#pokemon retrospective

[ifbench]

Pokemon Firered Retrospective, from the perspective of someone whose primary experience with Kanto was Pokespe

To preface this, I have never seen Kanto outside of Pokespe, and brief clips from stuff like "Beating Pokemon without getting hit" or Pikasprey's softlock videos. I knew the general story of it, but I didn't know the details.

If you'd like to read my other mainline Pokemon retrospectives, you can read Emerald here, and X here.

Pokemon Firered was one of the most mixed quality gaming experiences I've had in recent memory.

It was mostly fun, sure, but I had to take extensive measures in order to make it not unbearable.

I chose Charmander as my starter, named him Burhalla, and caught a Pidgey and Ratatta on Route 1. I named them Linne and Jifa respectively. Jifa would become my HM buddy.

First few routes weren't too bad...until I made it to Brock.

Then everything went downhill.

Brock was brutal. His Onix was 3 levels higher than any I had encountered thus far, including his gym trainer. With both my main Pokemon weak to rock, and all of my attacks NFE against rock, it seemed like my only choice was to grind.

So I activated an infinite rare candy cheat instead, and leveled up Burhalla until he learned Metal Claw.

Even then, that wasn't quite enough. I had to level up him even further until he evolved into a Charmeleon, and then I finally beat Brock.

At this point, I was rather miffed, but I decided to press on. Maybe things would get better soon?

Mount Moon was fine. Not bad, not good, just...fine.

Then was Cerulean City, and Misty, who was my biggest roadblock in the entire run.

Burhalla was right out, leaving only Linne the Pidgey to battle her.

And it took so, so many tries. Even more than Brock.

But eventually, with the right luck, and the right timing of usage of healing items, Linne the Pidgeotto defeated Misty.

That battle tanked my enjoyment of Firered severely. It was frustrating, hard, and I began to start disliking Firered.

But I pressed onwards, up through Nugget Bridge (Which, I gotta say, I did not expect the nugget guy to be a Rocket grunt), to Bill's house.

It was cool seeing stuff from Pokespe in-game, like the stuff with Bill, but backtracking back across Route 25 was annoying.

Then there was the SS Anne.

It was a maze to navigate without a guide, and it got really frustrating.

But I continued pressing onwards, even as much as I was getting tired of Firered.

Surge was thankfully much easier than Misty or Brock, and I pressed onwards through Route 11.

Then I arrived at the sleeping Snorlax, realized I had no idea where to go or what to do from here, and gave up.

For over a month, I didn't touch FIrered again. I played some X, some Sun, some Shield, and some Violet, but Firered was on hold.

After growing a bit bored with my Violet replaythrough, though, I decided to return to Firered. Maybe, with a month's break, it'd be less painful than I remembered.

First order of business was where to go next.

I asked for advice, and apparently I had to backtrack to Cerulean City to get to my next destination.

I made my way through Diglett's Cave to get back there, and caught my third team member: Dirir the Diglett.

And after taking the long way around, I finally went into the house at the top-right corner, and made my way across the northern edge of Kanto, Route 9.

Then was Rock Tunnel.

See, I hadn't gotten Flash. And I had no idea where it was.

So like with Emerald's Victory Road, I had to navigate through Rock Tunnel with extremely limited visibility. And I was going Repel-less as an additional challenge, since I was imagining that my protagonist was a Zorua.

Not an experience I wish to repeat. But eventually, I made it to Lavender Town.

Lavender Town was both unlike and yet exactly like the stories I've heard of it. It was spooky, creepy, and eeire, but I felt safe, and the music felt calming instead of terrifying.

Perhaps it was simply that I had simply outgrown creepypastas? Or maybe it was just that my interests had shifted, or my standards had changed. I did attempt writing a PMD creepypasta once, after all.

Whatever the case was, I didn't spend too much time in Lavender Town. I remembered from a small clip I saw years ago, that I needed a Silph Scope in order to make it up the Pokemon Tower.

So I set out west, towards Celadon City, in search of the Silph Scope, and perhaps a new friend or two.

After passing through yet another underground tunnel that bypassed Saffron City, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps something similar to the manga was happening: A psychic bubble that enveloped Saffron City, preventing anyone from entering.

But soon I made it to Celadon City, the home of Kanto's Game Corner.

I had learned my lesson from Emerald: These places were rigged.

So I decided to cheat a little in turn.

You know how I had a ton of rare candies from the infinite rare candy cheat? I decided to sell about a hundred, so I could get one of the Game Corner prizes: A Dratini.

I had read a wonderful fic a long time ago called Dragon Dance, detailing Lance's rise to champion, and I decided to take inspiration from Lance freeing a Dratini from the Game Corner. I named them Darnod.

In flavor, I imagined this as busting up the Game Corner, freeing all the Pokemon, and a Dratini and Eevee follow my protagonist into the Rocket Hideout, becoming part of xyr team.

Yes, an Eevee too. I got the Eevee from the Celadon Department Store, and named them Voivick. I also acquired a water stone, and evolved Voivick into a Vaporeon.

Burhalla, Linne, Dirir, Voivick, Darnod, and Jifa would comprise my final Kanto team.

But before we get there, I had to infiltrate the Team Rocket Hideout.

I had heard of spin tiles before, from reading an Undertale AU sprite comic called Inverted Fate, but actually experiencing them was a fun puzzle! It was also silly watching my character spin around and around and around.

Eventually, I made it through the hideout, to Giovanni.

He was no slouch, and I had a pretty tough time with him! But thanks to my new team members, I pulled through, and acquired the Silph Scope.

After a quick detour to defeat Erika, who was a relatively easy opponent, I made my way back to Lavender Town.

Pokemon Tower was a bit more spooky than Lavender Town itself. It wasn't quite as terrifying as its manga incarnation, but still pretty eerie, especially with the possessed trainers, and the spell tag circle.

Soon, I made it to Marowak's ghost, and put the restless spirit to rest.

And after defeating a few Rocket grunts and rescuing Mr. Fuji, I obtained the pokeflute. Finally, I could bypass the Snorlax that had frustrated me into giving up for a month.

I went south from Lavender Town, across the docks, and battled the Snorlax there. It was a tricky battle, but I eventually won.

The long walk to Fuchsia City was arduous, but before too long, I made it to the home of the Safari Zone.

I originally wasn't planning on going in, until I heard from a friend that I needed to go there to get an HM.

And so I went in, trying to find my way to the fabled house at the end of the Safari Zone.

It was tricky, but I found it, and someone's gold teeth while I was at it!

With my new HM in hand, I challenged Koga for my next badge. It was another tricky battle, but thankfully, none of my team were weak to poison.

Next...I went to Cycling Road, having no idea that I was going the complete wrong way.

Cycling Road, as far as I can tell, is meant to be ridden downhill. I went uphill.

I was very confused at first, but kept making my way up the now-tedious Cycling Road, and eventually came out the other side, now with HM Fly. No more backtracking for me, I could now quickly return to any Pokemon Center I've been to.

Then, finally, with nowhere else to go, it was time to enter Saffron City.

While there was no psychic bubble around the city like in the manga, the city was certainly overrun by Team Rocket.

And so, like Red, Blue, and Green did in the manga, it was finally time for me to storm Silph Co.

Silph Co was a maze. Over 10 different floors, each connected by warp tiles, with no indication of which ones led to the path forward.

It was brutally confusing, and filled to the brim with trainers itching for a battle.

But I eventually found the keycard, and navigated my way to the hidden side of the top floor. It was time to face Giovanni again.

He was just as tough as when I encountered him in the Rocket Hideout, but Voivick pulled through, and I acquired the master ball.

Compared to Giovanni, Sabrina was relatively easy, though still pretty difficult. I had to work for that win, but I got my sixth badge.

Then it was time for me to go Surfing, along the southern edge of Kanto.

The Seafoam Islands were a tricky puzzle to figure out. It took me a few rounds of falling through holes and climbing up ladders to realize that I had to use Strength to push boulders down the holes, and change the flow of the water.

Soon, though, I made it to Cinnabar Island...and was immediately taken from there to Firered and Leafgreen's exclusive sub-region, the reason I decided to play this before Let's Go: the Sevii Islands.

For the Sevii Islands, I had absolutely no idea what the game version was like. I hadn't even seen any snippets of footage about them. My only experience with them was the Firered and Leafgreen arc of Pokemon Adventures.

But this time, there were no repossessed pokedexes, or "three Team Rocket beasts". Instead, I simply had to go on a variety of fetch quests.

It wasn't anything too special, but I'm glad it was there. It was fun! And I look forward to returning here in the postgame someday, once I find the drive to catch enough Pokemon for the Rainbow Pass.

But that's for later. For now, having defeated a biker gang, I returned to Cinnabar Island. Before I could face the gym, though, I had to traverse through the decrepit Pokemon Mansion.

Pokemon Mansion was like Silph Co, only much smaller, but the random encounters, statue puzzles, and eerie atmosphere made it feel just as long.

