shiny pokemon trainer has evolved! pokemon x and y revisited

it’s finally happened. after five generations of pokemon games, i finally evolved as a pokemon player and actually learned about training pokemon for competitive battles AND caught my very own shinies — 4 of them!

i should backtrack a bit. although i’ve played through all the main games in the pokemon series and i played through the storyline of pokemon y, as with diamond and pearl i picked up my copy of pokemon y again a couple months ago after a long hiatus because my nephew was playing through it and he wanted to trade. i started off doing most of the main post-game quests, including finding all the mega stones (only available from 8 to 9 p.m. each day, an odd design choice), catching all the legendaries, and catching pokemon in the friend safari (more on that later). i also tried out all the features i’d ignored during my original playthrough, including pokemon amie (the game’s nintendogs-like features) and the pokémon global link, which is the website that you can link your game to in order to, among other things, see stats and view medals (i.e. achievements) earned from your game and play simple mini-games to earn items to transfer back to your game.

pokemon amie turned out to be fairly entertaining and cute, and the mini-games were pretty fun overall, although there’s a mini game that makes use of the 3DS’s camera that requires you to literally make faces at your pokemon. getting that mini game to trigger in the first place is tricky as the lighting requirements seem finicky at best and the facial recognition seems a bit spotty (tip: try looking more directly at the camera at the top of your 3DS’s top screen, and try moving your face closer and further away from the screen in order to get it to recognize your expression), but when it does work it’s pretty fun. earning medals got to be a mini-obsession, although the two global link mini-games you earn items from seem to be completely luck-based which is somewhat annoying and much more simplistic than the previous generation (gen V’s) website features.

which brings me to super training. super training is the 3rd of the 3 bottom-screen modes, and it’s a way to train up your critters for competitive battling by playing a simple touch-controlled exercise involving tapping the screen to hit “punching bags”, and a set of mini-games involving shooting balls at targets. i’d never been able to get into EV training, but the mini-game got me interested and the ability to easily see your ‘mon’s EV distributions got me hooked (although the game doesn’t show you the actual EVs in each category, it does provide a graph-based view that is more or less sufficient). the game omits the in-depth explanation of EVs, but the info is easy enough to find online, and now i’m pretty well-versed in EV-enhancing hold items (e.g. power items and braces) and pokerus, EV-enhancing consumable items (e.g. vitamins and wings), EV-reducing berries, and wild pokemon battles for EVs (and so now i finally see the benefit of horde encounters which otherwise were just a nuisance). getting into competitive training has really opened up the depth of pokemon and has made me appreciate the series more than before.

to complement EV training, i also got fairly obsessive about getting pokemon with perfect IVs (e.g. born with the strongest possible stats). most of the recent games include an IV judge in the post game who will tell you what perfect IVs your pokemon has, if any. on top of that the game includes the aforementioned friend safari, places corresponding to people in your friend list (whether or not they even own the game) where you can catch pokemon, many of which aren’t available in the main game, and that are guaranteed to have perfect IVs in two of the six stats. not to mention wonder trading (random trades online), where people often trade away near-perfect pokemon. although i ended up only fully training a few pokemon, with this entry the series has really lowered the bar so that people can build up teams with much less effort, although it’s definitely not a trivial amount.

on top of making training pokemon easier, the game has made finding shinies easier than ever as well. the poke radar returns from previous games, and the game introduces chain fishing, whereby repeatedly fishing in the same spot without any misses will increase your chances of reeling in a shiny. i did try using the poke radar method, but it ended up being too much work, but chain fishing proved to be so easy to do that i caught my first two shinies in one morning, two shiny skrelp. i caught my other two completely randomly from the friend safari (a lillipup and a beautifly) which apparently also has a much higher shiny encounter rate than normal.

[sidebar: for anyone who cares, apparently the rates of finding a shiny are:

• about 1 in 8192 normally
• about 1 in 1365 using the masuda method (hatch eggs from two parents from different languages)
• about 1 in 512 from the the friend safari
• about 1 in 240 for poke radar and chain fishing
• and all the above rates halved if you have the shiny charm (received by capturing all 700+ pokemon in the national pokedex, excluding event pokemon]

it was pretty cool to finally have caught some shinies of my very own, although i’ll be really psyched once i find one in the regular wild. [thanks also to my dutch pal for giving me two awesome shinies, and his awesome sister to adding two more on top of that!!!] it still astounds me to the length that people will go to catch shinies, which are literally just rare palette swaps, but they are fun to have.

