HGSS Pokemon Discussion

So here is just a random note to remark on HGSS stuff and post battle videos.

Game: Pokémon SoulSilver
Trainer ID: Jacob 15091
Pal Pad: 0603 8460 4500
Badges: 16


Current team:

Pi-Flosion/Typhlosion♂
Nature: Modest
Item: Charcoal
Ability: Blaze
Ball: Poké Ball
Moves: Flamethrower/Focus Blast/Rock Climb/Blast Burn
Notes: My starter (obviously). I received it on Pi Day, hence the name. Also my starter in Crystal.

Vui/Umbreon♂
Nature: Jolly 
Item: Lagging Tail
Ability: Synchronize
Ball: Poké Ball
Moves: Payback/Headbutt/Cut/Baton Pass
Notes: The Eevee from Bill. It evolved in the same place as it did in my Crystal game: Union Cave while seeking Lapras.

Rockwood/Sudowoodo♂
Nature: Adamant
Item: Muscle Band
Ability: Rock Head 
Ball: Premier Ball
Moves: Rock Slide/Wood Hammer/Sucker Punch/Rock Smash
Notes: Also used in Crystal.

Red Boy/Gyarados♂*
Nature: Jolly 
Item: NeverMeltIce
Ability: Intimidate 
Ball: Heavy Ball
Moves: Waterfall/Bite/Dragon Dance/Ice Fang
Notes: The nickname is the same as I used in Crystal. This thing is a beast; after Clair took out the rest of my entire team with her first two Pokémon, Red Boy proceeded to take her two Dragonairs and her Kingdra out on his own and won the badge. And yes, this is the shiny from the Lake of Rage.

Bluehorn/Heracross♂
Nature: Jolly 
Item: Amulet Coin
Ability: Guts 
Ball: Net Ball
Moves: Brick Break/Strength/Megahorn/Close Combat
Notes: The first one of my party that I did not use in Crystal. He replaces my Suicune, since Suicune can't be captured until Kanto. I wanted the replacement to have some significance without duplicating types, and it filled that role since this is the only game what Headbutt can be used. His name is a reference to my purple Heracross that I captured in FireRed.

Laura/Togekiss♀
Nature: Impish 
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace 
Ball: Poké Ball
Moves: Extrasensory/Fly/Aura Sphere/Air Slash
Notes: The Togepi I received from Mr. Pokémon. The name is a reference to Steffan's game of making everyone in the nerd crew a Pokémon, and Laura was a Togetic. This replaced the Pidgey in my Crystal team. Yes, a Pidgey. My Crystal team only had five Pokémon that were used for battle. Pidgey filled my sixth slot and flew me places, but I never trained it for whatever reason.

Other Pokémon of significance that I captured:

Tentacruel: Captured with an Old Rod and a Lure Ball early in the game, it serves as my Surfer and Whirlpooler.

Ampharos: Uses Flash. I decided against using Ampharos on my main team because I've used one in my second Crystal, FireRed, Colosseum, and XD, and quite frankly I was tired of using it.

Pikachu*: Technically not "captured"; I traded my shiny event Pichus from Diamond and Platinum. I evolved one of them to find out if the spiky-ear Pichu will still appear. It took a long time to evolve...

Spike: The spiky-eared Pichu I received for bringing my shiny Pikachu to the Ilex Shrine (it does work after evolution). 

Lugia: I traded Dive Balls in from my Platinum game just so I could have the Diving Pokémon in a Dive Ball. Appropriate, right? It is Timid nature and has been used in a couple Pokéathlons.

Grease: Received at Level 1, I obtained an Adamant Giratina by bringing my Insect Arceus to the Mysteri Stage in the Sinjoh Ruins.

Suicune: One of the primary legendaries in this game (see my talk about Eusine below). Mine is Bold nature and captured in a Lure Ball.

Zapdos: Captured in an Ultra Ball, it is Timid and has Hidden Power Grass.

Commentary on the game:

Greatest addition to the GSC era: Explaining how the Murkrow could talk.

Thoughts on Pokéathlon: Better than expected. It is quite fun! Stats dropping over time is annoying. Sunkern, the Pokémon with the lowest stats in the game (yes, even below Magikarp) has all five stats maxed. What the heck?!?

