Have gone Entei-hunting in FR most every night this week, to no avail.
The process is basically this: Use a Max Repel with a lvl 30 Snorlax in the lead, then run around the grass between Celadon and Saffron until the Repel gives out. Dodge into one of the towns and back out again to make Entei change routes. Rinse, lather, repeat. If all Max Repels are used up, turn game off.
You'd think that if there's 23 routes in Kanto, he'd go roaming in the grass of Rt. 7 at least ONCE, out of 25 Max Repels. >_< But nooooo.
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Haven't picked up Emerald or SS this week, other than to transfer in stuff from the Pokewalker. Despite the whole company walking program thing, I haven't managed to get enough steps for a Skitty off Hoenn field, so I decided to be more realistic and try the Warm Beach. Hmmm. Maybe if I go for new tires/brakes tomorrow, I can do some walking up and down Rt. 40? It's supposed to be lovely this weekend.
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Okay, so about Black/White. Today, Serebii posted the count of Pokemon in the new Isshu region, along with how many legendaries there'd be. For the sake of spoilers I won't repeat the total amount but, holy crap, 9 in-game and 3 event legendaries?? That makes a total of 47 legendary Pokemon in the total 'Dex!
Not to sound like one of the old-gen diehards, but...really, Nintendo? The more legendaries they add, the less "legendary" they get, and the more they seem like excuses to make players scramble after yet more stuff. There's already too many to fit in a single PC box (not even counting forms), and given the gimmicky nature of many legendaries, that's where most of 'em end up staying. Especially since most legendaries have high levels but no EVs when caught, making them actually WEAKER than a trainer's carefully raised core team -- some fairly intensive training is needed before they're even really usable.
Aren't two version mascots, one trio, one uber, and one event legendary enough per generation? Am I the only one who thought the Regis were extraneous in Hoenn, or that Heatran was just one more 'Dex chore in Sinnoh? Am I the only one who thinks most legendaries aren't worth much but to fill up box space?
Friday, September 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
And now for something completely Emerald
Having blazed through half of Kanto, I got the sudden urge to boot up Emerald and see what the heck I'd been up to in Hoenn. Which, it turned out, was raising the Marill and the Jigglypuff I'd bred.
I renamed the Marill Freddie, so I'd remember it was supposed to have Sing (for Freddie Mercury, who else?), and finished raising both him and PuffDaddy. Marill don't learn much that's interesting, but PuffDaddy ended up with Body Slam, Doubleslap, Hyper Voice, and Perish Song. Getting them up to lvl 45 wasn't too hard -- since I hadn't booted the cartridge in a while, practically every trainer was ready for a rematch or two.
Also straightened out Bombadil's moveset, and whoah is that combo of Chlorophyll - Sunny Day - Synthesis - Solarbeam effective. Got him up to lvl 35.
All this training did good things for my core team. Jubal's up to lvl 70, Tympany's at 68, and everyone else is at 69. Since the Pokemon remaining in the 'Dex will need to be hand-raised, the whole team's sure to make it to lvl 70 at some point.
It occurred to me that my 'Dex was still missing a few Pokemon that could be caught. Lots of running around Mt. Pyre finally nabbed me a Chimecho. I then went to the back of Granite Cave, and ran around there long enough to inspire this haiku:
All those Pokemon
In the back of Granite Cave.
Yet, not one Nosepass.
Okay, Professor Oak I'm not. Finally I admitted defeat and looked it up. Turns out Nosepass only appear by using Rock Smash on the boulders in the lowest part of the cave. Armed with that knowledge, I went and caught one.
That left only Snorunt. Them, I looked up straight off, as I've never seen one in-game, and thus the 'Dex wouldn't tell me where they were. I had to wait for low tide in Shoal Cave, and for some reason had trouble finding the way down, but a little bit of running around that ice chamber at the bottom got me a pair of Snorunt.
From there, there's a few more trades I can do from Sapphire or FireRed (at least, once I complete the islands and fix that infernal machine, AGAIN), and then the rest will have to be hand-raised. Right now I'm working on a Lairon -- it gets Double-Edge at lvl 53, which will be downright wicked with the Rock Head ability -- but I dunno if I'll have enough patience to get more than that done in the near-term. Maybe raise that Nincada to get Ninjask and Shedinja, but that might be it for now.
As for the trades -- the Terrell cart has a Latias, Zangoose, and Lunatone that I can get trade-credit for; I can't catch any of those in Emerald, so that's fair. Will probably also trade over Huntail and Gorebyss if JD had them among his max evos, since you can only get one of the pair per game. Good thing I restarted for the other two Hoenn starters.