along with training and hunting shinies, i also completed seeing all the entries in the first of the three kalos pokedexes (each having about 150 entries). the global trade system and trading with “passersby” (people playing the game at the same time as you) makes completing your ‘dex easier than ever, although because of the bajillion pokemon available now you’ll be juggling a combination of levelling up and evolving, breeding, and trading to “catch ’em all”. there were many more pokemon than ever before that required breeding to get which was somewhat annoying, but they were easy enough to trade for so it wasn’t that big a deal. [a second shout-out: huge thanks to the random german girl who for pretty much no reason gifted me with a japanese mew, dialga, and a celebi. you’re awesome!]

as you can surmise, i ended up spending waaaay too much time obsessing over pokemon for the last couple of months. i hope now that i’ve done some competitive battles, have some shinies, and have finished one of the kalos pokedexes that i’ll be able to keep my pokemon time down to more manageable levels. the thing that ended up curbing my enthusiasm somewhat is playing some ranked battles online and realizing that the vast majority of people were using the same twenty or so pokemon. seeing the same pokemon over and over again got old fast (earthquake = most overused move ever!) and unlike games like fire emblem the majority of pokemon don’t have high enough stats to be truly competitive. i found that competing against the CPU in the battle maison was much more satisfying, not just because it didn’t require having top-tier pokemon but because there was much more variety in the opponents. i’ll probably continue to experiment with teams via the battle maison and try them out in ranked battles. i also just found out that you can save teams that you’ve battled in game or online to fight in practice rounds via the vs. recorder, which looks like yet another cool feature to play around with.

my second look at pokemon x and y has made me realize how jam-packed the game truly is, and my total play time has rocketed up to more than 150 hours, way higher than most other games i’ve played, period. the game provides a range of satisfying, interlinked goals, with a host of OCD-inducing details, stats, and trivia, that reminds me of my beloved fire emblem series, high praise indeed. the game has impressed me so much this time around that i’ve moved it up from my original ranking to my “greatest games of all time” list, the third pokemon game to make it to the upper echelon. it will be fascinating to see how subsequent games will attempt to top this one, and i’m looking forward to playing the one that manages to do so.

shiny pokemon trainer pokemon x and y links:
– my original post on the game has a lot of links, so if you’re interested you should check out that list first
– bulbapedia is still my go-to site for everything you could ever want to know about the games and the series
– the guy behind serebii wrote up a nice article on starting to put together a competitive team. he also mentions one of the great new features i found out about that are part of the current global link: “Under the Rating Battle section, you have the ability to check the stats for various Pokémon. This section compiles everything you could possibly imagine about all Pokémon that have been used in the Rating Battle mode for all battle types. It lists the top 10 moves, items, the top abilities for each Pokémon. It also lists what Pokémon are commonly used to partner with it and, even better, shows the most common Pokémon that are used to defeat it.” sweet!
– as i got into competitive battling, smogon became much more interesting to read. i’m still not hardcore enough to read up on all of the strategies, but this page on top-tier pokemon in x and y is a good place to get started.
– here’s a walkthrough of the pokemon bank and pokemon transporter apps, which allow you to transfer pokemon from last gen to the current games
– and just for fun, here are some super cute knitted/crocheted pokemon figures
– and here’s a pretty funny video of a guy catching a shiny giratina

watching paint dry at my pokemon ranch

one more filler game. i’ve had my pokemon ranch (a wiiware title) for a while now, and feel like i’ve experienced pretty much everything the title has to offer. i came in with very low expectations, but got the game anyway since i’m a completist and there’s also the added lure of getting pokemon with unique moves or abilities via special trades within the game. as you probably already know, the “game”, such as it is, is mainly just a way to store pokemon from your diamond and pearl games, although you can watch pokemon and miis interact in pretty minimal and simplistic ways. more than one reviewer has had a similar reaction as myself and nintendolife, who described it as being “a service for storing and obtaining various Pokémon that doubles as a screensaver while you’re playing Diamond/Pearl”. with diamond and pearl having long been made obsolete by newer entries (and the games weren’t among my favorite in the series anyway) the game has less value than before, and the uniqueness of the art style, such as it is, has also been lost due to the similarly underwhelming pokemon rumble series, which also debuted on wiiware and reused the same blocky pokemon models. added to that, the game had offered special event pokemon in japan and an update to make the game compatible with pokemon platinum, features that were never released elsewhere. so out of the box the game already has a lot of drawbacks to it nowadays.

still, it’s mildly entertaining to watch the pokemon and miis wander around and smile at each other. it’s sort of like a virtual aquarium: nothing much really happens, but the effect is somewhat relaxing. i’ve gotten in the habit of firing it up whenever i turn on my wii for some other reason just to see what new pokemon haley has brought to the ranch, and i’ll probably continue to do so in order to eventually get that ever-elusive mew (which is only made available after the ranch has a whopping 999 ‘mon). limited even for what it is (the main bummer being that the game requires you to withdraw pokemon to the same game card they came from), it’s hard to fault the game for being what it is. still, $10 for a screensaver is probably more than most people would be willing to pony up. the contemporary tool, pokemon bank, has the disadvantage of a $5 yearly charge but the advantage of permanent cloud storage across current gen and future gen game saves, for what that’s worth.