Thoughts on Item Bag: Being able to go from the top of the bag to the bottom rapidly is nice, but otherwise the DPPt item bag is better. Better yet would be to give us a PC with infinite space.

Thoughts on Bike: Give me back my Bike from Platinum!

Thoughts on Team Rocket: Having the admins was cool, but they weren't too impressive in battle. They needed to be expanded on a little to actually be fearsome. Petrel especially could have his character expanded.

Thoughts on gameplay: Awesome. I found it interesting that usually by 24 hours of gameplay I have all 8 badges/beaten the bad guy on the console and I'm usually at around Lv. 50. By 24 hours I was just getting to Pryce, and my Pokémon still are only in the mid 30s, yet I was still engrossed in the game. After over 40 hours, I'm almost to Victory Road, my highest is Lv. 38, and I'm facing trainers mostly in the lower to mid 30s. It's a weird feeling coming off of the high-leveled FireRed and Diamond/Platinum Elite Fours.

Thoughts on Apricorns: I like having more than one tree per apricorn color. Holy macaroni, that's a lot of Grn Apricorn trees, though. There sure are a lot of different varieties of Balls usable now... I'm hoping Generation V will show Pokémon captured in the Apricorn Balls as opposed to standard Poké Balls that appear for DPPt.

Thoughts on Balls in general: 21 Balls possible in the item bag, plus Sport, Safari, Park, and Cherish Balls. I can understand not having Luxury Balls for sale given the Friend Ball (they have different effects, though), but why aren't Timer Balls for sale? The lack of Dive Balls for sale also saddens me, but that one was expected given they weren't for sale in DPPt either.

Thoughts on item availability: Heart Scales are a pain to get. Yay for the return of Berry Juice, but it's only a matter of time before it gets banned from Lv. 5 play if it hasn't already. I really like the TM selection in Celadon City. Mom is a pain sometimes, but some of the items, like the Muscle Band and Choice Scarf, are worth it. Yay for two Sacred Ash!

Thoughts on Goldenrod City: My favorite city. I like the Name Rater's tent. What the heck happened to the Game Corner, though?!? Voltorb Flip is fun, but I want my slots! The Japanese versions have them, but apparently we're at a greater risk of being persuaded to gamble over here. The Rocket uniform was fun, but it would have been nice to infiltrate further (curse you, rival Hunter!). I was entertained by the lengths the game went to in order to stop you from leaving Goldenrod or making a scene of yourself, banning the bike, flying, etc. But having a Pokémon out of its Poké Ball, showing a close bond, was apparently okay by Team Rocket standards.

Thoughts on Eusine and the beasts: Heck yeah, he's back! Although I was confused as to why the three dogs were visible from the start at Burned Tower; I liked the original "fall down hole, beasts awaken" better. Not sure how I feel about Suicune being the "special" beast; I like the carryover from Crystal but I've never understood why Suicune is so special.

Thoughts on the Safari Zone: Creative and fun, but something I won't spend much time in as usual. I tend to avoid the place, and Kim recently justified why I do when a shiny Sentret fled from her.

Thoughts on the touch screen: Much better than before. The Dowsing MCHN is very useful, as is selecting two items at once. The Ranger series still utilizes it better, though. I do miss the Pokétch's team status function from DPPt; it made using Pickup easier.

Thoughts on Pokémon outside of their ball: Kinda fun. It's annoying when looking for a hidden item and the Pokémon stands right on it. It would be nice to have an option to recall them. I like that shininess is retained.

Thoughts on the Gyms: Amazing renovations. The 5th through 7th Gyms were oddly similar levelwise (as they were in Crystal), so Clair was a bit of a shocker.

Thoughts on the Kimono Girls: Confusing but clever, and definitely gave more significance to the legends. And curse that Espeon that managed to wipe out my entire team (Vui hadn't evolved yet).

