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.

SoulSilver Log Part 5

And so Blue proved herself to be the greatest trainer in all of Johto, defeated the evil Team Rocket, and captured the legendary Pokemon Lugia.  For most computer-controlled trainers, this would make up a fantastic career beyond their wildest dreams (because most of them cannot even walk - they only stand).  But our Blue is not most players, obviously.  She was going to be the very best that no one ever was.  Spurned on by the mysterious Great Power, Blue traveled to Kanto, the placed the Great Power called "the first game", to vanquish another set of eight mighty Gym Leaders.

However, first Blue's team needed some shaking up:  gone were Ampharos, Meganium, and Ninetales, to be replaced by Raichu, Flygon, and Arcanine.  Blue proved to be magnificently cold when it came to abandoning Pokemon she had carried with her for many trials and tribulations.  Unfortunately, the others just weren't strong enough, new power was needed in the dangerous land of Kanto.  Grass Pokemon suck, Ninetales was too weak, and Ampharos couldn't learn the powerful move Volt Tackle like Raichu could.  Sympathy for weak Pokemon cannot be allowed - no matter how cute the ones about to be boxed forever might be.  This is Pokemon!  Its a cruel, cruel world.

However, despite the many shake-ups on Blue's team, her unlimited talent was more than enough to cover for any momentary weakness.

SoulSilver Log: Part 4

This post is a bit more of a side story than anything else.  We'll return to accounting Blue's journeys through Kanto later, but for now I feel there's a story to be told right here.  Reaching the final boss requires that you level grind to at least level 70, and even then Blue is having a unique problem with him. Red has decided to hold up at the top of Mount Silver, a spot you cannot reach unless you have some special moves.  For example, you need Rock Climb, a move that none of Blue's main six can learn.  Why do you have to go through all this nonsense and use Pokemon you don't want to reach the ultimate battle?  What were they thinking?

On that note, we will now join Blue late in her quest to be the very best that no one ever was.  She wandered into Mt. Mortar to find the fabled Karate King after gaining all sixteen Gym Badges, and defeat him.  No trainer can go unfought in this journey, no matter how obscure.  Unfortunately Mt. Mortar is a huge maze, filled with waterfalls, cliff faces, and huge boulders that you need a Pokemon to get through.  And there are lots of two feet bluffs that Blue cannot climb over no matter how hard she tries.  When she tries it, her body is forced back by a supernatural power called Bad Game Design, making her walk in place rather than easily step over the bluffs.  The great power was currently off sleeping, so it was to be of no help.  Clearly this quest was not going to be fun... at all.

SoulSilver Log: Part 3

Little Blue has had quite a journey over the last week.  The land of Johto has fallen into chaos while Blue was on her journey to be the very best that no one ever was.  The sinister international crime syndicate with a logo stolen from Rutgers University, Team Rocket, has emerged from the shadows to do vague bad things like "use Pokemon for evil".  Since Pokemon dare frighten kids with any actual instance of Team Rocket being evil*, we'll just have to take their own word for it that they're out to do bad things for bad's own sake.

So when Blue traveled to Mahogany Town, she found that the door to the local gym was being blocked by an annoying man.  No matter what she tried, she couldn't find a way around him, as all people in the Pokemon universe are roughly the same size and the door was exactly the width of an average human.  Blue, desperate to get her seventh badge, called upon the great power from another dimension for help.  It told her that all this was being caused by an evil organization the power had fought back in a time known as "the original games", Team Rocket.  The only way to get to get into the gym was to defeat the local Rockets, who were hiding in a secret ninja base below one of Mahogany's two houses.  And the great power told her that there would be help:  the dragon master, Lance.

SoulSilver Log Part 2:

Happy Passover.  And now for Pokemon.

The story so far:  Blue once again set off in New Bark Town, having been given a Chickorita from Prof. Elm for an errand.  This time, however, Blue was a girl, something he hasn't been since "Crystal".  Why be a girl?  Well, Blue tried started a boy, but the game accidentally reset on Boy-Blue, killing him, his Pokemon, and all record of his existence.  So Girl-Blue is now taking over this adventure.

