I Got a Lot of Long PokéWalking to Do

Okay, let's start with some good news: I am now up to 126 Pokémon, which means I've now completed just over 25% of my Pokédex. I've also made mincemeat of all 16 gym trainers, of both the Johto and the Kanto varieties. I think it's fair at this point to infer that I'm a whirling dervish of Pokéjustice, sweeping up any trainer who dares come between me and my path of destruction.

Now let's move on to the bad news: due to some glitch somewhere, I had to reset my Pokéwalker. Now, I didn't lose any Pokémon in the process, but what it means is that all my progress towards unlocking all the possible routes in the device has been erased. Basically, I lost 25,000 “Watts” on the fucking thing. Considering that you unlock one Watt for every 20 steps you take, I need to walk half a million goddamn bastard steps just to cover the progress I lost. I'm really tempted to just tape the Pokéwalker to the blade of a fan and let spin for a few days, but I'm not going to go that route. I'm going to unlock those routes the honest way, step by motherfucking step.



Back to good news: I've managed to outsource some of my Pokécatching. This weekend, I made a deal with my girlfriend: she'd learn how to play Pokémon and help me catch 'em all, and in return I'd behave myself at her uncle's funeral.

One funeral – and exactly 0 sacred urns toppled – later, I slid her my copy of Pokémon Pearl, which I was going to reset anyways, and told her she could start a new game. And start a new game she did. Considering she's never played one of these games in her life, I think she's doing a good job so far (although Chimchar? Really?)

So now, while I'll be catching the Pokémon of the Johto and Kanto regions (and when I start playing Ruby again, the Hoenn region), Rebecca will be a force to be reckoned with in the Sinnoh region. Hell, she's only played for about an hour and she's already caught a Bidoof, Starly, and Shinx. Soon, they will be mine.

In terms of my game, the progress has been equally palpable. My Magby, whom I named Hallyne, evolved into a Magmar. I also evolved Nero the Spearow, Muad'Dib the Sandshrew, Resetti the Diglett, and Norm Bates the Cubone into a Fearow, Sandslash, Dugtrio, and Marowak, respectively. I also caught myself a Snorlax on my first ball (a Heavy Ball, if you must know), and named him Chien-Po. I also caught a level 2 Poochyena (Nymeria).

Finally, Ryuk the Duskull evolved into the much-less-adorable Dusclops. He kinda looks retarded now but whatever I have a Reaper Cloth so I'm going to evolve him again ASAP.



But first, I'm going to go run a few goddamn laps around the house with my Pokéwalker

Bel Kanto

So, last week saw a few milestones on my SoulSilver cartridge. Not only did I catch my first legendary Pokémon, I also opened up a can of “it's super effective” on the Elite Four. Well just when you thought it was over, Aaron hits you up with another milestone.

I just hit the 100 Pokémon mark.

Now, this isn't a particularly hard thing to do when there are 493 of the little fuckers around, but I think it's still a reassuring marker to hit. The fact is, I've now caught over 20% of 'em all, and I don't feel like slowing down in the least.

Progress-wise, I've found that the adventure sort of loses its thrust after beating the Elite Four. I always thought it was a cool idea to have it revealed that after you think the game's over, a whole new continent is added. That being said, there's not much to do now that I'm here. I now have two more badges under my belt (Lt. Surge's and Sabrina's), but it's not quite the same. Whereas in the Johto region, I'd have to right wrongs, help the helpless, and defeat marginally evil villains, in Kanto (the second continent) it feels like I'm just here to sightsee. I've really just been going from one town to the next, getting gym badges just cause I can.



But goddamnit, I didn't come here to sightsee. I came here to catch some Pokémon.

Interestingly, even though I've added about 23 entries to my Pokédex since I last blogged, only 1 of them was from a Pokémon caught through traditional means. That Pokémon is Cubone. I named him Norm Bates, because his Pokédex entry reads like this:

It always wears the skull of its dead mother, so no one has any idea what its hidden face looks like.

I think that that entry makes Cubone officially the most fucked-up Pokémon I own thus far.



All the other Pokémon I've added have been either evolutions or caught via the Pokéwalker. As I mentioned before, beating the Elite Four unlocked new routes on the 'walker, which means I'm now the proud owner of a Wurmple, Illumise, Skitty, Horsea, Azurill, Houndour, Meditite, Castform, and Zigzagoon (phew!).

Oh, also, Nintendo has unleashed a new route for trainers to download: the Winner's Path (in lieu of the Pikachu-laden Yellow Forest). If you have Wi-Fi, download it now! If not, walk up and down your street like a creepy stalker until you find a signal! I did the latter, and have so far found a Bronzor, Duskull (which is probably my favourite Pokémon to come out of Ruby/Sapphire), and Munchlax.



And on top of those Pokémon, I've had a few others evolve: Terra evolved into Graveler, Poppet into a Skiploom and then a Jumpluff, Gobias into a Flaafy and then an Ampharos, and finally ChickenBoo evolved into a Pidgeot. I proceeded to trade Terra, Maraxus, Psycho Fox, and Swayze to my sister Rachel, where they evolved into a Golem, Machamp, Alakazam, and Gengar, respectively.

So yeah, another productive few days. Well, I mean, if you don't count Pokémon, they were horribly unproductive days. But I mean, in the world of Pokémon? Productive!

Day 27 Pokédex count: Seen 211, caught 109
Professor Oak says: Don't forget, some Pokémon only appear at certain times of the day!

I won't, Professor!