#gloomsroom044

[bainhardt]

decided to watch Blade Runner tonight, as I’d never seen it before, and work on a Route 7 hunt for Spritzee I’ve been taking at a leisurely pace since about halfway through last year. it’s stretched triple over odds before I even phased (at least as far as I noticed), with this Ducklett shining at 12353 encounters. I kept telling myself I’d rather phase on a Smeargle or Ducklett over Croagunk or Roselia, so that much is all right with me. still curious to see if this Spritzee ever comes, though

[bainhardt]

Suddenly started my SoulSilver Badge Quest earlier tonight, by which I mean my starter happened to shine while watching Youtube with some friends lol. I'd been doing this reset so haphazardly since finishing my Pearl BQ that I legitimately forgot claiming means I now have to... play the game. It's such a fast and painless reset, I wouldn't have minded putting more time into it. 1682 logged means 5046 starters seen. Nice.

I would've been happy with any of the three, as I've mostly been playing BQs like Nuzlockes where half the fun is in seeing what random assortment my team ends up. Totodile is admittedly pretty damn cool, and another example of a Pokemon I don't think I'd ever have gone out of my way to hunt in isolation.

I don't plan to go too hard on this game anytime soon... I have other things I'd rather be doing for the moment, but I'm sure once I plan out a couple targets in Johto I'll catch the bug once again.

[bainhardt]

had the sudden urge to Pokeradar so I hopped on the daily swarm (Windworks Electrike) and zoned out for a bit to some Youtube and voila. actually think these two look pretty slick in the gen 4 sprites. nice

[bainhardt]

Pokemon Pearl Badge Quest complete

(Happiny ended the game at level 84)

[bainhardt]

Holy hell, I am so glad to finally be finishing Pearl.

Obviously, the lead up to the final gym is when most of the games interrupt with their respective legendary/villain storylines, so I figured I'd stop fighting the terrible encounter tables Sinnoh has to offer and SR for Palkia in the home stretch. Might as well go out with a bang. And it's still only the second SR hunt I've ever done, to be honest. I mean, I didn't really want Palkia that badly, but it felt fitting. When else am I ever gonna bother doing this hunt than on Pearl?

I didn't put much time into it right away, with the entire thing once again more of an accessory to times I felt like throwing on a show or movie rather than something I'd specifically decide to do. That changed around February or March, when I felt it was high time I close out this Badge Quest so I didn't have to feel it hanging over my head all the time. I want to move on to other hunts.

Didn't end up over odds either, with 7568 recorded SRs, and thankfully pretty quick ones. Only about 20 seconds each at peak efficiency. Probably faster than random encounters in some games, lol. And as SRs don't involve much walking around, Happiny has ended this phase at level 83 off travel around the region and up Mount Coronet.

Overall, it's crazy looking back over the momentum this Badge Quest had in the start, with the first four hunts taking under 3 months combined, and the back four taking over 6 months each.

Would you believe me if I said I already want to do another one? Okay, maybe not right away, but since beginning this arduous journey back in 2021 I've filled in the rest of the gaps in my DS Pokemon collection with JP copies, and SoulSilver is looking like it could be pretty fun...

[bainhardt]

Happy Halloween!

As it would turn out, it's been juuuust shy of 12 months since the last knotch on this ever-long belt known as Pearl Badge Quest, with the sixth being Golbat on Iron Island. Thankfully, the lead up to the seventh gym introduces - gasp - new areas, with actual new encounters! Can you imagine.

Anyway, I had most of the progression done so fast I don't even remember it (almost a year ago), then set to work encountering on Route 216. While all of the previous hunts I can recall were done solo on the BQ file itself, we've moved past the available party slots with the hunt for Shiny #7, so I figured I might as well multihunt with my game-cleared Platinum trudging through the snow alongside. Platinum has the opportunity for a couple different encounter slots, so all in all I was looking at a wide range of Pokemon new and old like Machoke, Noctowl, Sneasel, Meditite, Snorunt, Snover, and Zubat.

My target was Snover, but as usual I'd have settled for anything I didn't already have (Zubat and Meditite, and I have a Noctowl on a different game, too). Though I didn't go all that hard on this hunt, I would pick it up from time to time when I had something I wanted to watch, and finally got to see that shine today after 11212 encounters - and on the Badge Quest file once again.

After a quick refresh of the Daycare tracker app, Happiny has gained two levels, reaching level 82.

[bainhardt]

occasionally playing a classic Nuzlocke of Ruby and found this shiny Plusle last night while grinding on route 110. first shiny I ever found on a gen III game and I wasn’t even hunting. unfortunately I don’t think Plusle’s shiny looks particularly great on any of the games - I could barely tell the difference except for the sparkle because I was playing on my original DS at the time. definitely wouldn’t have tried to hunt this in any other case.

[bainhardt]

My Wurmple evolved into Beautifly, and some mirror matches for direct shiny comparisons.

It’s pretty cool playing through the entire game with nothing but shinies on my team. I got a small taste of it with two when I recently played Crystal, but it’s a totally different story when every Pokemon you send out sparkles. Although it’s having an adverse side effect on me in wild encounters...

