We don't always like being nonplussed

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Retro Pokemon Weekends: Pokemon Green Flailthrough Day 6

Aaah Pewter City. Home of the Pewter Gym, and Brock Samson. I freaking LOVE that guy! Especially when he gets all neck snappy!

What? Oh... wrong Brock. Sorry to get your hopes up. I mean Brock the Pewter City Gym leader. Yay. (Once more Pokemon, you break the universe because of its inability to hold all of the sarcasm I'm trying to put into that word.) Anyway, Pewter City. It's... green... with a kind of... pale green... and... uh... wooden... toggles. Or was that William Thatcher's (A Knight's Tale) outfit for the banquet? *shrug* Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that it's green... BUT at least it's not Viridian Forest, and that makes ALL the difference in the world!

Well so far everyone seems nice... One or two people yelled something, but I think it was more out of excitement than anger... right up until that asshole on the edge of town accosted me, grabbed me by the ear and forcibly dragged me to the Gym. Yeah, thanks for the hint, buddy, but I KNOW about that part. I'll get around to it. Impatient little bastard.

So much for the not being yelled at... but once more, I think I can forgive people yelling at me for tromping all up in their house... strangely it was only the kid that had a problem with it, the adult didn't seem to care. Looks like SOMEONE might have been hitting the bottle too hard. Lay off the sauce dad, and raise your kid instead of expecting your pokemon to do it for you. It's not even a Miltank, so you can't make money off it.

Well I just got accosted by another kid... he asked me a question, which I had no idea what it was, so I answered with the bottom option (because I assume it's 'no') and got dragged over to the museum, at which point the kid yelled. Alright, I can probably forgive that, he's excited about fossils and archeology. Somebody send that boy to Zahi Hawass, he could use someone genuinely interested in archeology instead of those dumb bitches that were on his show.

I think I've explored everywhere in this town, and talked to most of the people. I even visited the shop, and... yeah... that's all in Japanese. Thanks to the 'Ball' recognition, I know that they sell Pokeballs, but other than that... shit if I know! Time to make this a half-assed nuzlocke run! No items... because I don't know what the HELL they are! With that in mind, it's time to head into the Gym, and see what horrors await me!

As usual we have our creepy pokefanboi that chats you up like you're a tipsy blonde he's trying to take home from the bar... Here's a tip dude, stop shouting. You'll have better odds that way. Beyond him is, unsurprisingly a trainer. A camper I believe, and he's... Well he's a malicious stick figure. He kind of reminds me of those stick hands made of some unknowable goo that were attached to the thin, stretchy 'arm' made of the same substance. You know what I mean, you got them out of the eggs in supermarket coin machines... And why the hell is he wearing Mary Janes? I wouldn't think those would be good shoes for tromping around in nature and rock climbing.

Poor Camper. His stick-figure is threatening to collapse under the weight of that hat.

Is it just me, or does his hat look like two sizes too big for his head? Creepy. How's it staying up there? Glue? A bad case of Vegeta-hair? Who knows? Anyway, his first pokemon is Diglett, who... well... he kinda looks like a pimple... or possibly a nipple... or a whack-a-mole... or one of those big huge bumps Wile E. Coyote or Daffy Duck used to get on their heads after rocks fell on them. Maybe the Road Runner, or Bugs Bunny drew a face on it. Anyway, I don't think he's really worth a picture, so let's just keep on trucking here.

One wonders how the hell Diglett knows Scratch... and what the hell he's even scratching you WITH! Either way, Butterfree took him down with its freshly learned Confusion... Hey kids! Want to know an easy test for Epilepsy? Play Pokemon Green, and watch the Confusion animation! If you wake up on the floor with no memory of how you got there, you have it! Gah, my head! It's like they took the 70's and made it into an attack... Which WOULD confuse people and screw up their brains! Hey! Mystery solved, and moving on!

Oh... my... GUMBALL! Is that... is that Sandshrew?! Dear sweet high fructose corn syrup, I think it is. Wha...? Buh...? Huh? Sorry, I'm over it... or at least over it enough to continue. I think perhaps that I should point out, in all fairness, that this is closer to what an armadillo would look like if it suddenly decided to become bipedal, it's just... Well you'll have to forgive me for being a girl here: it's just not CUTE! You bastards! I have played every version of pokemon in which Sandshrew is exclusive (except Leaf Green, which I intend to play once I have it) because he's just SO DAMN CUTE! And look at this! He looks like Master Roshi from Dragon Ball had a love child with a freaking Tonberry from Final Fantasy! Well at least his ears are cute... I guess... a little? Excuse me while I weep with despair.

Somehow they managed an uncute Sandshrew. Pokemon Green is full of surprises and not a lot of them good.

