SoulSilver Log: Part 6

(The above is a sketch I did of game-Blue and two of her Pokemon:  Milotic and Pikachu.  Its currently hanging in my little cousin's hospital room, where they can watch over him as he gets better.)

As we rejoin Blue in her journey to be the very best that no one ever was, Blue has wandered into the mysterious world known as the Battle Frontier.  The Battle Frontier does not actually exist in the same world as the rest of Pokemon, clearly, as the rules here are incredibly strange.  For example, Blue's Pokemon could not actually follow her around as they did everywhere else*.  There's no money, just a weird sort of currency known as "BP".  Also, when engaged in battle, Blue had to follow the often ridiculous rules set by the local warlords, known as Frontier Brains.  A goofier name for some of the strongest trainers in the world, Blue could not imagine.  Seriously "Brain"?  Anyway, through magic or some other power, the Brains could set up any kind of ridiculous rule that they wanted for their Gyms.

The first things seriously annoying about the Frontier was how you couldn't just go up and fight the Frontier Brains.  Instead, you had to fight three streaks of seven battles consecutively, with the only only breaks coming after a streak was completed.  Only after this complicated ordeal, the end of the third streak (the twenty-first battle) did Blue even have a shot at fighting the Brains.  Lose once, and you're back to the beginning.  And above all that, Blue had to follow whatever crazy local battle rules the Brain had set up for the Gym.  Luckily they usually heal your Pokemon between fights, so it really isn't so hard as it might sound.  But the real problem is that Blue couldn't fight at full strength.  She had to follow whatever strange restrictions the Brains set up:  be it only three Pokemon, one Pokemon, or in the worst case scenario, rented Pokemon.

For a moment Blue actually paused to ask the voice in her head, the Great Power from another dimension, if this Battle Frontier thing was really worth it.  Unfortunately the Great Power was busy drawing that picture up above, and so couldn't answer her.  "Whatever" Blue said, and she went in for the fight.

Blue decided to take on this Battle Frontier in a counter-clockwise motion starting from the top.  First Brain up was the Tower Tycoon Palmer, ruler of the Battle Tower.  The Battle Tower was probably the most "normal" of the five gyms - no restrictions, just battles of three on three with Blue using her own Pokemon against a stream of mindless mooks.  Well, the mooks weren't mindless, they had about the intelligence of a regular Gym Leader... but that's still not exactly "bright".  Even so, what Pokemon the enemy might have is completely random:  you might wind up fighting a Charizard, Blissey, or even another Milotic.  Blue was confident that her skills, and the Great Power's special reset ability could get her through this twenty-one battle streak easily.

But then there came a problem... Blue had fought streaks of at least twenty-one bad guys and still no Brain.  What the heck had happened?  It was only later that Blue learned that the Frontier had somehow managed to discover the Great Power's skills of time manipulation and had worked a way around it.  Every time the Great Power performed his action of "resetting the game", the Frontier workers would immediately cancel Blue's winning streak.  So let's say Blue completes two streaks.  After every streak, you get to save the game.  Blue does this, and then goes on to enter her final streak.  Then she loses a battle.  If the Great Power resets the game there, Blue will not return to the first fight of the third streak.  Instead everything resets, and Blue is back to zero.  Much to Blue's credit, she coined a term for this sort of thing:  "absolute, complete bull$%#!"  As the narrator, I think I simply must agree with her assessment of the situation:  it is absolute complete bull$%#!.  The Great Power, now proved useless, decided to stop bothering with Blue and instead watched the season finale of "America's Next Top Model"**.

Despite this, Blue went on to win all twenty fights and finally got to face Palmer, and defeated him.  Were you expecting something else?  Palmer was a mighty trainer - he had a Milotic and a Dragonite, but Blue's team was far more balanced then his.  Even so, the man was easily the best challenge the entire game had given to Blue.  Plus the battle theme for her victory was spectacular!  Blue normally enjoyed the music of her world, but she was always discouraged when she noted that nobody else seemed to hear it.  What was up with that?  But that didn't really matter to Blue right now:  she had won!  For just a moment Blue's happiness made her forget her suspicions that she perhaps she was just a video game character whose life was being exploited for an under-read Internet blog.

Next up was Battle Matron Argenta, queen of the Battle Hall.  Here Blue could only fight with a single Pokemon in a series of one-on-one contests on a stage that was clearly just a converted strip club.  Blue thought long and hard about which one of her Pokemon was the most capable of surviving a long struggle like this.  Actually she didn't need to ponder at all:  she just picked Milotic since it was clearly the strongest.  Soon enough Blue ran into Argenta, who wielded a powerful Feraligatr.  After a long slugging match, Blue finally won thanks partially due to Milotic's Recover move, and partially due to Argenta being a moron and wasting two turns on using Rain Dance when that technique would not give her any advantage when fighting another water-type.