watch these my pokemon ranch links dry:
– entry at bulbapedia, with a page with details on hayley’s trades and the list of club look-see members
– an entertaining account of the game from someone with an unusual fondness for screensavers

ever-evolving with pokemon x and y

since i’m more or less caught up with the pokemon series, i was ready to jump on pokemon x and y (on 3DS) pretty soon after they released. i was intrigued by one of the games’ biggest selling points, namely mega evolutions, and the promise of new critters to discover, inc. what i had already decided was going to be my starter of choice, froakie. i was also looking forward to seeing how the series would evolve, although i wasn’t expecting a whole lot, 3-D graphics and new fairy type notwithstanding.

to skip to the punchline, overall i enjoyed the game, but as expected, in terms of the core experience it didn’t feel terribly revolutionary. in other words, it should come as no surprise that you’re still a young trainer tasked with becoming pokemon champion and travelling around a new region collecting eight gym badges before tackling the elite four and the champion, while being distracted by the shenanigans of a group of miscreants, in this case, team flare. there weren’t a huge number of new pokemon, although i did a pretty good job of avoiding spoilers so it was fun to stumble upon them. the game has an interesting setup in terms of the pacing because the new pokemon are spread out over the course of the whole adventure, but the game itself is packed full of pokemon, so much so that the kalos pokedex is divided into three groups, for a total of more than 450 pokemon native to the region. this is a huge number, and so just going through the game at my usual pace there were plenty of pokemon that i completely missed simply b/c i didn’t spend enough time in a particular area. this makes trading, and wonder trading (in which you exchange pokemon randomly with someone else online) more worthwhile than it would be otherwise, and it also makes hunting down rarer pokemon more fun b/c there are more pokemon to discover while you’re searching for a specific one.

one of the things i enjoyed about other entries in the series was the introduction of new forms (baby forms or evolutions) for familiar pokemon, but there weren’t any in this game, no doubt b/c of the mega evolutions. i was disappointed that the majority of the mega evolutions are confined to the post-game, and not only that but there’s no easy way you’d find them all without using a guide, plus there are quite a few that are version exclusive. i suppose i’ll try to track them down some day, but i’m not in any hurry. i found the mega evolutions designs to be kind of same-y, but some of them were more memorable, although i have to say i’m disappointed that of the three original starters only charizard received two mega evolutions (although i’m guessing that the other two will receive alternate forms in the inevitable pokemon Z). not being a hardcore trainer it’s not completely obvious to me if the addition of mega evolutions has broken the balance, but i’m guessing the creators have made sure that it hasn’t. speaking of hardcore training, i didn’t spend any time with the new nintendogs-esque pokemon-amie features or the mini-games, but i’m sure the addition of easier ways to EV train pokemon has made many elite trainers happy.

the 3-D models were great to see in a handheld title (although having played such console pokemon games as pokemon colosseum on gamecube not to mention pokemon battle revolution on wii the experience wasn’t completely novel), although i was disappointed that the actual glasses-free 3-D effects were limited to battles and a handful of areas within the game. as it is, at times the battle scenes had significant slowdown, and while i appreciate the developers wanting to squeeze every last drop out of the 3DS’s hardware, i would’ve preferred they scaled things back a bit to make it run more smoothly.

in terms of other tweaks, the biggest pluses were changes related to gaining exp., namely, the change to gain experience for capturing equal to the amount you would’ve gotten defeating a pokemon, and the change to the exp. share item, which now gives exp. to all the pokemon in your party instead of just the one holding the item. these end up being significant changes b/c you can much more-easily train your pokemon so that in general it becomes easier to get to level 50 and level 100 (the levels used for competitive play), and you can also train more critters, giving you more incentive to experiment instead of relying on your core party of 6. the other minor addition i ended up really appreciating was the addition of roller skates, which provide a means of locomotion that’s faster than running shoes, but more useful than the bike. a relatively minor tweak, but one that i was thankful for every time i played.

the addition of horde and sky battles were more minor inconveniences than new experiences. O-powers (i.e. online powers) are this game’s version of B&W‘s “pass powers” and provided me with a way to save on buying HP-restoring items but were otherwise not particularly essential. another convenience was being able to trade at any time rather than only at poke centers, and although i’m kind of sad that the GTS has returned to its no-frills state and gen V’s dream world is no more, given how obsessively i played on the dream world this is actually a plus in terms of gaining part of my life back.