And what will all this effort of finishing the Hoenn 'Dex get me? A Jhoto starter, namely a Chikorita, from Prof. Birch. That's a lot for one little Chikorita.
When I get worn out with raising Pokemon on Emerald, I might go and finish the Islands in FireRed. Nab the three legendary birds, get that Sludge Bomb TM from the Rocket Warehouse, and try for Mewtwo. Might as well, right? Oh, and try for Entei. Yeah.
I renamed the Marill Freddie, so I'd remember it was supposed to have Sing (for Freddie Mercury, who else?), and finished raising both him and PuffDaddy. Marill don't learn much that's interesting, but PuffDaddy ended up with Body Slam, Doubleslap, Hyper Voice, and Perish Song. Getting them up to lvl 45 wasn't too hard -- since I hadn't booted the cartridge in a while, practically every trainer was ready for a rematch or two.
Also straightened out Bombadil's moveset, and whoah is that combo of Chlorophyll - Sunny Day - Synthesis - Solarbeam effective. Got him up to lvl 35.
All this training did good things for my core team. Jubal's up to lvl 70, Tympany's at 68, and everyone else is at 69. Since the Pokemon remaining in the 'Dex will need to be hand-raised, the whole team's sure to make it to lvl 70 at some point.
It occurred to me that my 'Dex was still missing a few Pokemon that could be caught. Lots of running around Mt. Pyre finally nabbed me a Chimecho. I then went to the back of Granite Cave, and ran around there long enough to inspire this haiku:
All those Pokemon
In the back of Granite Cave.
Yet, not one Nosepass.
Okay, Professor Oak I'm not. Finally I admitted defeat and looked it up. Turns out Nosepass only appear by using Rock Smash on the boulders in the lowest part of the cave. Armed with that knowledge, I went and caught one.
That left only Snorunt. Them, I looked up straight off, as I've never seen one in-game, and thus the 'Dex wouldn't tell me where they were. I had to wait for low tide in Shoal Cave, and for some reason had trouble finding the way down, but a little bit of running around that ice chamber at the bottom got me a pair of Snorunt.
From there, there's a few more trades I can do from Sapphire or FireRed (at least, once I complete the islands and fix that infernal machine, AGAIN), and then the rest will have to be hand-raised. Right now I'm working on a Lairon -- it gets Double-Edge at lvl 53, which will be downright wicked with the Rock Head ability -- but I dunno if I'll have enough patience to get more than that done in the near-term. Maybe raise that Nincada to get Ninjask and Shedinja, but that might be it for now.
As for the trades -- the Terrell cart has a Latias, Zangoose, and Lunatone that I can get trade-credit for; I can't catch any of those in Emerald, so that's fair. Will probably also trade over Huntail and Gorebyss if JD had them among his max evos, since you can only get one of the pair per game. Good thing I restarted for the other two Hoenn starters.
And what will all this effort of finishing the Hoenn 'Dex get me? A Jhoto starter, namely a Chikorita, from Prof. Birch. That's a lot for one little Chikorita.
When I get worn out with raising Pokemon on Emerald, I might go and finish the Islands in FireRed. Nab the three legendary birds, get that Sludge Bomb TM from the Rocket Warehouse, and try for Mewtwo. Might as well, right? Oh, and try for Entei. Yeah.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
SS - Three badges down, three more to go
Because I am a lazy doofus, instead of enjoying the gorgeous weather and getting all kinds of exercise like I should have, I went on something of a Poke-binge.
Ended up taking the eastern seaside route from Lavender down to Fuschia. The part just south of Lavender that's all wooden piers over water is now apparently called Silence Bridge -- people tiptoe so as not to scare the water Pokemon away. ^_^ This was a decidedly long haul, especially as I took the opportunity to clear the route east of Vermilion that I couldn't get to because of the Snorlax.
(It occurs to me that Vermilion the town is easily confused with Vermillion my Red Gyrados. Heh.)
The southeastern-most part of Kanto, south of the fence maze, is now a pretty hill with wind turbines. A surprise awaited me there: Suicune, calling to me from out on the water. It ran away as usual when Eusine showed up, but he said something about it liking windy hills near water -- "somewhere up north". (Apparently that's not the Cape north of Cerulean, either, 'cause I've looked.)
Having made it to Fuschia and verified that the Pal Park was available, and seeing as it was Saturday, I hopped the border back to Jhoto and entered the Bug Catching Contest with Rotti again. This time, Rotti was more than strong enough -- in fact, he KO'd pretty much everything with one hit. It was still good training for him, though, and as a bonus I caught myself a female Combee: trading gold. This also got me second place, and another Everstone (though what I could really use is another Exp Share).
