Lugia

Just a brief update to let you know that I am now one Legendary Pokémon closer to catching 'em all.

As of about ten minutes ago, I am the proud owner of a level 45 Lugia.



Motherfucker took me about three and a half hours total, over a span of two days. I don't even want to think about how many Poké/Great/Ultra/Net/Dusk balls I've lobbed at this guy. All I can tell you is that I am physically out of breath.

To say that shit got real would be an understatement. Shit gained a sort of hyperrealism wherein we are all just shadows reflected on a wall in a cave in Shit's subconscious.



Whenever I wonder if I've outgrown Pokémon, if maybe my loyalty to the game is more out of nostalgia than anything else, if I even get anything out of the game anymore, I need only think back to the muted klik! of my Ultraball as it locked itself around the target, cementing my victory. That's what being a Pokémaster is all about.

And for the record? My Lugia (Ulysses) looks simply majestic following me around. I have a feeling that this might be the start of a beautiful friendship.



A more in-depth post later on. I need to go recover.

Day 17 - Prepare for Trouble

Okay, I've been playing for about 22 hours now and I gotta say: Team Rocket is probably the lamest video game villain I've ever encountered.



I mean, villains are necessary in a game in order to keep the stakes high. The more villainous the character, the higher the stakes, right? That's probably why so many villains in video games want to either enslave the world or unleash some demon who's going to devour the world (think any Final Fantasy or Zelda game, for example).

So basically Team Rocket is this group of reprobates bent on taking over the world. Okay, you have me so far.

Now how does Team Rocket go about this goal? Well, so far, their plans have involved...

1) Selling Slowpoke Tails for really expensive on the black market (no, they don't kill the Slowpokes, and to be honest, the Slowpokes don't seem to mind).

2) Turn a Gyrados red by evolving it too soon, or something.

3) Take over a radio station so that you can broadcast “Team Rocket Rules!” over the airwaves.

Annnnd that's it. As you can imagine, the stakes are never really all that high, and I never really care. Now, that being said, I'm only partway through the game, and may have yet to come to the part where they drive a bus full of explosives into the United Nations or unleash a thread of anthrax into the drinking water, but at the moment you can colour me unimpressed.



Now, I know what you're thinking: “But Aaron, who cares if Team Rocket is a lame villain? That's not the point of this game! This is Pokémon, in which the story is really just a means to an end, and that's the exciting gameplay!”

To that I say.... well, yeah. I guess you're right about that. But still, there are plenty of games out there with great gameplay and a great story. For once I'd like to see a Pokémon game with both.

At the very least, though, Team Rocket has provided me with plenty of battles, given me lots of opportunities to level up my Pokémon. As such, I've had quite a few of my guys evolve in the past few days. ChickenBoo grew into a Pidgeotto, and Amy into a Raticate. I promptly ditched Amy and started training Buggin Out in her place. He quickly grew to a Kakuna, and then a Beedrill, at which point I swapped him out for Psycho Fox. Psycho Fox grew into a Kadabra. The slot is now being occupied by my Machop, whom I've named Maraxus.

Oh, and Swayze evolved into a sweet Haunter. Here's a pic (courtesy of my brother David):



On top of those I've also caught a metric shitload of wild Pokémon in the last few days. They consist of:

-A level 22 male Vulpix named Ash
-A level 20 female Diglett named Resetti
-A level 24 male Farfetch'd named Ferdinand
-A level 15 female Jigglypuff named Duffy
-A level 17 Magnemite named IG-88
-A level 17 male Rhyhorn named Rocksteady
-A level 17 female Sunkern named Flora
-A level 5 male Eevee named Lockjaw

Not to mention a Venonat, Oddish, Wobuffet, Bellsprout, and Dratini on my Pokéwalker. On top of that, Oberyn evolved into an Arbok, courtesy of the hard work he's been doing on my Pokéwalker. He now looks appropriately awesome.

That brings me to 75 Pokémon, which means I've added 20 Pokémon to the 'Dex in the past three days. I think it's clear at this point that I'm not in the prisoner-taking business, I'm in the Pokémon-taking business.

