Throh

The gym has been conquered, new Pokemon are had, old ones evolved, and new routes have opened. That being said, I'm still standing here outside pinwheel forest looking for a throh. It's supposed to have a 10% chance of showing up. That's not too rare. I've been here for two hours wandering through tall grass looking for this one Pokemon. Oh, and I hate tympole. The little bugger does nothing but cause confusion and it seems that when confused, all of my Pokemon would rather smack themselves.

Let's get all the new ones out of the way. First, oshawatt has evolved into a dewott, pidove is now tranquill, and thanks to some shaking grass, I have a pansage. The standard setup is in the beginning you choose between a fire, water, and a grass type for a starter. This one switches it up by not only making you weak against the first gym no matter your starter, but also introduces a secondary set of elemental monkeys. I thought you could only get one as a gift early in the game. I was apparently wrong. You can imagine my surprise when one popped out. New captures include blitzle, timburr, tympole, and sewaddle. I'm about to chase team plasma into the forest. I'm still playing as I write and the only thing going through my head is "if I find a throh now, all the grump above will be pointless." There are a lot of new ones to grab in the forest along with a type exclusive trade. Most of these are just going to sit in my pc for a while, until I get to a power levelling place. All this and I still have to trade the starters. I should get on that, it's easy numbers. I don't have to move the monkeys over any more, which is good, but now I have to find them in shaking grass, and then it's a 10% chance on each kind of monkey. Oof.

Pokemon: 19

Still Searching...

As I search *tympole*, let's take a moment to look at team plasma. Anyone whose grown up with the series knows team rocket. Over the years, there have been *pidove* others, like team magma and team aqua, that have been the blatant antagonist. The criminal element in a world where being 10 is a legal adult. *pidove* Team plasma is different. Imagine team rocket with a hostile takeover *audino (holy crap, 1331 exp. points for this guy!)* by P.E.T.A. They want to liberate pokemon from their life of battle and being poked with sharp sticks by children journeying all over the world. And they are the bad guys? Nice one Nintendo, *holy holy sweet fuck a throh* way to address the one thing sticking out for generations and making us feel like *it broke free* heartless animal abusers in one swoop. *it broke free again* In one hand, I applaud them for introducing an alternate line of thinking than "Pokemon battle for us and they love it."
On the other, they all seriously look like crusaders. This takes all seriousness away and replaces it with a swift urge to steroid abuse a set of Pokemon and grind them into dust. *it broke out again* So that's the plan, where steroids reads as rare candies and all guilt is cast aside. That and they kicked munna. They all need to die now.

As I type this, the battle to catch throh is still going on. It's broken free four times now and I'm down to 57 pokeballs. I can do this all night buddy, come on. I guess I should have brought some pokemon that at least know yawn or something. Any sort of a stat changer would have ended this by now.

One shake, two shake, three shake *click*...
Throh has been caught. I can move on now. Forest and team plasma, here we come.

Pokemon: 20

Spree

The good thing about forests is there are a lot of Pokemon in a relatively small area. The bad thing about forests is that if you're looking for one Pokemon, well, there's a lot in a relatively small area. There are a lot of items, and a slew of trainers to quickly level your pokemon for the upcoming gym. This one is going to be short and sweet.

Caught a venipede. Caught a petilil. Traded for a cottonee. Traded for a sawk. Traded all the starters and the last monkey, panpour. Beat the crap outta team plasma. Finished the forest.

Next is the big city. I've got the next two days off before another week at work. I'm going to play ahead a little bit and post tomorrow. As it is 4 in the morning, this means later today. After sleep. Maybe.

Pokemon: 27

But She's a Bit Flighty...