This was where Team Rocket conducted many of their experiments. It was where Mewtwo was created. And it lived up to that atmosphere.

Although some of the journal entries clearly had some of the dubiously canon stuff from Pokemon's very early days, such as references to real-life locations.

Still very neat, though.

Blaine wasn't as difficult as Misty, but was much more difficult than Erika. He specialized in the same type as my starter: Fire.

But with help from Voivick, I defeated him, and got my seventh badge.

I had just one stop left before Victory Road: The very first gym I encountered, whose gym leader was absent for so long.

Viridian City's gym leader had finally returned, and I was going to take him on.

The gym puzzle was my favorite yet of Kanto's, with the combination of spin tiles and trainers creating a genuinely neat maze.

And then I made it to Giovanni, for our final battle...until Soulsilver, Ultra Moon, and Let's Go Eevee, at least.

This battle with him was the trickiest against him yet. It took several tries for me to win.

But win I did, and Team Rocket, supposedly, was no more.

With all eight Kanto badges under my belt, it was time to go to Victory Road.

Before that, though, another battle with Blue. It was another tough one, but then again, all the major battles at this point were tough.

The badge check gates were really cool! The only comparable one I had seen so far was in Kalos, as Hoenn didn't have any. And Kalos' was more just inscriptions of the badges on the walls. Still cool, but not like Kanto's.

And then it was time for Kanto's Victory Road, my third Victory Road.

It was tricky, but in a different way from Hoenn and Kalos'.

Hoenn's was a test of navigation. How well could I navigate this maze in near-complete darkness?

Kalos' was a test of strength. So many powerful trainers, with nowhere in between to heal besides usage of items.

Kanto's was much shorter than both, fully lit, and its trainers weren't as tough as Kalos', but what it lacked in navigation and strength, it made up for in puzzles and endurance.

There were boulders scattered around, and I had to maneuver them sokoban-style onto switches in order to progress.

Oh, and the entire thing was filled with random encounters. At this point, I gave up on the "no repels" rule, and bought a bunch of max repels for this.

It was tough. It was confusing. It was my final test before the Indigo Plateau.

And eventually, I passed the test, making it out.

All that was left, was five battles. The Elite Four, and the Champion. The toughest the Kanto region had to offer.

At this point, all my Pokemon were fully evolved, save for my HM buddy Jifa. I was functionally going into this gauntlet with five Pokemon.

But I had conquered Hoenn in a similar way. Five battlers, and an HM buddy. I had hope that I could do this.

Healing up, and stocking up on healing items, I proceeded towards my first of my final battles, against Lorelei.

It's been a while, so I don't quite remember how these battles went. I do remember, though, that even Burhalla's fire wasn't enough to melt her ice. Linne, Dirir, and especially Darnod were weak to ice, so it was tricky.

But I pulled through, and next up was Bruno, fighting-type master.

Linne was vital here. Her Fly was invaluable in avoiding moves while still dealing damage. But a Hitmonlee knocked her out, leaving Voivick, Darnod, Dirir, and Burhalla to take on the rest.

Next was Agatha, and her ghost-types were no joke...even if she was more of a poison specialist. All my normal-type moves were out of the question. But with patience and strategy, I did it.

And last of Kanto's Elite Four was Lance, who had influenced this journey in his own way, back at the Celadon Game Corner. Darnod helped me a lot here. It was dragon vs dragons, and Darnod's Dragon Claw took many of them down. But the same went in reverse, and Darnod fell, leaving Voivick to finish things off with their Aurora Beam.

One battle left. Healing up my team, I progressed into the champion's chamber, to face Blue one final time.

This was by far the most difficult late-game battle I had. All the others had specialized in one or two types. But Blue was like me, with a rounded team.

It was tough. It was arduous. It took every member of my team, even Jifa, to win.

But win I did, and I had become champion of Kanto.

I had completed Pokemon Firered.

While my thoughts on this one are more mixed than Emerald or X, I did truly enjoy it, especially once it hit its stride around Lavender Town.

It has its flaws. Extreme difficulty in the earlygame, lots of grinding necessary, and much confusion on where to go next.

But I had fun, despite it all. I cherish this victory all the same.

[emm-gracia]

Pokémon Black & White is Peak Fiction

Pokémon Black & White is another set of mainline games I grew up playing alongside Pokémon Platinum. The last set of the 2D games, often considered the peak of Pokémon, was this really the best there is? After 13 years, that’s what I’m here to figure out as we jump back to Unova for another grand revisit! Also, N. Enough said.

[crab-san]

What if Luka Megurine was a water-type trainer

[nekoanything]

skki 💎🐚

[doodlejoltik]

Guys I have a confession to make. In spite of all my PLA posting and especially Reiposting... I have not actually played PLA.

Until now!!!

Armed with my new Switch Lite I now possess infinite power and will be able to Reipost to a degree heretofore unfathomable

There he is!

Objectively the best starter Rowlet /lh

So far I have been having a blast catching 'mons, dodge-roll climbing my way up unreasonably tall places, and not doing the plot. I have been assured this is part of the experience.

I forgot to take a screenshot so I had to yoink this from someone's YouTube playthrough but darn. Kamado. Did you really have to say it like that

(Haha isn't it funny that Rei does do that and yet he's not fully accepted and trusted in the end. Haha. Maybe he didn't work hard enough...)

This line stuck out to me. On one hand it's cautionary - in context, it's meant to warn Rei that he should be careful in how he behaves around the Diamond and Pearl clans, since the Galaxy Team is in a tenuous position here in Hisui. But from another view, it sort of suggests that "we are all equally outsiders here. You belong" which is more explicitly stated in lines like this one:

And so I see this narrative that's building up of "Rei can earn a place for himself where he is trusted and accepted if he works hard enough", which is reinforced time and time again as he gets more star ranks, and takes more requests from the villagers, who gradually become friendlier towards him, at varying rates. (I've been making a point to talk to all the NPCs every time I return to Jubilife Village.)

Which I'm sure you all know already, and which I also knew, to a point, but it hits different actually seeing its gradual progression in game.

Anyway. Next episode, we fight a Noble Pokemon and I'll see if all my dodge-rolling experience to climb tall heights will translate to being good at dodge-rolling away from murderously angry super-powered Pokemon. Wish Rei luck, he's being piloted by me and my decidedly lacking gamer reflexes XDD

I'll tag all my PLA posting "// tik plays PLA"

[mimikyufriend]

[Image ID: A pixel drawing of mega evolved absol from pokemon over a patterned, brown background. It's shown from its shoulders up with one wing raised high and the other folded down. End ID]

absol for @ankhisms ^__^ decided to go with its mega evolution bc I love the wings

[skyarly]

I made gary's necklace !!!!!!!

[joyejoyu]

Con Man Gale challenges you to a battle!

[insecateur]

post-canon anniversary comic from 2017

[cobwebinthegamingchair]

For some reason, Rescue Dungeon DX uses a sort of spacing limit instead of a character limit, so while I couldn't bring back Autism Gang for this game, I was fully able to go with Autism Club. So, introducing Rescue Team Autism Club!

[ifbench]

Pokemon Soulsilver Retrospective, from the perspective of someone who had it as their first Pokemon game but never finished it (until now)

To preface this, this is not my first time playing Pokemon Soulsilver. I played some of it back in 2012 or so, but didn't get very far. And my memories of that playthrough are almost nonexistant, so this is essentially still a first playthrough.

If you'd like to read my other mainline Pokemon retrospectives, you can read Emerald here, X here, Firered here, and Black here.

Pokemon Soulsilver has a strange sort of anti-nostalgia to it to me.

It was technically my very first Pokemon game, yet I have more memories of the 25 minutes I played of Explorers of Time back in 2012, than I do of the several hours I played of Soulsilver in that year.

I don't even remember how far I truly got. It might have only been up to the first gym, it might have been up to Pryce, I don't know.

What I do know, though, is that like with Black, people keep bringing up Soulsilver and Heartgold to be the "golden age" of Pokemon. That it was when the series was good. (Though I personally disagree. I love Violet, and I also love what I've played of Shield so far.)

Nonetheless, the idea of trying Soulsilver again kept popping up in my head after I got into PMD. I briefly entertained the idea of playing it again in 2021, then again in 2022, but I never went through with it until I started this marathon.

But in September of 2023, I decided to do it. I deleted my old save file, and started anew. While I had chosen a Cyndaquil during my first playthrough, this time, I chose a Chikorita as my starter. I named him Acacia, after my PMD Rescue Team DX partner.

However, soon after entering Cherrygrove City, I very quickly got sidetracked with Emerald and put Soulsilver on hold. I didn't get back to it until July of 2024, after I had finished Emerald, X, Firered, and Black.

And after I figured out how to implement the infinite rare candy cheat, since I remember a lot of people talking about how grindy the Johto games are.

But after all that, my second playthrough of Soulsilver had truly begun.