this post is more detailed than usual, but it makes sense since the series has long been about minor evolutions in the form of continual refinements as opposed to revolutionary new features. the biggest change, mega evolutions, is a nice diversion and a clever way to set up years and years of new designs for the whole menagerie of pokemon, but being mostly limited to the post-game it wasn’t really a “game changer”. i was certainly happy to keep current and play through the latest installment, and it could be that i end up spending more time exploring the competitive aspects of the game since they’ve made it easier than ever to get into “super training”. given my astoundingly huge backlog i won’t be getting into that any time soon, but it’s in the back of my mind so we’ll see. anyway, this is certainly one of the best entries in the series yet, but as usual i’m left feeling tolerably satisfied with the new features and very curious about how the series will evolve further.

[for anyone curious, my final team was comprised of: greninja, charizard Y, vivillon, goodra, aegislash, and florges. as you’d expect, greninja and aegislash did all the heavy lifting, but thanks to the new and improved exp. share my pokemon were all at a pretty high level by the time i got to the end (their levels were in the low 70’s) so the elite 4 and champion weren’t particularly challenging. i did train up malamar (who has the single coolest evolution method yet and, incidentally, always makes me think of those marshmallow cookies), but i ended up ditching it and using charizard Y instead just so i could play around with mega evolutions.]

check out these ever-evolving with pokemon x and y links:
– official site, which includes wallpapers
– as usual bulbapedia is the go-to site for everything you could ever want to know about the games and the series
– a couple of wallpapers at nintendolife.com along with some some entertaining impressions from their staff
– another collection of entertaining moments from the game, courtesy of nowgamer.com
– someone came up with this annoying meme for wonder trading. a funny twist to it is that i got a wonder trade who named a froakie “zubat”. awesome.

playground-level pokemon rumble

although some people may be deep into pokemon rumble u, which was released a few weeks ago, i’m a bit behind and only just recently played through the main mode of the first game in the side series, pokemon rumble on wiiware. unlike thruspace, also on wiiware, which had a demo that was much less satisfying than the actual game, in the case of pokemon rumble the demo tells you pretty much exactly what the full game is like: repetitive and monotonous. the pokemon series has had more than its fair share of mediocre spin-offs, but this one ranks pretty low. you navigate your “toy” pokemon through a series of stages that have the same layouts but with different skins (such as a forest, a cave, a fire stage, a water stage, etc.) and battle waves of other toy pokemon. the toys come with one or two moves and don’t level up, so you’ll be constantly replacing your current main character as you go along. although there is a range of moves that the pokemon may have, mostly influencing the trajectory of their attacks, they don’t make much of a difference and don’t require you to modify your mindless button-mashing strategy much. similarly, some pokemon you pick up may have special abilities, but they aren’t needed since the attack and defense stats dominate; type advantages play a similarly minor role.

not a whole lot more to say about this one. at $15 the game is fairly overpriced for what will only take a few hours to play through. beating the main mode, which features generation I pokemon, unlocks an “advanced” mode that features the generation IV pokemon but otherwise looks like is exactly the same. it’s kind of surprising that the developers felt that this gameplay justified two sequels, one on 3DS and one on the wii u eshop, but in the latter case a game that cashes in, in even a small way, on the huge success of the recent skylanders games is an all too obvious way to rake in some major bucks. this experience has made me highly disinclined to play either of them, but completionist that i am i’m sure i’ll be picking up the 3DS entry eventually.

play with these playground-level pokemon rumble links:
– official site: includes some passwords as well as a mini-game.
– entry at bulbapedia: which includes a more-comprehensive list of passwords and how to earn release tickets
– FAQ at gamefaqs: has info on increasing chances of getting specific pokemon (basically use pokemon with specific abilities/moves to increase the chance of a critical hit and use pokemon with a type advantage).
– review at nintendolife.com
– entry at howlongtobeat.com
– entry at wikipedia

