#really any pokemon that evolves with a pretty quick level up

[eorziapple]

Professor Apple's Pokemon Snap: Founja Jungle Day First Expedition!

Good news! My findings has attracted the local researchers, and i've been officially tapped to lead a comprehensive regional study (baby's first grant approval!) into the Illumina phenomenon. With this comes access to the NEO-ONE.

This buggy has everything, a defensive Protect shield to keep me safe in any environment and teleport functionality for quick recall between the lab (yes I have a lab, more to come!) and my field location, studies into Abra have really advanced since my journey! This will come in handy as i'm traveling to the mountainous island to the north of Florio, making landfall at Foundja Jungle, a marshy, dense canapy of thick, lush forest. I cannot wait, the biodiversity is bound to be impressive!

My first sighting were these cute little Bounsweets! These grass pokemon flit from branch to branch of the canopy, moving along wind streams using their propeller like protrusions on their head! This keeps them from being snapped up by the many terrestrial predators happy to feast on a sweet treat!

I made a note to keep good track of my supplies after I spotted this Aipom. With one of them comes many, Aipom live in large colonies, and are extremely dexterous and curious pokemon. They have a reputation for mischief and play, and their grasping tail is perfect for efficiently maneuvering in the thick jungle!

This Pikipek was heard long before I managed to find it, these pokemon love to hammer into trees with their sharp beaks, looking to pierce inside looking for insects! Was nice to catch a glimpse of a Beautify in the background, also!

Gardeners of all experience levels will recognize these Metapods! This is considered what is considered an intermediate or transitionary evolution, in this case caterpie. These evolution types typically learn very few offensive moves opting for maxiumum defense as it prepares to evolve into its third form. Metapod produce thick threads of silk to latch themselves to trees for protection.

What a find! And unfortunately nothing could move this Slaking from lazily napping away. As Slaking are extremely powerful pokemon, leaving the safety of the NEO-ONE to try to maneuver around it for a better shot was not a great idea, so, sadly this is the best shot I could find. I cannot stress how massive these are up close, was a bit jealous of how comfortable it looked!

Leipards are nocturnal hunters, and spend much of the daytime catching up on sleep. I was very lucky to find this specimen napping in the sun. Glad it was napping though, these are apex pokemon, able to maneuver and hunt without being seen in this dense forest!

This series speaks for itself, and I think my heart was about to burst. This Quagsire was escorting its child for a lovely swim in this little waterfall-fed pond! Wooper is also a favorite pokemon of mine, and its excitement was certainly contagious as these two dived in for a fun swim! These pokemon tend to herd in small family groups in swampy biomes like this, and are pretty personable, making them popular as partner pokemon!

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

Pokemon Card of the Day #2970: Dragonite-GX (Dragon Majesty)

Dragonite-GX tried to do a few things at once. It had its quick attack for surprisingly good damage, undercut by being a Stage 2. It had a big hitting attack for an awkward cost that prevented it from attacking again during the next turn, which was still possibly worth the downside with that damage. There was also a GX attack that just let you put Evolved Dragon-type Pokemon from your discard pile onto your Bench. This was probably the biggest reason to look at Dragonite-GX, as that was truly crazy if you could actually get that set up quickly.

Dragonite-GX had plenty of bulk, as 250 HP was higher than most Pokemon would be able to reach. The Fairy Weakness did let Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX reach that number, and while not the most popular deck it had some nice results so it was rather notable. The Retreat Cost here was 3, meaning that you really needed to include a decent bit of switching cards to use after a Giga Impact or Dragonporter GX.

Dragon Claw only needed a Lightning Energy and did 70 damage. That was a lot for the low cost, held back by the big HP numbers of the time and the fact that this was still on a Stage 2, meaning there was the extra set-up to do anyway. You could pair this with a few Altaria and get over 100 damage in while healing with Max Potion since you could easily charge the attack up again. It wasn't easy to get it all into play but could get a good loop of making progress when the opponent couldn't if you pulled it off.

Giga Impact was 200 damage for the awkward cost of a Water, a Lightning, and 2 Colorless Energy. The damage was potentially worth it, as it was just a Choice Band away from hitting some notable GX numbers. The catch was that Dragonite-GX couldn't attack at all during your next turn after using this attack, so you needed a way to switch out and likely had to take Prizes to make the attack worthwhile. Big damage was still really nice in many spots, of course.

Dragonporter GX sounded almost unfair to opponents when you first looked at it. 3 Colorless Energy, and your GX attack for the game, let you put 3 Dragon-type Pokemon from your discard pile onto your Bench. These did not have to be Basic Pokemon, and getting access to 3 Pokemon that didn't have to evolve from something else was amazing in a vacuum. The problem here was just that Evolved Dragon-types weren't really that impressive and they didn't all work together due to their differing Energy type needs. You could get the aforementioned Altaria with this, which was the most consistent approach. You could also lean into other Pokemon and just use the Dragonite-GX to get things onto the Bench, using Pokemon like Salamence and Salamence-GX, Noivern-GX, Naganadel-GX, or whatever combination you could come up with that didn't stretch Energy needs too far. It was a cool concept, admittedly held back by so many big Dragon-types of the era being Basic Pokemon and therefore not really needing this attack to get going.

Dragonite-GX was really close to being good. Boosted attacks for a single Energy actually had some promise, Giga Impact hit pretty hard, and Dragonporter GX could get multiple big Pokemon into play. The problem was that the first strategy mostly relied on an early Dragonporter to get to decent damage levels to keep enough pressure on while trying to repeatedly heal, Giga Impact was the type of attack that was good but more easily done on Pokemon that had a type with better Energy acceleration, and Dragonporter was the kind of attack on any type with better synergy with each other. This is all to say that Dragonite-GX was fun, but not a serious competitive option and was best kept to more casual decks where its interesting qualities at least made for a somewhat new experience.

[kafus]

ok quick team tour before the E4 because i'm way more attached to these guys than i thought i'd be. and by quick i mean this might be a long post sorry. i will go in order of acquisition of various team members :]

first up lovebug! named by my friend venty and also who i'd consider my starter :] butterfree's movepool isn't super wide and getting the twisted spoon or silver powder would be more trouble than it's worth at the moment, so aside from teaching Psychic with a TM, i left him with his level up moves and a quick claw for some speedy sleep powders. he has compoundeyes which makes sleep powder nearly 100% accurate and has been incredibly useful this entire run, especially with catching pokemon since sleep is so effective. i love him

next up QUIVER MY BELOVED... i saved her evolution for level 53 literally in the middle of victory road, was super satisfying. nidoqueen can only learn crunch as a nidorina, once she evolves she can't learn it anymore, and nidorina learns it at level 53 so i played the long game to get that one cool move. she has blackglasses to boost the power of it. earthquake is from a TM and i used her as my strength user during my playthrough, but it's a pretty useful move so i just kept it instead of going out of my way to remove it. and then after evolving her i used the move reminder after farming some tinymushrooms to get superpower to top off her moveset. very proud of her she's come so far from being a level 6 nidoran lol

say hello to TACO (BELL)... thanks for the shitpost name @ my qpp SDJFKDFS the miracle seed is from the celadon game corner! did you know weepinbell learns razor leaf at mfing level 42? and before that it only has vine whip for grass stab? it's awful. i waited that long to evolve him. i wanted to save some of my tms for the postgame so i decided to hold onto giga drain and solar beam and the like, decided to just keep razor leaf. i didn't wanna repeat niches by giving him sleep powder or something so i grinded even more tinymushrooms and taught him spit up and stockpile from the move reminder for the meme LOL who knows if i'll actually get use out of it. but i love taco he has been fun to use since i almost always have bulbasaur as my grass type

EGG!!!! he's named after my real life jolteon plushie with the same name. bite is exclusive to eevee at level 30 and since all dark moves are special in this game, it is actually useful on jolteon! i went pretty overboard on this guy because i love him. thunderbolt was a tm from the game corner, and uh... well... i found out he has hidden power water, with 70 base power, which while not the literal Best means he can hit ground types for super effective special damage at the maximum power possible for hidden power which is Based. UNFORTUNATELY hidden power can only be obtained through a 5% pickup drop in FRLG, so i caught a team of 6 meowths and spammed pickup until i got one lol. as for his held magnet item, that's exclusively obtained in FRLG by stealing off of wild magneton... a 5% chance. so i caught a level 31 meowth by bond bridge on two island, taught it thief, and used a repel trick with it to get all encounters to be magneton at the power plant... and just kept encountering until finally got the magnet 18 encounters in. pretty epic. nothing on his moveset is jolteon's natural moveset except thunder wave LOL and he has a pretty rare item for before the postgame

next up is creamsicle who is surprisingly one of my favorites despite being a pretty straightforward pokemon with a limited movepool. icy wind, ice beam, and rest, are all levelup moves, while surf is obviously an HM. mystic water is from the celadon game corner. all of the pokemon on my team are pokemon i've never brought to the endgame before, but dewgong is among the pokemon i've never used before in like... any capacity. so it's been really fun to use her! dewgong is underrated and very cute. but i understand why no one uses it, pretty out of the way in lategame seafoam islands

and last but not least here's torch! a pokemon i've DEFINITELY never used before as mt ember is optional before the postgame and i sometimes don't even take up bill's offer to go, much less linger on mt ember running around for a 5% encounter that late in the game post-blaine. BUT i wanted variety and this is certainly a fun choice after using ninetales a million times in my life. moveset is just levelup moveset except brick break which i taught by (thankfully renewable) TM, and the charcoal is from the game corner. he's the only mon caught in an ultra ball bc i could not be bothered oops... but the yellow matches! (btw he has a special attack IV of 0. LOOOL i still love him though)

and that's my weird ass leafgreen team where i boxed my starter and went out of my way to get pokemon i've not used before. i am at around 30 hours of gameplay and i'm going to fight the E4 shortlySDFKFSD

[canesvenatici-ribbons]

Hello it is me again!! I have looked into the natures of my pokemon and my Girafarig is considered Timid but my Gengar is Relaxed and my Luxray is Lax. The Emboar, Cubone, and Cranidos are very close to me but they are more useful for my job so when looking at their natures (Bashful, Adamant, and Timid respectively) I decided it was best to keep them as my work buddies.

I’m considering heavily with my Gengar or Luxray but don’t know the first steps of training either to help with my anxiety. Do you have any recommendations on tasks I can try to teach her for it?

-💜

Hello again! I would definitely be considering the Gengar or Luxray then, as service mons.

INFO UNDER THE CUT THIS POST IS SO SO LONG...

Many people already use Gengars to eat nightmares as PTSD survivors and the like! Luxrays can be used for medical alert as well as anxiety, since their eyes can sense nerve impulses and electrical signals. (Most electric types have a sensory organ for sensing electricity, very cool stuff!)

Gengars can hide in your shadow if size might be an issue, but I definitely recommend the Luxray, since they can learn to associate heightened electrical impulses near your heart or even smell heightened levels of cortisol. (Most pokemon tend to have a heightened sense of smell compared to humans, but it probably depends also on sapiency honestly? Don't need to worry about getting food chained if you're able to communicate through spoken language rather than behavioral and auditory cues).

Whichever your choice, most methods to training a service mon are pretty simple; you have to rely on whatever is most reinforcing to the Pokemon!

Some researchers have found that Pokemon with certain natures tend to prefer certain types of flavors and berries, even! I've read up a couple studies on this- [here] and [here] are some cool ones that translate a lot of behaviorist jargon into laymonds terms c: If your pokemon doesn't eat meaty treats or other treats you could always try the berries!

Quick breakdown of behavioral terms real quick- reinforcing means increasing the behavior, punishment means decreasing the behavior. Both are forms of consequences- neither have bad connotations in the field of behavioral science!

Positive means adding something, negative means removing something- pretty easy to get a hang of once you're familar with the terms.

For example, if you want your Luxray to nose or paw at you as an alert for anxiety, you would give it something it likes as positive reinforcement. This is encouraging the behavior to continue!

There's also extinction, which is when you completely ignore a behavior to get it to stop, like ignoring vocalizations to get it to stop. I could go into HEAVY detail but unless you end up having issues with training and behavioral issues, I won't, haha.

I think with anxiety it might be easiest to start with DPT, depending on the mon. With how heavy fully-evolved pokemon tend to be, it might benefit you to train them to only lay part of themselves on you, like head and front paws, or your Gengar to lean on you. You can read a little bit about my process for training DPT for service mon on my last answer related to this [here]!

Eventually, your pokemon will begin to recognize your DPT command and start alerting, when it senses your tells. You can reinforce this behavior as well, and teach them how to properly alert (sometimes they can get overexcited when alerting because a lot of service mon love working). It can be a little hard to catch when they're trying to tell you at first but when you notice the tells you can redirect the behavior into something different.

You can also train behavior interruption if you have any behaviors that go along with your anxiety, like leg bouncing, nail picking, hair pulling, skin picking, etc. the list goes on. This can be really similar to alerting behavior! However, alerting is often meant to be unobtrusive like nudging you or pulling on your clothes, behavior interruption involves pawing, licking, or attempting to make you stop the behavior. This works for panic attacks especially well, when you train the signal for the task properly (you'll probably feel silly acting out a panic attack for your mon but its all apart of learning! I know I did, haha. Fake crying as well feels silly). I'm not sure if you want a gengar licking you though. Huge tongues lol.

Lots of rewards, lots of reinforcement, lots of treats. Keep training sessions on the shorter side so your pokemon doesn't get bored and make sure to train after they've been well-exercised, that's the best way to get them to focus.

Tl;Dr:

Train the behavior first to make sure they understand what to do, then train the cue for them to perform the behavior (again, unless its DPT, you can just have that as a command for them to do that), reward them for recognizing the cue and performing the behavior. If they start to get confused it'll benefit to take a break from harder commands and do a couple easier ones or tricks. Something I learned when having difficulty with a command is working through it backwards as long as they already know the behavior.

SORRY THIS WAS SUPER LONG BUT I HOPE IT HELPS AND WAS VERY INFORMATIVE!!

[pequenosol]

Alright!! Hi!! It's been a while....again....but this time I actually accomplished quite a bit of stuff!!

So, after beating Tulip, I decided to take on Grusha. I actually postponed doing so for like a day or two because I was so nervous X"D

And when he showed up, he didn't really help with my nerves hffggxxfxgxfxfxfxf- I get it, Grusha!! You're edgy and have a tragic backstory, STOP CALLING ME COCKY DOES THIS SOUND LIKE IT'S COMING FROM SOMEONE WHO'S COCKY?!? 👀💦

Thankfully he was a pushover and I one-shotted all but his last Pokemon with Cinnamon and Osaimhthus c:

After that, I got EXCITED! Not only did I beat the last gym, but the next boss for me to take on was none other than the wonderous, spectacular little boi, ✨Ortega!!!✨ (for context, he's probably my favorite character in the whole of the Pokemon franchise <3<3 He's great...)

My team for the base was Lemon, Mei, and Cinnamon. I took out Ortega's piano teacher and defeated the thirty random Pokemon with ease- then. Then the little boi graced me with his presence ✨✨✨✨~

When he showed up on his Starmobile, I FLIPPED OUT.dtsrdrxtftcgvyvhhhvvvhvhcgcg- Just. God d@mn he's such a good character....I love the small sassy ones <3

ANYWAYS *clears throat* As for the actual battle...well. He definitely was a challenge- at least at first. Ortega sent out his Azumarill first, and OH MY GOD. That THING was a BEAST. It's Aqua Tail was SUPER POWERFUL on its own, BUT. BUT IT WAS RAIN BOOSTED TOO!! And I couldn't switch out to Cinnamon or Mei, because they'd absolutely get destroyed!! So, really the only thing that I could do was spam Max Potions on Lemon until either Azumarill missed an attack or used up all its Aqua Tails, and pray I didn't get critted- To quote Ortega, "Do you realize how out of your league you are now? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)" Yessir. Yes, I do 🥲

Thankfully, my prayers were answered and the Azumarill went down without taking any lives. I switched to Mei because Lemon did her job and did it well and deserved a break <3 Mei outsped everything and all of Ortega's other Pokemon weren't a problem, and so he went down and I could enjoy some cutscenes and lore about him c:

Next on my list was the False Dragon Titan! I trained everyone up and caught a Mimikyu named Sakura (he/they/fae) to use in the fight. Nothing really remarkable about the fight; Lemon took care of the Donozo and Sakura defeated the Tatsugiri without any problem.

After that though...MAN, THE CUTSCENE WITH ARVEN AND MABOSTIFF GOT TO ME HARD 🥺🥺🥺 I was freaking sobbing by the end of it you guys... T~T So beautiful...

Then Professor Turo ruined it and Arven started talking about his daddy issues >:/

Now, the last thing for me to do before all the big conclusions to the three paths happened was to take down the Caph base and fight Eri. And. Um. Can I just say I'm super intimidated by her??? X"D So, to cope with that intimidation, I put Guayusa and Coconut on the Team, and fully evolved them into Dragonite and Salamence, and leveled them (and Cinnamon) up to level 65. Yup. That's how scared I was 🥲

Thankfully, my preparations all payed off!! :D I killed all the Pokemon in the base. All of them. Without any problems c: Heck, I even out-sped and one-shot Eri's Annihilape(which was what I was the most afraid of)!!

Also quick detour I love the aesthetic of the area surrounding the Caph Base...it's so pwetty 🥺🥺

Anyways, I made Eri cry (sorry Eri :c) and then Cassiopia was like, "I'm the Team Star boss!! Meet me in the school parking lot at 2:00 am for a fight!!" And I was like "ok, cool."

So. Yeah! I'm getting pretty close to the end of the game, which is very exciting! :D Here's some art I did while I was gone, and I'll see you guys next time!!

[prof-peach]

Hey Prof, I need your advice.

My sister recently decided she didn't wanted her bulbasaur anymore (she got him on a whim about a month ago) and gave him to me, he is quite violent and tends to attack when I try to get close to him.

Now, that wouldn't be a huge problem, but my Purrloin has gotten hurt trying to befriend him, she's quite outgoing and never really liked fighting (we enjoy contests so she knows a few more flashy attacks), so she couldn't even defend herself properly.

I don't want to give up on him and my local rescue center is filled with Bunearies (you know, after Easter kids don't want their Bunny anymore) so they can't take him in right now, any advice in how I can go about this situation?

Sounds to me like you have a tricky little dude on your hands. So you're not battle orientated which will make this harder, Bulbasaur in the wild are actually quite combat minded to defend their families and territory, and a lot of their herds consist of strict hierarchy based on power and skill, often led by older, fully evolved members of their group. 

Before you take any actions to befriend them, its worth noting that any pokemon who comes into your care showing aggression is usually doing so for one or two reasons that are pretty universal for any species. Fear being the main issue with pokemon who have been ditched, if a pokemon is unwell, if it feels exposed, if it is unsure of you or your home, your partners, it may lash out because it is afraid. Even what looks like pure anger can stem from a fear. Of course some individuals are just full of rage, its not unheard of, but for the most part it comes from somewhere else. 

For a moment, take the time to put yourself in this pokemons shoes. It was chosen, with hopes and ambitions of its own, by your sister, a stranger to them, and for whatever reason they were cast aside. This reason may be unclear to the pokemon, it may be unfair, unkind, or even without malice just out of pure indifference. No matter the reason, this pokemon has been left behind by a trainer it at one point probably wanted to try to get along with. I don’t know what your sister may or may not have done, or provided for the bulbasaur, but it will help you understand how its feeling, if you were to ask her about their relationship prior to you receiving the pokemon. If it has always been aggressive and angry, i’d seriously consider talking to it about release, not rehome. 

We humans have a preconceived notion that pokemon are pets and things to keep with us. This may be true for some sure, but not every pokemon wishes to be a captive to a human, they may want more for themselves, and wish for a free life with their own kind. We cannot put our wants and desires above that of the pokemons, so you two need to have a talk, at a respectful distance for safeties sake, to see what the Bulbasaur feels they may want. These are herd pokemon, born and bred to be with their own kind, if not a larger group, if its lonely, if it wants to go home, to start a family, or simply to not be held in a ball as some creature to be owned, then you as its current carer must give it what you can. You can always find another pokemon who wants to be your partner, but you cannot give back lost years to a pokemon who has lived a life its unhappy with. Treat them with respect, and be open and honest. At the end of the day we have a chance to help pokemon, and forcing what we want onto them is a hinderance, and will lead to them feeling unsatisfied and bitter in the long run. 

Some pokemon lash out due to the process of being handed off to someone else, trust is earnt, not always just simply given to whoever holds the pokeball. Remember this as you move forward, and try to keep your other pokemon away from them, Bulbasaur are territorial species, and have to accept pokemon into their families before simply allowing them to come and go freely into their personal space. Despite their grouchy natures at times they usually do have a morally positive compass, and defend with ferocity when they love something. Perhaps in you showing genuine concern for their welfare and future, offering them not what you want, but instead what they want, they may give you a chance to get closer, but take baby steps, and try to be their friend above all else. I bet they're feeling pretty lonely right now. 

Its worth sharing interests with the pokemon, talk about contests, see if they're interested, some pokemon have a predisposition for this, others have no interest and prefer more battle based lives, or even peaceful non-competitive existences. no amount of pressure will change a pokemon’s nature, and some just aren't cut out for the fine art of showmanship that contests require. You can however use powerful attacks in showy ways, so theres always hope that they could enjoy it, if you can work with them to their strengths. 

If possible, work to getting them outdoors, cooping grass types up can lead to stroppy, testing personalities, many thrive in the outdoors, he may need some serious outside time to compensate for the lack of exercise and natural stimulation they may have not been getting prior to your ownership. There are plenty of areas in public that are much like tennis courts, areas of space you can book for a set amount of time too exercise difficult pokemon, these locations are often secure facilities, both outdoors and indoors, to suit a range of species. find one that has outdoor facilities and book a few hours per week to go there, increasing the time whenever possible. This exercise and time with you may help to find common ground, and topics that you and the bulbasaur can bond over. This can be anything from battles, to sun bathing, playing sports, games, swimming, running or digging, and everything in between. Bulbasaur naturally are great foragers and tend to like to snaffle about in long grass and shrubland, hiding treats like berry slices in a secure environment is good enrichment and can tire the pokemon out. a tired pokemon is usually a little less aggressive, having lower energy levels and less want to expend attacks. this process also associated you with something fun, and your scent will be on the treats too, so they'll know you were the one to provide this activity for them.   

I’d also take plenty of time to observe the bulbasaur, as your sister got them on a whim, they probably had no prior knowledge of the species, or how to correctly care for them. In a month, a health complaint could have begun to show, so observe their colouration, feet, walking gait, sleeping patterns, feeding habits, and general behaviour. Excess scratching, heavy breathing, or unusual shaking or moving can suggest a health condition is starting to take form. Most can be helped if caught early, but some illnesses give the pokemon discomfort, and can lead to snappy tempers and irritability. It could be that this individual is in pain, or finding life difficult due to its health, which can cause a lot of hostility as i’m sure anyone would agree. It can suck to be sick!

