Hey, You Got Your Kanto in My Kalos!

After being told to meet Tree-of-the-Moment Professor Sycamore in the next town, I made my customary game first purchase of a thousand pokeballs and exactly six potions at the nearest store.  Little did I know that I would then be given ten more pokeballs and potions free from the gang of pokemon thieves (who are supposed to be my friends) I described in the last post.  While being tricked into getting fifty potions and pokeballs is not nearly as bad as the time I was tricked into catching five Lilipups, I still take this afront personally.

----------------------------------------
Remember how in the last game, there were ONLY new pokemon?  Well in this game, the pokemon mix is actually fairly decent.  The first pokemon I encountered (and failed to catch, damn) was a Pidgey (who evolves directly into my favorite bird pokemon (that link was a joke)) and the next two were Zigzagoon and a new pokemon called Fletchling.  I caught both of these as well as a cool rabbit pokemon called Bunnelby and found out that in this game, you actually gain experience from catching pokemon as well as defeating them--which is a fairly banal change, but it was all the change necessary to convince me to try and catch every single pokemon I encountered.  I was kind of glad to have those 70 pokeballs as I made my way to the first area of the game (can you call them "dungeons"?), Santalune Forest.

Now, as soon as I stepped-into the forest I was struck with an odd sense of deja-vu: "Have I been here before?  Couldn't be...I bet there isn't a dead end to the left...wait, there is...or an item forward and to the left...there is...and the path to the right winds up and around..."

Item to the left, twisting path, Encounters with Caterpie, Weedle, and rare cases of Pikachu?  THIS IS VIRIDIAN FOREST!!!  As I would soon find out, Santalune Forest has an identical map to the Original Viridian Forest from Red Version.  What the Hell, Nintendo!  You can't take my very first pokemon adventure and lovingly recreate it in 3D with fantastic graphics and an amazing selection of new pokemon...

...

What the heck was I complaining about again?

I went on a spree here, catching Weedle, Caterpie (who evolved into Metapod), Pansage (we meet again, my old nemesis), Pansear, Panpour, a new bug type called Scatterbug, and NARROWLY MISSED CATCHING PIKACHU.

I am still a little sore about that Pikachu, because then I would be one step closer to having my three favorite pokemon on my team (Butterfree, Raichu, Milotic if you're asking).

I am immediately reminded of Red Version.  I remember back then how long I would look in Viridian Forest (which, as established, is Santalune Forest) just to find one Pikachu for my party--and how when I did finally encounter him, Bulbasaur was already level 12 and I was scared of knocking it out too quickly (Oh yeah, I chose Bulbasaur, by the way).  My solution was to use "Leech Seed" and "Growl" until his health was low enough to start tossing Pokeballs.  On more than one playthrough, I got to this point to realize I was out of Pokeballs, so it is a good thing I have 80 of them this time.

After 40 minutes of looking I decided to quit for the moment.

Current Squad:
Pokemon/Nickname/Level
FROAKIE/Froakles/lvl.9
METAPOD/Felix/lvl.8
ZIGZAGOON/Ziggy/lvl.8
SCATTERBUG/Bubbsy/lvl.7
BUNNELBY/Buns/lvl.4
----/----/----

The Beginning of Pokemon Y

The start of a new journey is always the most interesting part, but if this is the best the game gets then it is enough for me.

I can already tell that this game has a lot of potential--and that it will at least be better than Diamond and Pearl versions: a decent choice of starting pokemon and character customization.

Let me start over:
----------------------------------
I recall the start of Pokemon White being something painfully dumb and after taking a few minutes to reread my blog post just now I am thankful that Nintendo decided to start this title without the melodramatic nonsense: you turn the game on and you immediately choose your name, gender, and what you look like.  Granted, the options for facial customization are PRETTY limited (you only get to choose between "blond anime kid," "brown-haired anime kid," or "dark-skinned anime kid"), but being able to play as something other than the typical "wirey Japanese kid" is fairly monumental.