I went to go meet Professor Oak, and as I was on my way to return to New Bark Town, I had my first encounter with this game's rival, Silver.

I very nearly lost that first battle, but through sheer luck, Acacia managed to win.

After meeting with Professor Elm again and hearing about the theft, I caught a Sentret, and named him Niko, after the Sentret on my friend's blog @fated-furret.

I continued on the way to Violet City, collecting a few apricorns along the way. It was cool seeing them again after Legends Arceus, even if they did originate here. I also briefly peeked into Dark Cave.

Violet City was neat to see! I enjoyed how the Pokemon Center and Pokemart had different colors than normal.

I decided to head to the Sprout Tower first, with Niko at the front of my party.

Side note, I love how your Pokemon follow you around in this game, and you can interact with them! Reminds me of the "Let's go together" feature from Violet.

The Sprout Tower was...not very fun. It was a bunch of extremely samey trainer battles, all the way up to the top floor. Though seeing the central pillar shake and wobble was pretty neat.

I also caught a Ratatta here, who would be my HM buddy. I named her Jifa, after my HM buddy from my Firered playthrough.

But with Niko leveled up quite a bit, I decided to take on Falkner. He was pretty tough, but Acacia felled his Pidgey, and Niko felled his Pidgeotto (after 5 Roosts).

Then I decided to take a short detour to explore the Ruins of Alph. It was cool to look around for what possible secrets the ruins held, and the sliding puzzle was fun, though I didn't spend much time there.

As I was traveling down Route 32, I caught a Mareep that I named Marla, and subsequently found someone trying to sell me a Slowpoke tail for an obscene amount of money. I knew from fandom osmosis that there was something related to Slowpoke tails coming up soon.

But before that, I had to traverse Union Cave. It was a bit tricky due to all the firebreather trainers around, but I made it out the other side, into Azalea Town, where Team Rocket awaited me.

After talking to Kurt, I went into the Slowpoke well, and had my first encounter with one of the Team Rocket executives, Proton. Thanks to Marla, he wasn't very difficult to defeat.

Apparently, in the original Johto games, GSC, the Rocket executives are all nameless? I guess that makes sense with how different they were in the GSC arc of the Adventures manga, but I'm glad they were given names and personalities in the remakes.

But after defeating Proton, it was time to face my second Johto gym leader, Bugsy. He was quite tricky, especially with how powerful that Scyther of his was. But he had a Metapod with only Tackle, allowing me to have Niko spam Defense Curls to maximize his defense. After that, taking care of the Scyther was easy, and I won.

My next task was to look for Farfetch'd in the Ilex Forest. I enjoyed the little puzzle here on how to sneak up on them, it was pretty neat!

Then, with Cut taught to Jifa, I pressed onwards, and helped out one of the Kimono Girls along the way.

Soon, I made it to Goldenrod City, the hometown of my character Gen.

It was one thing to research Goldenrod City, but another thing entirely to experience it myself. It was massive and sprawling, and took me quite a while to explore it fully.

I feel like now's a good time to talk about nostalgia.

See, I remember nothing of Goldenrod City from my 2012 playthrough. I'm not sure I even ever got there. Yet you might be wondering, why choose it to be Gen's hometown? Why not Saffron City, or Castelia City, or another city from the mainline Pokemon games?

It has less to do with Goldenrod City itself, and more with Johto as a region. My memories of Soulsilver from 2012, foggy and faint as they may be, did influence me to have Gen be from a Johto town. From there, I just chose what looked like the biggest city, and made that his hometown.

Johto does hold some nostalgia for me, and so I cannot truly say that this retrospective is untainted by nostalgia. I do, however, believe that nostalgia to be faint enough to be negligible. I hope that is satisfactory.

Back to Goldenrod City, I completed the quiz to get a radio card, and went to the gym to challenge Whitney.

The rumors weren't lying, that Miltank was tough. I had to have Acacia use stall strats in order to pull off a win.

Next up, I headed towards Ecruteak City, and was starting to understand the jokes about Youngster Joey, after receiving my 11th call about his "top percentage Ratatta".

Speaking of the Pokegear, it's really neat! It has so many little functions, such as the radio and calling people you've met along your journey. Though I do wish the map was a key item instead of being inside the Pokegear. I always assigned the town map to the quickselect button.

But soon, I made it to Ecruteak City, after catching a Pidgey and naming him Bagoli. After fending off a Rocket grunt inside the Dance Theater, I went inside the Burned Tower, to find Morty, Eusine, and Silver.

Eusine is definitely an odd character. All I knew of him before this playthrough was from Pokespe, and that he was a prominent character in Crystal. I think he's neat, though.

After a battle with Silver, I went downstairs, causing Entei, Raikou, and Suicune to flee. Though I'm not sure why they only fled then, and not during the commotion upstairs.

For the gym battle against Morty, I actually only used my Furret, Niko. I had kept Foresight on him, and this allowed him to sweep through the ghosts with Headbutt, while being immune to all the ghost moves.

Afterwards, I headed east, and got the Strength HM. But not wanting to go through a cave at the moment, I headed west towards Olivine...and immediately encountered Entei.

I had no idea what to do here. Entei was far beyond the levels of any of my Pokemon, and I had no idea what triggered the encounter.

So, since Niko was still in the front of my party, I used his Run Away ability to flee the battle.

It wasn't until I told my friends about this that I learned about Roaming Pokemon.

Apparently, Entei and Raikou randomly teleport around the map, and if you end up on a route with one of them, you have a chance of encountering them. You only have a single turn to do anything against them, but damage stays between battles with them.

I don't understand the reason for all this in the slightest.

I was rather baffled by this, but I continued onwards, to Olivine City. I caught a Pidgey somewhere around

I like the Olivine lighthouse's music. It reminds me a bit of Pokemon Tower from Firered. Somber, but catchy.

Eventually, I made it to the top of the lighthouse, and was told to go to Cianwood to get medicine for Amphy.

Side note, I love how the lighthouse Ampharos has a nickname.

Surfing to Cianwood was simple, and so was getting the medicine. And there was also Suicune, in plain sight. I was expecting Suicune to be a Roaming Pokemon like Entei and Raikou, but here they were.

Of course, they fled shortly afterwards, but it was nice seeing Eusine again afterwards, and getting to battle him!

The gym battle with Chuck was actually easier than his gym trainers. After winning, and with the medicine and Fly HM in hand, I flew back to the Olivine lighthouse, to give the medicine to Amphy.

Jasmine was a rather difficult battle, as I had nothing super-effective against Steel. It took several tries, and me mixing up my strategy a bit, but I managed to win.

I flew back to Ecruteak City, surfed around Mount Mortar, encountered Suicune and Eusine again, and arrived in Mahogany Town.

The gym was blocked off, I couldn't go further west, and the strange souvenir shop didn't hold much interest for now. So my only path forward was north, towards the Lake of Rage.

And I got mugged by Team Rocket along the way.

But I managed to catch the red Gyarados, my first shiny I've encountered during my entire mainline Pokemon marathon. I named them Splind.

After arriving back on shore, I encountered Lance for the first time since my Firered playthrough. It was cool seeing him outside the Pokemon League.

And after making my way back to Mahogany Town, I got to see the oft-memed scene of Lance having his Dragonite Hyper Beam someone. Then, it was time for the Johto Rocket Hideout.

I'll be honest, it kinda felt like a disjointed mess.

They had something cool starting out, with the Persian security statues. But after the first one, you can immediately turn them off, and they don't appear on any other floors. I'd have liked to see some stuff about remaining out of their lines of sight. There was also the explosive floor, which I still have no idea what was up with.

Then there was the two passwords, for which I had to battle Rocket grunts willy-nilly until I found both of the ones with passwords. I feel like a hint as to which grunts had the passwords would make this better.

The battle with Petrel wasn't much to speak of, though it was funny seeing him speaking the password aloud backfiring on him, thanks to his Murkrow.

Then there was a battle with another Rocket executive, Ariana. I feel like she and Petrel deserved their own separate encounters, instead of being immediately one after another.

And even after defeating her, it still wasn't over. I still had to defeat the Electrodes powering the radio transmission.

The entire hideout was all over the place, and I felt like it's a bit indicative of one of my main problems with this game.

But before that, it was time to take on Pryce.

He wasn't too tricky, but he was no pushover either. It was also interesting to see how he differed from his Pokespe incarnation.

But I won, and immediately afterwards, Team Rocket sends their second radio transmission.

I feel like now is the best time for me to talk about the pacing with Team Rocket in this game.

In short, I really feel like it'd have benefited from another major encounter with them before Mahogany Town. Maybe around Olivine or Cianwood.

Because before Mahognay Town, there was only two noteworthy encounters with them. The Slowpoke Well, and the single grunt in the Ecruteak Dance Theater. That's it.

Petrel and Ariana should have had their own bases, instead of being shoved into one together. I also feel like it'd help make Team Rocket feel like more of a threat, rather than something that happens almost entirely just before and just after the gym battle with Pryce.

