ariados vibe as much as I'd hoped, so maybe there's room in the team for something else there.
I dunno. I'm fairly certain about swapping Murkrow in for Peya (heeee, if it's a male I should name it Sayik), but the other slots will likely depend on how well they do against the E4.
Oh, and I should likely run up to the Shinjo Ruins with Arceus, and get me my lvl 1 dragon legendary. Get a Dialga (since that's my only chance at a self-caught Dialga) and name it Tardis. 8D
further -- research shows that Honchkrow learn Night Slash and Dark Pulse at lvls 45 and 55 respectively. Murkrow can get Drill Peck by breeding, and learn Night Shade fairly early, at lvl 21. With Fly, this'd make for a really awesome moveset. They can also learn Shadow Ball or Psychic by TM, plus the usual heavy-hitting Flying type TMs. Abilities include Insomnia or Super Luck. Super Luck would be especially nasty, as it doubles the normal critical hit ratio to 12.5%. On top of that, moves that have an increased crit ratio like Night Slash and Sky Attack (also an Egg Move) would be particularly vicious. Sky Attack is also available from the Frontier Access tutor for 64BP, or can be relearned by Noctowl for a Heart Scale. ...I think that gives me a breeding project!
(note: this entry catches me up to the end of the "pokeplans" file -- finally!)
In retrospect: B/W info, E3 announcements, and a Zelda rant
(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(6/14/2010)
Have done nothing in either SS or FR except try for Entei a few times, and migrate a bunch of FR's random catches to Pearl for transfer to the ranch. I'm still standing outside Victory Road....if I recall correctly, once you leave Jhoto it's a while before you can get back, and I'm not sure I'm done there. For one thing, I should probably nab Raikou and Entei. Only, I kinda want to catch FR's Entei first. HMM.
Been looking at Serebii's B/W information. The region map looks kinda cool, and it looks like the wireless features are way more integrated into the game (GTS available in every Pokecenter, for example). But I'm not that thrilled with the designs of the new Pokemon revealed thus far -- the Water starter is even goofier looking than Bidoof, and they seem once again to have added pre-evolutions just to extend the Pokedex. From the number of new Pokes shown already, it looks like the normal region's worth of new Pokemon will be added to the already-ridiculous National 'Dex. Hopefully they will limit the legendaries this time around.
Worse, it seems as if you can only send Pokemon from Gen IV in a one-way transfer via wireless. Not a good thing, if I want to keep my core team Pokemon in the games they came from. Hopefully the next-gen DS hardware will play the old DS games, which will at least give me trading capability between that and the DS Lite. However, that might mean it's time to transfer everything forward from my GIII carts, or at least to trim down the number of them.
Given that the Terrell cart is hacked, and I now have a fully open copy of Emerald, I should probably sell that cart back after getting anything I've raised off it. Leave it as-is for the next trainer, hacked items, lvl 100 Pokemon, and all. FR, of course, will get cleaned out and sold back as soon as I catch Entei. But maybe I should keep my main LG cart and Emerald, in case I'd like a replay or want to breed/trade/raise stuff.
Not that I've ever been good at resisting temptation; but if I can successfully hold out until they release B/W's third version, that should give me time to clean all this up. And catch that dang Entei, dammit!
(6/16/2010)
Have done nothing in any game but that's not the point.
Lots of info from E3 this week. Among other things, it turns out that B/W will be released for the DS, not the 3DS.
This is unexpected and unwelcome news; I'd been thinking that buying a 3DS for B/W would give me DS trading capability. But now I've got no reason to buy the 3DS as long as the Lite is still working (certainly not for the 3DS remake of OoT). Which would mean no trades or transfers without someone's help.
The other slightly alarming detail: the 3DS apparently is made to constantly ping for other 3DSs, and will automatically connect and download items or goodness knows what else, even if you're not playing. WTF. Do we get to turn off this option? How much battery power does this waste?
Which would explain the C-gear thing in B/W, which is also apparently on a constant lookout for possible connections. I wonder if that's disabled if one plays on a regular DS.
The 3DS is supposed to be fully backwards-compatible with previous DS games -- I didn't see any second slot, though, so it probably uses same-sized cartridges.
Also, a prediction: Autumn asked me, on dA, whether I thought there'd be any new Eeveelutions. My reply: at least two, and they'll keep making 'em 'till they've got ALL the types covered. And these two will probably be poison, ground, rock, or steel -- likely poison and ground because those are opposites like dark/psychic and grass/ice.
How do I arrive at that conclusion? Well, they already have normal, fire, water, electric, dark, psychic, grass, and ice covered. Flying, dragon, fighting, bug, and ghost types seem problematic to me. That leaves poison, ground, rock, and steel; and poison and ground would make a good pair.
It'll be fun to see if I'm right about that.
In unrelated whinging: I am coming to the conclusion that Zelda is burdened with a truly trope-worthy Unpleasable Fandom.
Nintendo releases WW. Everyone bitches and moans about the cel-shading and the "kiddie cartoon" look. So Nintendo releases the Darker and Edgier TP. Fans bitch and moan about the limits of Wii graphics capability and some say it's "dreary". So Nintendo makes Skyward Sword a compromise between WW and TP, and already the fans are bitching and moaning about it looking like whichever one they liked less.
STFU, people. Seriously. Play the damn thing before tossing it aside solely on the basis of the first trailer.
As to the complaint that it's "nothing new" -- what else were they expecting? Miyamoto/Ayonuma/Word of God had already said that the Wii Zelda would be the last Zelda like we were used to. That would tend to imply that, yes, this Zelda would be another iteration of the standard formula -- run around the overworld and kill things, venture into the dungeons to fetch the item and defeat the boss, healthy mix of combat and puzzle-solving, rinse, lather, repeat.
Yeah, so what's wrong with that? If you didn't like that sort of thing, how'd you become Zelda fans in the first place? If you're tired of it, what are you still doing here? If you're such a dang "hard-core" gamer, why aren't you playing f*ing Halo or some other infinitely polygonal "go shoot things" game? Were you looking for "innovation"? First: Remember that whole "last Zelda like we're used to" bit. Second: Remember that the last "innovation" in the Zelda series resulted in the eminently forgettable Four Swords multi-player crap.
The fandom can go hang. Bring on Skyward Sword! But...on one thing I do agree: right-handed Link? No way! ;P
(8/2/2010)
So I haven't picked up the DS in months, except for one event download, and a few Pokewalker connections.
However, the Enigma Stone -- which lets you catch one of the Latias/Latios pair depending on your game version -- is now available for download to HG/SS. Except, you need the National 'Dex to get it, which means not only defeating the Elite Four, but from what I can glean online, boarding the SS Aqua for a one-way trip to Kanto.
So if there's anything I wanted to do in Jhoto before getting stuck in Kanto for awhile, I've got until August 27th to do it, and to beat the Elite Four. This kinda sucks, because even though it'll get me a self-caught Latias to complement my Emerald Latios, I haven't been in anything like a Pokemon mood lately.
B/W information continues to trickle in; most of the GV Pokemon designs continue to be "meh", except for a really cool looking eagle thing that I assume is the final evo of the region's Pidgey equivalent. Annoyingly, it seems that you have to play a lame "shoot-n-catch" minigame if you want to transfer your Pokemon from GIV, and it's a one-way trip. Pain in the ass. And, Team Plasma? Really? It shouldn't be too hard to wait for the third iteration of the games, unless I get swept away by everyone else's fervor.
I -did- break 10,000 steps for the first time since I started wearing the Pokewalker though, from walking around Otakon last Friday! So yay on that! There were also a lot of folks at the con with Pokewalkers, so I stopped some of them to connect; I have a whole BUNCH of Heart Scales waiting for transfer back to SS now.
Plus, getting to meet so many dA folks -- Autumn, Hione, Degrith, and Keaton -- was awesome.
(6/14/2010)
Have done nothing in either SS or FR except try for Entei a few times, and migrate a bunch of FR's random catches to Pearl for transfer to the ranch. I'm still standing outside Victory Road....if I recall correctly, once you leave Jhoto it's a while before you can get back, and I'm not sure I'm done there. For one thing, I should probably nab Raikou and Entei. Only, I kinda want to catch FR's Entei first. HMM.
Been looking at Serebii's B/W information. The region map looks kinda cool, and it looks like the wireless features are way more integrated into the game (GTS available in every Pokecenter, for example). But I'm not that thrilled with the designs of the new Pokemon revealed thus far -- the Water starter is even goofier looking than Bidoof, and they seem once again to have added pre-evolutions just to extend the Pokedex. From the number of new Pokes shown already, it looks like the normal region's worth of new Pokemon will be added to the already-ridiculous National 'Dex. Hopefully they will limit the legendaries this time around.
Worse, it seems as if you can only send Pokemon from Gen IV in a one-way transfer via wireless. Not a good thing, if I want to keep my core team Pokemon in the games they came from. Hopefully the next-gen DS hardware will play the old DS games, which will at least give me trading capability between that and the DS Lite. However, that might mean it's time to transfer everything forward from my GIII carts, or at least to trim down the number of them.
Given that the Terrell cart is hacked, and I now have a fully open copy of Emerald, I should probably sell that cart back after getting anything I've raised off it. Leave it as-is for the next trainer, hacked items, lvl 100 Pokemon, and all. FR, of course, will get cleaned out and sold back as soon as I catch Entei. But maybe I should keep my main LG cart and Emerald, in case I'd like a replay or want to breed/trade/raise stuff.
Not that I've ever been good at resisting temptation; but if I can successfully hold out until they release B/W's third version, that should give me time to clean all this up. And catch that dang Entei, dammit!
(6/16/2010)
Have done nothing in any game but that's not the point.
Lots of info from E3 this week. Among other things, it turns out that B/W will be released for the DS, not the 3DS.
This is unexpected and unwelcome news; I'd been thinking that buying a 3DS for B/W would give me DS trading capability. But now I've got no reason to buy the 3DS as long as the Lite is still working (certainly not for the 3DS remake of OoT). Which would mean no trades or transfers without someone's help.
The other slightly alarming detail: the 3DS apparently is made to constantly ping for other 3DSs, and will automatically connect and download items or goodness knows what else, even if you're not playing. WTF. Do we get to turn off this option? How much battery power does this waste?
Which would explain the C-gear thing in B/W, which is also apparently on a constant lookout for possible connections. I wonder if that's disabled if one plays on a regular DS.
The 3DS is supposed to be fully backwards-compatible with previous DS games -- I didn't see any second slot, though, so it probably uses same-sized cartridges.
Also, a prediction: Autumn asked me, on dA, whether I thought there'd be any new Eeveelutions. My reply: at least two, and they'll keep making 'em 'till they've got ALL the types covered. And these two will probably be poison, ground, rock, or steel -- likely poison and ground because those are opposites like dark/psychic and grass/ice.
How do I arrive at that conclusion? Well, they already have normal, fire, water, electric, dark, psychic, grass, and ice covered. Flying, dragon, fighting, bug, and ghost types seem problematic to me. That leaves poison, ground, rock, and steel; and poison and ground would make a good pair.
It'll be fun to see if I'm right about that.
In unrelated whinging: I am coming to the conclusion that Zelda is burdened with a truly trope-worthy Unpleasable Fandom.
Nintendo releases WW. Everyone bitches and moans about the cel-shading and the "kiddie cartoon" look. So Nintendo releases the Darker and Edgier TP. Fans bitch and moan about the limits of Wii graphics capability and some say it's "dreary". So Nintendo makes Skyward Sword a compromise between WW and TP, and already the fans are bitching and moaning about it looking like whichever one they liked less.
STFU, people. Seriously. Play the damn thing before tossing it aside solely on the basis of the first trailer.
As to the complaint that it's "nothing new" -- what else were they expecting? Miyamoto/Ayonuma/Word of God had already said that the Wii Zelda would be the last Zelda like we were used to. That would tend to imply that, yes, this Zelda would be another iteration of the standard formula -- run around the overworld and kill things, venture into the dungeons to fetch the item and defeat the boss, healthy mix of combat and puzzle-solving, rinse, lather, repeat.
Yeah, so what's wrong with that? If you didn't like that sort of thing, how'd you become Zelda fans in the first place? If you're tired of it, what are you still doing here? If you're such a dang "hard-core" gamer, why aren't you playing f*ing Halo or some other infinitely polygonal "go shoot things" game? Were you looking for "innovation"? First: Remember that whole "last Zelda like we're used to" bit. Second: Remember that the last "innovation" in the Zelda series resulted in the eminently forgettable Four Swords multi-player crap.
The fandom can go hang. Bring on Skyward Sword! But...on one thing I do agree: right-handed Link? No way! ;P
(8/2/2010)
So I haven't picked up the DS in months, except for one event download, and a few Pokewalker connections.
However, the Enigma Stone -- which lets you catch one of the Latias/Latios pair depending on your game version -- is now available for download to HG/SS. Except, you need the National 'Dex to get it, which means not only defeating the Elite Four, but from what I can glean online, boarding the SS Aqua for a one-way trip to Kanto.
So if there's anything I wanted to do in Jhoto before getting stuck in Kanto for awhile, I've got until August 27th to do it, and to beat the Elite Four. This kinda sucks, because even though it'll get me a self-caught Latias to complement my Emerald Latios, I haven't been in anything like a Pokemon mood lately.
B/W information continues to trickle in; most of the GV Pokemon designs continue to be "meh", except for a really cool looking eagle thing that I assume is the final evo of the region's Pidgey equivalent. Annoyingly, it seems that you have to play a lame "shoot-n-catch" minigame if you want to transfer your Pokemon from GIV, and it's a one-way trip. Pain in the ass. And, Team Plasma? Really? It shouldn't be too hard to wait for the third iteration of the games, unless I get swept away by everyone else's fervor.
I -did- break 10,000 steps for the first time since I started wearing the Pokewalker though, from walking around Otakon last Friday! So yay on that! There were also a lot of folks at the con with Pokewalkers, so I stopped some of them to connect; I have a whole BUNCH of Heart Scales waiting for transfer back to SS now.
Plus, getting to meet so many dA folks -- Autumn, Hione, Degrith, and Keaton -- was awesome.
In retrospect: SS to Victory Road, and putting off Entei
(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(5/25/2010)
Whoah. Haven't updated this in a while.
Part of that is, I haven't been Entei-hunting in FR as much as I should. And another part is that I finally nabbed me some Munchlax, after saving up Watts for a whole week and then getting to a point where I could do enough walking to get the 8K steps. So until they distribute another route or I win the Indigo League, I've got everything the Pokewalker can get me. At the moment I'm on Night Sky's Edge again for the expensive goodies.
Though I haven't tried for Entei nearly enough times, I'm already heartily tired of looking. So I ended up booting up SS and playing for a bit. I got to Blackthorn, which has the Move Deleter and all the Move Tutors (the Relearner, Granny Wilma, and the ultimate starter move person) in the same little cabin. It also has a house with the gal who gives out Effort Ribbons, and only Chet has all his EVs (probably 'cause I'd slapped the Macho Brace on him).
Only, Heart Scales are horribly difficult to obtain, in HG/SS. You can pretty much get them only from the Pokethlon -- and then, only on Wednesday -- or from using Rock Smash. I may have to resort to trading them in from Pearl or Platinum.
Which brings me to several problems. One: To properly dupe Blue's Aquamarine, I need a Heart Scale to re-teach her Slam. And then I need to train her like crazy to get her up to where she'll learn Hyper Beam, if I can't buy the TM (or substitute Draco Meteor). Only, I can't train both her and Vermillion. Two: To properly dupe Silver's Vermillion, I need a second Heart Scale so he can have Thrash.
Three: I need an HM slave to dump Waterfall, Whirlpool, and Rock Smash upon (and possibly Flash) because I do NOT have room in the party for so many dang HM moves. Ideally a Jhoto water-type for this, but more likely candidates are Lapras or Golduck, or duping Silver's Wyrmling. Thing is, I'll have to cart that slave along, which means not training one of the core team. ARGH.
Since Aquamarine isn't meant to go to the E4, I put her away after learning Dragon Rush at lvl 35, and started training Vermillion instead. To help him catch up on EVs, I put the Macho Brace on him and fed him some vitamins. I did a whole level's worth of very low-level Poke-battles in the early routes, then moved up to Rt. 42's Mareep and Flaffy for some EVs in Sp. Atk. Somewhere in there, he found a Shiny Leaf, so I whipped out the book and found the other couple I can get before the E4. I also got a bunch of calls from trainers wanting rematches, which helped.
Aquamarine hadn't done well against the first trainer in the Blackthorn Gym, since dragon-types are weak to other dragons. Vermillion did much, much better, since he had Ice Fang and wasn't weak to dragon moves. He and Sheepish got me through the whole Gym until Clair. For her, I needed a lot more Hyper Potions than I liked to use, and it was Peya who finally knocked down her lvl 41 Kingdra. I was definitely underpowered for that Gym.
Worse, Clair wouldn't hand over the badge. Sore loser! So now I've got to go into the Dragon's Den and fight the Master there....which means, I need Whirlpool. And that means I've got to solve the HM slave problem before I can make any progress. ARGH again.
Crap, I forgot to call the Reed Group about that appointment. ARGH a third time!
(5/26/2010)
OK, so I didn't do any Entei-hunting, but did solve a couple of the above issues.
As I suspected, there were few Pokes who could have a moveset of Flash, Rock Smash, Waterfall, and Whirlpool, and one of the evo families that could was Psyduck/Golduck. But another was Wooper/Quagsire, and I'd wanted to use a Jhoto Pokemon for this purpose. So I fetched my random-caught Quagsire out of storage, named her Big Woop (like my other HM slave Big Mama) and taught her the necessary moves. For the moment she's taking Chet's slot in the party (since he's got all his EVs).
But I didn't make it into the Dragon's Den, between trying to train Big Woop up a little (she was caught at lvl 24), going through Dark Cave looking for smashable rocks, and doing a couple trainer rematches (I don't think I did the last two though, 'cause Deadliest Catch was on).
Turns out that not only was there a Heart Scale hidden on Rt 32, but going over to Cianwood and repeatedly attacking the rocks there netted me two more. I figure that if I keep bashing the rocks there, I can get all the scales I need -- one for Aquamarine to re-learn Slam, one for Vermillion to be taught Thrash (though I should look into replacing that with Outrage, maybe?) and then a few for Hootie, to get his attack set in order.
And speaking of Hootie, the Beautiful Beach course on the Pokewalker also has Heart Scales at a moderately rare find rate, so I'm on that course until I can build up Watts and steps to try finding some.
(6/1/2010)
Quite a bit of progress.
Between Beautiful Beach and lots of smashing rocks, I was able to get quite a few Heart Scales. I brought Hootie in long enough to have him relearn Confusion and teach him Fly; however, Noctowl can't learn Nightmare anymore, so I will need to think of something else. Vermillion relearned Thrash, and I'll mess with Aquamarine later.
Upon looking in the book and finding out the Dragon's Den involved a quiz rather than a battle, I went ahead and did that. Answering all the questions correctly netted me a Dratini with Extremespeed. This will be my new Wyrmling, though I think I'll tweak his moveset some, replacing Slam with Extremespeed and Hyper Beam with Draco Meteor instead of going for a straight dupe.
