NPCs are Special

Made some progress in the game. finished the whole Professor Elm, Mr. Pokemon back and forth thingy and was shown how to catch Pokemon for my troubles. Yeah, I needed that one. I've got no problem with those tutorials in the game. The only issue I have with them is when they give you the option and that choice says clearly "no info needed," you still have to go through the how to catch Pokemon tutorial and the people give you the "Oh, you know how to do something! that's right, you just have to open this menu and select this option and pick this thing and yeah, it's just so easy now, isn't it?" Thanks. I clearly new that. I said I know that, I have access to a built in help menu and even a help PC in every town. You know, just in case I forgot between towns how to use items. Really, people

But then, after talking to some of the people standing around the towns, I'm not really surprised they go so far with help. One random member of town was, as he claims, in a recent battle and his "Pokemon lost. They're a mess! I must take them to a Pokemon Center." Dude, it's 20 feet that way. It's literally the next building. Stop standing around and go. How do people like this get trusted with Pokemon anyway? Shortbus people.

Anyway. Got my pokeballs and immediately ripped into the local wildlife. Caught a pidgey, a rattata, a sentret, a hoothoot, bellsprout, ghastly, dunsparce, and a zoobat.

Johto Pokemon: 11

The Party

Traveled a little more and trained for the first gym, then promptly rocked the first gym. Didn't need too much since I had a geodude. Grind it a little and once it learns rock throw (yeah, I did that), any bird Pokemon are going down hard and fast. Geodude is great in the early game. He has unrivaled defense and the only Pokemon he can't handle are bellsprout and wooper.

Made it through the city and stopped for a quick spot in the ruins. The ruins have these fun little tile puzzles that unlock new areas and forms of unown. Neat little buggers. They have one form for every letter in the alphabet and their move, hidden power, is a different type and power level for each one. I can't be bothered to figure out which ones are useful or powerful. Not really interested in a one trick pony anyway. Cought one for the entry and moved on.

I like this Route. Route 32. Nice, scenic, and has mareep. Mareep is caught and immediately given a permanent spot in my party. It's not bad now, but once it evolves to ampharos, it's pretty badass and fast. Once this egg hatches I can set my party for most of the game. It's going to be geodude, rattata, totodile, spearow, mareep, and ghastly. Never powered through the game with a ghost type before. Will be new to me.

Caught an ekans, a weedil, a hoppip, and a wooper. Most of those are useless. Wooper is only good for it's immunities to electric attacks, but at the cost of any defence against grasses. Just waiting for the egg, dammit. Need the slot.

Johto Pokemon: 17
after the egg, 18

Oh!

The egg hatched into a Togepi. Immediately I'm called by Professor Elm asking me to go all the way back to the Lab and show him what it is. It's not good enough that the pokedex already has a detailed entry of this thing, no. He has to see it. It doesn't matter that i'm in the middle of a cave two cities away. I can just pop over. Yeesh.

Nearly through the cave. Trying to catch an onix, but this thing is breaking out of almost all of my pokeballs. I've had legendaries give me less trouble. I'm going to have to get more and come back for this guy and it has a really low encounter rate. Even the game acknowledges this by putting someone willing to trade for a bellsprout just inside town. I'm thinking if I use my gastly against it, it can't hurt me and I can put it to sleep or paralyze it relatively easily.

My totodile is about to evolve. My gastly hasn't learned anything remotely useful. My mareep is about to join my party. All is good stat-wise.

I've just done a comparison for golem and onix. Golem smacks it down by almost 100 points. Aside from defense, onix's stats are scary low. He's not making the party.

Training my gastly ans my totodile is really easy here. Nothing has an elemental attack yet, so gastly is pretty much untouchable and totodile is strong against all the rock types in the cave. Training here will be quick. Hoping to get a couple of Pokemon to almost 20 before the next gym. I'll be back after the togepi fiasco and I catch an onix. I'm not trading the guy for one, I can't let it win.

Johto Pokemon: 18