My Pokémonth

So, as I mentioned when last we spoke, I had traversed Mt. Silver, reaching trainer Red, the ultimate boss of Pokémon SoulSilver, only to taste the bitter Apricorns of defeat. And not by some small margin, either. Were that the case, I'd simply reset my DS until getting the victory I need. But no, no amount of resets would save me. Against Red, I got motherfucking flounced, and I knew it.



Normally, the solution to this would be to battle lesser trainers, strengthening my Pokémon to more impressive levels. Only there was a problem with that: I'd beaten all of them.

So where did that leave me? I'd pretty much caught the majority of the catchable Pokémon found within my game. I still had to level up quite a few Pokémon in order to evolve them, but had no simple way to do so. I still had quite a few Pokémon to catch on the Pokéwalker, but that's more of an outside-the-game game.

It seemed that, in the game, my progress had reached something of an Indigo Plateau. Worse, I still had miles to go. Pokémon to catch. Trainer Red to beat.

So for a little while, my playing was limited to defeating Rival Adolf every Monday and Wednesday, which improved my Pokémon all too slowly. I'd tune in to Pokémon Talk on the radio every day, just in case there was a rare Pokémon I could catch, listen to Buena's Password, partake in the Pokémon draw, play that addicting Voltorb game at the Game Corner and... that was it.

All the while, of course, I'd slowly clock in steps on the Pokéwalker, trying to reclaim my 25,000 lost watts.

Now, this wasn't a completely unproductive period of time. My Pokémon grew, slowly but surely, one level at a time. I managed to make enough coins from the Voltorb Beat game that I was able to redeem them for a Porygon (named Megabyte) and a, um, female Mr. Mime (named Marcie). I also caught quite a few Pokémon while listening to Pokémon Talk. To be precise, I caught...

-a male Gulpin (named Kirby)
-a male Qwlfish (named Penance)
-a male Buneary (O'hare)
-a female Chinchou (Kim)
-a female Luvdisc (Tonks)
-a female Clamperl (Mulva)
-a male Mawile (Barq's)
-a male Ralts (The Orphan)
-a female Swablu (Kevin)
-a female Yanma (Janet)
-a female Chansey (Joy)

So, no slim pickings is what I'm saying.



Still, in this time, there wasn't much exciting happening in my Pokéjourney. Perhaps not coincidentally, this was a slightly more eventful time for me in real life. I had finally finished a full draft of a 200+ page comic script on which I had been working for the better part of a year, I had been clocking in plenty of hours at my job, and my girlfriend moved in with me. I also beat a phenomenal DS game called Infinite Space. There was also both an earthquake and a riot in my city, but those were pretty boring.

Perhaps my biggest accomplishment, though, was not only reaching my milestone of 25,000 watts on my Pokéwalker, but surpassing the shit out of it. Basically, I've been running around like a Tasmanian devil all month, and am now holding a Pokéwalker 45,545 watts strong. Only 54,455 watts left and I've unlocked every route in my game. With my Pokéwalker, I've caught a Bidoof, Shinx, Combee, Kricketot, Budew, Mime jr, Snover, Snorunt, Tropius, and Bonsly this month.



So where does that bring me now? I'm not quite ready to move on to Pokémon Ruby... not until I manage to defeat Red at least. I've very recently discovered that I can rematch Gym leaders if I catch them at the right time of the day, and so I've been pursuing that (I even got up around 6 am so that I could rematch Pryce and Claire. How's that for dedication?). So far, it's been working well for leveling up my guys. I managed to evolve Hogarth into a Metagross, Aloysius into a Piloswine, and Capt Trips into a Weezing. Hooray!



A few more levels, and I think I'll be ready to rematch Red. I'll let you know how it goes.


Oh, and I caught a Lapras as well.

Pokémon Count at 74:24 hours of gameplay: Seen 312, caught 168
Professor Oak says: If you break rocks, some Pokémon that were hiding there might come jumping out!

No shit, Professor!

Suicune is Painless

First there was Lugia. Then there was Mewtwo.

Well now you can add both Ho-oh and Suicune to the mix. Because I caught them. With my balls.

And to be quite honest, I'm not finding them to be all that challenging, at least not compared to that Lugia. Where Ulysses was concerned, I'd be constantly resetting my game because after lobbing ball after ball at the guy, he'd eventually run out of moves, use Struggle, and knock himself out. I'd have to give up after trying for a few hours each day because I'd be sick to my stomach with frustration.

Ho-oh and Suicune? Fucking easy. I probably wasted a combined 8 Pokéballs trying to catch them, which is nothing. Just goes to show that I truly am becoming a Pokémaster.

Yes, I realize I'm bragging about being “good” at a game geared towards children. Let me have this moment.


4 Legendaries caught. Who's next?

In terms of progress, I went back to Cerulean Cave the day after catching Dr. Mabuse and found an Electrizer, which I gave to Electro. I traded both him and a Reaper Cloth'd Ryuk to my sister Rachel, which means they both evolved into badass Pokémon, and Electivire and a Dusknoir, respectively. I later found a Magmarizer on Cinnibar Island, which I used to evolve Hallyne into a Magmortar.

I also caught a sweet Beldum on my Pokéwalker. I named him Hogarth. He'll unfortunately be the last Pokémon I catch on the 'Walker for a while, at least until I cover those half a million steps and start unlocking new routes again. So far I'm at 140,000.

While in Mt. Silver I caught a male Teddiursa and named him Bear Jew, and a male Sneasel named Scrat. I then got my ass handed to me by Trainer Red and decided to return to the Safari Zone, where I caught a female Misdreavus named Morticia. I also later caught a male Snubbull, whom I named Throw Mama.

Finally, I caught a level 70 Ho-oh and named it Gwaihir, and just a few hours ago caught a Suicune named Grey Wind.

Oh, and somewhere in the process, Hybird the Doduo evolved into a Dodrio, and I evolved Hogarth into a Metang.