That got me the badge from Clair, which in turn got me the Master Ball from Prof. Elm, who told me to hop over to the Ecruteak Dance Theater. Fighting all five Kimono Girls got me the Tidal Bell, so it was off to the Whirl Islands to catch Lugia. After making my way through the caves, there was a really nice sequence with the Kimono Girls summoning Lugia with a dance, and Lugia making an impressive entrance. However, the damn thing took all but one of my Ultra Balls to catch. Don't have a name for it yet, either.
After that, I spent waaaay too much time chasing down rematches and collecting Apricorns before finally deciding to try for Victory Road. I put Peya away to make room for Big Woop, since you pretty much can't fly in Kanto 'till you make it to the League. Once I get through, I can bring Peya back out and go back into the caves to get everyone to lvl 50 (the Jhoto E4 are a bit lower in level than is usual).
And of course, I still haven't managed to find Entei in FR.
(6/2/2010)
Bored, and so thinking about SS movesets.
The thing about the nostalgia vs. utility debate is this: it occurs to me that it's reasonable to approach this as if I had been able to bring forward the originals, then update their movesets with all the fabulous new GIV options. Start with the original movesets as a basis, then tweak from there.
Cynder originally had Swift, Rollout, Flame Wheel, and Flamethrower; new target moveset is Swift, Rollout, Flamethrower, and Blast Burn, the ultimate Fire move. He'll need to learn Rollout at lvl 46 before I'll let him evolve to a Typhlosion so he can get Blast Burn, though.
Izzel originally had Cut, Swift, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes; new moveset is Cut, Headbutt, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes. Reasoning here is that Swift isn't as kickass as it used to be, whereas Headbutt can now be used on any tree and therefore becomes a useful field move.
Sheepish originally had Strength, Flash, Thundershock, and Thunder; new target moveset is Strength, Thunder Wave, Thunder Punch, and Thunder. It makes more sense to have an HM slave for Flash, and with the new physical/special split, it's useful to have a typed attack of each kind.
Hootie originally had Hypnosis, Fly, Confusion, and Nightmare; new target moveset is Hypnosis, Fly, Extrasensory, and possibly Dream Eater or Roost. Extrasensory is an upgrade to Confusion. Nightmare was TM50 in Silver, but it's no longer a TM, and Noctowl can't learn it.
Vermillion originally had Surf, Thrash, Dragon Rage, and Hyper Beam; might replace Hyper Beam with an Ice attack, because I'll need one against Lance and his dragons. [ Going with Ice Fang, and will likely up its PP as well. ]
Wyrmling originally had Waterfall, Outrage, Dragon Rage, and Hyper Beam; it seems perfectly natural to replace Outrage with Extremespeed, since I got the special Dratini with that from the Dragon Master, and to replace Hyper Beam with Draco Meteor.
Peya's target moveset is Fly, Miracle Eye, Psychic, and possibly Future Sight.
Chet's target moveset is Spider Web, Night Shade, Poison Jab, and possibly either Psychic, or relearn Bug Bite which would be good against Dark types.
(5/25/2010)
Whoah. Haven't updated this in a while.
Part of that is, I haven't been Entei-hunting in FR as much as I should. And another part is that I finally nabbed me some Munchlax, after saving up Watts for a whole week and then getting to a point where I could do enough walking to get the 8K steps. So until they distribute another route or I win the Indigo League, I've got everything the Pokewalker can get me. At the moment I'm on Night Sky's Edge again for the expensive goodies.
Though I haven't tried for Entei nearly enough times, I'm already heartily tired of looking. So I ended up booting up SS and playing for a bit. I got to Blackthorn, which has the Move Deleter and all the Move Tutors (the Relearner, Granny Wilma, and the ultimate starter move person) in the same little cabin. It also has a house with the gal who gives out Effort Ribbons, and only Chet has all his EVs (probably 'cause I'd slapped the Macho Brace on him).
Only, Heart Scales are horribly difficult to obtain, in HG/SS. You can pretty much get them only from the Pokethlon -- and then, only on Wednesday -- or from using Rock Smash. I may have to resort to trading them in from Pearl or Platinum.
Which brings me to several problems. One: To properly dupe Blue's Aquamarine, I need a Heart Scale to re-teach her Slam. And then I need to train her like crazy to get her up to where she'll learn Hyper Beam, if I can't buy the TM (or substitute Draco Meteor). Only, I can't train both her and Vermillion. Two: To properly dupe Silver's Vermillion, I need a second Heart Scale so he can have Thrash.
Three: I need an HM slave to dump Waterfall, Whirlpool, and Rock Smash upon (and possibly Flash) because I do NOT have room in the party for so many dang HM moves. Ideally a Jhoto water-type for this, but more likely candidates are Lapras or Golduck, or duping Silver's Wyrmling. Thing is, I'll have to cart that slave along, which means not training one of the core team. ARGH.
Since Aquamarine isn't meant to go to the E4, I put her away after learning Dragon Rush at lvl 35, and started training Vermillion instead. To help him catch up on EVs, I put the Macho Brace on him and fed him some vitamins. I did a whole level's worth of very low-level Poke-battles in the early routes, then moved up to Rt. 42's Mareep and Flaffy for some EVs in Sp. Atk. Somewhere in there, he found a Shiny Leaf, so I whipped out the book and found the other couple I can get before the E4. I also got a bunch of calls from trainers wanting rematches, which helped.
Aquamarine hadn't done well against the first trainer in the Blackthorn Gym, since dragon-types are weak to other dragons. Vermillion did much, much better, since he had Ice Fang and wasn't weak to dragon moves. He and Sheepish got me through the whole Gym until Clair. For her, I needed a lot more Hyper Potions than I liked to use, and it was Peya who finally knocked down her lvl 41 Kingdra. I was definitely underpowered for that Gym.
Worse, Clair wouldn't hand over the badge. Sore loser! So now I've got to go into the Dragon's Den and fight the Master there....which means, I need Whirlpool. And that means I've got to solve the HM slave problem before I can make any progress. ARGH again.
Crap, I forgot to call the Reed Group about that appointment. ARGH a third time!
(5/26/2010)
OK, so I didn't do any Entei-hunting, but did solve a couple of the above issues.
As I suspected, there were few Pokes who could have a moveset of Flash, Rock Smash, Waterfall, and Whirlpool, and one of the evo families that could was Psyduck/Golduck. But another was Wooper/Quagsire, and I'd wanted to use a Jhoto Pokemon for this purpose. So I fetched my random-caught Quagsire out of storage, named her Big Woop (like my other HM slave Big Mama) and taught her the necessary moves. For the moment she's taking Chet's slot in the party (since he's got all his EVs).
But I didn't make it into the Dragon's Den, between trying to train Big Woop up a little (she was caught at lvl 24), going through Dark Cave looking for smashable rocks, and doing a couple trainer rematches (I don't think I did the last two though, 'cause Deadliest Catch was on).
Turns out that not only was there a Heart Scale hidden on Rt 32, but going over to Cianwood and repeatedly attacking the rocks there netted me two more. I figure that if I keep bashing the rocks there, I can get all the scales I need -- one for Aquamarine to re-learn Slam, one for Vermillion to be taught Thrash (though I should look into replacing that with Outrage, maybe?) and then a few for Hootie, to get his attack set in order.
And speaking of Hootie, the Beautiful Beach course on the Pokewalker also has Heart Scales at a moderately rare find rate, so I'm on that course until I can build up Watts and steps to try finding some.
(6/1/2010)
Quite a bit of progress.
Between Beautiful Beach and lots of smashing rocks, I was able to get quite a few Heart Scales. I brought Hootie in long enough to have him relearn Confusion and teach him Fly; however, Noctowl can't learn Nightmare anymore, so I will need to think of something else. Vermillion relearned Thrash, and I'll mess with Aquamarine later.
Upon looking in the book and finding out the Dragon's Den involved a quiz rather than a battle, I went ahead and did that. Answering all the questions correctly netted me a Dratini with Extremespeed. This will be my new Wyrmling, though I think I'll tweak his moveset some, replacing Slam with Extremespeed and Hyper Beam with Draco Meteor instead of going for a straight dupe.
That got me the badge from Clair, which in turn got me the Master Ball from Prof. Elm, who told me to hop over to the Ecruteak Dance Theater. Fighting all five Kimono Girls got me the Tidal Bell, so it was off to the Whirl Islands to catch Lugia. After making my way through the caves, there was a really nice sequence with the Kimono Girls summoning Lugia with a dance, and Lugia making an impressive entrance. However, the damn thing took all but one of my Ultra Balls to catch. Don't have a name for it yet, either.
After that, I spent waaaay too much time chasing down rematches and collecting Apricorns before finally deciding to try for Victory Road. I put Peya away to make room for Big Woop, since you pretty much can't fly in Kanto 'till you make it to the League. Once I get through, I can bring Peya back out and go back into the caves to get everyone to lvl 50 (the Jhoto E4 are a bit lower in level than is usual).
And of course, I still haven't managed to find Entei in FR.
(6/2/2010)
Bored, and so thinking about SS movesets.
The thing about the nostalgia vs. utility debate is this: it occurs to me that it's reasonable to approach this as if I had been able to bring forward the originals, then update their movesets with all the fabulous new GIV options. Start with the original movesets as a basis, then tweak from there.
Cynder originally had Swift, Rollout, Flame Wheel, and Flamethrower; new target moveset is Swift, Rollout, Flamethrower, and Blast Burn, the ultimate Fire move. He'll need to learn Rollout at lvl 46 before I'll let him evolve to a Typhlosion so he can get Blast Burn, though.
Izzel originally had Cut, Swift, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes; new moveset is Cut, Headbutt, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes. Reasoning here is that Swift isn't as kickass as it used to be, whereas Headbutt can now be used on any tree and therefore becomes a useful field move.
Sheepish originally had Strength, Flash, Thundershock, and Thunder; new target moveset is Strength, Thunder Wave, Thunder Punch, and Thunder. It makes more sense to have an HM slave for Flash, and with the new physical/special split, it's useful to have a typed attack of each kind.
Hootie originally had Hypnosis, Fly, Confusion, and Nightmare; new target moveset is Hypnosis, Fly, Extrasensory, and possibly Dream Eater or Roost. Extrasensory is an upgrade to Confusion. Nightmare was TM50 in Silver, but it's no longer a TM, and Noctowl can't learn it.
Vermillion originally had Surf, Thrash, Dragon Rage, and Hyper Beam; might replace Hyper Beam with an Ice attack, because I'll need one against Lance and his dragons. [ Going with Ice Fang, and will likely up its PP as well. ]
Wyrmling originally had Waterfall, Outrage, Dragon Rage, and Hyper Beam; it seems perfectly natural to replace Outrage with Extremespeed, since I got the special Dratini with that from the Dragon Master, and to replace Hyper Beam with Draco Meteor.
Peya's target moveset is Fly, Miracle Eye, Psychic, and possibly Future Sight.
Chet's target moveset is Spider Web, Night Shade, Poison Jab, and possibly either Psychic, or relearn Bug Bite which would be good against Dark types.
In retrospect: Focus on FireRed, with a side of SS
(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(4/9/2010)
Realtor guy had a contract on the house already on Wednesday and it took forever for him and Dad to get through initialing and signing it all, so too tired and late for anything afterwards. Hootie spontaneously found me an Oran Berry, though. I should grow some this weekend, so I can wrap that sideplot up in SS.
Last night, despite being TURNED AWAY for Xolair after driving all the way up to the allergist's, I got FR restarted. Traded out the starter and a Rattata, holding the Star Piece and a Moon Stone respectively. Then went to breed Norton the second, and it took FIVE TRIES to get a male. ARGH. With that done, though, I finally started my new FR game, got to Viridian, and traded Norton in. For insurance, I did catch another Mankey -- I remember that I was going to name the female I'd had in the last game Scorn, so I did that. Got Irving up to lvl 10 and the other two to lvl 8, then marched off to trigger my second rival battle, which was harder than I expected. Still won though, and the next step will be to get through Viridian Forest and take down the Pewter Gym.
The Forest will probably level Norton past where he'll listen to me until I can get to Misty, but with the Mankey to get me through Mt. Moon, that should be okay. I dunno that I'll bother to look for a Pikachu this time -- if one appears I'll catch it, but otherwise, eh. Likewise with Metapod and Kakuna. It's faster to do a few rotating trades than it is to wander endlessly through grass searching for stuff, and at my fourth turn through Kanto, I'm really just looking for speed.
(4/13/2010)
Some progress in both games. Grew me some Oran Berries on Saturday between oysters, visit to house, and an hour's walk around Centennial Lake (which wore me out just as much as the hour's walk on the Boardwalk). Fed the Miltank, got my Seal Case, traded for that Krabby, and wrapped up Olivine. Also got through the bit with the Lake of Rage, and Team Rocket's hideout in Mahogany, but have not yet tried for the Mahogany Gym (which will let me use Whirlpool). Nor did I venture into Mt. Mortar. But I did catch Vermillion, with an out-loud "welcome back." 8D And Sheepish now has Strength, as she ought to.
As for FR, I got through Viridian Forest, swept through the Pewter Gym, and headed out towards Mt. Moon but didn't yet go in. I even managed to catch a Pikachu and a Jigglypuff without too much searching, so my 'dex is getting reasonably filled out. So far I've been able to manage with just Irving, Norton, and Scorn; though at lvl 12 Norton is starting to disobey me. If Irving and Scorn can get me through Mt. Moon, then maybe I can hit the Cerulean Gym before trying to catch another Slither so that Norton will listen to me again. Then I can train Slither up to match the team, clean out Rt. 25, and head for Vermillion, which will catch me up to the previous game. (reading back, I was just about to take on the SS Anne after training Norton when that game poofed.)
Not sure how much of that I'll get done tonight, though, since both V and the new season of Deadliest Catch are on. Might also have an episode of SGU waiting in On Demand. At least I did get my taxes done and filed... And it's raining, plus we're at EOB, so there's nowhere to walk today. I may have to jog during commercials to try and get in at least SOME exercise.
(4/15/2010)
Did laundry, got my exercise by running around the basement, and STILL had time to Poke before my shows -- getting off at 5 really helps! Made a speedy run through Mt. Moon by doing most of the upper level in a few go's, then using an Escape Rope and healing up before the final push. This got me to Cerulean, where I did not wait to catch my Ekans before taking Misty down, so Norton was once again compliant. Then went out to catch my Slither, who is NOT made of glass this time. Did the route up to the cape then headed for Vermillion.
Only, I didn't get Slither up to team level, and spent waaaaay too much time running around Diglett's Cave trying to find a Dugtrio. Apparently the RNG still hates me, 'cause I used up all Irving's attacks while looking. Finally one appeared and I caught it. Also ran out towards the end of Rt. 11 on the vague recollection that one of Prof. Oak's Aides was there, but unfortunately I didn't have the 30 species it would have taken to get the Itemfinder. Gotta buckle down and get Slither up to the point where I can comfortably take on the SS Anne, blow through there, then head for Rock Tunnel. I have an Abra to teach Flash to, and am debating whether to give Dig to Slither, or wait until I've got my Growlithe.
(4/16/2010)
Brought Slither up to speed by going through the rest of the trainers on Rt. 11 east of Vermillion, took down Lt. Surge's Gym, and fought my way through the SS Anne. The rival battle went spectacularly well -- not only was the team quite nicely overlevelled by that point, but Norton's Swords Dance made the whole battle a series of one-shots. With the Thunderbadge, I can now use Fly outside of battle. Normally I wouldn't have the Fly HM at this stage of the game, but thanks to breeding Norton has the move anyway.
Next push will be to get to and through Rock Cave. That'll get me to Lavender, and while I won't be able to do anything about that Snorlax to the south yet, I'll be able to catch my Growlithe (gotta think of a good name). And I can also get the Tea for the thirsty Guards and open up the way though Saffron.
Movesets: I've decided that Dig should go to the Growlithe, and Giga Drain (after I beat Erika in Celadon) to Slither. Poison, as it turns out, seems to be weak against Ground, so having a Grass attack in his moveset would help with that. I might also bring over a Sludge Bomb TM from the main Rue cart, since Acid isn't terribly powerful and doesn't poison; and I had been thinking to give Toxic to Irving. I believe I'll go with a moveset of Bite, Dig, Flame Wheel (or Flamethrower if I can buy the TM) and Extremespeed for my future Arcanine.
(4/19/2010)
Rock Cave went fairly quickly, between Irving and Scorn, and I arrived in Lavender. Caught my Growlithe, though it took forever to find a female with the Flash Fire ability, and named her Khamsin (hot desert wind), which enabled me to retire Scorn. First thing after that, I nabbed my Eevee from the Celadon Mansion, then got the Tea and opened up Saffron. Between the trainers on that route, the Celadon Gym, and the Fighting Dojo, plus a passle of wild battles to rack up some EVs, I got the whole team up to lvl 33 (Norton to lvl 37). Taught Dig to Khamsin and Giga Drain to Slither.
So that gives me four out of six of my final team. The next objective is to get the Snorlax out of the way and get to Fuschia, which means getting the Poke Flute from Mr. Fuji, which in turn means getting the Silph Scope from the Team Rocket Hideout in Celadon. I might also try working the Game Corner enough to get Flamethrower for Khamsin, though that'll take 4000 coins -- not chump change.
Haven't done a darn thing in SS -- I'm still standing in front of Pryce's Gym. Didn't get many steps over the weekend due to cramps, either, so haven't caught anything new with the Pokewalker. Probably I'll keep going with the push through Kanto in FR until I get tired of it (most likely when I get impatient with Entei-hunting).
(4/20/2010)
Blew through the Game Corner Hideout and Pokemon Tower and got both Snorlax out of the way. Because the team's so overlevelled, most of the battles were just a series of one-shots, including the rival battle. Everyone's now lvl 35-37.
I also spent some time at the Game Corner and was able to rack up over 4000 coins -- though, now that I think about it, I might put them towards Ice Beam for my prospective Shellder. Or maybe try to win enough for both Ice Beam and Flamethrower; but if I can only have one, it'll be Ice Beam. Should probably take care of that before leaving Celadon.
So the next thing is the push towards Fuschia. Because I always take the waterside route, I'm thinking of going down Cycling Road this time. But I'll still want to grab the Super Rod, run out to Vermillion, and catch me a Shellder first. In fact, why haven't I done that already? D'oh.
Fuschia means the Safari Zone, which will net me a passle o' Pokes, plus Surf. Once I'm done there, I can take the waterside route back up around to Saffron to clear out Silph HQ. Then once Saffron Gym's down (and between Slither and Khamsin having Bite, this should be easy as long as they're properly levelled) it'll be off to Cinnabar. And THIS time I won't ignore Bill when he invites me to the islands.
...Though, it would likely be worth it to take a side-trip down to the Power Plant the moment I do get Surf, and get my Electabuzz. That way I can train it on those water routes.
That makes the plan: Get Super Rod > Catch Shellder > Down Cycling Road to Fuschia > Visit Safari Zone and obtain Surf > Catch Electabuzz at Power Plant > Circle back around to Saffron > Boot Team Rocket out of Silph HQ and get Master Ball > Defeat Sabrina > Head for Cinnibar > Do the Island sidequest.
Got my 5000 steps yesterday with a solid half-hour of walking and netted myself a Smoochum. Today's stroll on Blue Lake does not include either Dratini or Shellder, so I'll want to return and go back out to Blue Lake when I get home. Tonight's also Deadliest Catch and V, so maybe not much Poke-time.
(4/26/2010)
Much progress.