With two Brains down, Blue moved on to the Battle Castle, ruled by the couple Caitlin and Darach.  This place was another three on three situation, only that Blue wouldn't get healed between fights.  Instead, Blue received points after every victory which she could spend on healing her Pokemon.  Actually this place was really no different than the Battle Tower, since Blue always had too many points left over even after healing her Pokemon completely.  If anything the Battle Castle was even easier, since in exchange for the confusing point system, the enemy IQ seemed to drop several points.  Why must Blue suffer through a world filled with idiots?  Doesn't a girl of her talent deserve more?

Blue won there again, and moved onto the fourth gym:  Arcade Queen Darcia's base of the Battle Arcade.  Here the big gimmick was that there was a "Press Your Luck"-style board that gave effects to one side depending upon where the board landed.  So Blue's team could get paralyzed, or be given a level advantage.  This place was easily the most annoying Battle Frontier location yet, because one false move - just one Whammy - and Blue could be crippled for the next fight.  Try to fight a Snorlax with your team paralyzed.  Try it!  TRY IT!  Even so, after a few tries, Blue won once again, feeling as hollow as ever.

Was this all to life that there was?  Just running around this weird universe fighting mindless enemies?  For what?  Her Pokemon were fully grown, and Blue honestly didn't care much more about being the very best that no one ever was anymore.  Who wants to be the best of a world filled with gibbering idiots who constantly repeated the same lines and motions over and over again?  Blue's world was a cold and frightening place of zombies cruelly satirizing the motions of true humanity.  She needed to get out!

Even so, Blue continued to the last gym, the Battle Factory of Factory Head Thorton.  Immediately Blue wanted to leave.  The place was filled with horrible grinding techno... ew.  If you think its bad now, try listening to it for an entire hour.  Try it.  Also things got worse when Blue found out the gimmick of this place.  She could not use the Pokemon she had trained and fought with and had come to love, but instead had to use some cheap rental Pokemon - probably made in China with lead paint too.  What was the point of this universe if not to train Pokemon and use them in battle?  This Battle Factory defeated the very purpose of Pokemon.  What were they thinking???

Despite Blue's incredible track record, she simply could not beat the Battle Factory.  The place was rigged, no other word for it.  Blue would get so close, so close, and then get punked out by an enemy with a Blissey, or some idiot using Horn Drill - an instant kill move that ALWAYS HITS.  No exceptions, that move will kill you every time.  Also, Return, a move whose power was based on how much the Pokemon liked its trainer, would always hit for full power and be an instant KO.  That obviously made no sense in a place where all Pokemon were rented, but nothing about the Battle Factory makes sense, hence the horrible techno music.  Hence the stupid rental Pokemon routine.  Hence the enemy trainers cheating.  This place was a nightmare specially designed to break Blue's will.  After a week of trying, Blue just gave up muttering bloody revenge.

In what must be an unrelated incident, the Battle Factory was attacked by vikings and torn to the ground in a medieval ordeal of carnage and torture.  There were no survivors.

Now we join Blue- hey, where did she go!  Blue...  Blue... Where are you?  She couldn't have just left, she is just a video game character after all.  Blue, come back here!  The readers need to see the ending to this gaming log.  Blue, where are you???

...

Oh, there you are.  What are you doing outside of the DS?  Get back inside and fight Red, so that we can end this already.

...

What are you doing with that knife?

...

You wouldn't be thinking of stabbing me, would you?

...

If I said that I loved you, would that make a difference?

(STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB)

...guess not...

THE END***

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* I find this particular decision to be rather disappointing, since the Pokemon follower thing was the best innovation that SoulSilver and HeartGold gave to this series - nay, the only innovation!  Why do you think I bought SoulSilver?  I wanted a Milotic to follow me around, that's it.  And that looks like its going away in the upcoming Black and White.  Well, as preposterious as this stance might sound, I'm not playing Black and White if they don't have Pokemon followers.  I don't need to play any new Pokemon games - since they're all essentially the same anyway, I've basically beaten this same game something like 500 billion and a half times.  So my foot is down - or possibly in my mouth.  I don't care!

** Having played video games for longer than some of you might have been alive, I can safely say I have never seen anything like this before.  Resetting the game has always been  a subtle form of cheating, but its just the way games are.  Developers should just accept this sort of thing, and move on.  Don't go and work around it because you're just screwing the player!  This is the way things are, accept it.  Case closed.

On another note, the ending of this series of "America's Next Top Model" was absolute crap.  Krysta White was the winner. If she's pretty or not, it doesn't matter:  she's starved.  Her body looks like something you'd see on a Christian Children's Fund commercial.  Don't go around and reward this sort of bodily mistreatment - give the woman some damn food already!

*** In all seriousness, I have no intention of playing this game anymore.  I know Red is unbeaten up on Mt Silver, and I know I still have to beat Thorton.  But I'm tired of this game.  I want to play something better.  Plus my DS charger broke in an act of clear divine providence.  So that's the end of this one.  God has spoken, She wants me to move on.  Maybe one day I'll actually finish one of these video game logs.  Or not.

Also, I'm fine, by the way.  Game-Blue, however, has disappeared forever.