[bainhardt]

Ayyyy second hunt of the BQ finished tonight as well! I wasn’t sure if I’d commit to doing an Eterna hunt, but as it’s only one chance per save file I figured I’d regret not going for it in the end. Plus the double encounters really speed things up. I can see why people like hunting dark grass in the gen 5 games.

I had 7948 encounters on record for this one, although per my tendency to hunt without counting at times (including when I found this, in bed), I’d be willing to round it to 8192 and call it something close to at-odds. Longest hunt I have on record too, but I’m definitely anticipating some higher numbers before this quest is through. My luck has to sour sooner or later.

I wanted Wurmple the most, and I’m really excited to see what it evolves into! But I would’ve taken just about anything from the forest besides another Budew either way.

[bainhardt]

Earlier in the year, I was cruising JP game listings on ebay and found a seriously great deal on secondhand copies of Pearl + Black together, the kind of deal that’s too good to let slip through one’s fingers. But given that I didn’t particularly feel like playing either gen through again, Nuzlocke or otherwise, they sat on my shelf for a couple of months while I tried to figure out what I might do with them. Then a bunch of Hololive members started trying for blue axolotls in Minecraft and I thought to myself “finally, something that proves the appeal of shiny hunting extends beyond just Pokemon!” And then I myself felt like shiny hunting, and a Badge Quest seemed like the perfect fit for these carts.

I started up both and, whenever possible, essentially had them “race” to be the game I’d play - whichever game shines first wins. I considered double hunting to speed things up, but I wanted at least the first shiny of the file to come from the cart itself as a sort of “initiation,” I guess. Eventually, after 62 hours and 6596 encounters (still under odds!), I found this shiny Budew on Route 204 in Pearl! This route seemed the best choice to me, as it offers six different Pokemon when played in the morning or nighttime. I actually wanted Kricketot or Budew the most, so I’m definitely satisfied to have this over something like Bidoof or Starly.  And most of all, I’m just glad I actually get to play some of the game now!

[bainhardt]

I’ve been trying to hunt for Castform. I'd been SOS chaining Pelipper for about a week when this happened, because Castform has an 11% spawn chance in Tapu Village when it's raining, and I figured Drizzle could contribute to keeping the rain going on top of my Damp Rock Rain Dances. My chains kept breaking for various reasons, like a dead battery, human error like accidentally KOing or running, or catching some shiny Pelipper that appeared. When this video was recorded, I'd seen a total of 7 shiny Pelipper and caught 3 of them (numbers 6 and 7 are the ones on screen).

The funniest detail is that I'd done some rough math to calculate when the hunt would be "over odds" for Castform; I have the Shiny Charm, and assuming a constant chain of 31+ and an unfailing 11% rate for Castform, AFAIK it works to just around 2482 SOS spawns to reach 1/273 odds. This second Pelipper spawned... at 2483. Obviously when you consider the fact my chain was broken several times, and accounting for spawns that occurred at the same time the rain was ending (resulting in 0% chance of Castform), there's a HUGE margin of error in this calculation, but I just thought the coincidence was funny all the same.

[bainhardt]

she got it!!

[bainhardt]

[bainhardt]

my first full odds shiny hunt is over after about 3 days and 1546 SRs (´ー｀)b

I started it honestly entirely on a whim because I was playing 4th gen doing Pokeradar and the usual. while wandering around Kanto on my barely-finished HG file I ended up finding Mewtwo and after catching it once the normal way I thought to myself, “Wait a second...”

anyway, I was trying to keep my expectations as low as possible and told myself it would end up taking like 10k+ resets in some sort of cruel initiation, so I was pretty shocked when Mewtwo showed up after only about 1500. I don’t actually like Mewtwo’s shiny particularly better than the regular color (I’m a big fan of purple), but it still feels special - I can collect as many purple Mewtwo as I want pretty easily, but getting even one shiny Mewtwo took some dedication. and it still looks cool.

the battle was smooth sailing with no real close calls or anxious moments (although my heart was beating pretty fast for the beginning lol). bringing a Dark type was the right choice because it walls Mewtwo at this level, but I wish I had access to a better sleep move than Hypnosis on Hypno, lol. I wanted to catch Mewtwo in a Love Ball or a Friend Ball for the gen 4 flex, but I wasn’t having any luck and had to chuck my Master Ball before it ran out of PP and knocked itself out. it’s Adamant nature (ouch). I’m kind of tempted to collect some ribbons on it, even though I don’t think I want to transfer it up any time soon.

okay I don’t know why I’m writing so much. it was cool to have this hunt go pretty well all things considered but it’ll probably be a while before I do another SR/RE/full odds hunt of any kind. they’re slow if you only have one system or game and I don’t have any other targets in mind at the moment. all right everybody this is gloomsroom044 and I’ll catch you in the next-

[bainhardt]

oh yeah not like it matters but I guess I’m like “officially“ a shiny hunter now lol

[bainhardt]

I caught 3 shiny Chansey in one day and then it is my birthday