Got the Super Rod and caught my Shellder, a gal who I named Bertha (after Baltimore's "eat Bertha's mussels!" bumper stickers [ forgot that Pearl's hand-raised Cloyster is also named Bertha, oops ]). Bought Ice Beam at the Game Corner, and after levelling her up to get Aurora Beam and Protect, bought a Water Stone and evolved her to a Cloyster. Whereupon I set off down Cycling Road -- didn't fight all the Bikers right away but got to Fuschia.
That got me Surf, which Bertha immediately got taught, and finding the Warden's teeth got me Strength as well. Thus I ran up to the Power Plant and finally netted my Electabuzz, a male named Farraday (need to check spelling on that though). With my E4 team finally assembled, I went down Cycling Road again and took out the rest of the Bikers, then did a few turns through the Safari Zone to fill out my 'dex. Started up the coastal route back to Saffron, but didn't make it through all the trainers because it was getting late. I did get Exp Share, though, which should prove helpful, and the whole team's at lvl 39.
The next thing will be to finish up the coastal route, and to comb through the grass for a Ditto or two. Even though it's only that gang of Bikers and the fence-maze trainers, it could take a while to spot a Ditto. Then it'll be onward to clear the Rockets out of Silph Co. so I can get into the Saffron Gym. This'll also get me the Master Ball.
I've put almost 26 hours on FR so far, so I probably won't beat it in anything near 31 hours, but still. I've nearly got enough 'dex entries to get the Nat'l 'Dex right after the Elite Four, as long as I rescue Lostelle this time. Evolving Irving should do it; and he's got Synthesis now so I've taken away his Everstone. Getting through Silph should take care of levelling him enough to evolve -- in fact everyone should be lvl 40 or over by the time I hit the Gym. Koga gave me Toxic, so I should replace Poisonpowder with that, too.
After completing Saffron, the path will be: Return to Pallet > Surf to Cinnabar > Detour to Islands and rescue Lostelle > Find Gym Key in Cinnabar Mansion > Defeat Cinnabar Gym > Return to Viridian and defeat Gym > Hit the trail to the Pokemon League. I can leave the birds for after the E4, and after going through the Mansion and Victory Road I should have more than enough 'dex entries.
Once I've caught Entei (fingers crossed and knock on wood!) I'll probably transfer all the Berries to Emerald via rotating trades. Items can go to LG for now, and random catches should be Pal Parked (in fact I don't necessarily need to wait until the game is finished, for that). I should also take the opportunity to catch a breeding pair of all the FR exclusives, for transfer to both Emerald and LG.
So, besides that -- I got 5000 or more steps a day for five of seven days last week, along with my half-hour of walking. However, I managed to severely blister my feet by doing 50 minutes barefooted on Heather's and Julie's treadmill. So, won't get my steps for a few days, and will have to debate some other kind of exercise. I've netted a few more Pokes via the PW, but right now am on Night Sky's Edge for the valuable items.
And I actually DID make some progress in SS -- did some training in Mt. Mortar, and defeated Pryce's Gym. That, of course, triggered the call from Prof. Elm that the Rockets have taken over Goldenrod Tower, so that'll be the next task there. Interestingly, that puts both games at about the same point, and the teams at nearly the same levels.
(4/27/2010)
Definitely am not beating FR in my record hours -- I already have over 30 hours on it, and still have several major chunks of story to go.
Wrapped up the coastal route and caught a Ditto (might go back for another later). Then went to Saffron and cleaned out Silph. I'd been thinking it was about time my rival showed up again, and he did; his Gyrados gave me a little trouble but otherwise he went down pretty easily. With the Gym unblocked, I managed to sweep through all the minor trainers just with Slither. Sabrina's Alakazam gave me a LOT of trouble, though. It one-shotted two-thirds of my team by boosting Psychic with Calm Mind, and Farraday only JUST pulled through long enough to hit it with Strength one last time. Still, I got the badge, so that gives me obedience to lvl 70.
From Pallet I turned south, caught a Tangela, then avoided all the trainers on the way to Cinnabar. Bill was nowhere in sight, which means that I will have to get the key from the Mansion and beat Blaine before I can do the Island subquest. Should also go back over the water and take out all those trainers. And I keep forgetting to teach Irving Toxic; though I did finally let him evolve.
(5/3/2010)
Did not get nearly as many steps from Sheep and Wool this weekend as I'd expected. Too many people and more shuffling and standing than actual walking. My feet hurt from the standing but the blisters were OK.
Got through the Cinnibar Mansion, though, and took down most of Blaine's Gym with Khamsin and Dig. That triggered the Island sequence, so I followed Bill down there and rescued Lostelle. Since I was around there anyway, I also trucked out to the cape on Two Island and got Frenzy Plant for Irving. With that done, the next thing was Viridian Gym, which I wasn't levelled enough to tackle. So I spent a bunch of time running around the Power Plant and Cinnabar Mansion, as well as fishing off Cinnibar, to collect more of the FR exclusives. Besides those, you can also catch some final evo's that aren't in LG, like Seadra and Weezing; so I went ahead and nabbed those too.
When I'd caught enough, the team ranged from Norton at lvl 45 to Irving at lvl 50, so I decided to take on the Viridian Gym. Lots of trainers there with large teams, but Bertha Surfed all the Ground-types to oblivion, and Norton handled the fighting types. Bertha took down all of Giovanni's team as well -- I'd held Irving in reserve but didn't even need him. I remembered to pick up the hidden Macho Brace, healed up at the Pokecenter, and saved.
So now all that stands between me and the E4 is Victory Road. That'll give me a chance to fill out my 'dex some more and get my levels up properly. For the E4 themselves, Khamsin and Farraday should take care of Lorelei and Agatha, Bertha and Norton should be good for Bruno, and Bertha and Farraday should be able to take on Lance. Then it's just that last rival battle, and I can grab the Nat'l 'Dex and start Entei-hunting!
(5/4/2010)
Got through Victory Road in just a couple runs. I was able to catch some Ekans and a couple Arbok, though I missed catching a Machamp. Oddly enough, the wild encounters were almost more trouble than the trainers.
That left me at the doorstep of the Elite Four, and got me Fly access to Indigo Plateau. Thing is, the team's still only lvls 47-50, which is too dang low to take on the E4. Training will be required -- I think I've beat the E4 with a lvl 55 team, so I'll aim for that (which, amusingly, should let me have a nice even battle with one of my other teams, while I'm doing my trading).
From there, I should probably start the process of cleaning out the cartridge. Theoretically I should Pal Park all the non-exclusive random catches to Pearl and transfer them to the Ranch....by the time I'm done I might actually have caught Entei.
FR exclusives will go to LG only -- I don't feel like going through the Islands and fixing the dang machine AGAIN. Although maybe it'd be worth it to pick up another Sludge Bomb TM, since I plan to teach that to Slither. Dunno.
I should likely collect the legendary birds as long as I'm at it, though Mewtwo will depend on whether I feel like completing the Islands again. Then it's items/team/specials/exclusives to LG, Berries to Emerald (if I work the rotating trades with the FR exclusives, that'd take care of that, though the machine would have to have been fixed first).
Bah, who am I kidding, I'll probably finish the whole thing again, 'cause I'm me. Maybe I should go Entei-hunting first, and see how I feel about it after I've netted him.
Still. SO CLOSE. And then I can concentrate on SS, after all this is over with.
(5/5/2010)
Note to self: lvl 50 is too dang low to take on the Elite Four, especially with several weaker team members.
Since I was there, I figured I'd give the E4 a try. Not that I expected to win or anything, but whoah were they a LOT harder with the team not properly levelled. I was already in trouble in the first battle, and had to fall back on revives and potions just to keep going. Even so, I made it all the way to the final rival battle, and through most of his Pokemon. I had just two more to take down when he finally got me.
But that gets me thinking. There's no way of telling when you've maxed your EVs in FR/LG, short of trying to feed your Pokemon vitamins, and them having no effect. If I did that, though, and was able to confirm that the team's got its max EVs, then I could level them with the Rare Candies I've been saving. I've already got three games' worth of the dang things, and it sure would be a lot faster. And I lost with a narrow enough margin that just a few more levels should do the trick.
The other thing I should really do before hitting the E4 again is bring over Sludge Bomb for Slither, because Acid sure as heck wasn't cutting it, and Sludge Bomb did a LOT of damage when Agatha's Arbok hit me with it. While I'm at it I could probably trade the FR exclusives for the LG ones, and fill out the 'dex just a bit more.
I do have to say, though, Slither did better than I thought. When my supereffective choice went down (which happened a LOT) I found myself going back to him time and again as the one to throw out there until I could get my other Pokemon revived. Hopefully that won't be necessary next time, and I can one-shot or two-shot most everything.
(5/10/2010)
And the Elite Four are DOWN.
The vitamin idea didn't work, because as it turned out, more than one team member did not have their full EVs. So instead, I ran around a bit in Victory Road and elsewhere to train, then got impatient with that and just fed everyone a Rare Candy and went for it.
At around lvl 53 this is probably the lowest-levelled team that I've ever taken up against the Elite Four. Still, it went a heckuva lot better than last time. I was able to down most of their Pokes in one hit, and only a few really gave me any trouble. Not an easy win, but not as difficult as, say, the E4 were in Platinum.
This is both good news and bad news: I can go Entei-hunting! Which means....going Entei hunting, and all the time and patience that requires. I've only gone at it three or four turns so far, and I'm already tired of it. But I've got to remember, it took weeks of searching to find Suicune and Raikou, and there's no reason to hope that the RNG will be any kinder to me this time around.
On the SS side of things, I booted up long enough to sell some of the Pokewalker goodies and see if my trade went through yet (after what, a couple weeks?), and discovered that Team Rocket are blocking access to the GTS. How dare they! A trouncing is clearly in order.
I also kept Hootie on the cartridge long enough to feed him a Rare Candy and evolve him. At some point I may fix his moveset, but I have to get to Blackthorn first, which means clearing the Rockets out of Goldenrod.
More importantly, I cleared 9,000 steps for the first time! Since the Mt. Airy shop didn't have any Sidewinders to show me, I went by Subaru for a test drive of an Outback, and came to the conclusion that it's more car than I can justify needing. And then I went out to Ellicott City to check out the Short Line #9 trail. I did at least fifteen or twenty minutes each way, for a good 6,000-some steps, then went home and jogged for the other few thousand. Caught a Bouncing Magikarp, a Bronzor, and a Duskull, but did not get the Munchlax with Leftovers. They only have a 5% appearance rate, but I'm fairly sure they're on my current stroll, so I'm going to save up my Watts until I can get 8,000+ steps again.
(4/9/2010)
Realtor guy had a contract on the house already on Wednesday and it took forever for him and Dad to get through initialing and signing it all, so too tired and late for anything afterwards. Hootie spontaneously found me an Oran Berry, though. I should grow some this weekend, so I can wrap that sideplot up in SS.
Last night, despite being TURNED AWAY for Xolair after driving all the way up to the allergist's, I got FR restarted. Traded out the starter and a Rattata, holding the Star Piece and a Moon Stone respectively. Then went to breed Norton the second, and it took FIVE TRIES to get a male. ARGH. With that done, though, I finally started my new FR game, got to Viridian, and traded Norton in. For insurance, I did catch another Mankey -- I remember that I was going to name the female I'd had in the last game Scorn, so I did that. Got Irving up to lvl 10 and the other two to lvl 8, then marched off to trigger my second rival battle, which was harder than I expected. Still won though, and the next step will be to get through Viridian Forest and take down the Pewter Gym.
The Forest will probably level Norton past where he'll listen to me until I can get to Misty, but with the Mankey to get me through Mt. Moon, that should be okay. I dunno that I'll bother to look for a Pikachu this time -- if one appears I'll catch it, but otherwise, eh. Likewise with Metapod and Kakuna. It's faster to do a few rotating trades than it is to wander endlessly through grass searching for stuff, and at my fourth turn through Kanto, I'm really just looking for speed.
(4/13/2010)
Some progress in both games. Grew me some Oran Berries on Saturday between oysters, visit to house, and an hour's walk around Centennial Lake (which wore me out just as much as the hour's walk on the Boardwalk). Fed the Miltank, got my Seal Case, traded for that Krabby, and wrapped up Olivine. Also got through the bit with the Lake of Rage, and Team Rocket's hideout in Mahogany, but have not yet tried for the Mahogany Gym (which will let me use Whirlpool). Nor did I venture into Mt. Mortar. But I did catch Vermillion, with an out-loud "welcome back." 8D And Sheepish now has Strength, as she ought to.
As for FR, I got through Viridian Forest, swept through the Pewter Gym, and headed out towards Mt. Moon but didn't yet go in. I even managed to catch a Pikachu and a Jigglypuff without too much searching, so my 'dex is getting reasonably filled out. So far I've been able to manage with just Irving, Norton, and Scorn; though at lvl 12 Norton is starting to disobey me. If Irving and Scorn can get me through Mt. Moon, then maybe I can hit the Cerulean Gym before trying to catch another Slither so that Norton will listen to me again. Then I can train Slither up to match the team, clean out Rt. 25, and head for Vermillion, which will catch me up to the previous game. (reading back, I was just about to take on the SS Anne after training Norton when that game poofed.)
Not sure how much of that I'll get done tonight, though, since both V and the new season of Deadliest Catch are on. Might also have an episode of SGU waiting in On Demand. At least I did get my taxes done and filed... And it's raining, plus we're at EOB, so there's nowhere to walk today. I may have to jog during commercials to try and get in at least SOME exercise.
(4/15/2010)
Did laundry, got my exercise by running around the basement, and STILL had time to Poke before my shows -- getting off at 5 really helps! Made a speedy run through Mt. Moon by doing most of the upper level in a few go's, then using an Escape Rope and healing up before the final push. This got me to Cerulean, where I did not wait to catch my Ekans before taking Misty down, so Norton was once again compliant. Then went out to catch my Slither, who is NOT made of glass this time. Did the route up to the cape then headed for Vermillion.
Only, I didn't get Slither up to team level, and spent waaaaay too much time running around Diglett's Cave trying to find a Dugtrio. Apparently the RNG still hates me, 'cause I used up all Irving's attacks while looking. Finally one appeared and I caught it. Also ran out towards the end of Rt. 11 on the vague recollection that one of Prof. Oak's Aides was there, but unfortunately I didn't have the 30 species it would have taken to get the Itemfinder. Gotta buckle down and get Slither up to the point where I can comfortably take on the SS Anne, blow through there, then head for Rock Tunnel. I have an Abra to teach Flash to, and am debating whether to give Dig to Slither, or wait until I've got my Growlithe.
(4/16/2010)
Brought Slither up to speed by going through the rest of the trainers on Rt. 11 east of Vermillion, took down Lt. Surge's Gym, and fought my way through the SS Anne. The rival battle went spectacularly well -- not only was the team quite nicely overlevelled by that point, but Norton's Swords Dance made the whole battle a series of one-shots. With the Thunderbadge, I can now use Fly outside of battle. Normally I wouldn't have the Fly HM at this stage of the game, but thanks to breeding Norton has the move anyway.
Next push will be to get to and through Rock Cave. That'll get me to Lavender, and while I won't be able to do anything about that Snorlax to the south yet, I'll be able to catch my Growlithe (gotta think of a good name). And I can also get the Tea for the thirsty Guards and open up the way though Saffron.
Movesets: I've decided that Dig should go to the Growlithe, and Giga Drain (after I beat Erika in Celadon) to Slither. Poison, as it turns out, seems to be weak against Ground, so having a Grass attack in his moveset would help with that. I might also bring over a Sludge Bomb TM from the main Rue cart, since Acid isn't terribly powerful and doesn't poison; and I had been thinking to give Toxic to Irving. I believe I'll go with a moveset of Bite, Dig, Flame Wheel (or Flamethrower if I can buy the TM) and Extremespeed for my future Arcanine.
(4/19/2010)
Rock Cave went fairly quickly, between Irving and Scorn, and I arrived in Lavender. Caught my Growlithe, though it took forever to find a female with the Flash Fire ability, and named her Khamsin (hot desert wind), which enabled me to retire Scorn. First thing after that, I nabbed my Eevee from the Celadon Mansion, then got the Tea and opened up Saffron. Between the trainers on that route, the Celadon Gym, and the Fighting Dojo, plus a passle of wild battles to rack up some EVs, I got the whole team up to lvl 33 (Norton to lvl 37). Taught Dig to Khamsin and Giga Drain to Slither.
So that gives me four out of six of my final team. The next objective is to get the Snorlax out of the way and get to Fuschia, which means getting the Poke Flute from Mr. Fuji, which in turn means getting the Silph Scope from the Team Rocket Hideout in Celadon. I might also try working the Game Corner enough to get Flamethrower for Khamsin, though that'll take 4000 coins -- not chump change.
Haven't done a darn thing in SS -- I'm still standing in front of Pryce's Gym. Didn't get many steps over the weekend due to cramps, either, so haven't caught anything new with the Pokewalker. Probably I'll keep going with the push through Kanto in FR until I get tired of it (most likely when I get impatient with Entei-hunting).
(4/20/2010)
Blew through the Game Corner Hideout and Pokemon Tower and got both Snorlax out of the way. Because the team's so overlevelled, most of the battles were just a series of one-shots, including the rival battle. Everyone's now lvl 35-37.
I also spent some time at the Game Corner and was able to rack up over 4000 coins -- though, now that I think about it, I might put them towards Ice Beam for my prospective Shellder. Or maybe try to win enough for both Ice Beam and Flamethrower; but if I can only have one, it'll be Ice Beam. Should probably take care of that before leaving Celadon.
So the next thing is the push towards Fuschia. Because I always take the waterside route, I'm thinking of going down Cycling Road this time. But I'll still want to grab the Super Rod, run out to Vermillion, and catch me a Shellder first. In fact, why haven't I done that already? D'oh.
Fuschia means the Safari Zone, which will net me a passle o' Pokes, plus Surf. Once I'm done there, I can take the waterside route back up around to Saffron to clear out Silph HQ. Then once Saffron Gym's down (and between Slither and Khamsin having Bite, this should be easy as long as they're properly levelled) it'll be off to Cinnabar. And THIS time I won't ignore Bill when he invites me to the islands.
...Though, it would likely be worth it to take a side-trip down to the Power Plant the moment I do get Surf, and get my Electabuzz. That way I can train it on those water routes.
That makes the plan: Get Super Rod > Catch Shellder > Down Cycling Road to Fuschia > Visit Safari Zone and obtain Surf > Catch Electabuzz at Power Plant > Circle back around to Saffron > Boot Team Rocket out of Silph HQ and get Master Ball > Defeat Sabrina > Head for Cinnibar > Do the Island sidequest.
Got my 5000 steps yesterday with a solid half-hour of walking and netted myself a Smoochum. Today's stroll on Blue Lake does not include either Dratini or Shellder, so I'll want to return and go back out to Blue Lake when I get home. Tonight's also Deadliest Catch and V, so maybe not much Poke-time.
(4/26/2010)
Much progress.
Got the Super Rod and caught my Shellder, a gal who I named Bertha (after Baltimore's "eat Bertha's mussels!" bumper stickers [ forgot that Pearl's hand-raised Cloyster is also named Bertha, oops ]). Bought Ice Beam at the Game Corner, and after levelling her up to get Aurora Beam and Protect, bought a Water Stone and evolved her to a Cloyster. Whereupon I set off down Cycling Road -- didn't fight all the Bikers right away but got to Fuschia.