And brother, business is booming.

Day 17 Pokédex count: Seen 145, caught 75
Professor Oak says: You're training them well. You know that some Pokémon don't evolve just by battling with others, right?

Say wha, Professor?

Day 14 - Over 10% Done

Okay, so feeling pretty good. As of about 3 o'clock this morning, I've caught 10% of 'em all.

And I'm just getting warmed up.

So far I've been pretty happy with my progress, but even I can admit that this is just the beginning. I'm still finding new wild Pokémon just traveling from city to city. We'll see what happens after I beat the Elite Four, when I have to start cracking down and really struggle to fill the gaps left in my Pokédex.

To begin with, I don't even have the faintest idea how I'm going to track down those Pokémon that can only be given away at certain events. I suppose I'll need to, you know, actually attend these events, despite the fact that most of them are limited to the U.S. It's not impossible. I may have to learn how to drive, however – something I've dreaded doing my entire life. Either that or find another few Pokémasters in training who are old enough to drive and organize the gayest (sorry, “lamest”) road trip since, I dunno, Thelma and Louise.

Another problem I may need to address is the fact that I don't really have a working Wi-Fi connection at my disposal. Now, that's no problem at the moment, but when I start needing to look for Pokémon beyond the three games I own (SoulSilver, Ruby, Pearl), I will in all likelihood need to trade via the Wi-Fi system. As it stands, I can't really do that.

My solution at the moment is the same thing I did to download the Yellow Forest Pokéroute for my Pokéwalker: walk up and down my street trying to look for an open connection every five feet or so. It ultimately works okay, but unfortunately I look really creepy standing on people's lawns like some local pervert. So yeah, will probably need to find a better Wi-Fi alternative.

In terms of progress, there were a few shakeups in my lineup these past few days. Egg Shen and Hedwig both evolved, turning into a Togechik and Noctowl, respectively. Great job, guys! Unfortunately, this means I have no more use for you, so back in the PC Box you go, probably forever.

Moloch also evolved into a Nidoking (as I said before, perhaps my favourite Pokémon). Unlike Egg Shen and Hedwig, I plan to keep him in my lineup permanently, so I'm obviously not getting rid of him any time soon.


In place of Hedwig I've brought in ChickenBoo the Pidgey. Egg Shen's place has been filled out by the Elekid I caught with my Pokéwalker, whom I've christened Electro, named after my all-time favourite comic book villain.

And can I just say that I love this little guy? I mean, besides the fact that the Elekid is pretty adorable to begin with, he's just got such a good nature and can-do attitude. And unlike pretty much all my other lineup Pokémon (I'm looking at you, Moloch), Elekid is really pulling his weight, despite being several levels lower than the others.

Here's a drawing I made of the two of us being friends:


On top of those, I've caught a level 17 male Goldeen (Jabu Jabu), level 15 male Girafarig (Elton), level 28 female Magikarp (Diem), level 15 female Stantler (Lily), level 16 Staryu (Starfy), and a level 16 male Seel (McLovin). I also caught that cool Red Gyrados in Rage Lake (Atrocitus).

On my Pokéwalker I've now caught a Sentret, a Doduo, and a Pikachu. The Pikachu I caught was from the Yellow Park, which was downloaded via Wi-Fi, and allegedly contains rare Surfing and Flying Pikachus. I'd say I devoted a good 45 minutes to trying to catch one of the little fuckers, wading knee-deep in yellow ratshit, to no avail. I'll try again later.

Right now I'm off to check out the Safari Zone before heading to work.

Day 14 Pokédex count: Seen 120, caught 55
Professor Oak says: You're trying -- I can see that. Your Pokédex is coming together.

It sure is, Professor!

I can talk the Pokétalk, but can I walk the Pokéwalk?

This past Saturday night, my girlfriend and I were supposed to meet up after I had finished work (around midnight). Unfortunately, there were a few mixups, near-misses, and crossed wires, all of which were exacerbated by the fact that her cell phone had died, leaving me unable to get into contact with her. Long story short, I spent a good few hours going all over the city trying to find her, firmly believing that she may have been abducted and quite possibly killed.

