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.
i always focused on leveling up just one or two at the beginning, then when i started getting pokemon that were at higher levels when i caught them (i guess lev 15 or higher) i started training them equally. it's a waste of time to do it at the beginning unless you know those are the ones you want to bring with you all the way through because you're going to be fighting the same type, rattatas and shit, that are already at like lev 25 as the game goes on, so it's a waste, yo.
ReplyDeleteI always obesessively level up all of the pokemon I have even vague interest in fiarly equally, leaving some in boxes for certain level caps so that I have avariety of pokemon to raise as equal training partners, or for battles with friends that weren'tobesessive and didn't strive for lvl 100 everything.... It's the way I started playing the game, and I don't think I ever rethought my decision, even when it made progress really, really slow. Also, if there's a way to get a favourite pokemon, I ahve to get it RIGHT AWAY ASAP STOP EVERYTHING. Got a Zubat? RAISE IT TO GOLBAT NOW. Got a Pokewalker? LETS GET EVERYTHING POSSIBLE BEFORE FIRST GYM.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that this behavior is healthy.
Margot, you have some pretty good points, but I guess I have more in common with Judah when it comes to my approach (just so you know, we're cousins who've only met once, but everyone talks about how similar we are). I have a few obsessive compulsions when it comes to how I play this game. I should probably look into them.
ReplyDeleteFOR EXAMPLE, I like training pokémon starting from really low levels. I know this makes no sense, but if I catch a pokémon at a high level I'm slightly upset, because it implies that that pokémon has had a whole life and adventure that I can only guess at. If it were up to me, every single Pokémon I catch would be hatched, mine since birth. And I guess that IS up to me, but it's incredibly impractical.
Did you name the Poliwag Ursula because of the one I traded you before? (That one was with 100 Years of Solitude in mind, not Little Mermaid.)
ReplyDeleteIf you raise a Pokemon from a low level you will earn more EVs at an earlier stage, thus giving it better stats overall because it gets more points at each level up. EVs are invisible points that yo uget for defeating each pokemon, and each pokemon you defeat gives you a few EVs in one or a few stats depending on which Pokemon it is. So... if you raise your Abra from a low level fighting mostly Ratata, you'll end up with a very high Attack rating, which is pretty useless on him.
ReplyDeleteCAN I WORK IN A POKEMON LAB NOW?