That got me Surf, which Bertha immediately got taught, and finding the Warden's teeth got me Strength as well. Thus I ran up to the Power Plant and finally netted my Electabuzz, a male named Farraday (need to check spelling on that though). With my E4 team finally assembled, I went down Cycling Road again and took out the rest of the Bikers, then did a few turns through the Safari Zone to fill out my 'dex. Started up the coastal route back to Saffron, but didn't make it through all the trainers because it was getting late. I did get Exp Share, though, which should prove helpful, and the whole team's at lvl 39.
The next thing will be to finish up the coastal route, and to comb through the grass for a Ditto or two. Even though it's only that gang of Bikers and the fence-maze trainers, it could take a while to spot a Ditto. Then it'll be onward to clear the Rockets out of Silph Co. so I can get into the Saffron Gym. This'll also get me the Master Ball.
I've put almost 26 hours on FR so far, so I probably won't beat it in anything near 31 hours, but still. I've nearly got enough 'dex entries to get the Nat'l 'Dex right after the Elite Four, as long as I rescue Lostelle this time. Evolving Irving should do it; and he's got Synthesis now so I've taken away his Everstone. Getting through Silph should take care of levelling him enough to evolve -- in fact everyone should be lvl 40 or over by the time I hit the Gym. Koga gave me Toxic, so I should replace Poisonpowder with that, too.
After completing Saffron, the path will be: Return to Pallet > Surf to Cinnabar > Detour to Islands and rescue Lostelle > Find Gym Key in Cinnabar Mansion > Defeat Cinnabar Gym > Return to Viridian and defeat Gym > Hit the trail to the Pokemon League. I can leave the birds for after the E4, and after going through the Mansion and Victory Road I should have more than enough 'dex entries.
Once I've caught Entei (fingers crossed and knock on wood!) I'll probably transfer all the Berries to Emerald via rotating trades. Items can go to LG for now, and random catches should be Pal Parked (in fact I don't necessarily need to wait until the game is finished, for that). I should also take the opportunity to catch a breeding pair of all the FR exclusives, for transfer to both Emerald and LG.
So, besides that -- I got 5000 or more steps a day for five of seven days last week, along with my half-hour of walking. However, I managed to severely blister my feet by doing 50 minutes barefooted on Heather's and Julie's treadmill. So, won't get my steps for a few days, and will have to debate some other kind of exercise. I've netted a few more Pokes via the PW, but right now am on Night Sky's Edge for the valuable items.
And I actually DID make some progress in SS -- did some training in Mt. Mortar, and defeated Pryce's Gym. That, of course, triggered the call from Prof. Elm that the Rockets have taken over Goldenrod Tower, so that'll be the next task there. Interestingly, that puts both games at about the same point, and the teams at nearly the same levels.
(4/27/2010)
Definitely am not beating FR in my record hours -- I already have over 30 hours on it, and still have several major chunks of story to go.
Wrapped up the coastal route and caught a Ditto (might go back for another later). Then went to Saffron and cleaned out Silph. I'd been thinking it was about time my rival showed up again, and he did; his Gyrados gave me a little trouble but otherwise he went down pretty easily. With the Gym unblocked, I managed to sweep through all the minor trainers just with Slither. Sabrina's Alakazam gave me a LOT of trouble, though. It one-shotted two-thirds of my team by boosting Psychic with Calm Mind, and Farraday only JUST pulled through long enough to hit it with Strength one last time. Still, I got the badge, so that gives me obedience to lvl 70.
From Pallet I turned south, caught a Tangela, then avoided all the trainers on the way to Cinnabar. Bill was nowhere in sight, which means that I will have to get the key from the Mansion and beat Blaine before I can do the Island subquest. Should also go back over the water and take out all those trainers. And I keep forgetting to teach Irving Toxic; though I did finally let him evolve.
(5/3/2010)
Did not get nearly as many steps from Sheep and Wool this weekend as I'd expected. Too many people and more shuffling and standing than actual walking. My feet hurt from the standing but the blisters were OK.
Got through the Cinnibar Mansion, though, and took down most of Blaine's Gym with Khamsin and Dig. That triggered the Island sequence, so I followed Bill down there and rescued Lostelle. Since I was around there anyway, I also trucked out to the cape on Two Island and got Frenzy Plant for Irving. With that done, the next thing was Viridian Gym, which I wasn't levelled enough to tackle. So I spent a bunch of time running around the Power Plant and Cinnabar Mansion, as well as fishing off Cinnibar, to collect more of the FR exclusives. Besides those, you can also catch some final evo's that aren't in LG, like Seadra and Weezing; so I went ahead and nabbed those too.
When I'd caught enough, the team ranged from Norton at lvl 45 to Irving at lvl 50, so I decided to take on the Viridian Gym. Lots of trainers there with large teams, but Bertha Surfed all the Ground-types to oblivion, and Norton handled the fighting types. Bertha took down all of Giovanni's team as well -- I'd held Irving in reserve but didn't even need him. I remembered to pick up the hidden Macho Brace, healed up at the Pokecenter, and saved.
So now all that stands between me and the E4 is Victory Road. That'll give me a chance to fill out my 'dex some more and get my levels up properly. For the E4 themselves, Khamsin and Farraday should take care of Lorelei and Agatha, Bertha and Norton should be good for Bruno, and Bertha and Farraday should be able to take on Lance. Then it's just that last rival battle, and I can grab the Nat'l 'Dex and start Entei-hunting!
(5/4/2010)
Got through Victory Road in just a couple runs. I was able to catch some Ekans and a couple Arbok, though I missed catching a Machamp. Oddly enough, the wild encounters were almost more trouble than the trainers.
That left me at the doorstep of the Elite Four, and got me Fly access to Indigo Plateau. Thing is, the team's still only lvls 47-50, which is too dang low to take on the E4. Training will be required -- I think I've beat the E4 with a lvl 55 team, so I'll aim for that (which, amusingly, should let me have a nice even battle with one of my other teams, while I'm doing my trading).
From there, I should probably start the process of cleaning out the cartridge. Theoretically I should Pal Park all the non-exclusive random catches to Pearl and transfer them to the Ranch....by the time I'm done I might actually have caught Entei.
FR exclusives will go to LG only -- I don't feel like going through the Islands and fixing the dang machine AGAIN. Although maybe it'd be worth it to pick up another Sludge Bomb TM, since I plan to teach that to Slither. Dunno.
I should likely collect the legendary birds as long as I'm at it, though Mewtwo will depend on whether I feel like completing the Islands again. Then it's items/team/specials/exclusives to LG, Berries to Emerald (if I work the rotating trades with the FR exclusives, that'd take care of that, though the machine would have to have been fixed first).
Bah, who am I kidding, I'll probably finish the whole thing again, 'cause I'm me. Maybe I should go Entei-hunting first, and see how I feel about it after I've netted him.
Still. SO CLOSE. And then I can concentrate on SS, after all this is over with.
(5/5/2010)
Note to self: lvl 50 is too dang low to take on the Elite Four, especially with several weaker team members.
Since I was there, I figured I'd give the E4 a try. Not that I expected to win or anything, but whoah were they a LOT harder with the team not properly levelled. I was already in trouble in the first battle, and had to fall back on revives and potions just to keep going. Even so, I made it all the way to the final rival battle, and through most of his Pokemon. I had just two more to take down when he finally got me.
But that gets me thinking. There's no way of telling when you've maxed your EVs in FR/LG, short of trying to feed your Pokemon vitamins, and them having no effect. If I did that, though, and was able to confirm that the team's got its max EVs, then I could level them with the Rare Candies I've been saving. I've already got three games' worth of the dang things, and it sure would be a lot faster. And I lost with a narrow enough margin that just a few more levels should do the trick.
The other thing I should really do before hitting the E4 again is bring over Sludge Bomb for Slither, because Acid sure as heck wasn't cutting it, and Sludge Bomb did a LOT of damage when Agatha's Arbok hit me with it. While I'm at it I could probably trade the FR exclusives for the LG ones, and fill out the 'dex just a bit more.
I do have to say, though, Slither did better than I thought. When my supereffective choice went down (which happened a LOT) I found myself going back to him time and again as the one to throw out there until I could get my other Pokemon revived. Hopefully that won't be necessary next time, and I can one-shot or two-shot most everything.
(5/10/2010)
And the Elite Four are DOWN.
The vitamin idea didn't work, because as it turned out, more than one team member did not have their full EVs. So instead, I ran around a bit in Victory Road and elsewhere to train, then got impatient with that and just fed everyone a Rare Candy and went for it.
At around lvl 53 this is probably the lowest-levelled team that I've ever taken up against the Elite Four. Still, it went a heckuva lot better than last time. I was able to down most of their Pokes in one hit, and only a few really gave me any trouble. Not an easy win, but not as difficult as, say, the E4 were in Platinum.
This is both good news and bad news: I can go Entei-hunting! Which means....going Entei hunting, and all the time and patience that requires. I've only gone at it three or four turns so far, and I'm already tired of it. But I've got to remember, it took weeks of searching to find Suicune and Raikou, and there's no reason to hope that the RNG will be any kinder to me this time around.
On the SS side of things, I booted up long enough to sell some of the Pokewalker goodies and see if my trade went through yet (after what, a couple weeks?), and discovered that Team Rocket are blocking access to the GTS. How dare they! A trouncing is clearly in order.
I also kept Hootie on the cartridge long enough to feed him a Rare Candy and evolve him. At some point I may fix his moveset, but I have to get to Blackthorn first, which means clearing the Rockets out of Goldenrod.
More importantly, I cleared 9,000 steps for the first time! Since the Mt. Airy shop didn't have any Sidewinders to show me, I went by Subaru for a test drive of an Outback, and came to the conclusion that it's more car than I can justify needing. And then I went out to Ellicott City to check out the Short Line #9 trail. I did at least fifteen or twenty minutes each way, for a good 6,000-some steps, then went home and jogged for the other few thousand. Caught a Bouncing Magikarp, a Bronzor, and a Duskull, but did not get the Munchlax with Leftovers. They only have a 5% appearance rate, but I'm fairly sure they're on my current stroll, so I'm going to save up my Watts until I can get 8,000+ steps again.
In retrospect: SS up to Olivine
(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(3/25/2010)
Too tired after Lorien last night to do any Poke-ing. But I did have over 3,000 steps -- and when I activated the Pokeradar, I only saw Paras. Which MIGHT mean that the Group A Pokemon for this stroll is Wobbuffet, who is the rarer one. That would mean, in turn, that I need to rack up 4,000 steps today so I can try to catch one. Maybe I can walk around my allergists' building or something?
I also owe Petty a Buneary with Sky Uppercut, to trade for that Spinarak Sunday. Luckily I'll be breeding in Pearl, and Hitmonchan get Sky Uppercut at lvl 36, plus all the elemental punches at lvl 31. Ah, but wait -- if I'm going to tutor Bounce instead of levelling two Buneary to lvl 46, I need to breed in Platinum, where I might not have a Hitmonchan. Graaaaah. Oh well, will make it work somehow. I'm thinking Sky Uppercut, Bounce, Ice Punch, and some interesting TM.
(3/26/2010)
Caught my Wobbuffet last night, though I needed over 5000 steps to do it. Today's stroll is on the Rugged Road, where the selection of the day includes Onix, Geodude, and not sure what the group B one will be.
Also booted Team Rocket out of Slowpoke Well -- Executive Proton was surprisingly weak -- then went for the Azalea Gym. Their bugs burned nicely as expected, with the exception of Bugsy's Scyther. Switching out Cynder for Rocky did the trick though. Then I ventured far enough into Ilex to find the missing Farfetch'd and get Cut (need to remember to pick up the Charcoal from the kiln apprentice). So I'm now at the point where I need the event Pichu for Ilex. All the core team are now trying to evolve (except Cynder, who's holding the Everstone).
I also need to decide what I want to do with Izzel's moveset. The original Izzel from Silver had Cut, Swift, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes -- a theme of quickness, accuracy, and slashing claws. But I'll need someone on the team to learn Headbutt, shortly. I'd wanted her to learn Slam, but Headbutt is nearly as good and more accurate. Cut is a natural replacement for Scratch. But Fury Swipes? why did I keep such a pathetic attack? I see from Bulbapedia that back in GII they didn't learn much after that (Swift was a TM, and this was back when it was a kickass attack). In fact, they STILL don't learn much of use beyond Slam at 19. And she's already got Quick Attack and Fury Swipes, so maybe I teach her Cut and then just replace Swift with something. Again, it's nostalgia vs. utility. [no. I forgot the kind of damage Fury Swipes can do in a fast Pokemon with a high Attack. Izzel totally rocks the Fury Swipes, as the original Silver one must have.]
Maybe I could teach Headbutt to Rocky instead. I already stuck him with Rock Smash. This creates its own problem, though, because that puts two field moves on a Pokemon I am not planning to keep on the team. ...y'know, though. Making him a Steelix might not be a bad idea; they get Crunch later, and they're Steel/Ground, so Dig would be super-effective. Hmmm.
The essential conundrum here is the nostalgia thing. Do I duplicate my Silver team move-for-move, even though the GII learnsets were so limited? Or do I give up on straight duplication, and go for the newer better moves in GIV? I suspect that the answer is somewhere in the middle....keep signature moves/themes, but replace what just doesn't make sense. I can't just ignore the new attacks, after all. Goodness knows my Blue-redo team in LG didn't end up much resembling their forebearers.
The original Cynder had Swift, Rollout, Flame Wheel, and Flamethrower, all of which they still learn. The only HM they can learn is Cut. Think I'll go for nostalgia here....or maybe, replace Flame Wheel with Lava Plume?
The original Sheepish had Strength, Flash, Thundershock, and Thunder. I usually do end up putting Strength on my Electric types, so that's fine. But Flash? I suspect I needed that to get through Victory Road, and I would much rather keep Thunder Wave. Thunder is still the most powerful attack they learn, but now they can also get interesting stuff like Discharge, Signal Beam, and Power Gem. ...heh. If Faros were an Ampharos, he'd totally have those last two. But for Sheepish I think I'll do Strength, Thunder Wave, Discharge (i.e. an upgraded version of Thundershock), and Thunder.
Hootie's moveset doesn't really matter much, since moves aren't used on the Pokewalker, but I can probably do a close dupe of his original Silver moveset; I don't think Nightmare is available anymore though.
It'll be a while before I get my Natu, so I can worry about that when I get there....plus, since I didn't raise one last time, I can do what I want. Natu should learn Miracle Eye, though; this removes Dark's immunity to Psychic attacks. They also get Night Shade and Teleport pretty early. After evolving, Xatu can also learn Fly and Defog...no Headbutt though. Teleport can be replaced with Fly (which is essentially Teleport with the choice of destination), then the rest can be Miracle Eye, Night Shade, and Psychic.
Oh, but what about my prospective Spinarak? ...actually, they don't learn much either in terms of level-up moves, aside of Night Shade, and don't learn any HM moves either. But they can learn Flash and Dig (sadly, not Headbutt). Signal Beam can be tutored, in the Frontier Front for BP in SS, or by the Survival Area tutor for two of each shard in Pt. Given the Bug/Poison combo, Toxic would be a natural choice as well. Note that they also learn Spider Web, which keeps the target from escaping or switching out; this is one of two Bug moves they learn by level-up.
I gotta say, the necessity of Flash is really annoying. As is the fact that there's so darn many field moves, when only a few are really useful enough to keep around all the time (like Fly or Surf).
(3/29/2010)
And after all that, when I got to Ilex Forest and met the Headbutt guy, the only team Pokes I had with me were Cynder, Rocky, and Izzel, because of having to clear the party for the two Pichus. So, Izzel got Headbutt, and I let her evolve since she's got that instead of Slam. Might have to throw Rock Smash on her too someday....too many dang HMs and field moves.
On the plus side, I did pick up the special notch-eared Pichu. And bred a wacky Buneary with Sky Uppercut, Bounce, Ice Punch, and Solarbeam for Petty, and got a Spinarak Egg in return. Since it hatched male, it got named Chet. It's got no special moves, just what they get at lvl 1, but I'm going to take it out to the early Routes and train it. Can pick up Apricorns and take the notch-eared Pichu by Prof. Elm's while I'm at it.
On the not-so-plus side, breeding that Buneary took an awfully long time, seeing as I had yet to get up to the Survival Area in Platinum. And while I was levelling stuff up I made the decision -- unwise, in retrospect -- to go catch my Shaymin as per Oak's Letter. However, this turned out to be on Rt. 224, and for that I had to truck through the back end of Victory Road, and doing that got me stuck with Marley. In fog. So getting through there took longer than it needed to. But I did catch my Shaymin and named her Petunia, and Corwin did help me move stuff over to SS. He also gave me an Egg containing a Wooper with Surf, Earthquake, and Blizzard, bred I think from the Quagsire from the previous trainer's game.
All this Poke-ing, though, meant I didn't get in much walking. I did walk up to the Paradise 7-11 for some milk, but even that little walk had me panting for breath. I tried to offset this by stepping in place during episodes of SGU, but I can't do that for more than five minutes, either. So I ended up with maybe 3000 steps for the entire weekend, which meant I didn't get any Group A Pokemon from Beautiful Beach.
Also need to send Jirachi to the Pokewalker to unlock Edge of the Night Sky. And there's an event Saturday for a Pokemon group on dA, where everyone brings five Eggs, and trades them with everyone else so that everyone ends up with five Eggs. I know I've got stuff I can run off in Pearl, so I'm thinking of attending....I love the random mystery Egg trade idea.
Anyway. Need to do some walking today, and maybe fire up the Wii to get in a half hour of SOME kind of exercise. D: Maybe spring for Wii Fit Plus, or Wii Sports Resort? Also need to return that cart of FR....
(3/30/2010)
V starts up again tonight. And SGU starts up again Friday, and Deadliest Catch on Tues Apr 13. WHOO
Have been training Chet (have to check if his name should actually be Chester? can't remember) diligently outside New Bark Town, and he's finally getting to where he can hold his own against the weaker Pokes there. Took the notch-eared Pichu to show Prof. Elm, who talked about time travel and Celebi and that this Pichu had surely travelled too much through time so take extra good care of it. So of course I dumped it in the PC and went back to training. ;P
Managed over 5,000 steps yesterday despite the rain -- took the long way 'round the building, walked up 7 floors of the parking garage, and did a LOT of running in place while catching up with the season finale of Caprica. Caught a Poliwhirl, a Slowpoke, and a Staryu off the Pokewalker.
Also signed up for the Poke-fanclub's Easter Egg Scramble, despite having to join the group to do it, and also despite the fact that I'll be at a hotel on Saturday, which means re-configuring WiFi. I should look for a hotel and make sure to get one with wireless internet...
Tonight I wanna train Chet some more, pick up Apricorns along my way back to Azalea, and then see if I can't get to Goldenrod. This will get me Daycare access, and hopefully GTS access too. And I'll need to look over my breeding pairs in Pearl before this weekend, and see what's interesting for the Scramble.