This species can be won over if you can prove you have a skill of worth to them. This is the case with a lot of pokemon, having respect for something they cannot do, and learning that they need things from you can lead to them at least tolerating us humans. Its a foot in the door. A trick i like t use with particularly difficult bulbasaur is to give them their fav food, whatever it is, then put it in a clear container the pokemon cannot open. They have no thumbs, and their vines though dexterous, aren't able to open every kind of container. The pokemon will want whats inside, and be unable to access it. they will eventually give up out of frustration. this is where you come in. enter the space, don’t let your pokemon approach as this can be threatening, and open the container. leave it on the floor open, making sure they've watched you get the thing open. They can then approach and enjoy their fav food, all thanks to you and those wondrous thumbs you have. repeating this process yields good results, and starts a mutual relationship of tolerance and acceptance between you and a bulbasaur. Most will accept they want the food more than they want you gone, and you provide something they can’t get to. whatever you do, don’t let them see that you were the one to lock the food up in the container. Get a friend to do it, or do it in the room, and leave it in place on the floor, before allowing the bulbasaur to enter and investigate the item. If they see you're the one doing it, the trick is foiled, and your back to square one. Eventually this does tend to lead to the pokemon becoming less stressed with you around them, and eventually it leads to trust, and even friendship. This trick is good to use to get them use to you, once they're ok with you being around them because of your use to them, they may start to take food from you directly, engage in play, or even just sit and tolerate company for short periods of time. Do not expect this to be quick, but it does usually do the trick. 

Regardless, i do have concern that the pokemon may want to be with its own, should you discuss this and find they're not interested in being housebound and a pet, feel free to send them our way, we had exactly this situation in mind when setting up the islands facilities, and have extensive locations designed with grass pokemosn needs at the forefront. Theres a small herd of about 12 bulbasaur evolutions that live north of our labs, no people see them, they are happy as a unit, and are left alone to go about their lives, with the only interactions between humans being us giving them their yearly health check, or should we spot them with an issue, we may intervene. They live away from others and pretty much free, in a poacher safe environment. Its not ideal, we like to keep pokemon in areas they come from, with people who love them, and you show great concern for the pokemon so it would be a shame to have to let them go, BUT sometimes thats just life, and theres nothing to be done about it other than accepting that the pokemons wants come first. They may just be mistrusting so try everything else first, and see how you go. hopefully you’ll yield some results from this all. Good luck out there trainer. 

[3centsofbutter]

Things I’ve missed about the sun - Bakugo Katsuki

Bakugo katsuki x reader

You used to be my sun, that’s what I always saw you as. 

A bright blistering star that blinded me if I ever dared to look upon you. You were dangerous to the touch but I basked in your warmth nonetheless. I missed that about you, how you were always there for me even if it wasn’t intentional.

“Oi Baka, you gonna keep starin’ at the window or are we gonna have a conversation like regular people do?”

Hatsume waved her hand in front of your face in an attempt to pull you from your thoughts. It was a humid Sunday afternoon and you had joined your friend for tea at the mall. College exams were finally over and done with so you both decided to celebrate before you were thrown back into the busy rhythm of life. 

“Since when did they have Bakugo collectables at Toyco?”

An all too familiar face stared back at you aggressively on a giant poster advertising the new line of hero collectables plastered outside the Toyco opposite the cafe. It seemed like his presence always found its way into your life no matter how far away he was. 

“Hm, Ground Zero merch, never thought it would be this quick before that bastard had his branding stuck all over the shirt’s of kids.” She lifted the straw out of her iced tea and pointed it at your face. “You’re not still hung up over that sack of trash, right?”

You sheepishly smiled and rubbed the back of your neck, a light blush dancing on the apples of your cheeks. It had been a while since you had talked to the hot-headed blonde but your high school crush on him had persisted. You were in the support class F and frequently interacted with hero studies class A for support items and general classes which coincidentally made you form an odd friendship with Bakugo. You were both really close at one point but fell off once the school year had ended. You really missed him even though he was just a phone call away, you could never bring yourself to make an excuse to call. 

“Well, it’s really hard when his face is every third news story on TV!”

Hatsume threw her head back and laughed. 

Bakugo was strange, obviously, and was infamous amongst the school for having the worst temper and the many incidents Class A somehow found themselves in, and by default, you found yourself in the midst of the chaos. 

“Bakugo! You know my workbench is not a bed, right?”

It was after Bakugo’s kidnapping fiasco that you found him lying on your workbench in the shared support facility. It was 5:30 in the morning and he knew that only you’d be there. 

“I want you to upgrade my gear, all of it.”

His voice was soft, almost a whisper, a rarity you had never heard from him before. You decided to entertain him. 

“Gotta be more specific, Sir.” You picked up his gauntlets and ran your fingers over the minor scuffs and scratches on its surface. “You can’t level up your gear like you evolve pokemon, tell me what you want done.”

His voice was still quiet. “I just want it to be better, got anything for that?”

You placed the gauntlet down on the table next to him and pulled out a wheely chair from underneath the table. 

“Is everything alright Blasty? Things have been rough for you recently but it’s not your fault, y’know?”

He sighed and raised his arms towards the overhead lamp and stared at the scars and burns that decorated his forearms. You had never paid much attention to them before but now in the light, it almost seemed like a work of art, you remembered that Hatsume once said that each uneven patch of skin and scar that marked a hero’s body was like a war trophy, a symbol of their resilience and hardships that they faced to get where they were today. 

“I hate these scars,” He said, as he dropped his arms back onto the table. “Those bastard villains gave me 6 more to hate.”

You carefully took one of his arms and held it in your hands. His silence was enough for you to know that he didn’t mind the invasion of personal space. You lightly traced the scars with your fingertips in silence, some had faded but some were more prominent than others. 

“Your hands are rough, you know that?”

You chuckled and lifted one hand into the light, fully showing the callouses that marked them. 

“You gotta have this many when you’re working with metal all the time.”

He grunted in agreement, not saying a thing more. 

“I like your scars y’know.” You placed his arm back on the table. “They show how hard you worked to get here.”

Your eyes met for a second in which it felt like an eternity. He was the one to break it. 

“Thanks.”

You both sat in silence as you watched the sunrise from the UA windows, relishing in each other’s company. It was such a simple interaction that was forever ingrained into your memory and probably the first time you ever fully realised your feelings for the boy. 

“Maa how long has it been, 5 years you’ve liked him?” Hatsume teased as she stole a forceful of your cake. “Maybe you should call him, would be a lot better than daydreaming about him all the time.” 

You furiously shook your head. “He’s probably busy doing hero stuff y’know, he doesn’t have time for a lowlife like me.”

You pointed to the poster that almost felt as if it was constantly eavesdropping on your conversation. “He’s got bigger things to worry about, Hatsume.”

She sighed and propped her chin on her hand. 

“Mmm, maybe if you didn’t leave so early at the reunion night last month then maybe you wouldn’t be in this position.”

“You know how I am with parties! If it’s past 10 I gotta go home, not all of us are night owls like you!”

It was honestly a terrible night. There were over 30 people crammed into Yaoyorozu’s penthouse apartment and there was too much going on to have any meaningful interactions with anyone. Sure it was nice to see everyone again but it was more like small clusters of people in their own conversations and you didn’t really seem to fit in anywhere. You had talked to Bakugo that night, but only briefly before he was dragged off by Kirishima to greet some other people. You had learnt that he was currently stationed in Kyoto in a partner agency with Kirishima. 

You sighed and stared at the empty plate in front of you. Hatsume had taken the liberty to finish off the rest of your blueberry yoghurt slice while you were lost in your thoughts. 

“Why don’t you make some support gear for him?” She asked. “He always liked the stuff you made anyways.”

You drummed your fingers on the table, you guessed that was true. 

“He probably has some big shot designers working for him right now, he wouldn’t want anything a college student is making.”

“Maa, you’re so annoying you know that?”

You simply laughed at her, even you could acknowledge you were a piece of work. 

“Mum, Mum! Look it’s the real Ground Zero!”

You looked outside the window once again to see a child pointing excitedly at that stupid poster. Every time you looked at it, it seemed to infuriate you even more. 

“Can you please sign my lunchbox, Mr Hero? Pretty please!”

You did a double-take at the Toyco and noticed a very familiar blonde headed boy, albeit his hair a little shorter since the last time you saw him. He was dressed casually in a pair of shorts and a graphic tee, different from how you usually saw him on the news. You watched him as he bent down and signed the kid’s red lunchbox and ruffled his hair with an encouraging smile. It looked like the public relations training worked wonders on him. 

He noticed your staring from the across the mall and you quickly turned away. Hatsume was nowhere in sight and a napkin with the words ‘GOOD LUCK!’ messily scrawled onto it was there in her place. You began to panic as you felt the heat rising to your face. 

The bell on the cafe door tinkled. 

“Is that you?”

You sheepishly looked up at him. 

“I thought you were in Kyoto, Bakugo. What brings you here?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, “I missed home so I thought about setting up an agency around here. I guess I’ll be around a whole lot more now.”

His face was a slight tinge pink and the awkwardness hung in the air like a thick blanket. 

Hatsume hadn’t bullied you about this for all those years for you to let him slip away from you again. Maybe it was time for you to pull up your bootstraps and act upon your feelings for once. 

“Are you free tonight?”

That caught him by surprise. “I guess I am.”

“Wanna grab a bite to eat?”

The widest smile stretched across his face. 

“Is this a date?”

Your face was heating up to an unreasonable degree. “It is if you want it to be.”

He laughed. 

“I’d be honoured.”

Your sun was back to stay. 

Master list of all my stuff

A/N Getting a bit inspirational by posting 2 in a day after leaving the site for like what, a month or so? lmao.

[pokesplendor]

Line up of Andy’s pokemon team gijinkas! I adore these lot.

bios and info about them beneath the cut

Bits - Emboar - he/him - bi Self-appointed team leader, and a good one at that, he’s able to wrangle his ragtag group of weirdos to focus on one given task, or battle, depending on what kind of day it is. He’s boisterous for sure, but has calmed down as he evolved, and knows when to dial it down. However, he won’t quiet down if you insult his friends and can get quite heated over it. (Haha, because he’s a fire-type.) He’s reliable, friendly, and a great guy really.

He’s childhood friends with Jo’s Samurott, Blu, and Mia’s Serperior, Olive, and were thick as thieves growing up. Never seen without one another around the lab, they were a package deal. He was so glad their trainers weren’t too far behind each other so they were never far off.

He’s married to Digger, happily in love with stars in his eyes about her all the time. Smitten with her huge muscles and her power, not to mention how cute she is under all that thick dirt coating, he loves her to the stars and back.

Creeper - Zoroark - he/she - bi Self-proclaimed ace of the team, Creeper is a little schemer. Always with a smug grin and a haughty little giggle, he’s quick and powerful, hitting big when it matters. He loves sweets, and steals from the labeled food in the fridge no matter who it belongs to. Creeper, unsurprisingly, loves playing pranks with his shapechanging abilities, and usually changes into Crybaby or Wings because it upsets them the most. Awful little creature.

While he doesn’t have the biggest fans in his own family, Bits doesn’t mind his tomfoolery and Puff tolerates his presence, he’s close friends with Sydney, Mia’s Cinccino, as they both love causing trouble together.

He’s a little girl-crazy, boy-crazy, all kinds crazy, big bi on campus. He’s just has a problem keeping relationships going due to his childish nature.

Digger - Excadrill - she/her - pan Digger is a very quiet person, she doesn’t mince many words and rather actions speak for her rather than words. She’s also not the best speaker, often stumbling over her words and easily getting nervous when she messes up what she meant to say. She keeps her mask on most of the time because she’s worried about people reading her expression wrong and making assumptions about her. Digger is a powerful source in battle, but she rather be in her studio, welding metal art pieces.

She’s not the best at communicating, but her family loves her all the same, and she’s closest with Bits, her husband. But close second is Wings, who’s also of few words, who’s been teaching her sign language.

Digger is absolutely in love with her husband, the two of them don’t need words to communicate, which is a huge relief for her. She’s had a crush on him since very early in their journey, but she was too shy to make the first move.

Crybaby - Cofagrigus - she/her - lesbian Crybaby, well, is a crybaby. Her name fits her well. She laments her past life, an Eevee dying young before her time, and she’s haunted by memories of her death. She’s slowly been coping with the trauma thanks for support from their family, mainly Wings, who’s very patient with her. When she’s not crying, she enjoys fashion and designing outfits. She’s teaching herself how to sow with hopes of making her own clothes. Her family affectionately refers to her as “C.B.”

She’s often terrorized by Creeper, much to her misery, turning into her and mirroring her movements. Wings puts a stop to this and is her closest confidant. She struggles to communicate with Digger but appreciates her art.

Crybaby doesn’t consider herself stable enough for a relationship right now, but god does she love girls. Girls are pretty.

Wings - Sigilyph - he/him - gay Wings is a mon of few words. He’s often nonverbal and communicates with sign language, something he’s tried to teach the rest of the team so he could easily speak with them. His lessons don’t always yield results. He’s level-headed and eloquent, previously a merchant in the desert resort, selling shiny stones he found in the wastes. He still collects shiny things on their journey, drawn to their gleam. He likes to wear these shiny things and show them off, attempting a sale when he has the chance.

Wings is sort of team therapist, despite Bits being the leader, the rest of the family usually turns over to Wings for help. He doesn’t mind this role, he enjoys helping people, even if it’s difficult for those that won’t learn sign language.

He isn’t looking for a relationship right now, he has enough on his shoulders with the rest of the family being enough as a mess. He’s open for dates, however!

Puff - Braviary - he/him - gay Puff is team baby, despite how tall his growth spurt left him after evolving, he’s the youngest of the group and the most out of sorts because of it. Just barely younger than Creeper, he’s much more mature in that he knows how to behave himself and not cause trouble every single day. But he’s not really sure what he wants to do in life. He’s jumped through the different arts, for which he seems without talent for, and he’s nervous to try new things, for fear he fails. Crybaby often enlists him to be her model for fashion, and he likes doing that.

Because they’re both young, Creeper often hangs around him and tries to convince him to go along with his pranks. Sometimes, Puff is weak-willed and goes with him, usually regretting it later, especially when they’re caught. He’s seen Mothra, Jo’s Volcarona, around and thought of making friends with him.

He knows he’s gay, boys are all very pretty, but he’s not sure what to do about it. He drops the spaghetti at any point trying to talk to one.

[crystalelemental]

Well, on to the next game, I guess. My wife's turn: she's been trying to find games that are more to her tastes for gameplay, and after exposing her to Pokemon several years ago, has determined that maybe monster catching games are something she'd like to try more broadly. So we found Nexomon and Nexomon Extinction for like $20 online as a bundle deal. It's a pretty shameless Pokemon clone. Like, I do not say that lightly. I know not every monster catching game is Pokemon, but like...I've been inside the healing place. That is a Pokemon Center.

It's still pretty neat. My wife chose the like...normal fox starter thing, and seems to be enjoying herself. I'm going Velokitty, and found another Rare cat (Bastet?) early on, so we're on track for Cat Sweep. It's a bit corny, but sure, let's see how it all shakes out. For the sake of engagement, we're not looking up anything about type matchups or what evolves into what, we're trying to be surprised as we go along.

Quick things I do like, things I don't like:

Leveling up restores all HP, that's a very efficient system.

It's older style, so it doesn't seem like much, if any, EXP is shared with non-active Nexomon.

EXP scales really freely. It takes very little effort to level up currently, so this hasn't been a problem.

Random encounters also give you money for beating the opponent. Trapping gets you just the creature, but winning the fight gets money. Stuff is relatively expensive, but if you're training your options, it's not too bad.

Type matchups we've discovered are a mix of familiar and unfamiliar. Electric is good against water, Fire and Wind are good against Grass. But then Wind is good against Mineral, and apparently Fire is good against Wind? Still piecing stuff together.

[fluffybunnybadass]

Obligatory Father’s Day fic

Title: Get Rekt With Embarrassment, Silver (no, I will not be taking CC) (yes you can shorten it to ‘get rekt silver’)

Characters: Silver, Gold, Blue; brief appearances by Lance

Word Count: 4600

Rating: idk pg-13 for language?

tw: uhhh cursing and bad dads club, threats of violence by silver but none actually happening

inspired roughly by masters but mostly because it’s a funny idea of silver sending lance a “happy father’s day” text and then it spiraled from there thanks to plot bunnelbys. please enjoy and leave your feels in the tags or rbs, thank you.

You can read on ao3 here cuz my theme is atrocious to read on desktop, I apologize

also please don’t tag this as ship wrt lance and silver or else.

-----------------------------

“Are you going to text him?”

“Gold, you know about my father.”

“No, not him. I meant Lance!”

The redheaded teen gave a suspicious stare at his friend, who was mirthfully grinning at him, playing the innocent but well-intentioned fool. He knew what Gold really meant, but he decided to play along, seeing if he could get his companion to drop the conversation before it even started.

“Why.”

“Because it's Father's Day!” The redhead's face went full flush and he angrily glared at Gold, who only grinned more at his best friend, knowing that he had hit his target. “C'mon Silver! We all know that Lance has been a better father figure to you than your actual father. The guy's got total dad vibes!”

Silver gritted his teeth, his anger and embarrassment growing more with every word that Gold said. “Don't even--! I don't have a dad and that's it, Gold!” He barely held himself back from getting in his friend's face, wanting to hit him but knowing that he would regret it if he did.

Gold help up his hands in a defensive, placating manner. “Okay, okay! I get it! You don't have a dad. You came straight from an egg like Togepi and Sneasel did,” he said, laughing at his own joke.

“... Let's just get on with training today.”

The two had planned to hang out for part of the day. Gold knew that days like today brought his friend some unnecessary reminders of the past that would always haunt Silver, and he wanted to help distract his friend from the cloud of despair, at least for a little bit. Blue was going to join them later on, her understanding of Silver's feelings too good for the redhead to stop her from dropping by unannounced. Silver knew exactly what his friends were doing, and when Gold had asked him to hang out today and train, he shrugged and said, “Suit yourself.” Now he was starting to regret that decision, if Gold was going to be like this the entire time....

They had spent a few hours training. They sat down for a break, letting their Pokemon rest as well. Gold looked over at Silver, sizing him up as he tried again.

“Hey Silver! Can I borrow your phone real quick?”

Silver gave his friend another suspicious stare.

“. . . Why.”

“I wanna see something.”

“No.”

“Aw, c'mon, please? Pretty pleeeeaase? With a cheri berry on top?” Gold had clasped his hands together and bowed his head, begging pointedly.

“The answer's still no.”

Gold gave his friend a pout, and Silver shook his head, sighing a bit. But Gold was relentless in his teasing, and pushed once more.

“You know, you really should send him a text.”

“I'm not sending Lance a text!”

“But he really is a dad! It's courtesy to send your friends a 'Happy Father's Day' text if you know they're a dad.”

Silver gave Gold a skeptical look. In the time that he had spent training at the Dragon's Den in Blackthorn, he had never heard any mention of Lance having kids. Even though the man was pretty private for a public figure, he felt that the bond he shared with his mentor would have earned him some information like that. Not even Clair, who loved to share embarrassing things about her cousin with Silver, had made any mention about being an aunt, any niblings, or anything embarrassing about Lance and fatherhood.

“Oh really? Who's this kid I haven't heard about?” Silver asked, a smug look on his face. He was probably going to regret this, but he felt confident about his information.

“You!”

Silver flushed redder than a Charmeleon. He lunged after Gold, who cackled and leapt out of the way of his glaring friend who shouted at him.

“I'M GONNA PUNCH YOU!”

Silver chased after his friend for a moment, stopping only when he noticed Blue had join them for the day. He stopped and put his fist down, embarrassed that Gold had gotten a rise out of him. He turned away, glaring at where Gold had stopped to watch him, grinning at his friend.

“Don't let me stop you two from your games,” Blue said, teasing her best friend.

“I'm not playing any games...!” Silver said, gritting his teeth. He took at deep breath to calm himself like his two mentors had taught him, and turned around, putting on a smirk to mask that he had been caught acting like a fool.

“We were training.”

“Uh-huh. And part of your training involves literally kicking Gold's ass?”

“...Not literally.”

“That's not what it looked like to me,” she said, teasing her friend still in a playful greeting. Gold caught back up with the two trainers, slinging an arm around Silver's shoulders, who shrugged him off with a groan.

“Hi, Gold.” Blue exchanged a look with him, and the other teen shook his head slightly at her when Silver wasn't looking. “Have you guys taken a break yet? I brought snacks.”

“Nah. We were in the middle of one when Silver got mad at me all of a sudden,” Gold told her with a huge grin on his face, looking at Silver when he said it. “Don't know why though. All I did was ask to borrow his phone...”

“You...” Silver growled in warning, but he shook his head to rid himself of his frustration. “I wouldn't let you borrow my phone even if it meant you were dying.”

“Yeah, because we all know you would be the one using it!” Blue and Gold both laughed, and Silver's face flushed.

“Tch...”

For all their ribbing at him, Silver was grateful that he had earned himself some true friends. He had spent a lot of his life alone, with only Blue beside him as part of a childhood promise they had made. But when they got separated, he vowed to never have any friends again, the pain and ache he felt without them too much to bare. He had spent a lot of his childhood and early teen years telling himself that it was better off that he was alone, that he operated better like that, that he didn't need friends because they'd only hold him back. He didn't need anyone. Not a father, mother, any siblings or any cousins either; just himself. Even his Pokemon were tools to him, no companions in any way that he could have wanted.

But things changed when he met Gold. He kept running into this trainer who kept beating him, even though he knew his Pokemon should have been stronger because he trained them to the ground. He evolved them as soon as was possible. And Gold, who still had a Togepi, a Pichu, Pokemon that were unevolved and powerless on their own, had won against his team that he trained harder and harder each and every time this dopeyheaded trainer crossed his path. It was unfathomable to him that he could ever lose to someone who spent his time laughing and playing with his Pokemon as much as he did train them.

And then he ran into him.

Lance had thoroughly trounced his team with no effort at all. The Dragon-type trainer had given him a pitying look, as though he felt sorry for Silver and his Pokemon.

“Why...? Why? How did I lose so terribly against you?” He had been holding back tears of frustration, shaking as his emotions played with him, the defeat stinging far worse than any against the kid he kept running into. Tears slowly filled his eyes, threatening to fall once the child closed them. He couldn't cry on top of the embarrassing defeat, he just couldn't--

Lance looked at the prone Silver, who had his hands curled up into fists as he slowly beat on the ground, the frustration the child felt too much for the young adult's heart. Lance let out a long sigh, and stood in front of Silver. He knelt down to the child's level, as much as he could.

“You lost because you don't trust your Pokemon. You don't love them.”

Silver found the empty despair within himself burning up with anger. His shaking stopped. He looked up at Lance, and spat on the ground next to him.

“Tch. I lost because of a thing like love and trust? Don't mess with me! I don't need things like that.”