Alright I'm done. Anywway, I take Derpshrew out without much problem, and find that if I cover my eyes before using Confusion, they won't bleed! So win. Speaking of, I did, and Stretch Arm Camper yelled at me... and by the 10000 in the middle of his speech, I'm pretty sure he's the little smart ass that babbles about light years. Well, take THAT you gooey little pipsqueak, I knocked out your pokemon and took your lunch money. Bite me.

After a quick little cheating run back to the PokeCenter, I return to the gym to continue my conquest. ... And apparently Goo Camper is the ONLY trainer in here other than Brock... I seem to remember there being more... Oh well, no point in complaining, I'm getting off (giggity!) lightly here... provided the leader ISN'T Brock Samson, in which case I'm screwed in all the ways I DON'T want to be.

STOP! YELLING! AT! ME!!!!! Shit! No WONDER Red runs away and becomes a freaking hermit up on Mt. Silver! Also, put a freaking shirt on! You know... the more I look at him, the more I wonder if I should be yelling at him. Well... he's not Brock Samson... but I think he's Nny, from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. That doesn't make me want him to put a shirt on any less though. The sprite is actually pretty close to the one in the American release, I just... think they fleshed it out a bit more... and he looks a bit less... horror-ish. Still needs that shirt though.

It's MY Gym and if I say the No Shirt No Shoes No Service sign comes down, it comes DOWN!

... I'm thinking of a scene in Indiana Jones... you know the one. No, not that one... or that one... no... n... NO! It's the monkey brain scene! SHEESH! Impatient much? Anyway, Geodude, rather than looking like a rock, looks kind like a bad stereo-type of an Chinese man with the top of his head removed. Also he doesn't seem to have been putting much work in at the gym, because his arms are PUNY... and apparently end in clams. Rock clams. Those are a kind of clam right? Or am I thinking about lobsters? Well either way, a Confusion spam takes him down, and I get a level out of it. Hooray!

Clam-fisted Geodude

Well, Onix looks like Onix. I don't think they did anything to him, except maybe adjust his posture a bit so he wasn't so bent over. No need for a picture, if you've seen one, you've seen them all, much like with reality tv shows, and harem animes. In any case, the flagrant, delicious cheatery that is having a psychic attack this early in the game makes him no problem at all, and I beat Brock and his shirtlessness. He runs his mouth for a while, yells a bit and gives me a bunch of money... More than Green gave me... Oh please gods tell me that doesn't mean Brock likes me too, because if it does, I think that means it's time to get the hell outta dodge. I'm sure I received some kind of badge that lets me do... something outside of combat, but I don't know what... and likely a TM as well, but all I recognized was the number 34 in the middle of the text. I'm sure that this is somehow significant. When I mentioned that I had no idea what Brock said, That Guy assured me that it was, in fact, "I will poop on you!" God I hope not.

Well with that Gym taken out, I think I'm going to call it there for today. I'm just going to do some healing, and then call it a day, and try to forget the sight of Brock's bare, pallid, underdeveloped chest out of my head. I think a bottle of liquor will do the trick... or a hammer. See you tomorrow!

 

Friday, October 8, 2010

Pokemon Black - Day 5 (Everybody's got something to hide, `cept for me and my Yanappu.)

Well, I'll save you the details on all of the power leveling I did, let's just say the end result of fighting in the new area for a few hours is this:


Pank, AKA Munna
So named because he is a Piggy Bank, also know as Munna.

Then this guy:
Pwala, or TabunneWho I named Pwala, because he is a Pink Kowala... it's not inventive, I know... shut up.

As well as these evolutions!

Pigno is now a Chaobu!
Sqirk is now a Miruhog!I would like to talk for a moment about the evolution animation... this..
I always assumed Pokeballs used transporter technology.

Do you see that there? That's a swirling cloud of pokemon bits. This is the new evolution animation, and quite frankly it's frightening to me. I don't think I would want my pokemon to evolve, since to do so seems to mean they explode, cause a tornado, then reassemble themselves into the new form. Seriously, that's kind of warped. Think about it. You're celebrating with your pokemon after a big fight, all of the sudden there's a flash of light, and your pokemon is a typhoon of animal parts flying through the air! That would make me give up being a trainer, and probably meat as well.

Anyway, back to the plot, if there is one. I figure at this point I'm supposed to return to the creepy lady's lab, so I make my way there and watch her jump up and down like a loon. The dialog randomly has the words "Wi-Fi" in it, and that's fine with me, because so far other than playing with the mystery gift option, I haven't found much of anything to do with it. She has now handed me something, it is called the "C*katakana*" and it may be her life's work... it's a shame her life's work wasn't working on being less creepy.
IR? Does this game support Pokewalkers?

Ok, I'm not really sure what this is, but I have a feeling that it's really important for some reason. Ah! I may have just been given my Palpad to go along with it, which tells me for the most part this is likely to battle other trainers! Not that I'll be doing any of that, but why not play around with it so I can see how it works?