(3/31/2010)
Holy crap, it's gonna be April already and I haven't done my taxes. O:
Trekked back to Azalea, picking up Apricorns and training Chet as I went. Made it through the rest of Ilex and up to Goldenrod, then spent time running around the town. The layout's basically the same, but the graphics are vastly improved -- the place looks great. I grabbed my Bike, answered a quiz for my Radio Card, fought trainers in the Underground and got the Fashion Case from Ethan, and finally got Izzel properly named. Stopped by the GTS to register my location and upload a Sunkern, in hopes of getting the international trade I need to unlock the Beyond the Sea Pokewalker course. And tried out the new Voltorb Flip game in the Game Corner, which is HORRIFYINGLY addictive.
Surprisingly, Ethan showed up to introduce me to the Day Care couple, who are apparently his grandparents. Given their confusion over where those Eggs keep coming from, it's my guess that they adopted. XD
In Pokewalker news, I think this stroll might have Elekid on it, so I didn't connect the Pokewalker last night, and took a 20-minute walk at lunchtime today. I've already got 3500+ of the 5000 steps I'd need to catch one, if it's there, so I think I can do it. Maybe.
Next goal in the game is to wallop Whitney, and that'll take some preparation. I have verrry bad memories of her Miltank -- between Stomp and Rollout, it's a huge powerhouse, and with Milk Drink, it might be almost impossible to take down. Plus Attract, to mess with the boys. It's lvl 19 so I'd best be at levels around 25. Luckily Sheepish and Izzel are both female; maybe if Sheepish can paralyze it (Lum Berry notwithstanding) then I'd have a chance.
After that I can get the Squirtbottle, and possibly the Berry Planter. Should also nab the Gracidea while I'm there.
(4/1/2010)
Well, THAT was anticlimactic.
In dread of Whitney, I spent time running up north of Goldenrod and fighting trainers along routes and in the National Park to get the team up around lvl 22 before I even set foot in the Gym. Yet, when I actually faced her, her Jigglypuff went down to Izzel in one hit, and Rocky and Sheepish took care of her Miltank without too much trouble. Got the Plain Badge first try, and can now use Strength outside of battle (not that I've found the HM yet).
With that done, I got the Squirtbottle from the Flower Shop, and caught the Sudowoodo. Flora from the Flower Shop was standing there, and gave me the Berry Planters, so during beach trip I might try growing me some Berries since I'll be around to water them. I did bring Petunia by the Flower Shop before doing that, and the lady there didn't react to her; but I ought to go back and try again now that the Sudowoodo has been dealt with.
Spent waaaaay too much time trying the Voltorb Flip. It's much easier to win coins a little at a time if you quit the games while you're ahead, but really dang hard to actually clear a game. Still, I've already got over 1000 coins. I'm saving for a Dratini (now I know where Wyrmling came from, in my Silver game).
Couldn't find an Elekid on the Pokewalker to save my life, even though I easily got 5000 steps yesterday. The book says the chance of them appearing is really really low....so maybe I just rack up as many watts as I can in advance of beach, then walk the Boardwalk to get the steps I need and just keep trying?
(4/2/2010)
Morty more than made up for what Whitney lacked.
In a fit of complacency, fresh from my victory at Goldenrod's gym, I trucked on up to Ecruteak (after a quick stop at the Bug-Catching Contest, where I placed third with a Pinsir). I made the rounds of the town, rescued the Kimono Girl from the Rocket Grunt (winning Surf in the process), and took a turn through the Burned Tower. Trounced my rival, met Euisine, released the legendary beast trio. And then, with no further training or ado, I took on the Ecruteak Gym.
The Mediums went down so easily -- one or two shots of Cynder's Flame Wheel for each Pokemon -- that I got cocky and went right up to Morty. And his lvl 25 Gengar proceeded to one-shot half my team with Shadow Ball. If I hadn't been carrying Petunia, I'd have lost that battle. As it was, I was able to squeak through with most of the team down, Cynder at 1 HP, and Petunia using Synthesis to fend off Curse. T'was not a pretty sight. But I have the Fog Badge, obedience to lvl 50, the ability to use Surf, and the Shadow Ball TM.
Before continuing on to Olivine, I want to check out the Bell Tower in Ecruteak, then head down to the Ruins of Alph to net me some Unown and catch my Natu. I'll need a temp Pokemon to teach Surf to, since I don't have Vermillion yet, but it can't be helped.
I should also check on that Ditto I caught, and see if it has Rocky's moveset. And possibly see about that guard and his Spearow with Mail. And let's not forget that somewhere before 7 PM tomorrow, I need to scrape together five Eggs in Pearl for the Scramble event.
As to the Pokewalker -- I finally caught a couple Elekid, even though I spent over 300 carefully hoarded watts to do it, so I was able to finally end my Suburban Area stroll. Downloaded the Yellow Forest, and when I went in to start a new stroll, I noticed that there was a second page of courses. Night Sky's Edge was right there on that second page. DUH. So, have started that, and will likely transfer stuff back at points tomorrow to rack up Stardusts, which are really really easy to find and will get me some money. WHOO. There's no Pokemon worth the watts on this course except Jigglypuff and Clefairy, which both require 5000 steps. We shall see.
(4/7/2010)
Too much progress to go into detail. I did get a Clefairy off Night Sky's Edge, and won enough coins at Voltorb Flip to net me a Dratini to use as my temp Surfer (since she's female I am duping Aquamarine from Blue instead of Wyrmling from Silver). Delivered that Spearow, and the Ditto did not have Rocky's moveset. Also got down to the Ruins after getting Surf and caught Peya, my Natu.
However, ComfortInn's WiFi was set to pop up a terms and conditions page, which prevented the DS from being able to connect. So, even though I'd bred Eggs for the Scramble, I couldn't participate. I even tried walking down to Somerset St to try the municipal WiFi, but with no luck. I've offered them as WiFi prizes for the club.
I tried the Yellow Forest course, but found that I'm not yet in shape enough to walk 10K steps. Mostly I just kept the Watts, since I spent more time cycling than walking (yay bannana bikes). I didn't do any Berry growing at all, despite my best intentions.
Got over to Cianwood and beat that Gym, which was also harder than I'd expected, and brought back the SecretPotion for Amphy. But my first attempt at the Olivine Gym was a complete disaster, so much so that I just switched off the DS rather than lose yet more money. The team's levels just aren't high enough, and preventing them from evolving is starting to bite me in the ass. Peya and Chet are also just weaker than they should be for their levels. I'm going to have to do some serious levelling before taking on Jasmine again -- get Cynder up to learning Flamethrower so he can evolve, and maybe go in there with Petunia as well.
Unfinished tasks include catching a good Krabby to trade that one guy, and getting enough Oran Berries to heal the farm's Miltank. I foolishly started feeding her all my Oran Berries without growing more, and guess what! I didn't have enough. Gonna have to net some off the Pokewalker and grow them -- according to Serebii, they appear with 50% probability on Refreshing Field between 300 and 500 steps.
And another thing: Before leaving for OC I swung by the Catonsville GameStop to exchange that FR cart. Turned out that the cartridge was an illegal hack -- as in, not even made by Nintendo! I should have spotted it -- the cartridge was clear red, not solid; and the version name printing was different. However, they did have a real FR cartridge, so I was able to exchange. Even better (from my viewpoint) there's virtually nothing already on the game. Just a gibberish-named Charmeleon and some common low-level Pokes in the party...the PC is empty. The only standout items are a Star Piece and a Moon Stone.
So I'll just trade out the Charmeleon and the Star Piece, and re-start. Pick my new Irving, get to Viridian, then breed another Farfetch'd (and thankfully the parents are already set up, so this won't take long) and trade it over. That way I'll have a Flying type going into Viridian Forest, and can Peck the heck outta all those bugs. It'd be nice to have something else as insurance, just to get me through Mt. Moon, but I may just see if I can blitz through there with only the two? Maybe I just need to invest in some Repels. Hopefully the new Slither won't be as fragile, and I can get back to Vermillion without too much trouble.
(3/25/2010)
Too tired after Lorien last night to do any Poke-ing. But I did have over 3,000 steps -- and when I activated the Pokeradar, I only saw Paras. Which MIGHT mean that the Group A Pokemon for this stroll is Wobbuffet, who is the rarer one. That would mean, in turn, that I need to rack up 4,000 steps today so I can try to catch one. Maybe I can walk around my allergists' building or something?
I also owe Petty a Buneary with Sky Uppercut, to trade for that Spinarak Sunday. Luckily I'll be breeding in Pearl, and Hitmonchan get Sky Uppercut at lvl 36, plus all the elemental punches at lvl 31. Ah, but wait -- if I'm going to tutor Bounce instead of levelling two Buneary to lvl 46, I need to breed in Platinum, where I might not have a Hitmonchan. Graaaaah. Oh well, will make it work somehow. I'm thinking Sky Uppercut, Bounce, Ice Punch, and some interesting TM.
(3/26/2010)
Caught my Wobbuffet last night, though I needed over 5000 steps to do it. Today's stroll is on the Rugged Road, where the selection of the day includes Onix, Geodude, and not sure what the group B one will be.
Also booted Team Rocket out of Slowpoke Well -- Executive Proton was surprisingly weak -- then went for the Azalea Gym. Their bugs burned nicely as expected, with the exception of Bugsy's Scyther. Switching out Cynder for Rocky did the trick though. Then I ventured far enough into Ilex to find the missing Farfetch'd and get Cut (need to remember to pick up the Charcoal from the kiln apprentice). So I'm now at the point where I need the event Pichu for Ilex. All the core team are now trying to evolve (except Cynder, who's holding the Everstone).
I also need to decide what I want to do with Izzel's moveset. The original Izzel from Silver had Cut, Swift, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes -- a theme of quickness, accuracy, and slashing claws. But I'll need someone on the team to learn Headbutt, shortly. I'd wanted her to learn Slam, but Headbutt is nearly as good and more accurate. Cut is a natural replacement for Scratch. But Fury Swipes? why did I keep such a pathetic attack? I see from Bulbapedia that back in GII they didn't learn much after that (Swift was a TM, and this was back when it was a kickass attack). In fact, they STILL don't learn much of use beyond Slam at 19. And she's already got Quick Attack and Fury Swipes, so maybe I teach her Cut and then just replace Swift with something. Again, it's nostalgia vs. utility. [no. I forgot the kind of damage Fury Swipes can do in a fast Pokemon with a high Attack. Izzel totally rocks the Fury Swipes, as the original Silver one must have.]
Maybe I could teach Headbutt to Rocky instead. I already stuck him with Rock Smash. This creates its own problem, though, because that puts two field moves on a Pokemon I am not planning to keep on the team. ...y'know, though. Making him a Steelix might not be a bad idea; they get Crunch later, and they're Steel/Ground, so Dig would be super-effective. Hmmm.
The essential conundrum here is the nostalgia thing. Do I duplicate my Silver team move-for-move, even though the GII learnsets were so limited? Or do I give up on straight duplication, and go for the newer better moves in GIV? I suspect that the answer is somewhere in the middle....keep signature moves/themes, but replace what just doesn't make sense. I can't just ignore the new attacks, after all. Goodness knows my Blue-redo team in LG didn't end up much resembling their forebearers.
The original Cynder had Swift, Rollout, Flame Wheel, and Flamethrower, all of which they still learn. The only HM they can learn is Cut. Think I'll go for nostalgia here....or maybe, replace Flame Wheel with Lava Plume?
The original Sheepish had Strength, Flash, Thundershock, and Thunder. I usually do end up putting Strength on my Electric types, so that's fine. But Flash? I suspect I needed that to get through Victory Road, and I would much rather keep Thunder Wave. Thunder is still the most powerful attack they learn, but now they can also get interesting stuff like Discharge, Signal Beam, and Power Gem. ...heh. If Faros were an Ampharos, he'd totally have those last two. But for Sheepish I think I'll do Strength, Thunder Wave, Discharge (i.e. an upgraded version of Thundershock), and Thunder.
Hootie's moveset doesn't really matter much, since moves aren't used on the Pokewalker, but I can probably do a close dupe of his original Silver moveset; I don't think Nightmare is available anymore though.
It'll be a while before I get my Natu, so I can worry about that when I get there....plus, since I didn't raise one last time, I can do what I want. Natu should learn Miracle Eye, though; this removes Dark's immunity to Psychic attacks. They also get Night Shade and Teleport pretty early. After evolving, Xatu can also learn Fly and Defog...no Headbutt though. Teleport can be replaced with Fly (which is essentially Teleport with the choice of destination), then the rest can be Miracle Eye, Night Shade, and Psychic.
Oh, but what about my prospective Spinarak? ...actually, they don't learn much either in terms of level-up moves, aside of Night Shade, and don't learn any HM moves either. But they can learn Flash and Dig (sadly, not Headbutt). Signal Beam can be tutored, in the Frontier Front for BP in SS, or by the Survival Area tutor for two of each shard in Pt. Given the Bug/Poison combo, Toxic would be a natural choice as well. Note that they also learn Spider Web, which keeps the target from escaping or switching out; this is one of two Bug moves they learn by level-up.
I gotta say, the necessity of Flash is really annoying. As is the fact that there's so darn many field moves, when only a few are really useful enough to keep around all the time (like Fly or Surf).
(3/29/2010)
And after all that, when I got to Ilex Forest and met the Headbutt guy, the only team Pokes I had with me were Cynder, Rocky, and Izzel, because of having to clear the party for the two Pichus. So, Izzel got Headbutt, and I let her evolve since she's got that instead of Slam. Might have to throw Rock Smash on her too someday....too many dang HMs and field moves.
On the plus side, I did pick up the special notch-eared Pichu. And bred a wacky Buneary with Sky Uppercut, Bounce, Ice Punch, and Solarbeam for Petty, and got a Spinarak Egg in return. Since it hatched male, it got named Chet. It's got no special moves, just what they get at lvl 1, but I'm going to take it out to the early Routes and train it. Can pick up Apricorns and take the notch-eared Pichu by Prof. Elm's while I'm at it.
On the not-so-plus side, breeding that Buneary took an awfully long time, seeing as I had yet to get up to the Survival Area in Platinum. And while I was levelling stuff up I made the decision -- unwise, in retrospect -- to go catch my Shaymin as per Oak's Letter. However, this turned out to be on Rt. 224, and for that I had to truck through the back end of Victory Road, and doing that got me stuck with Marley. In fog. So getting through there took longer than it needed to. But I did catch my Shaymin and named her Petunia, and Corwin did help me move stuff over to SS. He also gave me an Egg containing a Wooper with Surf, Earthquake, and Blizzard, bred I think from the Quagsire from the previous trainer's game.
All this Poke-ing, though, meant I didn't get in much walking. I did walk up to the Paradise 7-11 for some milk, but even that little walk had me panting for breath. I tried to offset this by stepping in place during episodes of SGU, but I can't do that for more than five minutes, either. So I ended up with maybe 3000 steps for the entire weekend, which meant I didn't get any Group A Pokemon from Beautiful Beach.
Also need to send Jirachi to the Pokewalker to unlock Edge of the Night Sky. And there's an event Saturday for a Pokemon group on dA, where everyone brings five Eggs, and trades them with everyone else so that everyone ends up with five Eggs. I know I've got stuff I can run off in Pearl, so I'm thinking of attending....I love the random mystery Egg trade idea.
Anyway. Need to do some walking today, and maybe fire up the Wii to get in a half hour of SOME kind of exercise. D: Maybe spring for Wii Fit Plus, or Wii Sports Resort? Also need to return that cart of FR....
(3/30/2010)
V starts up again tonight. And SGU starts up again Friday, and Deadliest Catch on Tues Apr 13. WHOO
Have been training Chet (have to check if his name should actually be Chester? can't remember) diligently outside New Bark Town, and he's finally getting to where he can hold his own against the weaker Pokes there. Took the notch-eared Pichu to show Prof. Elm, who talked about time travel and Celebi and that this Pichu had surely travelled too much through time so take extra good care of it. So of course I dumped it in the PC and went back to training. ;P
Managed over 5,000 steps yesterday despite the rain -- took the long way 'round the building, walked up 7 floors of the parking garage, and did a LOT of running in place while catching up with the season finale of Caprica. Caught a Poliwhirl, a Slowpoke, and a Staryu off the Pokewalker.
Also signed up for the Poke-fanclub's Easter Egg Scramble, despite having to join the group to do it, and also despite the fact that I'll be at a hotel on Saturday, which means re-configuring WiFi. I should look for a hotel and make sure to get one with wireless internet...
Tonight I wanna train Chet some more, pick up Apricorns along my way back to Azalea, and then see if I can't get to Goldenrod. This will get me Daycare access, and hopefully GTS access too. And I'll need to look over my breeding pairs in Pearl before this weekend, and see what's interesting for the Scramble.
(3/31/2010)
Holy crap, it's gonna be April already and I haven't done my taxes. O:
Trekked back to Azalea, picking up Apricorns and training Chet as I went. Made it through the rest of Ilex and up to Goldenrod, then spent time running around the town. The layout's basically the same, but the graphics are vastly improved -- the place looks great. I grabbed my Bike, answered a quiz for my Radio Card, fought trainers in the Underground and got the Fashion Case from Ethan, and finally got Izzel properly named. Stopped by the GTS to register my location and upload a Sunkern, in hopes of getting the international trade I need to unlock the Beyond the Sea Pokewalker course. And tried out the new Voltorb Flip game in the Game Corner, which is HORRIFYINGLY addictive.
Surprisingly, Ethan showed up to introduce me to the Day Care couple, who are apparently his grandparents. Given their confusion over where those Eggs keep coming from, it's my guess that they adopted. XD
In Pokewalker news, I think this stroll might have Elekid on it, so I didn't connect the Pokewalker last night, and took a 20-minute walk at lunchtime today. I've already got 3500+ of the 5000 steps I'd need to catch one, if it's there, so I think I can do it. Maybe.
Next goal in the game is to wallop Whitney, and that'll take some preparation. I have verrry bad memories of her Miltank -- between Stomp and Rollout, it's a huge powerhouse, and with Milk Drink, it might be almost impossible to take down. Plus Attract, to mess with the boys. It's lvl 19 so I'd best be at levels around 25. Luckily Sheepish and Izzel are both female; maybe if Sheepish can paralyze it (Lum Berry notwithstanding) then I'd have a chance.
After that I can get the Squirtbottle, and possibly the Berry Planter. Should also nab the Gracidea while I'm there.
(4/1/2010)
Well, THAT was anticlimactic.
In dread of Whitney, I spent time running up north of Goldenrod and fighting trainers along routes and in the National Park to get the team up around lvl 22 before I even set foot in the Gym. Yet, when I actually faced her, her Jigglypuff went down to Izzel in one hit, and Rocky and Sheepish took care of her Miltank without too much trouble. Got the Plain Badge first try, and can now use Strength outside of battle (not that I've found the HM yet).
With that done, I got the Squirtbottle from the Flower Shop, and caught the Sudowoodo. Flora from the Flower Shop was standing there, and gave me the Berry Planters, so during beach trip I might try growing me some Berries since I'll be around to water them. I did bring Petunia by the Flower Shop before doing that, and the lady there didn't react to her; but I ought to go back and try again now that the Sudowoodo has been dealt with.
Spent waaaaay too much time trying the Voltorb Flip. It's much easier to win coins a little at a time if you quit the games while you're ahead, but really dang hard to actually clear a game. Still, I've already got over 1000 coins. I'm saving for a Dratini (now I know where Wyrmling came from, in my Silver game).
Couldn't find an Elekid on the Pokewalker to save my life, even though I easily got 5000 steps yesterday. The book says the chance of them appearing is really really low....so maybe I just rack up as many watts as I can in advance of beach, then walk the Boardwalk to get the steps I need and just keep trying?