Sorry for the negativity there, but I needed to get that off my chest.

Anyways, I flew back to Goldenrod City, to take on Team Rocket one final time...at least until Ultra Moon and Let's Go Eevee.

It was neat seeing the Rocket disguise from the first visit to Goldenrod coming into play here...at least until Silver unmasked me immediately after I entered the Radio Tower.

Still, it was fun fighting all the Rocket executives again. Petrel, Proton, and Ariana. It was a Rocket marathon, and I was having far more fun here than in the Rocket Hideout. Helped that the door puzzle in the underground storage area was pretty fun!

But soon enough, I was at the observation deck of the Radio Tower, ready to face off against Archer.

Like with Petrel and Ariana, I wish we had gotten to see more of Archer. But his battle didn't disappoint. It was quite tricky! But I won, and defeated this iteration of Team Rocket for good.

Again, though, mainline Pokemon games don't end when the plot ends. I still had quite a ways to go before the credits.

Next up was the Ice Path. It felt like sorta an extension of the Mahogany Town gym, with more ice puzzles. This time with an added echo of the Seafoam Islands puzzle, of using Strength to push boulders down holes. It was a fun challenge!

Soon, though, I made it through, to Blackthorn City, ready to face the final Johto gym leader, Clair. She was a tough opponent, but I won the battle.

Not the badge, though, not yet. For the second time this game, a gym leader refused to hand me the badge after I won the battle. But unlike Whitney, Clair wasn't content to just give me it anyways after a few seconds.

No, I had to go into the Dragon's Den, and pass one more test in order to prove myself worthy of the Rising Badge.

I really like this part of Soulsilver! It's so interesting to see some of the gym badges have a bit more to them than usual.

I passed the test, and received my final Johto badge, only to receive a call from Professor Elm, telling me to meet him at his lab.

I decided to go the long way, instead of simply flying there. So I set foot onto Route 45, and immediately encountered the last of the Legendary Beasts, Raikou.

Sure enough, after a single Petal Dance from Acacia, it fled. But I had now seen Entei, Raikou, and Suicune all at least once, and so I was satisfied.

After receiving the master ball from Professor Elm, it was now time for me to face the toughest trainers yet, the Kimono Girls.

Silver wasn't kidding, they were very tricky opponents. They may only have had one Pokemon each, but as I couldn't heal between, it was essentially like fighting one trainer with five Eeveelutions.

But I pulled through, and won, receiving the Tidal Bell. And then, it was time for me to go to the Whirl Islands.

Which were completely dark.

Oh no.

I was not looking forward to stumbling blindly in the dark again like I did with Rock Tunnel in Firered, and Emerald's Victory Road. And due to my single rule for this marathon, I could not look at a guide for help.

Not helping was that the only members of my team who could learn Flash already had four moves that I wanted to keep on them.

Luckily, I was still able to ask friends for advice, and one of them gave me a very useful tip. To go in the top-right island entrance, and not take any stairs.

And so, I navigated through the Whirl Islands with that advice in mind, eventually coming to Lugia's hiding place beneath the waves.

The scenee to summon Lugia was really cool! I love how the bells stated getting added to the track as each one began to ring.

And then, it was time to face off against the box legendary, Lugia.

I wanted to catch Lugia. Not only that, I wanted to catch Lugia in anything but the master ball. I wanted to prove that I was worthy of being Lugia's trainer.

They weren't kidding, the catch rate for Johto's legendaries is very small. Even after having Marla paralyze Lugia and then knock it down to a tiny sliver of health, I went through all my ultra balls and great balls without a catch.

I tried again, having Marla knock Lugia down to an even tinier sliver of health, plus paralysis. Still, it took nearly my entire ultra ball stock again to catch Lugia.

But I did catch Lugia. It was time to say goodbye for Jifa, at least for now, as I had Lugia take the sixth spot on my team. I needed every advantage I could get for what was to come.

My first steps as part of that, would be my first steps in this game into Kanto.

You see, I had thought that the entirety of Kanto was post-game only. That you wouldn't even step foot there until after the credits roll. So imagine my surprise when the first person I meet after surfing east from New Bark Town tells me that I'm in Kanto now!

It was so cool seeing the map be updated to show this section of Kanto, and it made me determined to keep going.

The trainer battles on Route 27 and Route 26 were some of the toughest yet, but I kept going, unstoppable on my way to the Pokemon League.

But before I got there, I had one final challenge, Victory Road.

It wasn't nearly as tricky as the other Victory Roads I had faced so far. The puzzles were pretty simple, and here weren't any trainers there.

Well, except for one, who had driven off all the other trainers on Victory Road.

The final fight here with Silver reminded me of the battle with Wally from Emerald. A final battle with one of your rivals, inside Victory Road. Only this time, it was at the end of Victory Road, rather than the start.

It was fun to see Silver realizing what he had to do to become a truly strong trainer: be better friends with his Pokemon.

Silver is probably my favorite of the "jerk rivals" (though what I've heard of Bede makes him a very close contender). He's a very interesting character, and this final battle with him was great!

After saying goodbye to Silver for the final time, it was time to enter the Pokemon League.

Healing up my team, and purchasing some final supplies, I headed beyond the doorway at the top, to start my Elite Four challenge.

Will was quite tough! But Psychic's weakness to Bug would be my key here, with Marla's Signal Beam decimating many of his Pokemon. While I won this battle handily, it would only get more difficult from here.

Koga was no joke. I had no counter to Poison, and his hyper-evasive Pokemon badly poisoned several members of my team. But Niko's Foresight would once again prove useful, and be key in taking down Koga's Pokemon.

Next was another familiar face, Bruno. Bagoli and Lugia were key here, but a tricky switch-out from Bruno during a Fly from Bagoli had him get taken out by a Rock Slide from Bruno's Onix. Thankfully, Acacia was able to take care of the Onix, and Lugia took care of the rest.

Finally, there was Karen. True to her advice, I was going to try to win with my favorites. I tried to have Niko pull the Foresight trick against her Gengar, but it surprised me with a Focus Blast, taking Niko out. But with the help of Marla, Acacia, and Splind, Karen's team was defeated.

All that remained now was Champion Lance.

I healed up my team, but forgot to use an Ether on Marla, whose Discharge was running low on PP. This would soon come back to bite me.

Lance was my toughest opponent in this game by far. Sure, Marla easily took out his Gyarados with a Discharge, and Splind took out his most powerful Dragonite with an Ice Fang, but then the tides turned in Lance's favor. Splind got knocked out by a Thunder, and Marla ran out of PP for Discharge. I had to scramble to figure out a strategy, and it took all of my remaining Hyper Potions.

But eventually, I won. I became champion of Johto, and finally finished Soulsilver. I had done what my 2012 self couldn't, and beaten this game for the very first time.

I had completed Pokemon Soulsilver, and that fact means so much to me.

I will be doing the postgame for Soulsilver eventually. But that'll probably be its own retrospective.

I had a lot of fun with Soulsilver! Sure, its pacing could have been a lot better, but it was a really nice experience overall! Though I feel like it'd have been a lot trickier and more frustrating without the infinite rare candy cheat.

I am so happy to have finally completed this game, 12 years later.

[shinysamurott9]

2024 Games: Pokemon Scarlet

This is certainly a weird game for me to look at. This wasn't a game I went into with much of any negative bias, unlike Sword, where I skipped it due to the negativity surrounding the game at the time, I did actually buy Scarlet on day 1. But I didn't get too far into it before falling off because of other stuff. So I ended up sitting on it for over a year until now as I needed to complete the game to get the ribbons and marks needed to complete my Ribbon Master Quest. And what I got from it was one of the strangest games I've played yet one I've enjoyed a lot. This is gonna be another really long read so keep that in mind.

So when I initially picked up the game I didn't so that much in terms of Game progression. What I did do however, beyond the basic intro stuff leading up to the school, was at the very start of the game when I saw a Riolu at the edge of a cliff and was like "hey I wanna catch that" but I couldn't get over because I didn't have Korraidon yet. But my experience with Legends Arceus kicked in and came the thought of trying to throw a ball to initiate a battle from the other side of the cliff. Turns out this idea got me way more than I bargained for because doing this warped me to the other side of the gap, letting me break out of the area I was supposed to be and explore the whole region before ever entering the school. I shit you not by the time I was done I had almost half the pokedex and a lvl 40 Skeledirge. It was incredibly funny ngl.

But after that when I eventually got back on track I basically just did the remaining intro stuff until you were set free to explore. At which point I wasn't really feeling it, so I put the game down. DLC flew by, stuff happened and it all led up to a couple weeks ago when I had to pick it up again to complete my Ribbon Masters. I initially didn't really vibe with the game. My first day back playing it was basically just me wandering aimlessly, avoiding the main objectives because I wanted to put together a more substantial team beyond Skeledirge and Tinkatuff and I also just wasn't really feeling any of the mons I had in the box. I also do tend to make a conscious effort to use team members I haven’t used before, but a lot of more interesting stuff available in Paldea were mons I had used before. I think it's a combination of this, almost the entire dex being available to you from the outset if you really want it and me being slightly overwhelmed by that that led to this feeling.