While Blue was out performing her errand to find a Pokemon Egg*, her rival, Red came along and stole a Cyndaquil.  But while Red has the massive disadvantage of being an artificial being moving a fixed path, Blue is control by an external power that already predicated these turns of events.  So that power ordered her to level up Chickorita to at least level 8, guaranteeing a victory.  And once Red was beaten for the first time and Blue said goodbye to Mom, she began her journey to be the very best, that no one ever was.

The great power soon, however, revealed its limitations.  Having only seen Blue's universe back in archaic time, which it called "the original games on the Game Boy Color", it was surprised to see how much the universe had changed.  For example, now there was a new person in Blue's life, a childhood friend named Ethan, who looked exactly like the erased Boy-Blue.  Blue was annoyed by this character.  "What the heck is there to see in a guy with a Marill, anyway?", she though.  "It isn't going to happen, Ethan.  Total creeper."  The great power consorted some vast mysterious well of all the knowledge of its universe called "the Internet", and assured Blue that Ethan would be gone very soon.

Along the way, the great power that spoke to Blue told her that Chickorita would be essentially worthless for half the gyms in the game.  So he called upon Blue to capture a Bellsprout.  Blue was quite confused by this, wondering how capturing another Grass-type could at all help her out strategically.  But what Blue didn't know was that in Violet City a nice man was willing to trade a glorious Onix, named "Rocky", for that Bellsprout.  Blue thanked the great mysterious power for helping her out once again, and went ahead to beat Faulkner.  The great power was immediately disappointed in two things:  1) the remakes did not help at all distinguish if Faulkner was a boy or girl, and 2) that Rocky turned out to be a horribly disloyal piece of garbage.  Apparently raising it up from level 5 to 14 was not enough for Rocky to love Blue, it was incapable of love.  Blue still won, but already she was beginning to doubt the great power.

Next up was Bugsy, master of Bug Pokemon and even more androgynous than Faulkner.  Along the way, Blue caught a Mareep because she liked sheep.  Rocky was punished by being thrown into a Box at the Pokemon center for his lack of faith.  Bugsy proved difficult, and Blue felt her first defeat.  The great power demanded that Blue restore Rocky to full status, as bugs would be unable to get through the hard rock.  Blue did as she was told, and proved triumphant. Rocky, however, was so worthless that he nearly lost, again.  Along the way, she once again ran into Rival Red, who was no problem at all.

The next gym leader was none other than Whitney.  Blue was shocked to find that the great power trembled just from hearing her name.  What in the world could make such a mysterious and omnipotent force shake with terror.  All the great power could say was a warning:  "ROLLOUT!  ROLLOUT!"  Not knowing what to make of that, Blue decided instead to catch a Vulpix.  During the climatic battle with Whitney, which was so epic that the great power left Blue's side to weep in a corner, Rocky once again proved a failure.  Whitney's Miltank, the master of the "horrible" Rollout, made Rocky fall in love with it.  The Onix, despite having every advantage in the universe, was defeated.  Luckily the others were able to take up the slack and win the battle.  Blue had a special punishment for Rocky:  "welcome to a box, you loser".  Worse yet, in a fit of rage, she released it out into the universe.  As for as Blue was concerned, Rocky was dead.  Dead forever.

From then on the great power gave Blue various gifts:  a Ralts that would evolve in Gardevoir, a Glaceon, and a Feebas.  The great power told Blue that Feebas must be given a haircut every night for eight nights, then it will evolve into a force mightier than anything she had ever seen.  Blue, however, didn't want to use the Glaceon yet, and instead made a Vaporeon**.  Three more gyms were taken down with Blue's growing party.  But there were rumblings in the wind.  Legendary Pokemon were running wild across the land.  An evil organization from the past was on its way to return.  And Chickorita, now a Meganium, was proving to be completely worthless***.

Will Blue be able to defeat the scourge of Team Rocket?  Will she ever reach the rank of Pokemon Master?  Where do I, the narrator and usual central character, fit into all this?