(4/2/2010)
Morty more than made up for what Whitney lacked.
In a fit of complacency, fresh from my victory at Goldenrod's gym, I trucked on up to Ecruteak (after a quick stop at the Bug-Catching Contest, where I placed third with a Pinsir). I made the rounds of the town, rescued the Kimono Girl from the Rocket Grunt (winning Surf in the process), and took a turn through the Burned Tower. Trounced my rival, met Euisine, released the legendary beast trio. And then, with no further training or ado, I took on the Ecruteak Gym.
The Mediums went down so easily -- one or two shots of Cynder's Flame Wheel for each Pokemon -- that I got cocky and went right up to Morty. And his lvl 25 Gengar proceeded to one-shot half my team with Shadow Ball. If I hadn't been carrying Petunia, I'd have lost that battle. As it was, I was able to squeak through with most of the team down, Cynder at 1 HP, and Petunia using Synthesis to fend off Curse. T'was not a pretty sight. But I have the Fog Badge, obedience to lvl 50, the ability to use Surf, and the Shadow Ball TM.
Before continuing on to Olivine, I want to check out the Bell Tower in Ecruteak, then head down to the Ruins of Alph to net me some Unown and catch my Natu. I'll need a temp Pokemon to teach Surf to, since I don't have Vermillion yet, but it can't be helped.
I should also check on that Ditto I caught, and see if it has Rocky's moveset. And possibly see about that guard and his Spearow with Mail. And let's not forget that somewhere before 7 PM tomorrow, I need to scrape together five Eggs in Pearl for the Scramble event.
As to the Pokewalker -- I finally caught a couple Elekid, even though I spent over 300 carefully hoarded watts to do it, so I was able to finally end my Suburban Area stroll. Downloaded the Yellow Forest, and when I went in to start a new stroll, I noticed that there was a second page of courses. Night Sky's Edge was right there on that second page. DUH. So, have started that, and will likely transfer stuff back at points tomorrow to rack up Stardusts, which are really really easy to find and will get me some money. WHOO. There's no Pokemon worth the watts on this course except Jigglypuff and Clefairy, which both require 5000 steps. We shall see.
(4/7/2010)
Too much progress to go into detail. I did get a Clefairy off Night Sky's Edge, and won enough coins at Voltorb Flip to net me a Dratini to use as my temp Surfer (since she's female I am duping Aquamarine from Blue instead of Wyrmling from Silver). Delivered that Spearow, and the Ditto did not have Rocky's moveset. Also got down to the Ruins after getting Surf and caught Peya, my Natu.
However, ComfortInn's WiFi was set to pop up a terms and conditions page, which prevented the DS from being able to connect. So, even though I'd bred Eggs for the Scramble, I couldn't participate. I even tried walking down to Somerset St to try the municipal WiFi, but with no luck. I've offered them as WiFi prizes for the club.
I tried the Yellow Forest course, but found that I'm not yet in shape enough to walk 10K steps. Mostly I just kept the Watts, since I spent more time cycling than walking (yay bannana bikes). I didn't do any Berry growing at all, despite my best intentions.
Got over to Cianwood and beat that Gym, which was also harder than I'd expected, and brought back the SecretPotion for Amphy. But my first attempt at the Olivine Gym was a complete disaster, so much so that I just switched off the DS rather than lose yet more money. The team's levels just aren't high enough, and preventing them from evolving is starting to bite me in the ass. Peya and Chet are also just weaker than they should be for their levels. I'm going to have to do some serious levelling before taking on Jasmine again -- get Cynder up to learning Flamethrower so he can evolve, and maybe go in there with Petunia as well.
Unfinished tasks include catching a good Krabby to trade that one guy, and getting enough Oran Berries to heal the farm's Miltank. I foolishly started feeding her all my Oran Berries without growing more, and guess what! I didn't have enough. Gonna have to net some off the Pokewalker and grow them -- according to Serebii, they appear with 50% probability on Refreshing Field between 300 and 500 steps.
And another thing: Before leaving for OC I swung by the Catonsville GameStop to exchange that FR cart. Turned out that the cartridge was an illegal hack -- as in, not even made by Nintendo! I should have spotted it -- the cartridge was clear red, not solid; and the version name printing was different. However, they did have a real FR cartridge, so I was able to exchange. Even better (from my viewpoint) there's virtually nothing already on the game. Just a gibberish-named Charmeleon and some common low-level Pokes in the party...the PC is empty. The only standout items are a Star Piece and a Moon Stone.
So I'll just trade out the Charmeleon and the Star Piece, and re-start. Pick my new Irving, get to Viridian, then breed another Farfetch'd (and thankfully the parents are already set up, so this won't take long) and trade it over. That way I'll have a Flying type going into Viridian Forest, and can Peck the heck outta all those bugs. It'd be nice to have something else as insurance, just to get me through Mt. Moon, but I may just see if I can blitz through there with only the two? Maybe I just need to invest in some Repels. Hopefully the new Slither won't be as fragile, and I can get back to Vermillion without too much trouble.
In retrospect: Starting SoulSilver, and FireRed evaporates
(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(3/22/2010)
FINALLY started SoulSilver! Petty got her package Friday, but I wasn't able to get my game going until Sunday night. Still, I now have the Pokewalker clipped on, and am counting steps.
Unfortunately, unlocking courses seems to count unspent watts only. So, unlocking the rest of the courses might take a while....
Also, while running around on Friday, decided to stop in the Columbia GameStop just in case, and nabbed a FR cart. However, there was no prep needed before starting that game, because when I booted it up, it acted as if it was completely new -- gave the rundown of the game controls, even. So, no catching stuff for breeding, no trading for the Farfetch'd, no cleaning out to do. Ominously, though, everytime I start up the cartridge, it says "The save file is ok" before it displays the continue game/new game screen. I take that to mean some idiot tried hacking the game, and wiped their save file. Hopefully it'll be OK to play a normal game on, though, because I'd gotten too far by the time I discovered this to want to restart.
So in Kanto I have a Bulbasaur named Irving, along with a Mankey and a Spearow that I don't really want to train. But all the Pokemon I actually WANT on my team aren't available until Cerulean or later, and I needed something to get me that far. Viridian Forest makes a Flying type almost necessary (and Spearow get Peck right away). So I will likely name those two and put them in the Specials box, even though I wasn't intending to train them.
I also have my Ekans, Slither, who I suspect has a crap IV in Defense because he is made of friggin' GLASS. Since I've already worked hard to train him, I suppose I'll throw vitamins at him later to compensate. For all my lack of an electric Pokemon, Misty went down to Irving with no problems, despite me taking time to raise my temporary team evenly.
So that got me to Vermillion, where I can trade for the Farfetch'd. Have caught a higher-level Spearow in the main Rue cart for this, then will breed my own Farfetch'd, hatch it, and trade it back. I was going to trade the unwanted Spearow I was training, but dang it, I've put too much work into it to just give it away.
From there I think I've got no choice but to fight through the SS Anne for Cut. Once I've got that and have gotten through Rock Cave, though, I can run over to Celadon, grab the Tea for the Guards, and open up the crossroads through Saffron. Then I'll be able to run to the other side of Saffron to catch my Growlithe, and level it up some before I take on Erica -- and, after I beat her, obedience won't be an issue for a good long while. Unfortunately, there's a Snorlax between me and the Super Rod I need to catch a Shellder in Vermillion until after I've done Silph Co. and Lavender Tower. I should likely give the Leftovers under it to Slither, to help offset his low Defense.
As for SS, my next foray will be into the Sprout Tower, followed by the attempt at Falkner's Gym. And lots of Poke-walking -- I've solved the nostalgia problem I was having over not wanting to train another Hootie by making him my walking partner. In the Pokewalker combats, level and attacks don't matter, so there's no problems with him not being strong enough. And Flying's one of the preferred types for the first two default routes. So Hootie has a new purpose, and will get raised despite not being in the team.
Other than Cynder and Hootie, though, I don't have any of my team Pokemon yet, which will no doubt prove a problem in short order. Maybe I can catch a Sentret off the Pokewalker today, and start raising my Izzel? Looking at Bulbapedia, there's nothing in Sprout Tower besides Bellsprout and Gastly, and it looks like I'll need Surf before I can get a Natu. This might cause problems, as the concentration on Cynder has gotten him levelled beyond where I can even catch other Pokemon easily.
Makes me wonder how far I have to get before WiFi trading is activated, so I can maybe get that Spinarak from Petty. Or maybe Hootie's going to have to get some training after all. WHY are none of the Pokemon I want available as early as I remember??
(3/23/2010)
Instead of advancing either game, I spent some time breeding Farfetch'd. Trading the lvl 32 Spearow I'd caught in LG got me a Farfetch'd that had Swords Dance, so I taught him Cut and Fly and bred a female. After raising her to get Swords Dance as well, I bred a Farfetch'd with Peck, Cut, Fly, and Swords Dance, named him Norton (although, I know I've got something elsewhere with that name [ yes, a Taillow]) and traded him back into FR. Then I spent time raising him up to lvl 20 to match the rest of the team. Norton seems to be holding his own pretty well, which let me put my Spearow away.
Did nothing in SS except rack up steps and catch two Doduo on the Pokewalker. Unfortunately, the more steps I get in a day, the less likely it becomes that a Sentret will appear. This means that to get the Sentret I want, I'm going to have to save watts from the previous day, then try first thing in the morning while the steps are still at 0. I'm already over 700 steps today which is too high to get a Sentret. Also, if I only see Pidgey when doing that, I'll have to return Hootie and start another stroll.
Though, catching Pokemon on the Pokewalker is way harder than I thought. First you have to pick the clump of grass showing the "!", up to four times for the rarer Pokemon. If you don't get to it in time using the two buttons, or pick the wrong one, the Pokemon gets away. Then, the battles are deceptively tricky. Besides losing the Pokemon if you faint it, it can also just up and run off. Worse, while all your steps get saved, the watts you spend trying to find items or catch Pokemon are NOT sent back to the DS. You spend it, you lose it. This means you have to rack up enough watts to spend on multiple attempts, AND to unlock new courses. Pain in the ass, really.
Another issue is the day/night thing, which I remember being an issue back in Silver, too. Quite a few Pokemon only appear during the morning or day, which is going to be a problem when I can usually only play at night. I'd wondered why I didn't see any Sentret on that first route.
Anyway, the plan for tonight is to blow through both the SS Anne and Rock Cave in FR, if possible. SS will have to wait until I manage to nab a Sentret.
(3/23/2010)
Aaaand the best laid plans of mice and men....
Upon sticking the FR cart in the DS and starting it up, I was greeted with a message declaring that "The save file has been deleted." So much for those ten or more hours, and all that training....yet, I'm surprisingly mellow about it. In fact, I half-expected this to happen. Restarting the game didn't seem to help, either, because the "The save file is OK" message still appears. So I'm going to take the cartridge back to the Catonsville store as defective, and see if I can't get another. Goodness knows Slither wasn't as strong as he could have been, and I can easily breed another Norton -- in fact, I can get Norton as soon as Viridian now, and train him from the get-go.
Conversely, I managed to catch a Sentret on the Pokewalker with comparatively little effort. So I ended that stroll, sending Hootie and my new Sentret back to the DS -- but a second later, another Sentret had spontaneously joined me on the Pokewalker! Sure, it's a function of the programming, but that's still awesome. I sent her back to the DS immediately, and put her on the team (even though I'll have to wait until Goldenrod to nickname her properly).
After a bit of training, I took my new Sentret up Sprout Tower and got Flash, then easily swept the Violet City Gym. From there I went out to the Ruins of Alph, but sure enough, I can't get a Natu there until after I have Surf. Will have to look to see if they're available elsewhere. [they're not.] Instead, I went south towards Azalea, and despite running out of Pokeballs for random catches, I did catch a Mareep. So now I have three of my final team: Cynder, Izzel, and Sheepish. I also have Merry, the Togepi from the Mystery Egg, and Rocky the Onix, traded for a Bellsprout. All are at lvl 15 (except Merry, who I'm not sure I'll train since I've got Surprise in Pearl).
That means the next tasks are to get through the Slowpoke Well and the Azalea Gym. I should likely pop back to Union Cave and catch a Zubat for 'Dex credit, and probably fish for a Magikarp now that I have the Old Rod. I missed catching any Unknown, but I'll be back that way later anyway so they can wait. After that, it'll be time for Ilex Forest, which means I'll need my special Pichu to trigger the event there. This weekend, I need to bring my DS and games to Traci's, and get the event Pokemon moved over. I also promised Corwin something but I forget what. [it was a Ditto.]
(3/22/2010)
FINALLY started SoulSilver! Petty got her package Friday, but I wasn't able to get my game going until Sunday night. Still, I now have the Pokewalker clipped on, and am counting steps.
Unfortunately, unlocking courses seems to count unspent watts only. So, unlocking the rest of the courses might take a while....
Also, while running around on Friday, decided to stop in the Columbia GameStop just in case, and nabbed a FR cart. However, there was no prep needed before starting that game, because when I booted it up, it acted as if it was completely new -- gave the rundown of the game controls, even. So, no catching stuff for breeding, no trading for the Farfetch'd, no cleaning out to do. Ominously, though, everytime I start up the cartridge, it says "The save file is ok" before it displays the continue game/new game screen. I take that to mean some idiot tried hacking the game, and wiped their save file. Hopefully it'll be OK to play a normal game on, though, because I'd gotten too far by the time I discovered this to want to restart.
So in Kanto I have a Bulbasaur named Irving, along with a Mankey and a Spearow that I don't really want to train. But all the Pokemon I actually WANT on my team aren't available until Cerulean or later, and I needed something to get me that far. Viridian Forest makes a Flying type almost necessary (and Spearow get Peck right away). So I will likely name those two and put them in the Specials box, even though I wasn't intending to train them.
I also have my Ekans, Slither, who I suspect has a crap IV in Defense because he is made of friggin' GLASS. Since I've already worked hard to train him, I suppose I'll throw vitamins at him later to compensate. For all my lack of an electric Pokemon, Misty went down to Irving with no problems, despite me taking time to raise my temporary team evenly.
So that got me to Vermillion, where I can trade for the Farfetch'd. Have caught a higher-level Spearow in the main Rue cart for this, then will breed my own Farfetch'd, hatch it, and trade it back. I was going to trade the unwanted Spearow I was training, but dang it, I've put too much work into it to just give it away.
From there I think I've got no choice but to fight through the SS Anne for Cut. Once I've got that and have gotten through Rock Cave, though, I can run over to Celadon, grab the Tea for the Guards, and open up the crossroads through Saffron. Then I'll be able to run to the other side of Saffron to catch my Growlithe, and level it up some before I take on Erica -- and, after I beat her, obedience won't be an issue for a good long while. Unfortunately, there's a Snorlax between me and the Super Rod I need to catch a Shellder in Vermillion until after I've done Silph Co. and Lavender Tower. I should likely give the Leftovers under it to Slither, to help offset his low Defense.
As for SS, my next foray will be into the Sprout Tower, followed by the attempt at Falkner's Gym. And lots of Poke-walking -- I've solved the nostalgia problem I was having over not wanting to train another Hootie by making him my walking partner. In the Pokewalker combats, level and attacks don't matter, so there's no problems with him not being strong enough. And Flying's one of the preferred types for the first two default routes. So Hootie has a new purpose, and will get raised despite not being in the team.
Other than Cynder and Hootie, though, I don't have any of my team Pokemon yet, which will no doubt prove a problem in short order. Maybe I can catch a Sentret off the Pokewalker today, and start raising my Izzel? Looking at Bulbapedia, there's nothing in Sprout Tower besides Bellsprout and Gastly, and it looks like I'll need Surf before I can get a Natu. This might cause problems, as the concentration on Cynder has gotten him levelled beyond where I can even catch other Pokemon easily.
Makes me wonder how far I have to get before WiFi trading is activated, so I can maybe get that Spinarak from Petty. Or maybe Hootie's going to have to get some training after all. WHY are none of the Pokemon I want available as early as I remember??
(3/23/2010)
Instead of advancing either game, I spent some time breeding Farfetch'd. Trading the lvl 32 Spearow I'd caught in LG got me a Farfetch'd that had Swords Dance, so I taught him Cut and Fly and bred a female. After raising her to get Swords Dance as well, I bred a Farfetch'd with Peck, Cut, Fly, and Swords Dance, named him Norton (although, I know I've got something elsewhere with that name [ yes, a Taillow]) and traded him back into FR. Then I spent time raising him up to lvl 20 to match the rest of the team. Norton seems to be holding his own pretty well, which let me put my Spearow away.
Did nothing in SS except rack up steps and catch two Doduo on the Pokewalker. Unfortunately, the more steps I get in a day, the less likely it becomes that a Sentret will appear. This means that to get the Sentret I want, I'm going to have to save watts from the previous day, then try first thing in the morning while the steps are still at 0. I'm already over 700 steps today which is too high to get a Sentret. Also, if I only see Pidgey when doing that, I'll have to return Hootie and start another stroll.
Though, catching Pokemon on the Pokewalker is way harder than I thought. First you have to pick the clump of grass showing the "!", up to four times for the rarer Pokemon. If you don't get to it in time using the two buttons, or pick the wrong one, the Pokemon gets away. Then, the battles are deceptively tricky. Besides losing the Pokemon if you faint it, it can also just up and run off. Worse, while all your steps get saved, the watts you spend trying to find items or catch Pokemon are NOT sent back to the DS. You spend it, you lose it. This means you have to rack up enough watts to spend on multiple attempts, AND to unlock new courses. Pain in the ass, really.
Another issue is the day/night thing, which I remember being an issue back in Silver, too. Quite a few Pokemon only appear during the morning or day, which is going to be a problem when I can usually only play at night. I'd wondered why I didn't see any Sentret on that first route.
Anyway, the plan for tonight is to blow through both the SS Anne and Rock Cave in FR, if possible. SS will have to wait until I manage to nab a Sentret.
(3/23/2010)
Aaaand the best laid plans of mice and men....
Upon sticking the FR cart in the DS and starting it up, I was greeted with a message declaring that "The save file has been deleted." So much for those ten or more hours, and all that training....yet, I'm surprisingly mellow about it. In fact, I half-expected this to happen. Restarting the game didn't seem to help, either, because the "The save file is OK" message still appears. So I'm going to take the cartridge back to the Catonsville store as defective, and see if I can't get another. Goodness knows Slither wasn't as strong as he could have been, and I can easily breed another Norton -- in fact, I can get Norton as soon as Viridian now, and train him from the get-go.
Conversely, I managed to catch a Sentret on the Pokewalker with comparatively little effort. So I ended that stroll, sending Hootie and my new Sentret back to the DS -- but a second later, another Sentret had spontaneously joined me on the Pokewalker! Sure, it's a function of the programming, but that's still awesome. I sent her back to the DS immediately, and put her on the team (even though I'll have to wait until Goldenrod to nickname her properly).
After a bit of training, I took my new Sentret up Sprout Tower and got Flash, then easily swept the Violet City Gym. From there I went out to the Ruins of Alph, but sure enough, I can't get a Natu there until after I have Surf. Will have to look to see if they're available elsewhere. [they're not.] Instead, I went south towards Azalea, and despite running out of Pokeballs for random catches, I did catch a Mareep. So now I have three of my final team: Cynder, Izzel, and Sheepish. I also have Merry, the Togepi from the Mystery Egg, and Rocky the Onix, traded for a Bellsprout. All are at lvl 15 (except Merry, who I'm not sure I'll train since I've got Surprise in Pearl).