This train of thought hilariously led me to awakening and actually catching Chien fucking Pao with no badges, though I never actually ended up using it due to not beating all the gyms first so it was disobedient til near the end of the game.

This first session ultimately ended when I went to take on Great Tusk and subsequently capturing it. I opted to do the Teal Mask DLC from here, this is where the game started to pick up for me. It was a whole new area to explore, tons of new mons to find and use and a nice little side story to get invested in. By the time I was done I was way happier with the team I was using, including a random full odds shiny, so that was awesome.

The Teal Mask was also where the story really started to click with me I think. SV story is very much a character focused one, with the plots mainly being centered around how the player character helps and interacts with the other characters around them. And to complement that, SV probably has one of the best main casts of human characters in the series. Teal Mask brings in Carmine and Kieran who I both really like. Kieran needs Indigo Disk to be fully discussed but most of Carmine's character is here.

I really like her, she has a really good character design and her character arc, while short, is compelling. She goes from someone who is, almost xenophobic for lack of a better term to someone who grows far more accepting as she helps you recover the masks from the Lousy Three. She's hard on Kieran, in a way that I feel like she regrets as they drifted apart on Indigo Disk, but she does care about him. She does also have a bit of smug bastard energy that I do enjoy when it's done right.

Teal Mask also has... H e r

I'm gonna be real here, I think Ogerpon is genuinely the best legendary we've gotten in general, which is saying a lot in a generation that knocks it out of the park in that regard. Her design is simple but adorable, she has one of my favourite stories of any legendary, not just her backstory but also how she bonds with you and how that plays into Kieran's arc, and her gimmick with the masks is incredibly fun to use in a playthrough. Especially so if you play like me with a rotating team of more than 6, Ogerpon can slot in anywhere with how you can change her type to fill any holes you might have in terms of types.

I think Kitakami was really what I needed to get myself in gear and get back into the game. When I got back to the main game, the path I was inclined to follow most was the Titan path with Arven. This was partially for practical reasons as that's how you upgrade Koraidon, but also because of Arven.

I think Arven's story is amazing. He starts out as kind of a dick, pawning Koraidon off on you and wanting nothing to do with it. But you come to learn this is more from frustration towards his mom, feeling like she cared more about it and her research in Area Zero than him growing up. And also because she's given him basically no help with his current goal, healing his partner Mabosstiff. In a series that focuses on all these grand adventures, which this game definitely still has mind you, Arven is incredibly down to earth. At the end of the day he's just a guy who wants to help his sick dog, which is incredibly relatable.

To get a little personal here, I've basically spent my whole life around dogs. We've had plenty across my family growing up. Of course, most of them passed away as I grew up. They were treated well, it's just how it goes. But it does suck, seeing them grow old as their health deteriorates. So I completely understand Arven going so far to help Mabosstiff doing literally everything he can to help save him. And at the very end, when you get the last Herba Mystica, Arven takes a breather. He seems almost resigned, with motions that feel like he's saying he's done all he can do, and now he can only wait and let whatever happens happen.

There are very few things in anything that make me very emotional, but seeing Mabosstiff get up and bring his pokeball to Arven, and Arven being so overjoyed seeing him healthy again, genuinely gets me a little teary eyed. It's genuinely one of the sweetest scenes in all of pokemon. I think the titans path is also helped overall by having the most ties to the final story, it leading into the reason we go down to Area Zero to begin with, thereby giving it an edge in importance over the other two paths.

Speaking of the other two paths, I think they're also pretty solid.

I actually ended up liking Team Star a bit more than I expected. I like that ultimately they just boil diwn to friend group who found solidarity in each other. But they went too far and were too stubborn to back down, because they don't feel like the school did anything to fix their issues. So Penny has to have you step in to dismantle the whole thing so they don't seriously harm their futures. It's a neat story honestly. Not sure how I feel about their postgame side story. It's neat helping them get back on track with things, I think my main issue is that some of them are hard to recognise. Like Mela and especially Eri look like completely different people. One thing I do really like about Team Star though is all their music is canon and composed by Giacomo. It's genuinely really cool. Especially imagining him just going off when he made Penny's one.

The gym path was probably my least favourite of the three paths. It's not bad by any means, it's just the typical song and dance we've come to expect from pokemon at this point. I do enjoy most of the gym leaders, they're fun with plenty of personality. Iono and Larry were personal highlights for me. My issue is that I think the gym path highlights a notable issue with how the game doesn’t really lean into it's open world structure very well. Despite a major selling point being you can do the badges in any order, there still is a set order to do them with the levels they're at. While I think it's a good idea for the start of the game, with some badges being objectively easier than others, I feel like this structure would benefit a lot by having weaker gyms scale up to match where you are if you beat a later badge first. Say you beat Larry first. You could then have Katy, Brassius, Iono, and Kofu scale up in levels to match whoever would be fighting next, so you don't just steamroll everything below the gym you beat.

The real highlightof the gym path is unquestionably Nemona. I think she's a really interesting take on the typical rival in pokemon. Instead of going on the same journey as you, she's already become a champion. She is a savant in terms of battling and she worked hard to get to that point, it's like a hyperfixation for her. But she's reached a point where she's far beyond any of her peers and it leaves her almost alienated from them cause no one else is as into battling as her. It's an interesting way to take the phrase "It's lonely at the top".

That's of course where you come in. She follows you on your journey, starting fresh with a new team, even intentionally picking the starter weak to yours for an extra challenge, I love how they actually have a reason for it this time. All the while along the way she helps you to get stronger offering advice in the gyms and helping you keep sharp in battles. All so that you can become a worthy challenge for her. And when you do beat her at the end when she's not holding back, she's ecstatic because she finally has a true equal, or potentially even a new level of strength for her to work towards. It's a genuinely really cool way to handle the rival here. My one gripe is that I don't think we ever see what Nemona's original team was. Maybe she used Orthworm and Dudunsparce as she only uses them in her final fight when she isn't holding back, but everything else is from the team she trained along the way.

Then there's the final story, and the true ending of the game. Where as the other stories were focused on your friends, The Way Home is Koraidon's story. It's in the name, as the story has you delving into Area Zero, the place Koraidon came from in the first place.

Area Zero is easily a standout location in the game. It has an absolutely perfect vibe. It has this pure, untouched feel, not just as if no one has been there in a long time, it feels like somewhere people are outright not supposed to be. And the music conveys this feeling absolutely perfectly. It's especially great because it's motif is heard in other places like Tera Raid dens, and later it's subtle part of the Terrarium themes in Blueberry Academy and the Crystal Pool in Kitakami.

The vibe of the track, especially the vocal parts, give it a similar feel to stuff from the Xeno series. It's so perfect.

I think it's really interesting to me how Sada, basically the closest thing to a main antagonist this game has, is already dead when you arrive, and has been for some time. But you need to fight through to her machine to shut it down and prevent more Paradox pokemon from coming to the present. It's a pretty simple plot held up by how the characters experience Area Zero itself. All of this culminates in the final fight against Sada's AI. It's a really neat fight that is genuinely difficult. In no small part because she uses exclusively Paradoxes, many of which you could literally have never encountered at this point, giving you an unknown element to contend with. The battle concludes with you taking down her Koraidon with the pokemon you've bonded with throughout the entire game, the one pokemon not affected by Sada's pokeball lock due to technically being owned by her, your own Koraidon, who got you this far to begin with. It's a genuinely great moment as Koraidon overcomes it's fear and takes down it's counterpart who drove it from Area Zero to begin with.

This concludes the main plot, with an Ed Sheeran Jumpscare for some reason, but the story does continue in the Indigo Disk where you become a transfer student for Blueberry Academy. Blueberry is an absolutely fantastic location. The Terrarium is really cool area to mess around in, with tons of new pokemon to find and use, the blueberry Quests are a great addition too. On paper they seem like busy work, but they're so easy to passively complete with solid rewards that they make for a good thing to do in between objectives in the Terrarium. Which really helps for the other main draw of Indigo Disk, the League Club.

I think the League Club is a super underrated part of the DLC. There's a bunch of stuff to do with it by customising the room itself, developing the Item Printer, a great addition in itself, and upgrading the biomes in the Terrarium, letting you get all the starters from Gen 1 - 8, genuinely really cool. The best part of the League Club though is all the character interactions. Initially you'll only meet the BB League E4 in there. But as you play through you'll get the ability to invite basically every notable character in the game there and eventually Carmine and Kieran will appear there too. It's great for fleshing out their characters, and also facilitates special interactions between characters who wouldn't get the chance to meet otherwise.