encyclopedia of virtual pets in pokedex 3D pro

one more bit of fluff before i return to slightly more-serious fare. i’d found the free pokedex 3D app on 3DS to be an entertaining diversion, esp. as a complement to the pokemon black and white games, and i thought it would be interesting to try out the “pro” version not because it expands its entries to include all 649 of those little monstas, but because it includes quizzes in a variety of categories as an additional feature. along with the TV series’ “who’s that pokemon” test where you have to name a pokemon based on its silhouette, the game also includes quizzes on pretty much everything pokedex-related you could think of, including evolutions, alternate formes, heights and weights, egg groups, stats, abilities, moves, and cries. identifying cries was one of the more-difficult tasks and has led me to a renewed appreciation of the work that went into them, although being able to match moves to pokemon ended up being the one area that was just too esoteric for me and that i had to resort to looking up to pass. after getting perfect in all the regular quizzes, an additional hard mode is unlocked with additional quizzes. the quizzes were surprisingly fun and addictive, although with obvious limited appeal in terms of both audience and longevity. the app includes all the other features of the original, including AR features, search options, and pretty much all the details you could want to know about the li’l critters. like the original, this functions as a slightly more-portable and attractive reference than a complete bulbapedia wiki page (albeit with less information) and pro players prob. already have all this info memorized anyway, but as a fairly loyal pokemon fan this was a decently worthwhile purchase for me for $5 off, if just to play through the animations of my favorites, although i doubt i would’ve bought it for the full $15. still, for a minimum of a few hours’ entertainment you could do a lot worse, and legions of pokemon fans have probably already fully appreciated this app and justified its creation.

pokedex 3D pro links:
– official site, includes info on unlocking the entries for genesect and meloetta
– additional info at nintendo.com
– review at nintendolife.com
– entry at bulbapedia

10-year-old boy’s top picks for wii co-op and vs. gaming over wi-fi

i’ve been playing a couple of hours of wii over wi-fi with my currently-10-year-old nephew most weeks for the past couple of years (since he was about eight), and i’ve been meaning to post what his favorites have been. the options are fairly limited, but we haven’t been bored yet. my nephew’s much more of a social gamer than a solo one, and in general he’s very easygoing and not picky, but based on the frequency we play certain games he seems to prefer some games over others. here’s the run-down:

1) at the top of the list is mario kart wii. although i found the game to be more infuriating than fun at 150cc, the game has several advantages over the other wi-fi games on wii, the main one being that instead of just two-player matches against each other, we can play against up to 10 other random opponents. it’s a bit humbling to see how bad i am at the game compared to many others (although i wonder how much more time they’ve put into it, and i do have the disadvantage of always using the wii wheel), but both of us place high enough enough times that we don’t get too frustrated at how badly we’re getting beaten, despite our low overall ranking (measured by the VR score). it’s a little annoying that we usually can’t join each other’s current race right away, even if the other person hasn’t actually started racing yet, but aside from that the always changing competition and variety of tracks, karts, and characters keep this one pretty high on our list.

2) next up would have to be super smash bros. brawl. i’ve waxed poetic about the game several times already, but my nephew likes experimenting with the huge number of characters. the game was easy for him to get into, and his skills have continued to improve fairly steadily. we usually play a 2 vs. 2 team-up against the computer, but every once in a while we mix it up with a 1 vs. 1 match or a multi-man brawl. it would’ve been nice to have been able to have a 2 vs. 2 team match against random opponents, but it wouldn’t be as fun as mario kart wii‘s matchups anyway.

3) in third would probably be tatsunoko vs. capcom: ultimate all-stars. i got this for him this past christmas, but already we’ve had a lot of fun with it. it’s his first experience with the street fighter series, and the simplified single-wiimote control mechanism makes it almost as easy to get into as brawl. it’s still generally more complicated than brawl so it’ll be interesting to see which he ends up preferring, but there’s a nice variety with the characters (although we still haven’t really figured out why some characters seem so useless). i personally would rather play brawl, but i’m interested in spending more time with this game myself.

4) a more-distant fourth would be animal crossing: city folk. i personally would rather play this than some of the other wii wi-fi games, but i can see how a 10-year-old boy would prefer something with a bit more action and competition. we don’t play it that often, but whenever i do he’s always perfectly happy to do so and enthusiastically runs around shopping, fishing, and catching bugs. i probably get more out of it than he does, and in part thanks to our sessions together i’ve reached some milestones since my post a year and a half ago including just a few weeks ago finally paying off the last of my mortgage and finally finding the last fossil (i’m still hunting for two more pieces of the robo series). it’s not his first choice, but he seems to fully enjoy it regardless.

5) rounding out the list is excitebike: world rally. the game is perfectly enjoyable, but as a wiiware title it just doesn’t have the depth that the other games do. part of why we don’t play it that much is that, despite holding it in extremely high regard, i lost interest in it after i got all the highest medals. but wi-fi matches against random players are fun (and it’s not difficult for us to get put into the same room), and my nephew gets caught up in playing more matches so that he can unlock the next color (not sure why he finds that so appealing, but he does). a perfectly good, albeit limited, alternative to the other games mentioned.

the number of wi-fi co-op games on wii has been a bit disappointing, but there are still games we haven’t spent much time with yet. we’ve played pokemon battle revolution a few times, but he’s not inclined to play it solo in order to unlock better pokemon. i also got him mario strikers charged for christmas, so we’ll probably be trying that out before too long

and to finish up, for some additional suggestions here’s a list of recommended wii wi-fi games that was the first hit i got from a search online.