That means the next tasks are to get through the Slowpoke Well and the Azalea Gym. I should likely pop back to Union Cave and catch a Zubat for 'Dex credit, and probably fish for a Magikarp now that I have the Old Rod. I missed catching any Unknown, but I'll be back that way later anyway so they can wait. After that, it'll be time for Ilex Forest, which means I'll need my special Pichu to trigger the event there. This weekend, I need to bring my DS and games to Traci's, and get the event Pokemon moved over. I also promised Corwin something but I forget what. [it was a Ditto.]
In retrospect: Spirit Tracks, wrapping up No-Entei, and SS/FR debates
(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(2/15/2010 -- four months later!)
Aaaand my interest in Emerald just sort of poofed after that last entry, and I have done nothing since. Haven't booted any of my Pokemon cartridges except to get event items or Pokemon.
However, HG/SS will be out next month, so my Poke-interest is sure to pick up again for SoulSilver. Also, when we went for the special Shiny Pichu this weekend, Corwin got a used cartridge of Platinum. After his parents help him plunder the cartridge for any useful items or Pokemon from "Mat", he'll be restarting his own game. He's already planning on picking Chimchar (and naming it Bob) so I bred him one of my fabulous Piplups, and Traci will be breeding him one of her terrific Turtwigs. That should help re-vitalize all our Poke-interest, as well.
So between here and there, I will need to wrap up Spirit Tracks. I've already spent some time crossing off sidequests before the last dungeon. Just need maybe a couple more heart containers and then I'll feel up to tackling the Sand Realm, which most likely features dead things. From there it should just be the top of the Tower of Spirits, then Malladus. [hah. it's not. there's a whole 'nother realm between me and the final battle after I get through the Sand Realm.]
Also, they'll be giving away the special Jirachi that unlocks the Edge of the Night Sky Pokewalker course, later this month.
For Jhoto I'm already planning on re-constituting some of my team; defnitely Cynder, Vermillion and Sheepish, and maybe Hootie and Izzel. That last slot, though, I think I'll do something new and different with. Petty had mentioned really liking her Ariados, and that might be pretty kick. Xatu or Heracross also come to mind. ...dang. Now I'm already tempted to do one game and then restart. Will have to decide whether nostalgia is stronger than sense of adventure: nostalgia would dictate that the core team re-create the original Silver team as closely as possible, but then I limit myself from trying out new Pokemon.
(2/18/2010)
Still working on Spirit Tracks. Had begun the Sand Realm, got the Sand Wand out of the temple, but got stalled on one of those STUPIDLY DIFFICULT things with the sinking sand. Lots of rocks and spikes, some sand-critters, and a few Stalfos so far. Apparently there's not just the top floor of the Tower but also some kind of Dark Realm thing after that, before Malladus. I want to be done and all, but it's just kinda ARGH.
Tried out Google Docs last night to make a spreadsheet of all my Pokemon games, with sheets for select Pokemon: team, specials, and legendary/event. Plus a sheet for the Pokedex, listing all 493 Pokemon and detailing which ones I've caught or raised, have stored or just data-traded for. That way I'll have a central repository, accessible from multiple computers, of all my info going back to Blue. It'd be neat to be able to look at all my teams, and assemble an all-star lineup. Maybe even raise those to lvl 100.
Have been sort of looking sidelong at Emerald with the vague thought of raising some of the 35 more I need for the 'Dex, but haven't been able to rouse myself to actually do it.
(2/23/2010)
Have filled in the Poke-spreadsheets with everything up to Emerald, to which I threw away most of my Saturday. That prompted me to actually fire up the game and finish raising Fafnir, who is now a lvl 50 Salamence. Got the whole team up to lvl 67 (and Jubal to lvl 68) doing it, too.
After that I took another look at the Emerald Pokedex, and noticed that when I switched it to Hoenn mode instead of National, that I was in fact missing a whole bunch of Kanto Pokemon as well. This brings the total I'd have to obtain to 50-some, instead of 35. D'oh! Some of those I can easily bring over from LG, but still, it's lots more than I'd thought.
So, since I was home with cramps Monday, I decided to do me some breeding. Seeing as how I had to get the baby and max evo's of both the Marill and Jigglypuff evo chains, I thought, why not breed in some egg moves while I'm at it? I grabbed a male Lapras from that last LG game who had Perish Song, caught a Luvdisc for the Heart Scale to have him remember Sing, then snagged a female Marill and female Jigglypuff, both around lvl 25-26.
This gave me an Azurill with Sing, and a male Marill with Perish Song. I raised him high enough for breeding, then threw him in with the Jigglypuff to give me an Igglybuff with Perish Song. Then I biked back and forth with the two babies until they were happy enough to evolve.
And there I made my first mistake: challenged one of the breeders on Rt. 117 with Exp Share on the Azurill. That trainer has a team of six, all in the low 30's. So the Azurill got raised far too high all at once. Am attempting to fix that with the Macho Brace, with Exp Share on the Igglybuff. So the Azurill will probably not turn out so well. The Igglybuff, I named PuffDaddy, and aside of Perish Song will maybe dupe my old PuffDaddy from Blue.
I also need to get Bombadil straightened out. Looking above, his final moveset was supposed to be Sunny Day, Synthesis, Solarbeam, and Faint Attack. So I need to teach him Solarbeam (replacing Nature Power) and hand him a Leaf Stone, and that'll be another Hoenn Pokemon I can cross off the list.
Speaking of that last LG game, otherwise known as "you STILL haven't caught Entei?" I now believe that I messed up the game by not doing the island quest for Lostelle before beating the Elite Four. I recall someone saying that if you didn't do that, your legendary beast would not show up. I can't find where I read this, but this is my only LG game so far where I didn't save Lostelle pre-E4, and the only one where I've had THIS much trouble finding my legendary. So I've been importing its random-caught Pokemon to Pearl, for transfer to the Ranch. Will most likely trade out its TMs, items, and Berries to Emerald, and its team/special Pokemon to my main LG game. Should most likely catch the game's Mewtwo as well, just to have it.
From there I have a couple options. One, just restart and go for it again. Two, trade it in to GameStop and get FR instead. This'd give me access to the Kanto Pokemon that I never get to have, like Ekans, Growlithe, Scyther, Shellder, and Electabuzz. Either way, once I got through it I'd trade the cart in again. I've got the Kanto region down to Hall of Fame debut in 30-40 hours or so, it shouldn't take too long. Though it galls me to have wasted all that time on the 3rd round of LG only to have to play through Kanto AGAIN. And goodness knows I'll be catching the legendary beasts in SoulSilver anyway -- and by the time I get all those random Pokemon Pal-Parked to Pearl (alliteration!) it'll probably be out already.
Bleh. And of course, all this Poke-ing means I haven't gotten any futher in the Sand Temple in Spirit Tracks.
(2/26/2010)
Spirit Tracks? what's that?
For some reason it wasn't enough to Pal Park all my random catches from the Entei-denied game of LG to Pearl for the Ranch. No, I had to go out and catch YET MORE STUFF. While I was at it, I took a turn through the Cerulean Cave and nabbed Mewtwo. In an Ultra Ball, too, so I get to keep this game's Master Ball. That gives me two legitimate extras.
All this catching does serve a useful purpose, though. The trade-evolvers alone will allow me to cross off a nice chunk of the Kanto portion of my Emerald Pokedex, given that I'll get credit for both evolutions. Not to mention a few more that are not available in Emerald but easily caught in FR/LG.
So the next things to catch will be Horsea, both for the dex credit and to get a Dragon Scale for Trident. Then off to the Islands to catch Ponyta, Rapidash, Persian, and to nab a Haunter from the Lost Cave. Hopefully it'll be higher level than the ones in Pokemon Tower, if not equivalent to the other trade-evolvers I caught in Cerulean Cave.
As a bonus, running around Cerulean Cave allowed me to level up some of my team (even if I did have to Revive poor Salome a half-dozen times. Damn Wobbuffets and their Shadow Tag). I should spend time leveling them there, since in this game all the outsiders get extra Exp. Maybe to level 60.
(3/5/2010)
I know not of this Spirit Tracks you mention. O_<
So yeah, still Pal Parking the random caught Pokemon out of LG, though not every single night, so this isn't going all that quickly. It occurs to me that, with four cartridges at 6 Pokemon a day, if I stuck to it I could have a Mew within a month. I ought to Pal Park in all of JD's max evos and store them, that'd be a bunch.
Finally gave up on catching wild Horsea and hoping for a Dragon Scale, and just went for Trainer Tower. Winning the Double Battle challenge there nets you a Dragon Scale (the other challenges also give various evolution hold items like Upgrade, Metal Coat, and King's Rock). Since the other trainers are at the level of your strongest Pokemon, it was more of a haul than I'd expected. Many revives and potions were used. But I did the run in about a half hour and had my Dragon Scale.
Then it was time for trading. Along with Trident and his Dragon Scale, I sent across a Kadabra, a Golem, a Machoke, and a Haunter. I hadn't actually needed credit for some of those, so it didn't increase my Emerald 'dex as much as I'd hoped, but that still got me credit for five max evo's. And because all the trade-evolvers had been caught at high levels, they're good enough without being hand-raised.
Unfortunately, that leaves me with all the stuff that DOES have to be hand-raised. And I haven't gone back to that Marill (who needs renaming) and Puffdaddy. Should take care of Bombadil, too.
I'm leaning more and more towards trading in that LG cart for a FR one, once I get it cleared out.
Pokemon in FR but not LG include: Ekans/Arbok, Oddish/Gloom/Vileplume/Bellossom, Psyduck/Golduck, Growlithe/Arcanine, Shellder/Cloyster, Elekid/Electabuzz, Scyther/Scizor, Wooper/Quagsire, Murkrow, Quilfish, Delibird, Skarmory.
Of the Kanto portion of those, only Oddish and Psyduck can be caught in Hoenn (Psyduck in the Safari Zone). And I know that I've always had trouble getting hold of Ekans/Arbok, Growlithe/Arcanine, Shellder/Cloyster, Elekid/Electabuzz, and Murkrow.
Plus, it sounds like the FR exclusives would make a pretty good team. Given that I have to start off with Bulbasaur (again!) if I want Entei, then Growlithe would be good for Fire type, and Shellder would be good for Ice against Lance's dragons. And it'd be lovely to raise something that WASN'T a friggin' Pikachu for once, for my electric type. Only issue there would be that I'll need an electric type against Misty before Electabuzz is available. Since Eggs can't be traded in, I'd have to catch an Electabuzz before restarting, trade it over to the main LG game to breed and hatch it, then put up with potential obedience issues. Or just wait until I can get one, and just take Misty on with what I've got. But that Starmie of hers is a bitch.
STILL. The team would then be: Yet Another Venasaur, Arbok, Arcanine, Electabuzz, Cloyster, and...what? Well, I've never raised a Nido-thing all the way before, maybe one of those. They're tanks, and would also make a good HM slave. It's also tempting to raise an Oddish instead of Bulbasaur, but it seems more worth it for Emerald's dex just to catch two high-level Glooms and apply the stone of choice. ...Ohwait. Y'know what the team is missing, is Flying.
Unfortunately the list of Pokemon that can learn Fly in FR/LG is depressingly short, and are all either things I don't want, things I've already trained, or single evos. Kanto's flying Pokemon are just so...boring. And I can't trade in anything from outside Kanto until post-E4. Bleh. Might do Farfetch'd just for the novelty of it; in fact since the only Farfetch'd one can get is a trade anyway, might as well breed some moves and trade in. Once I get past Misty, levels up to 30 will be no problem, then Erika in Celadon will clear me up to lvl 50.
Looking at the GIII learnset, it doesn't actually look like Farfetch'd learns much that's interesting. Maybe if I haven't already traded for the one in the latest LG, I can catch a waaaay high-level Spearow in the Islands to trade for it. Still looks like Cut and Fly are the most interesting moves it can get; Swords Dance (at lvl 31) and False Swipe (at lvl 46) seem to be the other choices. Possible Egg Moves might include Flail, Gust, Quick Attack, or Steel Wing.
(3/8/2010)
Well foo. I have indeed traded for the Farfetch'd in both LG games. So, getting a high level one for breeding is out. Egg moves would still be possible, though, I guess.
Of course, the problem now is, HG/SS are out this Sunday. And there's no darn WAY I'd finish a 30+ hour game between now and then. So unless I put off buying SS just to catch Entei, my set of legendary beasts must remain incomplete. But that rankles. I dunno.
In any case, I'm nearly done Pal Parking random catches out of the no-Entei game. All that's left to do will be to trade out the team, specials, and legendaries, and clean out the items and Berries. I'm thinking the Pokemon can go to the other LG game, but maybe the TMs/items/berries can go to Emerald?
One thing I do think I'd like to do, is to restrict my SS Pokedex to things I caught or raised myself. No plundering cartridges of any game I didn't play, no data trades, no GTS even. Given that only a very very small subset of Pokemon are unobtainable within HG/SS, and most of those are either legendaries I have, or ones that involve specific Sinnoh locations to evolve, this shouldn't be too much of a limit. Anything I can't get in SS I can either import, or trade over from P/Pt.
Since SS gives us GIV access to Kanto, the other thing I should consider is transferring over everything from FR/LG to SS. Well, not everything -- all the random catches can likely be transferred to Pearl and put into the Ranch, especially Arceus' named ones. But certainly all the teams and anything I actually raised, along with ALL items, TMs, and Berries. Though, if I'm going to give up my LG cartridges I should likely trade items/TMs/berries over to Emerald, because I wouldn't have another GIII source after that.
One VERY nice feature of HG/SS is that they nixed the six-per-cart-per-day limit on Pal Park. You can still only transfer six at a time, but now you could do it all day long from a single cart. This'll let me clear out my main LG cart MUCH more quickly. Of course, I'd still need to trade them over to Pearl if I want to put anything in the Ranch.
(3/10/2010)
So bored and scattered today, and yet I managed to get some things done, or at least further along.
Spirit Tracks? Pffffft.
All the random catches from the no-Entei game are now stored in the Ranch. All that's left are the team, specials, and legendaries; plus the items, TMs, and Berries.
Items, TMs, and Berries should go to Emerald. With a few exceptions (the trade evolvers should maybe also go to Emerald?) everything else can go over to the main LG cartridge.
From there, I plan to restart the game, pick the default trainer and rival names, and save; that'll keep any hackers from using my trainer name and ID.
I can then take the game back to GameStop and trade it in for FR. Maybe at the same time that I buy SS. Even though I'll most likley play SS first, I'll at least have the cart for FR. Maybe if Jhoto doesn't Poke me out (not to mention re-doing Kanto in SS) I can complete my set of legendary beasts.
Regardless, it occurs to me that I should also transfer out all the random catches that I didn't actually raise from Emerald and LG and toss them in the Ranch too. Maybe even the ones from Pearl, as well. If I haven't done anything with them since catching them, there's no reason for them to sit in there; and if I need to breed or raise anything I've caught once, I can always catch another. Probably I should Pal Park JD's Pokemon as well, except maybe the starters and legendaries. I imagine that'd get my Ranch totals up a bit, and simplify storage on my remaining cartridges.
In any case, the first thing I need to do is catch trade fodder in the main LG cart, and some rotating trade fodder in Emerald, and get that no-Entei cart cleaned out.
(3/15/2010)
Haven't Pal Parked anything else -- technically there's no hurry on that for the cartridges of LG and Emerald that I'm keeping, unless I want the Ranch Mew THAT badly. However, I did get the rotating trades done to move items, TMs, and Berries to Emerald. The only things I didn't move were the 26 TinyMushrooms, because those are useless in Emerald (the Move Relearner dude has stepped up to Heart Scales), and 4 Moon Stones. So I'll either toss those on the Pokemon I'm moving to the main LG cart, or do five sets of rotating trades to move them over.
I've also caught my trade fodder in the main LG, and just need a box named to put things in. I believe I'll name it "no Entei for you". D:<
With that done, I can restart (will likely release the remaining Pokemon first, because I'm a dork) and save. And then I'll be free to go get SS! WHOO
Though, should not forget that this week I also have to do my Ostra Bag, and get something for Heather's birthday -- both of these by Saturday. So, playtime might be limited. And I should really make some time to work on the Castle Town map. Too much to do, too much time spent on working for a living. bleh.
(3/16/2010)
Got all my trading done last night. Remaining items and all Pokemon from the "NoEntei" game of LG are safely in the main LG cart (though, I had a nervous moment when I accidentally released Salome, and had to reboot the game to get her back). Restarted the cartridge with naught but a single Magikarp left, and saved straight off, before even getting a starter. I pity the poor schmoe who buys this cart looking to plunder it...
And tonight I will turn it in and get a FR cart at the same time I buy SS (provided they have both). Solved the time crunch for the week by taking Friday off, to make time for sleep and Ostra prep. Still need to figure out a present for Heather. Still, that should let me start out with either SS or FR tonight. FR if I'm being nice and showing solidarity with poor Petty not having gotten her game yet. [nope, no FR for me....and, did not start SS.]
Besides, if I -can- get my hands on a copy of FR, and it's far enough along in the game, there's a couple things I should do before restarting. Bring over the team Pokemon and anything else interesting, surely; but this time I shouldn't be such a dang packrat. One, it takes such ridiculous amounts of time, and two, I can't be sure that the previous trainer's stuff isn't hacked. So I will try to be strong, and leave most stuff behind. It's not like I don't have several dupes of every dang thing from Kanto at this point, anyway.
What I -do- want to do, though is catch an Electabuzz to breed from, so I'll know it's not hacked. And also, if the Farfetch'd is still available, get a very high-level Spearow from the islands, in LG if I have to, to trade for it. That'll let me breed a fairly kickass Farfetch'd for my flyer. ....allright, so maybe I won't be starting EITHER FR or SS tonight.
So, looking into movesets for the prospective team.
Ekans/Arbok doesn't learn a whole lot, will have to supplement with TMs (Toxic or Sludge Bomb, and something off-type). Bite and Glare are both learned before it evolves, so no reason to hold off. Should try to catch one with Shed Skin ability.
Growlithe doesn't learn Flame Wheel until lvl 31, but it evolves via Fire Stone so there's no worry it'll evolve too soon. One with Flash Fire would be ideal, as that both protects against fire moves AND boosts them. Learns Flamethrower at lvl 49 but Arcanine learns Extremespeed at the same level, so choice would have to be made by then.
Shellder is another stone evolver. It gets Icicle Spear, Supersonic, Aurora Beam, and Protect all by lvl 30. Ice Beam at lvl 49. Surf is obvious here too. If evolved will learn Spikes at 33 and Spike Cannon at 41. Ice Beam is stronger, but can also be learned via TM so it might be best to evolve Shellder sooner.
Electabuzz will most likely need to be bred, because the levels of the Power Plant ones will definitely cause obedience problems early on. They get Quick Attack and Thunderpunch from the get-go. Thunderbolt at lvl 47 and Thunder at 58. Elekid learns these even earlier. They can also learn Strength, Flash, and Rock Smash. Egg moves include Karate Chop and Cross Chop, which would be wonderfully super-effective against Rock. Ah -- but wait. If I breed an Elekid, it won't trade over until I have the Nat'l Dex -- and they don't evolve until lvl 30. I'll have to come up with something else for beating Misty, then.