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* How is it that in the world of Pokemon, the field of Biology is so poorly advanced that people don't even know how Pokemon reproduce?  Its like they're all shocked to find a Pokemon hatching from eggs.  We're supposed to be in modern times in Pokemon.  In the real world, humans could tell you how a good deal of animals reproduced by at most 8000 BC, by the time we began domestication on a large scale.  Then the dudes at the Day Care Center act all coy when an egg is found when my Vaporeon was left alone with a Ditto.  "Look, an egg!  Where did that come from?"  Look, I know its a children's game, but we can at least admit that the parents are actively involved in the creation of children on some level, okay?

(On the other hand, I really don't want to be involved in the process.  Please no minigames where I use the stylus to artificially inseminate my Rapidash.  Thanks.)

** You can very easily get evolutionary stones in this remake.  In the original, those stones were next to impossible to find.  Here, all you have to do is compete in the Pokeathlon. The Pokeathlon is this collection of minigames where you compete against the computer or other humans if you so wish.  The games generally are okay, not exactly the best ever, though.  Some are quite poor, in fact.  I recommend the Stamina games, since its pretty much impossible to lose the first two games no matter what party you have.  By the way, Blue looks cute in her track suit.  All together, this is a much better game than that stupid Beauty Contest crap back in the last generation.

*** Grass-type Pokemon are easily the weakest of the main starting types.  They're weak against Fire, Ice, Flying, Bug, and Poison attack, and can only really work effectively against Water and Ground types.  But there are much better ways of being effective against them.  I figured this out years ago, but for some reason this time around I decided to start out with a pure-Grass type just to be different.  Meganium is not going to be in my/Blue's final party.

Pokemon SoulSilver Log: Part 1

I bought "Pokemon SoulSilver" last week, and since its a rather long game, I'm hoping to begin another one of those extra long playthrough adventure things.  Only this time its going to be for a game that I actually like.  Don't worry, I'm not going to update every day.  Maybe once a week for the month or so I'll be playing this game.

But before all that, I must first tell my story:

I've had a torrid love affair with Pokemon for just over twelve years now.  It happens to be one of the very first video games I ever got into seriously, and my very first RPG ever.  But there was more to Pokemon than just a game.  It was a culture.  It was a lifestyle.  It was the closest thing to a religion that I have ever believed in. Me and every other grade schooler in all of western civilization were part of the Pokemon Movement.

Yeah, there were games, but there was also the TV show, which happens to be the first anime I ever saw.  Did spend years watching it, waiting for Ash and Misty to realize them were in love?  Was that just me?  And there was a trading card game, which happens to be the first and last card game I ever bothered with.  And there were movies, and we all went, didn't we?  While our Moms fell asleep from the mediocrity of those terrible movies, we sat back in religious ecstasy, throwing popcorn at the screen and giggling like the school kids we were when our favorite Pokemon came on screen.  Remember the Burger King toys?  Remember getting Grandma to burn like thirty bucks on a cheap 24 karat gold Poke Ball we just lost on the car ride home?  Truly, there was something to all that.  Something magical.

Steadily, however, Pokemon died for me.  First to go was the card game.  I know every child in the late 90s had to have gotten at least one pack of Pokemon cards.  Unfortunately, nobody actually knew how to battle with Pokemon cards.  What the heck did the elemental cards do?  What's the point of a Potion?  How many cards can you use?  Did we care?  No!  It was all about collecting stuff.  And I'm not a very good collector.  After playing just one round of Pokemon card battling, I immediately got bored and took out my GameBoy Color Link Cable to have some real fun.  As of this moment, my entire extensive collection of Pokemon cards (even my rare naked Misty card) is in some guy named Niko's basement.