After that, I hopped back over to Kanto and opened up Cerulean. Misty was nowhere to be seen, so I decided to tackle Cycling Road. The bikers on it were astonishingly friendly after being defeated; I got a bunch of phone numbers, and one of them called me up later to hand me a Dusk Stone, of all things. Since I'd used the one I bought to evolve Rotti after he reached lvl 35, that was an unexpected but very welcome gift.
All that battling had finally gotten Rotti and Tremor up to decent levels, so I went for some badges. Erica's Gym was pretty easy, between Rotti and Cynder. In Janine's Gym -- she took over in Fuschia from daddy Koga after he joined the Elite Four -- I bungled a little and missed a trainer battle. Instead of being subtly marked on the floor, the invisible walls were only obvious when you stumbled into them, and then a small section would become visible. Worse, all the trainers were disguised as Janine. And I found her before I found all of them. So, missed one there.
Still, that got me two more badges, and with the Snorlax blocking Diglett's Cave, the only way to western Kanto was the long water route past the Seafoam Islands. So I decided that I'd check out what was up at the Power Plant. I'd been expecting a Rocket hideout, but all that was there were the workers who'd cleaned the place up and gotten the generator working. A part had been stolen by some "shady character", was all. Sure enough, the guy turned out to be a Rocket when I chased him down -- and with his badly mangled English, from some other country at that (Isshu, maybe? heh) -- but his single Golbat went down easily, and the Power Plant was running again in short order.
At some point, though, I'll have to go back that way and go through Rock Tunnel, which I totally skipped. Vermillion's really the only one of the team that's strong enough against Rock types.
With that wrapped up, I was able to chase down Misty on her date at the Cape (was that really Red? He didn't look at all familiar) and nab the Cascade Badge. Sadly, though I was able to get the Expansion card for my Radio, neither Lavender Tower nor Silph Co. were accessible beyond their first floors. The only thing left to do was to go play PokeFlute music on my Radio to wake up the Snorlax, which I caught easily enough.
All that being quite a Poke-marathon, I stopped outside the entrance to Diglett's Cave. Next stop, Pewter City and the Boulder Badge!
I have to say, I'm really impressed with the new rendering of Kanto in SS. Besides the basic improvements to the graphics, the routes have more variation and, well, for lack of a better word, really great landscaping. Instead of just being long stretches between cities, they feel like real countryside now -- but at the same time, they're similar enough to bring back that Red/Blue-era nostalgia. It's very well done. Props to Nintendo on that one.
You'd think I'd be Poke'd-out after all this, but I have the sudden urge to boot up Emerald and check where I was...
Ended up taking the eastern seaside route from Lavender down to Fuschia. The part just south of Lavender that's all wooden piers over water is now apparently called Silence Bridge -- people tiptoe so as not to scare the water Pokemon away. ^_^ This was a decidedly long haul, especially as I took the opportunity to clear the route east of Vermilion that I couldn't get to because of the Snorlax.
(It occurs to me that Vermilion the town is easily confused with Vermillion my Red Gyrados. Heh.)
The southeastern-most part of Kanto, south of the fence maze, is now a pretty hill with wind turbines. A surprise awaited me there: Suicune, calling to me from out on the water. It ran away as usual when Eusine showed up, but he said something about it liking windy hills near water -- "somewhere up north". (Apparently that's not the Cape north of Cerulean, either, 'cause I've looked.)
Having made it to Fuschia and verified that the Pal Park was available, and seeing as it was Saturday, I hopped the border back to Jhoto and entered the Bug Catching Contest with Rotti again. This time, Rotti was more than strong enough -- in fact, he KO'd pretty much everything with one hit. It was still good training for him, though, and as a bonus I caught myself a female Combee: trading gold. This also got me second place, and another Everstone (though what I could really use is another Exp Share).
After that, I hopped back over to Kanto and opened up Cerulean. Misty was nowhere to be seen, so I decided to tackle Cycling Road. The bikers on it were astonishingly friendly after being defeated; I got a bunch of phone numbers, and one of them called me up later to hand me a Dusk Stone, of all things. Since I'd used the one I bought to evolve Rotti after he reached lvl 35, that was an unexpected but very welcome gift.
All that battling had finally gotten Rotti and Tremor up to decent levels, so I went for some badges. Erica's Gym was pretty easy, between Rotti and Cynder. In Janine's Gym -- she took over in Fuschia from daddy Koga after he joined the Elite Four -- I bungled a little and missed a trainer battle. Instead of being subtly marked on the floor, the invisible walls were only obvious when you stumbled into them, and then a small section would become visible. Worse, all the trainers were disguised as Janine. And I found her before I found all of them. So, missed one there.