Well, I hit the Wi-Fi option and... uh, I don't actually know what's going on here.

Do you want to use the Wi-Fi Connection? Select YES to deposit soul.
It seems to want to devour my soul, so I press yes as I'm pretty sure the pokemon franchise already has dibs on it, and I'm sent through a few other random menus, then asked to pick a pokemon. I pick a spare Pank that I have on hand, and the game puts it in a bed... Ok, that's sweet, but is there a real reason behind this? Probably not would be my guess. I'm honestly not sure what to do here... so I think we'll move on with the plot! Yay plot!

Well, the old bastard lets me walk past him now, so I guess I should continue down this route for a while and see what happens.

It looks like the daycare is what happens. I have to admit, the daycare is one aspect of these games that I never use unless I'm breeding, so I'm not that impressed... I do however want to know what the adorable pokemon running around in circles in the fenced off area are, because I want them.
Pokemon Daycare!
There's also a child daycare center next door, which... sweet! They heal my pokemon up for me! That's... really odd now that I think about it. Why would a daycare center have the needed technology to heal pokemon on hand, unless... Unless either they use it on the children, or, and stay with me here, those children are pokemon. Maybe some sort of psychic projection, or perhaps just a mass of Ditto that have been trained to keep a human shape. It make sense, you train them to look like the person's children, they go home, then at night turn back into Dittos and slip back to their trainer. Then they sell the child off for a tidy profit, and no one is happy.

Bastards... still, it's a good place to heal up while level grinding, so I'm willing to overlook the children as food market for now.
How old IS this kid?

... Are you seeing what I'm seeing here? Yes, that was an enemy trainer. He had a Dunky just like me, but... damn youth these days are violent.
I am gonna feel like such a failure if the toddler trainers beat me when I play this. -Ed.
Damn, there are just piles of these little bastards everywhere, and all of them with their monkeys! Well, no, not all of them, but three out of five do... Well, three out of four battles, one was a double battle with a pair of creepy looking twins that you just know when they grow up are going to end up committing crimes against humanity and/or nature... and three steps down the line, our friend the Librarian shows up to battle me! YayIdon'tcare. He's fairly easy to beat, since his Mijumaru is only level 15 and my Yanappu is a higher level, and a grass type, so it doesn't last long. He then sends out his Choroneko, which is level twelve, but once again I prove that at this point the only reason to battle me is if you want to lose money.

As soon as the battle ends, a few members of the Knightly Order of Plasma run through us and make their way off stage left... I mean they take the road to the left, which I think is where the next town is located. Blond Girl with Huge Ass then shows up with a little kid, and I'm going to have to guess that they stole either his pokemon, or an item that I'll need or want later in the game. Why do I guess that? Because it's a pokemon game. I can picture how this conversation went, too.

Kid: "Team Plasma just stole my McGuffin, won't you help me!?"
Pants: "That's... That's a real shame, Kid. I feel for you, and I'll be glad to help you... But first, I'm going to go to that small patch of grass and kick it for a couple of hours to see if anything neat attacks me."

Because that's what I'm going to do.

Sorry this update wasn't as interesting as others, but stay tuned and I'm sure something will happen!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Pokemon Black - Day 4 (A tale of two sweaters.)

So as I exit the gym, I run into someone... and by run into them, I mean they run up to me on the steps of the gym and begin to harass me. I'm going to guess by the lab coat and long hair, not to mention the two little pixels of flesh color where the legs should be, indicating a skirt, that this should be an assistant of Prof. Bladdernut. Let's call her Peanut.

How nice, Peanut seems to have led me into the house of a random stranger. That's cool, I mean... wow, I just don't think I would be as cool under pressure as these people are being, sitting there and ignoring everything that's going on around them. Then again, I would probably lock the doors to my house. She seems to want me to follow her upstairs, so let's follow her up... stairs...

Peanut leads poor, innocent Pants upstairs to...?

I don't know what this crazy lady wants, but I'm a little kid and I don't want to be here right now. That bed is a good enough reason as any for someone to start sending out the little murderers they keep in their pocket, then dive out of the window for safety... but that's not how video games work, so... well, let's see what she wants, as if I couldn't guess.

Oh hell yeah! She just gave me an HM! Thank you creepy lady! Sure I'll climb into your freakish machinery! Is there a vice or something to hold my head still to make this easier when I start having the inevitable night terrors? Sweet!


...I have this sinking feeling that this HM teaches a move called CANDYSeriously though, why would anyone ever climb into something that looks like that? I'll tell you why, because that's just the sort of thing you have to do to become a pokemon master, that's why... or not. It seems that I'm not supposed to climb into the mad scientists torture bed quite yet, so I think that now would be an ideal time for me to hightail it out of there, before they decide to open me up and see if I'm a Pokemon in a people suit... It's possible. Look at Giovanni, he's actually six Digletts and a Sandslash in a rubber costume... It's true.