Thoughts on events: The spiky-eared Pichu event is cute, but kinda pointless. I am curious to try bringing a shiny Raichu and seeing if the event still works. I am looking forward to the Celebi event. EDIT: Yes, evolving the shiny Pichu does work. I now have Spike the spiky-eared Pichu. In regards to the Arceus event, the cutscene is awesome and should be played with the volume all the way up. Having Cynthia appear was interesting as well, and I loved how the Unown played a role in it. But really? That's the only time someone's seen an Egg form? And why did it hatch immediately? Kinda weird...

Thoughts on the PokéWalker: Kinda neat. Definitely not a standalone thing, but works well with the game. I'm amused that it uses infrared after that utterly failed with GSC, although it seems to work well for this purpose. The routes are kinda expensive in watts, and so it makes me hesitant to really use the dowsing and random battle features until I unlock them all. Pity a Pokémon can only go up one level, but I suppose it's good because otherwise I'd be sorely tempted to leave it on the vortex in the bio lab every night. I was disappointed to find that Pokémon will not learn new moves; Laura missed her opportunity to learn Yawn because of this. I need to stop leaning on buttons; things happen that I didn't intend for them to. I also found that I walk a lot while teaching! In addition, this is a neat little toy while sitting on the toilet. Just saying.

Thoughts on music and graphics: Huzzah! They kept the feel of Johto while updating it for the DS. Most of the routes and cities have the same layout, which makes me happy. I was amazed at how much of Johto I remembered from Crystal.

Thoughts on the Poké Seals: I like the concept, but the method of getting seals kinda stinks. Only 3 a day? This wouldn't be so bad, except that the letters are part of this (as opposed to DPPt, where they were rewards for capturing Unown). This makes getting cool seals, like explosions of bubbles, nearly impossible.

Elite Four: I repeat my thoughts earlier about everything seeming underleveled for the amount of time played. This is not a bad thing (especially as they receive upgrades later), just interesting. I beat the Elite Four one minute under 45 hours (nearly twice my usual time) with my levels being between 39-42 at the end.

POST ELITE FOUR:

National Dex: Essential for any Pokémon game. However, in my opinion this should not be given out until Red. I felt that took away from the feel of the original GSC. Also, that annoying Safari Zone game warden called me about upgrading the Safari Zone once I got it...but he had to wait until I was already on the S.S. Aqua.

Celadon Game Corner: WHERE ARE MY GAMES?!? I WANNA GAMBLE!!! Well, I at least want to buy coins. 9999 coins for Porygon is ridiculous for just having Voltorb Flip. I do appreciate the Hidden Power guy from Platinum returning.

Steven/Latios: BAH! He came out of nowhere!

Viridian Trainer House: I like it. In GSC, Cal would be replaced by whoever you Mystery Gifted with. In HGSS, all of the Trainers you encounter with the PokéWalker are there along with Cal. That makes me happy. I am also jealous of Cal; he has all three Johto starters as female. He is also very powerful... It is a pity that experience cannot be earned here, though. A team of six Happiny = mucho experience!

Cinnabar Island: Interesting... It looks more volcano-like, at least. I don't have Rock Climb yet, so judgment will have to wait. I am a little miffed that Blue won't return to Viridian City until 7 Kanto badges are obtained. In Crystal, the Earth Badge was my sixth badge.

Kanto Story Arc: In all honestly, Kanto just feels like it was tacked on in terms of story. I personally think that the Sevii Islands should have been included and maybe have some Rockets there (hey, it could expand on the admins' roles!). But to only have one major plot point (the Power Plant) in the entire region, it was definitely lackluster.

Gyms: I was able to beat all 8 within a day. The renovations to the gyms are neat, with the annoying exception of Erika's. Mixing up the order is fun; I went Soul, Volcano, Cascade, Rainbow, Marsh, Boulder, Thunder, Earth without losing a single match. Again with the feeling underleveled thing: I have yet to top Lv. 50 on any Pokémon other than the shiny Pikachu that I don't keep in my party.

Elite Four Rematch: A good challenge, and I like how they FINALLY have a full team. This will make for good training. The rival's team isn't so great, though. I should think he would evolve some of his Pokémon.

Red: Worthy of the title of strongest Pokémon Trainer. It took me almost 100 hours of gameplay before I reached the point where I could defeat him using my SoulSilver team. Lapras was an interesting replacement for Espeon, but it gives him two Water-types. I hate the hail.