I named myself "Darien" as I named my first pokemon character back in Red Version and within four minutes, I got to choose my first pokemon.  I met my character's friends in town and they asked me what nickname I wanted to have (D. Swiggy, of course) and then gave me a pokemon and a pokedex, saying that the "Professor Sycamore" told them to do this.

Basically my first pokemon might actually have been stolen.  Wouldn't it be funny if Y version was a "Team Rocket" Game?  

The choice of Starter pokemon this time around was the ridiculously cheerful grass type "Chespin", the painfully adorable fire type "Fennekin", and the type I always choose "Froakie".

Since I have chosen the water-type starter in every game barring White Version (and Red version, but we'll get to that some other time), the toss-up between Fennekin and Froakie was decided in water's favor.  I am curious about whether anyone will acutally choose Chespin.  To me Chespin looks less like a pokemon I would choose to start an adventure with, and more of a pokemon I would pick up in a forest somewhere on the way to my first gym battle and then let rot in the PC.

So I still haven't met the professor yet and may have gotten a stolen pokemon as my starter, but none of this matters because in this game YOU CAN WALK DIAGONALLY.

As a matter of fact, go back and ignore all the criticism I have so far, the diagonal walking totally makes up for it all.

Current Squad:

The End of Pokemon White

Not really much to say about the anticlimax of the century: I beat "N" with only "Tusks" the Haxorus (there HAS to be an "overpowered Dragon-type" joke in there somewhere...) and then I fought Ghestis (the true villain) afterwards and similarly beat him in 8 moves using only Haxorus. 

Afterwards, I got a pep talk from "N" about pursuing my dreams or some nonsense like that.

And then the credits rolled...
----------------------------------------------

I'm not sure how I feel about Pokemon White being over--on the one hand the writing was heavy-handed and the plot was fantastically bad, but the pokemon designs were interesting and the world layout was...satisfactory.  Okay, I guess coming up with things I liked is a little difficult.

Now, I'm just being critical because I love the Pokemon series so don't take this the wrong way, but Pokemon White was not a good game.  I'm not saying it was bad, it was just average.

Why do you play pokemon?  The story?  I sure hope not, the story for this game was good, but not great: it definitely suffered from "Decent Premise, Terrible Writing Syndrome".  The idea of whether or not Pokemon training is ethical was great to bring up--and injected an excellent bit of self-awareness for a series which has always been "Shoot First, Ask Questions Later".

The problem with this is that the whole "pokemon battles as arguments of ideals" allegory that this game was pushing the whole time (Zekrom and Reshiram themselves, representing dissenting opinions) fell absolutely flat on its face along with the entirety of the game's dialogue, which ranged from "bad" to "unforgivably bad".  I wonder if the entire game was written on "Take your kid to work day"...

No, you play a pokemon game for the battling and the pokemon design and selection.  Here, the game wasn't terrible, but it still didn't shine.  For every cool-looking Leavanny or Scraggy, there was a dumb-looking Stunfisk or an uninspired Klink, Vanilluxe, or Cryogonal.  As a matter of fact, the total number of stupid-looking pokemon definitely outnumbers the cool ones that I remember--and the negatives from this game are most definitely the things I recall the most.

I can't remember one bad thing about Red and Blue version...wait, I just remembered Rock Tunnel...
nevermind.  But Silver Version--there we are, that's the example I will use.  Silver version was perfect I think.  I can't recall a bad section of the game: awesome pokemon design, access to good pokemon early (but not overpowered ones) in order to get you hooked--constantly changing environments and a story that was compelling and not in-your-face the whole time banging-on about friendship or dreams or arguments or some nonsense like that.

Ruby was good I guess--less homogenous in terms of pokemon access (as in, you tended to get about 40 cool new pokemon at a time followed by hours of gameplay where no new monsters appear) and a bit too plot-heavy (I never DID get behind that "legendary pokemon as a main plot point" thing), but overall solid.

Diamond and Pearl I can't for the life of me remember--must not have liked them very much--and I never DID like those three starter options.  Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup: Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.  While I know many people will disagree with that last statement, it is my opinion and I would just like to say: nanna-nanna-boo-boo, stick your head in doo doo.