Ok, so I'm trying to figure out where I go next, and the options seem to be the dark evil forest, or a nice, pleasant looking garden... but then there's this guy.

Damn cockblocking NPCs.
You see this guy? Yeah, this guy right here, he's a dick. The second you try to walk in he's all, "No, you cannot enter! You must first find/beat/eat the magical mcguffin, and only then may you enter!" and I'm all like, "I have a pocket full of tiny murderers, out of my way!" But he won't listen, and I back off... damn him. I guess I'll head toward the forest, but first thing's first, I want to teach someone this HM, which I'm going to guess is Cut. Looks like you're up Sqirk, since you're the only one that can learn it.

Ok, so I wander into the forest to see what's up, and this place seems to be some sort of abandoned area, but as with most abandoned buildings in the world, there are a lot of teenagers hanging around the outside doing nothing but wanting to fight. I fight a girl whose skirt is way too short, some guy who looks like a jerk, and... wait, this one doesn't want to fight? Ok... yes, yes... Wwhat? Freaking sweet! The girl in question just gave me a Derp-Monkey! It looks like the plant type, so I'm not going to complain as I needed one... hmm. Well, I'm going to have to level him up too, I suppose.

Anyway, Yanappu, or Dunky, short for Derp-Monkey, but changed a bit because meh, I like the sound of it better.

So there's a tree here which I dispatch, much like a ten year old Highlander (There can be only one!... Shrubbery!... Nii!), and then the girl in the green hat appears out of nowhere, shoves me out of the way, and climbs through the hole... Well hello to you too, rude bitch. I'm amazed your ass got through the hole. Seriously, is she supposed to be endearingly dunder-headed or something? Because when you can't understand her, she just comes off as being oblivious and not caring about the feelings of others.

I take a step through the door to an abandoned building, once she gets her fat ass out of the way, and I hear a noise, which makes her follow me... yay. We both take a few steps forward, and there's... some sort of floating, hippie piggy bank thing. Either way, I want to catch that little bastard and I rush forward, which causes two members of the Knightly Order of Plasma to spring out from behind a wall, likely where they've been hiding for some time. They talk to the pokemon a little bit, then... wait... I was told these guys were supposed to want to help pokemon not be abused by humans, or that may be wrong because I heard it through the intrawebs... Why did they just punch the floating piggy bank?

Now of course they want to fight me... and look at these dorks.
They look like the Grail Knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

It looks like all of the worst parts of a Medieval Times threw up on them, and they didn't bother to wash it off when they were done. And that's another thing..
At least it's real full chainmail and not a chainmail bikini.
Look at how she's bending her arm. Let me tell you, as someone that makes chain mail and has worn plate mail in the past, there's no way in hell she's ready for any type of quick movement, or even really good movement... honestly, even with the little that she's wearing, she shouldn't be lifting her arm up that high... Well, maybe if you have a really good smith working for you.

Well I beat them, and to show their displeasure they're kicking the crap out of the poor pokemon. Pigno, just set them on fire for me, will you? Oh, never mind. Their leader has shown up and... uh... showed up again?


I think their leader is talking to the pokemon, now... I'm not entirely sure, but in the world of pokemon we have to be honest that it's the least odd thing someone could do with a pokemon. The grunts then run off, which is good to see, and the magical twins disappear only to reveal the piggy bank's mother, who... is trailing pink bubblegum boogers... alright. The crazy scientist woman has shown up now, so I guess she needs the booger pig for the frightening bed, and let's be honest, who doesn't need one for that? The monster however doesn't seem interested, and hightails it out of there, leaving behind a pokeball that the scientist picks up... this, for one, bothers me. Either it was an item, and that's not so bad, or the pokemon have started keeping each others as slaves in order to bribe humans. What happens if you catch a pokemon with a pokeball in a pokeball? My guess would be an implosion. Implosions are almost never good.

Ok, that's it for today, more up tomorrow!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Pokemon Black - Day 3 (Is your monkey part of a balanced diet?)

So I make my way off to Route 2 to see what I can find, and I instantly notice there are a number of trainers doing their traditional sitting in one spot and spinning in a circle, indicating that they want to fight, and will try to kill you on sight. I anxiously start making my way toward them, when I receive a phone call... from who, you ask? My mom. She shows up in the middle of the route, likely to bring me clean underwear, and... I have no idea what the item she just gave me is, but if it turns out to actually be clean underpants, I might laugh myself silly.

Oh sweet! She mentioned the B button, so I know what this is! Yes! It's running shoes! Thank Arceus! I was getting sick to death of wondering how I was the slowest ten year old on the planet, but I'm happy to see that things are going to start picking up pace around here. Speaking of which, if you haven't noticed by now, I'm probably not going to tell you about every battle I get into in the wild, or every trainer battle that I get into. It would just end up making this thing boring, and that's not what I'm going for at all.