As night wore on and I ran from location to location, hoping to find some clue as to her whereabouts, a creeping image began to pervade my thoughts: that of my girlfriend scared and helpless, at the mercy of some street gang or psychotic killer, praying for help that would come too late. The thought sickened me, made me feel weak and nauseous, frustrated to the brink of tears.

As it turned out, she wasn't dead, had simply thought I finished work at a different time, and waited for like an hour longer than anyone would have reasonably been expected to before heading to my house. When she found out I had gone all over the city looking for her, fearing the worst, she was touched. Then I told her that the one thing that had kept me going through the ordeal, kept me strong – that one thought that kept playing itself in my head, urging me on despite wanting to break down in despair – was knowing that I was racking up some sweet mileage with my Pokémon Pedometer, or Pokéwalker.

Not so much with the touched.

So what is the Pokéwalker? It's a portable pedometer peripheral that comes packaged with your purchase of the new Pokémon, of course.

Basically, you're allowed to transfer any one of your Pokémon to the small device. Like a pedometer, it keeps track of the steps you've taken. For every 20 steps you take, you earn 1 Watt. The more Watts you earn, the more items you unlock, and the stronger your Pokémon grows. What's more, you can even catch Pokémon on the device that you couldn't catch otherwise!



For me, this is perfect. I'm about average at playing Pokémon, which is a bit depressing considering the median age among people playing this game is like negative three. However, I can safely say that I'm above average at walking around in circles like a moron. The Pokéwalker has now given me, for once in my life, an edge at something.

Consider my job: I'm a Customer Experience Representative of a major book chain. This basically means I have to walk up and down the rows of the bookstore for 8 hours a day, seeing if anyone needs help finding what they're looking for. In your average day of work, I'm walking a little bit more than 20,000 steps (that's 1 thousand Watts). Yes, I've heard that there are ways to cheat the device (thanks for the link, Eric), but I don't plan on doing that, as it goes against my Pokémorals. Hell, I don't need to do that. I even hear that walking is healthy for you. After all, I'd hate to end up like these kids.

In other Pokémon news, didn't play much this weekend, spent most of it with Rebecca to celebrate her not being dead. Two of my Pokémon evolved, though – Tokek into a Feraligatr and Moloch into a Nidorino.

Other than that, I caught a level 14 male Koffing (Cap'nTrips), a level 13 female Miltank (Cudley), and a level 16 female Meowth (Macavity). On my Pokéwalker, however, I caught an Elekid, Murkrow, Smoochum, Onix, Machop, Tentacool, Shellder, Grimer, and Voltorb.

As you can see, the Pokéwalker has been quite instrumental in my quest of catching 'em all. Of the 40 or so Pokémon I've now accrued, 14 of them have been from the pedometer. Many of them are fairly commonplace, but some I'm pretty excited about, such as Elekid. I have a feeling he's going to be in my lineup for the longterm.



This post is dedicated to my Ekans, Oberyn, who's been tirelessly racking up all these Watts on my Pokéwalker.

It's a Pokéman's World

In the past few days I've devoted to SoulSilver, I've become increasingly aware of a slightly unsettling trend to how I approach catching 'em all. It's fairly inhibiting to my progress as a Pokémaster, sure, but it's also got me wondering more about myself as a human being. Basically it boils down to this:

I don't like catching female Pokémon.

There have been a bunch of times where I've been walking through the tall grass and given the warning signs of a wild Pokémon. As the battle starts up, I'd be excited to see the silhouette of, say, a wild Slowpoke, or some other animal I had yet to add to the 'dex. The excitement would be short-lived, however, when I find out that the Slowpoke is a girl. Even though a part of me would be wanting to fail, I'd go ahead trying to catch it.

If I succeeded, I'd wonder what the heck to name a female Pokémon that's not just some dumb name like “Tiffany” or “Sharon”. And if I failed at catching the Pokémon, I'd actually be kind of relieved.



So. I don't like owning female Pokémon. What does this say of me?