Lance let out a sigh. The child, a preteen, wouldn't be open to hearing an explanation, but he wanted to try anyways. If nothing else, maybe it could plant the seed that would let this kid grow into becoming a better trainer to his Pokemon, and a better human. How he had acted during their battle... To treat his Pokemon so terribly during the match, he almost wanted to stop it before the child had called out the other half of his team. How much had this kid gone through, anyways, to think like this?

“Listen carefully. If you really want to become strong, then you'll need to love and trust in your Pokemon's abilities, and they'll fight their hardest for you. It starts with treating your Pokemon with respect. They're not tools; don't run them ragged in an attempt to be better than someone. Having a rival is all well and good, but don't use it as an excuse to abuse your Pokemon. I hate that. It's things like that, that will cause a trainer to lose, no matter how much training their Pokemon undergo. Once you've established respect with them, spend time with them outside of training. Play with them. It's okay to let go and be childish every once in a while. You won't be able to establish any sort of connection or bond with them if you don't show them love and appreciation. And that bond will turn into trust.” Something it felt like the kid hadn't seen a lot of in his life. The realization pained him to think about, but there was nothing he could do about it if the child wasn't open to him.

“I don't get it....! What does any of that have to do with being the strongest Pokemon trainer there is?!”

Lance let out a half-chuckle, shaking his head. He didn't know how else to explain it to him, but... “I hope that one day you will be able to understand. Please let your Pokemon have some well-earned rest. Even with how poorly you treat them, they still made an effort, and deserve some time off. I think that you, as well, should take some time off to think about things. If you're ever near Blackthorn City, stop by the Dragon's Den. You might be able to find some answers there.”

That had been several years ago.

Silver had grown a lot since then. He had made friends, and re-connected with someone who had vowed to stay beside him. He had confronted his own father, the weak, spineless man who had abandoned him years and years ago, and while he hadn't exactly made peace with his feelings on the matter, it didn't eat him up inside to think about his old man like it used to.

That didn't exactly mean that days like today --where good-natured salesclerks brightly asked him about his plans for Father's day as part of their scripts, or tried to push a sale on him under the notion that he would be seeking a gift for or spending time with anyone who could even remotely be considered a dad-- were any easier or better than they had before. But as he watched Blue and Gold talk and laugh, as they sat around and ate the snacks that Blue brought them, it made him feel a little better to know that he had such good friends that stuck by him. Friends that trusted him, and people that he could.... rely on.

His hand reached into his pocket, absentmindedly tracing the edges of his cell phone.

“Hey, Silver?” Blue asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. He quickly pulled his hand out of his pocket, crossing his arms over his chest.

“...Yeah?”

“Can I borrow your phone real quick? I think I left mine at home and I wanna call to find it.”

Silver gave her a suspicious look. She was good at talking her way into and out of things, being sneaky while seemingly innocent. He looked over at Gold, who was busy playing with his own phone and feeding an Aipom he was training today.

“Can't you get Gold to do it?”

“Gold doesn't have my number saved and I don't remember it.” She gave him a plaintive, sad look.

“You don't-- What do you mean you don't remember your number!?”

She shrugged, looking at him sadly and innocently.

“Grrr....”

“Pleaaaaase? Pretty pleaaaase? It's just to call it!”

Silver had a feeling he was going to regret this. “...Fine.” He jammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone, shoving it at Blue. “Take it. Just don't do anything to it, and definitely do not give it to Gold.”

“Aye-aye!”

He rolled his eyes and turned towards his Pokemon, remembering Lance's words about raising them. He had learned how to love and care for them, from his time watching Gold in order to figure out what exactly made the trainer stronger than him, back when they were still kids. Now they were older, practically young adults, and he wondered what he would have thought of himself back then, if he saw who he had become now. No doubt he'd call himself another bleeding heart like he did Lance that one time... But his Pokemon were happier than they had ever been; his Golbat had evolved into a Crobat once he had learned how to change himself and his attitude towards his Pokemon. He had gone to the Dragon's Den a reviled child, but now he was considered respectable among his peers there. Even Clair had remarked on his change, and it was hard to get some good praise out of the easily jealous, haughty lady.

Blue nudged his phone back at him.

“Thanks! I found it! Turns out it was on vibrate in my bag the entire time!” She laughed at her foolish mistake, waving her phone in her hand.

“...You're welcome.”

“Oh cheer up! You did a good deed today! You helped an absolute damsel in distress.”

He rolled his eyes, and was about to speak, but a text notification on his phone went off, nearly startling him. He gave Blue and Gold a suspicious glare, but they only grinned at him.

“Oh? Wonder who that's from; Gold and I are already here, so I'm not sure who else would be texting you...”

“Shove off.” Based off his friends' grins, Silver had an idea of what had happened. He shoved the phone in his pocket without looking at it, turning away from his friends who were waiting expectantly for the chain of events that were about to happen. “It's probably some spam mail or something.”

“You didn't even look at it!”

“I don't need to look at it to know that it's spam!” he yelled. “You two are right here, as you said! Leave me alone!”

The two other trainers exchanged looks, and Blue sighed. “Fine, fine. So what have you guys been up to?”

Gold and Silver explained to Blue what they had been working on as far as training went, and Blue offered to join in. The two boys weren't about to turn her down, so the training regimen for that day was adjusted to allow for a third person, including a three-way battle amongst the trio. Curiosity had itched at Silver's mind. He had managed to put the text out of his mind by focusing on training, but now that they were having another break, their Pokemon cooling off in the nearby river, Silver couldn't help but wonder exactly what it was. He wasn't signed up for any text messaging offers like Blue was, and he didn't give his number out to just anyone, like Gold did. Silver looked over at his friends, who were busy chatting and dipping their feet into the cool riverbank.

Hmph. They sure are spending a lot of time talking to each other today, he thought with mild bitterness. He chided himself before the selfish, jealous thoughts could spiral, and looked at them once more. They were distracted enough that maybe... Maybe he could sneak a glance at the mystery message.

Silver slowly pulled out his phone, looking around quickly to make sure no one else was nearby. The teen took a deep breath, turned on his lock screen, and took at look at the name on the message preview.

Lance.

He immediately threw down his hand holding his phone, the screen turning back off. His face flushed immediately as he looked over at his friends, knowing exactly what had happened.

“Ho-oh damn these people with its Sacred Fire...” Silver muttered under his breath, trying to calm himself down. It could have been a coincidence, but he didn't believe in things like that. Okay. Fine. What did they send him?

He took a deep breath, and looked at his messages.

<<< Happy Father's Day

That's it. That's all they sent. He breathed a sigh of relief that it had been something simple, nothing big, silly, or extremely out of character for him to send; only to seize up once he realized what the implications were, since he was still very certain that Lance had no kids of his own, biological or otherwise. In a mixture of frenzy and fear, he looked at Lance's reply, worried that the Champion had questioned the message at all, or said something equally as embarrassing as the sheer fact that his friends sent this message at all. Silver's thoughts were rapidly trying to figure out how to escape any exchanges that could have happened, as he looked at Lance's response.

>>> Awe, thanks Silver. :-]

Silver stood there, stunned into confusion as his face flushed. He just.... accepted it? Didn't question it? Didn't press for more? There was no comment on if it was in relation to the implications of Silver sending it. There were a lot of people among the Dragon Clan who swore that the mentor-mentee relationship had evolved into one more familial, of a father and son, and he didn't seem phased at all by them being proven right, had the text been truly sent by him? But more importantly....

<<< What the fuck is :-]

Was that... supposed to be an emoji? A clown? Did it even mean anything? Silver was too embarrassed by the entire thing to even remember to deny any implications that the message could have given Lance, or any that the Champion could have inferred...

His phone's text notification went off almost immediately, and it startled the redhead out of his confusion as he quickly looked up to see if Gold or Blue had noticed what he was doing. He didn't see them by the riverbank anymore, or anywhere nearby, and he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Well... Whatever.” He looked at his phone again. An arm was suddenly swung over his shoulder, as Gold leaned against him, chin resting on his friend's shoulder.

“Soooooooooo, who was that message from?” Gold asked loudly, peering at the phone with the biggest grin on his face.

Silver scowled and tried to shove him away. “None of your business!”

But Gold held on as Silver struggled to push his friend away. In the process, Silver's phone dropped. Before the redhead could retrieve it, a purple flash ran by, swiping the phone in the process. Gold's Aipom had the phone gripped in the hand on its tail, waving it around playfully before passing it over to its trainer. Gold quickly unlocked the phone and read the message aloud.

“Awww, he said thanks! Aren't you lucky to have such a good dad in your life? He didn't even question it! It's almost like he knows.....”

“GOLD...”

Blue was standing by Gold, and read over the younger trainer's shoulder, before looking at Silver with a mock gasp. “Silver! You really use that language with him?”

“That's none of your concern!”

“Eh, I'm not surprised,” Gold said, as though Silver weren't right in front of them. “Though I'm surprised Lance didn't tell him something like to mind his language or anything. He seems like the kind of dad who would frown on cursing. What is that thing he put anyways? Oh, he replied! Let's see....... 'A smiley face'. What is he, fifty? Use an emoji like the rest of us. Or call it that...”

There was a pause. A devious smile crept onto Gold's face. “I'm gonna reply!”

“DON'T YOU DARE.”

“D...A....D, That's dad....  space... P...L...S..... please. There, sent!” He tossed Silver's phone back to him, darting away from Silver before he could lunge at him.

“I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!” Silver growled at Gold, who was busy laughing his ass off. Blue wasn't helping, as she was trying to stifle her own giggles. This was great. Just great. He loved his friends, but sometimes.... Sometimes he regretted being friends with them. This was one of those times.

“You--”

There was another text notification. Silver snarled at them, then quickly looked at the message to see what kind of damage had been done.

>>> Did you just type dad?

Hastily, Silver replied back, his face hot from embarrassment and ignoring his friends' teasing laughter, asking him to read Lance's response out loud.

<<< NO. MY PHONE AUTOCORRECTED

<<< YOU'RE NOT MY DAD

<<< I DON'T HAVE A DAD I WAS JUST BEING NICE

For some reason, he didn't have the heart to tell him that Gold and Blue had gotten a hold of his phone and sent those messages. As easier as it would have been to explain it, his flustered feelings had gotten in the way, and he found himself responding in a panic before he could even think about his responses. Silver's own panic had given a response to Lance that was possibly worse than telling him that his friends were pranking him and not Lance,which would have meant that there were no good feelings in the messages at all. He could have at least spared him that had he just been more honest and upfront about his feelings, but his own denial made it difficult to even see that he cared about what the older trainer had thought of him until it was too late.

Silver groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead. “Arceus end me, please.”

He ignored his friends, shrugging them off when they gave him apologies for the teasing, asking what he had furiously texted back. Silver showed them, embarrassed, head hung as they read.

“You guys couldn't just leave well enough alone, could you?” Silver snapped. He shook his head, realizing that was harsh. He knew they actually meant well, despite all of their teasing. They really were just trying to get him to open up and see that he had at least one potential paternal figure in his life that cared about him, that he could have had given the barest recognition to. Another groan escaped from Silver and he crouched down, embarrassed and ashamed of all the hard work that he had done thanks to Lance, resulting in this rejection of him. “...He's going to hate me now.”

“I don't know... He didn't seem to hate you when you met; actually, I remember him being concerned about you during the shutdown of the Mahogany hideout,” Gold said, trying to be helpful.

“Gold's right! He's helped you grow and change your life around so much! I think Lance knows you better than that. You're pretty tsundere after all.”

“Ugh. I hate it when you guys call me that.”

“Well, maybe you should stop being one!”

“Nah, if he did that, I don't think he'd be Silver!”

There wasn't a very long wait to find out, as Silver's phone now began to ring in his hands.

All three of them looked at the caller id at once.

“Oh.”

“Should I answer it?”

“What do you mean should you answer it. Do you really think he's going to just give up if you don't answer him? He knows that you're looking at your phone right now!!”

“I don't know! I've never had this issue until you guys made it a thing.”

“Hey, don't look at me! I told Gold it was a bad idea.”

“You still took part!”

“Guys...” Silver sighed loudly, trying to quiet down the squabbling. “I'm answering it.” The other two immediately shut up.

“Hey.” His voice was unsteady as he tried to play it cool, like his usual, detached self. The other two listened intently, trying to hear how the conversation was going. Silver turned away from them, going a few paces away.

“Y-yeah.... Sorry about that. ….Mhmm.... Yes... No, not like that! It's just...” There was a sigh and the other two trainers leaned in, straining their ears to hear as Silver walked away further from them. Blue pouted. Gold threw his hands behind the back of his head.

“Think we might'a pushed it a little too hard?” he asked Blue.

“Mmm.... Maybe? It's not good for him to pretend like he doesn't feel some sort of way towards his mentor. Lance really has been the father figure that Silv's lacked in his life. And I felt a little guilty for awhile that I got my parents back while he still... but the few times I've seen him with Lance, it's like... he actually has a parent for once? Even if Silver hates to admit it, he doesn't wanna let Lance down. He wants to surpass him, sure, but...” She frowned, looking at the silhouette of Silver in the distance. “He's probably wanted a better dad than what he had, and now that he has someone who could fit that bill,  he... doesn't think he's good enough for that? I don't know how to explain it. I just know he needed a push in the right direction and I'm pretty sure that Lance isn't gonna sign some adoption papers unless Silver wanted it. And,” she gestured in Silver's direction. “We all know how that would go if we don't.”

“Yeah, that sounds 'bout right for him. Well, maybe one day he'll feel okay. Maybe next year he might actually send him a text without us saying anything!”

Blue laughed. “Wouldn't that be nice? 'Hey Silver, did you remember to text your dad this year'?”

“ 'Yeah, I did, and he said I was a good son'--” Gold broke off, snorting in laughter. “Okay, okay. He probably wouldn't say that. But maybe we could try again next year. Who knows? Maybe by the time we're thirty, they'll have adoption papers.”

“Pffffft.”

The two broke off their chatter when they saw Silver heading back towards them. They watched as he approached, his expression surprisingly calmer than it had been the entire time they had spent together. He looked... relieved?

“Okay... Yeah. ….... Bye.” Silver put his phone away as he walked back towards his friends, the smug expression they were used to back on the redhead's face.

“What happened?”

“What'd Lance say?”

“...Heh. You two are in sooooo much trouble.”

[super-trouper]

Wayhaven Week 2020 Day 4

Pairing: Felix/F!Detective (Grace Buckley) Prompt: Tranquil/Thrill Note: 90% of this is just my detective fawning over Felix and you know what? It’s what he deserves.

--

Adam would be proud of him, Grace thinks, amused, as she watches Felix frown in concentration, fully absorbed in his task. He’s taken to the new information like a fish to water and Grace’s heart swells with affection for the vampire at her side. The two have spent the entire afternoon with her explaining everything and running him through the basics, and she struggles to think of an instance she’s seen him more focused on learning; it’s inexplicably adorable.

“Babe!” Felix jumps suddenly, jolting her out of her thoughts. “Look at that, my Pidove evolved!”

Then again, she doubts Adam would approve the focus of that intense concentration is Pokemon, of all things.

This raises another curious thought if Adam even knows what Pokemon is, but that’s a question for another day. Right now, Grace can’t really pay attention to anything but Felix, which, in general, seems to be the case quite often. She shifts around to prop her chin on his shoulder and glances down at her old 3DS in his hands.

“Wait, you have a shiny Tranquill?”

He does his best to shift his head around and look at her. “What’s a shiny Tranquill?”

They haven’t covered the topic of shinies yet, mostly because Grace didn’t think it was essential information, but now here Felix is, with a shiny on his very first time playing the game. She would be more surprised, really, but it only serves to confirm something she’s known for a while now; Felix is no ordinary man in a way that has nothing to do with the fact he isn’t human.

She can’t stop herself from pressing a quick kiss to his cheek and basks in the way a familiar grin spreads on his lips.

“I think I like that whole shiny Tranquill thing.” He winks at her, or at least does his best to with their faces so close together, before adding, “No, but really. What is it?”

“Well, basically, a shiny is just a regular pokemon with different colouring. They’re usually pretty rare, though. Less than a 1% chance to get one.”

Felix’s eyes gleam. “I guess I’m just that lucky then,” he says, and as he meets her eye once again, his gaze so warm and affectionate, it’s hard not to think he means more than just Pokemon. Grace can’t stifle a smile.

“Keep it up and you’ll be the very best in no time at all,” she reassures, referencing the show’s theme song. They listened to it earlier and Felix seems to enjoy it very much, if their impromptu karaoke sessions throughout the afternoon are of any indication.

They continue playing for some time, with Grace’s head remaining propped up on his shoulder, her arms wrapped around him. Despite her excitement over the existence of the supernatural world, she finds she enjoys those quiet, mundane moments with Felix just as much. Not that moments with him can usually qualify as ‘quiet’, but his voice is quickly becoming one of her favourite sounds so it’s not like she minds.

The game seems to be going well too. By the time he reaches Slateport City, Felix has assembled one of the cutest teams she’s ever seen, which makes the following exchange inevitable, really, when she thinks of it.

“Wait, contests? You never mentioned that!” he says as if she’s committed a personal offence against him and in retrospect, yeah, she thinks she should’ve figured he’d be interested in that.

“They’re not really a thing in most of the other games,” she admits somewhat sheepishly. “I guess I just sorta forgot.”

“They’re not? Why not? I wanna show off my adorable pokemon.”

“To be honest, contests were pretty crappy back in the day. It was just piling accessories on top of your pokemon and hoping for the best.” Felix’s expression tells her her explanation’s done nothing to discourage him and Grace laughs. “Trust me, it sounds a lot more fun than it is.”

“But in this one it’s better?”

“Definitely. And you know, I don’t think I ever collected all the ribbons in any of my playthroughs.”

Naturally, Felix absolutely cannot move on until he has all of them. His journey to becoming the very best is quickly sidelined in favour of becoming top coordinator and honestly, as long as he’s having fun Grace is happy. Late afternoon seamlessly bleeds into early evening, but neither of them pays any particular attention to the change outside, much too wrapped up in their little bubble of joy and casual domesticity.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Grace thinks about how she could never enjoy moments like these with Bobby. He never really showed interest in any of her hobbies, much less tried them out himself. And she’s not in the habit of thinking about Bobby, usually, but with how much he’s inserted himself back into her life as of late, it seems inevitable not to notice how much he falls short when compared to her new boyfriend.

Boyfriend. The mere word is enough to send her heart into a flutter and Grace snuggles deeper into Felix at the feeling.

“This is taking so long,” he complains as he fails to win another ribbon. “How did Chaz beat me? My Tranquill is way cuter than his Mychoke.”

“Machoke,” Grace corrects with a smile. “Why don’t you make some pokeblocks and feed them to Tranquill? That should give you an extra edge in the first round.”

Felix takes her advice and in the next contest, he manages to beat Chaz by a few points.

“Ha!” He pulls away from Grace in order to fully turn around and face her. His grin is wide, his amber eyes practically sparkling, and Grace already feels an answering smile tug at her lips, a subconscious response to his excitement. “Gracie, you’re a genius.”

“I do take great pride in my Pokemon knowledge.” She laughs but pulls him in for a quick kiss anyway. At the very least, it’s supposed to be a quick kiss but once their lips touch, she can’t help but get distracted and the kiss lingers.

A part of her marvels at how no matter how many times they kiss, it still never fails to give her butterflies. She doesn’t consider herself particularly sappy or overly romantic, but with Felix, everything just feels more meaningful and exciting.

“We should do that more often,” he grins at her once they part.

“What, kiss?”

“Well, yeah, definitely that too. But I meant more the whole ‘spending time together without crazy killers or deadly illnesses lurking around’.”

Once again she smiles, something she seems to do a lot around Felix. “I’d like that. And technically, we still haven’t even had an official first date.”

He blinks as though the thought has only now occurred to him. “Let’s go on a date then.”

“Right now?”

“Why not?”

Well. No time like the present, Grace supposes and nods along, giddiness rising in her chest. “Okay. Sure. Let’s go on a date.”

A familiar cheeky grin spreads on Felix’s lips and makes his entire face light up; Grace is pretty sure her heart skips a beat.

“This is going to be the best date ever,” he says and she has no doubt he’s right.

--

Tranquill: a dual-type Normal/Flying Pokémon that evolves from Pidove starting at level 21.

@otomefandomevents

[annsparksthegmr]

Pokemon Black Nuzlocke - Part 4

Hello! Surprise everyone I got another Nuzlocke update. And for a quick minor spoiler. I tackled two Gyms down in the next part. Might surprise you but I got a feeling the last two Gyms may pose a challenge. But you can read more below!

Back into we go with a Vanillite encounter at the Cold Storage. Once again, I caught a female one and decided to name her BananSplit. Totally spelt it wrong but that shall be her name for now on. Then I went inside of the building to go deal with Team Plasma and level up my team. After that I went to the Gym, watched Ghetsis truly do “totally not villainous” things before busting down the door to challenge his Gym. After buying a bunch of Moomoo Milks because they are surprisingly affordable for the time being.

I managed to reach Clay with no casualties. But then came our battle and immediately after his Krokorok used Swagger, he got a critical hit Bulldozer which Captain thankfully survived. I switched into Queen to handle the incoming Palpitoad and heal Captain back up. Queen then easily took out Palpitoad, but then came Excadrill. Which I’ve heard can be an end runner if I wasn’t careful - or at least I thought so. My main goal was to use Leech Seed and have Queen slowly take it out. After all, she resists most of its moves besides Slash. And I can switch into Captain if her HP gets too low. But thankfully Leech Seed secured the victory after using a hefty Grass Knot.

Another Gym secured with no casualties! I am so happy for my team. Queen and Captain really helped pull their weight. It might be because I get over prepared at times. Maybe a bit too much with items, but I feel like it's fair to use items. I headed to Route 6 and had a battle with Bianca. Not sure if I was supposed to do this before the Gym Battle, as all my team was around level 30 and her team was level 28. But she was easy to deal with.

Route 6 arrived so far all I am getting are Vanillites, which I use dupes to ignore for another. I understand it is because I am playing in winter so most options don’t appear. But I ended up running into a Foongus. A male one, who I decided to cheekily name Voltorb for the encounter. Never really going to use it right now but it shall hang out in the box.

Clay opened the way to Chargestone Cave and I got the TM Bulldoze. And I remember why I like Clay so much. Just like with all the other Gym Leaders. Oh, also N sent ninjas - I mean Shadow Triad - so we could chat. Here comes when N reveals Cheren is ideals, Bianca is truth and the main protagonist is somewhere in between. And it's kind of scary after N apparently walks off and teleports away then Bianca and Professor Juniper appear to explain the floating blue gemstone mechanic. I really miss stuff like this. I get the Lucky Egg and manage to find my encounter for Chargestone Cave - a Klink. Never got one of them before, so I nicknamed it Geartown.