So Pokemon White?  Put it above Diamond and Pearl but below Red and Silver versions.  Maybe just below Ruby and Sapphire.

----------------------------------------------
But today isn't about goodbyes, it is about new beginnings.  I thought I was done with Pokemon--but Nintendo just keeps me hanging on.  A new game is out--and that means a new Pokemon Playthrough.  Therefore, I am proud to announce the start of:

I have reset my trainer card to reflect the change:

Of course you can continue to expect witty commentary, snide remarks, and what I consider humor. 

Climbing the Underground Space Castle

As I started my journey up the tower to the obvious final boss stage to fight "N" and his giant space pigeon Reshiram, I came across the six sages.  Each one of these stepped forward and told me a useful or not-so-useful life tip: "All mistakes that are not prepared for are other mistakes," "Wisdom is the forsight of knowledge," "An apple a day makes the world go blind,"...

What a dumb game, I can't be the only one who thinks that this is just stupid, right? Right?...guys?...

I thought this would be a six-versus-one battle (which would have been fun), but I was surprised when I got instead a cutscene: all eight gymleaders showed-up to back me up.  Full disclosure: this was pretty cool--which is weird because everything else in the past hour of playing time has sucked.

It turns out that Team Plasma's big plan has always been to sabotage the PC system to release all of the trainers' pokemon.  *INSERT SLOW CLAP FOR GENUINELY CLEVER PLAN*.  My only question is why they needed the Dragonite skull from the museum at the start of the game--or all of those pep rallies--or the underground space castle build next to the pokemon league.  Surely this is the sort of plan that should be executed "Ocean's Eleven" style (with a cool Frank Sinatra tune playing in the background)?  I am very disappointed in Nintendo for not casting George Clooney as "N" and Brad Pitt as "Ghestis".

Here are things I found on the way to the top:

CREEEEEEEPY

-N's creepy ass pedophilia room -->
-A pokemon storage PC
-A pokemon center

This is clearly the worst evil lair ever.  Ghestis even cheered me on!  He wished me luck!  Who the hell writes these characters, this incessant coddling is too much!

As I made it to the top, N called for his "Hyper-Pigeon" Reshiram to battle me--Reshiram broke through the wall to get in, which must end-up costing Team Plasma a lot of money in the long run on renovations, and Zekrom appeared out of the orb I was carrying.  Okay game, I see where you are going with this.

I fought Zekrom, but apparently killing him doesn't do anything and you are REQUIRED to catch him. UGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH, FIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNE!

Oh, by the way, I got rid of that dumb Psychic type since he was only good at sucking and dying.  Picked-up Rufflet from the PC.


Current Squad:

How Do You Even BUILD a Hydraulic Castle?

Well, any suspension of disbelief or emotional involvement I've had in this game is now totally gone, killed, and burned.  This is just total nonsense.

As soon as I beat the Elite 4 and witnessed N put the finishing touches on his win against Alder, I was shown a cutscene of Team Plasma re-entering the story.  There is no way to describe what happened without losing something in the transition because I'm so shocked and confused at the absurdity of it all, so click this to see it yourself... Go ahead, I'll wait...

...

Apparently what their new, genius, totally-going-to-work-this-time plan entails is to build an underground castle beneath the Pokemon League HQ, then to have N become the League Champion (which somehow helps them in their hostile takeover), and finally to smash the castle up through the surface to take the League hostage.

This is something that has just happened.

Ignoring obvious questions like what ridiculous cost and time investment would go into building a castle like this (and inventing a new kind of hard-as-diamond substance that could withstand this kind of crushing force) as well as how the hell they have been able to do this without the people from the League HQ just looking out their windows to notice all the obvious construction equipment necessary for this undertaking, I still have to ask why building the underground castle would be preferable to just invading the Pokemon League in general?

The Greeks fought and won the battle of Marathon, they didn't build a pyramid next to the Persian camps and claim victory.  The English drove the French away at the Battle of Agincourt by shooting them with their bows, not by baking them a better cake.  Richard the Lionheart drove off Saladin's footmen at the Battle of Arsuf by sending in his cavalry, not by making a better science project than him.  You don't win wars by building castles and you can't take over the Pokemon League HQ just because you have a more impressive building!