I love all the little Easter Eggs and references in this DLC too. There's the League Club rooms, specifically monochrome and futuristic, being massive call backs to Unova, each of the biomes being references to old locations like The cliff biome referencing the Nature Preserve, The Savannah Biome references the Kanto Safari Zone, and the Coastal Biome explicitly references Alola. Idk if the Polar Biome references anything, maybe Mt Lanakila? And the Meloetta event? Which requires you to open the camera app with the sepia filter? An amazing call back to the guy from Castelia who remembered Meloetta's Relic Song in Sepia Colored Memories.

And now I get to the story of Indigo Disk. Just as the main game did with Nemona, the DLC went a really interesting direction with the rival trope. You first meet Kieran in Kitakami and while things start out well, your encounter with Ogerpon puts a rift between you and him. He always had an affinity with the Ogre and wanted to meet it for so long, and when he finally meets her, Ogerpon doesn't trust him, despite hearing about her story and admiring it his whole life, she favors you. All the while everyone around him seeks to exclude him by hiding the truth about Ogerpon's story. Even when he goes the extra mile and reveals the true story to the village, leading them to finally accept her after decades, potentially centuries of them rejecting her and her former partner, she still favors you, leading you to fight him for who gets Ogerpon, which you do eventually win.

This kind of breaks Kieran, feeling like you took his place in his story. And in the time between then and Indigo Disk, he kind of goes off the wall a little. dedicating everything to becoming stronger all just to beat you, even becoming Champion of the BB League in the process. But in turn he starts lording over the other members, kicking out anyone he deems too weak despite how arbitrary that might be. This man is literally going insane, twitching about and smiling like a maniac. Part of it is just an act but it's hard to say how in his own head he is.

And when you do eventually fight him, he has an absolutely busted team even including competitive monsters like Incineroar and Grimmsnarl. Yet despite that it's a team that fits him so perfectly. I love when they delve into characters with the details behind their teams, like N using new pokemon from the surrounding area each time you fight him or Ghetsis Hydreigon knowing Frustration and actively hurting itself with every attack. Kieran's team is absolutely perfect in this regard. Every one of his pokemon says something about him all the while putting up one hell of a fight. That's another thing, I genuinely love that that this DLC actually puts up a challenge. BB Academy is called this elite battle school and the trainers sell that idea very well. Every trainer actually uses held items and have actual strats for the most part. The bosses actually have full teams of 6 which is shockingly rare when you're not looking at Champions for some reason.

Once you take down Kieran he and Carmine accompany you to the deepest depths of Area Zero to help Briar search for Terapagos. The under depths are also a fantastic location atmosphere wise and probably the best visual treat the game has to offer. Kieran's encounter with Terapagos is genuinely great, how it's just this tiny little guy that goes up to you because it's the first thing it sees. But Kieran's in such a bad headspace as it is, and after what happened with Ogerpon the very notion that he'd lose another legendary to you causes him to freak out so hard that he immediately Master Ball's Terapagos, which was genuinely fantastically foreshadowed by a Master Ball being the prize for champions in the BB League.

The Terapagos fight is neat enough, very funny that it can outright cheat to kill Carmine's Sinistcha and Kieran finally jumping in to help is great. Terapagos as a legendary is interesting in it's inspiration. It's possibly based on Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise of the galapagos islands. Much like George, Terapagos is seemingly the last of it's kind and despite internally having a 50/50 gender ratio, the Terapagos in the underdepths is always male. Honestly it's wild that a pokemon that can just casually manipulate time and become the source of terastalization used to be a regular species of pokemon.

That being said it's also very vague about what it and the terastal phenonmenon are supposed to be. It can time travel to some extent which is definitively shown with the secret scene at the crystal pool, but also there's all the weirdness with the paradox mons. Some seem to be genuine ancestors to present mons like Roaring Moon but also stuff like Brute Bonnet which just make no sense to have existed millions of years ago. I also find it strange this same phenomenon allows for pokemon to channel different types which is a kind of random pair of traits for terastalization tbh.

Speaking of, the Stellar Type. It's weird. Defensively you basically don't change at all bar gaining a weakness to Stellar Type moves, all three of them. Offensively however, you gain a power boost for every move type, 2x for the users' regular types and 1.2x for everything else, but unless the user is in a Tera Raid or is Terapagos, it only gets that boost once per type per battle. It's kind of underwhelming for something that is supposed to be using every type at once, and feels weirdly outclassed by normal terastalization in most situations.

Once you beat Terapagos, there are two major things available to do afterward. The first is the aforementioned Crystal Pool event, which has Terapagos bring Sada back in time.As a result of her conversation with you, you become inadvertently responsible for Koraidon's name, giving her the white book that led her to the underdepths in the first place and with the right dialogue options, you give her the idea for the AI, effectively making the entire game one giant bootstrap paradox. I think it is actually a pretty neat idea honestly. And it fits pretty well with all the paradoxes in the game already.

Then of course there's the secret third dlc chapter, Mochi Mayhem.

Mochi Mayem is pretty interesting though I have mixed feelings on it. It's a special third DLC focusing on Pecharunt who is the Mythical Pokemon for Gen 9. What I like is that it seems to be a return to form for mythical pokemon in game. After three whole generations of mythicals just being handed to you by a pokemon center guy, Pecharunt actually has a proper event in game that has you catch it yourself. Mochi Madness is also far more elaborate than any of the previous mythical events having a whole extra story that nicely ties up the main game, Ogerpon and Kieran storylines. It's a fun little story that gives us some great interactions between the characters. On that front it's especially nice to see Kieran and to a lesser extent Carmine interact with the main game trio after the two groups being cleanly seperate for the game before now. While I do enjoy all of this, I do have two notable issues with it.

1: Pecharunt

Now I like Pecharunt. It's essentially the trio master for the loyal three, their equivalent of Arceus or Regigigas for comparison. I think it has a neat design and story but here's the issue with that. None of it's story was in the game. Instead Pecharunt's backstory was revealed in a short animation uploaded to pokemon's YouTube. This video revealed Pecharunt was under the care of an old couple who loved it dearly, but, wanting more of their affection, it fed them it's binding Mochi to secure that for itself. But in turn, Pecharunt's possessive nature turned the couple into the worst versions of themselves, making them greedy and seemingly only having Pecharunt around because it would bring them what they wanted. Turning what seemed like genuine care into something far more superficial. This is what sent Pecharunt to Kitakami to take Ogerpon's masks, and we know how that turned out.

It's not that this is a bad story, quite the opposite honestly it's a pretty good one that explores how despite Pecharunt having a lot going for it, with a loving family and comfortable home, it's own toxic traits ended up leaving all that a shadow of what it was. But it all comes back to that one issue that it isn't in the game itself. Now look, I'm a Mega Man fan, I'm more than familiar with important or beneficial information or stories being tucked away in external sources, many of which are far more obscure and inaccessible than a YouTube video. But I do wish they included at least part of this somewhere in the game itself. As it is Pecharunt basically has no story presence beyond being the present threat for the story at hand and being the master of the Loyal Three, a logical assumption with its music and use of the toxic chains.

The other issue however is not actually to do with the the story itself but rather how it's accessed.

2: Mystery Gift

The most common and understandable criticism of mythical pokemon is that they are limited by design. In the past they have always been available exclusively through limited time events available through Mystery Gift. On the surface Pecharunt actually seems to be an improvement in this area. It's distributed the same way but at this point in time, there is no definitive end date for the distribution and that is good. But I'm not sure how long that is going to last, while that isn't an issue right now, eventually the servers it uses will almost definitely go offline. Maybe that's just because that's something I'm thinking about more with the recent closure of 3ds and Wii U online servers, but idk, that eventual but pretty realistic possibility rubs me the wrong way. In this case I think it's especially egregious due to the fact that unlike other mythical events, there is more content than just the mythical event locked behind the Mythical Pecha Berry. Once you beat Mochi Mayhem, Carmine and Kieran will start appearing in the League Club and you gain the ability to invite Arven, Penny and Nemona as special instructors. So without access to the berry, you lose access to all of their interactions in the club room, their true final rematches and their special trade mons, something you definitely want to be aware of if you want a Paldean Tauros, Sinistcha or anything from the Skwovet, Eevee or Applin families with the partner ribbon. To be fair, this logic could well be applied to the DLC as a whole but that at least could still be accessed via cartridges that have it built in.

Before going into the final conclusions on the game as a whole here's some miscellaneous stuff I couldn't really mention before now.

The Partner Ribbon: A massive part of the League Club that I glossed over was that it is the gateway to postgame rematches with every character that can be in the room. That alone is fantastic but if you interact with a charater in the clubroom enough times They'll trade you a pokemon with the newly added partner ribbon, which when it's assigned as the mon's title, they'll be sent out as "Drayton's Duraludon", "Kieran's Applin", "Nemona's Tauros" etc. It's really neat for ribbon collectors honestly. I hope this becomes a staple for future titles, it'd be really cool for stuff like N's pokemon if we ever get BW2 Remakes that properly reimplement them.