Anyway, it looks like I'm in the need for some level grinding. Level ten now, let's shoot for level fifteen.

A quick interjection, in the middle of my leveling, I ran into some sort of adorable cat pokemon. I decided on the spot that had to catch it, but Pigno being level 12 and it being level 5... well, that didn't end well. I was sure I wouldn't see another for some time since I had been leveling for more than half an hour and this was the first I had seen it, but it turns out I was wrong, and the next battle was a level 4 one of these guys! Lovely! I throw what I assume is Ember at it, and it ALMOST kills it, which leads to a successful catch!

Choroneko is now ...Scat? I don't think I want to know what its attacks are.
And a REALLY poor choice of name, in hindsight. His real name is Choroneko, for those of you that are interested.

My pokemons, let me show you them.

Pants, party of three.
I decided to put Scat in my computer, partly because I really doubt I would use him that much, but mostly for that line of sentence right back there. Isn't it just great? Anyway, let's move north.

As I'm making my way up the route toward the next town (fighting two random trainers with no good pokemon to their names), I run into my old friend, uhh, blond girl with pointy hair, huge ass and green hat. Ah, the times we've had together. This is my first multiple pokemon battle against a trainer, and it seems that she's gotten herself a Soggy (Yooteri), and has gotten her Fernliz up to level 7, (maybe I should look it's name up?... yeah) also known as Tsutarja in the real world. The battle didn't go well for her, I have to say, since my party is all level 15 or close to it.

So the next town looks quite interesting so far. A few residences, a pokemon center, and this guy right here.
Pants decides to leave the obvious event for later and walk on by.
Look at that guy. You just know the second you talk to him there's going to be trouble. Yeah, he's cool and he knows it, but the more important thing is that you know it, and know deep down that no matter what, you will never be that cool.

Just kidding, he kind of looks like a dork. Anyway, there's a big building that doesn't have an event waiting on the steps, so let's go to it first.

Looks to me like some sort of school from the tables and blackboard. That or it could be the world's worst amusement park, but I doubt it ever so slightly. There's a familiar looking head of hair over by the blackboard, so let's go talk to it! It's the Librarian, and it looks like he's asking me a lot of questions, so I just hit yes for everything and hope for the best... Yep, he wants to fight, that's for the best. He has a Scat (Choroneko) that's level seven, and his... ok, I'll look the name up, Mijumaru, is level eight... and we kind of just plowed over him... Yep. I guess I'll go see the guy in front of that door now.

Well, I have no idea what he just said, but he was nice enough to move out of the way for me, so that's ok then. This might be a gym, I think... maybe. There are a couple of statues with pokeballs on them outside, so I'm going to place my bet on that.

Definitely a Gym.
Yup, that's a Pokemon Gym.

I have to step on the floor tile that's strong against the picture on the curtain, not too hard. That opens the way to the next area where... wait...
Today's secret ingredient is: YOOTERI!
See, that actually bothers me a bit... think about it. Look at the tray he's carrying. There are pokeballs on it... why is a waiter serving live pokemon to people? This is the worst idea for a restaurant I've ever heard of! Gah! I mean... ugh! Anyway, I take him out easily enough, so no worries there.

Another generic goon, this time a waitress with nothing worth mentioning, and we're to the gym leader! Ha! He's the dorky looking guy! That means this fight is going to be MUCH harder than I thought it was going to be. Why? Come on, it's a well known fact that the people in pokemon that look like dorks tend to be much better fighters than the cool guys, the exception to this being Lt.Surge, and any member of the Elite 4 or rivals.

Well, time to see what he can do!
Okay, it's just Mr. Blue Hair, then?
Uh... what? Do I have to battle all three of them? Because... that would be kind of bad ass... No, it just looks like I have to battle this guy.
I swear it says his name is Corn. Pants Vs. Corn! Round 1- FIGHT!
And his Soggy, which I take out fairly quickly, which just leaves his...
Enter Broccolonkey, or Hayappu to people attached to using the correct names for things.
Is that a monkey with blue broccoli growing out of it's head? I ...think it is. Who cares! It's still pretty cool looking, and sure as hell beats Bidoof! Let's see how tough this thing is...

Ow. So, Broccolonkey (Hayappu) took out my Sqirk, but that's ok. My Pigno took him out in spite of the fact that he's weak against water, which makes me feel pretty bad ass at the moment.
The Pokemon Black and White Badges are weird-looking.
Hells yeah, my first badge! I'm gonna call it the paper rock scissors badge, since let's be honest, that's what the starting elements all represent.


That's going to wrap it up for today, more tomorrow!... Probably with a few less pictures, to be honest. I still need a lot of practice at this to get good at taking them...