minor evolutions in pokemon black and white

for my first game of 2013 i finally finished up pokemon black for DS. although the critics generally seemed to be excited about the newest edition, i’ve taken a much more skeptical view of the amount that the series evolves between releases, and so my expectations weren’t too high. although i did like the fact that they created a whole new roster of 150+ pokemon for the main part of the game, many times the differences felt fairly minor. does it really matter if the bats in the caves are swoobats rather than zubats or that instead of geodudes there are boldores? but there were enough new type combinations (such as joltik, a new bug + lightning type) that it did feel like the designers were making an effort to expand the universe.

another area that people praised was the more-serious story of a crusader trying to free all pokemon from their enslavement. maybe i just didn’t take it seriously enough, but this new type of story didn’t draw me in at all and it didn’t feel much better than the usual “team rocket wants to take over the world” storylines. also among the main new features were the 3-on-3 battles and the rotation battles. these did help shake things up a bit, but they didn’t happen that often and so didn’t force you to focus on designing your team for those types of battle. which was fine by me, since i usually just create a team and stick with it through to the end.

the graphics are better than diamond and pearl (and features a lot of nice 3-D environments that will look great when the inevitable 3DS iteration of the series arrives), particularly in the battles which feel more dynamic due to the pokemon being slightly animated. the battles themselves are noticeably faster-paced than its predecessors with minimal time between messages. one major annoyance (spoiler alert) is the fact that to win the title of pokemon champion you have to battle the elite 4 twice, once to end the first part of the game, and the other after the last 1/3 of the map has opened up. i’d actually beaten the elite 4 the first time a couple of months ago but was really disheartened at having to keep playing to really call the game finished. there’s still a lot to do, though, and the last part of the game goes by without too much tedium. there’s a sidequest to track down the six sages (although it’s somewhat of a let-down that you don’t get anything for doing so, other than TMs), and there are a lot of high-level trainers to go up against, including cynthia (the champion from diamond and pearl) herself.

[geeky aside: for those interested, my final 5 consisted of conkeldurr, serperior, chandelure, vanilluxe, and garbodor. the three who had second abilities all didn’t have my choice (e.g. conkeldurr had guts instead of sheer force), and oftentimes their natures didn’t help much either. serperior was as solid as you’d expect a starter to be, and conkeldurr ended up being a key player with its high physical attacks and HP. garbodor and chandelure were pretty solid, although vanilluxe was fairly weak and had terrible defense.]

another annoyance was that to “see” all 154 pokemon (152 plus victini and keldeo) of the unova pokedex you have to jump through some hoops, namely: train a couple of the pokemon yourself (namely to evolve ferroseed to ferrothorn and deino to zweilous) since you never see a trainer who has them, hatch one (rufflet from breeding a braviary, who you have to get in a trade from pokemon white), and trade several others, although you can do so over wi-fi since they appear within the game (including zorua/zoroark, who was only available as an event pokemon). the most annoying part of completing your unova pokedex is that to catch the final legendary, landorus, you have to have a legendary from the other game of the pair (thundurus or tornadus). luckily i had a used copy of pokemon white that i was able to exploit, but this would be a much bigger problem for people who didn’t and didn’t want to play through the game twice. anyway, this helped me get high enough to beat alder and become the champion, so i guess i can’t complain too much that finishing seeing all the pokemon takes more effort than it did in D/P.

one other annoyance is that pokemon white has an advantage over black b/c the unique area it includes (the white forest vs. black’s city) has pokemon you can catch in it, whereas there are no wild pokemon in the black city. this seems unfair to owners of pokemon black, and i haven’t seen any advantage that black has over white that would counterbalance it.

despite my complaints, this was a perfectly fine, if not revolutionary, entry in the series. what really made the game more enjoyable, though, were the accompanying “games” that enhanced the experience. although the pokemon games have had spin-offs since the game boy color days and the pokemon global terminal website was created to complement D/P, the pokemon global link and pokedex 3D felt fresh. the former provides the same ability as the global terminal did to see trades and various useless stats such as the country that spends the most time fishing in the games, but the global link is much more integrated into the games themselves.

the global link’s dream world provides a way to catch older-generation pokemon from early on in the game with unique abilities (via generally entertaining minigames), and also moves the berry-planting and secret base features out of the games and into the website. this actually turns out to be a great design decision since you can focus your game-playing time on exploring the game world and your time away from your game with more casual activities (well, relatively speaking anyway), and plus you can send items from the dream world back to your game as well. the game developers have tied decorating your house with the number of berries you’ve harvested, and collecting all the different types of berries via trades in the dream world is a fun diversion. i’ve gotten somewhat addicted to collecting all the available pokemon dolls (as you can see in the out-of-date screenshot of my dream world house).