Once again Team Plasma is caught throwing ideas at the wall and checking on what sticks.  I think I need to lie down for a bit...

The Elite Four (in no particular order)

Every team has its own feel to it.  Some teams are build around type synergy, some teams around setting-up one particular pokemon for a sweep, and stall teams (my favorite) are based upon wearing down your foe from passive effects.  MY team's strategy is currently to overpower my opponents through a combination of heavy hitters and infinity healing potions.

So, I made my traditional $100 billion purchase of HYPER POTIONS and REVIVES at the pokemart and it came time to fight the Elite Four!

The cool thing about this installment in the series is that the Elite Four are all of comparable difficulty and level--and that you can fight them in whatever order you want.  This is fresh and provocative and brilliant and all sorts of fun, expensive words.

Noticing that I have yet to--and will most likely never--address my glaring weakness to FIGHTING pokemon, I chose to battle Marshal the fighting champion first (so that if I screwed up I could just rage quit to my pre-battle save).  I was surprised when the battle went by easily--and even more surprised that the brand-new psychic type that I evolved from Elglelym (or whatever the hell his name is) was totally useless.  He was KOed on turn 1 and I decided not to waste the revive on him.  As far as I'm concerned it's now a 5-pokemon team.

Next I fought Grimsley the Dark trainer (as opposed to his brothers "Grim-Darkstein", "Mr. Darknessburg", and "Admiral NotSoNiceGuyManGuy") and won handily.  Apparently, Red, Scrappy, and Tusks are the anchors of my team of "powerhouses that lack finesse".  There was really no challenge in these supposed champions, and they yielded without any problems.

That is the thing about the pokemon world though--a gymleader or elite four champion is meant to yield to a trainer of sufficient strength and skill.  Gymleaders in the Pokemon world are trainers who exhibit and display the strengths and skills that a candidate on their journey for the championship is meant to have at that point in their training.  They are basically the final exams of the Pokemon world, meant to test your skill at the badge level at which you challenge them.  As a result, a
challenge at the Rank 1 "BOULDER LEVEL" (against Brock) requires a certain knowledge of type resistances and overcoming defenses.  Since this is the most basic level, it is typically very easy and Brock, despite being a trainer of obvious skill and experience, has the job of yielding to a trainer of sufficient skill and foresight.  As a kid I always wondered what fighting Brock would be like if you could fight him at the Rank 8 "BOULDER LEVEL" (as my last gymleader).  Would he be such a pushover?  I bet he would have a super-powerful Rhydon with some crazy move like BLIZZARD to trick up grass types who think they get a free pass.

These four were easy and I beat the Psychic trainer Caitlin and the Ghost trainer Shauntal handily.  From here I went on to battle Alder and, surprise, surprise, N was there and he beat me to it so I'll be battling him instead.  Seems like Black and White version isn't done ripping off the previous games after all!

Current Team:

Back into the Fire

I feel that it is noteworthy to state that coming back to a previously-saved pokemon game after being gone for a month or more is like running the 800 meter at a track meet after weeks of sedentary living--sure you kind of get the gist of what you're supposed to be doing, but in the end, most of your technique is just a lot of flailing around and the rest of it is just plain wrong.  And being thrown right-into the march through "Victory Road"?  Now that's just painful...

-----------------------------------------------------------------

As a whole the trek to the top of that mountain came through as something of a haze to me and I can't quite remember actually getting through it.

Like the day after a truly amazing party I found myself standing at the exit to Victory Road with a team barely alive anchored with a newly-evolved Haxorus (who must have evolved from "Tusks", Fraxure, somewhere along the line).

Similarly I found that Elgyem, that weird useless alien I adopted because I thought I needed a useless Psychic type, had evolved into Beheeyem, another weird looking pokemon with a forgettable name.

Off to my destiny! To the Pokemon League HQ!

Current Squad: