It’s my Poke-birthday!

Four years ago today, I bought pokemon pearl and started my first adventure with it. A poor student, I had bought it second-hand (or “pre-loved”). That didn’t matter. Despite issues with the game (primarily, the absence of a real rival), it would become the first game I managed to play half-competently.

And when I say “half”, I mean half.

Four years later, the pokedex is still unfinished. So, rather than celebrating this rather unusual anniversary in an ordinary fashion, by having a quiet smile to myself and not telling anyone at all, I have spent today trying to catch Feebas.

Feebas is incredibly common- to four tiles in Mt Coronet. So, today I drew out a map of the area and am currently checking off squares I have looked in. Still no Feebas, but staying positive. Despite the fact there is a less than 1 per cent chance that the next tile I check will be a Feebas tile.

Still. I have eight pokemon left to go. The promise of a Shiny Charm for completing the entire dex on White 2 is almost too much to bear, and taking that one step closer today would be a lovely poke-birthday present to myself, don’t you think?

I have such a long way to go, and am hampered at every turn by the sheer ridiculous rarity of event pokemon. I’m doing this by the book, too, no hacks. No charity either. It might not even be possible for me. There aren’t a lot of Celebi out there, and they haven’t been released in an event since 2011. Arceus was released the week before I realised what was going on, and I kicked myself for it. Meloetta was just released everywhere but the UK, which was upsetting.

If anyone did manage to get Meloetta in the UK recently, please don’t tell me. It would be kindest not to tell me.

After all, it is my poke-birthday.

May ’13 Sitrep

So, since March, there’s been a little progress. Not a huge amount, mind, but a little.

LeafGreen: FOUND. Currently using it to transfer pokemon off the FireRed cartridges onto Ruby, so that they can be moved to Pearl and then the Pal Park. So I can get Mew one day.

FireRed: Both empty, ready to be restarted.

Pearl: 10 to go.

Diamond/Platinum: Slightly beyond usefulness. Raided Platinum for its Master Ball and caught Cresselia. Could restart whenever, if it wasn’t for the Pal Park.

White: At the Pokemon League, where I was summarily mullered by the first trainer a few weeks ago and haven’t played since.

White 2: After completing Area 8 of the White Treehollow, now training so that I can complete Area 9 with ease.

Everything else: no change.

So, very shortly I will commence my adventure in New Bark Town. I had planned meticulously in advance- but this whole idea was about me playing it the way I used to. Now, I won’t exactly do that, because I was rubbish, but there’s a lot to be said for learning as you go.

I’m excited. I know I’m not the first person to dig out their old games and play through the series, and I really hope to hear from other people who are doing the same thing. Maybe there’ll even be a battle or two on the cards.

Plan: Finish clearing LeafGreen off, and start anew.

Lesson learnt

Lesson learnt

This really made me rethink my attitude to gen VI.

Just not Kricketot

So, a couple of weeks ago, I announced my decision to compete in the 2013 Spring Friendly. It must be said, I didn’t take it hugely seriously, not even bothering to make sure my team were carrying sensible held items. 

Still, that seemed like an incredibly nerdy thing to say, so I’m just going to admit- I was just having a look. I wasn’t going to win, in fact my personal target was to find just one unlucky sap in the entire world who was worse than me.

Guess what- I found them.

A male character by he name of Joel, no location given, succumbed to my efforts. I was overjoyed, and celebrated by losing four matches in succession before retiring from the tournament so that I could stop sitting in my chair next to the wireless booster and actually relax and play some pokemon.

There were a few things I learnt, like holding berries is far more useful than holding, say, a Lucky Egg. Also, a male character called Romance had an all-shiny team and I don’t care that he beat me, that’s awesome.

I also learnt that using legendaries is fair game, even though they’re all stupidly powerful and it’s no fun winning with them.

I have legendary pokemon. They tend to sit in my computer utterly unused. They take the fun out of the game.

Yes, when I was a kid and I could hide in my room for two weeks and emerge champion of all Kanto, owning Mewtwo was pretty neat. Now, I spend months carefully selecting and training my team, so there’s no real reason for me to do a ridiculous reshuffle just to include a Cobalion I don’t even need.

The internet doesn’t agree with me. I have three Keldeos, if you must know- I just choose not to use them. Repeatedly using Sacred Sword doesn’t make you a pokemon master. It makes you boring.

As I slumped in my uncomfortable chair, radio waves pulsing through my body, I had a single miserable thought: it’s just not cricket.

I imagine everyone who plays pokemon imagines every other trainer thinks like them. Does every other trainer get their heart broken? I hope not.

The lazy way of doing things certainly isn’t epidemic- but it’s there. Two of the six trainers I battled included a legendary in their lineup. To be honest, I slightly respect the guy who had the Keldeo- my three are all low level, and I intend to use them eventually, but only when I’ve figured out what team I’ll build around them.

I know you’re allowed to use Kyurem- but there’s nothing poetic about that. Congratulations, you’ve managed to catch a pokemon that pretty much every other trainer on the face of the earth also has. It’s also stupidly powerful, thanks to how ridiculous nearly everything in gen V is.

I know I’m sulking. But I came a noble 4306th out of 6608. That, at least, I can hold on to. some people definitely did worse- people with better avatars than mine, people who aren’t first-timers and rubbish at this sort of thing. I’m sorry if that’s you- I think I just figured I should quit while I was ahead. Or, at least, not too far behind.

I don’t know if I’ve caught Kyurem or not. It could be sitting in my PC or terrorising Unova- it doesn’t matter to me.

What does matter is that I found my LeafGreen cartridge under my bed. I’m going back to New Bark Town.

Coming soon- adventures in Kanto! What starter will Sach pick? Will they bother using an emulator to revisit gen I? Will they finally catch Kangaskhan after all these miserable years? Find out… soon…

Memory Link of a different kind

So. Casually browsing Huffpost, because it’s my favourite source of bad journalism, when I stroll across this little beauty:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/17/gamer-plays-with-same-pokemon-11-years_n_3291429.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cukt1%7Cdl13%7Csec3_lnk4%26pLid%3D180196_ukt2

It tells the story of a man who has been using the same pokemon for 11 years. Now, having used the same pokemon since Ruby and Sapphire came out (10 years), I was a touch sceptical. Appropriately, it’s a Sceptile.

Reading on the guy’s actual blog, he knows his stuff. He’s certainly not claiming to have the oldest living pokemon, nor is he saying that Fire Red came out in 2002, as Huffpost claim. (This, by the way, is what happens when you don’t pay your writers, Huffpost.)

In fact, it’s just a charming little story about pokemon companionship, the real reason why adult pokefans pity kids today. I grew up with Skeptyleia- Don’t criticise the name, I was eleven years old – and even though he’s not my best pokemon, he is my oldest.

He’s not been quite the star that Cunzy11’s Dactylocer has. He’s not had any children, and he’s only recently cracked level 60, because he’s a grass type and I don’t see the point. Still, I wouldn’t have kept him if I wasn’t attached to him.

For anyone who doesn’t play pokemon, the bond between a player and a bunch of ones and zeros can be a little tricky to understand. I know Skeptyleia isn’t real. I know he’s not a very good pokemon. Still, that doesn’t matter.

I was eleven years old. I had a different name. I used to sit up all night, using a lit screen magnifier to sit playing in the dark without rousing the suspicions of my parents. Skeptyleia may just be a bunch of ones and zeros, but he’s a link to a child I used to be, half a lifetime ago.

Skeptyleia sits calmly at the back of my party, waiting for a water/ground type pokemon to turn up. When electricity fails, it’s his chance to shine.

He’s not the only relic from my younger days. In fact, I’ve kept most of them. A level 92 Swellow called Tialauuenz with preposterously low IVs. Twenty-six Zigzagoons, conceived in one game and hatched in three. Most sentimentally of all, a piece of mail, marked: “Remember me and her. Kai.”

When I got Ruby and Sapphire, I played as a female character called Alex, and a male character called Kai. After completing Sapphire, I made the decision to start again, uprooting Tialauuenz, Skeptyleia, Kombausken, Lynayonooi and his entire family of baby Zigzagoons. But I left myself a reminder- a single piece of mail, brought to Pokemon Pearl via the Pal Park.

Unfortunately, that piece of imaginary paper can travel no further in my games. Transporting items between gen IV and gen V is impossible. I can only hope they never do the same to my Skeptyleia.

Tears of a completist

Every so often, I get utterly bored out of my wits by Pokemon. This is not because of a lack of interest in the storylines or challenges, but mostly because I’ve been playing on the same Pearl cartridge for four years now, and I am just eleven shy of completing the Sinnoh Dex.

Seen 150. Obtained 139.

I saw all the Pokemon three years ago. Since then, I’ve been trying to acquire those last thirty-seven. I think I’ve done alright, considering the mere thought of trying to get those last eleven makes me want to cry.

But I’m too close now to give up. Eleven? That’s nothing. Here they are:

#064 – Ambipom
#066 – Drifblim
#075 – Honchkrow
#108 – Spiritomb
#111 – Garchomp
#116 – Lucario
#128 – Drapion
#130 – Toxicroak
#138 – Feebas
#139 – Milotic
#145 – Weavile

Feebas aside, that’s a fairly tame list. Except I don’t have a Dusk Stone, Razor Claw or enough happiness left in my body to make a Riolu smile.

I understand that the Pokedex is supposed to be a challenge. I really do. But for a 21-year old, gathering the necessary 32 friends needed to summon Spiritomb is a bit of a feat. I can’t even finish a single survey for Passerby Analytics HQ. Because none of my friends are eight any more and they certainly don’t take Pokemon as seriously as I do.

That said, I’m absolutely terrible. Do you want a battle? You’ll definitely win.

For four years, I have miserably inched towards completion of the Sinnoh Dex. I’m not sure why, but I have.

Help me.

The Master Ball, or First World Problems

After fighting my way up Mount Coronet, defeating four hundred and seventy Team Galactic goons as well as three of the top dogs, coming face to face with the legendary pokemon in charge of all of time was not the respite I had hoped for. After ineffectually hurling my weakened level 30-odd pokemon at Dialga’s godlike frame and realising this wasn’t going to work, I reached for the Poke Balls and decided to hurl and hope.

With legendary pokemon, this is essentially the strategy to opt for. They’re too powerful to hurt, too strong to survive and so good at escaping pokeballs that even lowering the HP to 1 and freezing them means you’ll have to use 30 Ultra Balls minimum. The exception to this is of course, my Palkia, which, tired and frustrated, I threw a simple Poke Ball at without even bothering to damage it first. It worked, and remembering the countless miserable hours used trying to catch a Moltres I had no need for, I nearly cried.

So, me, face to face with Dialga, Ball pocket open. I spot my Master Ball, the one I’d been saving to catch Cresselia. I’ve already bought fifty Ultra Balls, and it’s night-time so those twenty Dusk Balls are also available. I bought all of them specifically for that moment. Still, after wasting 7 Max Repels on the way up the miserable and pointlessly Graveler-filled Mt Coronet, there was no good reason in my mind not to save myself the tears and throw the Master Ball.

To cut a short story shorter, I now have Dialga.

Catching legendary pokemon is a tedious business. Aside from their being ridiculously powerful, there’s absolutely no reason to do it. It’s like bothering with Togepi pre-Gen IV. You’d have to be a seriously obsessive completist (cough) to bother with something so weak, and so awkward.

I’m not a genwunner by any means, but it did cut through the crap of all that switching your game on and off by only having one really hard legendary pokemon to catch. That was what the Master Ball was for. A level 70 psychopathic psychic cat to add to your team as a reward for bothering with the game so long.

Then, someone at Game Freak thought it would be a wonderful idea to introduce roaming pokemon that you needed to use the Master Ball on, because they’d run away from you otherwise. Even if you had a Diglett with Arena Trap on it, they had that base covered- the legendary beasts would either a) Kill your Diglett instantly or b) use Roar and flee from your tiny, useless Diglett.

Generation 3 packed a particularly cruel punch by having the roaming pokemon afflicted by glitches, making them not only difficult to catch, but in the case of Raikou and Entei, liable to disappear from the game. To add insult to injury, the roaming pokemon had their data incorrectly stored, making them unusually feeble.

Roaming pokemon are awkward, rubbish and upsettingly easy to kill. And because you didn’t know you were going to encounter them, you just have to either accept that it’s never coming back or just switch off your game without saving.

The Master Ball gives you the chance to turn these problems into opportunities. With a flick of the wrist, you can catch the blighters on the spot, add them to your pokedex, and continue on your merry way.

Unless, of course, you’re playing Platinum, and you have no fewer than FIVE to catch, and only one Master Ball to do it with.

So, why in hell did I chuck my only Master Ball at the non-roaming, perfectly stationary Dialga? Put simply, because working your way through the game and getting another Master Ball is less frustrating than throwing seventy Poke Balls at a hideous beast who keeps devouring your precious pokefriends.

Last time I caught Moltres, it took over 140 Ultra Balls. I had a level 60 Charizard by then. But, thanks to a cruel mantra drilled into me for over half my life, I have got to catch them all. Repeatedly. Game after game, forever.

Now that I have Dialga, Skuntank, Murkrow and Mime Jr. (it’s been a busy week), I am just 12 critters away from completing the Sinnoh Dex on Pearl. I’m too close to achieving it to back out now, but can’t help but think that it’s a) been a terrible waste of my time and b) not going to be worth it. And then I think “Gotta catch ’em all!” and I’m helplessly lured into trying to evolve Drifloon into Drifblim. Only, now I’m 21 and understand EVs, I can’t use the Day Care, because what if I wanted to use that Drifblim in battle later?

Pokemon is a cruel mistress, and the Master Ball is her darkest temptation.

March ’13 Sitrep

Well, since claiming last summer I was to ‘start at New Bark town and finish up in Unova’ or beyond, I haven’t even started. I’ve bought a few cartridges to replace the ones I’ve lost, and lost a few to keep equilibrium with the ones I’ve bought.

I’ve come to realise that with Pokemon, I don’t really know what I’m doing yet. I doubt I ever will, as playing in geek mode seems to be quite time consuming. I’ve sampled the delights of Bulbapedia, and learnt more from it than ever sane person should ever wish to know.

So, before I start making a real effort to clean up my games and start over, here’s a rundown on my current games.

Red/Yellow/Blue- No idea where they are, and I’ve decided not to use them anyway. Might have a bit of a squee if I find Blue, but I’m fairly sure the other two are with primary school friends of mine.

Gold/Silver- Broken and lost.

Crystal- Never owned, and never saw the point. Only time I ever played it, I played as a boy anyway.

Ruby- Having sent all the decent pokemon to the Pal Park, am using it to breed Dratinis, Charmanders, Growlithes, Larvitars and Laprases. So I have many. Don’t ask me why; I’m struggling to remember.

Sapphire- No idea. Think it may be in the office of Martin & Co Swindon, but aside from that, no idea at all.

Emerald- Five badges. Trying to catch Groudon, then I can happily send it all to the Pal Park and have done with it.

FireRed- I have two, and don’t really remember why. On one, I started with Squirtle and have one badge. The other has no save file. So, I’m good to go on those.

LeafGreen- Also missing. Have defeated the Elite Four and all that jazz, and was in the process of training up to defeat my partner (who has a level 90+ Mewtwo and level 80+ Charizard, Steelix, Tyranitar, Vaporeon and something else scary and toothy). So, even if I did know where it was, I’d only use it to flail desperately in his direction.

Pearl- Completed the main quest around five years ago, about a week after I bought it. Have been playing for 140+ hours, which is slightly embarrassing. Irritatingly, I’m 16 pokemon away from completing the Pokedex, and seeing as I haven’t managed that in 12 years of playing, I’m damned if I don’t do it.

Diamond- I have seven badges, and am currently climbing up Mt Coronet to find my first Dialga, which I will instantly trade over to Pearl to help fill the pokedex. I will then carry on trying to catch the Pokemon needed on Pearl and then probably give up completely once I’ve got them.

Platinum- Also using to supplement Pearl. On four badges and embarrassingly stuck trying to get the fifth. May borrow stupidly powerful pokemon from other games to get past gym leader 5.

HeartGold- Not got Lugia and that’s about it. Currently, most pokemon are infected with Pokerus, which is nice.

SoulSilver- Actually, I’m in a position to stop this one. No badges, and I seem to have traded off all the decent pokemon.

Black- I have two, again, for no real reason. One’s nicely completed, with some lovely juicy Pokemon on it. The other one seems just to be a vessel to carry a Snivy in.

White- I have one badge, and seem to have started with Oshawott. I expect I didn’t get further because Bianca and Cheren irritate the shit out of me.

Black 2- Not got it. Happy to cross that bridge when it comes to it, to be honest. I have enough games in progress.

White 2- Only just bought, and super excited about it as it’s a squillion times better than white. Had it for two days and on course for badge number 5.

So, out of 20 games, I owned 18, 16 still work, I know where eleven are and am in a position to stop on four, two of which I have duplicate cartridges of.

In conclusion- Phase one of the Sandslach blog: Find Sapphire and LeafGreen; complete the Sinnoh Dex; start emptying Gen III cartridges.