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Pokemon Black - Day 2 (There and back again, a trainer's tale.)

So let's start with finding out what the local pokemon are around here, shall we? I'm pretty damn enthusiastic, I can't even explain the level of excitement I'm feeling toward this game, it's just... it's like the first time I played a pokemon game, having started with Red. I don't know anything about this game other than the basic idea behind it, and everything is new to me... Only now it's in a language I don't speak, and I didn't get the strategy guide for my birthday.

...Yoteri? It's a Yorkshire Terrier Pokemon! Ed.
Stupid? Yes, some of you might be thinking that the doggy pokemon looks stupid, but I'd like to remind you all that this is this game's Rattata. He's not supposed to look cool, he's there to help you level grind, and to have an early evolution/use the HMs you get early in the game. I love this little guy.
Soggy, the first Pokemon caught by Pants!I named him Soggy, it's short for Sort of a Doggie... what, I'm allowed to be childish now and then, aren't I?

Now look at this guy.

Sqirk, AKA Minezumi
Tell me he isn't bad ass, I dare you. No, he is, because he is this game's Pidgey... wait, shouldn't he be a flying type? No matter, I'm going to capture him, and name him Sqirk, short for SquirKill. I should at this point mention that Soggy and Sqirk are really named, Minezumi and Yooteri respectively, which are as good as name as any in my book. Anyway, I'd say it's time for some serious power leveling, because I don't know about you, but I won't move to the first town till my starters are at least level ten.

Level 2 pokemon... level 2 pokemon, everywhere! This wouldn't be so much of a problem, but they decided to do something in this game that they haven't done in any others, according to my friend, they now scale the XP based on your pokemon's level. This means that while in a previous game I might be making 20xp off of a level 2, in this new wacky world, I'm making about... 8. Oh well, no biggy, on to the next town!

Well, it looks interesting so far, and the Pokemon Center looks like it's been taking steroids something fierce.
Man, that's a fancy Pokemon Center!
Professor Bladdernut is waiting for me outside, and when I talk to her I'm taken on a tour of the center, yay! Because I don't know what that's like, and... oh, wait, apparently I don't. There seems to be a store inside of the Pokemon Center. Ok, I like that, it's a nice change, and the man in the green hat standing there gave me a... postcard? That's probably what happened when I decided to poke around with the mystery gift option for laughs. I can't wait to see what happens with that.

I head back outside to see what trouble I can get into, and sure enough there are two strangers talking to each other! This is a sure sign of danger, trust me on that. As a... what, ten year old boy? Maybe twelve? Anyway, you know if there's trouble you've got to stick your nose into it. It's like the law or something in pokemon games, or at least young people are magnetically attracted to danger... No, that last part is pretty much true in real life, so there's no point in arguing with it. On we go!
It's a Team Plasma rally! Chainmail for everyone!

Oh boy, people all lined up evenly, waving a flag and wearing the same outfit! This is either going to be an awesome cult, or some sort of interpretive line dance number. Either way, it's evil. I suspect that I now know who the bad guys are... and now my friend tells me that they're called Team Plasma, but just for keeping things not too clear, I'm going to call them the Knightly Order of Plasma. Let's be honest, if these whack-jobs existed in the real world, that's probably what they would call themselves.

Just what every evil organization needs! A man with absolutely ridiculous hair wearing... it appears to be some sort of turtleneck Angora bathrobe, but I guess that's just the style in America when it comes to madmen... No, wait, I watch the news and for the most part they wear suits and ties, and claim what they're doing is for your own personal good. The man babbles for far longer than I care for, and far shorter than a real person would do in this situation with that large of a crowd, and then wanders off with his entourage. I am talking to Librarian about the silly outfits and a man comes up to us, he is wearing a baseball cap, but he is not me, so this instantly makes me suspicious of him as well.

Oh, the man has identified himself to me as N, since his name isn't "???" anymore. I saw a picture of him in the instruction booklet, so I'll just go out on a limb here and bet hard cash on him being the person I have to beat after the Elite 4. And he's attacking me! Neat! I wish I could have gotten a picture of the strange cat he sent out, but I'm still getting the hang of this camera, and by that I mean it hates me with a passion that I cannot fully comprehend with my simple mortal mind.

Anyway, I beat him.
Pants beat N! ...oh, that's neat: the money is apparently Yen in the Japanese games! -Ed.
And he wanders off, likely after telling me to believe in myself and my pokemon. Librarian talks to me for a bit and wanders off. I guess that means that I should get going toward the next route to see what lies ahead.

Check out what lies ahead in my next update! I'm as curious as the rest of you!