I appreciate the new evolutions in this game. Some are kind of odd and arguably unnecessary, like Kingambit or Archaludon, but I still like them. A lot were definitely well deserved like Dudunsparce and Farigiraf.

Continuing Gen 8's train of thought, it is incredibly easy to properly optimize a pokemon for competitive play, it's certainly worked, I'm more interested in competitive than ever. The changes to Ability Patches letting you change between normal and Hidden Abilities freely, Hyper Training now only requiring a pokemon to be level 50, and the easy availability of however many bottle caps and vitamins you need letting you train a pokemon however you want in the span of like 10 minutes tops all help with this. The mirror herb in particular is a fantastic addition here too, letting you essentially copy egg moves from one pokemon onto another meaning you can even get otherwise unavailable moves onto a pokemon. I've already made extensive use of it to get stuff like Sacred Sword on my Samurott or Fake Out on my shiny Incineroar from Wonder Trade (Thanks Evil Cal Zone). Effectively any pokemon can be made optimal for competitive use at this point, and relatively quickly too. Really the only thing you don't have control over is getting lower IVs, which realistically you'd only want for speed if you plan to run a Trick Room team, which to be fair is a somewhat valid critique as I can say from experiencing it on both sides that Trick Room is a very powerful strategy. Everything else though? You're good. If a pokemon you're attached to from your playthrough is good for the team you want to run, you are completely able to build it almost however you want and that is fantastic.

Union Circle is one of the single best multiplayer mechanics ever implemented in a pokemon game. It's already a lot of fun to mess around with your friends in the world itself, but it is also fantastic on a functional level as with the exception of the Box Legends and the DLC Paradoxes, a Scarlet player can naturally catch every violet version exclusive and vice versa. It reminds me a lot of BW2's key system that let players access select version exclusive content like the Regis or White Forest/Black City. For better or worse, version exclusives probably aren't going away any time soon, so if they are to stick around, Union Circle is a fantastic way to handle it.

There are also some miscellaneous negatives as well unfortunately.

The technical issues. It cannot be denied when discussing SV that on a technical level, it is a trainwreck. To be fair to it, it is nowhere near as bad as it was at launch, I never encountered anything too crazy, but it's still not great. Graphical bugs are everywhere, it is very common for pokemon to go into their low detail models and low frame rate animations despite being very close, there's a lot of pop in and the game lags a lot in areas where it really shouldn't, like menus. I distinctly remember going to the Peachy's shop in Kitakami and the game just straight up freezing for a solid minute as it tried to load the menu. A lot of people attribute this to the game being rushed as a result of the strict dev schedules pokemon games are subject to, and that is part of it no question. One thing I will always be firm on is that there was absolutely no need for this game to come out the same year as Legends Arceus. That game could have easily carried pokemon's holiday release with SV coming out the November after. Both games definitely would have benefitted from the extra time. That being said I think attributing these issues just to the tight schedule is oversimplifying it somewhat. I feel like these issues are a result of a perfect storm of variables in tandem with this. To Gamefreak's credit this was a pretty ambitious game for what they've typically done and something they've clearly been building to with SwSh and LA, but that also means that they are likely inexperienced with this kind of game. Combine that with the fact that this game would have started development in 2020, smack in the middle of a major pandemic, which undeniably affected the output of almost all game development studios? It does make sense that it turned out this way when all of these variables are considered. I'll be clear that I have no idea on the specifics that go on internally with Gamefreak during development, I'm only making the best assumptions I can with what I already know and very surface level research. I do hope that with future releases something like this can be avoided. Pokemon Z seems like it could be a step in the right direction being slated for 2025 and I do recall an article discussing how even the CE of the Pokemon Company acknowledged they may be going way too fast with their output and that changes could be considered. Granted being the head of a massive company like that, his word should rightfully be taken with a grain of salt. But still, it I think there is room for a little optimism at this point.

I think Shiny Pokemon were handled pretty poorly this go around. Shiny Hunting is one of my favourite things to do in pokemon so this aspect is particularly important for me. For the third time now shinies appear in the overworld which I have no problem with. But unlike previous instances like Let's Go or LA, shinies are not accompanied by any special particle effect or sound effect on spawn, instead they are just there and it is up to you to notice. On paper this honestly does not sound that bad but as many hunters know there are a disgusting amount of shinies that have barely any change or the changes are very subtle. This is awful for hunting in this game and requires you to be very aware of everything that spawns if the shiny you're looking for doesn't change much.

On the note of subtle shinies, it is an especially big issue for Gen 9. There are so many shinies that barely change for no good reason and it feels like there are far more than any game before now. For example:

Tatsugiri on paper is ok, but the Yellow form's shiny is orange which creates confusion between it and the normal orange form.

All of the future Paradoxes have a chrome color palette which is a mixed bag. It would be a fine color on paper, if not a little boring because they're all the same, but several future paradoxes already have chrome in their color palette leading to the shiny not changing much. Iron Treads is the worst offender but others like Iron Moth or Iron Boulder are pretty bad for this too.

There are of course the several shinies who just barely change for no good reason, making them incredibly difficult to notice in game, either from the lighting or just because the pokemon is so small to begin with. But none of that compares to:

Like come on what the fuck is this? I don't even know what to say about this like, someone saw Gholdengo, changed the color of it's grooves and just called it a day? I really don't like using this word in regard to game development or design but this is just lazy. It's less than that really because this honestly feels like they went out of their way to make a bad shiny. Like you could have just made it like silver or copper or literally any noticeable change to the gold and that would have been way better. But no, just the barely visible grooves. What is even the point of giving it a shiny at that stage?

Though honestly you could argue Gholdengo's doesn't matter that much because:

Shiny Locks! They are arguably the worst they've ever been. I have and always will, despise this mechanic. There is almost never a good reason for preventing a pokemon from being shiny if it is catchable. Recent games have been very bad for shiny locks. This list includes the starters, which is a god awful decision, arguably the worst mons to shiny lock, the various titans, all wild Gimmighoul for some reason, all gift pokemon except for Salvatore's Meowth, and all legendaries, including the ones brought back in the DLC. That last one in particular is awful as a large batch of returning legendaries has become standard implementation mid generation since ORAS, and we've always been allowed to hunt them, so seeing that changed is a really bad precedent for future games. The Pokemon Company know full well that a significant portion of their playerbase enjoy shiny hunting. It's a side of the fandom that is more acknowledged than ever with the official Twitter even recently putting out a very comprehensive guide on all the ways to boost shiny odds. So I really don't understand what they have to lose by not letting us hunt this stuff, it's not like they're doing anything with those unavailable shinies anyway. Literally none of the Gen 9 legendaries have received shiny distributions yet, hell we're still waiting for most of the Gen 8 ones. Imagine how cool it would be to hunt a shiny Koraidon and ride it during your playthrough, or hunting the gift Sinnoh egg and getting a random shiny Sinnoh Starter or even hunting the Meloetta event. So many cool hunts that we just aren't allowed to do because GameFreak said no. This is absolutely not a dealbreaker but it is a really annoying practice that I wish they would just stop doing.

All that being said, I think that about covers my thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet by extension. There may be more to say, such as how one could criticize how important the DLC could be to having a fully experience with how the game is lacking in some areas, namely post game content without it, effectively making an already expensive €60 game into an over €90 game, the lack of a battle facilty or the general quality of the pokemon roster this time around but I think I've said my piece.

I think overall this game gets a bad rep. One that isn't entirely undeserved. It has many issues which exist for a number of reasons, be they technical, structural or narrative, and those should be critiqued. But that also means a lot of the good parts of this game get overlooked or underappreciated. It's strong enough that I honestly think that if you just fixed even just the technical issues, this would be one of the best pokemon games. But even as it is I can't say I hate this game. I still enjoyed it quite a lot actually. I think given the way recent releases have been experimenting with open area type gameplay, this style of pokemon is likely going to be the new norm. If so I hope they do take a proper look at what SV did both right and wrong to properly refine it. We can only wait and see on that front, with how much cynicism has taken root in the pokemon community, I hope I can be right on that front.

As for where this game ranks on my ongoing tier list of games, I think smack in the middle of B is a good place to put it with how much I enjoyed the game.

[se7ens-oc-heaven]

Ok so I know I haven't talked Enough about legendkeepers for this to make total sense, but recently I talked about them to a friend about there being a group chat post-games, namely for the sake of keeping people in the loop for potential legendary incidents. Then I joked about how the missing/fallen ex-champion of Unova, Lena, could get rediscovered if you had Kimmie (Unova's stand-in champ) and Maciel (ex-member of Team Snagem and orre trainer) talking long enough, and this whole chatlog wrote itself!