Still, that got me two more badges, and with the Snorlax blocking Diglett's Cave, the only way to western Kanto was the long water route past the Seafoam Islands. So I decided that I'd check out what was up at the Power Plant. I'd been expecting a Rocket hideout, but all that was there were the workers who'd cleaned the place up and gotten the generator working. A part had been stolen by some "shady character", was all. Sure enough, the guy turned out to be a Rocket when I chased him down -- and with his badly mangled English, from some other country at that (Isshu, maybe? heh) -- but his single Golbat went down easily, and the Power Plant was running again in short order.
At some point, though, I'll have to go back that way and go through Rock Tunnel, which I totally skipped. Vermillion's really the only one of the team that's strong enough against Rock types.
With that wrapped up, I was able to chase down Misty on her date at the Cape (was that really Red? He didn't look at all familiar) and nab the Cascade Badge. Sadly, though I was able to get the Expansion card for my Radio, neither Lavender Tower nor Silph Co. were accessible beyond their first floors. The only thing left to do was to go play PokeFlute music on my Radio to wake up the Snorlax, which I caught easily enough.
All that being quite a Poke-marathon, I stopped outside the entrance to Diglett's Cave. Next stop, Pewter City and the Boulder Badge!
I have to say, I'm really impressed with the new rendering of Kanto in SS. Besides the basic improvements to the graphics, the routes have more variation and, well, for lack of a better word, really great landscaping. Instead of just being long stretches between cities, they feel like real countryside now -- but at the same time, they're similar enough to bring back that Red/Blue-era nostalgia. It's very well done. Props to Nintendo on that one.
You'd think I'd be Poke'd-out after all this, but I have the sudden urge to boot up Emerald and check where I was...
Friday, September 3, 2010
SS - Kanto it is
Allright, so maybe I'll be staying in Kanto. :P
It turns out that one can easily Fly between regions by using Victory Road/Indigo Plateau as a transfer point. Thinking that the Bug-Catching Contest would be a great way to get Rotti levelled up some, I flew over to the National Park and sallied forth into the grasses.
Only, I'd forgotten that after one gets the Nat'l Dex, the park now features bugs from all the regions -- at levels twice as high. Poor Rotti was KO'd within five minutes, and I simply rebooted the game instead of taking the hit to my Pokeyen.
So instead, I decided to look around Kanto some more. Conveniently enough, the levels of the wild Pokemon north of Vermilion were around level 13 or so, just in the right range for Rotti and Tremor to get in a few levels. The weird thing was, the trainer battles along the same route were at waaay higher levels, as in low-40's. This disparity seemed strange to me -- if you went through with low-level Pokemon, the trainers would clobber you; but if you went through with Pokemon strong enough to defeat the trainers, there'd be little point in the wild encounters. Lots of switching up was required.
I'd expected Saffron to be blocked off as always, but it wasn't; so I went up and netted myself the Marsh Badge from Sabrina. This wasn't too hard, especially since I dodged out of the Gym to heal up after defeating the other Gym trainers. Both Silph Co. and the Magnet Train were inaccessible, though -- it seems that the Rockets are up to something at the Power Plant.
Instead of jumping on that situation immediately, I ran over to Lavender. Lavender's Pokemon Tower is now a Radio Tower, but again, not in operation due to the Power Plant issue. If it were, there'd be a PokeFlute station, which would wake up the Snorlax blocking the path east from Vermilion. With not much else to do there, I went over in the other direction, to Celadon. There I discovered that the Game Corner there is also a Voltorb Flip game, and satisfied my itch to play for a bit.
Erika's Gym ought to be a cinch with Cynder, though I'd like to get Rotti up to the point where I can use him there as well. From there, I have several options. I could go back to Vermilion, and through Diglett's Cave to Rt. 2, and do the usual trek eastward through Mt. Moon and Cerulean. Or I could just run north to Cerulean from Saffron, and grab the Badge. Finally, there's Cycling Road, which would take me to Fuschia to net another Badge and open up the Pal Park.
With the guidebook ending at the League, there's really no way to tell which Gym to hit next. From Bulbapedia, it seems like most of the Kanto Gym teams are around high-40's to low-50's levels, so maybe it doesn't really matter. I'd like to get most of the towns opened up to Fly to, at least.
With no gaming (though I wish the reason for that was not so unfortunate! D: ) and a holiday weekend coming up, I should be able to make some definite progress.