 

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Pokemon Green Flailthrough Day 5

In the age old Pokemon raising ritual of: shuffle back and forth, get into a battle, and hit A a million times, repeat, I have... realized that you kinda DO need to pay attention to your PP, especially if you've been fighting a lot of Kakunas and Metapods. Damn it. I keep running out of PP on attack moves, and then having to shove someone that I'm NOT currently trying to power level into battle to finish it, thereby halving the experience the original pokemon I was using gets. I know it seems like a petty complaint, but damn it man, it gets ooooold. Of course, I'm sure it doesn't help that I go through the battles with my back to the screen most of the time. (FYI: I'm playing this via the Gameboy Adapter on the Game Cube for picture taking purposes, as well as my eyes not crossing and my head not pounding reasons.) For my efforts thus far, I have Beedrill... he's not really impressively derp though. His legs are a little dumb, not the ones that end in drills I mean, but other than that... well he's a bee with drills, what do you want?

You know, my life would be SO much easier if I could turn off the attack animation in this... but I'd need to read katakana to do that... and that's not happening any time soon. In other news, I have Butterfree, and you know what it looks like? Venonat. I'm not kidding, Venonat with little hands and big butterfly/moth wings. I don't know if you've heard the rumor that the sprites for Butterfree and Venomoth got switched, but this... well this makes me think they're true, instead of just idle babble.

Yup, that's a winged Venonat.

Now in honor of the fact that I've been leveling my Balls (or Ba-ru, whatever, the Derpachu), and he's not a Raichu yet, I think maybe I'll leave this here for you to contemplate.

I'm not gonna Raichu a love song, cuz you Ash'd for it, cuz you Nidoran.

Seriously, go listen to the song, it REALLY sounds like that. Also, little known fact, when Pikachu paralyzes someone, his sweatdrops turn red. No, really.

In other non-meme news, I'm finding the people in the way stations between areas to be downright pleasant. Or at least the ones on either side of Viridian forest, since those are the only ones I've been to thus far. None of the people in them have yelled at me, which is a wonderful deviation from the norm. They DO ask a lot of questions though, and I'm torn between wondering if they're spies working for the Gym Leaders, or even the Elite Four, or if they're just polite. We'll see soon enough, I suppose. If I take on the first gym, and it suddenly specializes in fire types instead of rock types, then we'll know the nice people for the dirty spies they are!

Good news everyone! (Points if you automatically heard that in Professor Fanrsworth's voice.) With the help of Flailthroughs and Co I managed to turn off the attack animation. This will both make things easier and harder... Easier because I'm power leveling, and know what things do at this point and time... and harder because later I'm not gonna have a freaking clue what the hell a move just did because I don't read Japanese. Here's to hoping I remember how to turn it back ON before I move on.

So after finally learning vine whip, which you can only use ten freaking times, leveling Bulbasaur has gotten a bit easier... though I'll admit it got to the point where the ONLY moves that had any PP left were Leech Seed, and Growl... or at least I think it was Growl... One of those music note attacks anyway. To give you an idea of that means... I Growled and Leech Seeded a Metapod and a Caterpie to death, because I didn't want to take experience away from my Bulbasaur. It worked out alright too, because he evolved... What the HELL is that?! It... it looks like a muppet gone horribly, horribly wrong! What happened to the vague froggish theme? It looks... I don't know, like some kind of turtle wearing Mickey Mouse ears with and Audrey 2 (from Little Shop of Horrors) on its back... Or alternatively a hamster crushed under a fern. Behold its derpish, terrible glory! Look into its evil little eyes, marvel at its bloated little legs and pebbly toes, and despair!

Look upon my Derp, ye mighty, and despair!

To break the monotony of the incessant leveling up... I have started playing the game with my nose... I am REALLY not kidding here. Since, as previously mentioned, I'm playing this on the Gameboy Adapter on the Game Cube, I'm using a Game Cube controller... Which is how I'm able to do this without breaking my nose: analog stick, and a soft A button. The REALLY sad part? Every time I hit the A button, I say 'boop'. I'm a special little snowflake.

Now, if you guys and gals out there are anything like me, sometimes you have two, or more games going at once. For example, I'm obviously playing Pokemon Green, but in my spare time (i.e. during the day) I'm playing Final Fantasy III on the DS, a game that I never got around to finishing on my old file because the job level grinding was driving me insane. So I started over fresh with a new game, since That Guy bought his own copy, which actually allowed me to do the mail transfer to unlock all the special side quests. But I digress. My point is, I have found a solution for what to do when you have TWO games in which you need to level grind... Play them both at once. No, really. I can play Pokemon Green pretty much one-handed, with perhaps the occasional use of my nose, and Final Fantasy III lets you use the stylus for pretty much everything. Ta da! So I can mindlessly level up my pokemon WHILE mindlessly leveling up my jobs. I R SMRT MULTITASKR!!! The down side to this system is that sometimes you get annoyed with one game, and rather than lightly tap the controller to your nose to press the A button, you kind of smash your nose with the controller. But you know, everything has its draw backs.