pokedex 3D is less “essential”, but also makes for a very nice diversion. athough the info on evolutions, movesets, and move descriptions, can all be found online, it’s great to see the pokemon in 3D instead of as sprites (previously only seen on console games such as stadium and colosseum and the cartoons), not to mention actual 3D via the 3DS’s unique glasses-free feature. the app tried to play up the trading aspect of pokemon in order to unlock more of your pokedex, but it was more of an inconvenience than an enjoyable task. the app also tried to play up its AR aspects, which i mostly ignored for the same reasons that i ignored the character and mii features of AR games. but in general this was a nice complement to the black and white games: even though it was free it would’ve been worth a few bucks at least. i don’t think i have the need to shell out $15 for the pro version, that features all the pokemon, but knowing me i’m sure i will eventually.

i seem to be saying this a lot, but all in all gen V of pokemon wasn’t revolutionary but had just enough that was new (particularly in its two complementing games) to make it worthwhile. i have zero interest in playing their “sequels” black 2 and white 2 since despite claims they still seem to be more remix than evolution, but hopefully the next generation will actually offer something truly new. hopefully!

minor evolutions in pokemon black and white links:
– bulbapedia continues to be my main resource for all thing pokemon. here’s the link to the page on black and white.
– whenever i play a new pokemon game i often end up reading about training stats and all that, but i never get into it much. but it’s kind of fun to read about effort values and EV yields.
– the comprehensive tier ranking and strategies at smogon university are also interesting to read and i’m sure could be a huge time suck if you got into it. i find that i learn something new every time i dip into it, such as about rarer pokemon like shedinja who apparently has only 1 HP. yes, i know i’m far from being a pokemon master. 😉
– tidbits from junichi masuda’s (the director’s) twitter on the character called “N”
– review at nintendolife.com
– funny connection between munna and the very first pokemon game
– battle tips and original concept art for zoroark and tepig from officialnintendomagazine.co.uk
– entry on wikipedia

pokemon ranger circled

i’ve played a fair number of pokemon spin-offs, but i still have a ways to go. the DS era saw the greatest number of pokemon spin-offs, and pokemon ranger is notable because it spawned two sequels. the game was the fourth pokemon spin-off to appear on the DS (after pokemon dash, trozei, and mystery dungeon), all of which were to tide fans over until the release of the next entry in main series, diamond and pearl.

i knew that the reviews had been lukewarm, but i went in with low expectations and came away reasonably satisfied. the core gameplay mechanic sounds simplistic since it involves drawing circles around pokemon to capture them, but the game explores this basic premise fairly well. you can use different pokemon to assist you, and their types alter the behavior of the capture (e.g. you can use a water pokemon helper to enclose the pokemon you’re trying to capture in a bubble). the gameplay also proves to be less shallow than on first impression. most of the time madly circling a pokemon with your stylus will get you through, but the game certainly isn’t completely mindless: planning out when to use your assists, using their type advantages, executing them, and also planning your circle-drawing strategy based on your target’s movements (sometimes seemingly random and erratic, but oftentimes unique) all play a part in getting through the game.

the game paces itself by gradually introducing new types you can capture as the story progresses, but the story itself is simplistic (about on par with the main series). the gameplay outside of battles is your standard RPG town and dungeon setup, although the game succeeds pretty well at providing a natural, stylus-only interface. in the end, though, the gameplay, while more interesting than i expected, still isn’t quite enough to sustain the entire game and as a result it ends up dragging on a bit too long. there’s a post-game mode to complete your “browser” (this game’s version of a pokedex), but it’s just more of the same so there’s not much motivation to do so.

i can see why pokemon fans would dismiss this game since all the core mechanics of the main series, namely collecting and levelling up pokemon, are missing (in this game you’re continually capturing pokemon because they automatically get released once they’ve assisted you). still, it does provide a nice change of pace and the pokemon character designs are as lovable as ever, and the game features a good cross-section of the critters from all three of the first main games. as a one-off experience i had just about enough patience to see this game through, but even though it sounds like the sequels added more variety in the game mechanics i’m not in much of a hurry to check them out.

