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.