More like Relican't

So far, these past twelve days have mostly been devoted to fighting rematches against the various gym leaders. The results have been fairly positive; my lineup has been slowly but surely increasing in power, while I've managed to evolve other weaker Pokémon, getting closer and closer to filling out my Pokédex. I realize that my Pokémon would get stronger a lot more quickly if I didn't stick an EXP share on whichever weak Pokémon I was trying to evolve at the time, but hey, this way I'm multitasking. And since last post I've managed to evolve...

-my Gulpin, Kirby, into a Swalot
-my Wurmple, M'rrgla, first into a Silcoon and then a Beautifly
-my Dratini, Toothless, into a Dragonair
-Magmus, my Slugma, into a Magcargo
-my Snubbull, Throw Mama, into a Granbull
-my Teddiursa, Bear Jew, into an Ursaring
-Rocksteady, my Rhyhorn, into a Rhydon
-and finally Kim, my Chinchou, into a Lanturn



On top of that, I've unlocked the White Lake on my Pokéwalker, and was then able to catch a Chingling and Buizel. Two fairly useless Pokémon I no longer have to worry about.

I also managed to catch a level 40 Relicanth named Muddy via Pokémon Talk on the radio. Now, when I was told that “a wild group of Relicanth were spotted on route 12”, my first thought was “what the hell's a Relicanth?” This is particularly noteworthy since I had assumed I was familiar, at least on a face-recognition basis, with all 493 Pokémon. But I had completely forgot what a Relicanth was.

When I saw the Pokémon, though, I realized why.



I kinda feel bad for the Relicanth. It's obviously a Pokémon no one cares about, especially not the concept designers. Thankfully, it doesn't evolve into anything, which means I don't have to look at its stupid face ever again.

Finally, I can check another legendary Pokémon off my list. Yesterday, I caught a Zapdos, one of the three legendary birds from the original games. What's more, I did so on my first try, using maybe 5 Pokéballs, tops. The experience was... bittersweet.



A common complaint I've seen regarding the Pokémon franchise is their oversaturation of so-called “legendary” Pokémon as new titles are added. When the original games were released, there were only four legendary Pokémon, with a mysterious fifth super-rare. These were supposed to be the ultimate Pokémon – the ones who, according to the second Pokémon Movie, held the world together (or something). They hid in the deepest recesses of caves, in mountain peaks, etc. Catching them was a Big Deal.

Generation II, Gold and Silver, introduced 6 more legendary Pokémon. These were also very important entities, protectors of the world, majestic Pokégods walking among us mere mortals.

With Ruby and Sapphire, 10 more legendary Pokémon were introduced. They were... also kind of important? Somewhere along the storyline it's implied that one of them will bring about the end of the world. Or something.

Finally, we get Pearl and Diamond, which introduce 14 more Legendary Pokémon, bringing the total up to 35. I dunno, somewhere along the line the importance of these Pokémon got kind of lost on me. Kind of like the hatches in Lost; the first time you see one is pretty crazy, but by the time they introduce, like, the 17th one, you forgot why you cared in the first place.

Nowhere was this more evident to me than when I caught Zapdos. In SoulSilver, they seem to have more legendary Pokémon than they have locations in which they reside.

When I caught Ulysses (Lugia), he was waiting deep in the bowels of an island, summoned by mystical clerics. When I caught Gwaihir (Ho-oh), he had flown to the top of a sacred tower. When I caught Dr. Mabuse (Mewtwo), he had exiled himself to the lowest depths of a mysterious cave.

Zapdos, on the other hand, was just chilling outside of the Power Plant. Kind of like Jay and Silent Bob hanging outside the Quick Stop.



Not exactly my definition of Legendary.

Whatever. I'm not about to look a gift Rapidash in the mouth. Another Legendary caught.



Only... 30 more to go?


Pokémon Count at 78:24 hours of gameplay: Seen 327, caught 181
Professor Oak says: If you break rocks, some Pokémon that were hiding there might come jumping out!

You already said that, Professor!

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!