circle these pokemon ranger links:
– as usual serebii.net and bulbapedia are the first places you should check out for info on the game. the former has a handy guide to finding all the rarer pokemon, most of which you can’t capture until after you complete the main game.
– info on the post-game special missions as well as the wi-fi downloadable missions (including the manaphy egg mission, which is the only pokemon you can transfer to a game, namely diamond/pearl)
– if you’re wondering what happens after you complete the browser, check out this page
– entry at wikipedia

reappraising pokemon diamond/pearl

it’s only been a few months since i’d put aside pokemon pearl in disgust even though i was only at the halfway point, but i ended up getting sucked back into it and spending way too much time finishing the game recently instead of progressing through pokemon black which i’d also started. the main reason was because my nephew, who has soulsilver, really wanted to trade and battle, and i didn’t have any new critters to trade with him. so being the nice uncle i am i spent a lot more time with the game and wound up exploring features of the series that i usually don’t pay much attention to, including breeding, the safari zone, and online trades. i spent way too much time tending to my honey trees (but after days and days of regular checking twice a day with still no munchlax in sight i gave up on trying to catch one), and i actually saw all 150 of the pokemon in the regional pokedex, a first for me for the series but no doubt made easier by the game itself which requires that achievement before you can import pokemon from the GBA games. completing the regional pokedex became a mini-obsession and i definitely made good progress, although i got to a point where i had to level up too many pokemon that you can’t catch in the wild and my interest waned.

as for the other features i hadn’t previously explored in this game, i checked out the underground in order to find fossils, but as i suspected it seems otherwise completely pointless unless you’re really into building up your secret base (although the multiplayer might be worth trying). i caught all three of the legendary pokemon trio in this game, including the roaming one (also a first for me for the series). in a wi-fi trade i encountered pokerus, the pokemon virus, for the first time, although i still have yet to see my first shiny pokemon (although i saw one listed in a trade). i checked out the battle zone, the post-game pokemon stadium/colosseum-esque area, but didn’t find it to be too interesting, and although i enjoyed playing around with swarms, the poke radar, and the dual-slot mode, trying to complete the national pokedex just seems like an endeavor way beyond my level of interest.

although i came to appreciate pokemon pearl for all that it packs into one tiny cartridge, overall i still felt the same way as i had previously, which is that it, particularly the platinum version, feels like the summation of the series begun with the original pokemon red/blue but that it doesn’t add much that really feels fresh and new. pokemon black/white seems like an attempt to revitalize the series and actually strips away some features instead of adding them. my verdict is still out on that game, but so far i’ve definitely been enjoying it.

to end, as is my custom i’ll give a shout-out to my final crew. yet again it seems that steel pokemon can do no wrong, and bronzong was completely solid, even more so than the starter empoleon. roserade was pretty decent, although rapidash wasn’t a star player. even levelled up, blissey was fairly weak and useless, and it’s going to be a while before i feel motivated to use a normal-type pokemon again.

for links, check out my original post on pokemon diamond/pearl, but really all you need is the great bulbapedia.

zzzz … pokemon trozzzzei …

i was in the mood for something brainless, so i played through pokemon trozei for DS. by now i’m a pretty big puzzle game snob, and although trozei has some charms it just doesn’t come anywhere near the elegance of such classics as the panel de pon, aka tetris attack, aka puzzle league series or the puyo puyo series.

the main deficiency is that the combo system is unsophisticated, in that for a chain you first have to match 4 vertically or horizontally, then 3, but from then on a match of 2 will continue the chain. this greatly oversimplifies chains, which makes them far too easy to do and far too likely to happen just through chance, leaving you with very little motivation to try to set up really high-scoring chains. the gameplay itself is about on par with mindless match-3 games such as bejeweled, and unlike the bejeweled-esque puzzle quest the added-on trappings of the game add very little to the game mechanics. in this case, rare pokemon appear randomly and it does take a bit more finesse to capture them as part of a chain (i.e. line them up with the wildcard ditto piece), but not enough to offset the dullness of the game as a whole. the pokemon game mechanics have been successfully shoehorned into other genres, such as pinball and roguelikes, but here the “gotta catch ’em all” mechanic feels underdeveloped; a little more consideration could have made this a much more fulfilling pokemon spin-off.

i wasn’t a fan of the cartoon network-style presentation either, but it’s a change of pace from the usual pokemon trappings. incidentally, the game was developed by genius sonority, who were behind the enjoyable gamecube games pokemon colosseum and pokemon X D , instead of the series’ creator and main developer game freak. all in all the game could work as a “my first puzzle game” for young pokemon fans, but hard-core puzzle-game fans should pass this one up even if they’re fans of all things pokemon.

try and trozei these pokemon trozei links:
– great scans of an official trozei sticker book that includes all the pokemon from the game
– barebones official site that basically just includes some artwork
– entry at bulbapedia
– comprehensive FAQ at gamefaqs
– the game generally got pretty good reviews, although jeremy parish at 1up.com shares my opinion that the game is just too easy