As for Farfetch'd, Steel Wing is the only interesting Egg move. I'm thinking a moveset of Swords Dance, Cut, Fly, and Steel Wing ought to work. Swords Dance is learned at lvl 31.
And that's another thing I ought to do: Catch one each of all the version-exclusive Pokemon before restarting, and trade them out to LG.
(2/15/2010 -- four months later!)
Aaaand my interest in Emerald just sort of poofed after that last entry, and I have done nothing since. Haven't booted any of my Pokemon cartridges except to get event items or Pokemon.
However, HG/SS will be out next month, so my Poke-interest is sure to pick up again for SoulSilver. Also, when we went for the special Shiny Pichu this weekend, Corwin got a used cartridge of Platinum. After his parents help him plunder the cartridge for any useful items or Pokemon from "Mat", he'll be restarting his own game. He's already planning on picking Chimchar (and naming it Bob) so I bred him one of my fabulous Piplups, and Traci will be breeding him one of her terrific Turtwigs. That should help re-vitalize all our Poke-interest, as well.
So between here and there, I will need to wrap up Spirit Tracks. I've already spent some time crossing off sidequests before the last dungeon. Just need maybe a couple more heart containers and then I'll feel up to tackling the Sand Realm, which most likely features dead things. From there it should just be the top of the Tower of Spirits, then Malladus. [hah. it's not. there's a whole 'nother realm between me and the final battle after I get through the Sand Realm.]
Also, they'll be giving away the special Jirachi that unlocks the Edge of the Night Sky Pokewalker course, later this month.
For Jhoto I'm already planning on re-constituting some of my team; defnitely Cynder, Vermillion and Sheepish, and maybe Hootie and Izzel. That last slot, though, I think I'll do something new and different with. Petty had mentioned really liking her Ariados, and that might be pretty kick. Xatu or Heracross also come to mind. ...dang. Now I'm already tempted to do one game and then restart. Will have to decide whether nostalgia is stronger than sense of adventure: nostalgia would dictate that the core team re-create the original Silver team as closely as possible, but then I limit myself from trying out new Pokemon.
(2/18/2010)
Still working on Spirit Tracks. Had begun the Sand Realm, got the Sand Wand out of the temple, but got stalled on one of those STUPIDLY DIFFICULT things with the sinking sand. Lots of rocks and spikes, some sand-critters, and a few Stalfos so far. Apparently there's not just the top floor of the Tower but also some kind of Dark Realm thing after that, before Malladus. I want to be done and all, but it's just kinda ARGH.
Tried out Google Docs last night to make a spreadsheet of all my Pokemon games, with sheets for select Pokemon: team, specials, and legendary/event. Plus a sheet for the Pokedex, listing all 493 Pokemon and detailing which ones I've caught or raised, have stored or just data-traded for. That way I'll have a central repository, accessible from multiple computers, of all my info going back to Blue. It'd be neat to be able to look at all my teams, and assemble an all-star lineup. Maybe even raise those to lvl 100.
Have been sort of looking sidelong at Emerald with the vague thought of raising some of the 35 more I need for the 'Dex, but haven't been able to rouse myself to actually do it.
(2/23/2010)
Have filled in the Poke-spreadsheets with everything up to Emerald, to which I threw away most of my Saturday. That prompted me to actually fire up the game and finish raising Fafnir, who is now a lvl 50 Salamence. Got the whole team up to lvl 67 (and Jubal to lvl 68) doing it, too.
After that I took another look at the Emerald Pokedex, and noticed that when I switched it to Hoenn mode instead of National, that I was in fact missing a whole bunch of Kanto Pokemon as well. This brings the total I'd have to obtain to 50-some, instead of 35. D'oh! Some of those I can easily bring over from LG, but still, it's lots more than I'd thought.
So, since I was home with cramps Monday, I decided to do me some breeding. Seeing as how I had to get the baby and max evo's of both the Marill and Jigglypuff evo chains, I thought, why not breed in some egg moves while I'm at it? I grabbed a male Lapras from that last LG game who had Perish Song, caught a Luvdisc for the Heart Scale to have him remember Sing, then snagged a female Marill and female Jigglypuff, both around lvl 25-26.
This gave me an Azurill with Sing, and a male Marill with Perish Song. I raised him high enough for breeding, then threw him in with the Jigglypuff to give me an Igglybuff with Perish Song. Then I biked back and forth with the two babies until they were happy enough to evolve.
And there I made my first mistake: challenged one of the breeders on Rt. 117 with Exp Share on the Azurill. That trainer has a team of six, all in the low 30's. So the Azurill got raised far too high all at once. Am attempting to fix that with the Macho Brace, with Exp Share on the Igglybuff. So the Azurill will probably not turn out so well. The Igglybuff, I named PuffDaddy, and aside of Perish Song will maybe dupe my old PuffDaddy from Blue.
I also need to get Bombadil straightened out. Looking above, his final moveset was supposed to be Sunny Day, Synthesis, Solarbeam, and Faint Attack. So I need to teach him Solarbeam (replacing Nature Power) and hand him a Leaf Stone, and that'll be another Hoenn Pokemon I can cross off the list.
Speaking of that last LG game, otherwise known as "you STILL haven't caught Entei?" I now believe that I messed up the game by not doing the island quest for Lostelle before beating the Elite Four. I recall someone saying that if you didn't do that, your legendary beast would not show up. I can't find where I read this, but this is my only LG game so far where I didn't save Lostelle pre-E4, and the only one where I've had THIS much trouble finding my legendary. So I've been importing its random-caught Pokemon to Pearl, for transfer to the Ranch. Will most likely trade out its TMs, items, and Berries to Emerald, and its team/special Pokemon to my main LG game. Should most likely catch the game's Mewtwo as well, just to have it.
From there I have a couple options. One, just restart and go for it again. Two, trade it in to GameStop and get FR instead. This'd give me access to the Kanto Pokemon that I never get to have, like Ekans, Growlithe, Scyther, Shellder, and Electabuzz. Either way, once I got through it I'd trade the cart in again. I've got the Kanto region down to Hall of Fame debut in 30-40 hours or so, it shouldn't take too long. Though it galls me to have wasted all that time on the 3rd round of LG only to have to play through Kanto AGAIN. And goodness knows I'll be catching the legendary beasts in SoulSilver anyway -- and by the time I get all those random Pokemon Pal-Parked to Pearl (alliteration!) it'll probably be out already.
Bleh. And of course, all this Poke-ing means I haven't gotten any futher in the Sand Temple in Spirit Tracks.
(2/26/2010)
Spirit Tracks? what's that?
For some reason it wasn't enough to Pal Park all my random catches from the Entei-denied game of LG to Pearl for the Ranch. No, I had to go out and catch YET MORE STUFF. While I was at it, I took a turn through the Cerulean Cave and nabbed Mewtwo. In an Ultra Ball, too, so I get to keep this game's Master Ball. That gives me two legitimate extras.
All this catching does serve a useful purpose, though. The trade-evolvers alone will allow me to cross off a nice chunk of the Kanto portion of my Emerald Pokedex, given that I'll get credit for both evolutions. Not to mention a few more that are not available in Emerald but easily caught in FR/LG.
So the next things to catch will be Horsea, both for the dex credit and to get a Dragon Scale for Trident. Then off to the Islands to catch Ponyta, Rapidash, Persian, and to nab a Haunter from the Lost Cave. Hopefully it'll be higher level than the ones in Pokemon Tower, if not equivalent to the other trade-evolvers I caught in Cerulean Cave.
As a bonus, running around Cerulean Cave allowed me to level up some of my team (even if I did have to Revive poor Salome a half-dozen times. Damn Wobbuffets and their Shadow Tag). I should spend time leveling them there, since in this game all the outsiders get extra Exp. Maybe to level 60.
(3/5/2010)
I know not of this Spirit Tracks you mention. O_<
So yeah, still Pal Parking the random caught Pokemon out of LG, though not every single night, so this isn't going all that quickly. It occurs to me that, with four cartridges at 6 Pokemon a day, if I stuck to it I could have a Mew within a month. I ought to Pal Park in all of JD's max evos and store them, that'd be a bunch.
Finally gave up on catching wild Horsea and hoping for a Dragon Scale, and just went for Trainer Tower. Winning the Double Battle challenge there nets you a Dragon Scale (the other challenges also give various evolution hold items like Upgrade, Metal Coat, and King's Rock). Since the other trainers are at the level of your strongest Pokemon, it was more of a haul than I'd expected. Many revives and potions were used. But I did the run in about a half hour and had my Dragon Scale.
Then it was time for trading. Along with Trident and his Dragon Scale, I sent across a Kadabra, a Golem, a Machoke, and a Haunter. I hadn't actually needed credit for some of those, so it didn't increase my Emerald 'dex as much as I'd hoped, but that still got me credit for five max evo's. And because all the trade-evolvers had been caught at high levels, they're good enough without being hand-raised.
Unfortunately, that leaves me with all the stuff that DOES have to be hand-raised. And I haven't gone back to that Marill (who needs renaming) and Puffdaddy. Should take care of Bombadil, too.
I'm leaning more and more towards trading in that LG cart for a FR one, once I get it cleared out.
Pokemon in FR but not LG include: Ekans/Arbok, Oddish/Gloom/Vileplume/Bellossom, Psyduck/Golduck, Growlithe/Arcanine, Shellder/Cloyster, Elekid/Electabuzz, Scyther/Scizor, Wooper/Quagsire, Murkrow, Quilfish, Delibird, Skarmory.
Of the Kanto portion of those, only Oddish and Psyduck can be caught in Hoenn (Psyduck in the Safari Zone). And I know that I've always had trouble getting hold of Ekans/Arbok, Growlithe/Arcanine, Shellder/Cloyster, Elekid/Electabuzz, and Murkrow.
Plus, it sounds like the FR exclusives would make a pretty good team. Given that I have to start off with Bulbasaur (again!) if I want Entei, then Growlithe would be good for Fire type, and Shellder would be good for Ice against Lance's dragons. And it'd be lovely to raise something that WASN'T a friggin' Pikachu for once, for my electric type. Only issue there would be that I'll need an electric type against Misty before Electabuzz is available. Since Eggs can't be traded in, I'd have to catch an Electabuzz before restarting, trade it over to the main LG game to breed and hatch it, then put up with potential obedience issues. Or just wait until I can get one, and just take Misty on with what I've got. But that Starmie of hers is a bitch.
STILL. The team would then be: Yet Another Venasaur, Arbok, Arcanine, Electabuzz, Cloyster, and...what? Well, I've never raised a Nido-thing all the way before, maybe one of those. They're tanks, and would also make a good HM slave. It's also tempting to raise an Oddish instead of Bulbasaur, but it seems more worth it for Emerald's dex just to catch two high-level Glooms and apply the stone of choice. ...Ohwait. Y'know what the team is missing, is Flying.
Unfortunately the list of Pokemon that can learn Fly in FR/LG is depressingly short, and are all either things I don't want, things I've already trained, or single evos. Kanto's flying Pokemon are just so...boring. And I can't trade in anything from outside Kanto until post-E4. Bleh. Might do Farfetch'd just for the novelty of it; in fact since the only Farfetch'd one can get is a trade anyway, might as well breed some moves and trade in. Once I get past Misty, levels up to 30 will be no problem, then Erika in Celadon will clear me up to lvl 50.
Looking at the GIII learnset, it doesn't actually look like Farfetch'd learns much that's interesting. Maybe if I haven't already traded for the one in the latest LG, I can catch a waaaay high-level Spearow in the Islands to trade for it. Still looks like Cut and Fly are the most interesting moves it can get; Swords Dance (at lvl 31) and False Swipe (at lvl 46) seem to be the other choices. Possible Egg Moves might include Flail, Gust, Quick Attack, or Steel Wing.
(3/8/2010)
Well foo. I have indeed traded for the Farfetch'd in both LG games. So, getting a high level one for breeding is out. Egg moves would still be possible, though, I guess.
Of course, the problem now is, HG/SS are out this Sunday. And there's no darn WAY I'd finish a 30+ hour game between now and then. So unless I put off buying SS just to catch Entei, my set of legendary beasts must remain incomplete. But that rankles. I dunno.
In any case, I'm nearly done Pal Parking random catches out of the no-Entei game. All that's left to do will be to trade out the team, specials, and legendaries, and clean out the items and Berries. I'm thinking the Pokemon can go to the other LG game, but maybe the TMs/items/berries can go to Emerald?
One thing I do think I'd like to do, is to restrict my SS Pokedex to things I caught or raised myself. No plundering cartridges of any game I didn't play, no data trades, no GTS even. Given that only a very very small subset of Pokemon are unobtainable within HG/SS, and most of those are either legendaries I have, or ones that involve specific Sinnoh locations to evolve, this shouldn't be too much of a limit. Anything I can't get in SS I can either import, or trade over from P/Pt.
Since SS gives us GIV access to Kanto, the other thing I should consider is transferring over everything from FR/LG to SS. Well, not everything -- all the random catches can likely be transferred to Pearl and put into the Ranch, especially Arceus' named ones. But certainly all the teams and anything I actually raised, along with ALL items, TMs, and Berries. Though, if I'm going to give up my LG cartridges I should likely trade items/TMs/berries over to Emerald, because I wouldn't have another GIII source after that.
One VERY nice feature of HG/SS is that they nixed the six-per-cart-per-day limit on Pal Park. You can still only transfer six at a time, but now you could do it all day long from a single cart. This'll let me clear out my main LG cart MUCH more quickly. Of course, I'd still need to trade them over to Pearl if I want to put anything in the Ranch.
(3/10/2010)
So bored and scattered today, and yet I managed to get some things done, or at least further along.
Spirit Tracks? Pffffft.
All the random catches from the no-Entei game are now stored in the Ranch. All that's left are the team, specials, and legendaries; plus the items, TMs, and Berries.
Items, TMs, and Berries should go to Emerald. With a few exceptions (the trade evolvers should maybe also go to Emerald?) everything else can go over to the main LG cartridge.
From there, I plan to restart the game, pick the default trainer and rival names, and save; that'll keep any hackers from using my trainer name and ID.
I can then take the game back to GameStop and trade it in for FR. Maybe at the same time that I buy SS. Even though I'll most likley play SS first, I'll at least have the cart for FR. Maybe if Jhoto doesn't Poke me out (not to mention re-doing Kanto in SS) I can complete my set of legendary beasts.
Regardless, it occurs to me that I should also transfer out all the random catches that I didn't actually raise from Emerald and LG and toss them in the Ranch too. Maybe even the ones from Pearl, as well. If I haven't done anything with them since catching them, there's no reason for them to sit in there; and if I need to breed or raise anything I've caught once, I can always catch another. Probably I should Pal Park JD's Pokemon as well, except maybe the starters and legendaries. I imagine that'd get my Ranch totals up a bit, and simplify storage on my remaining cartridges.
In any case, the first thing I need to do is catch trade fodder in the main LG cart, and some rotating trade fodder in Emerald, and get that no-Entei cart cleaned out.
(3/15/2010)
Haven't Pal Parked anything else -- technically there's no hurry on that for the cartridges of LG and Emerald that I'm keeping, unless I want the Ranch Mew THAT badly. However, I did get the rotating trades done to move items, TMs, and Berries to Emerald. The only things I didn't move were the 26 TinyMushrooms, because those are useless in Emerald (the Move Relearner dude has stepped up to Heart Scales), and 4 Moon Stones. So I'll either toss those on the Pokemon I'm moving to the main LG cart, or do five sets of rotating trades to move them over.
I've also caught my trade fodder in the main LG, and just need a box named to put things in. I believe I'll name it "no Entei for you". D:<
With that done, I can restart (will likely release the remaining Pokemon first, because I'm a dork) and save. And then I'll be free to go get SS! WHOO
Though, should not forget that this week I also have to do my Ostra Bag, and get something for Heather's birthday -- both of these by Saturday. So, playtime might be limited. And I should really make some time to work on the Castle Town map. Too much to do, too much time spent on working for a living. bleh.
(3/16/2010)
Got all my trading done last night. Remaining items and all Pokemon from the "NoEntei" game of LG are safely in the main LG cart (though, I had a nervous moment when I accidentally released Salome, and had to reboot the game to get her back). Restarted the cartridge with naught but a single Magikarp left, and saved straight off, before even getting a starter. I pity the poor schmoe who buys this cart looking to plunder it...
And tonight I will turn it in and get a FR cart at the same time I buy SS (provided they have both). Solved the time crunch for the week by taking Friday off, to make time for sleep and Ostra prep. Still need to figure out a present for Heather. Still, that should let me start out with either SS or FR tonight. FR if I'm being nice and showing solidarity with poor Petty not having gotten her game yet. [nope, no FR for me....and, did not start SS.]
Besides, if I -can- get my hands on a copy of FR, and it's far enough along in the game, there's a couple things I should do before restarting. Bring over the team Pokemon and anything else interesting, surely; but this time I shouldn't be such a dang packrat. One, it takes such ridiculous amounts of time, and two, I can't be sure that the previous trainer's stuff isn't hacked. So I will try to be strong, and leave most stuff behind. It's not like I don't have several dupes of every dang thing from Kanto at this point, anyway.
What I -do- want to do, though is catch an Electabuzz to breed from, so I'll know it's not hacked. And also, if the Farfetch'd is still available, get a very high-level Spearow from the islands, in LG if I have to, to trade for it. That'll let me breed a fairly kickass Farfetch'd for my flyer. ....allright, so maybe I won't be starting EITHER FR or SS tonight.
So, looking into movesets for the prospective team.
Ekans/Arbok doesn't learn a whole lot, will have to supplement with TMs (Toxic or Sludge Bomb, and something off-type). Bite and Glare are both learned before it evolves, so no reason to hold off. Should try to catch one with Shed Skin ability.
Growlithe doesn't learn Flame Wheel until lvl 31, but it evolves via Fire Stone so there's no worry it'll evolve too soon. One with Flash Fire would be ideal, as that both protects against fire moves AND boosts them. Learns Flamethrower at lvl 49 but Arcanine learns Extremespeed at the same level, so choice would have to be made by then.
Shellder is another stone evolver. It gets Icicle Spear, Supersonic, Aurora Beam, and Protect all by lvl 30. Ice Beam at lvl 49. Surf is obvious here too. If evolved will learn Spikes at 33 and Spike Cannon at 41. Ice Beam is stronger, but can also be learned via TM so it might be best to evolve Shellder sooner.
Electabuzz will most likely need to be bred, because the levels of the Power Plant ones will definitely cause obedience problems early on. They get Quick Attack and Thunderpunch from the get-go. Thunderbolt at lvl 47 and Thunder at 58. Elekid learns these even earlier. They can also learn Strength, Flash, and Rock Smash. Egg moves include Karate Chop and Cross Chop, which would be wonderfully super-effective against Rock. Ah -- but wait. If I breed an Elekid, it won't trade over until I have the Nat'l Dex -- and they don't evolve until lvl 30. I'll have to come up with something else for beating Misty, then.
As for Farfetch'd, Steel Wing is the only interesting Egg move. I'm thinking a moveset of Swords Dance, Cut, Fly, and Steel Wing ought to work. Swords Dance is learned at lvl 31.
And that's another thing I ought to do: Catch one each of all the version-exclusive Pokemon before restarting, and trade them out to LG.