Also -- Saturday is supposed to be cool and windy, so I should get me out for some triking if I can. I've been looking at the Spring Grove campus as a potential location closer than the BWI trail. I should also try for some serious steps, since I'm now on the Hoenn Field Pokewalker course. Pity I didn't think to stay on the previous stroll, which could have netted me a Skitty. I now have a second PC box dedicated to Pokewalker catches, and I intend to fill it. 8D
It turns out that one can easily Fly between regions by using Victory Road/Indigo Plateau as a transfer point. Thinking that the Bug-Catching Contest would be a great way to get Rotti levelled up some, I flew over to the National Park and sallied forth into the grasses.
Only, I'd forgotten that after one gets the Nat'l Dex, the park now features bugs from all the regions -- at levels twice as high. Poor Rotti was KO'd within five minutes, and I simply rebooted the game instead of taking the hit to my Pokeyen.
So instead, I decided to look around Kanto some more. Conveniently enough, the levels of the wild Pokemon north of Vermilion were around level 13 or so, just in the right range for Rotti and Tremor to get in a few levels. The weird thing was, the trainer battles along the same route were at waaay higher levels, as in low-40's. This disparity seemed strange to me -- if you went through with low-level Pokemon, the trainers would clobber you; but if you went through with Pokemon strong enough to defeat the trainers, there'd be little point in the wild encounters. Lots of switching up was required.
I'd expected Saffron to be blocked off as always, but it wasn't; so I went up and netted myself the Marsh Badge from Sabrina. This wasn't too hard, especially since I dodged out of the Gym to heal up after defeating the other Gym trainers. Both Silph Co. and the Magnet Train were inaccessible, though -- it seems that the Rockets are up to something at the Power Plant.
Instead of jumping on that situation immediately, I ran over to Lavender. Lavender's Pokemon Tower is now a Radio Tower, but again, not in operation due to the Power Plant issue. If it were, there'd be a PokeFlute station, which would wake up the Snorlax blocking the path east from Vermilion. With not much else to do there, I went over in the other direction, to Celadon. There I discovered that the Game Corner there is also a Voltorb Flip game, and satisfied my itch to play for a bit.
Erika's Gym ought to be a cinch with Cynder, though I'd like to get Rotti up to the point where I can use him there as well. From there, I have several options. I could go back to Vermilion, and through Diglett's Cave to Rt. 2, and do the usual trek eastward through Mt. Moon and Cerulean. Or I could just run north to Cerulean from Saffron, and grab the Badge. Finally, there's Cycling Road, which would take me to Fuschia to net another Badge and open up the Pal Park.
With the guidebook ending at the League, there's really no way to tell which Gym to hit next. From Bulbapedia, it seems like most of the Kanto Gym teams are around high-40's to low-50's levels, so maybe it doesn't really matter. I'd like to get most of the towns opened up to Fly to, at least.
With no gaming (though I wish the reason for that was not so unfortunate! D: ) and a holiday weekend coming up, I should be able to make some definite progress.
Also -- Saturday is supposed to be cool and windy, so I should get me out for some triking if I can. I've been looking at the Spring Grove campus as a potential location closer than the BWI trail. I should also try for some serious steps, since I'm now on the Hoenn Field Pokewalker course. Pity I didn't think to stay on the previous stroll, which could have netted me a Skitty. I now have a second PC box dedicated to Pokewalker catches, and I intend to fill it. 8D
Thursday, September 2, 2010
SS - Onward to Kanto
Simply decided, heck with it, and boarded the S.S. Aqua to Vermilion City. The re-done graphics look pretty good. But the Gym was way harder than I'd been expecting -- one of the trainers almost took me out, before I even got to Lt. Surge. Tremor and Rotti are apparently just not up to Kanto standards. Even the wild Pokemon near Vermilion would likely be more than they could handle.
To get them properly levelled, not to mention EV'd, it looks like I'll have to make the trip back to Jhoto and do some tedious training. But I missed the Wednesday return voyage of the SS Aqua, and haven't looked yet to see if I can Fly to Indigo Plateau or Victory Road, then back to Jhoto from there. Honestly have just been too tired to bother with Poke-ing, despite a growing craving to play some Voltorb Flip.
To get them properly levelled, not to mention EV'd, it looks like I'll have to make the trip back to Jhoto and do some tedious training. But I missed the Wednesday return voyage of the SS Aqua, and haven't looked yet to see if I can Fly to Indigo Plateau or Victory Road, then back to Jhoto from there. Honestly have just been too tired to bother with Poke-ing, despite a growing craving to play some Voltorb Flip.
Monday, August 30, 2010
SS - The Elite Four are down
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.
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.
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.