My first epiphany may have been a bit of an overreaction, but it's the same reaction I have to like 75% of the bad habits I catch myself doing: “Does this mean I'm subconsciously gay?”

The answer, after thinking about it for a bit, was a fairly adamant “Probably not.”

My follow-up question, then, is the slightly modified “Does this mean I'm subconsciously sexist?”

The answer for that: “Probably. But you're also subconsciously racist, classist, and ageist, so you've got bigger problems to worry about.”

The more I think about it, though, the more my Pokébias (Pokésogyny?) seems commonplace. After all, I don't think it's uncommon that young kids generally like to own toys of the same “gender” as themselves. I mean, you give a boy two identical Stormtrooper action figures, tell him he can own either of the two, and that one of the Stormtroopers is a boy and the other is a girl, I'm almost positive he'd go for the male Stormtrooper.



And I don't think this is limited just to children. Think pets, for example. I think it makes perfect sense that in One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Roger owns Pongo, while Anita owns Perdita. And I dunno, but when I hear about males who live alone and own a female dog, I think it's kind of weird. I'm not saying there's anything weird about it, it just feels odd. Like if some dude in an action movie gave his gun a male name, like “Roger”, as opposed to “Vira”.

Okay, so I just read what I typed, and apparently I'm okay with having male pets and female guns, but not vice versa. In short, I have to sort through a few issues.

But I guess, even if I am a bit sexist when playing SoulSilver, it's not like I'm a full-fledged Psychopath. I mean, I don't go around catching Jinxes, naming them things like “Whore” and “Slut” while I force them to breed with Tentacruels at the Daycare centre. I just don't like catching females. Is that so bad?

Okay, so I just read what I typed again, and I think “I just don't like catching females. Is that so bad?” is a really weird sentence to be taken out of context.

Moving on.

Pokédexwise, it's been slow and not so steady. I kind of wasted like three hours or something crazy like that playing that Voltorb card game in Goldenrod, and the new Pokéathelon, which is pretty crazy fun. In the last two days, though, I've caught a level 14 male Pidgey (ChickenBoo), a level 20 female Sudowoodo (Willow), a level 17 female Exeggcute (Crazy Jane), a level 12 Nidoran ♀ (Hecate), and I exchanged some coins I won from the Voltorb game for a level 15 male Abra (Psycho Fox).

On top of those, I caught a Wooper, a Slowpoke, and a Magby on my Pokéwalker. I'm pretty stoked about the Magby.

But I'm not quite as stoked about the Magby as I am about catching my favourite Pokémon (or rather, the first stage of my favourite Pokémon), the Nidoran ♂. I caught him at level 12, lovingly named him Moloch, and plan to have him in my party right up to the end.



Day 6 Pokédex count: Seen 73, caught 27
Professor Oak says: You're getting good at this, but you have a long way to go.

Wait, my favourite Pokémon has a "♂" in its name?

Argh!

Day 4 - Rethinking my Training Strategy

So seeing as today is the fourth day in both my Pokéodyssey as well as my unanticipated long weekend, I spent another two hours in the Pokéworld. Not much to it. I foiled an attempt by Team Rocket to steal Slowpoke tails and sell them on the black market, got my second badge from Bugsy (bug-type Pokémon, naturally), and fought my rival Adolph once more.

Oh, and that mysterious egg I was given yesterday? Well, it hatched, and unless you've ever played Pokémon before you'll be surprised to hear that it contained a Togepi. I seem to recall always naming my Togepis (Togepies?) of the past Eggbert, but this time I went with Egg Shen, after my favourite character from the classic Big Trouble in Little China (everyone always rooted for Lo Pan, but maybe because of 3 Ninjas, I had a soft spot for Victor Wong).



Now, already I'm noticing that I'm playing SoulSilver a little differently now that I'm older. EVERY time I've played Pokémon in the past, my strategy was basically making one Pokémon (usually whichever Pokémon I started with) really strong and just kicking ass as I went, while the other five Pokémon were just there “for the HMs”.

This time, however, I've been kind of spreading the wealth (or experience points, as it were). Trying to level up lower Pokémon as we travel, so that instead of having one super-powerful Pokémon in my lineup who does all the work, I have six fairly strong Pokémon, all of whom function together as a cohesive team.

And you know what? It's a shit hell of a lot more frustrating.

Pretty much halfway between any two cities, I'll have lost half my party trying to level up inferior goddamn Pokémon, while the other half are all paralyzed or some shit. It's goddamn annoying, and all I have to show for it are a bunch of mediocre Pokémon with crappy moves. The upside, though, is that I can try to catch wild Pokémon without having to worry about accidentally killing them in one hit, as none of my Pokémon are strong enough. I don't want to abandon this training method and return to the "one Pokémon to rule 'em all" strategy, because even though it may work better, it feels cheaper.

In any event, I've also added a level 5 female Zubat (named Morrigan) a level 10 female Poliwag (Ursula), a level 6 female Paras (The Flood), and a level 12 male Drowzee (Morpheus) to my Pokédex. There's not really much strategy to the catching yet, as any time I encounter a wild Pokémon there's a good chance I don't have it yet. It'll be when I've covered most of the wild ones that I'll really start caring about the hunt.

On top of that, I caught a Ponyta on my Pokéwalker. While I was pretty pleased with myself about this, it was slightly dampened by the fact that I was out at a nice restaurant with Rebecca and my sister Laura at the time. Laura actually had to hiss at me to turn the sound off, since the beeping coming from the Pokéwalker was apparently obnoxious and rude in public.

So, exactly 6 hours into the game, and I've caught 18 Pokémon. That's not bad, averaging about one every twenty minutes. At this rate, I should have them all in 164.333 hours.

Where doing it man. Where MAKING THIS HAPPEN.

Day 3 - Someone's got a case of the Pokémondays

Yesterday was a good day to be a Pokétrainer.

Partly this was because I earned my first badge in the game by beating Falkner, the leader of the Violet City Gym. Partly this was because I added nine more entries to my Pokédex.

And partly this was because I missed work.

Now I know what you're thinking, and you're not wrong for doing so, but let me explain.

To begin with, I actually showed up at work, but there was some mixup somewhere, and I ended up not being on the schedule, and there was nothing that anyone could do except send me home. So, not my fault.

Now, that being said, I was almost late for work yesterday because I was trying to figure out how to get the Pokéwalker peripheral to work (more on that at a later date), and had to get my mom to drive me to the subway station. For that, mea culpa.

Also, when I saw I wasn't on the day's schedule at work, part of me was rejoicing, thinking of all the extra Pokétime I got to commit to the game. So I really didn't make a fuss or anything when I was told I wouldn't be making any money that day. Something to be ashamed of? Maybe. But the fact remains that I'm not at fault here for not working.

In any event, it worked out for the best. Lots of Pokéactivity to report. Earlier in the day (the wee hours of the a.m.) I had acquired three additions to my collection. First was an Unown, level 5. I had rushed ahead a bit before fighting the Violet city gym and found myself in the Unown ruins. I tried to make my way back, but not before encountering one of the Unowns, form A. I caught it pretty easily, and named it Alpha. I figure I'll name each one after the NATO alphabet equivalent (ie Yankee, Hotel, Foxtrot, etc.)

Second Pokémon I caught was a male Ekans, level 4. Fairly easy, but I'm pretty happy with this one. I've always had a soft spot for Ekans and its evolution, Arbok. I'll try to give this guy some TLC before he starts gathering dust in a Pokébox. In any event, I named him Oberyn (again, bonus points if you know the reference).



Finally, in Sprout tower I caught myself a Gastly, level 3. This one was kind of tricky, since most of my pokémon only knew regular type attacks, which don't affect ghost-types like Gastly. I had to very slowly chip away at his health with Oberyn's poison sting, but it took quite a few tries, about 20 minutes of my time total. That slightly put me off. Gastly was the sixth pokémon I caught, and that was an ordeal? How the frig am I going to catch the other 487? Anyways, since Gastly is a ghost pokémon, I named him Swayze (BECAUSE OF THE MOVIE, GUYS. CHILL).

Anyways, I was pretty sure that was going to be it from me for the day, but like I mentioned I was given the day off, so I played for another hour and a half or so. In that time, I beat the living crap out of Falkner (seriously, between him and his trainers, I maybe lost... 14 hit points). I also caught...

-a female Geodude (Level 11) named Terra
-a male Weedle (Level 4) named Buggin Out
-a male Mareep (Level 6) named Gobias
-a female Hoppip (Level 6) named Poppet
-and finally, a Kangaskhan, which I caught on the aforementioned Pokéwalker, and haven't yet named.

I also caught Unowns in forms E, I, F, and G (named Echo, India, Foxtrot, and Golf, respectively), and received a “mysterious egg” from Professor Elm. Wonder what's inside!

On top of that, and this really was the highlight of my day, Tokek evolved from a Totodile into a Croconaw. It was beautiful. As I've yet to become a parent, I can only imagine that this is what it feels like to watch your son... uh... morph into a slightly bigger and more jurassic version of your son.




Day 3 Pokédex count: Seen 32, caught 12
Professor Oak says: Good. I see you understand how to use Poké Balls.

Thanks, Professor!

Days One and Two + Some Ground Rules

So two days ago I made a vow to myself to catch all 493 Pokémon. I felt that this could be done, but I wanted to set up some rules for myself before I proceeded:

1. The Pokémon I obtain must be obtained without the use of hacks or cheats, which means no unlicensed products such as Action Replay, or Game Genie or whatever the kids are using these days. If I'm going to catch 'em all, I'm going to do it fair and, above all, square.

2. My quest to catch 'em all begins now, which means that any Pokémon I own from previous games are NOT fair game. If I want to use my Pokémon Ruby or Pearl games to catch more Pokémon, I need to restart my game and start from scratch. Now, I'm going to absolutely need to use these games in my quest, which means I'm going to be erasing quite a bit of hours, but considering I never caught any ultra-rare shiny Pokémon or event Pokémon, I can live with the loss. I may even trade a few of my favourites to my sister or someone for safekeeping until I can bring them into my game under good conscience.

3. I said catch 'em all, not just catch some, which means that I have to catch all 26 Unown variations. This shouldn't be too hard, since they're all found in my game. Now, this doesn't extend to catching all the different type of Spindas, since from what I understand there's a near infinite variation of them. I'm not sure if there's any other Pokémon who exhibit variations like that, but if there are let me know.



But most importantly...

4. This may be a game, but it's also Serious Business. Sure, I'm doing this for fun, but if I'm ONLY doing this for fun, I'm not going to be able to last when it starts getting tricky. I need to think of this as a job (hopefully a job I love) which means that even if I can't stand the sight of my DS, I need to devote at least one hour to this game a day. This is completely negotiable on days where I have other more important things to do and simply can't fit in the time, but not being in the mood is not an excuse.

I'm sure I'll have to come up with more rules as I progress, but for now those are the ones I'm sticking to.

DAY ONE

As for my progress, Day One was pretty standard. My starting Pokémon was a Totodile, even though I had been planning on going Cyndaquil. I'm not sure exactly what changed my mind, but I'm happy with my choice. I named him Tokek.

I played for about an hour, doing that “walk back and forth while people tell you how great Pokémon are” stuff, stopping after my rival, Adolph, broke into Professor Elm's lab and stole his Chikorita. I was then given some Pokéballs, which means that I'm on my way towards catching them all.



DAY TWO

That night I caught a level 3 female Hoothoot, whom I uncreatively named Hedwig, and a level 3 female Rattatta named Amy (bonus points if you know the reference). Obviously I'm not super excited about these acquisitions. Anyone can catch these Pokémon, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to see a whole lot more of these before I'm through. But still, a catch is a catch.

I finished at like quarter to three in the morning, a cool three Pokémon under my belt, having arrived at Violet City. Look out, world.

Pokémaster of my Domain

The Pokemon franchise and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship; I love Pokémon, and kind of hate myself as a result.

I mean, being Pokémon-obsessed (or Pokésessed, in Pokélingo) was all well and good when I was 12 (and even then I was on the fringe of being too old). But the franchise has been around for a good 12 years, which means I'm twice as old now as I was when I first sought out to “catch 'em all”. What kind of man-child 23-and-a-half-year-old would still get excited over yellow rats who generate electricity and giraffes with an extra head growing out of their ass?

I'll tell you what kind of man-child.

Someone who still lives with his parents, for starters. Someone who went to university, but spent most of that time playing World of Warcraft (and when that got too expensive switched to the much cheaper alternative of Neopets). Someone who knows in his heart that the Star Wars prequels were terrible, but couldn't bring himself to hate them because Jango Fett was so cool. Someone who loved the first Toy Story, but thought the second one was too heavy. Someone who makes minimum wage in retail, and whose only aspiration in life is to either write super-hero comics, or be a roller coaster tester.

In short, someone like me.

Now, to be fair, even though I was a little Pokémon addict (or Pokéaddict) as a kid, I had for quite some time put the franchise behind me. I played Pokémon Pearl back in aught seven, but stopped when university got too demanding, and hadn't looked back since. Or rather, I rarely looked back, and when I did it would be with the wistful gaze I imagine recovering alcoholics give when they walk past an LCBO. But the point was, I had it under control.

Sure, a few times while playing with my nephews, they'd want to show me their collection of Pokémon cards, but I'd always been good about it. I'd wave the cards away and say “no thanks, I've quit.” So all in all, things were going okay.

Until the release of Pokémons Heartgold and Soulsilver last month.

Now, when I was a kid, Pokémon Silver was one of my favourite games of all time. So when I heard that it along with Pokémon Gold were being re-released, I... well, to tell the truth I didn't care that much. I mean, I already played those games ten years ago. Why would I have to...

to...

Wait, this time, your Pokémon follows you around on foot?

And just like Waylon Smithers when he found out that the old Malibu Stacy doll came packaged with a new hat, I began to froth at the mouth. I had to have this game. But at the same time, I was a bit reserved. I already own five incarnations of this basic game (Pokémons Blue, Yellow, Silver, Ruby, and Pearl), one of which is this exact game. What does it say of me that I would shell out another 40 dollars for the same experience I've had for the last 12 years? And I never even finished those games, never even came close to the game's imperative: catching them all. This Soulsilver would give me a few dozen hours of fun, but then find itself in a pile with its five counterparts, as well as all the other things in my life I could never see through to the end. I hemmed and hawed about buying the game for almost a month.

And then my girlfriend Rebecca bought me Pokémon Soulsilver yesterday.

I'm not sure if it was the time I took her to Toys 'R Us to just stare at the game, or how I'd cry out “Pikachu... come back...” in my sleep, but somehow she caught on that I had been eyeing it.

Obviously, when I had received the completely unexpected gift, I was filled with joy, but there was another underlying emotion there as well: fear. Fear that I would fall back into my old ways, and fall hard. Fear that I would become the Pokémon junkie (or Pokéjunkie) that I had hated. Fear that, for all my seeming maturity in the years since last playing the game (a girlfriend, a job, a university degree), I'd turn out to be the same little boy who cried when he got his ass kicked by the Elite Four.

But then I thought to myself, nay. I have changed, and grown as a person. Sure, I may still enjoy bright pixelated games with talking cats and painting dogs, but that doesn't mean I'm not a Man who can handle Responsibilities. And I knew just how to prove it.

This time, I'd catch all 493 Pokémon.

This time, I'd catch 'em all.

Now, this is no easy feat. In fact, it's pretty much impossible at this point. To do so, I'd need eight different versions of Pokémon (FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire, Pearl, Diamond, HeartGold, and SoulSilver), not to mention one of the Pokémon Ranger games, and even then I'd need to track down rare promotional Pokémon given away at special events. I'd also need to clock in hundreds of hours.

But I'll be damned if I'm not up to the challenge.

So that's basically what I've set up this blog for: to document my struggle – no, my journey – to become the Pokémaster.

NOTE: I originally considered taking time off work in this endeavor, but then abandoned that idea when I realized that missing work to play Pokémon kind of defeats the purpose.