After defeating more of Team Plasma I finally fought against N. We beat him no problem. I arrived in Mistralton City. Skyla had her little speech which led me to Route 7. On the way, Odette evolved into a beautiful Swanna. And I got my encounter as a double - with a male Watchhog and a female Cubchoo. I decided to go with the Cubchoo because I have found memories of my Beartic on my first one. Plus, if memory serves - a Beartic can learn some potential HMs. I named the adorable Cubchoo Snowball and she’ll rest in the PC until I need her.

Arriving at Celestial tower, I climbed up to the top and on my way caught a male Litwick. Decided to name Gracey after Master Gracey - neat Haunted Mansion reference because why not. At the very least, if Ramona faints before I reach the end I can use him. Or if the Modest nature on Ramona becomes too big of a problem to ignore. Plus Ramona also has Hustle as an ability. Though speaking of Ramona, she evolved into a Darmanitan. I reached the top and rang the bell. I really miss stuff like this. But a quick check of the PC revealed how both my Fire-Types have their natures lowering their respective attack/special attack. Whelp. Guess I have to wait and hope Reshiram will have a decent nature.

But now, I’m about to do something risky. I’m going to take down Skyla’s Gym at the same time. I already have a decent pick of Pokemon already prepared for this. Which hopefully, she won’t be too much trouble. By the way, what are the odds of a Trandquill getting off three Detects in a row? Just curious. There were no problems and with my confidence boosted so high in the sky, I challenged Skyla to showcase the power and potential of my Nuzlocke team. And I’d like to say, Pebbles and Zigzagzop clearly brought Skyla down to ground level.

Two gyms down a single update? I might be getting a bit too cocky, considering how N nearly spooked me as I exited the Gym. He wanted to chat with Pebbles - and seriously N, call Pebbles by her nickname and not Boldore. She takes great offense after defeating Skyla. He left about spouting about the Light and Dark Stones.

I plan to end things on this high note for the time being! I am only slightly considered regarding the next two Gyms. Brycen is Ice-Type, but with Ramona I feel okay with challenging it. But the bonus of Ramona getting Sheer Force now, I’m fairly confident in her performance. Though I may train up Gracey a bit, since I don’t think having Zigzagzop would be totally okay. My Zebstrika might have Flame Charge, but I don’t think it would help out as much as another Fire Type. 

Though after that will come the final Gym Leader. Who I currently have is either an Ice or Dragon Type in my party. Meaning that Drayden could honestly kick my butt if I went with how I had now. *has flashbacks to his Gym Battle* His Haxorus is scary… I do, at the very least, have BananSplit and Snowball currently relaxing in my PC. I may have to plan to do some extensive level grinding to get up prepared for that challenge. If I don’t end up suffering any unsuspecting battles which end up taking out members of my team.

Maybe it is my experience with casually playing Pokemon and trying to keep a balanced team of Pokemon which has me pretty much not having any deaths so far. Though, I won’t be surprised if an upcoming battle decides to add a bunch into the death category. But for now, I played enough for the time being. Next time, I plan to at the very least challenge Brycen or hopefully get a considerable chunk of the way through to the eighth Gym. Not entirely sure if I’d be up to face Drayden - since I am playing Pokemon Black, which means no Iris fight. 

But overall for my team, I can’t help but feel extremely proud of them so far. I knew for the later Gyms, Queen would have to practically be benched since Grass does not fare well against Flying, Ice or Dragon Type Pokemon. But she still carries herself well otherside of Gym Battles. Pebbles was definitely a surprise pick who I thought I’d bench her right after Lenora’s Gym. But this girl’s been proving her weight with her massive defenses enough where I want to keep her around. (And I swear if Pebbles dies, I will actually cry. She may not be able to fully evolve but I’ve grown attached to my rock). Zigzagzop was meant to be dropped after Elesa’s Gym, but he’s actually been proving himself with this latest Gym to keep around. I feel like he has a strong friendship with Pebbles considering I got them back to back. (Even with the funny Jaiden Animation reference.) Captain has been… well, I don’t really like his final evolution but having the Water/Ground typing makes him a good enough tank and Water-Type Pokemon to have on the team. Even if Odette is on the team. He might end up being Boxed, but it may just depend how things go. And Odette has already been showcasing why I needed a Flying-Type Pokemon on my team. Even if she is x4 weak to Electric. Even after fully evolving, she’s already showcasing her worth. 

The only dilemma I have will have to be addressed soon. But I really hope even with losing Puppy and Fountain, I won’t have to say goodbye to anyone through a death. I expect to have to switch some out for the upcoming Gyms. Until next time though, which, I do plan to draw what my final team will end up being. And who knows? Maybe I’ll end up finishing the main story of Pokemon Black right on Christmas? Wouldn’t that be a treat? 

Smell ya later!

Team Recap:

Queen - Female Servine (Lvl 35)

Pebbles - Female Boldore (Lvl 36)

Zigzagzop - Male Zebstrika (Lvl 36)

Captain - Male Palpitoad (Lvl 35)

Ramona - Female Darmanitan (Lvl 35)

Odette - Female Swanna (Lvl 35)

In Box/Reserve:

Ghost Girl - Female Liepard (Lvl 20)

Cassandra - Female Sandile (Lvl 21)

Trashie - Female Trubbish (Lvl 22)

Lowen - Male Cottonee (Lvl 20)

Lady - Female Minccino (Lvl 23)

BananSplit - Female Vanillite (Lvl 21)

Voltorb - Male Foongus  (Lvl 23)

Geartown - Klink (Lvl 26)

Snowball - Female Cubchoo (Lv 30)

Gracey - Male Litwick (Lvl 26)

Deaths: 2

Fountain - Male Sampour (Lvl 15)

Puppy - Female Herdier (Lvl 25)

[nickburn]

Things I Enjoyed in 2020 Despite Everything

Seasons Greetings! This year has felt like an eternity for so many reasons, and before it’s over, I’d like to take a look back on the distractions that got me through it. Along the way, I’ll occasionally point out where I was emotionally at the time and whether I got into a particular thing before or after the pandemic hit in mid March. I hope you enjoy this little retrospective of some of my experience during one of the worst years of human history!

Games & Mods

Might & Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

When I was making my 2020 resolutions list late last year, one of my goals was to play more old games in my backlog and not buy many new games this year. That goal largely went on hold, because, well, I sought out enjoyment wherever I could find it instead of forcing myself to play one thing or another. But before Covid, I was really enjoying my new playthrough of M&M6. I’d made attempts at it before, but it was really GrayFace’s mod that made the game click for me. Modern features like quick saves and mouselook make the game much more accessible, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to try an old-school RPG. It’s a great stepping stone into a mostly-dead genre. I’m hoping to get back to it soon. I just jumped ship to simpler ventures like Doom Eternal after the pandemic hit and haven’t looked back since.

Pathologic 2

I learned about the Pathologic series late last year and have since become a little obsessed with it. Hbomberguy’s lengthy video essay on the original game really intrigued me and lead me to trying the sequel/remake in April via Xbox Game Pass. In a weird way, it was cathartic to be a doctor in an even more dire situation than our current one and still see signs of the townsfolk trying to help each other deal with a supernatural plague and little help from their local government. The game helped me express a lot of what I was feeling at the time, when I was still getting used to working from home and wondering just how long this could go on for. I’ve gone back to it recently, and I’m hoping to finish it someday, if I can find a way to stop dying. Above all, Pathologic 2 teaches you how to make choices in no-win scenarios with little information or resources and still persevere, despite the world going to Hell around you. And that’s maybe the most important thing to practice at the moment.

Overwatch

I’ve continued to look forward to weekly Overwatch nights with my friends every Thursday, and it’s really important to have something like that right now. Even if it’s just a new episode of a show airing, a new video from a favorite YouTuber, or a regular Zoom call with coworkers, it helps so much to have something to anticipate from week to week and month to month. Otherwise, it’s really easy to feel like nothing’s going on besides the entropic deterioration of the universe. Overwatch itself helps with this, because it’s such a positive, bright, and optimistic game, as only Blizzard can create. And it’s improved a ton in the past couple of years, in a lot of ways. If you haven’t played in a while, hop in and check out all the new content with your friends; I think you’ll have a great time. It’s looking more and more like Overwatch 2 is right around the corner, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Go

I learned how to play Go after watching a documentary released this year about  AlphaGo, the computer that beat the Go world champion, and I have a huge appreciation for the game now. I think it’s even more beautiful than chess, though even more insidious to learn. If you haven’t played before, start with a 9x9 board, teach yourself the basics, and try playing with another beginner friend. I guarantee you’ll be amazed at the amount of strategy and imagination that a game ostensibly about placing black and white stones on a grid can inspire. Go’s one of several new hobbies I’ve picked up this year, and those new hobbies have really helped me pass the time in a way that feels productive as well as take my mind off whatever depressing news just got blasted across Twitter.

Doom 64

Doom Eternal was fine, but Doom 64′s where my heart lies. The PC port on Steam is great, allowing everyone to easily play the game with mouse and keyboard. Its levels are tight and colorful, often asking the player to backtrack multiple times through the same areas to unlock new ones and take on whatever new twists await down each darkened corridor. It’s a surprisingly fresh experience. Unlike many modern Doom mods that strive to be sprawling marathons, 64′s levels are short but memorable, and the game is a great entry point to the series for newcomers because of that. Retro FPS’s continue to inspire and entertain me, and Doom 64 is one of my new favorites.

Golf With Your Friends

I’m not usually that into party games, but Golf With Your Friends strikes the right balance between casual tone and skill-based gameplay. The maps are vibrant and devious, the different modes are creative and often hilarious, and the pacing is near-perfect. If you’ve got a squad itching to play something together for a few nights, I guarantee you’ll have a lot of laughs trying to knock an opponent off the course or turning them into an acorn just as they’re about to attempt a nasty jump.

Quake 1 Mods

I probably sound like a broken record by now to a lot of you, but I won’t rest until I get more people into retro FPS’s. The outdated graphics and simple gameplay can be off-putting at first, but it doesn’t take long at all to get hooked after you’ve played the likes of excellent mods like Ancient Aliens for Doom 2 or Arcane Dimensions for Quake 1. And it’s only getting better, with this year marking probably the best year for Quake releases ever. The industry even seems to be taking notice again, with many talented mappers getting picked up for highly-anticipated, professional indie projects like Graven and Prodeus. And while the marketing around the retro FPS renaissance as the second coming of “boomer shooters” should be much maligned, the actual craft involved in making mods and brand new games in the genre has never been stronger. I even contributed four levels to the cause this year, but you’ll have to play them yourself to decide if they’re any good: https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/?filtered=burnham.

Streets of Rage 4

I had not tried Steam Remote Play before this year, but it works surprisingly well if you have a decent internet connection. Because of Remote Play, I was able to complete Streets of Rage 4 with my friends, and it was very close to the experiences I had as a kid playing brawlers like Turtles in Time on the Super Nintendo. The game is just hard enough to make you sweat during the boss fights but just easy enough that the average group of gamers can complete it in a night or two, which is ideal for adults with not a lot of free time.

Hard Lads

Hard Lads is a pure delight of a game by Robert Yang about the beauty of a viral video from 2015 called “British lads hit each other with chair,” which is even more ridiculous than it sounds. It made me smile and laugh for a good half hour, and I think it’ll do the same for you.

Commander MtG

The Commander format for Magic: the Gathering is one of my favorite things, and in 2020, I dug into it more than any other year. More so even than playing or watching it being played, I created decklists for hours and hours, dreaming up new, creative strategies for winning games or just surprising my imaginary opponents. I sincerely believe this little ritual of finding a new legendary creature to build around and spending a few days crafting a brew for it got me through the majority of this summer. I didn’t have a lot of creative energy this year, but I was able to channel the little I did have into this hobby. Especially during the longer, more frustrating or depressing days at work when I had nothing else to do or just needed a break, I could often dive back into card databases and lose myself in the process of picking exactly the cards that best expressed what I wanted to do for any given deck. And it’s nice to know I can always fall back on that.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

I played a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! growing up but never had the cards or the skill to be particularly good at it. I just knew I enjoyed the game and the 4Kids show, but I quickly them behind when I got to high school. Fast forward to 2020, and the game and franchise have evolved substantially, not always for the better. But I do find it so intriguing, with a skeptical kind of adoration. It’s not nearly as well-supported as Magic, but what it does have are gigantic anime monsters on tiny cards with enough lines of text to make your head spin. And it’s so interesting to me that a franchise like that can continue to thrive alongside more elegant games like the Pokemon TCG and Hearthstone. And the further I’ve delved into how the game has changed since I stopped playing, the more invested I’ve become, going so far as to start buying cards again and looking into possible decks I might enjoy playing. An unequivocal win for Yu-Gi-Oh! is Speed Duel, which seeks to bring old players back to the game with a watered-down, nostalgia-laden format with fewer mechanics and a much smaller card pool. So if all you want to do is pit a Blue Eyes White Dragon against a Dark Magician, that’s 100% still there for you, but the competitive scene is still alive, well, and astoundingly complicated. And I think that’s kind of beautiful.

Black Mesa

I wasn’t expecting to have the tech to play Half Life: Alyx this year, so Black Mesa seemed like the next best thing. And it really is a love letter to the first game, even if it’s far from perfect. I even prefer the original, but I did very much enjoy my time with this modern reimagining. If you’ve never played a Half Life game before, I think it’s a great place to start.

VR via the Oculus Quest

Around halfway through this year, I started to get really stir crazy and yeah, pretty depressed. It seemed like I’d be stuck in the same boring cycle forever, and I know for a lot of people, it still feels like that. So VR seemed like the perfect escape from this dubious reality where you can’t even take a safe vacation trip anymore. And you know, I think it works really well for that purpose. The Oculus Quest is especially effective, doing away with cords or cables so you have as much freedom as you have free real estate in your home. I don’t have a lot of space in my studio apartment, but I have enough to see the potential of the medium, which is completely worth it. Next gen consoles are neat and all, but I’ve got my heart set on picking up the Quest 2 as soon as possible.

* Beat Saber

I was most looking forward to trying Beat Saber on the Quest, and I was not disappointed. You’d think rhythm games had reached their peak with Rock Band and DDR, but the genre keeps on giving with gems like this. It’s hard to convey if you’ve never tried it, but the game succeeds so well in getting your entire body into the rhythm of whatever song you’re slashing through.

* Half Life: Alyx

Again, I really did not expect to be able to experience this game as intended this year, and I still don’t think I really have. The Oculus Link for the Quest is admittedly a little janky, and my PC barely meets the minimum specs to even run the game. And yet, despite that, Alyx is one of my top three games of 2020 and maybe one of my all-time favorites. Even as I was losing frames and feeling the game struggle to keep up with all the AI Combine soldiers running around, I was still having a blast. For me, it is one of the best reasons to seek out and own VR and a pinnacle of game design in its own right.

Hades

For me, Hades has mostly been similar to every other Supergiant Game that I’ve played: fun and well-polished but ultimately not engaging enough to play for very long. And there’s always this sheen of trying to be too clever with their dialogue, narration, and music that rubs me the wrong way. But Hades is certainly their best game, and I can’t deny the effect it’s had on people, much like Bastion’s reception back in 2011. And I’m really hoping Hades gets more people into roguelikes, as a more accessible and story-driven approach to the genre. Timing-wise, I wish it hadn’t come out around the same time as Spelunky, because I think it did make some people choose one over the other, when the best choice is to play both and realize they’re going for very different experiences. The precise, unforgiving, arcade-like style of Spelunky isn’t fun for everyone, though, and Hades is thankfully there to fill in that gap. I’m really glad I found more time to play it this year at least to succeed on one escape attempt; it’s a fun game to think about in a game design context. And I do think the game has a lot of merit and is doing some clever things with difficulty that the studio likely could not have honed nearly so well without the help of Early Access. The most impressive part of the game to me is not the story or the music or the combat but the massive amount of contextual dialogue they somehow found time to program, write, and record at a consistently high level. All of this is just to say, Hades is obviously one of the best games of the year, and you should play it if you have any interest in it at all.

Spelunky 2

I’ve spoken a lot about this game on Twitter, so I’m not going to rehash much of that here. For me, it’s been a journey of over 1,000 attempts to learn the intricacies and secrets of a deep and demanding game that’s been as frustrating as it’s been rewarding. But it remains a constant source of learning and discovery as well as mastery and pride for me, and I still have hopes of reaching the Cosmic Ocean and getting all the trophies someday. It’s been a joy to watch other Spelunky players too, even as some fair worse than me and others fair far better. And the Daily challenge keeps me coming back, because seeing my name high up on the leaderboard just makes me feel so damn good (or at least I’ll get a good laugh out of a hilarious death). At its heart, Spelunky is a community endeavor, and I think it succeeds at that better than almost any other game this side of Dark Souls. I think it is my Game of the Year or at least tied with Alyx, I really can’t decide. If you don’t think you’d enjoy it, all I’ll say is, the frustration and difficulty are integral to the experience of discovery and surprise, and your brain is better at video games than you think.

Chess

Okay, yes, I watched and enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit, but I think 2020 had already primed people to get into chess this year regardless. Like Yu-Gi-Oh!, chess was a childhood pastime of mine that I really enjoyed and then quickly left behind as I discovered things like music and the internet. If I had to assign a theme to my 2020, it would be rediscovering old hobbies to remind myself how good life actually is. And now I’m more committed to chess than I ever was before. I’m watching international masters and grand masters on YouTube (as well as the incomparable Northernlion), I’m playing regularly on Chess.com, and I’m even paying for lessons and probably my own theory books soon. Like most fighting games, chess is a complicated form of dueling a single opponent with zero randomness, so mistakes are always on you. And modern chess platforms offer extremely good analysis tools, showing you exactly how, when, and why you screwed up so you can do better next time. Like Hearthstone, it’s a quick, addicting, tense, and rewarding way to train your brain and have fun. And it seems more popular now than ever, in part due to a certain Netflix original TV show...

TV

The Queen’s Gambit

I think a lot of people want to be Beth Harmon, even if they know they shouldn’t. It must feel so good to be the best at something and know you’re the best, even while under the influence of certain substances. It’s what makes characters like Dr. Gregory House so fun to watch, though you’d never want to work with the guy. For me, anyway, I always wanted to be a prodigy at something, and what little success I’ve had made The Queen’s Gambit very relatable to me. More so, it’s easy to relate to growing up in a conservative environment with few real friends and fewer outlets of expression, only to realize you’ve finally found your thing, and that no one can take it from you. That’s mostly what I’m going to take from The Queen’s Gambit anyway, more than chess or the Cold War commentary or the problematic relationships Beth has with her cadre of rivals/boyfriends. The show gets a strong recommendation from me for fans of chess as well as lovers of optimistic coming-of-age stories.

March Comes in Like a Lion

Similarly, March Comes in Like a Lion features a protagonist who is scarily close to a version of myself from like eight years ago. My best friend has been urging me to watch this show for years, and I’m still only a few episodes in. But I love how it portrays a young person who’s moved to a big city away from home for the first time, with nothing more than some meager possessions and the hopes of becoming the best in the world at something. And Rei is not confident in himself or outgoing at all, he’s extremely depressed despite pursuing his dreams and trying to distance himself from his somewhat toxic family. It’s a great reminder that the smallest kindnesses can often change our entire perspective on the world, and that even the people that seem the most well-equipped to handle life often still need help. I’ve been very fortunate to have people like that despite mistakes I’ve made, and I hope to be that person for others too.

Umbrella Academy

I’m pretty burnt out on superheroes, but UA put a good enough spin on them that they felt brand new. The show is rough in places, but it’s surprising in some really clever ways. And the comics are some of the wildest stories I’ve ever read, like Hitchhiker’s Guide meets Watchmen.

HunterXHunter

I binged about 100 of the 148 episodes of HxH this year, which I recognize is not a significant number in the wider world of long-running shounen anime, but it’s quite an undertaking for me to finish a show of this length. The series goes places I never expected and made me care so strongly for characters I thought I’d hate at first. It’s the smartest and most endearing show about a band of misfits going on crazy adventures and punching people for the good of the world that you’re likely to find.

Hannibal

This is the rare show that’s simultaneously comforting and nightmare-inducing if watched for extended periods. I can remember nights after binging a few episodes where I couldn’t get many of the disturbing images out of my head. Fair to say, Hannibal is not for the faint of heart, nor is it without some low points. But for those who enjoy gory thrillers or gritty detective dramas, it’s a must-watch. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! Original Series, English Sub

You can probably imagine my surprise as I discovered this year that the Japanese version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is not only much better than the 4Kids version we got in the States, but it’s actually a decent show. The plot makes much more sense, it’s more interesting, the stakes are higher, the voices are better, and overall it’s just more enjoyable to watch. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it long enough to finish it this time, but this is definitely the way I’d do it and would recommend to others.

Fargo Season 4

It’s a miracle we even got another season of Fargo this year, let alone on time and of the same high quality as the first two seasons. It has a great setting, cast, and conflict. I love Chris Rock, and it was so cool to see him act so well in such a serious role. There’s a Wizard of Oz homage episode that is nearly flawless. And the post-credits scene at the end of the season is just the cherry on top. If you haven’t checked out Fargo by now, you are really missing out on some of the most interesting stuff happening in TV. I can’t wait to see what Noah Hawley does with the Alien franchise.

Movies

Cats

I had to include this one because it was the last full movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic hit. I technically went to Sonic too, but my friends and I walked out after about 30 minutes. The less said about that movie, the better. Cats, though, is a strange and curious beast (pun intended), adapting an already unruly animal (pun intended) to the big screen and yowling to be recognized (pun intended). But for every awkward or embarrassing scene, there’s one of pure joy and magic, like the extended ballet sequence or Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat. The film knows exactly what it is and leans into it hard, like a familiar yet slightly insane feline begging to be stroked, which I imagine is exactly what fans of the musical wanted.

Children of Men

There’s not much I can say about this film that probably hasn’t been said better elsewhere. I was intrigued to watch it when I learned it was one of my friend’s favorite movies. And I have to say, it’s really profound in a prescient way. Clive Owen gives one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. You should watch it, but only when you feel like taking a severe hit to the feels.

Basic Instinct

Vertigo is probably still my favorite film, so when I learned this year that Paul Verhoeven made a bloody, sex romp homage film to it in the 90s with Michael Douglas starring, I simply had to watch it. And you know, it’s not bad. It’s nowhere near as good as Vertigo, and you can see the ending coming a mile away. But what it does have is the immaculate Sharon Stone, who you cannot take your eyes off for the entire movie. And the movie knows it, making her look as alluring and suggestive as her character is to the detective investigating her. You could do worse than to watch it, just don’t expect any of Hitchcock’s subtlety or looming dread to seep into the final product.

Books

Dune

I finally finished Dune this year, and I can genuinely say it lives up to the hype. It’s not the easiest book to get through, but it’s by no means one of the most difficult either. I’m still bummed that the new film was delayed, but it might give me time to read the rest of the original book series.

The Fifth Season

Another fantastic piece of fiction, I cannot recommend this book enough. N.K. Jemisin is one of the best living authors of our time. If you want an original setting with a brilliant magic system and complex, compelling characters, look no further.

Video Content

Northernlion

I’ve been a fan of NL for years, though I’ve never been that into The Binding of Isaac. He just has a charismatic intelligence to him that sets him apart from most “Let’s Play” YouTubers to me, and he’s very funny to boot. I guess I’d say he seems a lot like me or the person I could picture myself being if I were a professional video content creator. So I was really excited for NL’s series of Spelunky 2 videos, and I still watch them every day, months later. And now he’s teaching me how to get better at chess, being a good 600 ELO higher than myself at the moment. His sarcastic and improv-laden banter have withstood the test of years and gave me some much-needed comfort and laughter in 2020. Somehow, the man even found a way to keep up his prolific output this year while raising his firstborn child. There are those who said it couldn’t be done...

The Command Zone - Game Knights

Josh Lee Kwai and the rest of the crew at The Command Zone continue to put out some of the most well-produced tabletop gameplay videos on the internet. It’s perhaps no surprise, seeing as how Lee Kwai created trailers for such blockbuster films as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and Jimmy Wong had a supporting role in the live action remake of Disney’s Mulan. But the crew around the two hosts are just as important and talented, and it’s clear that they all share the same singular vision for the channel’s future. They’ve carefully crafted a team of expert editors, animators, cosplayers, and voice actors to deliver one delightful video after the next at a consistently high level. If you’re into Magic: the Gathering at all, you simply need to watch Game Knights.

Cimoooooooo

I found Alex Cimo’s channel shortly after the algorithm learned I was interested in Yu-Gi-Oh! again, and at first, I was less than impressed with him. But it’s clear to me now that he not only loves what he does, he’s an expert Yu-Gi-Oh! player and analyst. Plus, he’s very good at explaining some of the more complex concepts in the game in a way that newcomers can understand. I’ve watched every new episode of The Progression Series and The History of Yu-Gi-Oh! so far, and they’re the best way I’ve found to learn how the game developed and changed over the last 20 years.

Team APS

This is another great Yu-Gi-Oh! channel, focusing more on skits, gimmick videos, and casual games rather than analytical or theoretical content. Mostly, they seem like a really great group of friends that just have a blast playing Yu-Gi-Oh! together, and their love for the game makes me want to play more too.

Tolarian Community College

Somehow, a community college English professor’s channel went from a quirky little deckbox review platform to the most popular Magic: the Gathering channel on YouTube in only a few years. But it’s easy to see why when Brian clearly loves what he’s doing more than most people ever will. He’s not only a fantastic reviewer and MtG scholar, he’s one of the most outspoken voices for positive change in the community and the game. Is he too hard on the Magic team at Wizards of the Coast? Perhaps, but without his measured and well-reasoned takes on all things Magic, I think we’d be much worse off.

IRL

Cooking

Even I get tired of eating the same things every day, so I’ve taken it upon myself to learn how to make more dishes, mostly out of sheer boredom. And I know I’m not alone in that, but I have to say it’s been a rewarding and fun adventure. It’s really surprising what you can throw together with a decent recipe and a little creativity in a modest kitchen when you decide to break away from the microwave for once.

Chinchillin’

Like many people, I felt that I needed a pet to survive this year, and I’ve always wanted a chinchilla. So I took a risk and bought one from a seller on KSL a few months ago, and my life has definitely changed for the better. No longer simply alone with my thoughts all day, I have a furry little companion to commune and bond with. And it’s more difficult to find time to feel sorry for myself when a basically helpless tiny creature depends on me for almost everything. Not to say it’s been a perfect experience however, people don’t say chins are difficult to care for for nothing. And I have learned more about them than perhaps I ever cared to know before, but that’s only made them more interesting to me as a result. Overall, I would recommend them as pets, just be prepared to give them a lot more time and attention than you would to say, a fish or a hamster. I’ve seen the commitment compared to that of a large dog, and I think that’s fair, though chins seem far more difficult to train and are far less cuddly. Basically, imagine a fluffy, super fast squirrel that can jump half your height, shed its fur at will if grabbed too tightly, that sleeps all day and bathes in dust, and that cannot get wet or too hot or eat 99% of human foods without serious complications. And they get lonely, and they all have their own surprisingly distinct personalities, some shy and mischievous, others bright and social, and everything in between. But I’m glad to be part of my little buddy’s life and hope to make it a long and enjoyable one for him. Part of why I wanted a chinchilla so badly is they typically live between 10-20 years, much longer than the average rodent or even many cats and dogs. And they’re sadly endangered in the wild, poached for their incredibly soft fur, which is why I believe it’s critical that we care for and learn more about them now. And above all, I adore my chinchilla’s antics, even when he continually tries to dig up and eat the paper bedding below his cage when I’ve provided perfectly edible hay and pellets for him in much easier to reach locations.

And that’s all, folks...

If you’ve read this far, know that I really appreciate it and hope you learned something new about yourself, art, or the world. And please do let me know what’s kept you going the most this year too, as I suspect I’ll still be searching for new distractions next year, even after I’m able to get a Covid vaccine injection. As Red Green would say, we’re all in this together, and I’m pullin’ for ya. <3

[turqrambles]

Digimon World - Midgame - Some Assorted Thoughts

At the time of writing this post, I’m sitting at around 31 Prosperity for the first Digimon World game for the PS1, which I could consider pretty mid-game for this type of game, so I just want to write down what I think about this little adventure.

For the record, I am talking about the original Playstation version of the game. The one with the T-rating (which feels way too high for this game since there’s no swear words and the battle damage is fantasy-level at best - is it because of all the poop in this game?) and the one with the CGI Metalgreymon on the cover for the NTSC versions of the game.

I’m playing this game on a physical copy that somehow survived like five moves on my PS3, just for reference. 

(Yes that’s that actual price I paid for it. That was a big price for little kid me.)

The Past Trials of My Schoolchild Self

First thing’s first - as a kid, I actually did not like this game very much!

For starters, I didn’t get very far in the game. My Digimon would keep pooping all over the place for one since I don’t think I fully understood the timing of this mechanic. I stopped playing the game when my Airdramon was one poop away from turning into a Sukamon and I found myself unable to stop it because I saved right before my Airdramon would make the final poop, thus trapping me in an unwinnable game loop. If I turned the game back on, I could only watch as my beautiful flying feathered snake transformed into a poop with eyeballs as I was powerless to stop it.

My Digimon had to suffer for my mistakes.

But besides that, I just found the game far too cryptic to figure out just what was going on, and my Digimon would never turn into anything cool. My Airdramon really was the coolest thing my Digimon ever evolved into, so the yellow turd Digimon really was like salt on a wound.

But, to add insult to injury, one time I hatched a baby Botamon and talked to the old man, only to have this giant dinosaur run up to me and blast the literal infant into smithereens.

Greymon is a dick.

What I remember from kid me’s file of this game - I finished the Drill Tunnel, I got to the dinosaur world one time, and I’m pretty sure I entered Myotismon’s mansion one time because out of sheer luck, my Agumon digivolved into a Bakemon one time.

I know what I didn’t do - I never recruited any of the shopkeeper Digimon so I was doing an itemless run as a kid. A big mistake, considering how important items are in this game!

A Brutal Beginning

Playing this game in 2020 when I’m an adult and have a better concept in how these types of games work is making this playthrough a lot easier for me, but don’t be fooled. This game is still pretty difficult.

I’m going to be real. One of the main turn offs for this game for a lot of players, especially little kids in the year 2000 with dial-up internet and no strategy guide like myself, is that this is one of those games where the beginning starts out slow. Real slow.

Sure, most great RPGs give you a real sense of power and accomplishment once you figure out the mechanics and get stronger as you progress through the game, but in this game, you have less options at the start because, as it turns out, the shopkeepers, the superior meat farmers, the air taxi service, and all those fun little options typically available to you in other RPGs have all turned feral as a result of A Bad Thing That Happened on File Island and it’s up to you and your plucky partner Digimon to explore the wilds and beat them up one by one until they gain a little humanity (...digitanity) and expand the town. 

While it is really cool to see the town expand through the course of the game - buildings are built and lights are gradually installed - but man, the fact that you go for a long time without having a shop if you don’t know what to do kinda sucks. A lot. I kept thinking to myself about how Pokemon is a lot more generous with the item drops and, while the shop inventories at Viridian City and Pewter City aren’t great, they’re there from the beginning.

Note: To get this guy, you have to chase a rumor from a Baby Digimon that there’s a fish that shows up after a certain time on a certain map. Then you have to progress through the jungle enough that you find the one Betamon that isn’t an enemy. There. Now the shop’s open. What, are you saying that’s super convoluted? Why yes it is. Welcome to Digimon World.

Not only that, but this game’s biggest flaw comes from one tiny feature it omits from the game - Digimon World doesn’t have a world map.

See this artwork? This is the most you’re ever going to get.

You know how a lot of RPGs - your Pokemon, your Final Fantasy, etc etc - have a world map that’s easy to access from the start menu? Yeah, this game doesn’t have that. It instead prints a rather rudimentary map in both the instruction manual and on the design of the actual disc. You know what that means? You’re SOL if you ever bought this game used.

I didn’t of course, but physically cracking open my disc case just to be like “ah okay I need to go north” was more annoying than anything. Maybe if the instruction manual came with an actual physical map you can unfold would’ve been better?

The Starter Dilemma

Like most monster collecting games, you have a choice of starters at the beginning of the game. Depending on how you answer the questions at the beginning of the game (all two of them, with only one of them truly mattering), you can start with either an Agumon or a Gabumon. Cool, right?

Well, it starts the fall apart the moment you fight the first boss in the game - a wild Agumon with weaker stats than your partner. And that’s when you realize that one of the starters starts out with a major battle disadvantage at the very start.

Agumon’s starting move is a little ranged attack that it can shoot at enemies. It can hit the enemy from pretty far away so he can evade a lot of close up attacks.

Gabumon’s starting move is an ineffective little flailing of his arms that requires him to get up super close to the other Digimon in order to hit them.

Did I mention this attack is weaker than Agumon’s starting move? This type of starter set-up is utterly baffling to me. Why would you intentionally hobble one of the choices?

So if you were a kid hoping to go on a grand adventure with your happy little dog lizard (instead of doing what a lot of people recommend, which is train your dog lizard for several in-game days until he evolves into something better) expect to see a lot of battles where the enemy Digimon just casually moves out of the way as your dog lizard yells “PWAH”.

Luckily this problem ceases to exist once you start digivolving and learning new techniques, but it’s still a major bummer to start the game on.

On top of that, unlike Pokemon, your Digimon can die. It can only faint three times in battle before he crumbles into a pile of bits and data in a rather brutal cutscene involving the flesh being ripped off your partner’s wire frame while the old man Digimon just kinda glumly stands off to the side and is like “lol he ded”.

So uh, have fun with that, children who accidentally run into a boss Digimon while trying to figure out where the hell anything is.

Sometimes Being Cryptic Is Good

That being said, in an age where I can just peek at my phone if I’m stuck, this game is kinda refreshing in a “playing your first Pokemon game” kind of way.

With no in-game maps and only vague hints of what to do next purely by talking to the villagers, you’re just kinda...left to your own digivices (see what I did there) as you explore this vast, uncharted world and slowly figure out what you’re supposed to do next and, since the world is arranged in a circle around the town, you can go in multiple directions and progress in any way you want.

There’s no set progression, with the story advancing based on how many Digimon you befriend rather than what places you’ve beaten. There’s no pressing incentive to go beyond the Native Forest if you don’t feel ready for that yet. Sure, the town won’t expand if you don’t, but you can still go at things at your own pace until you get a better feel for the environment. You’re just left to experiment as you gradually figure out how to make your Digimon evolve into cooler things.

And honestly, it’s kinda fun playing a game where I don’t know the exact numbers off the top of my head in terms of how to get a certain Digimon so a lot of times I’m genuinely surprised at the evolutions I get.

You just, you know, need a lot of patience. Especially when this game’s English translation is...not great. (which is common with a lot of PS1 games)

The land changed after the land changes happened.

Current Consensus

You need a bit of patience to play this game, but it’s definitely rewarding if you stick by it. I’m certainly having fun playing this game, but I will say out loud that I’m also playing this game while watching a couple let’s plays and having GameFAQs open.

I will say that, as an adult, I actually find myself appreciate this game more than when I did as a child.  It has its flaws, but after a pretty intense learning curve, it becomes pretty rewarding. You know, when it’s not requiring me to fish The Lake Guardian at 9 am with a piece of meat attached to my fishing rod in order to improve my gym.

I give it a “It’s Fun When It’s Not Being Bullshit” out of 10.

Quick Bullet Points

This game has some bangers in the soundtrack so at least it’s pleasant to listen to.

I do like that you can evade the enemy Digimon on screen so you can reasonably enter some places with a lower leveled Digimon than what that area requires. This is just not advisable since most of the Digimon are befriended with a boss fight. That being said, item management is a big thing in this game so enemy dodging is still a useful trait.

You can buy portapotties to keep your Digimon from shitting on the ground but since your Digimon has only one use animation, it uses it by eating it.

 Cherrymon has a radically different design in this game than any other piece of Digimon media and it’s kinda funny how creepy he looks in this game.

The Monochromon Shop minigame earned the reputation that it has - it truly does suck ass and leave you at the mercy of RNG.

It’s been proven by hacking the game that the Bonus Try in the Gym exercises is rigged so never use it.

I like how this game creates recolors to make sure you can tell the difference between the recruitable Digimon and the Digimon that are just meant to be fought against....only for the series to then make these recolors recruitable, defeating their original purpose. I guess I should be glad they’re all considered proper Digimon now.

Poop is an element. You can have creatures of the Poop type.

No seriously Monochromon’s Shop minigame has given me a hatred for Veggiemon and I don’t think I can ever recover.

[jaybug-jabbers]

Bug Run 4: Final Comments & Movesets

(Apologies for Cleo barely being in frame there, I had to take screencaps crazy-fast)

This fourth bug run was interesting in a number of ways. For starters, I lacked a lot of moves I was used to getting extra help from on these types of runs. I didn’t have any Sleep Powers or paralyzing moves, I didn’t have any confusion-causing moves; no accuracy-dropping moves save for a quick, dirty affair with Double Team; I didn’t have Swords Dance or other buffing moves, and I had very few stats-dropping moves (Scary Face and Screech, the exceptions, were often essential).What’s more, many of the movepools of my pokemon were incredibly shallow when it came to coverage moves.

In addition to all of that, half of my team was Bug/Flying. This is not so surprising; Bug/Flying is an incredibly common combination. Still, it certainly adds to the difficulty. As a result of all of this, I sometimes had to be very creative with the limited options I had available to me.

However, this run was also surprising to me. In particular, bugs I had underestimated in the past really managed to impress me again and again.

Mothim: Air Slash/Psychic/Bug Buzz/Hidden Power Ground - Razor Claw

Mothim, which I had always assumed had terribly pitiful performance when compared to his fellow butterflies and moths of other gens, actually performed pretty damn admirably. Sparkler often somehow survived hits I assumed would slaughter him, and he actually packed quite a punch with his attacks. In addition, his movepool, while not the biggest in the world, actually was really generous when compared to the rest of my team for most of the run. Being an early-game bug, he tended to earn the high-basepower moves sooner then the others, and so he often was a huge help; the fact he was blessed with Hidden Power ground also was an enormous boon in this run. For a very, very long time, he was my only defender against the ground and rock type pokemon with his HP ground, a very bizarre situation but one that worked out for us. His Psychic also helped out against the extremely, extremely common Zubat line endlessly. He more then pulled his weight on the team; he was essential for me.

Wormadam: Iron Head/Psychic/Protect/Stealth Rock - Shell Bell

Mothim’s counterpart, Wormadam, was another bug type that never interested me much before. And while Fiberglass’ attack was never hitting particularly hard, as a defensive poke, she was my rock. She formed an essential part of my defense core in a team that consisted mostly of attackers and pokemon with low defenses, and allowed me to grit and stall things out when stall was what I needed. While I may not be able to reccomend using Wormadam in all settings, in this particular setting, she filled her role on the team admirably.

Vespiquen: Attack Order/Heal Order/Toxic/Power Gem - Quick Claw

Cleopatra had an interesting journey in this game. When she joined the team, at the time she was the strongest teammember. For a while, her power in both attack and in defensive bulk made her the ace of my team. She felt a lot like the mother bee watching over the rest of the team, somebody to run to when I was in deep shit so she could take care of things. Gradually, over time, her status as the ace faded. Eventually, the other pokemon she had watched over began to even outpace her; Mothim often was fast enough and hit hard enough– and had the coverage– to take care of foes that would otherwise fell Cleo, and the same could be said of the others. Cleo was slow, was the thing; terribly slow, and at times, that worked heavily against her. She still retained a vital role on the team, though, even in the late game, and despite her extremely shallow coverage moves. She held my Toxic and she had excellent recovery and very good bulk. Toxic stall was simply a vital tactic on my team that often had limited options available to them. Many foes I didn’t have super-effective moves for just wouldn’t go down any other way.

Yanmega: Air Slash/Ancient Power/Giga Drain/Hyper Beam - Wise Glasses

ROFLCOPTER sat in an often very frustrating position on my team. There is something deeply cruel about the movepool that Gamefreak gave Yanmega when they first introduced it. It does not get proper special attacks until extremely late into its life. The poor bug had to limp by with some truly shitty attacks for most of his time, never reaching his true potential until very late on. Once properly used, though, ROFL’s speed and special attack are practically unparalleled for bugs. His speed was my saving grace when squaring off against the tougher teams that had pokes in very high tiers. He is, of course, a glass cannon, but without that glass cannon, I would not have been able to punch through a number of the scarier obstacles.

Drapion: Poison Jab/Rock Slide/Earthquake/Scary Face - Soft Sand

Black Fang started out as an almost purely support pokemon. With Scary Face and Toxic Spikes and a very late-level evolution, he was the last unevolved poke on my team for a while, and just wasn’t hitting hard enough to score kills on his own at first. Despite that fact, he often played an important team role anyway. I had played without a speed-dropping move for most of the game. His Scary Face was insanely helpful. Getting off toxic damage was just a wonderful added bonus. Of course, once Fang picked up some proper attacking moves and I got access to some TMs, his utility increased dramatically. He could learn vital coverage moves nobody else could, filling in some very major gaps in my ability to hit things. Dig and then, eventually, Earthquake were essential. Rock Slide was also very important  to hit Flying types, though I did already have a few special rock moves with my other pokes. And when Fang finally evolved, of course it helped that he lost his bug typing and offered a slightly wider range of defensive possibilities on my mono-team. I won’t lie about that. He did a lot of work late-game, and carried a lot of weight. Would we have managed without him, and with somebody else on the team? No way of knowing for certain, but I like to think yes. I don’t think his usefulness meant we were utterly dependent upon him late-game; we would have found a way. Still, it was fun having him around– even if I never really could get used to his strange design.

Kricketune: X-Scissor/Natural Gift/Brick Break/Screech - Black Belt

Then there is Maestro.

I am so damn proud of my Kricketune. I remember when I first played Diamond/Pearl and ran across Kricketot and was so happy, but once I tried him out I was disappointed. Ever since then, I learned what a huge reputation the line had for being weak. As my starter, I didn’t hold out very high hopes of him accomplishing too much.

And yet, somehow, he accomplished so much. There came a point around mid-game when I assumed his usefulness had reached the point of diminished returns, and he would rapidly become the deadweight on the team used as death fodder and nothing more. It saddened me, but I thought it inevitable. But it was not. He kept going and kept surprising me. Screech became a crucial asset. When I taught him Brick Break, it opened so many doors for him. He often ended up felling foes I never would have dreamed he could. Far from deadweight, he was an important teammember who took care of us.

He even defeated Cynthia’s ace. While the rematch had Cleo win with tox-stall, if she had full restored, I still would have used Kricketune to deliver the finishing blow again. Because the strange fact of the matter was– Kricketune had the highest base Attack of my entire team. His speed was middling and his defenses were pretty squishy, but he actually could pack a punch. And when the chips were down, he was there for me.

If there’s anything this run has taught me, it’s not to underestimate the dele-dele-whoop.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Dec 14, 2018.

[crystalmaeson]

Official Readme by Maeson

Pokemon Crystal Maeson - Public Version 1.0 - Internal Version 15.0.3

IT IS RECOMMENDED TO READ THIS WITH NOTEPAD++, BUT YOU DO YOU.

o--------o |Sections| o--------o

[1]  Installation [2]  Introduction [3]  General List of Changes [4]  Patch Differences [5]  Pokémon Changes [6]  Type Changes [7]  Move Changes [8]  Stat Experience, Vitamins and Fruits [9]  Mechanic & Gameplay Changes [10] New Kurt Balls, new ways to obtain Apricorns [11] The New and Improved Battle Tower and Trainer House [12] Visual Changes [13] Credits

o-----------------o |[1]  Installation| o-----------------o

Patching a game is usually a very easy process, specially with IPS Patches.

There's a variety of programs that work with IPS files, but the most famous one is named Lunar IPS, also called LIPS.

This hack is to be patched on a Pokémon Crystal 1.1 ROM file.

More specifically, this rom: Pokemon - Crystal Version (UE) (V1.1) [C][!].gbc CRC-32 : 3358E30A

You open your patcher, and then point to it to the IPS patch and the original, unmodded ROM. It will apply it and inform you when it's finished, it should be quick.

Now, there's two versions of this hack, and each one has also two varieties.

CHOOSE ONLY ONE. To know which version you want, check the details at the not-surprisingly-named "Patch Differences" section.

And yes, the patch weights almost 75% of the original game.

o-----------------o |[2]  Introduction| o-----------------o

Hola, welcome to another ridiculously long readme of mine.

I go by the name Maeson and I made other hacks for a handful of other RPGs. For the most part what I usually aim for with these hacks is to create a different experience, tweaking what I can to give games that I've played time and time again a gameplay facelift to keep them fresh for me, sometimes also trying to improve aspects of a game that I think could make it more fun, varied, better paced or just more challenging after many playthroughs and knowing stuff by hand.

These hacks are made for me in first place, so they're shaped in a very personal manner and of course through my own tastes and ideas, but it should goewithout saying, I hope.

But anyway... What can I say about Pokémon?

My feelings toward the main series of Pokémon have changed a lot since its inception. Just like millions of other fans of video games, I lived the Pokémon craze back in the day, and I grew playing most of those games. I was there without fail up until the fifth Generation, then I started to get tired of the series gradually, and I sort of stop caring with time.

Thing is, I really didn't stop liking the Pokémon themselves, and I still enjoy spin-offs like the Trading Card Games or Mystery Dungeon games, and some like Pokémon Conquest and Pokken are quite cool crossovers, so there's still some appeal to me, even if it's waning with each day.

And hey, then you get things like Pokémon Snap, which it's one unique and very memorable game, one of the very, very few games about photography. it's a really chill, fun time overall.

...What it does not appeal to me all that much since a long time, though, is Game Freak and The Pokémon Company. The choices and "philosofies" they've been doing and following for several years now have been some of the most frustrating ones I've seen besides Square Enix, and their interviews equally leave some wonderfully baffling pearls of "wisdom".

They've done a remarkable job at making me wanting to distance myself more and more throughout this last decade, to the point that I lost pretty much all my appreciation for the franchise.

And it's not just with the main games, their choice of pushing aside console spin-offs for more and more mobile based Games As A Service (that usually failed and died quickly) also left us without many interesting games that could at least keep us somewhat happy.

And the less we talk about the lies, misinformation and the worrying use of younger audiences as a shield to deflect criticism from their business decisions, the better.

I... Just can't support or stand that anymore. I feel drained.

And I would have been completely away from this franchise, barring some old games, if not for one day finding that a collective of people were working on disassembly projects of older games.

I found them to be really interesting, and my mind kinda played with the idea of having a version of one of those old games with changes that I've been wanting and waiting to happen for many years. Who knows, I could even *attempt* to improve what was already there and even add more stuff to it.

Checking the available games with disassembly, I chose Pokémon Crystal, as it seemed the most complete and evolved project of all, in combination with also being one of the longer games thanks to the large post-game it originally had, plus being an earlier Generation game also gave me more room to do changes and improvements.

So little by little, with no idea of assembly, I kept hitting walls and messing around for a time, and what you downloaded is the result of spending the free time I had working in it... For quite some time. In fact it has been over 2 years of constant work, this started in 2018.

The aim of this hack is simple:

Create a new "balance", make the game more challenging, and iron out stuff I find could be improved, or I have the ability and knowledge to do while I add more value to certain aspects of the game. Make a version of Pokémon that I'd like to replay and have every monster be a fun addition to the team and a foe I just can't roll over with little to no thought, so I want to try all of them.

If you were expecting a new story, or a new region, or whatever pipe dream that most probably would end up incompleted and not stable, sorry to disappoint, but you won't find it here.

And no, I don't really care if this hack doesn't have an "epic" name. There's so many other more important things to care than that...

o----------------------------o |[3]  General List of Changes| o----------------------------o

Here you have a quick list with some of the biggest changes all around, but there are sections for most of them to talk more in detail.

· Attempt to reach a new balance. This has been said above, but what   it actually means is that elements as Types, Moves, Pokémon Stats and   such have been changed deeply to move away from the conventions of the   original games, making many species feel entirely different gameplay-wise.

  Among other things, this means no more disappointing creatures with bad   typing and many weaknesses, or low Base Stats filler. It also means parity   between the Types, with each one having the same number of Weaknesses and   Resistances. The intent is for every Fully Evolved Pokémon to feel useful   or, at the very, very least, usable in a way where you don't feel handicapping   yourself to the point you ask yourself if it is even worth doing it.

· Moves and TMS have been changed a lot in order to accomodate the Physical & Special Split,   each Type now has both Physical and Special moves of different Power tiers.

  Many old attacks have been removed and many others have been added. What moves each   evolutionary line learns also has been changed, in order to make all Pokémon have   decent movesets depending on what their archtype is.

· DVs (IVs on later generations) No longer matter on Stat Calculations. This means that   every member of the same species will have the same potential. This also means you can   have female Pokémon with good Attack, and Shiny Pokémon with good stats, what a novel concept.

  This way any monster you come across will be equal, so you can focus on having   fun, while still having to care of it by training, feeding him vitamins and fruits,   choosing the best moves for it in a given situation, making a balanced team, and   you know, the actual RPG bits instead of the RNG ones.

  If you liked the eugenics experiment experience the original games give you,   sorry but that's not here. I apologize for nothing.

· Trainers changed all around. Better AI than in the original game, more varied teams,     their Pokémon have Stat Exp, meaning that the further you go, the better trained their   Pokémon are, and better trained your own monsters should be. I also removed several   limitations imposed on NPC trainers to make them factually inferior to you. This is   made trying to make the game more challenging instead of the usual cake-walk.

  There's no ridiculous stuff like giving Hyper Beam to everything or illegal moves   for NPC trainer's Pokémon (although bear in mind, many Pokémon have changed types,   and many have changed movesets so their moves are the new "legal" moves, but   again, nothing impossible for you to have or to add fake difficulty).

  If you're asking yourself this, no, in this hack NPCs do not change Pokémon constantly,   that tends to drag the game too much. They still do it occasionally, but not at every   time Type matchups that go against them.

· Quite a few changes related to Items, from how strong some Healing Items are, to changing   Kurt Balls, changing the effect (or power of the effect) on several Held Items, new   types of berries, and others.

  Healing items are no longer useable in battle, neither for you or the NPC Trainers.   Battles must be won only with your Pokémon, their held items, and strategy.

  ...Or well, over-levelling through mind-numbing grinding.   We can't exactly get rid of that.

· Added a whole LOT of improvements here and there to make the game flow, feel and   play better.

  Things like changing how Item Storage works to have more space overall, much faster   egg hatching speeds, making every monster available in this hack, having the Pokédex   show you a bit of meaningful game information, as now it shows a species Base Stats   and also the Shiny variations, make saving a faster process, making TMs infinite   (but not abusable), improving the scrolling while moving around making the game   feel and look much better, large improvements on the Battle Tower, expanding the   Trainer House to be more interesting end-game stuff, adding Rematches, making   PokeGear rematches better, a way to change PC Boxes remotely, move tutors and   quite a few others.

There's many things more, but that's what the individual sections are for.

o-----------------------o |[4]  Patch Differences | o-----------------------o

Now, there are four patches, so let's explain this quickly.

First, we have the Original versions, and the Alternative versions, these last ones offer a tweaked experience in case you want to play this hack again with some differences.

In which ways it is different?

Well, the Starters have been swapped, so when you begin a new game, you get to choose between Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle.

MUCH bigger difference, though, is that all the Gym trainers, the Leaders, other important NPCS and the Elite Four no longer have their teams limited to following the thematic "Type" standards.

Other trainers such as the Rival also have different teams, (and like the original patch, he develops a different team depending on the starter they steal).

Without that restriction each of those trainers have way more varied teams, making the game less predicable because you can no longer coast on the Type disadvantages most of the Pokémon of a Gym Leader share.

This of course changes how you make your teams. You no longer "have" to bring "this or that Type" because later on the road there's a Gym weak to it. It's more about making a team that you feel it can withstand anything it may come.

The order of certain Ingame Trades have also been changed.

There's other smaller changes to make the bigger ones sit well, such as small text edits or change the order of the Pokédex.

But Original and Alternative are divided in two too, one that I'll call "Intended Versions" and the other two are "Items in Battle" variations.

The "Intended Versions" disables healing Items in battle and it forces Set options, meaning you don't get free switches after knocking out a foe Pokémon. You can't change the option, because it's not even there anymore.

That's how I'd like people to play my hack, but knowing how some people can be, there's an extra patch, "Items in Battle", that gives you the possibility of using Items and to change the battle option, but there's a price to pay.

If you choose to play with enabled Items/Switch in battle, a few Items will be unavailable to you, the price of several Items will increase, and the HP they restore will be lowered. Also, NPC Trainers will also use Items.

That's simply because Items can be easily abused, and that is the opposite of what I wanted in this hack. If you choose the "right" to abuse Items during battle, then I have the right to make adjustments to annoy you with your choice.

It's not like Hyper Potions will heal 1 HP or anything crazy like that, but because in my hack you can't use Items in battles, they're more powerful than the usual vanilla items so you could recover better between battles.

The items you lose access to are all new, by the way. A set of consumable Held Items that raise a stat whenever the holder is attacked or under other circustances, similar to the berries in the Third Generation, albeit they're activated differently.

Another change is limited access to a team-healing item that I made, and restores all your Pokémon to perfect shape. Intended to be used in a pinch, like being lost in a cave, or between hard fights, but you can only have in small amounts. In the Original patch, you can carry 3 of them, but only 1 on the "Items in Battle" versions.

You're free to choose how to play. Of course, you only apply one patch.

If for some reason you started a game with one version, for example, with the patch for Items in Battle, and you later on want to go to the No Items in Battle version, you can actually use that save file and not start again.

But I recommend you to save first in a Pokémon Center before doing so. Once you did that, patch a clean ROM and rename the .SAV file into whatever the new patched rom is. Now you can continue with your game. Remember to always make backups before doing anything of this sort.

I do not recommend changing between the Original and Alternate versions.

Lastly, trading and battling with vanilla Pokémon Crystal is not going to work. Not only many of the fixes made already impossible to be compatible with Vanilla Pokémon Crystal, but the gigantic load of changes I made to the game would render any attempt become a glitchy mess.

But you can trade and battle with other copies of this hack, and the four versions of the patches should be compatible with each other for both trading and battling. I'd recommend using the No Items versions because it gives you access to those extra Held Items, though.

o--------------------o |[5]  Pokémon Changes| o--------------------o

Probably the most obvious and central change, these creatures are the core of the franchise after all.

As you may imagine, there have been changes to most aspects of them. While some of those have their sections to talk about, Base Stats are probably the most important one here.

That is because for the most part there is parity in Base Stat Total for all evolutionary lines in this game.

Pokémon to me has become a rather painful series of games to look back, because there has never been that much of an interest to improve or balance out their creations to make a more varied, balanced and fun experience, and when they try to do something is more on the lines of "adding" to fix instead of improving what's there already.

And don't get me wrong, trying to get "perfect balance" is impossible with such a large amount of creatures, but at the same time, Game Freak has done very, very little in this regard, most other developers would at least try something, specially if they had the decades of game releases Game Freak has had.  

But back on track. This is why in this hack, almost every non-Starter, non-Legendary fully evolved monster has a Base Stat Total of 650, making each all of them feel have the same potential overall.

This means there will be no "early useless Pokémon", nor so called "Filler".

And yes, this means your beloved Tyranitar, Dragonite, and such have the same potential as a Raticate or a Wigglytuff. On the other hand, this also means you don't need to train a Pupitar or Dragonair to ridiculous levels to have them evolve into their final forms.

If you ask yourself "why such high Base Stat Total", well, its simple: The higher the roof, the more space you have to scale stats. The more space you have to scale stats, the better you can "personalize" stats for the different species.

Besides, the Base Stat Total stops being important when everybody is at the same "level".

Now, that's for "normal Pokémon". The first two Generations had two trios of "pseudo-legendary" monsters, those being Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, and Raikou, Entei and Suicune. These critters have 660 Base Stat Total.

Starters also have a total of 660. This is mainly because starters are usually the back bone of most player's teams (although I usually roll without them), and I saw fitting for them to be slightly stronger. But fear not, because those extra points don't really make much difference, as they're used to make them more well rounded instead of just dumping them on their highest stats.

Finally, true Legendary Pokémon keep their 700 Base Stat Total of the original games. To this day I never used legendaries beyond wanting to see their back sprites, never cared about them, so they have the least number of changes, really.

Some other changes are:

·Many Pokémon had their overall archetypes changed besides their Stats improved.  Furret is now a Fast Special Attacker, for example.

·Almost every Pokémon now has a 50% Male/Female Ratio, except for the Nidorans,  Tauros and Miltank. Pokémon like Blissey, Chansey, or the Hitmon-family  now can be both male and female. Magnemite, Voltorb and such are still genderless.

·The two Legendary Trios have genders and can in fact breed, thus they can be  seen almost as normal Pokémon.

·The Pokédex had the entries for each Pokémon modified. This is because now it shows  actually useful information instead of the continuously repeated "scientific" info  that usually is full of lies and ridiculous stuff that could make an Indian Elephant  have a headache, but hey, it may not be the Pokédex info, it may just be a bit too  close to a Magcargo and it's experiencing how one feels being next to the Sun.

 Happens to us all sometimes.

 Now, the first page of each species shows its Weaknesses and Resistances while  the second page of each one now points out the Base Stat spreads it has,  which is a much, much more useful ingame data, specially when this hacks  aims to change heavily most things related to battling and "the RPG elements".

 Oh, and by the way, if you press Select while looking at a Pokémon's Data,  you'll activate "Shiny Mode", and every Pokémon shown will be seen with their  Shiny Colors!

·Talking about Shiny Pokémon, those are far more common. While I personally don't care  too much about them, specially nowadays when they've become so... Uneventful and common,  not to mention how much they've been related with hacking and cheating, Pokémon being  shiny lost appeal to me, yet they're still a big thing for many players, so why not make  them easier to obtain?

 The means for finding a Shiny Pokémon in Generation II were rough. REALLY rough. With  the way it works now, you should find quite a few of them throughout your adventure, and  also finding female shiny Pokémon should also be a more common occurrence than before.

 You're bound to find a fair share of them. This being a modded game, it doesn't really  matter if they're not as rare or hard to find.

 NPC trainers will have Shiny monsters here and there, so you should also have the chance!

·As you already know, wild Pokémon may be holding items. In the original game,  many species had nothing with them. Now, most species have them, and the variety  is much, much bigger. Not only that, the chances for finding Pokémon with items  has increased.

 Now there's a 50% of not having an item, 40% of having a "common" item, and  10% of holding a "rare" item. Better than the 2% on the original.

 Lastly, I've made another improvement in held items. Now, whenever you battle  with a wild monster that has an Item, an little icon (similar to the one in the party menu)  will appear on the enemy's HUD. Specifically between the Pokeball icon that appears  when you fight a monster that you already have in your Pokédex, and the Gender icon.

 Again, only for WILD creatures.  If monsters have items in trainer battles is a secret to everybody!

·A big one, already mentioned in the introduction:  DVs (or IVs, if you rather call them that) NO LONGER FACTOR INTO STAT CALCULATIONS!!

 This means that now only Base Stats and Stat Exp matter in each Pokémon statistics.  Oh, and by the way, the formula to calculate stats has changed very slightly.  Remember that +5 bonus at the end of the calculations? Now it's a 6.  That means that a 100 Base stat (Not HP) of a fully trained monster is 300 and not 299.

 This also means you can now have Female Pokémon with good Attack power, and Shiny  Pokémon no longer are weak, two rather big things for me at least.

 No more you will have to waste hours of your life breeding and abandoning  dozens if not hundreds of Pokémon for good DVs (what a great lesson!).  NPC Trainers also get good Pokémon too, making things better for everybody.

·Evolution has been streamlined and homogenized. This means that Pokémon that  evolved by trades, special events, and such have simpler, more direct ways  to do so now. But also, all Pokémon evolver on similar levels.

 After all, if they are supposed on equal footing in Power, they should  also be on the same level on this matter too.

 Here's a few examples:

 Pokémon with three stages evolve at levels 20 and 32.

 Pidgey evolves to Pidgeotto at level 20, and to Pidgeot at level 32.  Chikorita evolves to Bayleef at level 20, and to Meganium at level 32.  Dratini evolves to Dragonair at level 20, and to Dragonite at level 32.

 Pokémon with two stages evolve between levels 22 and 24.

 Rattata evolves into Raticate at level 23.  Venonat evolves into Venomoth at level 24.  Rhyhorn evolves into Rhydon at level 24.  Hoothoot evolves into Noctowl at level 22.

 Of course, there are a couple of exceptions. Caterpie and Weedle  are still the fastest evolving lines, and of course Pokémon that  evolve through stones can do so anytime you want.

 Oh, and by the way, in this hack, you WANT to evolve when Pokémon want to.  You won't get much from stopping an evolution, and with Pokémon that evolve  through stones and such, you should do it before too late.

 This is because many species learn better techniques at the same level they evolve,  and it would be a waste to not learn them.

 You can find at which levels are recommended Pokémon to evolve through stones in  the specific Pokémon Stat list txt. But if you want to make it easy:

 If the Pokémon has two evolutionary stages > Use the stone at Level 22 or 23.  If the Pokémon has three evolutionary stages > use the stone at level 30 or 32 (to reach the last stage).

 That said, if you feel like not evolving for whatever reason, you've not lost everything.  The game has a Move Reminder, and you'll be able to remember freely any move from a species  learnset.

 Oh, and the Time Capsule seems to work as long as you of course follow the rules.  But a few notes:

 Any Pokémon you bring from Generation 1 may have their moves changed upon  arriving your game. The moves may turn into a very uncharacteristic one for  the Pokémon, because I repurposed many moves into new ones.

 The stats of the Pokémon will change from Gen 1 to Gen 2, and most notably,  the HP of any Pokémon that reaches Gen 2 will not be fully healed, because  of the change in stats, but there's no problem at all as far as functionality,  just heal.  

 That said, have in mind there's NO NEED to use the Time Machine.  You do so under your responsibility.

o-----------------o |[6]  Type Changes| o-----------------o

Yet another big shake to the, in my personal point of view, rather badly balanced formula.

I'm not going to discuss or waste time with this. This is how it works here:

Defensive wise, each type now is weak to two other types, while resistant to three, one of them being itself. There are NO immunities. Every type is equal as far as weaknesses and resistances, except for Normal.

Normal has no weaknesses or resistances, period.

Offensive wise, each Type is effective against two Types, and is resisted by three, one it being itself. Normal does not hit for Super Effective damage nor does it get resisted.

So, among other things, Ghost will get hurt by Normal and Fighting moves, Normal will get hit by Ghost, Dragon is no longer weak to itself, and Ice is not such an awful and pathetic defensive Type that exists to be mocked.

Oh, the Fairy Type has been added too, but how it works doesn't exactly resemble the original game, just like the other Types.

Now, because I know how certain part of the community can act (and let's not kid ourselves pretending it doesn't happen), to make myself clear and blunt:

 I don't care if you think Type X should be weak/resistant to type Y.  I don't care if you don't want to learn new Type Matchups.  I don't care what Game Freak does with types now or in the future.

I'm not Game Freak and I have made this wanting to break away from their norm, I don't have to follow any rules, not theirs, not yours.

Making a more even ground for all types, trying to make each monster good, so I could play with all of them and have fun was one of the important things for me, and to reach that goal I made as many changes as I saw fit.

You're free to stop reading and go look for another hack if this will bother you that much.

End of the "serious" moment. Good? Great, let's continue!

With this change, every Pokémon will always have more good points than bad points, not to mention that the maximum number of weaknesses a Pokémon can have is 4, and if it has 4 weaknesses, to compensate it will have 6 resistances.

Another thing I want to point out is that the number of Normal Type Pokémon has been lowered. While there are still a bunch of them, it's a way lower number, making many of these previously Normal Pokémon have completely different Type Combinations. I mean, I'm sure you won't miss all the Normal/Flying types. I hope so at least.

If you think Normal Type not having weaknesses could be "broken", far from it, specially since, as I said, in this hack having *more good points* is a given for any non-Normal Pokémon. But of course that's just talking. They can make for great members, in one of my several test-playthroughs, a Furret was one of my best Pokémon all thoughout the game.

There is an image in the RAR file with a Type Table to show you how Types work now, but beyond that, in Violet City's Pokémon Academy, there are two books that teach you the differen Types and their strong and weak points.

And then, if you're so lazy to figure it out, the weaknesses and resistances for each individual species is listed on the Stats text file.

And theeen, if you're even lazier than that, you can also check the Pokedex Entry of a given *captured* Pokémon, as it gives you useful info such as this.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that you have a number of ways to find out how types work. Use them to your advantage.

Oh, lastly, in this hack there are NO Pokémon with double weaknesses. I've never liked them to be honest, and to me just show how unappealing some types were designed to be that they make such awful combinations.

I still remember how excited people were for Aurorus until they saw its typing, and then it all turned into either jokes at its weaknesses or pure disapppointment.

No fun.

o-----------------o |[7]  Move Changes| o-----------------o

Alongside the previous two changes, the Moves have been changed A LOT too.

Instead of just "copying" what Game Freak has done in later generations, this hack had in mind to actually modify moves in ways to make them more interesting based on the limitations of the GBC games, and also another little thing:

There is a Physical/Special Split in this hack, so one of the big changes of this hack was to give each Type a number of both, Physical and Special moves to cover different Power levels so Pokémon can have good STAB moves that go along with their stats.

After all, that was probably the best thing Generation IV did for me. While it took some toys from some Pokémon (like Elemental Punches from Alakazam), it really was a big change for the better for most species.

So for example, we have Rock Slide for Rock Pokémon with high Attack, and Rock Launch for Rock Pokémon with high Special Attack. For this, many old moves were removed and reworked into new moves, mostly moves that were redundant and exactly the same as other moves (Like Whirlwind and Roar, or Wrap and Bind, they're the exact same thing).

While this gives every type and every Pokémon solid Stab moves, the limitation of 254 moves makes it so I can't add many "wild" and unique moves, but oh well, it's already much, much better than what it was originally on Generation II.

...No, really, I forgot how rough and unfair the move list was in old Generations, with some Types having almost no good moves at all, or moves that Pokémon couldn't take advantage of because their Stats and their Types didn't match. Hoo boy...  

Another big change is that most attacks now have secondary effects, and very often, the lower the Power of a move, the higher is the chance to inflict those secondary effects.

For example, Fire Breath (New move) has a 15% Chance of causing Burn and 70 Power, but Flamethrower only has 10% chance of causing burn and 95 Power. This makes moves with lower Power a bit more useful.

As you may imagine, Pokémon Movesets have been changed tremendously, not only for those critters that had their Types and Stat distributions changed, but also to accomodate all the modifications related to Moves.

Movesets in this hack are in no way attempting to copy later generations of official games, specially since Generation 2 Movesets were incredibly sad to look back.

Instead, they're focused on attempting to give what that certain species needs. So no Pokémon will be let without good STAB moves, and you also won't see Pokémon that are obviously Physical attackers getting Special moves or viceversa.

A handful of moves also got their priority changed.

Safeguard, Haze, Mist, Transformation and Bide now go before other moves. This change actually shakes up battles a bit, it was fun to see the AI read my moves from time to time and prevent Status, and hey, with Transform having priority now Ditto is more usable too!

A list of the moves, what they do, and their other data is in its own TXT file, although with ingame descriptions, it is not necessary.

As far as TMs and HMs, things also have changed.

TMs no longer get consumed when used, so they have infinite uses. The Moves they teach have also changed for the majority of TMS, with most of them teaching both Physical and Special "end-game" moves. There's also a total of 55 TMS now.

None of them can be found in shops, you must find them by exploring or obtained from an NPC.

HMs have also changed a bit, making them more useful. Cut now is a 70 Power Normal move with a High Critical Ratio, and Fly is a strong move with 110 Power that causes Recoil damage. Flash causes damage and can lower Accuracy. Strength is now is Fighting type and causes Flinch. And Whirlpool is a bit more powerful and now takes more HP at the end of turns, so its a rather cool combo alongside Toxic on bulky Pokémon.

Also, HMs can be forgotten like normal attacks, so you can swap attacks easily in case you want, and unlike in Gen. 1, because you can't drop them, you can't get stuck.

Or rather, you wouldn't get stuck, because there's another change. These moves:

Headbutt Rock Smash Cut         Surf Strength Waterfall Whirlpool

Don't need to be known by a Pokémon to be used in the overworld! You only need a Pokémon capable of learning such move, and the needed Medal in the case of the HMs.

That only leaves Flash and Fly out of that list, right?

About Flash:

I also added an item that will let you light dark caves so you don't need to have a Pokémon with Flash, but you get it quite a bit later than the HM. Just look around Mahogany after things calmed down.

It can be assigned to Select for quick use, too!

About Fly:

There's a small sidequest you can do later in the game that will net you a special object. This item will let you use a different version of Fly. Mechanically, it's the same, you can fly to places you've explored. Animation-wise is different, though.

Because all of this, you no longer need to have any HM on any Pokémon unless you want it (because most of them are actually respectable attacking moves), which gives much more freedom to parties and movesets!

o----------------------------------------o |[8] Stat Experience, Vitamins and Fruits| o----------------------------------------o

TLDR VERSION: Use Vitamins, use Fruits. They improve your Pokemon's stats, and          you need to take care of your team to withstand other trainers          which have properly trained monsters. Use them intelligently,          don't waste them with Pokémon you don't want to have in your team,      at least early on when you have limited resources.

         Vitamins are no longer as limited in effect, or as expensive.          Fruits are new, and are twice as good as Vitamins.

Pokémon games have a system in which, through adquiring certain points through different means, a creature can improve its Stats. In Generations 1 and 2, these are called Stat Experience. This is a system Game Freak has never informed the players about at all, and the games never came even close to mention it in any trully useful detail, so bare with me if this is your first time with this stuff, although I doubt you found this hack knowing nothing about it.

Stat Experience points can range from 0 (Empty) to 65535 (Maximized). Unlike later generations, In Gen. I and II, you can maximize the experience of all the stats.

Stat Experience points are divided and exclusive for each stat. HP, Attack, Defense and Speed have their own Stat Exp Table. Special Attack and Special Defense share the same Stat Exp Table. So reaching 65535 Stat Exp in each Stat will make your Pokémon perfect stat-wise. Even Pokémon at Level 100 can get Stat Experience, but to gain the effects, they need to be stored on the PC so their real Stats can get updated with the current Stat Exp. they have at that moment.

The ways you get Stat Exp are these:

By battling -Each time one of your Pokémon defeats another, the Base Stats of the enemy's species          is added to your Stat Exp in each stat. This is the slowest way, but it's also free,          and will raise your stats by just playing through the game.

     If you defeat, let's say, a Caterpie, it has these Base Stats:

HP 75, Attack 60, Defense 70, Speed 95, Special Attack 90, Special Defense 70.      As I said, Special Attack and Defense use the same Stat Exp Table. The game takes      the Base Stat related to Special Attack, so in this case, your Pokémon will be      awarded 90 Special Stat Exp Points, alongside the rest.      Training only through battles is not only pointless when you have other means,      but also incredibly tedious. While in my hack Pokémon have higher stats that make      training this way faster, battling for Stat Exp should only be relied on when      you've already fed your Pokémon Vitamin and Fruits, to get those last Stat Exp Points      needed for a Perfect Stat.

     But of course, any Stat Exp gained through battles is benefitial, just don't battle      *only* for the Stat Exp unless, as I said it's to finish Stat Exp training!      By the way, there's a special condition named Pokerús, which is a benefitial virus      that will double the amount of Stat Exp you get from battles. This is very rare      to get, and you will be noticed by a PKMN Center Nurse. The games don't tell you  what it does exactly either...

     It can be very useful, and it propagates through your Pokémon team, and disappears      after some time. If you ever get Pokerús, try to keep a Pokémon with active Pokerús      on your PC so you can pass it to other Pokémon. But as I said, it's very rare!

By Vitamins -Vitamins in the original game were pretty useless. They raised very little, and they      could only be used up to some point, which is less than half way the Stat Exp total.

     In this hack, though, they're much better, and even necessary, as the people living      in Johto and Kanto have *actually* trained their Pokémon properly and they have Stat      Exp, so they'll be stronger and more challenging, and after a certain point, all      trainers you'll find will have maximized Pokémon, like any trainer worth their salt      would be doing.

     Each Vitamin gives 10.240 Stat Exp Points per use, and they can be used until the      Stat Exp of the Stat that you want to raise reaches 51.456, at which point, the      Pokémon wont get any benefit from it (it won't be wasted, so don't worry).

     To make it easier to understand, let's put it this way:

     An untrained (either just catched, or just hatched) Pokémon will have 0 Stat Exp on      everything. If you feed it HP UPs, it will be able to eat 6:

     10.240 1 HP Up      20.480 2 HP Up      30.720 3 HP Up      40.960 4 HP Up      51.200 5 HP Up > Doesn't go pass the limit so you can eat another one.      61.440 6 HP Up > Passed the limit, so you can't feed more, but it's almost Maximized!               You can get the rest by battling.

     If you're used to Effort Values from Gen 3 onwards, let's make it even easier:

     The way it works, each modern EV means 256 Stat Exp, so if it's easier for you, just      divide Stat Exp by 256:

     Each Vitamin gives 10.240 Stat Exp, that means 40 EV.      The limit of Stat Exp is 51.456, that means 201 EV.

     So with a Pokémon without EVs, you can go from 0 to 240 EV through vitamins.

     You can obviously give Vitamins to a Pokémon you've been battling with no problem,      but an untrained Pokémon is better to use as an example.

     Their price is much lower so you can keep up with enemy trainers, although they      cost enough to make each purchase a bit of an investment early into the game.

By Fruits   - Fruits are almost exactly the same as Vitamins, but they give twice the Stat Exp.

     Each one gives 20.480 Stat Exp (Or 80 EV if you want it that way), and the limit      is 41.216 Stat Points (or 161 EV). This means that your Pokémon can eat up to      three Fruits in a stat to jump for 0 Stat Exp to 61.440 (or 0 to 240 EV) and      almost maximize it. Let's again use an example of raising HP with Fruit now:

     20.480 1 Salty Fruit      40.960 2 Salty Fruit > Doesn't go pass the limit so you can eat another one      61.440 3 Salty Fruit > Passed the limit, so you can't feed more, but it's almost Maximized!

     Thus, fruits are much better overall than Vitamins, but they're scarce, and should      be better used for Pokémon you know they have little to no training in a certain Stat.

     You can combine Vitamins and Fruit without problem, but if you do, first use your      Fruits, then the Vitamins so you don't waste Fruits unnecessarily.

Why the limit - If you're asking why the limit is 51.456, or 240 EV for Vitamins, and 41.216 or 161 EVs for Fruits, it is simple to answer: If you feed a Vitamin/Fruit to a Pokémon in a way that would go over 65535, a bug would happen and the Stat Exp of that Pokémon would roll back to 0. I think it's obvious why that would suck. So, by putting these limits you're safe from that to happen, but you also get very close to maximize a stat. It's the best balance I could achieve.

o--------------------------------o |[9]  Mechanic & Gameplay Changes| o--------------------------------o

Already said that under the hood, there are many, many other changes. Some (not all of them, not by a long shot) changes are as follows:

· The Clock Reset function now has a much easier button combination to open it.  The combination is like this:

 1: Hold    Select + Down  2: Release Down while holding Reset.  3: With Reset Held, now hold Up too.  4: Release Select. The Reset Clock menu will open.

 It requires less buttons, making it easier to do, or able to do at all  depending where you are playing. You still need to input the password,  though, removing that would let you abuse certain things very easily.

· Prices for several things have been lowered on the "Intended" Versions of this hack.  Because you no longer can abuse Items to progress, I saw no real reason to  make you pay as much as usual. You're still going to need them, because the  need for healing between battles is still a thing.

 Another reason to do this is because you will also spend much more money than  usual on Vitamins and other stuff to properly train and prepare your team.  

· Catching Pokémon grants you Experience now! The Exp. is the same as if it was  defeated, and every Pokémon that fought in said battle will get a share of it.

· The Odd Egg will always give you a Shiny Pokémon between 7 ramdonly selected  species, and both genders. Each Species get a unique move, instead of all of  them getting the same (now non-existing) move.

· Talking about Eggs, Pokémon now hatch much, much faster, so there's less  walking up and down through Goldenrod. Not only that, but Egg Moves also  changed all around. Pokémon also lay Eggs faster, and Nidorina &  Nidoqueen can now breed, alongside both "legendary" trios.

 Now each basic species has between 3 or 4 Egg Moves for the most part  they are different from vanilla, and basic Starter Pokémon have 5 Egg Moves.

· Trainer AI has been much improved. Now they know much better what they do, and they  can priorize stuff like Status Effects, they take better advantage of weaknesses and  resistances.

 They also carry Items with them, if you play with the patch that lets you  items in Battle, of course.

 Trainers also have properly trained monsters, with Stat Exp increasing throughout  the game. Feeding your team vitamins and fruits is now important to stay on toes  with them. Of course, there is more variety in species of monsters used by NPCs,  their levels are higher, and team sizes have increased a bit.

 Making each trainer a full 6 Pokémon team would drag the game, though, and probably  couldn't fit, I already was suffering the lack of space with what I added, because  when adding Stat Exp, custom Movesets, and such the space gets used way too fast.

 Also, the game was very, very unfair to the NPC trainers.  Not only were they hard-coded to fail more often, have mediocre AI, and Low-Level Pokémon,  you also got your Stats and Types boosted as you got Badges, so they became completely  inferior and disappointing... At least, if you want to have any challenge.

 That's why any bonus that Badges give you was stripped down. No Stat Boost, no Type Boost.  This will make the game far more fair and chalenging, in turn making it more enjoyable if  you look for having to think and put a bit of effort, which is, you know, the point of  this entire hack.

 Another thing changed is the money that many types of trainers reward you by beating them.  In this hack you have many more things to buy as mentioned above, from Vitamins, to  Held Items, to Decorations, and more Healing Items because of the higher difficulty,  so a better income was needed.

 On the other hand, if you lose, which is much more plausible now, you won't get your money  halved. Instead, you lose money depending on the number of badges you have, like more recent  games. It's much more fair early on, specially in this hack since it is expected of you to  buy vitamins and held items for your monsters as you go through the game, besides all the  other items.

· Stat increase percentages have been changed.

 Stat-improving moves like Accelerate or Meditate, and Stat-decreasing moves like  Growl or Scary Face can go from Level 0 (normal stat), to Level +6 or -6,  depending if it increases or decreases a stat.

Before o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o |Level -6   -5   -4   -3   -2   -1   0     1     2      3     4     5     6   | |Perc. 25%  28%  35%  45%  50%  66%  100%  150%  200%   250%  300%  350%  400%| o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o Now o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o |Level -6   -5   -4   -3   -2   -1   0     1     2      3     4     5     6   | |Perc. 25%  30%  35%  45%  60%  75%  100%  130%  160%   190%  220%  250%  300%| o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o

 This has been changed for one main reason: to make better balance between critters,  Stats are now higher. With stats being higher, stat-increasing would get too broken,  specially with +1 bonus being a whole 50% increase. So bonuses are softer now, but  so is stat-reducing -1 Level, so it's not too harsh.

· Item Storing Changes

 For starters, there's two new pockets, one for Berries and Fruits in which 13 kinds of items go in it,  the already known berries, plus the new Fruits used for powering up your monsters. Fits all of them.

 The other new pocket is for Battle items, specifically Held Items. There are several dozen of them,  and having such type of items be mixed with consumable and healing items was a bit of a mess,  even more if you have an organization obsession and want everything neatly grouped.

 Every item of this type fits in this pocket, that's over 50 different types of Items!

 Apricorns are now stored in your Ball Pocket, and there's space to have every ball plus Apricorn,  so they will never become a nuissance to you by filling your bag like before.

 Item Pocket now can store 35 different objects instead of 20, and because Berries/Fruits, Apricorns,  and Held Items do not take space in this pocket anymore you have much more freedom.

 There's one catch, though, now you can only store 30 types of items in the PC, instead of 50.  It won't be much of a problem because you don't need to store any Berry, Fruit, Apricorn, Ball,  or Held Item, so I think it's a good compromise.

 Another change is, as mentioned above, about wild Pokémon. Now, many different species will  hold items. These range from Berries and Fruits, to sell-able Items, Apricorns and a few others.

 This not only will make getting new monsters more interesting, but will also make way, way  more useful the move Thief, and also the new Peck, which also has the effect of taking the  item the foe holds.

· The Pokegear Map has seen a huge facelift. Not only is a bit prettier to look at,  it's also more informative, with standout places or landmarks pointed out in the  map. I even added different little icons to quickly see which poblated areas are  Towns or Cities, just because why not.

· A new Building in Goldenrod has been opened. This place will sell to you all  the Decoration items you previously would get through Mystery Gift or through your Mom.

 Some of the dolls also have been changed, to offer something new, because the game  now is not limited to the original Pokémon icons for the Party Menu. This is also  true for the bigger dolls.

 Talking about that, your Mom will no longer buy you Decoration items, and the items  it buys are now much more useful and simply put, better than Super Potions and such.

· A Move Reminder has been added to the game, but unlike how Move Reminders work  in vanilla games, here it will let you remember moves from a species, as many times  as you want, for free.

 This is because this hack, having higher difficulty than your usual Pokémon game, may  require you to reshuffle your Movesets or try different strategies, and I WANT you to  do so, punishing you with constant farming of Items to change Movesets so you can try  different things sounds very counter-intuitive to me.

 To make this even more useful, each fully evolved creature can remember a number  of Moves from prior evolutionary forms too.

 The types of Moves they'll retain from earlier forms are usually moves related to  Stat changes, Status Effects, and Attacks that may have special traits or effects.

 Basically, Pidgeot won't be able to remember Wing Attack, which is a simple, straightforward  Attack move, but it will remember Quick Attack and Peck, the first one having Priority,  and the second one having the new effect of stealing Items from other Pokémon.

 You can find the Move Reminder in both Johto, and Kanto.  In Johto, he lives with the other useful NPCs, Name Rater and Move Deleter in Goldenrod.  In Kanto, you can find a similar group of NPCs in Lavender Town.

· Pokegear Rematches are now much stronger, they have more Pokémon and more varied,  and often enough their Pokémon have nicknames.

 To give you an idea, many Pokegear trainers will end up with teams of Lvl 80 Pokémon!  So be very careful when fighting again these trainers, they may surprise you!

 Also, a big change in how they work: Originally, if you didn't rematch a trainer  and you kept playing, when you came back to it, it would challenge you with a very  outdated team.

 This is because they only get better if you fight them earlier each time.  This is no how it works anymore. They upgrade their teams as you advance through  the game, and you could very well meet them for the first time after battling them  originally and find out they have a full team of very strong Pokémon.

 This makes Pokegear rematches far, far more interesting and better paced.

 Talking about rematches, I added end-game rematches to the game.    Once you beat Red for the first time, a whole bunch of new battles gets unlocked:  The Pokémon League levels get bumped, with some changes on their teams.  Counting your Rival's rematch, levels range from 80 to 85.

 All Gym Leaders end up their training, and they await you to fight in Lvl 100 Rematches.  If they didn't have originally, every Leader will have a full team, and all of them have  some changes to their teams.

 The default trainer in the Trainer's House in Viridian City also goes from Lvl 70, to Lvl 100.  And there's a few extra Lvl 100 battles that I'll let you discover, although they're  not precissely hidden!

 If you ask yourself why Lvl 100, well, that's to make sure you don't win by overlevelling them.  Once you beat Red, you also unlock a way to Level Up your Pokémon much faster.  Just check the Battle Tower once you do so, although be warned, it requires some effort!

· Buena's Password had its rewards changed, now it's more useful overall.

· Ingame Pokémon trades are different, and they ask for hard-to-get monsters, but give you  very nice ones in exchange, I hope you like them.

· Bill's grandfather has seen some neat changes. His time killer of seeing Pokémon you bring  to him stays, but not quite the same as it originally was. Now he'll tell you riddles that  talk about a certain Pokémon, and if you guess them correctly by showing him the right  species, he'll gift you some very neat Held Items for your pals!  He put quite of effort in those riddles, they even rhyme!

· Fishing has been tweaked a bit.

 Now the chances for Pokémon to bit are higher (who wants to press Select several times for nothing?)  and the Pokémon available by fishing are much more varied, yes, even the Old Rod.

 Levels are also higher. Old Rod ~10, Good Rod ~20, Super Rod ~40.  

 Talking about the Old Rod, now you can get it sooner, before even getting the first Medal.  The Fishing Guru has moved to the gate that connectes Route 31 with Violet City.  This expands which Pokémon you can get early on, and more options is better.

 ...Unless you're me, then it just makes it harder to choose which monsters you want to have.

· Fruit Trees now give 2 Berries/Fruits/Apricorns each day!

· On Violet, Azalea and Goldenrod cities you can find the new Berry Scouts.  These green-cladded folks will sell you the basic Status-Healing Berries,  in order to help accomodate you a bit on the higher difficulty of this hack  compared to the usual stuff.

 The price on the "Items in battle available" patches are a bit higher.

· While there's absolutely zero intention of creating a new "story" or "region", there  are new maps here and there. For Example, there's an actual Viridian Forest again,  with trainers, Items and such, even!

 Other maps got extended a bit here and there, maybe to hide something...!  Some areas also have changes made to look or feel better to explore.  Others have been extended to feel more like a full place.

 The Gyms also had changes. It's interesting how... "small", and simple most of them where.  I expanded most, give some light puzzles to most of the ones that didn't have anything  going on (I even rescued unused map movement for one of them!) to make them slightly  more interesting.

 Of course, please don't expect Zelda-level dungeons or anything like that.  ...Although that could be a pretty cool thing as its own game!

· Because I made quite a few changes in the Types of the Pokémon,  I reformatted Bill's PC a bit. Now when browsing around your monsters,  you can see their types on the upper left side of the screen.

· I changed a few textbox frames, some to fix them up a bit,  and two of them are entirely new. I like Frame 5 myself.

· The order of the Pockets in your Bag differs when youre outside  Battle and when you're in middle of one.

 This is to make the Poké Ball pocket right next to the default  Item pocket, instead of being 3 pushes away to the right.

· Status Effects no longer are shown with 3 letter "words".  Now they have their own little Icons, which make things cleaner  both in Battle and specially on the Party menu.

· Of course, I decapitalized all the text I found.  What a tedious thing...

· Smashable Rocks now can give stone-type Items alongside  being a way to find certain Pokémon.

· Once you heal Moo Moo, one of the twins opens up a  little shop!

 She'll be able to make Berry Juice for you, and  you have two ways of doing it, for convenience.

 Talking about Held-healing Items, RageCandyBar have  been also reworked to be eaten during battle.

 They're more powerful than Gold Berries, but less  than Berry Juice.

· Many things have been fixed. For example:

 Daisy's Haircut was buggy and could in fact reduce Happiness, has been fixed.  Magikarps in Lake of Rage were in fact smaller than normal and not bigger,  and other Magikarp related bugs also existed all around. Fixed.  A bug where Defense could be lowered by attacking a Substitute with a -Def move existed, now is fixed.  A bug where Mirror Coat and Counter would damage foe after they used an item existed, now is fixed.  A bug that made supposedly fleeing Pokémon not able to flee is fixed. Now Fast Balls are more useful.  A bug that made a foe under Nightmare's effect still be hurt if it was healed with items is fixed.  A bug where the HP Bar would deplete way slower than intended existed. Yes, you're reading right.  The speed at which the HP Bar emptied, specially at higher levels, was not intentional, making  high level battles way, way slower. This has been fixed and is much better, albeit not Gen. 3 "fast".

 Other bugs and stuff has been fixed too.

There's more things I could put here, but when you spend so long doing something you start to forget each individual thing...

o-------------------------------------------------o |[10] New Kurt Balls, new ways to obtain Apricorns| o-------------------------------------------------o

Yes, every Kurt Ball has been replaced. Why?

Well, actually, for the first year and a half of "development" of this hack, Kurt Balls were pretty much as they were originally, with exception of changing one for more utility, improving their effects to make them overall better and fixing the quite-a-few glitches related to them.

But during the many tests I (and a few friends) did, all the feedback I got is that they did not use them much, if at all, because how situational they are, and because you can only get them in limited amounts.

So I decided to create a new set of Balls with very simple yet very effective effects. Each of these new Poké Balls offer a x3 Catch Multiplier if used on a certain Type of Pokémon, with each new Ball being useful for 3 different Types each.

For example, the Poké Ball made with Red Apricorns (named Red Ball to simplify things), will work best while trying to catch Fire, Fighting or Ground Pokémon! Other example would be the Pink Ball will do so with Poison, Psychic, or Fairy ones.

There's no tricks, nor complexities. If the types match, you get a stronger effect than an Ultra Ball. This makes each one way more versatile, every Apricorn as useful as the rest.

Descriptions of each new Ball points to which types are most effective.

Now, because I want people to use these Balls more often, there are a few more ways to obtain these Items. The first and most simple is getting Apricorns from Trees, from which you get two for every one each day.

Pokémon themselves also carry Apricorns, as many species hold them randomly.

But I also added a new face to Johto, a traveling monk! He's easily recognizable thanks to his sandogasa (a traditional traveling hat). Because he travels around Johto, each day you'll find him in a different spot, and each day will offer to trade 5 Apricorn of a certain color for one specific Item. The Items he ask for can be obtained from wild Pokémon, and sometimes found somewhere lying on the floor.

For Red or Green Apricorns, he asks for a Tiny Mushroom. for Blue, Yellow or Pink Apricorns, he asks for a Pearl. For White or Black Apricorns, he asks for a Stardust.

Tiny Mushrooms can be held by Pokémon such as Paras, Ledyba, Oddish, Vulpix and others. Pearls can be held by Pokémon such as Shellder, Horsea, Seadra, Octillery and Corsola. Stardust can be held by Pokémon such as Geodude, Jigglypuff, Phanpy, Staryu and Tentacool.

Of course those are just a few examples, there are more. I hope with all this, Kurt's custom Poké Balls are more useful all around.

o--------------------------------------------------------o |[11] The New and Improved Battle Tower and Trainer House| o--------------------------------------------------------o

The Battle Tower was the first time Game Freak offered anything sort of similar to a Challenge Mode inside the main games. We got Pokémon Stadium 1 and 2, which were great little things, designed to be a battle simulator, with different rules and difficulties, among other things like mini-games.

But the Battle Tower was a bit... Lacking. And HARD.

This is because, for one, the trainers you met here had a quite low variety of Pokémon, so it kinda became a bit boring (I guess Game Freak knew most Pokémon had middling stats!).

On the other hand, the monsters here sported pretty much PERFECT stats, and with strong moves along with them.

This last sentence is worth noting because in older generations, training your Pokémon to their fullest potential, A.K.A. giving them the max Stat Exp. was a total pain and a ludicriously slow process. And trying to get good DVs (old IVs) was a much, much, much worse process than that.

You couldn't make use of ANY mechanic to get Pokémon with good DVs, they were random, and unlike more recent Generations, you could not improve a Pokémon DVs by using items or such. You had no control besides soft resetting ad nauseam. If it sounds bad it's because it is.

So to have a chance not only you needed High DV monsters (pretty much impossible by normal rules), but also fully trained and with the best moves possible.  And you only got ONE SINGLE TM for many moves, and Pokémon learnsets were for the most party pretty lacking if looking at them from a competitive point of view, so you were screwed there, as you may imagine.

All in all, it was often seen as unfair and just not very fun. And if you wanted to try it anyway, add to that that the rewards were laughable. Vitamins that you could buy, and didn't help you at all because they became useless quickly, they only helped for less than half of the Stat. Exp total!

But here's the thing: I love the concept! The idea of having 3 monsters each, with the same level, where only your strategy, knowdlege and adaptibility can take you out of trouble, sounds great!

Even more, maybe if you got something worth your time as a reward it could be even more fun!

That's why a good chunk of the effort of this hack was about trying to balance types, moves, Pokémon and such. And also why the Battle Tower got so many changes!

So let's list the changes:

For starters, each of the ten Levels of the Tower got their Pokémon changed, both to update the new stats, but also to give much, much needed variety to the types of monsters you would see, as originally the game sported just a small number of different species.

Instead of 7 battles per round, now you have quicker rounds of 3. This makes for a much more brisk pace, a far less frustrating event if you lose, and easier to pick up and play.

About difficulty, it should still be a good challenge, although this time, there is some balance, as now you can properly train your monsters through vitamins and fruits, TMs hold a good selection of high-Power moves and they're infinite and of course DVs/IVs are the same for everybody.

Oh, and you can remember old moves, too!

There's also two Shops available for players, in which you can buy a selection of Held Items so you can prepare yourself to challenge the Tower, or to progress through the game, as trainers will start using Held Items more and more once you reach this point in the game.

Up to that point is the basic stuff... But the Battle Tower has also opened several shops and services, and there's even a bit of a progression system built into it, too!

Whenever you participate in the Battle Tower and come out victorious, you'll be rewarded a new type of Item: Battle Medals!

You get three for each victiorous round (so each three battles).

These objects are, basically, the coin of exchange for almost any service inside the Battle Tower. They are stored in your Item Pocket and can be used in a variety of ways.

For one, they're pricey objects, each one sells for 12.000P, thus they can cover costs for training Pokémon. Selling all 3 you win nets you 36.000P, which is pretty good if you realize you can buy enough Vitamins to fully feed a Pokémon in three different Stats (or four if you use Special Atk/Def Vitamins!).

So two good rounds of Battle Tower lets you set up the Stat Exp. of a Pokémon really, really quickly! Or you can buy other stuff with it, too. But that's just a bonus compared to their real use!

In the Main Hall of the Battle Tower, a new Receptionist hangs out close to the Battle Tower's usual lady that takes you to the battles themselves. This new NPC can reward you with a Silver or Gold Trophy in exchange for a number of Battle Medals. They're shiny decorations for your room... And hold some use.

The Battle Tower has been expanded and now there are new rooms that host several services. One of them, and one I'm rather excited to manage to put in the game is a Reward Shop that exchanges Battle Medals for Special Eggs!

Do you remember the event Pokémon from the Stadium games?

They were gifted to you after accomplishing something, and in Stadium 2, they had moves they couldn't learn normally. It was a nice little thing, and always made me feel curious about Pokémon with Moves that couldn't learn normally. You know, what new strategies could I come up with and such.

This service is located in a room behind the Main Hall. There, a Receptionist will take one of your Battle Medals and will gift you an Egg with a special Pokémon that knows a unique move!

There's a total of 50 different species you can get through these Eggs, and the one you get for each medal is selected at random. And every species has the same chances, no dishonest stuff like 0.0001% to get a certain Pokémon, like a Gatcha game.

Oh, and if you're one of those, don't waste your time resetting trying to get Shiny Pokémon from these Eggs... Believe me, it won't work.

Another service is the inclusion of Move Tutors!

There are two Tutors and each one can teach 4 Moves each. Seven of those are unique to Tutors, with an Eighth Move being Toxic, a TM you get veeery late, so I added it for earlier access, as some Pokémon (like defensive ones) do benefit from it or need it to work well.

Tutor Moves can only be learnt by Fully Evolved Pokémon, and you can do so only in exchange for one Battle Medal.

The move selection is composed of Non-Damaging moves to give more utility and so they can be applied to all Pokémon in one way or another, unlike damaging moves, and I would have liked to have more, but I hit the limit before the entire game gets corrupt, so these will have to do!

Both of these features not only offer much, much better rewards for your victories in the Battle Tower, ones that not only can be enjoyed throughout the rest of the game making it more entertaining, but also give you a chance to get a few monsters earlier and gives new possibilites to make teams to challenge the Battle Tower too.

...And that's not all you can do here now!

Besides normal Move Tutors, the Battle Tower has also hired a very special NPC: The Egg Elder... Or in other words, an Egg Move Tutor!

Basically, in exchange for 3 Battle Medals, this old man can teach a Pokémon an Egg Move that its evolution line can learn through breeding with other Pokémon!

And yes, any member. Pidgeot and Pidgeotto can learn moves that a bred Pidgey could hinerit, so no worries on that front!

This way you won't longer feel like your early-game teammates (or any Pokémon for that matter) feel gimped or "lesser" because don't have this or that move only available through breeding.

In a way it's like every species has its own specific Tutor Moves!

But let's continue.

The receptionist in the main hall (the one who gives trophies) also offers a new Key Item: The Box Changer. It does what it says, it gives you the ability to switch the Box on Bill's PC anywhere you want. Just remember that you still save your game when changing boxes this way.

Once you reach the "endgame", meaning, after defeating Red, two other Receptionists will open up new services. And are neat ones!

The first one is a Rare Candy shop! You will be able to exchange one Battle Medal for 5 Rare Candies. This will let you manage the Levels of your Pokémon faster, either to battle the new Lvl 100 Rematches, or to Level up your monsters to reach the Levels required for Battle Tower Rooms.

The other, it's quite different but way more interesting too.

You see, a new group of candies capable of changing the Level of a Pokémon to a fixed one now exist! There's Candies for Levels 10, 30, 50 and 80!

No matter what Level the monster is, it will change into the Level of the Candy!

If you give a Level 30 Candy to a Level 4 Pokémon, it will become Level 30. And If you give a Level 30 Candy to a Level 82 Pokémon, it will also become Level 30!

This is mostly for a reason: To be able to use your favourite pals in any Level of the Battle Tower!

Once a Pokémon Level goes up, it no longer can access the Battle Rooms of lower Levels, and if you wanted to use a monster of a specific species you already raised, you were forced to train another one. But no longer you will need to do that!

Now any Pokémon can battle in any Battle Room by using these new Candies in combination with Rare Candies, and you can perfectly control the level of your team for this challenge while also needing a bit of a resource (Battle Medals) to make use of it.

Not to mention, Level 80 Candies can make HUGE time savers for training Pokémon for those Level 100 Rematches, specially if we're talking about bred Pokémon, or Pokémon from Battle Tower's Special Eggs!

Now, be warned, you CAN NOT make use of all these features from the beginning!

Remember those Trophies I talked about? Yeah, they do more than look nice in your room. Each one unlocks features of the Tower!

Once you win the Silver Trophy, you unlock: Move Tutors  (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Rare Candy Shop  (You need to beat Red too). Level 30 Candies (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Level 50 Candies (You need beat the Elite Four too).

Once you win the Gold Trophy, you unlock: Egg Move Tutor   (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Level 80 Candy   (You need to beat Red too).

So yeah, you must prove yourself and get the Trophies to use all the Battle Tower has to offer.

But don't fret! There's not really much grinding to do. You'll see that the number of Medals needed to obtain each is pretty reasonable for what they unlock.

The game does not ask for hundreds of them for each, not even close! I know how tedious is to collect Battle Points for an Item or one-time use TM back in Generation IV.

And hey, if for some reason you still need a bit of a push, you can win Battle Medals by participating on Buena's Password.

They cost 2 points, you can get one Medal every two days. It's a much slower pace than actually fighting, but it certainly adds up if you play often.

And you also get a handful of them in Kanto, a certain NPC will gift you a bunch if you manage to do something, and some Gym Leaders will gift you one too.

Lastly, also in Kanto, there's the Trainer House.

Originally it was a cool little feature in which you could battle the Pokémon Team that a friend had when you two did a Mistery Gift.

Because I don't expect people going around doing IR connections with a Romhack, the Trainer House has been changed around.

I really don't want to say much, but here's this:

Normally, you can battle a special Trainer daily in this building. But once you've beaten the strongest trainer in all the land, levels are raised, and you can take Lvl 100 battles... With the difference that the Pokémon used in these new battles change depending on the day of the week!

And if you win, you also obtain Battle Medals!

It's a little extra end-game thing alongside the other end-game additions.

o-------------------o |[12] Visual Changes| o-------------------o

Many, many visual changes have been made throughout the game to make the world a bit more cohesive, to make Pokémon look better, or to simple improve stuff here and there.

Pretty much every Pokémon not named Unown got their colors changed, for ones that look better, closer to the original colors of a particular species, and also got their sprites touched up and cleaned up.

Because the games were originally designed to be displayed on the tiny screen of a GB, the graphic artists would try and take advantage to use the 4 colors available to a Pokémon sprite to give it more details. With the advent of the GBC, now they could use colors too, and because the screen wasn't backlighted, they needed to use stronger, more saturated and often darker colors.

The issue is that nowadays these games are pretty much always played on backlighted screens that are also much, much bigger than the original Game Boy's screen, so these graphics that originally looked fine now I don't find they've aged as well with the ways we play them today.

Now, let's be fair here. This is not a criticism for the sprites or the artists. These sprites were made to be seen under a specific hardware, and they worked with what they had, and the gigantic jump in design quality from Generation 1 to Generation 2 is to be applauded.

But at the same time, I think it's fair to say that there's nothing that says they can not be revised and/or improved. That's why I took the horridly tedious job of cleaning up every single sprite (and each of their animated frames) to make them look more clean when played on bigger screens.

I also took the liberty to tweak many of the colors used for Shiny Pokémon. This is something I've seen many people point out throughout the years, and it's true that the use of color for Shiny palettes leaves quite a bit to be desired, with many Pokémon being painted with what I saw called "Puke Green", and others having really dark and simply not appealing combinations of colors that sometimes would make the sprites look worse.

Several of those examples could be Blastoise, Raichu, Aipom or Golbat, and this last one even gets its shading screwed up. Or something like Rhydon, that looks exactly like the official art, while its normal color is much darker; with Pokémon like Phanpy, Sunkern, Xatu, Scyther and others looking very similar to their default colors.

Just have in mind I'm working with the limitations of the GBC and 4 Colors per sprite, so I do what I can do, although it's surprising what nice colors the GBC can display compared to the ones they used, but of course, I'm not doing this to be seen on real hardware, so I do not have that limitation.

You can check a couple of examples in the pictures inside the RAR file for both, sprite improvements and Shiny changes.

I also improved all the Back Sprites too, to keep consistency. And some Pokémon got entirely different sprites, such as Mr. Mime, or Wigglytuff, as there was better designs elsewhere, like Mr. Mime's Silver sprite. It's so much better in my eyes. And yes, they have animations.

Oh, and a handful of Pokémon got redesigns here and there. Don't panic, the changes where made only to humanoid Pokémon to remove incoherent stuff like Machoke and Machamps' underwear or the boxing gear of Hitmonchan.

This is because as time has passed it "snowballed" into a gigantic ball of nonsense. Now, it's not that I hate Pokémon with human-made things on them, for example we could make logical arguments on why they have them in the first place.

Very early Pokémon (back when it was Capsule Monsters) had a lot of very... morally dubious stuff in it. Trainers had whips, the monsters were sold in cages and there was a pretty clear aura of animal abuse in it all. The artwork was intriguing... And a bit worrying.  

When you find out about that stuff it can make sense that humans would put things to restrict their Pokémon like the "strength-reducing" underwear for the Machop tree. Who knows, maybe that's why Pokémon such as Primeape have what looks like shackles on their limbs too.

And back in generation 1, there was only ONE Hitmonchan, given to you by a human. We can simply think the objects it wears are given to it by that person, and it would make sense. Jynx is also another Pokémon which can only be received once, also given by a human and looks like one, maybe there's something going on too.

And all those examples would be fine but then they're turned into nonsense when you can find these Pokémon living in nature with all that stuff on them, or they magically appear when evolving. It just feels... dumb to me, it is something that I could see other developers adress in different ways, but here they just where completely forgotten.

Because this thing is tailored-made for me, I decided to change it.  

And talking about Jynx, when the beta sprite leaked from Red & Green leaks among others, it was pretty exciting to see that this Pokémon once upon a time was very different, with more of a yeti-like design, which can be traced to  japanese Kaiju tv shows, like many early Pokémon designs such as Nidoking (look up Baragon). It apparently had a name that was a very easy to see nudge at Ultraman.

You can read about it here (and also see a bit of the darker Capsule Monsters stuff I mentioned above, but you can also search for early concept art):

https://helixchamber.com/2019/02/16/what-dreams-may-come/

During the development of the hack I went so far as to create sprites to change Jynx into this Yeti-thing, but as time went on I did not feel very satisfied, it felt like a random addition that felt out of place.

I thought of going back to the original Jynx, but I ended sending the entire evolutionary line away and substituting it with another Ice Pokémon from the third Generation.  

...Anyway, moving on from that, each species has its own unique icon on the menu and the overworld too, which is a great thing to give flavour to the game, and seems like a new standard for Pokémon Crystal hacks (with good reason).

The overworld also got some big changes to improve visually, and sometimes, gameplay wise. Besides visuals, some places also changed in design a bit, for a number of different reasons.

For example some Kanto cities had their design changed to look more on par with Johto, as if you compare maps between places, and Gen. 1 and 2, you'll see they kinda look off and weird, as if it didn't have the same time and effort put into it compared to Johto (they didn't).

Places like Celadon and Fuchsia City for example look rather different, although they keep their overall structure, they just got a bit more going for them.

Also there's a few improvements on sprites. For example, I drew new sprites for when you're surfing, similar to those in Gen 3 with your character over a undefined Pokémon. And yes, they're different for both the male and female player characters.

There's also HUGE CHANGES in how information is displayed in several points, with the biggest improvement being the Pokémon's Stats Page. It took me quite some time to get it to look nicer and more organized / easier to read, and I even expanded it by adding a fourth Stat Screen to show some extra "for fun" info.

The font was also changed for a thin yet wider one, to make it less empty between letters, and also more consistent with the different characters, like numbers.

Also, HUGE, HUGE thanks to HyperDriveGuy's amazing work and effort, a way of improving the scrolling and movement on the overworld to make it much more smooth and, to be blunt, less disgustingly choppy if you're used to smooth scrolls.

This change to me is like magic, it makes the game feel so much better! To be fair, finding this improvement refueled my interest in continuing this hack, so thanks again HyperDriveGuy, your work is not just great, it also really did drive this guy forward, pun no intended... Or maybe a bit.

That said, coding this introduced some bugs, some of them harmless, and others being progress-halting or even game-breaking. But fret not, as I managed to fix them all with a bit of work, some trial and error, an a lot of luck, but it was all worth it because the result is a much more fluid experience that translates into a more fun game.

Overall, the game uses much less aggressive colors too, because 99% of the people that may play this (which that would make a total of 4 to 5 individuals, probably) will do it on a lighted screen. Also there's little touches here and there.

Another tiny change that makes a bit of a difference in the long run is battle effects. Most of them on Gen 2 used the same palette: Gray tones! Well, that's not that way anymore.

Most of the effects now have color added to them, and make battles look a bit more fun. A few effects were changed visually, even. For example, Pokémon no longer see "chickens" when confused. Now Pidgeys fly around their poor heads!

The Trainer's card also got a bit prettier, specially the Badges section. Oh, I also added a third page to your Trainer's Card, showing your progress through Kanto's Gyms. You only need to press Right while on Johto's Badge screen when you get at least one Badge from Kanto!

Asymmetrical Badges also spin correctly. Funny enough, the game has coded that function in, but it is only assigned to a medal that was symetrical (Clair's badge). Sounds silly, but once you start seeing Game Freaks coding it's... Actually par for the course, in a way.

o-----------------------o |[13] Tips and Questions| o-----------------------o

Tips: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What type of beginning you want? Each starter is going to change your early hours.

Taking in mind how things work in the Original version of this hack, Cyndaquil would make your first steps more easy than the other two, as his Fire/Rock typing would make him effective against the first two Gyms, while Chikorita's Grass/Ground typing would make it a bit harder than normal. Totodile, with its Water/Ice typing would be a medium difficulty.

But of course, the point of the game is to make more friends and balance your team! You could also ignore the starters and make your team without them. That's how I usually roll.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can get an Exp. Share very early on.

Once you brought the Egg to Prof. Elm, and you're ready to go away on your adventure, go back home and leave 2.000P with your mother. Once you battle once (With Youngster Joey on Route 30), she will call you, telling you she bought something for you. It can come in handy this early!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Talking about saving with your mother, she will buy many useful items, so it's in your best interest to send her money from the beginning!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ During your first few Gyms, look for people in green clothes near the towns and cities' main Sign. These people will sell to you Berries to heal Status Effects!

They will come in handy to prepare against the trainers and leaders there!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't waste your Fruits and Vitamins without having in mind what team you want! This becomes more important the further you go, because NPC trainers will have trained Pokémon either you've raised your own properly or not.

As you get more money, or get more fruits you'll be able to quickly prepare Pokémon, but early on you need to think ahead.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Talking about team, while I tried to make all Pokémon good and be on the same Level, that doesn't change the fact that having a balanced team can make things smoother.

Making a team of only slow, defensive Pokémon, or only quick but frail monsters can make things harder for you at certain points. Although, of course, you could just play with your favourites and tough it up. That's what I usually do.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Take advantage of Pokémon such as Meowth or Spearow, capable of learning stealing moves! They will help you to get ahold of many items, that you can either use or sell to make a profit.

Also, be aware of said Pokémon, as they may steal something you have!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Experiment! Because TMs are infinite, HM moves can be forgotten easily, and you have access to the Move Reminder freely, you're given the chance to try all sorts of combinations for a given species. Not to mention, the further you advance through the Battle Tower, the more options you'll have through Move Tutors and the Egg Elder to teach new moves, thus increasing the number of strategies for each species!

You'll only need to watch out for "Event" moves, such as the Odd Egg Pokémon, or the Special Eggs gifted in the Battle Tower, as each have a unique move and you cannot remind it if forgotten.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check the Game Corner on Goldenrod when you arrive!

They've expanded the number of prices you can get. For one, you can get HP restoring Berries there, with Golden Berries being really useful early on, and they're not that expensive.

Even more, new species of Pokémon have been added, and they're Pokémon hard to come by during the early parts of the adventure! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Can you get every single Pokémon in the game? How can I get Mew?

Yes, of course, what would be the point of a Pokémon Hack if you couldn't get every monster available in it by yourself?

There's a lot more variety early on, both so you can get your team-making juices boil sooner, and because different people like different monsters, and having a bigger variety helps with making more people happy.

Although for Mew, you'll have to buy my exclusive and new Park Ball Plus and send it to your game through my exclusive Park Ball Plus-To-GBC Link Cable(tm), or upload it to my exclusive service PokéMaeson Hostage Holdings, previous payment of course, and then you can connect your game magically to it through Infrared connection.

Really, it just works. Wait, are you going to play this on an emulator? Tough luck then, no Mew for you.

...Nah, it's somewhere in the game, you just have to find it, like the rest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Are you going to do more Pokémon Hacks?

Niet. Nee. Ahneo. Tidak. Nej. Nope.

...What I mean is, don't count on that. The amount of time I put into this is so big that I could have made several other things, the testing has been killing me the most. I have   reached the point of burnout, I've been working on this almost on a daily basis for years. You can't imagine how many times this thing has been reworked and changed over time. Beyond that, my love for the franchise has pretty much being forced to disappear.

And even if I wanted to do more, I wouldn't be able to use any other disassembly project thanks to current DevkitPro versions being incompatible with 32 Bit systems; I'm not going to get a new computer only to do more of this, and going back to the older "Hacking Tools" is not a very welcoming idea, mostly because they're so much more limited and risky to use.  

So, sorry but no, I have no intention, I have no energy, I have no passion for it anymore. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

o------------o |[13] Credits| o------------o This wouldn't exist without a lot of people involved with the Pokémon Rom hacking community.  

Thanks and Credits to every single person on PRET, a community dealing with disassembly for many Pokémon games. These projects look like THE WAY going forward, how awesome they are.

Check it Here: https://github.com/pret -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to Rangi42, and all people on places like the Skeetendo and Pokecommunity forums, and many others that shared their findings and information about ASM, going so far to make great tutorials to teach stupid people like me how to do do a whole lot of things, fix several of the bugs in the game, and many other things.

Check it here: https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal   https://hax.iimarckus.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, and of course, credits and thanks to Rangi42 again for Polished Map, an amazing utility for map editing, very complete and absolutely essential.

Check it here: https://github.com/Rangi42/polished-map -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to the TPP Anniversary Crystal 251 Project to create the code for the Move Reminder, which I adapted to my hack. I couldn't even have known where to start with it, and my hack is only better thanks to it. Also for giving me an idea of how to make Caught Data be shown in the Stats Page. My approach to how the information is displayed is different, but again, without TPP I couldn't have know where to start.

Check it Here: https://github.com/TwitchPlaysPokemon/tppcrystal251pub -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to HyperDriveGuy for its example and implementation of "60 Frames per second" project, which created a new way of programming a Run Button, but even more incredible, it made the scrolling of the game as you walk, run, and ride so, so much more smooth. It's amazing.

Check it here: https://github.com/hyperdriveguy/pokecrystal-60fps-example -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Chamber, Soloo993, Blue Emerald, Lake, Neslug and Pikachu25 for their Pokemon Icons. While I did a number of them myself, I also used a good amount made by them, and also remade some of them from their initial work, so they deserve the credits!

You can see their work here: https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal/wiki/screenshots/minidex.gif https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiki/pret/pokecrystal/screenshots/minidex.png

Also, if you play my hack and find any of the icons or tweaked sprites I made good enough to use it yourself, go right ahead. Just give credit and you're good to go, don't even ask. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits and Special thanks to Vice04 for helping me test my hack over the years. May you never be assaulted by Level 168 Slowbros ever again.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music Credits:

Credits to FroggestSpirit for "Hoenn Wild Battle" and  "Hoenn Trainer Battle" themes.

You can find FroggestSpirit music in this Soundcloud link, check it out: https://soundcloud.com/froggestspirit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits to Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for "Hoenn Rival Battle", "Route 101", "Cipher Peon Battle", "X/Y Rival", "Hoenn Champion Battle" and "Shoal Cave" themes.

You can find Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm music in this Soundcloud link, check it out: https://soundcloud.com/mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits to TriteHexagon for his Night Theme music for cities and his tutorial on how to implement them in the game. His ASM files and his Soundcloud can be found here:

https://pastebin.com/u/TriteHexagon https://soundcloud.com/user-930339535 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope I'm not forgetting anyone, it's way too much people hacking around the world!