Next to go was the anime.  It was stupid from the beginning, and we all knew it on some level.  There was no real plot, no real enemy, no real danger, and no good reason to watch.  What the anime tried to do was recreate the true experience of the games, to the expense of making a serious plot.  Pokemon is, in its most fundamental level, a community experience.  You certainly can beat the games all by yourself, but you'll never catch 'em all, you'll never get a good battle challenge, and you'll never feel the true enjoyment of these games until its done with a group of friends.  The anime tried to boil down that experience, but failed.  Yeah, its cool to see your favorite Pokemon in full cartoon life, but there was just no soul to it all.  You can't make community experience of sharing Missingno and Mew rumors into a non-interactive storyline, no matter how good.  And Pokemon the anime was not good!  The only thing that I particularly liked, even from the start, was the relationship with Ash and Misty.  The sort of back and forth "I'm not going out with him!" childlike mentality was a nice long arc you could follow along to its inevitable conclusion (they kiss)... which never happened*.  I haven't watched this show in years, but I do know that Ash has since had like two other Misty replacements, neither of which will ever go anywhere.  The show will continue endlessly, entertaining a small age demographic before they realize too "this show sucks".

At some point, I just stopped loving Pokemon as much.  There were other games to play.  I stopped drawing my own Pokemon regions in my notebooks.  I stopped designing my own Pokemon like "Mewthree" and "Charvenustois".  The world had moved on.

The games too, unfortunately began to die out for me.  "Gold and Silver", I feel, were the heights of the Pokemon experience.  After that, things began to sour.  "Ruby and Sapphire" gave me this crazy feeling of a reboot.  It wasn't a sequel anymore:  none of the old locations, characters, or enemies were back, or even mentioned.  Only half the Pokemon I had known and loved for years now were available initially, the rest were these new and weird monsters I had never seen before.  At this point I honestly was not following Pokemon all that much except for the games, so I couldn't amass an encyclopedic knowledge of every new one before the game began.  The Elite Four was replace, Team Rocket was gone, I couldn't revisit old regions like "Gold and Silver" had allowed for, things just were restarted.  It was still the same game in every fundamental fashion, but all these little details were shifted around.  We're rehashing the sound ground, yet removing a lot of things I had come to enjoy.

Even so, a few years later I did do my best to catch all 350 or whatever the insane number was by that point in my "FireRed" version.  That wasn't my most exciting summer, was it?

When "Diamond and Pearl" came out, I decided that this time I would actually look over the entire new generation before getting the game.  Only one problem:  they were all terrible.  Ugly, Ugly, Ugly.  There was maybe two in the whole bunch that I'd even consider owning**.  Piplup look cute, but then he evolves into this terrible, monstrous thing called Empoleon.  Others were these horrible evolved forms of Pokemon I had known and loved for years.  Rhydon, what happened to you?  Oh my God, Electabuzz, what have you become??  Eww...  Why in the world would I ever want to play this generation?  More importantly, it was following the "Ruby and Sapphire" standard of simply restarting everything without being a real sequel.  There's nothing to enjoy here.  So I never got it.

Instead, I eagerly awaited the remakes of "Gold and Silver", the best that Pokemon has ever been.  And now that I have them, I'm happy to see just how much the Pokemon world has changed.  Your starting party member follows you around now.  Its a minor thing, but it makes it feel so much more intimate.  They also redesigned the entire world, so that each town now has its own individual look, feel, and background music.  The world of Pokemon has never looked so alive.

At the moment I'm training up to beat Jasmine with my four Pokemon team.  I went with a Chikorita as a starter this time because I've never actually started with a Grass-type.  Then I caught a Mareep because it was just about the only Electric Type nearby.  Next up was a Vulpix because I love that Pokemon.  And finally I made a Vaporeon to both have a strong Water-type and to get across the ocean.  At the moment I've acquired a Feebas from my roommate's "Diamond".  I'm working to one day make it a beautiful Milotic.

What will my final team look like?  I have no idea.  There are so many options.  So many choices.  But that's the true wonder of Pokemon:  freedom.  So join me in my quest for freedom as I take my next step into the larger Pokemon world.

You're going down, Jasmine.  Just because you're cute that doesn't mean I'll go easy on you.

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* If only Rumiko Takahashi of "Inuyasha" and "Ranma 1/2" fame had been brought in to write the anime, things would have been different.  Yeah, the love arc would have been dragged along for a decade, but it would have gone somewhere!

** Those two, interestingly, are Eevee's new evolutions.  Especially Glaceon. I also like Luxray.  I did like Lucario, until he started kicking my ass in Smash Bros.  Now its over between me and him.  Shaymin's second form is pretty cool too.  The rest are all rubbish.