Full disclaimer, even as I wrote this I anticipated it's ooc/incorrect for the stories, but I had too much fun not to share - even did a couple hasty scribbles to accompany it! Hope you enjoy the chaos! Optional author's 'notes' in tags

MASS TEXT

Rex, Ritsu, Maciel, Aspen, Kimmie, Xavier, Satsuki

-(xxx) xxx-xxxx has been added to the chat-

Kimmie: ok so she's been missing for 2 years now, but I'm including Lena's phone number in this group chat because she's Technically the one in charge of our guys 

Kimmie: so like if her phone ever works again she'll get these messages

Rex: smashing, absolutely not how to handle missing persons but sure why not

Maciel: Wait

Maciel: Lena Who

Kimmie: [img attachment] The missing champion of Unova???

Maciel: Wait

Maciel: [img attachment] 

Maciel: This Lena???

Kimmie: Get out

Kimmie: GET OUT?????

Kimmie: HOW DID YOU GET THAT AND WHERE IS SHE

Maciel: I took it just now

Maciel: she is sitting in my sidecar

Maciel: like she always does

Maciel: she doesn't know what's going on but says hi btw

Rex: I Have Been Corrected, evidently this somehow IS how you handle a missings persons case 

Rex: just include their phone number in a group chat and all problems will be solved

Rex: why didn't Xavier and I think of that???? 

Kimmie: Rex hush Maciel and I gotta work this out

Kimmie: Maciel istg if you're telling me that girl you hang with all the time is our missing champion I'm gonna heckin LOSE IT

Maciel: YOU'RE gonna lose it

Maciel: I'M the one being informed my amnesiac friend of 5+ years is evidently the missing champ of 2 years ongoing now

Maciel: which. Not to pretend I went to school

Maciel: but I'm decently sure that's not how math works last I checked??

Ritsu: I didn't go to school either

Rex: ???????

Ritsu: if that helps

Aspen: I have and still go to school and can confirm that's not how math works 

Kimmie: GUYS FOCUS HERE

Satsuki: guys I am trying to sleep over here in Hoenn several timezones away from all of you

Satsuki: why are you blowing up my phone???

Kimmie: MACIEL'S HOLDING THE UNOVA CHAMP HOSTAGE

Maciel: Evidently my friend Lena's the missing champ?

Maciel: wait WHAT

Maciel: I AM NOT

Maciel: SHE IS JUST SITTING HERE I'M NOT HOLDING ANYONE TO ANYTHING

Satsuki: Kimmie quit accusing people of kidnapping it's 3AM

Satsuki: well for me anyways

Kimmie: But he kinda is!

Kimmie: He's had Lena all this time and not said anything about it 

Kimmie: even though the unova champ going missing was big international news??

Kimmie: kinda sus he didn't say something sooner don't you think? 

Rex: Again, not how missing persons cases work

Maciel: I'M SAYING SOMETHING NOW DONUTHEAD 

Satsuki: I'm muting this chat so I can sleep. Ritsu can you lmk what everyone agrees on here?

Ritsu: sure thing, night Satsuki! Sorry we woke you ^^;

Aspen: so uh

Aspen: it sounds like she's safe and sound 

Aspen: right Maciel?

Maciel: [img attachment]

Maciel: I bought her ice cream. She's FINE.

Aspen: so

Aspen: why not just

Aspen: have her go back?

Aspen: or have Kimmie meet with her maybe

Aspen: wait that sounds dumb doesn't it

Ritsu: It's not dumb but

Ritsu: Like Maciel said, she HAS forgotten everything from before Orre

Ritsu: she's always sounded kind of like me, just 

Ritsu: dropped elsewhere on the map

Ritsu: and also not turned into a pokemon

Ritsu: so idk if she'll be much help as a Unova champ rn...?

Rex: The young Ritsu has a good point. This Lena individual may have suffered the same sort of temporal displacement as Ritsu himself

Rex: GDI CALYREX GOT HIS BLOODY PAWS ON MY PHONE AGAIN

Rex: One sodding moment. Ritsu we're having rabbit stew with brussels tonight

Ritsu: ^^;

Kimmie: guuuuys

Kimmie: who cares about that?

Kimmie: that’s Champion Lena! Eating ice cream! With an ex-convict!!

Maciel: FU I was never convicted of anything

Kimmie: Arceus knows what you did

Ritsu: Actually I think that’s just a myth!

Ritsu: Arceus tends to know very little of what goes on with humans

Ritsu: Actually it has little power over us period when it comes down to it

Ritsu: I mean

Ritsu: why else ask an uncoordinated newly human to do an Arceus’s work you know? Lol

Kimmie: 8/

Kimmie: ooooook

Kimmie: look just

Kimmie: Lena’s got people who have been looking for her for AGES

Rex: two years is not “ages” Kimmie

Kimmie: Rex omgggggggg 

Kimmie: what I MEAN is

Kimmie: The league’s been looking

Kimmie: Looker’s. Uh. Looking.

Kimmie: Cheren and Bianca and N have been looking

Kimmie: I’VE been looking

Kimmie: can we please just have her come back?

Kimmie: just like

Kimmie: so we know she’s safe?

Maciel: Fine. I’ll ask

Maciel: she says she’s cool with it

Maciel: she’s always wanted to visit Unova anyways 

Maciel: she does want me to reiterate she doesn’t remember anything though. She appreciates people have been looking but doesn’t want anyone to get let down here

Kimmie: EEEEE TY TY TY TY

Kimmie: I’ll let everyone know!

Kimmie: about the amnesia too

Kimmie: how soon will you guys get here?

Maciel: uhhhh

Maciel: dunno. Haven’t had a chance to work that out

Maciel: we like. Just decided

Maciel: don’t exactly have money for plane tickets just lying around here

Kimmie: huh

Kimmie: oooooh wait ok I get it

Kimmie: you probably have the money but can’t use it all at once right?

Kimmie: draws attention and all that ;)

Maciel: can you quit accusing me of crimes every two seconds??

Maciel: I’m trying to work with you here and you keep insulting me at every turn

Kimmie: wait wait wait wait

Kimmie: bad joke

Kimmie: sorry :(

Kimmie: I have the money, I can pay

Kimmie: yours too

Kimmie: does that sound fair?

Maciel: yeah ok

Maciel: whatever

Maciel: Lena says she's flexible and so am I 

Maciel: you can just text me whatever flight works for you guys and we'll meet up with you

Kimmie: thanks

Kimmie: sorry again

Maciel: whatever

Aspen: glad everything

Aspen: uh

Aspen: worked out?

Kimmie: yeah!

Xavier: what

[shininglynxie]

The splatfest I'm covering today is Grass vs. Fire vs. Water. It was a bit of a dream come true theme for me, honestly. It used Splatoon 3's splatfest format to ask the age-old pokemon question of: "Which starter will you choose?", which is something I was absolutely thrilled about.

When it comes to my choice for this fest - team Fire - I kinda regret it. While my starters of choice in the three most recent generations have been fire types, which includes Scarlet and Violet, the games that this splatfest was a tie-in for, as a whole I like more water starters than I do fire ones, with my favourite pokemon being a water starter even. Besides that, my decision was also driven by a desire to be on each of the idols' teams back to back. I know that it's easy to say that you would've chosen the winning team in hindsight, but my slight feelings of regret are quite genuine nonetheless.

Well, unlike me, Ceph is someone who wouldn't regret this choice, as he does actually like fire starters the most. His favourite one being Cinderace, as Ceph quite enjoys and relates to its energetic and sporty personality. The fire type in general matches Ceph's personality quite well.

Ceph's outfit for this splatfest is pretty straightforward - it is a cosplay of Mela - the paldean fire type specialist. This outfit works quite well retroactively, actually, as Mela was one of the characters revealed during Scarlet and Violet's pre-release promotional campaign. This cosplay is generally quite faithful, with the only difference being the fact that the team Star symbol on the boots is replaced with the team Fire icon. Ceph's weapon of choice for this fest is the obvious choice - Range Blaster. It was literally depicted in promotional art for this splatfest it's that obvious! It also manages to tie back into team Star even. The Range Blaster is made up of motorcycle parts, which is a vehicle just like the starmobiles. Not to mention that I just really like the updated design they gave this weapon in Splatoon 3, and I wanted to draw Ceph using it.

[soundofseclusion]

37. Pokemon X

Release: 2013, 3DS Beaten: August 19th, 3DS Playtime: 28h 12m

The story is really weak, and the game doesn't always perform very well, but it can be really striking as well as quite poignant at times. The core experience is pretty fun, though they probably should have given you more mega stones to play around with during the main game. Overall, I had a pretty good time returning to Kalos.

[autism-special-interest-unit]

I fucking LOVE video essays and other long audio dominant videos. Did I care about even a quarter of the things before seeing these? No. Do I now have a wealth of knowledge on these now? Absolutely. All the Warhammer lore I know? Podcasts and similar stuff. Hell, they got me into the Elden ring lore and I didn't even play the game. Shout out to Jenny Nicholson, didn't know theme park stuff was so damn interesting.