Well thanks to my obsessive dual leveling, my monk and thief are up to level 42!! Oh, wait... That's not the one you guys care about. What I meant to say was that my poisonous lizard bunny just evolved! You know... I'm starting to wonder if these sprites were actually based on drawings, because much like Ivyderp, this one looks like someone had a wad of clay plunked down in front of them and they were told to make something vaguely lagomorphic, but with a fin on the back and a horn. I'm sure that the tooth sticking out of the corner of his mouth is SUPPOSED to make him look fierce... but it kinda has the opposite effect, it makes him look like the world's most special bunny... but not one of the nice ones, one of the mean little bastards that suddenly flips his lid and chokes you out for no reason... or try to mate with you... I'm not sure which is worse. Look at his stubby little legs and bulbous body... Clearly this devil bunny has had too much ham... or at least needs to cut back on the Farfetch'ds, they're mostly fat anyway.

That rabbit is DYNAMITE.

... Alright guys, come on now... Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! Now I'll be the first to say that Nidorina was never done any kind of justice when it came to her evolutions, and she stayed kinda ugly through them all, but REALLY?! It looks like a wild boar had a sloppy drunken three way with the T-rex from Toy Story and a Mr. Potato Head! ... Who was potentially also from Toy Story.

I wonder if this will bring the site up under searches for Toy Story slash? -Ed.

Either way, dude... just... dude. I feel that this supports my clay sculpture theory... though now I'd like to add that the sculptors were, in fact, a third grade art class. If you're like me, that was a once a month treat where you trotted across half the damn school in order to sit in an old shack of an outbuilding that smelled of old paint and dirty clay that had been handled by too many sticky children, and you spent an hour making not!ashtrays for your parents... who then promptly used them as ashtrays as God intended. And you were HAPPY to do this! Because as lame as it was, and as much as you sucked at it, at least you weren't doing MATH and SCIENCE and HISTORY and LANGUAGE. Do you remember those days? When learning consisted of doing nothing but learning by rote memorization, and repetition? Who gives a damn what part of a sentence is the subject or predicate? Me English is being more gooder, and THAT'S what's important! ... Where was I? Oh yeah! You were HAPPY to escape that and go to your subpar art class, and I think Game Freak took advantage of this fact, and went to one of these art classes and said, "Hey kids! Put down those not!ashtray and make some bunnies! Or hell, ANY animal you can think of! Come on! We'll give you candy!" And the kids said, "Sure creepy man! We'll play with clay and eat candy... idiot..." but in a much much nicer way, because these were Japanese children, and if they weren't polite and respectful, their parents would beat them to the point of making them look like mummies when they returned to school... and then when they tried to tell their councilor their parents are abusive, the councilor would brush it off, and then make passes at them... No wait, that's just in Loveless. God that manga is some pooped up squack!

I know this is where I'd normally cut my review off, but I am NOT going to do another review about level grinding... well at least not until I get to a new area with new pokemon that I MUST level up. This has already taken up like three days, so you're gonna grind with me through this. Remember, I'm pullin' for ya. We're all in this together.

All my internets to the people that got the RedGreen reference right there. Anyway, back to work.

Thank you GOD, that's the last one! Pidgey has become Pidgeotto, and he really doesn't look that bad... well except for one little minor thing that I'll point out. He's kinda... fluffy. You know... huggable? Squishably soft?

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.

Alright, he's fat. He's a big old fat fatty fat fat bird made of fatty fat fat dipped in fat, and then rolled in a fatty topping, and sprinkled with fat. You may think that I'm being mean to the bird, but you didn't just spend what feels like half your life leveling the bastard. With a girth like that, I'm pretty sure he ATE not only the insects, but the freaking Pikachus and Rattatas as soon as my back was turned. If he gets much bigger, I don't think he'll fit in the ball anymore, his data will be too fat. I'm surprised he hasn't eaten my Butterfree!

Alright, I know that was kind of anticlimactic there, but I stopped caring around when my soul died. Tomorrow we'll move onto to greener pastures... or maybe less green ones... I don't know... EVERYTHING is green in this game. In any case, next weekend I'll take on... what? Pewter City I think it is? And duel viciously with Brock... and likely make horrible horrible fun of his sprite, as is my wont. I'll leave you with a high note... potentially... Enjoy the following discussion... this actually happened.

Me: So that's 'save'?
Flailthroughs and Co.: Yes... well hmm, that's different. It says 'report' rather than 'save'...
Me: ... Is that bad?
Flailthroughs and Co.: Oh, no, it just says 'ree-POE-toe' instead of 'SAY-bu'.
Me: Yeah well, you know what it says to me? Upside down scythe, cross in a mountain with a sun, hyphen, spigot... or possibly pikeblade.

Monday starts That Guy's flailthrough of Pokemon Black, so stayed tuned for that! I'll see you next weekend!