A fair bit has been accomplished today. I've made it through the desert in route 4, stopped off at the resort and beefed up my pokedex, kicked my friends asses again, and made it to Nimbasa city. I don't like the new rival system. Old school Pokemon gave you gary, the bratty, inflated ego prick that grabbed a Pokemon and snubbed the world. It was nice. There he was, a guy who intentionally grabbed the Pokemon you're weak against, went on ahead of you to try and ambush you with random battles, cleared the gyms first and rubbed it in your face, and was just generally someone who you enjoyed beating the snot out of totally guilt free. Except for raticate. I'm sorry, buddy, but your trainer sucked. Guess I made you faint too hard...

The new system has not one, but two rivals. One that took the Pokemon you're weak against, and one that took a Pokemon weak against you. They've set one of them up for permanent failure at your hand, and the other is a smart kid trying to just have an edge. I kinda feel bad about constantly beating my friends. These guys are nice and I never let them win. I can't, if I want to proceed that is. Bring back the wanker so I have fun mopping the floor with him. Just don't let me kill any more Pokemon. Subtle, Nintendo, but freaking dark.

Back to the progress. Traversing the constant sandstorm of route 4, I've acquired a sandile, a darumaka, and a scraggy. Strange how out of these Pokemon, only one doesn't take sandstorm damage. Why would you make Pokemon have a natural environment that gives them environmental damage?

Futher into the sands leads to the Resort. A small area in between the main path and a set of ruins. Here, I added a sigilyph and a maractus to the collection. Going further into the ruins, I find a Yamask and easily catch him, too. Powering through the trainers here has evolved my tepig to a pignite. How many fire pig puns are there?!

Going through my pokedex to refresh my recent captures has shown that I've missed getting a dwebble. Well, after posting, back I go to the sandstorm.

Oh, and I kicked N's ass again in the amusement park. He's the new Giovanni.

pokemon: 34

I Hate Paralysis

Training for the fourth gym. All my Pokemon are getting paralyzed in the gym and it's pissing me off. This little electric flying squirrel called emolga gets more evasive the slower you are, and paralysis slows you to a crawl. Nothing's hitting it. With my party's current build, I've only got three real Pokemon to fight with. Drilbur, that can't use ground moves on flying types, Herdier, with no special defence, and Pignite, that can't stand up to flying moves. This'll be fun. Round two...

PS. On a lighter note, got a dwebble.


pokemon: 35

It... Is.. Alive!

When I was travelling down route 5, I ran into a poison Pokemon called trubbish. Trubbish is a trash bag brought to life by dumped chemicals and toxins. Seriously, there's one of these in nearly every region of Pokemon. What the hell are people and companies dumping that new life springs up from garbage?! This guy shows up next to a large fashion and clothing city. Grimer, animated sewage crud, breeds and pours out of sylph co. Really guys, what kinda crud does it take to make a masterball? What are these people throwing away to make the trash bags come to life and fight back? Try addressing that one, Nintendo. I want a Poke-Al Gore. Forget animal abuse, lets deal with the pollution in these regions.

Thinking about it, there's some serious cross over potential here. Cinnabar island, abandoned mansion, secret basement, hidden lab. Let's get some zombies popping out and nomming some pika-brains! Resident Evil Pokemon events!

Back to the main game, I've completed route 5, met the champion, and caught an emolga, a solosis, the aforementioned trubbish, and a monccino. Beat his story battle, and lowered the bridge. Got a few stat boosting feathers on the bridge and caught a ducklett. One of the worst Poke-names ever. Arriving in Driftveil city, the gym leader comes out to tear you a new one. Somehow by lowering the bridge, you let team plasma people go. Sure. Yet another thing we have to do before beating the leader. Well, new place means new pokemon.

I've wandered through the cold storage area and peeked ahead to catch a few guys. Caught a foongus, a deerling (Worst name ever.), and a vanillite. I'm currently hangin out in the cold storage area in the south end of the city. I sorted out my party and evolved my herdier into a stoutland. There won't be many changes to the party until I'm grinding for evolutions. I currently have a timburr, a stoutland, a pignite, a sigilyph, dewott, and a maractus.

More posting after training and battles with team plasma. Probably after the gym.

Pokemon: 44